Talk radio host and CNN contributor Dana Loesch continued her effort to get sparring partner and CNN colleague Piers Morgan to joyride in a military tank with her.

“I tried to get him to ride in a tank with me,” she told FishbowlDC at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md. “I love Piers. He and I joke. We go to war on air but we get along off air.”

Loesch has had heated battles with Piers on his CNN show over gun control regulation. Even so, she asked him in late January over Twitter to go “joy riding” in a tank. He declined.

“A smaller one, so it’ll be cozy,” Loesch said of the tank. Read more

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with Dana Perino, part of “The Five” on Fox News. These days, her twitter feed is nothing more than one long love letter to her pooch, Jasper. Even when she’s not tweeting about Jasper, she still finds a way to crowbar him in like she did earlier this week, when she tweeted, “Was asked today by a fellow dog owner at the park what I read. He was dead serious. So I told him the truth: tweets. Lots & lots of tweets.” Yes, Dana.  We get it. You love your dog.

That message has clearly been received by fans of “The Five,” because there is an account on Twitter devoted to making photoshops of the  hosts. One common subject that seems to come up over and over again is, you guessed it, JASPER! Just take a look at that cringeworthy “movie poster” for Lincoln starring Jasper Perino.

Oh, but it gets WAY worse.  Read more

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today viewers were treated to what we’ll call a happy ending by TIME‘s Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin.

While his colleague Mike Barnicle wrapped the show and tossed it to Chuck Todd, Halperin sent a diva-like kiss off to the camera, turned and ripped out his ear piece a la Beyoncé, then proceeded to sashay away.

A visual for the ages.

In which we check in with Gretawire to see what Oprah Van Susteren is chatting about and what her boisterous fan club is saying back.

When Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren blogs, her tight-knit community of readers react with haste and enthusiasm, no matter what the topic. She asks for “light comedy” movie recommendations, she gets 356 comments with suggestions. She asks what her readers think of “grumpy cat,” they answer with 53 all-too-pensive thoughts. She says she hates to see Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasslebeck leave “The View,” and 100+ “I hate The View” comments arrive.

Perhaps the best posts, however, are the “open thread” posts, wherein Van Susteren let’s her fans go all willy-nilly and shoot off on whatever strikes their fancy. This morning, Van Susteren published such a post and within 30 minutes there were more than 100 comments. Here’s a sampling of what’s on their minds, spelling and grammar unchanged:

STDs

“According to the CDC, sexually transmitted disease has reached epidemic scale. You thought a hangover was bad.”– Belletide

Royalty

“WE DO NEED A GAY KING.”– UTKR

Potential awards

“in the future we could also have a hollywood series called Gang bangers, with Golden Globes being given out for the best shooter, best hoe, most drug used, the money generated could take care of the elderly in the hood.”– Old MP Sergeant Read more

There’s no way to deny the undying respect C-SPAN reaped Wednesday night during Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul‘s filibuster/one-man reality show. While late-night talk shows often poke at the channel, referencing how nerdy or dry it can be, Washington journalists and political journalists outside the Beltway raved about it without apology. As scribes of all political persuasions turned into garden variety C-SPAN junkies, many took a moment to thank the hand that occasionally feeds them.

Today, we should all give thanks for C-SPAN.

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) March 7, 2013

Political blogger Jonathan Bernstein remarked on C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb being a personal hero of sorts: “Yes: Thank you to Brian Lamb, Hero of the Republic.”

If you haven’t taken a moment to tweet thnx to @cspan today, do it. Coming up on 34th anniv. 1st broadcast: Mar 19 1979!

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) March 6, 2013

Journalists can get all up in arms defending C-SPAN.

If you’re watching #PaulNighter & wondering why we can’t see Paul while others speak: Senate controls the cameras, not C-SPAN. Strict rules.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 7, 2013

The fan club is a big tent: C-SPAN “rules!” remarks WaPo‘s Chris Cillizza, and another journalist expresses unwavering trust in the channel. Read more

(A Sprinkling of Things we Think you Ought to Know…)

Weingarten Defends D.C. – WaPo “humorist” Gene Weingarten uses his weekend column to defend the honor of Washington, D.C. from NYP’s Cindy Adams. Adams famously bashed Washington a few weeks ago, calling it “a sewer.” While Adams doesn’t return Weingarten’s requests for an interview, Gene tries interviewing her anyway. He writes, “Cindy, I make fun of Washington all the time, but I do it because it is the opposite of dirty. It’s as though we took a city and surgically removed all the grit. Washington is spit-shined. People are annoyingly polite and genteel. Nobody jaywalks. The homeless wear spats. You can eat off the sidewalk; indeed, many fine restaurants encourage it. Whereas — and I mean no disrespect to your city — New York smells of stale pee, with a fresh pee chaser.” Is Gene trying to start ANOTHER DC-NYC turf war? Good for Gene for taking on a tired, hack writer for a major market newspaper. Where on EARTH could he have come up with such an idea?

Ashley Judd bares it all and Diplomat Dennis Rodman… Read more

Just in time for the upcoming premier of Vikings on the History Channel, Michael Hirst, the show’s writer and producer, talks about his writing process in the latest installment of Mediabistro’s So What Do You Do? series.

“The key for me with historical characters is they’re interesting because they’re human beings,” he said. “A little bit of Hemingway goes a long way here, but journalists and writers should honestly look at their material and have a real interest, a real passion in what they want to write, and they should also have a lot of knowledge, as well. You don’t write police procedural stuff unless you really know that beat, but it’s ultimately not the procedure that makes the show work — it’s the people. The more real they are, the better.”

Read more in So What Do You Do, Michael Hirst, Creator of The Tudors and Vikings?

While ABC’s political drama “Scandal” often portrays the news media ways far detached from reality, the latest episode is so off the mark you’d think the script was written by ex-FNC Contributor Dick Morris.

In a subplot, a North Carolina congressman running for governor has been celibate and single for 10 years. Naturally, he’s rumored to be gay and it’s holding back his favorability rating. The show’s main character Olivia Pope cooks up a scheme to pair the congressman up with a fake wife. This is then leaked to a D.C. gossip rag which plans on publishing the piece immediately.

One of Pope’s associates convinces the tabloid to kill this oh-so-rich story in exchange for even juicier content: photos from the fake wedding and any other future details about the couple. That’s it.

This scenario would never happen at any publication. (Outside of… Read more

First lady Michelle Obama will embark on a national tour Friday to mark the third anniversary of her “Let’s Move” fitness campaign.

As part of the promotion, Obama will participate in three network TV interviews this week, according to a White House press release.

On Friday, she’s scheduled to record an interview to air same night on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” She will also tape a segment with GMA’s Robin Roberts (who returned to GMA this morning after extended medical leave) that will air Feb. 26.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will join Obama to also tape an interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz for his syndicated “Dr. Oz” show. The interview will air Feb. 28.

Other events scheduled for the tour… Read more

If you could take a peek into the the soggy dreams of every low-level male government worker in D.C., they would resemble last night’s episode of ABC’s “Scandal.”

One subplots centered on former U.S. Attorney David Rosen who has been framed for the murder of a highly-attractive blond woman he woke up with in bed. She was bloody. He was frightened. The woman had no job, yet lived in a $4,000 per month home in Washington. For income, we learn, she was luring in low-level workers with access to sensitive or juicy government information. Once she had the intel (which she got by having sex with her victims), she would sell it to big news outlets.

In real life, the odds of this happening are so low. Not just because most large news organizations don’t pay for stories (it’s not in the budget) but because… Read more