On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

On The Situation Room today, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer made a surprising admission to, of all people, real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump:

BLITZER: What do you think of his (Obama's) decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate?

TRUMP: I really don't know Senator Biden but I know one thing. He's run a number of times for president. He's gotten less than 1 percent of the vote each time. And that's a pretty tough thing. You know, he's also been involved in pretty big controversy like plagiarism in college and various other things. That's a pretty big statement. So perhaps you change over a period of time. But when you plagiarize, that's a very bad statement. That hasn't been brought up yet, but I'm sure at some point it will. I'm sure that Sarah Palin will bring it up in a debate or somebody's going to bring it up.

BLITZER: Are you talking about plagiarism when he was running for president?

TRUMP: No, I'm talking about when he was a college student as I understand it, and this was a big issue originally but he supposedly plagiarized as a college student. That's a pretty serious charge.

BLITZER: I don't remember that. We'll check it out. But maybe you obviously have a better memory about that.

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

Apparently, the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama is no laughing matter.

Mimicking their so-called serious counterparts in the so-called serious press, late night comedians have comedically bashed John McCain far more this year than the junior senator from Illinois.

So says a new study about to be released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs as reported by the LA Times Thursday (h/t Hot Air):

How perfect.  The director of some of Hollywood's most revoltingly violent, sexually explicit, culturally corrosive movies has an even more destructive hobby on the side: iconoclasm. 

Paul Verhoeven, director of "Basic Instinct," "Robocop" and "Showgirls," turns out to be a member of the academically suspect Jesus Seminar, and in September he will publish a book attacking the foundational Christian doctrine that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

For the past twenty years, the Dutch filmmaker has reportedly been attending meetings of the Jesus Seminar and researching his biography, "Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait."  Fox News quotes a spokesman for Amsterdam publishing house J.M. Meulenhoff saying Verhoeven "hopes it will be a springboard" for making a movie about Jesus' life.

Actor William Baldwin sported a left-wing “01.20.09" T-shirt Tuesday night on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. The black shirt with white numbering, one of a wide-collection of collectibles and “wearables,” is meant to highlight the countdown to Bush's last day in office. The "Bush's Last Day" Web site exclaims:

“If you believe the country is heading backwards Bush is the primary reason. Join us in celebrating Bush's Last Day!...In the past five years, the decisions George W. Bush has made have had a damaging effect on our environment. He has made it clear that the success of big corporations is his top priority, not clean water and air. In the next three years, he will only continue to destroy what is most important to all living creatures unless we take a stand NOW.”

Baldwin said nothing about his shirt and Kimmel didn't mention it as Baldwin recited anecdotes from his life and plugged his role on ABC's fall drama about a powerful New York City family, Dirty Sexy Money, in which he plays, according to ABC's site for the show, “Patrick Darling, the attorney general for New York” who is “a handsome and commanding man whose political star is quickly rising. There's just one problem -- he has a transgendered girlfriend who won't go away.”

Actress/comedian Roseanne Barr, who claims to be a psychic (“I channel the higher mind, the higher universal mind”), used the made-up word “overcomeable” and employed teenage phrases such as “like” and “totally,” insisted on Monday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC that she would win a battle of intelligence with President Bush. Barr recounted how she's “going around telling jokes about our country and our people and the world and how screwed up everything is. And I just basically bitch.” She soon maintained about Bush: "I could totally win him in a mind contest." Barr, the star of the mid-1980s to early 1990s ABC sit-com Roseanne, elaborated: “Like if it was like a psychic thing and he was like, okay Rosanne, bring your best powers against my best powers, even though he's like totally world-wide connected, and I'm not so world-wide, I could so totally still win on account of like being female, being a grandmother and like, you know, being intelligent. I could totally win."

Barr, who made the appearance to plug a new DVD of the first season of the Roseanne sit-com, boasted: “I have been psychic since I was very young, about three-years-old. Whenever I touch someone, I pick up all their vibes and stuff. So that's why I don't like to shake hands or touch people because I see like, you know, them dying in horrible car wrecks and stuff like that and it's depressing." Apparently, that was just a joke. (Full transcript follows.)

Video excerpt: Real or Windows Media