A new ad from the campaign of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole criticizes Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan for attending a fundraiser hosted by members of an atheist group.

What the ad says: The ad shows images of Dole and Hagan. Dole: "I'm Elizabeth Dole and I approve this message." Announcer: "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor." A clip of Godless Americans PAC executive director Ellen Johnson on MSNBC: "There is no God to rely on." Another Johnson clip: "There was no Jesus." A clip of Bill O'Reilly on Fox News: "But taking ‘under God’ out of the Pledge of Allegiance — you're down with that." Godless Americans PAC member David Silverman: "We're down with that." O'Reilly: "'In God We Trust' — are you going to whip that off the money?" Silverman: "Yeah, we would." Announcer: "Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?" The ad then shows an image of Hagan as an unidentified voice says "There is no God!"

The background: On Sept. 15, Hagan attended a fundraiser in Boston hosted by author Wendy Kaminer and her husband, Woody Kaplan.

Both are leaders of the Secular Coalition of America, which advocates for atheists and humanists in public policy. Kaplan also sits on the advisory board of the Godless Americans political action committee, which advocates for non-believers.

It is not clear that Kaminer is a leader of the PAC.

Kaplan was listed as one of ten chairs of the Hagan fundraiser, along with Sen. John Kerry, former Austrian ambassador Swanee Hunt and several other Boston-area businesspeople. Another 25 people were listed as hosts.

The fundraiser was advertised on the Democratic Web site ActBlue in August. After Dole criticized Hagan over the fundraiser in late August, Kaminer and Kaplan’s names were removed from the invitation on ActBlue.

The Godless Americans PAC Web site says that it supports candidates who are atheists and supports the separation of religion and government, including a "Godless pledge."

The news clips are of other members of the Godless Americans PAC on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" in 2004 and 2005 and Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" in 2004. The unidentified woman’s voice at the end is Johnson's from a Washington rally in 2002.

Is the ad accurate? It is true that Hagan attended the fundraiser in question, but the ad is misleading in several ways. The fundraiser was not a secret. The people shown in the news clips were not involved with the fundraiser. And some viewers might be led to believe that the unidentified female voice  at the end of the ad is Hagan's.

— Barbara Barrett and Ryan Teague Beckwith

Oprah Winfrey, Bill O'Reilly and the possibility of an endorsement by David Letterman are among the subjects discussed when former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards appears tonight on the "Late Show with David Letterman."

Of course, not all of the discussion was as serious as Monday night's Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina.

And, at one point, Letterman tangled with Edwards' famous hair, according to quotes released by the show, which was taped this afternoon.

Letterman asked Edwards about the value of Winfrey's endorsement of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

"I'm kind of thinking you can do for me what Oprah's done for Barack," Edwards said.

Edwards and Letterman also discussed O'Reilly.

"He's a marvelous communicator, but he doesn't really care much about telling the truth," Letterman said.

"Yeah, I've noticed the same thing," Edwards responded.

Letterman: "Very entertaining, and I like when he's on the show, but if you say one thing..."

Edwards: "But most of what he says is crap."

Letterman: "I think you're right. There you go, exactly. I like how you think, Senator."

John Edwards and Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly are mixing it up again.

O’Reilly, host of "The O'Reilly Factor," questioned Edwards' assertion that 200,000 veterans "will go to sleep under and bridges and on grates" because they are homeless tonight, Rob Christensen reports.

"They may be out there, but there's not many of them out there. Okay," O'Reilly said. "If you know where's a veteran, sleeping under a bridge, you call me immediately, and we will make sure that man does not do it."

Edwards responded with a statement: "For someone who spends a lot of time shouting about patriotism, you would think he would be outraged by the treatment of our homeless veterans. How many more will it take before we wake up and solve this crisis?"

The Edwards campaign cited a November study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. A spokeswoman for the alliance said they got their information from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the year 2006.

The VA report said "about one-third of the adult homeless population have served their country in the Armed Services. Current population estimates suggest that about 195,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year."

The report said about 45 percent of the homeless vets suffer from mental illness and slightly more than 70 percent suffer from alcohol or other drug abuse problems.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the year. 

Hot-button issues inspired Dome readers to hit their mouse buttons.

In 2007, the most-viewed posts on the Under the Dome blog touched on the most contentious issues of the day: illegal immigration, homosexuality, the Duke lacrosse case and state political corruption.

Another drew a national audience because of its ties to national news.

Counting down the Top Five Most Viewed of 2007:

5. Wright's reimbursements: State Rep. Thomas Wright was paid eight times for travel when he was already in Raleigh, an investigation reveals.

4. Toasted Nifong: A downtown Raleigh bar offers "Toasted Nifong w/ a side order of National News" on its menu, lampooning the Duke lacrosse prosecutor.

3. The Orange County factor: An anti-John Edwards piece on "The O'Reilly Factor" misrepresented Orange County residents interviewed.

2. Neal: Being gay 'no big deal': Jim Neal, candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, reveals on local blog that he is gay.

1. Lancaster defends illegal immigrant policy: Martin Lancaster, president of the state community College System, defends the rights of illegal immigrants to study.

The No. 1 post is tops in another area. Thanks in part to a link on a local Web site opposed to illegal immigration, it generated 219 comments—the most of any Dome post this year.

For a guy who says he takes the side of the working man, Bill O'Reilly has some trouble distinguishing between a tire shop and a trailer park.

On "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday, the Fox News commentator interviewed neighbors of presidential candidate John Edwards in Orange County.

Introducing the segment, O'Reilly noted that a reporter spoke with four residents of a "trailer park where working-class Americans live" across the street from Edwards' home.

"We couldn't find anybody in the trailer park to say anything nice about John Edwards," O'Reilly said.

But the people were interviewed at Big Valley Auto Repair, not a trailer park.

Though none of them are named, they were garage owner Danny Hulon; his live-in girlfriend, Trish O'Neal; property owner Monty Johnson; and a customer, Ronnie Lilly, according to Hulon.

He said the film crew came by about two weeks ago. Hulon said that there are some manufactured homes down the street on individual lots, but "it's not really a trailer court."

Johnson is a well-known critic of Edwards who has been in the news before.

Hat Tip: Patrick Winn, Susan Ebbs

Jon Stewart's fans are a pretty knowledgeable bunch, but so are Bill O'Reilly's.

In an aside on a post yesterday about the Virginia Tech shootings, Durham blogger Chris Kromm of the Institute for Southern Studies argues that two WRDU radio hosts are ill-informed, perhaps because of what they watch:

maybe it's Fox News, which a recent Pew Center study found was the news source most likely to produce uninformed viewers (those most up on current events, Pew found, where watchers of The Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central).

But click through to that study and you'll see two things wrong with the summary:

* The audience for "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" was essentially tied with that of major newspaper Web sites, Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour" on PBS, "The O'Reilly Factor" on the previously mentioned Fox News Channel, National Public Radio and Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

* The study does not say that watching the show informed the audience, necessarily.

As the authors write:

The fact that a particular news source's audience is very knowledgeable does not mean that people learned all that they know from that source. As noted earlier, some news sources draw especially well-educated audiences who are keenly interested in politics.