MSNBC... with added Ed

Looks like we were all thrown for a loop. MSNBC is indeed creating a new show around Ed Schultz... only in an earlier time slot.

From the New York Times:

MSNBC will soon add another liberal radio host, the latest in a series of changes intended to position the network as a venue for left-leaning voices in the evening.

Ed Schultz, a radio veteran with a blue-state appeal, will anchor the 6 p.m. hour, to be called “The Ed Show,” starting Monday, MSNBC, a unit of NBC Universal, announced Wednesday night.

(snip)

Mr. Schultz said his show would take a “hard-hitting approach to issues,” with a “folksy style when it’s called for.”

(snip)

The network said David Shuster, the current anchor of the 6 p.m. hour, would co-host the 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. hours with Tamron Hall and substitute as host of “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” its top-rated program.

And it appears that Schultz will have a little extra time on his hands for the MSNBC gig, as he will no longer do a local show, "News And Views", for his Fargo flagship, KFGO.

MSNBC puts new show plans on hold

For the past few months, MSNBC has been toying with the idea of building on their prime time lineup, possibly by adding a new show in the 10P ET hour following "The Rachel Maddow Show", in place of a rerun of Keith Olbermann's highly-rated "Countdown". But don't look for it anytime soon.

MSNBC will continue airing "Countdown" twice each weeknight in prime time, with the possibility of adding a new show put on "indefinite hold." No reason was given, but it could be due to the rough economic climate affecting the media as a whole, and the fact that the Olbermann rerun actually pulls in a respectable audience, considering that rerunning it is a lot cheaper than starting something new.

MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin suggested earlier this year he was on the lookout for a new show. He never named names, but the potential host most bandied about was Ed Schultz, who had done some fill-in work for the network on various shows. Fans of the online show "The Young Turks" and of Air America's Sam Seder have been lobbying to get MSNBC to consider them.

From Huffington Post:

Fox has 2.1 million viewers, on average, in the time slot in March. Cooper on CNN has 1.2 million and Olbermann has 902,000, according to Nielsen Media Research. On a handful of nights, a rerun of Olbermann has even beaten a live Cooper in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic that MSNBC watches most closely.

MSNBC may give up entirely on the idea of putting a new live show in that time slot, Griffin said.
"We're not going to mess with it until we see where it levels off," he said. "It places the burden, if we are going to put a show there, (for it) to be a big show because the repeat of `Countdown' is doing so well."

Speaking of MSNBC and cable news, CNN is poised to finish March third in the prime-time weeknight ratings behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC, according to the Associated Press. This would be the first time this has ever happened for the channel that pioneered the cable news genre back in the early 1980s.

EdTV? MSNBC/Schultz rumors persist

This rumor has floated for quite a while, and still won't die. The New York Times makes it seem as there has been some continued activity on this front behind closed doors. The Times account cites an unnamed source from last Friday, so this new blurb doesn't seem to be part of any kind of echo chamber ripple effect.

From The Times:

MSNBC is in talks with Ed Schultz, the progressive radio talk-show host, about a permanent position, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said on Friday. The source requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the network’s deal-making. MSNBC, which has become well known for its liberal-leaning prime-time lineup, is seeking a 10 p.m. host to replace the time slot’s repeat of “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.” Mr. Schultz has been a guest host on MSNBC twice this month, leading to speculation that he was in the running for a position...

...Mr. Schultz did not reply to an e-mail message Friday evening. An MSNBC spokeswoman said a contract had not been offered to Mr. Schultz and declined to comment further.

Speaking of MSNBC, the network has replaced its early morning newscast "First Look" with a re-air of "The Rachel Maddow Show", according to TVNewser.

"First Look," which aired at 5A ET, often re-purposed stories from NBC's "Early Today" which airs at 4:30A in many markets, leading in to NBC affiliate morning shows. TVNewser quotes an insider as claiming the purpose of the move "is to give "Morning Joe" the best lead-in possible."

And in a clever method of segueing smoothly from one topic to another, Rolling Stone magazine has ranked Maddow #22 on its "RS100: Agents Of Change." Congrats!

Tuesday newsday

A few little things to swirl around in your craniums...

Peter B. in at KPTK

KPTK Seattle sorts out it's afternoon vacancy following Randi Rhodes' temporary(?) descent into limbo. They had been airing Rhodes' Nova M/OST replacement Nancy Skinner, but with that network being an even bigger question mark at this point, the station has opted for a more established and stable syndicated host, Peter B. Collins. The show will run on delay from 6-9P PT.

Another west coast station, KKGN (Green 960) in San Francisco, started running Collins' show last week, but no word on whether this will be permanent.

MSNBC grooming Schultz?

As radio host Ed Schultz is guesting MSNBC's 6P show "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" today, The New York Observer and Politico are both wondering if this is really just an audition for a potential new 10P post-Rachel Maddow show on the network.

But perhaps it's too early to read anything into that. It's just a fill-in gig, as regular host David Schuster will be filling in for Keith Olbermann on" Countdown". Official word at MSNBC says it's just that. Period.

A few months ago, MSNBC president Phil Griffin got the rumor train rolling when he told the NY Times that he was considering a 10P show to run instead of the "Countdown" rerun. Since then, there has been some grassroots lobbying by certain people who really want the gig, including a proposed joint effort by Cenk Uygur, of "The Young Turks." and Air America's Sam Seder.

Another one bites the dust

Things are pretty tough these days if you happen to be a radio talk show host. Even tougher if you happen to be a radio talk show host for CBS.

CBS blew out their whole talk roster at KLSX (97.1FM) in Los Angeles last month, when they flipped to CHR, and killed two syndicated shows from Tom Leykis and Adam Carolla altogether. Add Opie and Anthony to that list, as the duo, who have been losing many stations over the past year or so, have lost their New York flagship, WXRK, which is also flipping to CHR.

With the flip of the former K-Rock, th-th-that's pretty much all for CBS' syndication of the show. But Opie and Anthony will continue via their Sirius XM satellite gig. The loss of the show signals that CBS and Westwood One have virtually cut ties with the Howard Stern shock-jock era as a whole, though they still have one 'hot talker' in Washington DC (WJFK), and still syndicate that station's Mike O'Meara (one half of the former "Don and Mike" show. Other than that, there's not much left.

CORRECTION: Opie And Anthony still have one sole terrestrial outlet left. It's WROX in Norfolk, VA, though the station delays the show and airs it the evening hours.

Another day, another Maddow article

For those of you who haven't read enough mainstream media articles about Rachel Maddow, here's another one, from entertainment industry trade magazine Variety.

Spring Cleaning

As mentioned last week, I'm still slowly sorting through all the links and listings in the center column. That means shows, stations and whatnot.

With that, some stations have been removed from the listings, including KGIL in L.A. (which is all-wingnuts, all the time after dropping Ed Schultz) and WWRC in D.C. (which flipped to money talk -- I thought I had already removed that one).

And one station has been updated. KPTR in Palm Springs, CA has a website now, in addition to an audio stream. I'm sorting out new web addresses, listening links, etc. With some of these, it's often difficult to figure out what's going on (like in Jacksonville, for example, where the format seems to move to a different frequency every month or so).

I know that some of the show listings are a bit out-of-date. For example, I removed all the old Nova M shows a few weeks back as it appeared that hardly any of them were even on the air anymore, or had changed timeslots. Now that they're pretty much D.O.A., the point is obviously moot.

Know of any corrections? Let me know. Thanks.

The calm after the storm

Since all the mayhem of last week has settled down, how 'bout catching up with a few items seemingly left by the wayside?

Seder, Uygur vie for MSNBC gig

As MSNBC is rumored to be looking to fill the post-Rachel Maddow 10P ET slot, two liberal talk radio hosts are lobbying hard for the gig.

From Politico:

Since MSNBC mentioned looking for a 10 p.m. host to follow Rachel Maddow, the LA Times reports that two grass-roots campaigns have been flooding the network — as well as hitting Facebook and YouTube — in order to push liberal talkers Cenk Uygur, of "The Young Turks." and Air America's Sam Seder.

The lobbying efforts have drawn thousands of supporters and led fans to pepper MSNBC with e-mails in support of their favorite personality. Hundreds of people have posted messages of support online, some even creating their own video spots. (Give the time slot to "The Young Turks," warns one, "or I'll switch back to CNN.") Liberal bloggers on sites like MyDD.com have also weighed in.They all hope that MSNBC will choose a host cast from the same left-leaning mold as Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, who have helped power the cable channel's ratings.

President Phil Griffin said that the network isn't going to pick based solely on ideology but wants the hour "to be edgy, to be smart, to be a little snarky."

It's... Frangela!

John Scott at Green 960 in San Francisco is using the 4-7P PT slot currently left vacant by Randi Rhodes to audition some new talent. This week, it's Frances Callier & Angela V. Shelton, a.k.a. Frances and Angela, or "Frangela".

Who?

Here's a little more about them, from the press release:

'He’s Just Not That Into You', in theatres now, marks Frangela’s feature film debut! The girls appear alongside Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck and Scarlett Johansson. Frances Callier and Angela V. Shelton are real life best friends who talk to each other all day long. Frances is from Chicago and proud of it. She can be seen weekly on VH1’s Best Week Ever, and has appeared on NBC’s 'My Name is Earl', HBO’s 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', ABC’s 'According To Jim', ABC’s 'Emily’s Reason’s Why Not', Oxygen’s 'Girls Behaving Badly', Frances is also a fan favorite as Hannah Montana’s bodyguard Roxie, on Disney’s 'Hannah Montana'.

Angela is a badass Detroit native. In Chicago she hosted the regional Emmy Award winning PBS series, 'The Cheap Show' – a local version of Bill Maher’s 'Politically Incorrect'. Angela can been seen weekly on: VH1’s Best Week Ever, and has appeared on CBS’s 'Grounded For Life', NBC/Bravo’s 'Significant Other’s', HBO’s 'Mr. Show', Disney Channel’s 'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody', Oxygen’s Girl’s Behaving Badly, WE Television’s 'I Can’t Believe I Wore That', 'Junk Yard Teddies' (pilot). She has also voiced 'Spider Man 2' and 'Ultimate Spider Man', 'Superman', and 'Reservoir Dogs' video games.

Frances and Angela are regular “Pop Cultural Pundits” on NBC’s 'The Today Show' and 'Dateline', Fox’s 'Mike and Juliet Show', CNN’s 'Showbiz Tonight' and 'Headline News', Fox News’s 'Red Eye' and 'The Big Story', MSN’s 'The Big Debate', and are regular contributors on NPR’s 'Day to Day' and 'Off Ramp'. They also host their own radio show, 'The Week According To Frangela - Real News, Real Funny' in Los Angeles on Progressive KTLK AM 1150 and fill-in for nationally syndicated radio talk show host Stephanie Miller.

Got all that?

More Nova M(ess)

In case you're desperate for as many sides of the story about the defunct Nova M Radio network, how about one side of the story, this from former weekend host King Daevid MacKenzie. You can find it here.

Updates, schmupdates

Yeah, I know.

The center column links and listings are woefully out of date. That being said, I'm working on it.

I plan to remove shows and stations that are no longer around, or have changed time slots. That includes all the WWRC links. I'm also going to plan ahead, since I really have no idea if Thom Hartmann will still be available on Air America's stream next week when he moves to Dial Global.

That being said, this should all be updated this week. Be patient, and if you know of any exclusions (aside from the Roots Up Radio shows that will be added), let me know.

MSNBC looking to add new show

With the success of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show helping to make MSNBC a contender among cable news outlets, there are reports that the network is looking to expand even further.

The New York Times' Brian Stelter reports that MSNBC is looking to add a new show in the 10P hour, immediately following Maddow.

"It's almost like we're one personality away," MSNBC president Phil Griffin told Stelter. Olbermann supports the move as well. "Losing the 10P replay (of Countdown) is a very small price to pay for a last piece to the puzzle." Olbermann says. MSNBC insiders tell us there is nothing currently in development, but the network's goal is to add a 10P show when it finds the right host.

A reader poll on the TV Newser site, asking who should get the nod, showed Sam Seder in the lead as of yesterday (though the page keeps crashing my browser today). There is a movement to get The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur the nod, however.

And Ed Schultz has confirmed that he has been involved in negotiations for a TV gig following the move of his show to Washington, DC, though he has not gone into specifics, in particular naming the entity (entities) that he has been talking with. We shall see.

Forbes uncovers the vast liberal conspiracy

Throughout the Bush II era (and even before that), right-wingers had become quite adept at mocking and finger-pointing. Childish insults, full-out verbal attacks and just plain whining have been trademarks of this mindset. After all, who else fought so hard to make the word 'liberal' an insult?

So, what to make of an article from Forbes Magazine, a longtime bastion of fiscal conservatism? In their most recent issue, to mark the inauguration of President Obama (once again, it sounds pretty darn nice saying that), Forbes decided to rank the liberals. Meaning, of course, to make a list of who they think are the most influential liberals in the U.S. media.

Not surprisingly, if you work for a newspaper or television news operation, you are basically a liberal. Never mind that the mainstream media is really only as liberal as the ultraconservative corporations that own it. Humorously, the Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal, that longtime bastion of radical leftist commentary, is branded a 'liberal.' Who the hell wrote this list? Bill O'Reilly?

And how do they arrive at this thing anyway? Forbes defines a 'liberal' as someone who believes in "progressive income taxation; universal health care of some kind; opposition to the war in Iraq, and a certain queasiness about the war on terror; an instinctive preference for international diplomacy; the right to gay marriage; a woman's right to an abortion; environmentalism in some Kyoto Protocol-friendly form; and a rejection of the McCain-Palin ticket.

In other words, if you're a tree-hugging vegetarian that hates Bush, voted for Obama, doesn't like pollution, bitches about HMO's, doesn't believe in God, favors civil liberties, has dark skin and/or works at a major newspaper, then congratulations! You are a liberal!

Again, I really have no idea what to make of this list. It's loaded pretty heavily with bloggers and newspaper columnists. No Barbara Streisand, Sean Penn, Michael Moore or any of the other usual suspects (and I count them as part of the media). I'll be honest in saying that I haven't even heard of half of these people.

Of course, most readers of this blog are familiar with some of the names found here. Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" is #5. MSNBC/Air America host Rachel Maddow comes in at #7, just below... get ready... Oprah(!!!). MSNBC's Keith Olbermann got snubbed, and the gang at Forbes must really hate him, because Chris Matthews made it on here. They must assume that, because Olbermann also works for NBC Sports, he can't possibly be a liberal. Matthews cut his teeth working in the Carter Administration, so, by golly, he must be a liberal!

Apparently, if you're cranky, hate everyone and are an atheist, you are automatically a liberal. That's the only possible explanation for the inclusion of Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan.

The names that are on here are quite puzzling. Lots of representation from the dead tree division of the media, as there are a large number of newspaper columnists and editors here. The usual suspects, like Dowd, Freidman and Krugman (who finished #1).
So, make of this silly article what you will. The best response I've seen so far is from blogger Melissa McEwan, who said that "Forbes unintentionally (wrote) the best Onion piece I've read in ages." This whole list will be the topic of very short-lived debate that should only last about a minute or two, about the length of time this nonsensical article really deserves.

All in all, not a bad laugh for a Monday.

...Sometimes you gotta break a few eggs

Just a quick Monday update for all of you...

Don't freep me, bro!

You may notice that the Top Talkers poll has been relaunched. I was hoping not to do it, but there were a few problems with it. For one, I forgot to put The Young Turks (a.k.a. Cenk Uygur) on there. That was a glaring omission on my part. Sorry 'bout that. It's on there now.

I saved the results of the first 1,000 votes, and they will be factored in somehow. If you've already voted, you may do so again.

Furthermore, even after I asked that readers abstain from stuffing the ballot box, it happened anyway. I guess this time I should be a bit more specific - please don't freep the poll. I would prefer if people didn't 'skew' the results or encourage mass attacks to tilt the results. I agree that some fans tend to get a bit overzealous about their favorites, but come on!

Just a humble request. Let's keep this all fair. Please don't phony the results. Thank you.

Sirius, XM begin programming merger

Rolling Stone reports that recently merged satellite providers Sirius and XM will begin merging their lineups this Wednesday, November 12. The programming changes were announced on several channels on each service.

The merge actually started in the weeks following the XM/Sirius deal, as Howard Stern was added to XM’s lineup. Neither Sirius nor XM has announced the realigned station breakdown as of yet, though Sirius’ oldies icon Cousin Brucie will reportedly become available on XM, meaning XM’s own oldies station is in danger of becoming dead air. Other genres across the board will also face similar showdowns between their cross-radio counterparts.

Obama 1260 rolls on

From DCRTV:

"Freedom 570" For WTNT - 11/7 - DCRTV hears that Red Zebra righty talker WTNT is dropping its "McCain 570" moniker with the loss of the Republican in the recent presidential election. It'll now be known as "Freedom 570." RZ will continue to brand lefty talker WWRC as "Obama 1260." (No, it won't become "Socialist 1260," as some GOPers would probably prefer.) Says Greg Tantum, program director of both stations: "The election served as a huge focus group and we heard the overwhelming message the audience wants a choice in what they hear on the radio. We have a series of special events planned between now and the inauguration for both stations to keep the spirit of free and fair speech alive".....

Morning @#!$&!% You!!!

Finally, here's a lesson to be learned. Don't cuss in the studio. Ever. I'm guessing that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has learned this the hard way:

Oops! She did it again!

The following entry reminds me of an old fable:

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp, "Why?"

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

If there's one thing we can probably all agree on, it's that we can always count on Michele Bachmann, the gaffe-prone extremist congressperson from Minnesota, to be Michele Bachmann. And no matter how much she tries to avoid it, she just can't help who she is, or what she truly believes in.

Last week, on an appearance on MSNBC's “Hardball,” Bachmann let it all out, accusing Barack Obama and other Democrats of fostering “anti-American” ideas, and that they should be investigated. Well, that motivated Democrats and supporters to take action. Immediately, roughly $1.3 million dollars in donations were made online to the campaign of her rival, El Tinklenberg. The Democratic Party made the race a high priority, funneling even more support to defeat her. And House Speaker Nance Pelosi visited the district to stump and was able to round up another $1 million dollars to help send Bachmann packing.

Sensing doom (and they've been sensing a lot of doom lately), the Republican Party decided to cut her off, pulling all their financial and advertising support for the candidate who was once assured of victory in the heavily-red area she represents. She led in the polls for awhile, but the latest Survey USA poll shows Tinklenberg leading 47-44 percent. The newest University of Minnesota poll shows a similar result, 45-43 percent in Tinklenberg's favor.

Yes, Bachmann really screwed up this time.

Sensing the hornets nest that she just upset, Bachmann went into damage control mode, issuing a few half-hearted apologies, and claiming that her words were twisted (though it was she who said them on nationwide television). She also claimed that she did not mean to call Obama or any other Democrat “un-American.” And she even taped an apology ad, to begin airing this weekend. Only thing is, everyone knows who Bachmann really is. And they really know that in the end, Bachmann will always be Bachmann.

And much as it's impossible for a zebra to change its stripes, it's likewise difficult for Bachmann to move away from her nasty ultra-partisan demeanor. Thinking nobody else would find out, on Tuesday, Bachmann went on the ultra-right-wing radio talk shows of Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt and Mike Gallagher to plead her case. She evidently felt she could safely preach to the choir of mouth-breathing liberal-haters that could possibly help a sister out. And if she had been apologetic in the mainstream spotlight, she didn't show it here. What she said on these shows was much different than the damage control she's been doing in the mainstream media.

From Hewitt's show:

BACHMANN: All I did on Chris Matthews is I questioned Chris Matthews and said, "look, if John McCain had friends like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger, you’d be all over him Chris, but you’ve laid off of Barack Obama." And so, he was using the word “Anti-American” and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country.

Bachmann did not specify the difference between “anti-American” and “against America,” however. And she expanded her attacks to include Chicago religious figures such as Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger, a rather animated and outspoken white Catholic priest who is renowned for his work in mostly African-American parishes.

Here is what she said on Mike Gallagher’s radio show the same day:

BACHMANN: And they can’t take it because the point is what are Barack Obama’s policies? Are they for America or will they be against traditional American ideals and values? And I’ll tell you what. Punishing tax rates, redistribution of wealth, socialized medicine, inputing censorship in the form of the un-Fairness Doctrine and taking away the secret ballot from the worker has nothing to do with traditional American values. That’s why your listeners need to know. Otherwise the United States may be literally changed forever.

Of course, she also hit up listeners for money to take on the suddenly expanded coffers of her rival, in a desperate plea to fight undesirables like Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

She also blasted NBC's “Today” show and MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, accusing them of conspiring to raise money for her opponent. While claiming to 'call Matthews on the carpet,” she pulled the 'blame the media' card, claiming elsewhere that Matthews and others twisted her words and goaded her into making ridiculous statements.

And that's why the 'blame the liberal media' card is faltering so badly for the reactionary crowd. It's one that's been used for decades by right-wingers in their feeble attempts to blame everyone else for their problems. Sarah Palin and others with the McCain campaign have been using the same excuse to cover for her ineptitude with reporters, and that's why most of Palin's rare interviews have been with friendly suck-ups such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson. But let's be real here – Palin couldn't even stand up to scrutiny from Katie Couric, and she even held Palin's hand throughout their interview together, asking her at one point, "you do realize we're taping this, right?"

Palin and company lashed out at the media for asking questions she deemed none of their business. Meaning that it's all right to exploit her son who's serving in Iraq or the newborn with Down Syndrome, but that her 17-year-old daughter who got knocked up is off-limits. Let's get real here.

No, it is not the media's fault that these morons can't stand up to a talking head when they don't get the puff pieces they want. And the media not there to ask cupcake questions about hair styles and moose hunting. If they want their assess kissed by media personalities, stick to the overly partisan media that is FOX News, Hannity and Hugh Hewitt. The news media is supposed to ask challenging questions, especially to someone who could potentially lead this country. Because if someone like Palin can't stand up to Katie Couric, of all people, how the hell is she going to sit across the table from an intimidating force like Vladimir Putin? Putin doesn't partake in small talk about moose hunting and hockey. Regardless of your opinion of him, he's a hard-ass and a brutal negotiator. Obama at least seems to understand this.

With the likelihood of a President Obama coming closer and closer to fruition, and a filibuster-proof Democrat-controlled senate occurring for the first time since the Carter Administration, perhaps we are seeing a changing tide. People are starting to tire of the divisive culture of 'patriotic correctness,' which seems to stipulate that the majority of Americans are 'un-American.' They are finally starting to see right-wingers for who they really are – a bunch of obnoxious crybabies who wrap themselves in the flag and sing “God Bless The USA” to cover for the fact that their ideas are ruining the very country they claim to love. People are tired of this 'divide and conquer' strategy that's turning the red and the blue into the Bloods and the Crips, especially when the McCain campaign is claiming that some areas of the country are more 'American' than others.

Hate to break it to all of you, but this country belongs to all of us. And if it takes the defeats of people like John McCain and Michele Bachmann to finally drum it into everyone's heads, then so be it.

You can donate to El Tinklenberg's campaign, if you so choose, at this link.

Loose lips could sink the dip

Conventional political wisdom would dictate that, if in a tight election race, a candidate should not do anything to embarrass either themselves or the people he or she represents. Don't insult or alienate likely voters. And above all, don't rock the boat. That seems to be the sane thing to do.

Then again, Michele Bachmann is not necessarily a sane person.

The incumbent congresswoman, who represents Minnesota's 6th district, has garnered a bizarre reputation during her four years in the U.S. House. She's a hardcore partisan flamethrower. And she's flat-out nuts. She once greeted President Bush with a kiss on the lips. Then there was that time she hid in the bushes to spy on a gay/lesbian rally. She had paranoid delusions and once filed a suspect police report alleging she was kidnapped. She often spouted crazy conspiracy theories. And she worships Ann Coulter. Bachmann has even inspired two sites attacking her, unusual for a representative. She's the crazy reactionary Republican for people who think Katherine Harris is too normal and Sarah Palin too rational.

Bachmann has a hard-fought reputation for saying really crazy stuff to the media. And her most recent television appearance, on MSNBC's Hardball, could finally be her undoing.

In an interview Thursday with show host Chris Matthews, Rep. Bachmann seemed to be channeling former red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy. She demanded the news media investigate what she calls "anti-American sentiment" in Congress, and even slammed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as "anti-American." She called for a resurrection of the old House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which was charged during that era with fighting "un-American" ideas. Mostly, what they fought against was liberals and hippies. Sleazy red-baiting politicians like Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon infamously used HUAC to get their names in the papers and scare the hell out of their voters.

Bachmann held nothing back in her tirade. “What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would,” she said. “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the American people would love to see an expose like that.”

On Obama she said, “Absolutely, I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.” Ironically, the day before, she said, “If the presidency would somehow go to Barack Obama, I would welcome him to the 6th District as well. As a matter of fact, I would put my hand on his shoulder and give him a kiss if he wanted to.” Obviously, her mouth moves faster than her mind.

As a former resident of Minnesota, I realize that the state has long had a reputation of bucking the national political norm. The state Democratic party is actually called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), the result of a merger between two state parties back in the 1940s. Even Obama will have 'DFL' next to his name on Minnesota's ballots. State Republicans, for decades following Watergate, called themselves the Independent Republican Party (IR). Minnesota was the only state that went for local icon Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election.

And then there were the politicians themselves. Populist liberal crusader Paul Wellstone, one of the most-loved (by liberals and moderates) and most-derided (by far-right Republicans) politicians in the history of the state, was elected to the Senate (twice) with help from an off-the-wall campaign and a dilapidated green school bus. But he was running against incumbent Rudy Boschwitz, an utter flake who ran a really sleazy campaign that turned off many rational voters. Given many Minnesotans' cynicism toward typical political hijinks, 'third' parties are quite popular in the state. Independent campaigners were elected as governor twice in the 1990s. Former Republican-turned independent Arne Carlson won the seat in 1990 after waging a strong third party campaign, and was recruited by the Republican party only two weeks prior to the election after their own nominee got caught in an underage hot tub sex party scandal. Most famously, Carlson's successor, former wrestler and actor James George Janos, ran an independent bid for governor in 1998 under his stage name, Jesse Ventura, and beat two well-known party politicians. To be fair, his rivals, Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Hubert “Skip” Humphrey III, were stiff, predictable establishment hacks who were strongly aligned with their respective parties and didn't excite the population at large. The off-the-wall Ventura was effective at waving his middle finger at the two parties and promising to move away from politics as usual. Oh, yeah, then there was Harold Stassen, former governor and perennial longshot presidential candidate. And then there's this year's Senate election, where comedian and former Air America Radio host Al Franken has a very good shot at upsetting the incumbent, Coleman, who won his seat six years ago only after a tragic plane crash claimed the life of his opponent Wellstone merely a few weeks before the election. Not surprisingly, a credible independent, Ventura and Ross Perot acolyte Dean Barkley, is running relatively strong in that race.

Minnesotans, for the most part, tend to be very middle-of-the-road, not overly partisan. I think they're some of the smartest and savviest voters in the country. They are often too sophisticated to fall for typical political gimmickry and grandstanding. Witness perhaps the state's 'reddest' district, the affluent western suburbs of Minneapolis, where retiring congressman Jim Ramstad has garnered a strong reputation as a very moderate and inoffensive Republican who has constantly stayed above partisan squabbles, concentrating instead on serving the needs of his district. He's a very good congressman. Minnesota, considered a 'purple' state that still leans toward the Democrats in presidential elections, has a long reputation for keeping reactionary partisan flamethrowers out of public office, Bachmann aside. Right-wing political fundamentalism typically doesn't go over well with a constituency known for being mostly laid-back Lutherans. Bachmann's antics couldn't possibly be doing her any favors in her home state. She could easily win this district, as it is heavily Republican. In fact, these types of races are often stupid-proof for incumbents. Instead, she's inching closer to the political fight of her life. All because her mouth got in the way.

After accusing the Democratic side of Congress of being everything short of 'traitors' in her scathing, unhinged television tirade, Democrats fought back where it counts. Hard. Immediately, her DFL rival, El Tinklenberg, started receiving a windfall of support from across the country, with more than half a million dollars in donations flowing into the campaign's coffers. At one point, Tinklenberg's campaign was pulling in $200 a minute. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just made the race high priority in their 'Red to Blue' campaign of taking Republican districts. After running four or five points behind the incumbent in recent polls, Tinklenberg stands a strong chance of closing the gap, and possibly taking the whole thing. Overnight, Bachmann has become his strongest fundraiser.

The race was already closer than it should have been, with only a few points separating them in the polls. But Bachmann is obviously looked upon by many there as a hard-right goofball, much too fundamentalist, much too reactionary and too much of a grandstander for the polite, fiscally conservative suburban and rural Minnesotans she represents, and her latest antics could very well be the straw that broke the elephant's back. Feather boas are one thing in the Land of 10,000+ Lakes, but hard-right flamethrowing is tougher to swallow than lutefisk and Grain Belt beer in Miami. Considering that Democratic candidates across the country (and especially in Minnesota) are giddy about a potential Obama surge helping down-ticket candidates, and Republicans are grousing about being saddled with the dysfunctional campaign of John McCain and the much-derided Sarah Palin, this could be the year that some rather unsavory, vindictive and mentally unstable characters, like Michele Bachmann, finally get their walking papers.

There's a lesson to be learned in all of this. Playing the part of a crazed, obnoxious radical Republican typically only works if running for office in a safe cant-lose red state. Politicians in, say, South Carolina can wrap themselves in Confederate flags and claim Jesus rode dinosaurs and watch their poll numbers shoot through the roof (no offense intended, natch, to my faithful S.C. readers). But in a hotly contested state like Minnesota (and there's a reason the Republican held their convention in St. Paul this year), and in a lukewarm red district that seems uncomfortable with embarrassing partisan rhetoric, perhaps going apeshit on national television less than three weeks before an election is not the best political strategy. How “American” would she look if normal Americans tossed her out of office? At least she has a potential career as a crazy right-wing television pundit to fall back on. Move over Ann Coulter.

The cat killed my monitor (and a few other things)

Didn't have the opportunity to do an elaborate entry, as my mischeivous cat decided to climb up on top of my computer monitor and vomit in it, shorting out some circuits and pretty much ruining the whole thing. Thankfully, the place didn't go up in flames, though the smell is pretty nasty. I'll make this one short and sweet, as I hunt down a new monitor (perhaps a flat panel LCD?).

Strong numbers for Maddow on MSNBC

I was going to write a whole long thing about MSNBC, but time (and monitor) restrictions have put that on hold. Nevertheless, an update on the network's newest host, Rachel Maddow. After only a few weeks, it looks like MSNBC has a small hit on its hands.

On Tuesday night, the live airing of "The Rachel Maddow Show" was MSNBC's top-rated broadcast Tuesday night. It even unseated Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" as the network's top show that evening.

Maddow drew 1.8 million total viewers compared to Olbermann's 1.6 million. Maddow also outdrew Olbermann in the advertiser-friendly 25-54 demographic, taking 25,000 more young adults than her lead-in "Countdown."

Wednesday's numbers were also good, with Maddow eclipsing CNN's "Larry King Live" in all reported demographics. And preliminary numbers for Thursday show she barely edged Olbermann.

And the hosts of "Morning Joe" congratulated Rachel Maddow on her ratings success on Thursday morning. Joe Scarborough, who has sparred with Maddow in the past, had particularly kind words for her, saying:

TV folk are some of the craziest folk I know, as Krusty the Clown might say. But she is a good, good person. We probably don't agree on anything politically. But she's respectful of people, and it's great. File this under, one of those good people doing well."

A few more items for the weekend

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has an article about Ms. Maddow.

Speaking of Minnesota, incumbent Senator Norm Coleman must be getting desperate, as he tries to slime rival Al Franken with that Gloria Wise nonsense and wingnuts cream their pants. And none of this mudslinging is doing either any good, as it appears independent candidate and Jesse Ventura crony Dean Barkley is creeping up. Sad, really.

FAIR has a column entitled "The Myth of Pro-Obama Media Bias."

OMG!!! Social networking has overtaken porn in web searches! This is HUGH111!

Greenfield Named America's Funniest Host

AllAccess reports that WVNJ/Oakland, NJ-New York morning host Sam Greenfield was unveiled as the "Funniest Host in America" at the NAB Radio Show in Austin Thursday morning. Greenfield won a national contest sponsored by Comic Wonder and was present at the convention to accept the honor.

Greenfield formerly hosted mornings on progressive talker WWRL in New York.

Maddow finally gets own MSNBC show

After months and months of speculation, Air America host Rachel Maddow has finally landed her own show on MSNBC, which will debut on September 8.

"The Rachel Maddow Show." will replace Dan Abrams’s "Verdict" in the 9P ET time slot.

An openly gay woman, unapologetic liberal and Rhodes scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University, Maddow has drawn a passionate following during her stint this year as an analyst for MSNBC.

Network executives are now trying to capitalize on her rising popularity, hoping that she will further their efforts to remake MSNBC as the destination for lively political news and analysis.

"Rachel is unbelievably talented and brilliant; her breadth and depth of knowledge of politics and news is astonishing and I'm so excited to give her a place to really showcase what she can do," said MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement.

Abrams, who served as general manager of the channel for a period, will continue in his role as chief legal correspondent for NBC News, making additional contributions to “Dateline” and “Today,” and anchor on MSNBC during the day.

Is Maddow next in line for own MSNBC show?

So, when will Air America host Rachel Maddow ever get her own show on MSNBC?

A profile in the New York Times quotes new network President Phil Griffin as saying of Maddow, "At some point, I don’t know when, she should have a show. She’s on the short list. It’s a very short list. She’s at the top." Maddow appears frequently as a political analyst on MSNBC and substitutes for other hosts on the network, including Keith Olbermann.

From The Times:

"At some point, I don’t know when, she should have a show,” said Phil Griffin, hours before he was promoted on Wednesday to president of MSNBC. “She’s on the short list. It’s a very short list. She’s at the top."

At the moment every slot at night on MSNBC is taken, with David Gregory at 6P handing off to Chris Matthews at 7P, and with Dan Abrams at 9P following Mr. Olbermann at 8P. But some shuffling could be in the offing; Mr. Matthews’s contract, for example, is up next year.

For her part, Ms. Maddow, who has been a ubiquitous presence as a political analyst on MSNBC this campaign season, said she is ready whenever the call should come. To hasten that process, she recently hired Mr. Olbermann’s agent, Jean Sage.

"They know I would love to do it," Ms. Maddow, 35, said over a recent lunch below 30 Rockefeller Plaza. "I’m going to let them decide what they want to do about me. I’m saying yes every time they ask me to be on television."

O'Reilly prefers cheese with his whine

If you ever desired more proof that right-wingers are perhaps the most thin-skinned people on the planet, then read further...

Anyone who even casually follows the ongoing soap opera that is cable news knows that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly can't stand each other. Olbermann constantly blasts O'Reilly on his weeknight show, Countdown, which airs opposite The O'Reilly Factor.

The mere mention of Olbermann's name gets O'Reilly hot. Absolutely livid. Who could forget the time on his radio show when he went on a rather nasty and ridiculous on-air outburst and threatened to sic 'FOX Security' on a prank caller at the very moment he said, "I think Keith Olbermann's show..."?

O'Reilly hates Olbermann so much that he makes it a point to never mention his adversary specifically by name (though he has had surrogates do it). Rather, he attacks Olbermann's boss and NBC's owner, General Electric. Olbermann, on the other hand, often refers to O'Reilly by such nicknames as the Sisyphus of morons, the Big Giant Head, and Ted Baxter.

Now, the war of words has escalated. Olbermann had fun last week ripping on the old Inside Edition outtake that featured O'Reilly erupting into a profanity-laced tantrum. He even jokingly brought in a phony body language expert to dissect the now-infamous clip. In retaliation, O'Reilly, who rarely misses a chance to attack those he sees as his enemies, is calling GE's chief executive a "pinhead" and a "despicable human being" who bears responsibility for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq.

Howard Kurtz, media columnist for The Washington Post, claims that the war is moving higher up the food chain. Allegedly, there have been back-channel discussions involving the likes of News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch, Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker and General Electric's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt.

One day last summer, Ailes called Zucker on his cellphone, furious after Olbermann trashed him on his show. Ailes allegedly warned Zucker that if Olbermann didn't lay off the attacks on him or his network, he would sic his attack dog, O'Reilly, on NBC. He threatened to use the company's New York Post as well. Zucker evidently told Ailes to go pound sand. Perhaps Ailes should have used this guy.

Since then, Olbermann hasn't let up, leading O'Reilly to toss out ludicrous accusations toward GE, claiming that, because they do some limited business in Iran, that they are causing the deaths of American soldiers (though FOX News' constant cheerleading for the Iraq War hasn't). The kicker was when he claimed that "If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt."

In addition, several years ago, O'Reilly's agent also allegedly contacted Zucker on a few occasions, demanding that Olbermann and other MSNBC personalities, such as Joe Scarborough lay off his client. So, in other words, O'Reilly, who has never been afraid to attack those he despises from the safe confines of his television studio bunker, has others fight his battles in the real world. Witness last year, when FOX News' Geraldo Rivera threatened to kick Olbermann's ass.

Of course, FOX News denies that Ailes has ever made such demands to NBC, claiming that he has no editorial control over the content of host-driven shows such as O'Reilly's or even the New York Post. GE and NBC executives have maintained otherwise. Ironically, the New York Post published a hit piece on Olbermann just this morning. Interesting.

Coincidentally, Ailes' friends in the White House today sent a nastygram to NBC regarding what they view as unfair coverage of the President. They obviously hate them for their freedom.

It is true that the "O'Reilly Factor" gets better overall ratings than "Countdown." One would think an established twelve year-old show up against a much younger counterpart would. But while O'Reilly does better overall when total viewers are taken into account, the playing field between the two shows is much more even in the much-desired 25-54 demographic. On occasion, Countdown even bests O'Reilly in this group. MSNBC’s research claims that the median age for O’Reilly’s audience is 71, while Olbermann’s is 59. Guess what age group advertisers would rather have?

Now, Olbermann must be doing something right. Right-wingers absolutely detest the man. And the hostility on their side gets even more heated whenever Olbermann gives one of his "Special Comments." The most recent one, about Bush claiming he gave up golf as a sacrifice in these hard times, must have ruffled a few feathers. Syndicated radio conservotalker Mark Levin demanded that NBC suspend Olbermann, and called him "Tokyo Rose in a suit," which smacks of irony because, like Olbermann, Levin is himself an opinionated media commentator.

Now, what does one make of all this bickering and whining? Ailes is an interesting person to talk about any of this, since he earned his bones in the cutthroat world of Republican politics, where he even co-wrote that infamous "Willie Horton" ad for George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential bid. At the helm of FOX News since its inception, he has encouraged right wing pit bulls such as O'Reilly and Sean Hannity to be as nasty as they wanna be. To be on the opposite end and pretend to be the victim (typical of many right wing attack dogs) is the epitome of hypocrisy.

Many people are just plain fed up with all this dick swinging among the talking heads. I for one feel reminiscent for the time when cable news was about news, something that has been sorely missing since Ted Turner sold CNN to Time Warner and bolted to his Montana ranch. But since cable news these days is more about sizzle than steak, and opinionated, egocentric personalities have turned the genre into AM talk radio with pictures, we are constantly bombarded with self-righteous, mostly right-wing blowhards who's shit don't stink.

However, in this landscape of obnoxious helmet-haired empty suits who wrap themselves in the flag and tell us what to think, screaming head pundits who shout talking points at each other, ultra-moral finger-waggers who get outraged at everyone else's behavior and celebrity-obsessed dim bulbs, we have Keith Olbermann, who has carved out a niche as an iconoclast courting the equally-pissed off left. In addition to his occasional 'Special Comments,' which often rip into the Bush Administration in ways most media personalities are afraid to do, he also digs deeper into stories that other media outlets are either too scared or too lazy to. While he obviously despises celebrity gossip tales, he does the bare minimum glossing-over of them, though with a somewhat humorous snide undertone that screams "they're making me talk about this." And he speaks for many of us who often find ourselves giving the middle finger to pompous bastards like Bill O'Reilly. And he effectively uses humor, perhaps the sharpest of all verbal weapons, to accomplish this. He's also not above making fun of himself, something that can't be said about his more arrogant counterparts.

For that, and in this lousy cable news environment that we are limited to, that's good enough for me. I, for one, am glad Keith Olbermann is around to kick some O'Reilly ass, and expose him and his ilk for the frauds they are.

How NOT to be a pundit

Give or take, there are roughly 4781 AM radio stations in the United States. Since music programming has, for the most part, departed for the higher-clarity FM band, that doesn't leave a whole lot for these stations to choose from. With so many AM stations lacking programming, sometimes they have to go the desperation route.

That's probably what happened in the case of KRLA in Los Angeles. The station, owned by Salem Communications, programs a typical Salem conservotalk format. Salem's talk roster is the low-hanging fruit of talk radio, with a lineup consisting of Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Bill Bennett and other third or fourth tier talkers. And KRLA also employs a local guy - Kevin James. Judging from James' embarrassing appearance yesterday on MSNBC's Hardball, perhaps they should dig a little deeper to come up with hosts that actually know what they're talking about.

Yesterday, James was a guest pundit (one of those guys stuffed in a little digital box on the screen), along with Air America Radio's Mark Green. Coming off as a screaming, shouting and, dare I say, unhinged lunatic (think Sean Hannity after four cans of Red Bull), he looked utterly ridiculous. He went through the typical wingnut pundit cliches, shouting talking points, not letting anyone else get their say, ignoring questions from the host, Chris Matthews, and above all, making very little sense. Here's an account from a blogger at the Houston Chronicle:

In a very funny, yet sad exchange on Hardball yesterday, host Chris Matthews humiliated right wingnut radio jabber Kevin James over the "appeasement" uproar stupidly started by GWB in Israel yesterday. This guy looks about 16 years old and is like a giant Chatty Kathy - just pull the string and he repeats the same talking points in order ad infinitum. Chris couldn't control the conversation, or this guy's mouth, so he tried to quizz him on appeasement by Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of Britain in the '30s, and the Munich Agreement where Britain ceded part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. This guy didn't even know who Chamberlain was, how he got tagged with the appeaser label, or what he did.

I'd put together a summary myself, but I've seen the video and still have no idea what James was talking about. Maybe I'm just tired. Suffice it to say, James got owned. Bad.

He got punked pretty thoroughly by Matthews, who, despite being a bit creepy and obnoxious himself, knows when to call 'bullshit.' Matthews shut him down with a question about a historical point, which James sidestepped by hammering the "Obama is linked to Hamas" nonsense. Mark Green, who was reduced to hardly saying anything without James screaming over him, nevertheless got in a rather humorous line, blurting out, "When you're in a hole, you stop digging."

Seemingly, James is typical of many right-wing media goons today. They follow the playbook written by former Senator Joe McCarthy back in the 1950s. McCarthy, as many historians know, wildly accused many of being covert Communists, particularly government officials. Now, it was mostly bullshit - he didn't have much proof of commies infiltrating the government, and made up for it via pure bluster. In other words, he just kept shouting as loud as he could, until his artificial world came crashing down live on television. And he fell pretty hard. Today's bloviators seem to be working from the same playbook. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

Here's the video of James, his foot and his mouth:



As you can see, James obviously has been reading "Right-Wing Cable News Punditry for Dummies." He almost had down all the steps, though his execution was rather poor. Let's go through the how-to list:

1. Wear a slick, conservative suit. Dark blue is preferred. Don't forget the power tie. If you are a self-styled 'man of the people,' look like a gritty Santa Claus or are basically just a slob, an open-collar oxford shirt or favorite biker gear is acceptable. For the ladies, whatever works. Avoid powder blue pantsuits. Don't be a Hillary.

2. Memorize your talking points. Stick to the list. Don't deviate.

3. When the host introduces you and gives you the cue, come out swinging. Hard. Pretend it's 1990 and you're fighting Mike Tyson. You can take a breath later.

4. Talk loud, talk fast, talk forceful and don't let anyone else interrupt you. This is your moment to shine. Andy Warhol gave you this fifteen minutes, and dammit, you have every right to it.

5. If you're paired with a lefty counterpart, don't let him/her talk. Whatever they have to say is pointless. They're misinformed, out of touch and unhinged. Just keep screaming your talking points. Nothing else matters.

6. Key words: Terrorist, traitor, liberal, Muslim, radical, hippie, unhinged, wild-eyed, socialist. Use them, dare I say, liberally. Don't forget them - this is the glue that holds your ideas together.

7. You can call your opponents any name you want, or affix any label. But don't violate Godwin's Law. If you refer to your enemies as "Nazis," even the friendly FOX News hosts will call you on it. That stuff belongs with 14 year-olds on video game message boards. And with George W. Bush.

8. If, by chance, the host calls you out on your misinformed talking points and rambling thought processes, just keep talking. Repeat step #4. Talk louder, talk faster, talk even more forceful and don't let anyone else interrupt you. Drown out both the host and counterpart(s).

9. Don't forget to plug your show, website, political organization and/or think tank!

10. If things wind up going south on the show, you can still save face. The next day, on your radio show or blog, don't accept that you did anything wrong. You were flawless! You took 'em to school! Blame it all on the 'liberal media' that's been out to get you from the beginning. It won't matter - your listeners think you're a god.

More:

Here's the Radio Tranquilizer at his whiniest finiest. He invoked rule #10! Brian the insult comic dog thinks Matthews owes James an apology. Boo hoo! Pass the tissues. And if James was unfairly beat up on because he's on a shitty radio station, then why did he agree to go on MSNBC in the first place? And what about Maloney's good friend Michelle Malkin, who got her own bony ass handed to her by Matthews in 2004? Yeah, she's a lightweight too. Brian Baloney lives in his own fantasy world, where conservatives are allowed to say the most vile things about people they don't like, yet cry like babies and demand apologies whenever they get dissed. Grow a set and stop being such a pussy! Sheesh!

Click here for MediaBistro's take. No, it's not the fat guy from King of Queens.

"Race" gets a radio place, and Maddow holds her place

As rumored a couple weeks ago, MSNBC's Race for the White House will indeed be simulcast on Air America Radio, according to TVNewser. The simulcast will start this Wednesday at 6P.

The show, hosted by David Gregory, also features Air America's Rachel Maddow as a panelist. The simulcast will replace the first hour of her three-hour radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show. That hour is currently prerecorded to accommodate her television schedule.

"We're enthused to air this new MSNBC show with Air America's own Rachel Maddow," said Mark Green, president of Air America Radio, in the release. "Her smarts and wit light up Race for the White House just as they do her own evening show."

Maddow has become increasingly popular as an MSNBC contributer and fill-in host. She even chased a rather tongue-tied and thin-skinned Joe Scarborough off the set during one exchange last week. "Joe didn't walk off. He chose not to participate in the final couple of minutes of the discussion because he felt the conversation didn't fit his role as a political analyst," MSNBC spokesperson Jeremy Gaines told HuffPo. Of course, right-wing bloggers are wagging their fingers at 'dem mean librulz' for slapping around the alleged Republican intern slayer and pushing him to make a 'Race for the Exit Door.' Sounds like somebody better call the whaaaambulance.

After that little disagreement, with Scarborough gone during the "Panel Predictions" segment, Maddow worked to quell any outstanding problems, saying, "First of all Joe and I will go out for a beer and hash this all out, that's my prediction."

And in other Air America news, this week Joy Behar of ABC's The View hosts American Afternoon, the show that replaced Randi Rhodes when she left the network for Nova M Radio earlier this month.

Air America, MSNBC connect on "Race"

Air America Radio's Rachel Maddow, who's radio show is quickly becoming one the networks' most successful, is quickly becoming a TV star via MSNBC. And now, it looks like her TV and radio worlds will collide.

According to Rory O'Connor, MSNBC is in talks with Air America to simulcast their new show, Race for the White House weeknights on both outlets.

Maddow is currently a frequent guest on the show, hosted by MSNBC White House correspondent David Gregory. So far, nothing is confirmed, but if the move goes through, possibly by next week, Maddow will become a regular panelist. The show airs weeknights at 6P ET, and will basically make up the first hour of Maddow's radio show.

Maddow's radio show was recently expanded from two to three hours, extending into the 8-9P ET hour when some affiliates, particularly KTLK in Los Angeles, demanded more Maddow.

O'Connor has a nice profile of Maddow, which can be found here.

(Also thanks to TVNewser and Johnny Dollar for the heads-up.)

In other Air America news, another new show is rumored to be in the planning stages, this one by an actual politician. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is in talks with the network to host his own weekend show. The San Francisco Chronicle says Mayor Newsom has a handshake deal with the network

"They said I could do anything I want, talk - take callers - whatever," the mayor said, adding that his show will probably air Saturday afternoon.

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross also took suggestions for the name of the new show. Some of the reader submissions include Mayor McDreamy's Neighborhood, Something New (as in New-som) and - the one Matier and Ross liked best - Hair America.

From the "This is how rumors get started" department

Updated 12/10

I thought this one was worth passing along. It's a highly unsubstantiated rumor, so take it for what it's worth.

The rumor comes via R.S. Janes at BartBlog (a.k.a. Bartcop). It claims that MSNBC may have found that host they've been looking for. And it ain't Rosie O'Donnell. This rumor claims that MSNBC regular and Air America Radio host Rachel Maddow may get the nod. Here's more:

Finally, a note under the door says Air America Radio’s Rachel Maddow will be offered the hour following Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, but only with a ‘funny’ co-host, as it appears increasingly unlikely that The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart or Bill Maher and others will step in for the kind of unimpressive money and short-term contract that are on the table. Rumor is the cable channel’s execs are impressed with Maddow, but she’s not perceived as ‘funny’ enough by herself for the uptempo news/comedy format they’re seeking. Paul F. Tompkins and Joel McHale, that guy Keith has on who hosts E!s “The Soup,” have been mentioned as co-hosts, as well as Rachel’s AAR colleague Randi Rhodes, although Randi is seen by some as too partisan and combative. If this goes through, the prime-time weekday line up for MSNBC would then be “Hardball”; “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”; the as-yet-unnamed Rachel Maddow show, and “Live with Dan Abrams.” Expect a press release in January.

Again, this is just a rumor, and one that hasn't hit the big media gossip sites yet, so do with it what you wish.

UPDATE: TVNewser says a test pilot for a potential new show has been taped, featuring Maddow and MSNBC prime time VP Bill Wolff.

No deal between MSNBC and Rosie (Whew! That was close!)

The other day, I wrote about MSNBC and their talks with Rosie O'Donnell, about the possibility of adding her show to air after Keith Olbermann. Well, those flirtations didn't last long. It appears MSNBC backed out of the deal.

Some rumors claim that money was the dealbreaker, or that O'Donnell would not commit for more than one year. MSNBC wanted a long-term commitment. Still, one might speculate that possible media blowback from the negotiation rumors could have played a part.

On a blog post on her site, she claims that her "career as a pundit is over b4 it began." It was almost a done deal, but she attributes the collapse of the deal to comments she made publicly about it at a Miami book fair over the weekend. Obviously, spilling the beans didn't sit too cool with MSNBC brass. It appears they nixed the deal once and for all.

Why would they entertain signing her for her own news show? Well, she gets ratings. Believe it or not, The View did very well during her short stint, and fell off after she left. Plus, with the Writers Guild strike crippling the late night talk show landscape, NBC/Universal evidently needed a strike-proof Plan B. That's really the only possible explanation.

The killing of the deal is likely sad news for a possible rival, Bill O'Reilly of FOX Noise. His reaction to the possible signing? "Oh, it's on!" The constipated one started his show the other night exclaiming, "Huntley, Brinkley, Chancellor, Brokaw...and now, Rosie" under the headline "Far Left Merger." In other O'Reillyisms, he decried how NBC had "embraced the radical left agenda in pursuit of ratings" and adding his own suggested contributors ("It is not true that Sean Penn will be co-anchoring the NBC Nightly News...It is also not true that Hugo Chavez will become their chief foreign correspondent." Ho hum.

The irony is that O'Reilly was so delusional that he was trying to make as if she would be competing head-to-head with him. Ehh... not so fast, Bill-O. Your competitor is still and will always likely be Keith Olbermann. You know, the one who's name will not pass your lips? Who actually stands a legitimate chance of kicking your ass once and for all by this time next year? Yeah, that guy. But he's much more obsessed with Rosie, so in his weird little world, he's more comfortable bullying women than men.

But now we can all breathe a sigh of relief that it won't come to be. Or at least I can. And now, I can offer up my own personal opinion on the matter, which I neglected to do the other day.

Let's face it, O'Donnell would have been a terrible fit for MSNBC. Or any self-described news channel. She's a walking, talking train wreck, who seems to be more about making news herself than covering or talking about it. Her bombastic style is love-it-or-hate-it. She makes too much news herself, since the mainstream media is obsessed with the off-kilter antics of Hollywood celebrities. That's why we hear so much about Paris Hilton's criminal record and Britney Spears' divorce. And I certainly don't think either of them deserve news commentary shows on MSNBC.

We may have a few things in common politically, but I've never liked Rosie O'Donnell. Going back to her days on VH-1 in the early 90's, I thought she was one of the most obnoxious people I've ever seen on television. For a comedian, I never thought she was funny. Just irritating. I turned the channel whenever she came on. She went on to do movies that I made sure not to watch. Then there was that daytime talk show, but I don't watch daytime TV. And then The View, which I avoided like the plague anyway. If I want to watch people scream at each other, Jerry Springer is a more entertaining choice.

All in all, despite her outspoken political views, she would make a poor pundit. Sure, MSNBC would get a ton of press out of the deal. She gets that reaction out of the media. And I'm sure that's why the network teased the possibility of an O'Donnell deal, without really committing to it. But news commentators should talk about the news, not be the news. And giving her a show would absolutely kill their credibility.

There's talk about seeking out another pundit to host a show in that time slot. Some, such as Cenk Uygur of Air America's The Young Turks have their own suggestions. He offers up Air America hosts such as Rachel Maddow, who already does some work for MSNBC and would actually be a good move if MSNBC were to take a left turn, and even NBC's David Shuster, who actually would be a strong choice.

Currently, Dan Abrams' show seems to be a temporary thing, and while it is good, is not effectively holding on to the audience of red-hot lead-in Olbermann. Joe Scarborough couldn't do it before him either. And the rest of MSNBC's nightly lineup consists of prison documentaries and pedophile snaring.

But enough of the screaming pundit approach. That's played out, and it's bad enough that a channel called 'Headline News' airs Glenn Beck marathons all weekend. I have a novel solution to their quandry. How about a show featuring real news? You know, like CNN did when Ted Turner ran the joint. Or like we still see on BBC News, Nightline, the News Hour on PBS, occasionally on Anderson Cooper's CNN show, and other places? Likely, Olbermann can attribute his success to covering news stories not shown on other outlets. When has FOX Noise ever done an actual story on waterboarding? We're not talking about two pundits screaming at each other over it, we're talking about covering it as an actual story. MSNBC could tread where most cable outlets don't seem to go anymore, and most certainly not in the 9-10P ET hour with Larry King on CNN and Asshat and Doormat on FAUX. Sure, NBC might not have the global news coverage muscle that CNN and FOX have, but those guys squander it anyway, and MSNBC has more than enough to work with.

Some might say that doing real news is a ratings killer, that more people tune in to catch the latest exploits of Paris, Britney and Dog the Bounty Hunter. But the news channels need to constantly come up with new ideas. Because people will eventually tire of the TMZ approach to news, and with an important election on the horizon, and the growing woes of rising oil prices, environmental issues, international strife, shoddy health care, and a Congress that spends more time bickering with each other than getting shit done, people are going to want to find out what exactly is going on in the world. The exploits of Britney Spears, and even Rosie O'Donnell, will be the least of our concerns.

MSNBC riding populist wave?

The New York Times has an interesting article today about MSNBC, and their attempts to build around their most successful show, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," a program often critical of the Bush administration, much in the same way rival FOX 'News' is with Democrats and liberals.

MSNBC is increasingly seeking to beef up its nighttime viewing audience, and build around its golden calf. Chris Matthews’s "Hardball" and "Live With Dan Abrams," the two shows that surround "Countdown," regularly take shots at the White House.

And now, two NBC executives acknowledged yesterday that they were talking to Rosie O’Donnell about a prime-time show on MSNBC. Her previous show, ABC's "The View," experienced strong viewership gains during the time she was on. The Times speculates that she could get the 9PM slot, immediately following "Countdown," and go head-to-head with Larry King Live on CNN and "Asshat and Doormat", er, "Hannity and Colmes" on FAUX. "We are talking to her, but we are far from a done deal," says one executive.

Here's more from the article:

Having a prime-time lineup that tilts ever more demonstrably to the left could be risky for General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, which is subject to legislation and regulation far afield of the cable landscape. Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.

“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

Fox News consistently denies any political bias in its programming. But whether by design or not, MSNBC is managing to add viewers at a moment when its hosts echo the country’s disaffection with President Bush.

The channel has done so much as Fox News did beginning in 1996, when the president was Bill Clinton, a Democrat. On some nights recently, Mr. Olbermann has even come tantalizingly close to surpassing the ratings of the host he describes as his nemesis, Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, at least among viewers ages 25 to 54, which is the demographic cable news advertisers prefer. Most of the time, though, Mr. O’Reilly outdraws Mr. Olbermann by about 1.5 million viewers over all at the same hour, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Still, as its most recognizable face, MSNBC has marshaled behind Mr. Olbermann, who on July 3, in an eight-minute “special comment” at the close of his show, addressed President Bush directly and called on him to resign. Two months later, the channel chose Mr. Olbermann to serve as the principal host of its coverage of a major prime-time address by Mr. Bush.

Mr. Olbermann’s “special comments” — more than 20 in the last 12 months, and nearly all of them first-person editorials that find some fault with the administration — have helped increase the ratings of his program by 33 percent in just the last year, to about 773,000 viewers a night, according to Nielsen. With those ratings, Mr. Olbermann’s program surpassed “Paula Zahn Now” on CNN, which was canceled last summer.

Read more in the New York Times.