First James Carville and Paul Begala were sidelined from the analyst ranks by CNN because of concerns by the Obama campaign about the pairs ties to the Clintons. Now questions are being raised about another CNN analyst; Bill Bennett. The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney writes about the story…

Following Wednesday’s GOP debate in Los Angeles, Bennett exclaimed on CNN that he “had three hours of calls this morning of people angry at me because I was defending John McCain.”

“I don’t have a candidate,” he protested. “I haven’t endorsed anybody.”

In fact, on December 31, 2007, Bennett contributed the maximum amount, $4600, to McCain’s campaign. [See Bennett’s fundraising details on Huffington Post’s FundRace.]

Informed of the donations, a CNN official said that Bennett also gave an unspecified amount to Mitt Romney’s campaign in January 2008, which would not show up on the latest campaign filings.

Last month, Talking Points Memo reported that James Carville and Paul Begala had been suspended from CNN until after the Democratic primary because of their support for Sen. Hillary Clinton. The CNN official said Bennett’s situation was different since he had given to more than one candidate.

ICN is hearing noises that Fox News Watch will be discussing Keith Olbermann this weekend.

Update: Video via Johnny Dollar…

Post your submissions for this week’s What’s hot/What’s not. I’ll post the finalists on Sunday…

Broadcasting & Cable’s Ben Grossman notes various aspects of CNN’s Democratic debate in L.A…

During the filming of The Situation Room in front of a massive and rambunctious audience, CNN staffers were desperately trying to quiet the crowd. I suggested to one that next time they needed to borrow those “Quiet Please” signs from PGA Tour golf events. Then one CNN volunteer grabbed a Barack Obama sign and wrote “Quiet Please” on the back. I quietly suggested a CNN staffer probably didn’t want to be carrying around an Obama sign in public right before the debate, and that experiment ended pretty quickly

Broadcasting & Cable’s Ben Grossman writes about the CNN Democratic debate in LA…

Nobody was happier to see John Edwards drop out of the presidential race last week than CNN. That’s because it set up what many Americans—and CNN—wanted to see last Thursday: a one-on-one debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

And while the debate didn’t turn into the slugfest many expected, it set the stage for a riveting Super Tuesday matchup between the top Democratic candidates.

No one had a better seat for the historic proceedings in Los Angeles than CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. In a manic six-hour stretch, Blitzer anchored a live show from what looked like a rock-concert setting outside the Kodak Theatre, then moderated the head-to-head debate, with barely an hour in between to catch his breath.

It was the fifth debate Blitzer has moderated this campaign season. But he and everyone at CNN could feel this was different.

“This is Ali-Frazier, baby,” CNN’s John King told me excitedly two hours before the debate, hitting his fists together as he referred to the legendary 1971 heavyweight title bout.

Apparently, Neal Gabler has been removed from the Fox News Watch panel list on the FNW page. However his bio is still up on the Bio page. Gabler has not been seen on the program in quite a while…