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After over-hyping the claims by Bob Woodward on The Situation Room just the day before that the White House supposedly threatened him, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jessica Yellin ended up doing some back tracking on this Thursday's show, after the emails released by Politico revealed that he wasn't being threatened after all. Even though they both eventually admitted that the emails were not threatening at all, both of them were desperate to cling to the notion that Woodward might have still have some legitimate reason to feel threatened by the White House.

Blitzer asked Yellin if she thought "maybe this sidebar is being overblown?" which might be the understatement of the day. You think so Wolf? Overblown by whom exactly? Woodward played CNN and the rest of the right like a fiddle and as John already noted here, all of them were missing the forest for the trees when it comes to the substance in Sperling and Woodward's email exchange and the fact that the White House is still willing to throw their base under the bus with these negotiations.

CNN, still doing their best to be Fox-lite. And note to Wolf Blitzer, Bob Woodward quit acting like a "premier journalist" ages ago. Now he's a right wing hack with an axe to grind. The good news out of all of this though, according to Wolf Blitzer, is that Gene Sperling is going to come on the air with Candy Crowley this weekend to talk about this nonsense. I await learning nothing of value during that interview.

Here's more from Gawker on Woodward: Goodbye, Bob

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Looks like someone has had quite enough of Sarah Palin and her eliminationist rhetoric:

Shooting prompts legislation to protect lawmakers, officials:

Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.

Brady's decision to offer the legislation comes less than 24 hours after a gunman attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, in a shooting that claimed the lives of a federal judge, and a nine year-old girl, among others.

"The president is a federal official," Brady said in a telephone interview with CNN. "You can't do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge.

"This is not a wake up call, this is major alarms going off," he said.

Brady is particularly incensed over a web posting by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during the 2010 election in which she targeted 20 House Democrats, including Giffords for political defeat. The posting showed a map of the United States with the 20 Democratic congressional districts identified by gun sights.

"You can't put bulls eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official," Brady said. "I understand this web site that had it on there is no longer in existence. Someone is feeling a little guilty."

But a Palin aide Saturday denied the web posting from the 2010 congressional campaign was designed to incite violence. Rebecca Mansour told conservative host Tammy Bruce that it was a political tool and noted it should have been removed after the November election.

Brady said he is hearing that the spouses of some of his congressional colleagues, specifically the newly elected members, are terrified and questioning whether they should remain in Congress. Upon hearing the news of the shooting Saturday, some spouses attending a freshman retreat in West Virginia, were "taking their children out of the daycare," Brady said he was told.

"The spouses are in an uproar," he said. "They are panicking."

Brady said it is now time to put an end to the hyper-charged language.

Well, we'll see if Republicans go along with it, and what's in the legislation, but I could see something like this being abused pretty easily, depending on the language in the bill.