The last Morning Jolt of the week features (sigh) more Weiner, a bit of movement in the Texas GOP Senate primary, and then this back-and-forth on yesterday’s presidential campaign trail:

Come On. When Sarah Palin Takes a Shot, Some Wild Animal Usually Dies
You probably heard a lot about Sarah Palin “taking shots” at Mitt Romney Thursday, using one of those metaphors that we were all supposed to drop after Tucson.
When you read Palin’s comments about Romney, in response to a reporter’s question in Boston, they actually sound pretty measured – clearly critical of the mandate in Romneycare, and offering a broad-spectrum wariness of mandates from government at any level – but not particularly hostile or derisive in tone:
“In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, so obviously … there will be more the explanation coming from former governor, Romney, on his support for government mandates,” Palin told reporters today.
When a reporter followed up that Romney has distinguished his state mandate from the federal one President Obama signed into law in 2010, Palin responded that even state mandates are problematic.
“He makes a good argument there that it does. States rights and authority and responsibility allowed in our states makes more sense than a big centralized government telling us what to do,” she said.
“However, even on a state level and even a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it’s tough for a lot of us independent Americans to accept, because we have great faith in the private sectors and our own families … and our own businessmen and women making decisions for ourselves. Not any level of government telling us what to do.”
Now, take a moment to imagine how Chris Matthews would cover it. Go ahead. Picture him being wildly hyperbolic. Okay, now read, courtesy the good folks at Newsbusters, how he actually covered it, and I’ll bet he outdid your wildest expectations: “Leading off tonight, civil war on the right. Not since the election of Abraham Lincoln has a Republican caused such a war. Everybody attacked Mitt Romney today, the very day he declared for President. Sarah Palin went right to New Hampshire, serving as a human grenade, blowing up his announcement by saying Romney’s health care is a total violation of Tea Party beliefs.”
He just compared her to a suicide bomber. Of course, I guess the upside is, we can now say Chris Matthews has compared Sarah Palin to Abraham Lincoln!