The Washington Post’s Peter Baker writes about a minor incident between Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton…

During a question-and-answer session with reporters after the speech, Matthews asked Clinton how her plan to get out of Iraq is different from Obama’s. She started describing her plan. He interrupted to insist she distinguish it from her rival’s. Here’s how it went from there:

“Well, you guys can figure out the difference,” she said.

“No,” Matthews interrupted, “you tell us the difference.”

“I’m not on your show,” she retorted. “I’m trying to answer the question.”

“Please come on the show,” Matthews implored.

“I never understood why you’re obsessed with me,” she replied. “Honestly, I’ve never understood it.”

What’s hot:

Glenn Beck - Beck’s bizarro rambling video surfaced at the end of the week and the internet has been buzzing about it ever since.

Bill O’Reilly - It was such a minor thing. But when O’Reilly is involved, even a minor thing becomes water cooler material and Bill O’Reilly’s tussle with an Obama staffer spead like wildfire throughout the internet. And it should provide big numbers for O’Reilly’s program on Monday when they play their tape, even though someone else’s footage of part of the incident hit YouTube today…

The Iowa Caucuses - Nothing really newsworthy came from the coverage of the caucuses but the event itself guaranteed it a spot in the hot category this week.

Ron Paul and the FCN Forum - Paul milked this for all it was worth. Though in the end it didn’t get him on the program as far as I know (I didn’t get to see it).

FBN’s ratings leak out - It came out of nowhere but FBN’s ratings took center stage at the end of the week when a bunch of articles came out Friday on the subject. I still think this is way overblown.

What’s not:

Keith Olbermann incorrectly states Mike Gravel is dropping out - I heard Olbermann later corrected that mistake and Gravel tried to make something of this but it didn’t resonate the way Ron Paul’s war with FNC did.

The Seattle Times’ Ron Judd writes about the Iowa caucus coverage…

Scoreboard, Baby.

That ought to be the election-coverage theme at cable-news giant CNN, which, for the occasion of Thursday’s Iowa caucuses, unveiled its latest Giant-Step-Backward innovation: A bewildering, omnipresent picture-frame graphical display festooned with BIG HEADLINES, multicolored, animated pie charts, spinning circles and zipping text.

You had to have a widescreen TV to see the whole thing. It made ours — only moments before, pleasantly uncluttered — look like the cockpit of an Airbus A380.

Well this is part of the O’Reilly tussle but I think the first part was missed. But we do hear O’Reilly use the term “Son of a bitch” though I’m not sure whether it was directed at anyone specific or just a venting of frustration. (via Hot Air.com)

Update: TVNewser reports that Countdown will do a Bill O’Reilly puppet theater “re-enactment” of the incident tomorrow. I can’t say I’m surprised because I was thinking about that very thing yesterday but I didn’t want to be seen as egging them on to do it so I kept it to myself.

Jonathan Klein appeared on Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz today to talk about re-airing the ABC News debates. Transcript follows…

Update: A FNC executive comments, “Jon’s decision to run day old news is yet another reason we were thrilled when he signed his new contract last month.”

KURTZ: And joining us now from New York is the president of CNN U.S., Jon Klein.

JON KLEIN, CNN U.S. PRESIDENT: Hey, Howie. It’s a great show this morning.

KURTZ: Thank you so much for that recognition.

So was there — why did you decide to do this? I mean, usually networks are not in the business of promoting what other networks and other anchors have done.

KLEIN: Well, I think we’re at a time where all networks and all big media companies are kind of erasing some of the borderlines a little bit. And primarily, it seemed as if this was — last night’s New Hampshire debate was going to be such an important event in the course of the campaign that we thought it would be a great service to viewers who might have missed it to give them another chance to see it. And obviously everybody this morning on our air and others are talking about some of the highlights of the debate last night, and that will, you know, probably prompt some folks to want to now see the whole thing in context.
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