CNN got duped! The supposed photo of Sarah Palin in an American flag bikini holding a rifle is a proven photoshop.

But Lola Ogunnaike, entertainment reporter for CNN’s American Morning, seems to believe the image is authentic. Yesterday she told Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz that Palin should maybe avoid posing with guns like this, because it might come back to bite her in the ass:

I mean, McCain has been really good about painting Obama as this lightweight, using the word “celebrity” as a pejorative. They don’t want to have a boomerang effect. They don’t want that to come back on Sarah Palin, and people say, yes, she looks good in a bikini clutching an AK-47, but is she equipped to run the country?

Oh well, CNN isn’t known for doing any actual fact-checking. They leave that to us bloggers. But, they could at least keep updated on the stuff we debunk.

Has the media's love affair with Barack Obama gone too far?

CNN's Howard Kurtz seems to think so, for on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," the Washington Post columnist strongly took issue with how press outlets reported last week's news that the Democrat presidential nominee was going back on a campaign promise to accept public funds:

And all these liberal commentators who have always supported campaign finance reform, getting big money out of politics, many of them are defending Obama. And I have to think the press is cutting him a break here.

Better still, as the following partial transcript demonstrates, getting guests Lola Ogunnaike of CNN, Julie Mason of the Houston Chronicle, and Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post to agree with him was like pulling teeth (file photo right):