"Monk" achieves a rare milestone on Friday - its 100th episode, appropriately entitled "Mr. Monk's 100th Case," set around the framing device of a lurid newsmagazine show, "In Focus," with Eric McCormack playing the smarmy host James Curry.

Our regular cast is watching the show - which tracks Monk (Tony Shalhoub) solving his 100th case, naturally - at Curry's home, and while taking it in, Monk is convinced he's made a mistake.

Where this is going is actually pretty obvious, but there's some fairly inspired comedy. Disher's (Jason Gray-Stanford) girlfriend, who performs crime re-enactments in "Mostly crime shows, junk like this," as she tells Curry, demonstrates her, uh, skills to amusing affect. And there's a classic Monk sequence in which he uses a mini-vac to vacuum his vacuum, and an even smaller mini-vac to clean the other mini-vac.

Special guests from previous episodes also turn up to wax poetic about Monk, including John Turturro, Sarah Silverman, Brooke Adams, Andy Kindler, David Koechner, Howie Mandell and Angela Kinsey. After 100 episodes, "Monk" may be a little pro forma, but it remains a whimsically light confection.

- "Monk:" 9 p.m. Friday, USA.

All you need to know about History Channel's "Jurassic Fight Club" in 3 and a half minutes:

In a phone press conference this morning, Joshua Jackson, who stars as Peter Bishop, the son of an embittered and quite likely crazy scientist on Fox's highly anticipated series "Fringe," was asked about his other TV role, as Pacey on "Dawson's Creek," and said, bluntly, "If I get labeled as that it's probably because I'm not good enough to define myself as something else."

Romance may be in the air for Peter and Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), the FBI agent drawn into a world of scientific horrors. There's chemistry between the two in the pilot, which airs Tuesday, but, as Jackson drolly noted, "It would be ... awkward to hit on a woman while her boyfriend's dying right in front of her."

"A slow-burn relationship will develop," series co-creator J.J. Abrams revealed. "It's a dynamic that we will play up. But it needs to be earned. There's a lot going on in their lives - they have more urgent issues to deal with. But definitely, over time, they'll (get close)."

Abrams was asked about his take on the corporate world - in the first episode, Dunham's investigating what would seem to be some sinister activities at Massive Dynamics, where one Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) speaks evasively and elliptically. One Fed tells Dunham with weary resignation that corporations are more powerful than the government.

"The series doesn't quite hit on the corporate conspiracy aspect as much as the pilot might suggest," Abrams said. "What's much more important is the relationship between (Nina's) boss and John Noble's character (the possibly crazy scientist guy).

"Having said that," Abrams added, "I don't trust corporate culture at all."

Another pretty brilliant "Daily Show" clip, evisceratingly demonstrating how Republican talking points flip-flop more than actual flip flops, particularly when it comes to Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

Palin gave a rousing, crowd-pleasing speech last night - she was wittier and more attractive than, say, Rush Limbaugh has ever been. She had little to say in terms of policy specifics, fairly lied about her opposition to that famous "Bridge to Nowhere," misrepresented Barack Obama's policies like a champ (is Champ one of her kids?) and even made fun of the notions of helping poor people and honoring the Constitution.

But she proved to be the sort of "celebrity" that John McCain's campaign had heretofore mocked - she had withering words for speeches that inspire wild applause even as she gave one, no easy trick.

If she can dodge any further embarrassments that were divulged by the McCain team's fairly lazy vetting, which is not a given, Palin will prove to be a most uncanny choice for McCain's ticket. She seems so aw-shucks likable to many who are looking for a reason, any reason, to vote against Obama except, of course, you know, that one because they're not racist or anything.

And any attacks on her political philosophies (even her edict against abortions even in the case of rape) are already somehow being construed as sexism (how touching that the Republicans have become such champions of women's rights, given that McCain is against equal pay for equal work). So Democrats and the media are being warned to treat her with kid gloves, while it's already obvious Palin's pretty good at punching below the belt.

It'll be a wildly entertaining campaign, more compelling than most of the new fall shows and more lurid than the worst reality programs. Offer your predictions: Who'll have an on-air aneurysm first, someone at Fox News or at MSNBC?

Here's a clip from last night's "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" that keenly combines the middling Day One of the Republican National Convention and Hurricane Katrina coverage three years ago:

So The CW premiered "90210" last night without letting any critics seeing it beforehand, and insisted that they weren't hiding anything from anyone, and maybe that was true but usually it's not, and the new show is clearly aimed at people who grew up on the original show but haven't grown up a smidgen since then.

And so:

The first line of dialogue in the show was: "This sucks."

And within five minutes, we saw a guy getting a blow job in his Beverly Hills car outside a Beverly Hills high school. He then protested, "I'm not that guy," and then showed up at a party and then at the Santa Monica Beach, surfing, in a time frame that'd make "24's" Jack Bauer's traversing the Southland's time-space continuum seem palatable.

And the show's colorful granny (Jessica Walters) got to deliver lines like: "Just grab unto those jewels and twist them like a garbage bag" and "I need to finish my memoir before my friend Virginia - we've slept with all the same people." Sometimes, these lines are utter non sequiturs.

Other lines of note: "It's like the Oscars and everybody's Scarlett Johansen;" "You'll learn to dig me; trust me;" "Where's your boyfriend - the cow?"; "I could drive you home and we could swap stories about Harry's penis;" and "Ty Collins is into you - you should be into Ty Collins."

And bad girls behaved badly and bad boys behaved even worse, and the fresh faces from Kansas were kinda overwhelmed but basically weren't, and everyone was f@%&in' hot, and looked like someone 10 years older than they were supposed to be, and the local CW affiliate promoted the living sh!t out of it, interviewing cast members mid-show and even desperately promising more cast-member interview in its subsequent newscast, and it wasn't awful but it wasn't anything approaching good, either, despite the executive producers' insistence that it wouldn't be a "guilty pleasure," which is all it could ever hope to be.

And it seemed like there were an insane number of commercial breaks, and an unscientific poll (looking at a nearby digital clock) suggested that the longest commercial break (six minutes) was longer than the shortest stretch of actual showtime (four minutes). And, anyway, what was up with that ad featuring the Domino's Pizza gangsta penis penne?

This was what America was highly anticipating? No wonder people are jazzed about Sarah Palin.

("Remind me, again - what carries our show? Our breezy chemistry or my shooting the bejesus out of everything in sight?")

If a show becomes fairly successful, and its producers are adept at negotiating, then occasionally they can wheedle a vacation overseas under the guise of producing an episode or two. So it is with "Bones"' two-hour season-four premiere on Wednesday, in which Temperance (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) find themselves in London, delivering lectures at Oxford and Scotland Yard, respectively (alas, the rest of the cast remain back in Washington).

And, of course, they're called upon to help solve a murder, and then, to help prorate their costly time across the pond, yet another murder, extending their time in England over two episodes.

("I deserve better scripting!")

In tonight's first hour, Temperance and Booth are asked to investigate the murder of an heiress with a Paris Hilton bent who had ties to British royalty. Temperance is pursued by her womanizing British counterpart, Ian (Andrew Buchan), who's equally adept at poring through archaeological flotsam as she is, while Booth exchanges glances with Inspector Pritchard (Indira Varma). Their doppelgangers share the same frisson as do our heroes, only it turns out (predictably enough) that they're not so coy about resisting one another, since they don't have a show that has to run a whole bunch of seasons.

("No - I deserve better scripts!")

"Bones" is one of those shows where the scripts are pretty pro forma, but the chemistry among the actors is so inspired that you don't mind the routine plotting and dialogue.

So, Wednesday's installments has all sorts of tired gags about England - Booth cluelessly drives on the wrong side of the road and tries to break the façade of one of the Queen's guards. In the first hour, Booth's railing virulently against England and all things foreign; in the second, he finds it the best thing since spotted dick (oh, grow up; it's a British pudding). Yet, somehow, you're still engaged.

Oh, and Montenegro's (Michaela Corlin) and Hodgins' (T.J. Thyne) relationship takes an unexpected turn. And Pritchard gives Temperance some advice re: Booth that fans have been no doubt shouting for years: Just get it on already.

- "Bones:" 8 p.m. Wednesday, Fox (Channel 11).

(Vic Mackey in a light moment by his standards.)

If you're the typical Hollywood showrunner, and you're on season seven, chances are good you're running on fumes; you're phoning it in. But then, Shaun Ryan's not your typical showrunner, and "The Shield" is not your typical drama.

"The Shield's" not unlike "Prison Break," which returned yesterday, and which is long on adrenaline and rabbits along like a crazed, rabid animal addicted to sordid pulp storylines but is short on common sense. But unlike "Prison Break," "The Shield" still seems to have all the balls that are still darting about in the air make sense in one way or another.

Sure, Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his corrupt crew of L.A. cops are looking at a hard fall somewhere down the line - hell, they've been doing that since episode one - and the stories can seem awfully convoluted, but this hasn't driven me crazy yet and I'm still compelled to find out what'll happen next.

(In case you haven't noticed, this guy's a bad-ass.)

And tonight begins the show's final season, about which Chiklis says of its finale, "What thrills me ... is you will not see this coming. You will not know what we do. Then, when you look back at it, you'll go, 'Holy cow. Yeah, that's exactly right.'"

After watching the first three episodes of the swansong season, I have no reason to doubt him. To catch everyone up: Vic has everyone p!ssed off at him - the Armenian crime gang, the Mexican cartel, L.A.P.D.'s Internal Affairs, a Mayoral candidate (Benito Martinez), even members of his own Strike Force and his estranged family. None of them would weep were he to receive a brutal comeuppance. Few would come to his side were he in need.

And yet, he soldiers on. He's a bizarre blend of sordid self-interest and a demented brand of idealism, ridding the streets of its worst elements while always straddling a line that prevents him from becoming the very thing he hates. And, as his world comes crashing in on him and threatens to expose his sundry corruptions, he nonetheless strives to honestly protect and serve. Of course, he's leaving behind him a heady body count in the name of justice.

And yet - and this is perhaps "The Shield's" particular lapse into cynical brilliance - Vic always has something on those who want to take him down. The system is so utterly corrupt, the show suggests, that Vic's own brazen, craven, abject peccadilloes are but a blip on society's radar screen, and his genius lies in exploiting everyone else, who's trying to pass themselves off as reputable.

The only person more honorable in "The Shield's" world is Captain Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder), whose love/hate relationship with Vic has veered more toward hate recently, but she's hobbled somewhat in her quest for cleaning up her precinct by her lupus.

(And where has being the "good cop" gotten you in this series, Claudette? They gave you some obscure and awful disease! Meanwhile, Vic champions the rights of @ssholes everywhere!)

Tonight, Vic tries to turn attention away from his own many indiscretions by blithely creating a gang war between the Mexicans and Armenians. Next week, in a particularly good episode, his unique talents are required as the gang wars escalate. No main cast members have been offed yet since Shane (Walter Goggins) shockingly killed blew Lem to holy hell, but you get the feeling that it's only a matter of time. "The Shield's" nervous, jittery title sequences have perhaps never been more appropriate than as this season begins.

And now, a tribute to the "Shield" cast members who have persevered though their characters have kind of faded from relevance:

Catharine Dent (Danny Sofer): Vic knocked her up, which took a lot of her edge off; now, she's just sort of showing up at crime scenes and offering exposition.

Michael Jace (Julien Lowe): The particulars of his gay-yet-Christian character have faded into the background; again, he's like one of those "Star Trek" red-shirts, only with immunity from death.

Jay Karnes (Dutch Wagenbach): Clearly, his wry wit has made him a favorite among the show's writers, but he really only seems to be good for solving each episode's B story.

Anyway, if you've strayed from the series, this'd be an excellent time to return to the fold, just before the sh!t comes down and hard. You don't really need all that many refreshers, just to know that Vic has dug himself in even deep and no one really seems to be pulling for him to succeed. The show has three obvious conclusions - Vic dies, Vic gets busted or Vic gets away - but here's guessing that Ryan and his writers have cooked up an even more inspired form of poetic justice.

- "The Shield:" 10 tonight, FX.

This video of John McCain's furtive glances and body language after introducing his Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin suggests why he decided to pick her after only meeting her a couple of times. Enjoy - and be edified.

Three press releases today regarding Hurrican Gustav:

ABC: "This evening, "World News" anchor Charles Gibson will report live from New Orleans - just hours before the storm is expected to hit. ... ABC News will continue to report from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN. "This Week" host and Chief Washington Correspondent, George Stephanopoulos, will anchor and report from the RNC and ABC News correspondent David Wright - who has been covering the McCain campaign for ABC News - will continue to report from the trail for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms.

NBC: "'Nightly News' Anchor and Managing Editor, Brian Williams will report live from the region beginning this evening with an exclusive interview with Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain. NBC News' Ann Curry, Lester Holt, Al Roker and a team of correspondents including Contessa Brewer, Don Teague, Janet Shamlian, Kerry Sanders, Lee Cowan, Mark Potter, Mary Murray, Michelle Kosinski, and others, will also be on location.

"NBC News' Tom Brokaw will head up the network's coverage of the RNC live from St. Paul. He will be joined by the network's political team of Andrea Mitchell, Chuck Todd, David Gregory, John Yang, Luke Russert, Kelly O'Donnell, Mike Taibbi, Savannah Guthrie, Tom Costello, among others."

CBS: "Gustav Press Op! ... We would love if you would consider featuring a story about the Katrina Pet Memorial! Wendy and Lucky Diamond, are judges on CBS' 'Greatest American Dog' and have been animal advocates for the past decade. This is an inspirational story of a woman who rescued her Maltese Lucky ten years ago and since has dedicated her life to helping the underdog!"

Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee explained all you need to know about Jon McCain's strategy in selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate (there're a few potentially dodgy words thrown in here):

Stewart: "In many ways, Governor Palin seems to be the ideological opposite of Senator Clinton."

Bee: "But she's her gynecological twin."

Monday's season-4 premiere of "Prison Break" begins with some voice-over narration: "My name is Michael Scofield and I'm a fugitive."

Hi, Michael!

Michael's (Wentworth Miller) in L.A., rabid for revenge for Sara's (Sarah Wayne Callies) murder last season: "It ends today. I will seek the justice that I now know the system cannot provide."

Well, good luck with that, because before long, the show goes out of its mind - again. I can't keep track of it (and I could follow "The Wire"), and I'm not sure its writers can, either.

(The "Prison Break" cast gather 'round a laptop and try to make sense of a script for the next episode.)

The whole thing revolves around a data card code-named Scylla that belongs to The Company, which isn't, in fact, the CIA. For a while, it seems like The Company's trying to buy the data card back from itself, but that certainly couldn't be the case, and anyway, bodies are dropping like flies at the Roosevelt Hotel during a daytime cocktail party and Michael shows up anxious to add to the body count and then he's told that Sara's alive.

Not that Michael has any reason to believe anything anyone in The Company has told him before, but he drops his guard long enough and then the cops are coming and everyone has to skedaddle and there seems to be some sort of Scylla switcheroo but that doesn't seem to be borne out since the guy who did the switcheroo still has it.

(She's baa-a-aack!)

Some sinister guy says, "This is a security breach that could have catastrophic ramifications for the Company." But wasn't it already a security breach that could have catastrophic ramifications for the Company?

The good thing is, "Prison Break" hurtles along so fast that you're not given much time to scratch your head over every narrative lapse because another one's coming in just a minute or two. Like, Linc (Dominic Purcell) just blithely lets it drop that Sona, the Panamanian prison that Michael broke out of last season, burned down and all the inmates escaped - remember, these psychotic, worst of the worst villains - and Linc is imparting this information from Panama City, where he's enjoying a nice al fresco meal with his son and his girlfriend, and everyone's pretty blasé given that they should be locked in their homes, crouching in fear.

But that does mean that the whole gang will soon be able to get together again and fight The Company at the behest of a Homeland Security Agent (Michael Rapaport) who suffers from curious mood swings - one moment, he's cajoling Michael into performing all sorts of seemingly impossible acts of derring-do (which turn out not to be so impossible if you just sort of edit around the tough scrapes - ulp, he's about to be caught; cut to the next shot and whew, he's escaped); the next, he's crabbing because it's taking more than a couple of hours to do the impossible against a sinister organization he calls "this country's greatest threat to its own democracy." (Like we said, a pretty kinetic show.)

(When we did a search for "Prison Break Violence" at Google Images, this photo was on the second page. Honest!)

So they cook up a gadget called "a digital black hole," capable of stealing digital information from anything it's in close proximity to (mull that, people who work on laptops in coffee shops), and The Company dispatches this imposing guy to kill off anyone who's ever had something to do with this show (which seems just a little extreme). Imposing guy busts into Alex's (William Fichtner) wife's home and kills off a couple of peripheral characters, yet when it comes to his chance to smoke Michael, Linc and Sara as one, he lazily takes a shot through a window from his car and doesn't bother with any follow-up.

(If he concentrates hard enough, Wentworth Miller can almost forget that watching his show is like slamming down a case of power drinks and then spinning in circles for a few minutes.)

Oh, and T-Bag (Robert Knepper), out to kill Michael, manages one more transgressive act. Yum!

As crazily improbable as all this is, perhaps the most astonishing thing that happens in Monday's episode is that Michael is finally shed of that tattoo that forced him to wear all those long-sleeve shirts and jackets in humid, 90-degree heat - in one sitting, with no ill effects. Which is pretty impressive, since I know someone who is trying to have a really tiny tattoo removed and it's taken weeks of treatments and several nasty blisters.

Man, this show winds me up.

- "Prison Break:" 8 and 9 p.m. Monday, Fox (Channel 11).

This comes courtesy of Wonkette.com, from where I stole it:

I know I've been railing against all those "McCain is old" jokes, but this one actually made me laugh.

And this comes from Radar Online - it's the billboard that will greet Republicans arriving at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport en route to the Republican National Convention:

Well, now we know why Showtime's "Californication" picked up an Emmy nomination for its casting: David Duchovny didn't have to do much acting in his portrayal of bed-hopping Hank Moody. Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe for his work in "Californication," has entered rehab for sex addiction.

(Never pose for publicity stills that might come back to haunt you.)

Duchovny has spoken of his addiction in the past. "You have no idea how good it feels to be so popular," he recalled in an interview with London's TV Times. "I lost my virginity at 14, and I've loved women ever since. The way a woman smells - it's the ultimate aphrodisiac." Speaking of going to rehab for the addiction at the time, he joked, "Either these meetings will help me, deal with my addiction, or I'll meet lots of women. Either way I can't lose!"

(I said, never pose for publicity stills that might come back to haunt you.)

In another interview, Duchovny lumped women and drugs together but said that his marriage had helped alleviate the addiction:

"It was a turning point in my life, a conjunction of timing, maturity, luck and attraction. All the pieces fell into place. When you're married you have to deal with yourself. You can't sublimate your pain with drugs and other women. Or should that be women and other drugs?"

(He's just not listening to me with these publicity stills.)

Boy, some networks really go all-out to promote their shows: "Californication" returns Sept. 28. Does anyone think it's a good idea for Duchovny to continue to play this role? Getting into that character seems to have had a deleterious effect on him.

What happens if you're a sex addict and you don't look like David Duchovny? That can't be good.

"Why can't Daddy have salt?"

"Because we love him."

Thus ended last week's episode of "Mad Men," which was more interesting than that closing ceremony of the Olympics that you probably sat through. (Never fear; AMC's allowing you to catch up on Sunday with a "Mad Men" season-two marathon, featuring every episode so far, beginning at 5 p.m. and concluding, at 10 p.m., with the latest episode.)

It was a moment that was fraught with more tension and less affection than it sounds. Of course, were it my house, the exchange might have gone more along the lines of:

"Why can't The Mayor have his EpiPen?"

"Because we want to see how big he'll swell up before he can't breathe."

And now, Sunday's installment, and I've become convinced that AMC just enjoys goofing on its fans with its advance episode log lines. Here's the latest:

"Don and Duck take a stab at making peace. Peggy tries to insinuate herself into the execs' after-hours meetings. Duck deals with a family visit at the office."

Which is a hilariously benign way to describe what I like to call "the raunchy episode." Playtex, a Sterling Cooper client, asks for a new campaign to compete with Maidenform's saucy bra ads, which, of course, leads to no end of japery about boobs from boobs: "I find they both open easily," "quips" Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) of both Playtex's and Maidenform's products.

Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), who has to endure all the guys' bra gags, discovers a new way to call attention to herself. But pity Betty (January Jones), who can't win for losing in this episode.

And Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) will do something that will vaguely sadden you, and Duck (Mark Moses) will do something that will profoundly sadden you, and Don (Jon Hamm) - well, Don proceeds further down that path he's pursued, fairly disturbingly, for the past couple of episodes. "I told you to stop talking," he says by way of explanation.

Has there ever been a show about abject sadness and anomie that also managed to be this witty and compelling? Can abject sadness and anomie be this witty and compelling?

- "Mad Men:" 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC.

Before a single episode of its sophomore season has aired and before a single ratings point has been measured, NBC has given "Chuck" a full-season order.

"This show has really hit its stride and deserves a full-season commitment to carry out the producers' vision for this unique series," a press release quoted Teri Weinberg, executive vice president of NBC Entertainment, as saying.

"Chuck" - which stars Zach Levi as an underachiever toiling at a big-box store who gets the entire U.S. intelligence database downloaded into his brain - is a fun, larky show, but it didn't exactly set the boxes in the Nielsen Family households on fire last season. It was one of a handful of shows that the networks kept on the shelf after the writers strike ended - the thinking apparently being they liked these shows and wanted to bring them back this season, but were afraid if they returned after the strike and did the same middling numbers (or worse), it'd be hard to justify awarding them second seasons and the networks didn't have many new shows to replace them with so best to give them a splashy relaunch. ("Pushing Daisies" and "Dirty Sexy Money" are a couple of other examples.) It's rare for a show in "Chuck's" position to be granted a full-season order so quickly; maybe it really will hit the ground running or maybe NBC figures it's going to have bigger headaches elsewhere on the schedule.

Levi's breezily charming and the cast meshes well (some of Chuck's colleagues at the store are pretty annoying, though) and the show never takes itself vary seriously, so one hopes the show really is finding its creative footing and that viewers will be finding it come the fall. "Chuck" returns Monday, September 29 at 8 p.m.

We've been discussing the on-air implosion at MSNBC, and suddenly, so are a whole lot of other people. Politico.com quotes someone at MSNBC as saying, "The situation at our channel is about to blow up," with other sources at the network adding that the on-air tiffs "were a public glimpse of much more intense behind-the-scenes turmoil."

And the Schadenfreude is growing: Jossip.com reports:

"Meanwhile, in the past few hours we've spoke to a number of 30 Rock staffers in Denver, New York, and Washington -- some of whom thought it more productive to speak to us than attend to the on-going live DNC coverage -- and the common wisdom is: 1) Nobody can believe how much Keith Olbermann is getting away with, even if he does draw ratings; 2) As an Olbermann protege, Rachel Maddow is attracting negative feelings from staffers, since she stays mum on many of these catfights, but "there's still time" to represent; 3) MSNBC head Phil Griffin is alienating staffers by publicly defending Olbermann while privately bashing him, and it's left many wondering when that will leak (oops); 4) MSNBC publicist Jeremy Gaines appears increasingly stressed out and can be seen "shaking" with a phone attached to his ear dealing with reporters; 5) You don't want to run into Chris Matthews anytime soon, especially en route to the bathroom, because he has zero pleasant things to say right now; 6) Joe Scarborough is definitely stressed, but he's managed to calm down a bit today and can be seen laughing and gabbing; 7) None of this is helping ratings, with MSNBC scoring the lowest numbers against Fox News and CNN in convention coverage."

("Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!")

Connie Chung, who had a short-lived show on MSNBC, told the Wall Street Journal, "My reaction to that is: 'Grow up!'"

About the on-air-squabbling, Griffin told Variety, "Look it happens. Everyone is working hard here, and people are passionate about their feelings, and this is the rough-and-tumble world of politics." Griffin, naturally, would prefer his reporters not to quarrel for the cameras, "but it wasn't the first time and probably won't be the last. The main thing is, this does not define us. Don't make more of this than it is."

Too late for that now. There was another microphone glitch yesterday, as Olbermann was caught trying to run conservative pundit Mike Murphy off the air following rumors that he had tried to ban him from MSNBC's coverage:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you Mike: are we to, to place the credibility of you as a pundit on your belief, that you've just asserted, that the Clintons will vote for John McCain?

MURPHY: Absolutely. I really believe Hillary Clinton will vote for McCain. Look, they're friends. [Crowd boos]. Ah, come on, don't shout me down: let me talk. I mean come on, this is, you guys are so in the tank we ought to be filming this on a submarine. The fact is, Barack Obama, to his credit, has moved closer to Hillary Clinton and John McCain on foreign policy, Hillary and John McCain have worked --

MATTHEWS: That's an argument -- that's not what I'm asking you.

MURPHY: I really believe --

MATTHEWS: Mike, let me get back to --

KEITH OLBERMANN (OFF CAMERA): Let's wrap him up, all right?

All this, and Olbermann designed "Countdown" so that there wouldn't be the sort of partisan shouting matches that inform so much cable-news airtime. If there is such animosity among MSNBC minions towards Olbermann, perhaps someone's intentionally not shutting his mic off and passing it off as a gaffe. On the other hand, if you are trying to present intelligent coverage of this campaign, you probably don't want to give air time to some bozo who, off the top of his head, says stuff like "I really believe Hillary Clinton will vote for McCain," so you can't blame Olbermann for rolling his eyes verbally.

Sensing an opening, Fox News executive John Moody lit up on Olbermann in a blog entry:

"Thank goodness for online video streaming. It's about the only way I could watch Keith Olbermann.

"Earlier this week, Keith, an MSNBC propagandist who has come to believe people care what he hopes/thinks/says/because-there's-no-filter-in-between, smeared my colleague Howard Wolfson, who was Hillary Clinton's communication director and is now a FOX News political analyst. Keith compared Howard to Tokyo Rose. ...

"Keith is too important to be constrained (restrained might be a different matter) by facts. He is the heir to Huntley, to Brinkley, to Chancellor, to Brokaw. (Sorry, NBC).

"Keith thinks Democrats shouldn't deign to appear on FOX. That's the same philosophy that served John Edwards so well when he was an active candidate (among other things). Like Sen. Edwards, Keith is a non-factor now that the real decisions have been made. And like Tokyo Rose, he is a fictional conflation."

Olbermann responded: "John Moody is a hysterical, doctrinaire, Right Wing hack propagandist, who conveniently forgets that when he thought I shared his allegiance to his dark view of the world, tried to hire me for Fox News. As for Mr. Wolfson, I feel very sorry for the choices he made that led him to his sad state." Fox News denies it ever offered Keith a gig.

Whew. On one hand, Olbermann did turn MSNBC around, and in more ways than one. One the other, he does have a reputation for having an ego, and though he seemed to have tamped it down more recently, it wouldn't be surprising if success has gone to his head. And finally, regardless of what one thinks of MSNBC's tilt to the left, at least they're not willfully crapping on facts like the folks at Fox like to do, though, like Fox, they do seem to ignore inconvenient ones.

Oh, and some guy named Barack Obama's going to try to get some air time tonight amid the bickering.

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" spent wads of cash sending their cast and crew to Denver; I'm sitting here at home, without a battery of writers and producers, watching the Democratic National Convention on the satellite TeeVee my editors won't even let me expense.

So Stewart and Company turned out to spend a whole lot of money to file last night's segment on MSNBC squabbling that's not a whole lot different from the one I submitted in the early afternoon. (That link is pretty much a goof, since the post linked above is just a scroll-down below this one.)

And Stephen Colbert's guest last night, former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, was pretty engaging and even fairly complimentary to the Democrats, which is a heck of a shocker when it comes to Republicans.

The drama at the Democratic National Convention this week has been whether the Democrats can muster up a rousing display of party unity. The drama at MSNBC this week seems to be whether the anchors and correspondents can muster up any network unity.

No less a personage than Tom Brokaw has assailed MSNBC - on which he sometimes appears - for its going into the tank for Barack Obama:

"At a forum on Sunday, when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell called MSNBC 'the official network of the Obama campaign,' Brokaw said, 'I think Keith (Olbermann) has gone too far. I think Chris (Matthews) has gone too far.'"

They love Obama more than they love themselves, and tension is spilling onto the airwaves. Angry old Pat Buchanan has been reliably hilarious - on Monday, he kvetched that Michelle Obama's speech lacked credibility or something because it had been written in advance (like, uh, just about all political speeches) - but that's just Pat Buchanan for you. The other anchors and analysts have been squabbling amongst themselves, as well.

Take this exchange between Olbermann - whose mic was obviously supposed to have been off at the time - and Joe Scarborough, who was discussing renewed vigor within the McCain campaign:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: There's such a contrast between what these campaigns are saying now and what they were telling me off the record two weeks ago perhaps because of Steve Schmidt's new leadership in the McCain campaign. The fact that the McCain campaign has been leaning forward with one message and their...

KEITH OLBERMANN (interrupting): Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?!

SCARBOROUGH: According to some McCain people...a a shovel?

OLBERMANN: I mean seriously, Joe. ... The man just lost seven points in the likely voter poll. McCain did from last month's USA Today's Likely Voter poll. The higher level one. The supposedly more sophisticated one. It was 49-45 McCain last month. It's 48-45 Obama. Back up what they're saying with what you're saying.

And Chris Matthews took issue with Olbermann last night, leaving it up to their guest to interrupt before they really got into it:

(Thus it was ever so: A lithograph of MSNBC's coverage of the 1860 Presidential campaign.)

OLBERMANN: Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic Leader, has been kind enough to stand by with us inside the Pepsi Center and has listened to us go off at the mouth [making the talking-too-much hand motion] on the subject of Sen. Clinton's speech tonight. I gather you had something...

MATTHEWS (interrupting): Well, if you make that sound, Keith [making the talking-too-much hand motion], I can do the same to you. That's what I thought. All right? And I said it. That's the point!

Olbermann seemed to be referring to both Matthews and himself, while Matthews thought Keith was dissing him and replied in turn.

Earlier in the week, Scarborough - a former Republican Florida congressman - got hacked off when correspondent David Shuster referred to Republicans as "your party:"

"I will let you know that 'my party,' my party loathes me much more than your party, the Democratic Party, loathes me," Scarborough replied. "What about your party? What's your party, David Shuster? David, what's your party?"

Shuster said, "I have no party. I'm a complete independent."

"Oh, I feel so comforted by the fact that you're independent. I bet everyone at MSNBC has 'independent' on their voting cards," Scarborough shot back, and this went on in this vein for some time.

(MSNBC anchors and reporters after the convention - what's left of them, anyway.)

Fox News has gotten into the act, naturally. Fox analyst and former Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson responded to Olbermann likening him to Tokyo Rose for working for Fox:

"It's unfortunate that a news organization with a great tradition like NBC has been taken over by those kind of antics. ... I'm not going to be lectured on how to be a good Democrat from them."

These little psycho-dramas are the main reason to watch MSNBC during its convention coverage, as otherwise, it's gotten way too cheerleader-y even for staunch Obama supporters. Olbermann even admitted he was sounding like a sycophant after Michelle Obama's speech Monday. They could achieve the same affect by dialing it down by half. As Stephen Colbert famously observed, truth has a well-known liberal bias, so the MSNBC folks don't have to push their opinions so stridently.

Here's The CW's Dawn Ostroff trying (not?) to explain how her network is staying afloat despite pretty awful ratings and that shadowy sinister deal with Media Rights Capital to create generic TeeVee shows for the network's Sunday-night lineup, which we have already made fun of:

QUESTION: There are a lot of reports about your network's health. What would you say about your network's health? I mean, how long can this network be saved? I mean, are you under some deadline to prove yourself?

DAWN OSTROFF: No, there's no deadline. We feel that we've made a lot of progress. To have a show like "Gossip Girl" in our second year on the air is -- it's been really great for us. I mean, as I said, everywhere we go, we see our talent out there, people talk about the show. Just yesterday, I was watching "Good Morning America," and they did a piece on - a whole fashion show on how to get that "Gossip Girl" look. So I think that, you know, we all feel that we're on our way. And obviously, shows like "90210"
and "Stylista" and "Privileged" and "13," we feel we're going to have a good season.

(Aside: Did she answer the question? No, she did not. But then, she rarely answers the question; she just talks about what a sensation "Gossip Girl" is, when it's only watched by 2½ million people and every last damn one of them must work at Entertainment Weekly because they write about it so much.)

(CW executive Dawn Ostroff is all smiles after managing to avoid giving a single straight answer at a press conference.)

QUESTION: Couple of questions about the Sunday [MRC] night deal. First of all, can you explain the business aspect? Do they get a piece of the ad revenue? And second -- or something like that? And secondly, how much creative input will you have at the network? Will they be reporting to your drama or comedy executives, and can you give notes and things like that?

(FYI: The CW disbanded its comedy division a couple of months before Press Tour.)

DAWN OSTROFF: No. We're involved creatively with the shows. Our group of very talented executives, Michael Roberts and Thom Sherman -- they're all reading the scripts. And the deal's very complicated, but it's a deal that makes a lot of sense for us and for MRC.

(Other questions, about why The CW is abandoning black audiences for shallow, upscale audiences with shows like "Gossip Girl," "90210" and "Privileged," and then back to MRC.}

QUESTION: And the other question again, going back to MRC, who gets to cancel the shows there?

DAWN OSTROFF: Well, we're not up to canceling shows. We want to get them on the air first.

QUESTION: Just miracle of miracles, one might do well. I mean, who makes the decision?

DAWN OSTROFF: Well, we make the decision with MRC.

QUESTION: Dawn, if I could follow on the MRC thing a little more. I mean, other networks have done this. NBC rented out its morning Saturday time to Discovery Channel and some others have let people simply buy chunks of their time. Isn't that closer to what you're doing? Isn't MRC simply buying the time from you and then can sell the advertising and do what it wants to?

DAWN OSTROFF: It's a much more complicated deal than that, to be honest. But the idea is that, look, we all are looking at different ways of doing our business as are many of you. I mean, we're all in a time where, you know, there are opportunities and there are different ways to look at how we put programming on, and it's been done for many years. We're not doing anything that's that unusual.

QUESTION: To be a little more specific, then, they're not buying the time like Discovery does from NBC where they just pay the flat sum. Is it a profit sharing thing where they're taking the time?

DAWN OSTROFF: Let's leave it at it's a very complicated deal and we'll leave it at that. It is. Next question.

FINAL SCORE: Ostroff Obfuscation 1, Actual Information 0.