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You can see why CNN calls itself "The Most Trusted Name In News." You want hard-hitting coverage?

Following Michelle Obama's Sunday night video appearance at the Academy Awards, CNN used a clip of Happy Days character Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli jumping a shark on water skis to question whether the first lady had diminished herself.

The 1977 Happy Days scene and the phrase "jump the shark" has come to describe the moment when a gimmick damages someone or something's reputation beyond the point of repair.

"An editor at Salon.com thinks the first lady is following in Fonzie's footsteps by presenting the award for best picture at the Oscars," CNN host Carol Costello announced on Monday after showing the Happy Days clip.

Costello noted that the first lady had also recently met with Sesame Street's Big Bird about her campaign to combat childhood obesity, appeared on Jimmy Fallon's show and talked to TV chef Rachel Ray "about those much-buzzed-about bangs."

"Some say maybe the Oscars aren't the best use of the first lady's time," the CNN host continued. "Instead of all those cameos, she might champion some grittier political issues like the deficit, gun control or the pressing need for bipartisanship... Did Michelle Obama jump the shark at the Oscars?"

CNN contributor L.Z. Granderson reminded Costello that Laura Bush had also appeared in a video at the 2002 Academy Awards.

Granderson also noted that critics were forgetting that Michelle Obama "is not actually a politician, she's married to a politician."

After first expressing outrage about the current first lady's Sunday night cameo, conservative pundits like radio host Dana Loesch and columnist Michelle Malkin later rushed to defend Oscar appearances by Laura Bush and Ronald Reagan.

"Reagan was former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Sorry, did I miss Michelle Obama's past career in Hollywood?," Malkin wrote on Twitter Sunday night, adding that the first lady would soon "be in every movie theater preview telling you to shut your cellphone off & put away the popcorn."

"The left can't produce a video of Laura Bush presenting because it doesn't EXIST," Loesch argued. "They want to deflect because FLOTUS presenting shows bias and the propaganda involved around their 'Zero Dark Thirty' flick."

But Costello's point seemed to be that the first lady had better things to do with her time: "Imagine if Michelle Obama would reach out to Ms. Boehner... And they had lunch together and they talked about their husbands."

"I think the Oscars jumped the shark, like, four hours before Michelle Obama was even on TV," CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash told Costello on Monday. "Jumping the shark had nothing to do with Michelle Obama."

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The director of issues analysis of a conservative fundamentalist Christian organization who is opposing anti-bullying efforts found himself on the defensive on Tuesday after a CNN host pointed out that his "hate speech" revealed an anti-LGBT agenda.

During a phone interview on CNN, host Carol Costello asked the American Family Association's (AFA) Bryan Fischer why his group was fighting the the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) "Mix It Up For Lunch Day" anti-bullying effort.

"It's an attempt to push the normalization of homosexual behavior in public schools and to eventually punish students who would express a Judeo-Christian view of sexuality," Fischer explained. "It's interesting to me that they are doing this on Oct. 30, the day before Halloween, and what this program is, it's like poison Halloween candy. Somebody takes a candy bar, injects it with cyanide, the label looks fine, it looks innocuous, it looks fine. It's not until you internalize it, you realize how toxic it is. We want parents to understand that any program that comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center is going to be toxic to their student's moral health."

Costello noted that the program had been going on for 11 years and the SPLC's website "makes no mention of homosexuality whatsoever."

"The Southern Poverty Law Center has called your organization, the American Family Association, a hate group," she pointed out. "And some would say that's really what's motivating you."

"In reality, the Southern Poverty Law Center is out to bully students who have conservative moral values in silence," Fischer insisted.

"I think the Southern Poverty Law Center could turn the tables on you," Costello interrupted. "You have said, 'Hitler recruited homosexuals around him to make up his stormtroopers. They were his enforcers, they were his thugs. Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and cruel and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual soldiers had no limit to the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whoever Hitler sent them after.'"

"That spells agenda to me," the CNN host observed. "That, by many people's standards, would be hate speech."

Fischer then launched into a rant about how the SPLC was trying to destroy the AFA and other Christian groups and that "homosexuality has the same risks associated with it as intravenous drug use."

"That's just not true," Costello said, cutting him off. "I'm going to end this interview now, sir, because that's just not true. Mr. Fisher, thanks for sharing your views, I guess."

(h/t: Good As You)

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I thought this was interesting. Drew Griffin talked to entrepreneur and amateur scientist Mark Suppes who is working on trying to make his open source project on nuclear fusion something that potentially moves our country towards a path of energy independence and off our our dependence on fossil fuels.

Anything that doesn't have us occupying countries in the Middle East for oil and having the disasters we're seeing in the Gulf is alright in my book if it can be proven to be safe. This sounds as promising as anything else I've heard of with alternative energy solutions for the United States. Hopefully more will come of it if it proves viable.

GRIFFIN: The big I. Just before the break, Carol Costello introduced us to Mark Suppes, an amateur scientist who has put together a nuclear reactor at a warehouse in Brooklyn.

He joins us now live from our studios in New York and you know, Mark, first things first. You design web sites for Gucci?

SUPPES: That's correct.

GRIFFIN: So, you know, where do you cross paths with nuclear fusion? I mean, how did you get into this?

SUPPES: I've been an entrepreneur for almost 10 years now and I've done a lot of web start-ups and a lot of technology, and very comfortable looking at a problem and identifying an opportunity.

GRIFFIN: And so you're sitting around, looking at a problem like how can I put together a nuclear reactor in this warehouse and solve the energy crisis?

SUPPES: I would say it was more like I was between start-ups and I saw this video that Bussard gave and I was so inspired and it looked like such a winning solution to the energy problem, a real way for fusion to work.

GRIFFIN: Who --

SUPPES: And become a real energy solution.

GRIFFIN: You looked at a film of this or a video of this by whom?

SUPPES: Doctor Bussard is the man who invented this technology that I'm trying to build now. And Bussard was a famous physicist, and he worked under a Navy contract for years and years.

GRIFFIN: And so you're kind of picking up on his work, where he left off?

SUPPES: That's exactly right. About a month after he introduced his work to the world, with this video, he passed on. And so somebody has to sort of lead the charge, I feel like.

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Countdown's Worst Persons segment with winner Glenn Beck. Runners up Rep. Gregg Harper and Rush Limbaugh. Classy bunch here. Especially Limbaugh.