Keith Olbermann's feud with Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. media properties reached a bitter new milestone today when the MSNBC Countdown host smacked Murdoch's Post for a forthcoming gossip item that will, he said, allege that fellow MSNBC-er Chris Matthews was jockeying to succeed Tim Russert as host of Meet The Press at a memorial event for Russert yesterday. The item will also reportedly say that Olbermann has threatened to quit if he doesn't get Russert's job himself. Olbermann leapt to sometime-rival Matthews' defense, saying the Hardball host was asked by an acquaintance at the event about succession and immediately shut the conversation down. As for himself, Olbermann denied he had demanded to replace Russert and said he was, in any case, unqualified (though any savvy and honest successor would attach that caveat). The Page Six reporter working on the item, Paula Froelich, was awarded Countdown's "Worst Person In The World" title for the night, which will teach her a very important lesson: Do not call TV people for comment until after their shows have aired. Clip after the jump.

Fox News has been accused of being a house organ of the Republican party, though that's not entirely accurate. It follows the mostly conservative "what can you do for ME" ideology of its owner, Rupert Murdoch, with a bit of the faux-populist anti-elite Nixonian media strategy of Roger Ailes, its initial guiding force. But lately, cracks and strains have become evident. The network doesn't particularly like John McCain, the Republican nominee. And Rupert Murdoch seems to have developed a little crush on Barack Obama, the Democrat. But the network's airheaded personalities just aren't comfortable embracing the black guy with the funny name. The cognitive dissonance leads, over and over again, to terribly offensive slurs followed by half-hearted apologies. Let us examine the worst of their crimes!

The Post's efforts to slam Keith Olbermann are getting increasingly desperate. In its latest attempt to lash the MSNBC personality on behalf of owner Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. comrade-in-arms Bill O'Reilly, who are in a feud with the Countdown host, the tabloid somehow managed to work an Olbermann dig into a story about bad gym behavior. Well, actually, not into the copy of the story itself, but into the accompanying infographic, pictured above. It's an awkward enough dig to make one miss Olbermann's Rupert-Murdoch-as-a-pirate imitation. [Post]

One of Bill O'Reilly's slimy little producers tried to ambush PBS veteran newsman Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform yesterday, demanding to know why he wouldn't come on O'Reilly's silly Fox News shout-fest. Moyers turned the tables, demanding that O'Reilly set him up with an interview with Fox overlord Rupert Murdoch so that Murdoch can explain why we still haven't gotten the $20-per-barrel oil his network promised at the start of the war. And other things. See the exchange below.

Rupert Murdoch's handmaidens over at the New York Post this morning jumped into a feud between their Fox News shouting head Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC ranter Keith Olbermann. The tabloid's gossip page ran an item dredging up various minor controversies involving Olbermann dating back to his ESPN days, up through an alleged spat between Olbermann and fellow MSNBC personality David Gregory last Tuesday over camera time. It then insinuated Olbermann might soon explode and leave his network. The warmed-over gossip was clearly meant as cover fire on behalf of O'Reilly, a fellow News Corp. soldier, whose feud with Olbermann is detailed in the Washington Post today. In a nutshell:

So what caused Bill O'Reilly's now-infamous Inside Edition meltdown? This new video featuring his abusive producer provides some answers. Okay, it really doesn't, but it's funny.

On his show last night, Bill O'Reilly addressed the hubub over his old "Do it now!" meltdown, which has resurfaced on the internet. The Fox News host approached the topic with a sense of humor — how else could he play this, really, without looking like the same angry guy he was in the dated clip? — but also very briefly, and without the actual, unflattering footage. But O'Reilly did slip in an interesting, probably not entirely untrue joke about how he's had annual explosions since he joined Fox. And he offered to sell them. Someone, please, take this man at his word and at least try to buy some previously unseen footage, so we can all laugh some more with Bill about how charming and unharmful his on-camera rages really are.

You may recall Rachel Marsden, the former Fox News personality who had a scandalous fling with the founder of Wikipedia, who pled guilty in 2004 to harassing a Vancouver radio host and who who was ejected from the Fox News studio last year. Marsden's relationship with Fox seems to be on the mend — she was re-admitted to the studio in February — and she is clearly as big a fan of Fox host Bill O'Reilly as ever. In the comment thread on Gawker's post about O'Reilly's recently-resurfaced meltdown, Marsden said critics of his cuss-out just can't handle Papa Bear's swaggering machismo:

Today hosted a very meta discussion this morning about Sue Simmons' WNBC f-bomb and Bill O'Reilly's old Inside Edition eruption, and anchpr Kathie Lee Gifford is extremely sympathetic toward both of the old TV hands and their embarassments. She told co-host Hoda Kotb there's always a chance she'll have her own "FUCK IT! DO IT NOW!" breakdown: "We're having fun, because tomorrow it could be you and I." Or maybe she was thinking of a more mild "what the FUCK are you doing" outburst. After the jump, listen to Gifford talk about how you can barely cuss anyone out in a TV studio any more because of all the satellites and bloggers and so forth.

Given that Stephen Colbert's act on Comedy Central consists mainly of imitating Bill O'Reilly, it was pretty much inevitable that he would mock the Fox News shouting head's recently resurfaced Inside Edition meltdown. Colbert's recreation of the cuss out, set on his own supposed TV show in the 70s, is at least as funny as expected — Colbert nails O'Reilly's freakout down to the silent, jacket-throwing temper tantrum at the very end — and includes a clever twist involving NBC's Brian Williams. Watch as Colbert cements "do it live" as a catchphrase, after the jump.

Exploring, perhaps, her inner Bill O'Reilly, WNBC news anchor Sue Simmons turned what should have been a straightforward promo for the evening news into an angry cuss-out of one of her co-workers. And Simmons' cursing made it onto the air, unlike Fox News anchor O'Reilly's recently-publicized meltdown. We've received several emails from viewers who caught the cursing during a break in the season finale for NBC drama Medium, and now there's video, posted after the jump. UPDATE: And Simmons has now apologized for scandalizing the entire city of New York with the f-word. UPDATE2: Since these things come in threes I'm now waiting for Anderson Cooper to have a meltdown involving lack of skin moisturizer or something.

Yeah, you already knew Fox News host Bill O'Reilly could be a volcanic asshole on camera, because he explodes at people all the time. But it's still fun to watch O'Reilly thoroughly lose his shit in this old clip from his Inside Edition days, which resurfaced on the Web tonight. You have to feel for whatever poor soul wrote the script for O'Reilly's teleprompter. Video — including the exclamation "Fuck it! Do it live!" — after the jump.

Aaron Brown was the serious, soft-spoken voice of CNN. Americans all remember his calm, powerful, and moving presence on CNN covering the attacks on the World Trade Center, as they happened, all day long. His first day at CNN! Then a couple years later CNN ditched him and gave his time-slot to Anderson Cooper, who is much prettier. But he's back! On, uh, PBS, where he'll look comparatively "young" and "cool." Anyway, Brown weighed in, for some reason, on the battle between Fox hothead Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. "Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly 'are both larger-than-life figures,' he says, but Olbermann is 'smarter, funnier, better read and eminently more talented.'" Well. Is someone angling for David Gregory's spot once Gregory takes over for Chris Matthews? He's got all the time in the world, NBC. He'll wait out this rumored move that may never happen. [TVNewser]

Hillary Clinton sat down with Bill O'Reilly yesterday because she apparently feels no compunction about encouraging him. The result was a reasonably reasonable interview, especially for Bill—which is not entirely surprising, as he usually saves his bullying for people who are easily bullied. He called her a socialist, yes, and then he called Teddy Roosevelt a socialist as well. At the end of the interview (which continues today) O'Reilly tried to goad Hillary into trashing NBC news. It might've worked! Bill hates MSNBC because their Keith Olbermann subjects him to the sort of personal abuse that Bill specializes in. Hillary hates MSNBC because their Chris Matthews compulsively says terrible sexist things about her. Sadly, Clinton backed down from the fight. Later today, they're gonna talk waterboarding!

Bill O'Reilly finally asks the question we've all been thinking: "What's the difference between the KKK and Arianna Huffington? What's the difference?" He's right! Arianna has her name attached to a website that allows anonymous commenters to write mean things about Nancy Reagan—how, exactly, is that any different from killing Medgar Evers? Exactly. [Crooks & Liars]

Yet more video has surfaced from Harry Shearer's magic satellite dish, the one that catches only feeds of television people engaging in embarrassing behavior just before they go on air. This installment begins and ends with brownshirt-friendly controversialist and faghag comedienne Ann Coulter politely requesting that someone cut up a line of Nicorette for her to snort, and in between we visit angry right-wing pundit Bill O'Reilly and scarf-obsessed network anchor Katie Couric. And more! Mildly unsettling clip embedded after the jump.

A while back, we learned of popular right wing hack and '80s relic Ben Stein's upcoming documentary, Expelled. It's about how all the secular Darwinist scientists persecute those people brave enough to speak made-up truths to power. Stein, whose training and expertise in the sciences is limited to a career of unrepentant bullshitting, wishes to give creationists, intelligent design advocates, and other various nutjobs their rightful place in the sun of academia. If you see his movie, though, don't review it.

Hanoi Jane! On NBC! Saying "cunt"! Is it Bill O'Reilly's birthday? That's how he must've felt when Jane Fonda chose to curse on a network he happily crusades against every goddamn day on his show (because, you see, MSNBC employs people, like Keith Olbermann, who make fun of him). Though he employed his typical tone of stern, paternalistic morality, you could tell there was loving care involved in assembling his montage of people—all of whom happened to be women, most whom happened to be liberal—accidentally cursing on television. "If someone does that on my program? Believe me, they'd get scolded." We're sure they would! And we admire Bill's restraint in restricting his obscenities to harassing telephone calls and legal documents. The clip is below.

It's no secret that Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly is a media punchingbag. So when Intern Mary heard about his recent claim that homeless veterans don't exist, she began to wonder if Bill's comments were taken out of context and spun into oblivion by crazed bloggers like they always seem to be. Does Bill only talk about patriotism and veterans when he's trying to make a point? Yearning to discover the real Bill, she dove into Billoreilly.com once more to find out just what Bill has said about vets in the past. The results of the search, in handy chart form (along with representative samples!), after the jump.

Hopefully you haven't voted yet, because Hillary Clinton just picked up a key endorsement from rapper 50 Cent, who notes that not only does he think "she could do a good job" but also that she won't go down in a hail of gunfire, killed by some redneck with an assault weapon. Bill O'Reilly sagely notes how far fetched this scenario is.