Reaching for seemingly any reasonable explanation for Obama's stunning listlessness at yesterday's presidential debate, former Vice President Al Gore offered up a "controversial" suggestion: It's the altitude, stupid.

In your provocative Tuesday media column: the NYT's new Big City columnist gives us hope, Ted Turner vs. Rupert Murdoch, Utah newspaper standards war, the internet won't be free forever, and Cenk Uygur to Current TV.

Al Sharpton will almost certainly be the host for MSNBC's recently opened-up 6 p.m. time slot, reports The New York Times, which describes the hiring as "imminent." He's actually been "guest-hosting" in that slot for the last three weeks, if you are among the apparent millions who tune in; previously, the spot was occupied by Cenk Uygur, who left claiming he'd been told by MSNBC president Phil Griffin that "people in Washington... did not like [his] tone." (Griffin says he told Uygur to adjust his body language.) Our choice for the 6 p.m. slot would have been a constant replay of Mark Halperin saying the word "dick," but we're not in charge. [NYT, photo via AP]