Michelle Obama is suddenly dividing the country.

A debate is raging about the propriety of the first lady’s actions.

Why? Because she had the temerity to show up at the Oscars—virtually speaking, that is.

David Corn knew he had landed a big scoop last summer when he obtained a video—surreptitiously recorded at a fundraiser—of Mitt Romney deriding the “47 percent” of voters who “believe that they are victims” and feel “entitled” to government benefits. But it still stunned him how quickly the “47 percent” remarks came to dominate the presidential campaign. And he has a theory about that: “Who gets to go to a $50,000-a-plate dinner and hear a candidate speak candidly?” says the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine. “It had a voyeuristic side to it.”

Corn, whose scoop was back in the news this week, when it was recognized with a George Polk Award for Political Reporting, is best known as a fiercely liberal MSNBC commentator, a mile-a-minute talker who can be relentless in ripping Republicans. But when we spoke the other day, he told me that he wants to be known above all as a reporter. “I have an almost naive belief that the best way to win an argument or improve the world is to put more truth out there,” the 54-year-old explains. Corn says he tries to bring facts to the table when discussing, say, National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre on MSNBC—“not just yelling that I think he’s a psychopath.”

Mother Jones co-editor Clara Jeffery believes that Corn’s secret is “manic energy and a real nose for a story. He just burrows in when he’s got something.” Indeed, Corn insists that, despite his political views, he would also have jumped on a video that embarrassed President Obama.

The media have misfired when it comes to John McCain and guns.

A videotape of a town hall meeting appears to show the Arizona senator reacting insensitively to a mother who lost her son in the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo.

But it turns out the tape was edited in a distorted fashion.

Several national news outlets picked up the truncated video, which was edited by Phoenix television station KTVK.

It must have seemed the safest of forums, a Facebook town hall in which Vice President Joe Biden would field questions about gun safety.

After all, what elected official wouldn’t rather talk to actual voters than pesky reporters? And the White House is increasingly using technology to connect with the masses, pointedly bypassing the mainstream media in the process.

Turns out Biden came out with both barrels. At Tuesday’s Facebook event, sponsored by Parents magazine, a reader named Kate Earnest posed this loaded question: “Do you believe that banning certain weapons and high-capacity magazines will mean that law-abiding citizens will then become more of a target to criminals, as we will have no way to sufficiently protect ourselves?”

Nearly four months after he got entangled in the David Petraeus scandal, Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is retiring.

The skids had been greased for Allen to become the next commander of NATO forces, but the machinery hit a snag when Allen was forced to explain correspondence involving hundreds of personal e-mails.

The official reason for Allen stepping down, according to the White House, is “so he can address health issues within his family.” There was no elaboration.

President Obama just played the police card.

He surrounded himself with first responders at the White House on Tuesday morning to dramatize what he says will be the impact of the automatic spending cuts set to take effect at month’s end.

Against this backdrop of blue, Obama said if the so-called sequestration isn’t stopped, first responders will lose their jobs, prosecutors will drop cases and let criminals go free, and teachers will be laid off

“This is not an abstraction,” the president said.

The White House press corps is pissed at the president.

He spent the weekend golfing, and all they got was to cool their heels.

Obama hit the links with Tiger Woods, and they got the shaft.

Jill Kelley had barely grown accustomed to her status as an unwilling celebrity when she was flooded with opportunities to cash in.

There was a $250,000 offer for an interview with a tabloid television show, Kelley says. Book publishers proffered deals worth millions for the inside story of the David Petraeus scandal. There was even talk from publicists who she says approached her about a clothing line and a possible Super Bowl ad.

She turned them all down.

Roger Ailes says President Obama is whipping up hate.

The Fox News chairman has never been a fan of the president, but even by his standards, those are strikingly harsh words.

“The president likes to divide people into groups,” Ailes tells The New Republic in an interview. “He’s too busy getting the middle class to hate rich people, blacks to hate whites. He is busy trying to get everybody to hate each other.”

Consider: Sarah Palin and Dick Morris are out at Fox News, and Scott Brown, the Massachusetts moderate, may be in.

Eric Cantor is talking about the problems of working mothers.

Marco Rubio is on the cover of Time as “the New Voice of the GOP” and will respond next week to the president’s State of the Union.

It’s official: Fox is the most distrusted name in news.

But an awful lot of people trust it, too.

In an annual Public Policy Polling survey, 46 percent of those questioned say they don’t trust Rupert Murdoch’s network—a 9-point jump in a negative view of the network since 2010.

At the same time, 41 percent of those in the new poll say they trust Fox News—a telling snapshot of a news channel that conservatives love and liberals love to hate.

Eric Cantor is acutely aware that the GOP has an image problem.

For the past year-and-a-half, the House majority leader and his colleagues have been manning the barricades of negativity: "No" to Obamacare. "No" to immigration reform. "No" to gun control. "No" to higher taxes on the wealthy. "No" to just about anything the White House wants.

Now Cantor is trying to soften his hard-edged reputation, portraying the Republican Party as caring deeply about education, health care and innovation.

The Baltimore Ravens were on an incredible roll before an inexplicable electricity outage stopped their momentum and nearly cost them the Super Bowl.

Is President Obama, having surged in the polls after winning reelection, hitting a similar power shortage?

Can he carry the legislative ball into the end zone against a prevent defense swarming with arm-waving Republicans?

The football analogy is admittedly strained, but Obama’s offense has yet to show it can put points on the board when it counts.

President Obama made a crucial tactical shift on Tuesday as he offered a full-throated appeal for immigration reform, embracing the plan cobbled together by a group of senators from both parties.

Despite predictions that Obama would unveil a significantly more liberal approach than the group led by John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Chuck Schumer, he made the calculation that having big-name Republicans on board could break the logjam on Capitol Hill.

Speaking from Las Vegas, the president wasted little time praising “a bipartisan group of senators announced their principles for comprehensive immigration reform, which are very much in line with the principles I’ve proposed and campaigned on for the last few years.” Translation: I’m on board.