* Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, a Cabarrus County Republican, lets out his inner Erin Brockovich in argument over Alcoa project on Yadkin River.

* NAACP praises Gov. Beverly Perdue for choosing first black district attorney in Eastern North Carolina; second currently serving in state.

* Liberal talk show host Keith Olbermann labels U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx "Worst Person in the World" for Matthew Shepard remarks.

* More signs of Senate '10: Americans United for Change criticizes Sen. Richard Burr in press release for voting against Obama's budget.

BURR BURNED: U.S. Sen. Richard Burr doesn't have a Democratic opponent yet — unless you count left-leaning commentators. After the Winston-Salem Republican said he told his wife to take money out of the ATM during last fall's banking crisis, he was criticized by liberal talk show hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and took heat from the Huffington Post.

BUDGET SIMMERS: The U.S. Senate was once described as the saucer used to cool hot bills from the House. It's apparently the other way in the state legislature, where chief budget writer Rep. Mickey Michaux said he'll take his time going over the budget bill rushed over from the Senate last week. Check back next week.

TAX DAY: Thousands of protesters gathered across North Carolina on Wednesday to protest the bank bailouts and the size of the federal budget. The so-called Tea Party protests were tied to the date federal income taxes are due. Meantime, the state Department of Revenue said it was running a few weeks behind in sending out tax refunds.

IN OTHER NEWS: A group of Republicans started Carolina Strategy Group to poll voters on state issues and work with business clients. ... Former Congressman and illegal immigration opponent Tom Tancredo was driven out of UNC-Chapel Hill by angry protesters. ... The state House narrowly approved a bill adding a comprehensive sex education option to public schools and passed a major fix to the State Health Plan that will reduce benefits for state workers.

On this much everyone agrees: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is a rock star.

Former secretary of labor and transportation. Former head of the American Red Cross. Wife of former presidential candidate. First female senator in North Carolina. Household name.

But as "Behind the Music" showed, sometimes being a rock star is not a good thing.

Consider the furor that erupted across the Internet yesterday when Dole attempted to rename an AIDS bill after Sen. Jesse Helms, starting with the Huffington Post and making its way across countless liberal blogs to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

Some of that is lingering liberal anger over Helms. (Dome still gets a handful of e-mails a day from supporters of that guy who resigned over lowering the flag.) But the story also made the rounds because it was linked to Dole, another familiar name.

It's not easy to get the rank-and-file invested in a Senate race in a far-off state, but it happens. Consider the 2006 elections, when Virginia Sen. George Allen, something of a frontrunner-in-waiting for the Republican presidential nomination, became Target No. 1.

Now look at the other incumbent Republicans up for re-election this year: Sens. Pat Roberts, Roger Wicker, Gordon Smith, Ted Stevens, Susan Collins, John Cornyn and Jim Inhofe. None are as well-known as Dole.

With the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sending a $6 million signal that it considers North Carolina in play, a lot of Democrats in New York and California are going to start daydreaming about taking down another rock star. 

Keith Olbermann says Mike Easley's a terrorist.

Well, not really. The left-leaning MSNBC commentator took a jab Monday at his conservative counterparts on Fox News, one of whom wondered if Barack Obama's fist-bump with his wife Michelle was a "terrorist fist jab." (She later apologized.)

Olbermann poked fun at the flap, showing footage of Easley doing a fist-bump with Obama at a speech in Raleigh.

"Fox Noise's unanswered innuendo could be applied forward, which must mean that North Carolina's Gov. Mike Easley also might be a terrorist," he said.

The Washington Times has named Roy Cooper a "noble of the year."

Each year, the conservative D.C. newspaper names "nobles" and "knaves" voted by readers from recent news. It had praise for North Carolina's attorney general:

Just barely sneaking into the No. 5 position is North Carolina State's Attorney Roy Cooper, who dismissed the ludicrous lawsuit against three Duke University lacrosse players. The story made national headlines for months and turned into a media circus, with (former) runaway prosecutor Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong at the helm. 

To give you a sense of how unusual it was for the paper to select a top state Democrat, the knaves this year included Ted Turner, a Connecticut mayor running a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants, Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles and Keith Olbermann.