The Atrios blog caught a telling moment on "Hardball with Chris Matthews," during its recent interview with Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward, the right-wing outfit that recently sponsored a feel-good tour of Iraq.

"When Sears Portrait Studios wanted to lure new mothers, it didn't just order more ads of smiling babies or mail out big coupons," writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Instead, the company hired the Vandiver Group "to create a word-of-mouth marketing campaign in mid-2003." First, Vandiver identified "influentials" - people others look to for information or advice - who are mothers, using phone surveys.