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The Drudge Report and others are worked up over host Conan O’Brien’s ode to “Lost,” claiming a plane-crash skit was an insensitive way to start the Emmy Awards on a day of a deadly commuter jet crash in Kentucky. It definitely would’ve been a lot more forgivable had it been funny. At least the brief appearance of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart was. (Colbert lost twice on Sunday; to Barry Manilow in the best individual performance in a variety or musical program category, and his show lost to Stewart’s “The Daily Show ” for best comedy series and best writing for a variety, music or comedy show.)

Open Salon interview.

A struggling Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., went nuclear Wednesday, with an ad that tries to ally challenger Bob Casey with North Korea and China. Ah, the acrid smell of desperation in the weeks before a congressional election! Be prepared for even more of these terror-filled spots in these glorious final days of Campaign 2006, all of which carry a little DNA from the mother of all scare ads: The 1964 Lyndon Johnson “Daisy Girl” ad against Barry Goldwater (bottom ad, below).

From Michael Scherer’s piece today: “The GOP seems to believe that Ford’s appeal to its most reliable voters is working. In recent days, the Republican National Committee has attempted to reverse the troubling polls in Tennessee with a television ad that both attacks Ford’s religious credentials and invokes that old standby of American politics, racial fear.”

This National Republican Senatorial Committee ad against Harold Ford sports an early mention of a Playboy connection that the party hopes will rile Christians against Ford.

Salon’s piece on Rep. Harold Ford Jr.’s senate campaign spotlights his appeal to churchgoers, as in the TV spot below.