New York Daily News: “In a fitting coda to 2012, we’ve learned that the ratings for rock-ribbed conservative Sean Hannity cratered after Barack Obama won his second term, with viewers tuning out the Fox News Channel talk-show host in droves.”

“According to Nielsen numbers, Hannity lost around half of his audience in the weeks after the election, while his Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly — who steadfastly refuses to identify himself politically as a conservative — retained around 70% of his audience.”

Former New York Gov. Eilot Spitzer (D) talked to Fishbowl DC about his gig as host of a Current TV show.

Said Spitzer: “Nobody’s watching, but I’m having a great time. I don’t mean to be facetious, but I am really enjoying myself. It’s like having a cocktail party with friends every night.”

He added: “Somebody needs to buy the network.”

Gabriel Sherman: “According to sources, David Clark, the executive producer in
charge of Fox’s weekend coverage, gave producers instructions not to
talk about gun-control policy on air… The directive created a rift inside the
network…  During the weekend, one frustrated producer went around
Clark to lobby Michael Clemente, Fox’s executive vice-president for
news editorial, but Clemente upheld the mandate.”

Peggy Noonan: “I find both Mr. Ryan’s and Mr. Rubio’s media expertise mildly harrowing–look at the prompter here, shake your head here, lower your voice there, raise it here, pick up your pace in this section. An entire generation of politicians in both parties has been too trained in media, and to their detriment. They are very smooth but it doesn’t make them seem more convincing, it makes them seem phonier. My old boss [Mr. Reagan] had actually been an actor, but he didn’t seem like a phony. He talked like a normal person at a podium, with a nice voice, and occasionally stumbling. It’s not bad to be human when you’re trying to appeal to humans.”

Brad Phillips lists the 10 worst media disasters for 2012 and eight are about politics.

Meanwhile, Stu Rothenberg has the best and worst of the 2012 campaigns.

The company that made Bristol Palin’s reality TV show about raising her child has collected a $354,348 subsidy from the state of California, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports.

Michael Grunwald: “I realize that the GOP’s up-is-downism puts news reporters in an awkward position. It would seem tendentious to point out Republican hypocrisy on deficits and Medicare and stimulus every time it comes up, because these days it comes up almost every time a Republican leader opens his mouth. But we’re not supposed to be stenographers. As long as the media let an entire political party invent a new reality every day, it will keep on doing it. Every day.”

“It’s not something I’m proud of here, folks, I must be blatantly honest. Nobody would know who she is if it weren’t for me.”

— Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show, blaming himself for Sandra Fluke being on the shortlist for Time Magazine‘s “Person of the Year.”

David Axelrod said he would shave his mustache if one of Joe Scarborough’s election predictions came true: That Mitt Romney would win either Pennsylvania, Michigan or Minnesota.

Obama won all three states, but USA Today reports Axelrod also said he would submit to a shave if Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski raised more than $1 million for Axelrod’s charity, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy — and they did.

The shearing will take place Dec. 7 on Morning Joe.

Al Hunt: “Before scheduling any budget negotiations at the White House, on Capitol Hill or at Camp David, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders should go see Steven Spielberg’s classic new film, Lincoln.”

“It’s the best movie about Washington politics I’ve seen. The centerpiece is the American icon, Abraham Lincoln; it brilliantly captures him doing what politicians are supposed to do, and today too often avoid: compromising, calculating, horse trading, dealing and preventing the perfect from becoming the enemy of a good objective.”

Mark Salter: “The film succeeds where others have failed: revealing in the story of
Lincoln the politician, in his appearance and personality, the
hard-pressed faith in humanity necessary to believe that any nation ‘conceived in liberty . . . could long endure.'”

“Ten years after her kidnapping, Elizabeth Smart is preparing her story of being held captive by a homeless street preacher, her improbable rescue after nine months, and how she advocated for children after the ordeal,” Politico reports.

“The account is being written by Chris Stewart, a congressman-elect from Utah who has authored books with religious and patriotic themes.”

A new Pew Research survey finds a third of the country followed the election returns last week online. And most of them were actually “second screeners,” who used both the TV and the Internet to keep up.

Howard Kurtz: “David Petraeus had another love affair long before the one that cost him his job running the CIA. It was with the press.”

“The retired general’s skillful courtship of journalists brought him a career’s worth of favorable headlines and has, to a remarkable degree, softened the coverage of his fall from grace. Petraeus accomplished this in part by granting reporters access–though none quite as extraordinary as that accorded his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who several news organizations have identified as Other Woman in the extramarital affair he has acknowledged.”

Current TV, the ratings-challenged cable network started by former Vice
President Al Gore, has put itself up for sale, the New York Post reports.

Here’s a fun new game for your iPhone, iPad or Android phone: Election Game 2012: Race for the White House.

You’re the campaign manager: Pick your candidate, raise campaign funds, make advertising buys, book television appearances, rally volunteers or resort to dirty tricks to outmaneuver and smear your opponent. These are just a few of the options this election game has to offer.

It’s a free download and highly recommended.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, have a good day. And by good day, I mean fuck off.”

— State Department spokesman Philippe Reines, in an email to BuzzFeed, responding to questions about the department’s handling of the Libyan embassy crisis.

A Florida man “obsessed with Fox News and the Republican party” is in jail after he allegedly said that he felt he was going to have to kill his girlfriend because she was a “liberal,” the Palm Beach Post reports.

CNN says using the song Stupid Girls “to introduce a segment
on Sarah Palin was unintentional and not meant as a commentary on the
former Republican vice presidential candidate,” The Wrap reports.