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Salon's Dave Weigel captured this video of a voter in Iowa Monday telling Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann that a less-than-flattering photo of her had graced the cover of Newsweek magazine for a profile titled "The Queen of Rage."

"Have you seen it yet?" the voter asked.

"I have not," Bachmann replied.

"It's a big close-up of you, a wild-eyed photo with the headline, 'Queen of Rage,'" the voter explained.

"Ah-hah. Well, we'll have to take a look at that, won't we?" Bachmann said.

The candidate added that her campaign's message was "hope," not rage.

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Fox News has gone too far in hyping 2008 case of alleged voter intimidation, according to one New York Times columnist.

The conservative news network has recently produced a flurry of reports about a case where a member of the New Black Panther Party is accused of wielding a billy club outside of a polling place in Philadelphia. Appearing on MSNBC Monday, The New York Times' Charles Blow called out the network for exploiting the case.

"I think that the media, depending on what you call the media, some parts of the media, I think have exploited this to a degree that the president of the New Black Panther Party is on Fox on a regular basis now, it seems," Blow told MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski.

"You have a tough case here, because, to my understanding, we still don't have any person who has come forward to make an official complaint that they have been -- they were intimidated. You have a voter intimidation case with no intimidated voters," he said.

No on-air personality has promoted the story more than Fox News' Megyn Kelly.

Writing for The Atlantic, Dave Weigel accused Kelly's reports of inciting a crowd at a town hall event hosted by California Democrat:

Watch her broadcasts and you become convinced that the New Black Panthers are a powerful group that hate white people and operate under the protection of Eric Holder's DOJ. That "Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Kirsten Powers" video that I mentioned begins with her introducing a clip of a town hall meeting with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Ca.) in which he gets an angry question about whether the DOJ has a policy of not prosecuting African-Americans.

"I am extremely sure that we do not have a policy at the Department of Justice of never prosecuting a black defendent."

The crowd rises up. "Yes you do!" shouts one voter. When Sherman says he doesn't know much about the Panther case, the crowd erupts in boos. They've been driven to fear and distrust of their DOJ by round-the-clock videos of one racist idiot brandishing a nightstick for a couple hours in 2008.

Congratulations, Megyn.

Also appearing on MSNBC Monday, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) suggested that the Obama administration may have a political motivation in ignoring the case.

"Congressman, what is your suspicion about why they are fearful to look into it?" asked MSNBC's Willie Geist. "What are you suggesting?"

"I don't know that I really ought to comment what it is," replied Wolf. "I think there is politics involved, but I think until we see, it's really hard -- very difficult to say."

But Blow disagreed. "The idea that the Obama administration, which is what is happening here which is people are trying to tie the Obama administration to black radicalism and that has been happening since the campaign and it continues to happen," said Blow.

"It strains logic to think that this tiny group, [Obama] somehow benefits politically from protecting them," Blow continued. "There's nothing to gain. In fact, there's everything to gain in prosecuting them."

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As Susie already noted, the Washington Post contributor and frequent Countdown guest Dave Weigel resigned over a dust up after his private emails were released by Betsy Rothstein and Tucker Carlson and the right wing unleashed their flying monkeys to attack him. Keith calls out Rothstein and Carlson for releasing the private emails and also hammers the Washington Post for buying into the notion that you cannot fairly cover conservatives without sharing their ideology.

OLBERMANN: But our winners the manager at the Washington Post, a Betsy Rothstein of Fishbowl D.C. and Tucker Carlson of the website Daily Caller. Dave Weigel who's been a frequent guest on this program since he was with the Washington Independent is now no longer affiliated with the Washington Post. Ms. Rothstein posted a series of Weigel's private emails from one of the private listservs run by Ezra Klein that is also a guest on this program often. Mr. Carlson then posted more of the private emails.

None were complimentary to the conservatives that Weigel has covered for his own blog, for the Right Now blog at the Post and for us. Today, Dave resigned from the Post. Rothstein and Carlson define what it is to not understand the concept of private but at the heart of this is the Post.

Ben Smith of Politico quotes Post national editor Kevin Merida's web chat in April. He was asked if the post would be "adding more conservative/Republican voices to better balance what is now your predominately liberal/Democratic leaning coverage?” Merida answered “[W]e recently have added to our staff the well-regarded Dave Weigel, and also mentioned columnists Kathleen Parker and Charlies Krauthammer."

Somebody at the Post and most of the people critical of David Weigel today seem to be under the impression that to cover conservatives you have to be one and you cannot be critical of them, even in a private setting. Nonsense. Weigel was a blogger and he made no bones about it, offered a subjective but thoroughly reported view of the conservative world and on occasions, on this program defended conservatives when he'd thought I'd gone too far in criticizing them.

We asked Dave to join us tonight. He didn't want to. He wanted to take the high road. It's too bad the Washington Post and especially Fishbowl D.C. and the Daily Caller did not. We will keep asking Weigel back because he does a hell of a job, a unique and an invaluable one.

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Chris Matthews talked to The New York Daily News' and talk show host Errol Louis and The Washington Post's Dave Weigel about Rand Paul's rough entry into the Kentucky Senatorial race and his interview with Rachel Maddow and they all had some harsh words for Rand, especially Errol Louis.

MATTHEWS: Errol, let me ask you about this problem. I grew up during this. I know the debate over the Civil Rights Act in `64. It was in some sense a constitutional fight. Did the federal government have the right to use the interstate commerce clause to force businesses that were racist, owned by racists, to serve black folk?

Gas stations -- I drove through Georgia -- you were obviously more firsthand on this -- drive through Georgia, you saw the "white only" signs on the men`s rooms, the ladies` rooms. It was a fact of life. I saw laundromats with "white only" when I was in the Peace Corps training still there in `68. It`s a fact of life that some people want to discriminate. The federal government said you can`t do it in this country. Rand Paul seems to sympathize with the goal of desegregation, but not with the law itself. What`s your view of this?

ERROL LOUIS: Well, that`s right, and he doesn`t seem to understand the law or its evolution. I mean, the reality is, there are cases filed every year under the Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You see big public ones pop up every now and then. There was one involving Denny`s restaurant chain a few years ago.

MATTHEWS: Right.

LOUIS: You know, it`s not like it`s a dead issue. I`m the same age as Rand Paul, and you know, seeing what has happened since the passage of that law as we grew up, as we saw this nation mature, you know, it reflects such a fundamental misunderstanding.

And it`s important to note also that this isn`t the only case. I mean, has talked about actually repealing the Americans with Disabilities Act. You know, he`s got to answer a lot more questions.

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Rachel Maddow talks to the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel about the crazy train that was this week's Values Voters Summit.

MADDOW: Behold, a Missouri congressman, candidate for U.S. Senate, until recently, the number three Republican in the House, telling what seems to be a really long, meandering, gut-churning racist joke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ROY BLUNT ®, MISSOURI: Supposedly it‘s the turn of the 19th century, the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, there was a group of British occupiers in a very lush, very quiet, very peaceful, very uneventful part of India. And this group of British soldiers who were occupying that part of India decided they‘d carve a golf course out of the jungle of India. And there was really not much else to do. So, for over a year, this was the biggest event going on getting this golf course created.

And they got the golf course done and almost from the day the first ball was hit on this golf course, something happened they didn‘t anticipate. Monkeys would come running out of the jungle and they would grab the golf balls. And if it was in the fairway, they might throw it in the rough. If it was in the rough, they might throw—they might throw it back at you.

And I can go into great and long detail about how many things they did to try to eliminate the monkey problem, but they never got it done. So finally, for this golf course and this golf course only, they passed a rule, and the rule was you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. And that is the rule in Washington all the time.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Well, who does what? So, who‘s the—who‘s the monkey in Washington in this story? It‘s Republican Congressman Roy Blunt who wants to be the next Republican senator from the great state of Missouri. Mr. Blunt performed his lamentation of Washington monkey at this weekend‘s Values Voter Summit in Washington—which in addition to hosting much of the Republican congressional leadership and most of the probable Republican candidates for president in 2012, it also had some kind of strange stuff going on.

You might recall on Friday‘s show, we warned you there was going to be a breakout session at the summit to define what they called a new masculinism, like feminism but for guys.

Here‘s how that went.

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