Former White House correspondent and current MSNBC host David Gregory just may be taking over for Chris Matthews once Matthews' very expensive contract is up next year. It is hoped, by MSNBC brass, that the kinda well-liked Gregory will be less of a headache than the notorious diva Matthews. But maybe he'll be just as bad! We asked for your stories about Gregory, and you delivered. As we said yesterday, his reputation in DC was not particularly bad for a TV "star." But that town is sycophantic enough to forgive a lot. So far, you all agree that David Gregory is, in fact, a jerk. Your personal stories of jerkdom, after the jump (and feel free to send more).

Two years ago, rumors flew that well-documented insecure attention-whore (and MSNBC anchor) Chris Matthews was considering a run for Senate from his home state of Pennsylvania. On his recent, terribly sad Colbert Report appearance, an exhausted-looking Matthews mumbled that ever since he was a child, all he ever wanted to be was a Senator. (UGH.) (Seriously, UGH.) Sooo it's about time for that chatter to start up again! A New York Sun opinion-writer says Matthews could be Pennsylvania Democrats' best hope for winning a Senate seat in 2010, ignoring both the fact that that seat belongs to Senator-for-life Arlen Specter and the entirety of this piece. Really, Chris, it's not going to happen. Maybe if they award a special Senate seat to beltway journalists and Russert decides not to run. [NYSun]

Hillary Clinton will do her awkward, vaguely joke-ish all-in-good-fun routine with Stephen Colbert this week, which might be more entertaining than her last 500 talk show appearances, as politicians are rarely able to figure out how to be "in" on his joke without saying something regrettable. The news was broken during Colbert's interview last night with Hardballer Chris Matthews, who seemed, honestly, a broken, beaten-down, exhausted shell of his usual self. Seriously. He barely got a word in edgewise and at one point, when discussing his boyhood dream of being a Senator, he looked on the verge of tears. Did last Sunday's amusingly embarrassing Times Magazine profile... actually embarrass him? Nothing else ever has! We think there are serious, fundamental problems with Chris Matthews' world-view and imagine he's probably irreparably damaging the way we conduct democracy but obviously we have nothing against him personally, so we hope he feels better soon! The uncomfortable interview is after the jump.

Fellow MSNBC host Keith Olbermann is on Chris Matthews' shit list, as you knew, while Race For The White House host David Gregory makes him nervous, because Gregory is an obvious possible replacement for Matthews, according to a leaked copy of a forthcoming Times magazine profile obtained by FishbowlDC. More embarrassing: fellow network personality Tim Russert, who Matthews kind of idolizes, supposedly can't stand the high-volume Hardball host. Profiler Mark Leibovich was of course sure to include a fresh batch of Matthews' leering comments toward women:

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.

HARDBALL with Chris Matthews pulled the ol' Osama/Obama mix-up last night. In an onscreen graphic, no less! Verbal slips are one thing, but how the hell does this make it from the graphics department to the air without anyone noticing? Is poor Chris the only person running the show? Clip below.

Rage-filled party-animal and man who is uncomfortable with powerful women Chris Matthews is (kinda justifiably!) pissed off that the Hillary Clinton campaign has been bugging his network, MSNBC, about how a couple of their anchors have said borderline misogynistic things about Senator Clinton. They have every right to bitch, but actually calling up GE-owned NBC? Actually asking that correspondent David Shuster be fired? For a sitting Senator who wishes to be President, that is not really kosher. As he usually does, Matthews went off in stronger langugage on his MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough's morning show than he does on his own program. He seems to maybe regret his half-assed apology! Details of his rant below:

"Matthews says his job 'is to be provocative and say things — you know, "That's crazy!" — the way you might at a party.'" That's from today's lengthy Howard Kurtz profile of the famed MSNBC shouty person, which, in typical Kurtz style, uses many words, anecdotes, and interviews to say precisely nothing about its subject. Matthews: says whatever he thinks! Matthews: enrages Democrats and Republicans! Matthews: is criticized by some for talking about women in odd and uncomfortable ways! Oh, there's insight. You just have to dig for it. (For example, here's Newsweek senior Washington correspondent Howard Fineman summing about everything useless about Howard Fineman in two sentences: "'Chris asks a question, he often answers his question, and then he asks you to comment on his answer to his question,' says Fineman. 'Which I'm perfectly happy to do.'") After the jump, a brief history of Chris Matthews terrifying his staff, demonstrating a dodgy relationship with the powerful women in his life, and cursing on air.

Not content to simply observe MSNBC shoutperson Chris Matthews' overly friendly remarks to female guests, Slate's Hart Seely imagines how Matthews would sound if he treated men the same way. "To John McCain: Senator, I know why you pushed the surge. Because you give me the surge. I can barely sit." Sexy! [Slate] Any women have any good real life Chris Matthews stories, friendly or otherwise? Let us know.

The latest issue of Men's Journal tells the story of Keith Olbermann, the logorrheic sportscaster who terrorized ESPN while creating its sarcastic brand, became a failed "serious" newscaster, and finally ended up as the hopeful savior of perennial third-place cable news network MSNBC by providing a liberal blowhardy-but-funny alternative to Fox's self-serious conservative goons. Olbermann—nearly canceled a few short years ago—is rapidly becoming the face of the network, thanks to his solid ratings and fantastic demographic numbers. "Keith runs MSNBC," an unnamed senior MSNBC executive tells Men's Journal. "Chris Matthews is infuriated by it." Naturally! They're both ridiculously self-important, convinced of their encyclopedic knowledge of everything political, and they tend to not mesh well with other egos. Poor Chris already has Tim Russert undermining him, the last thing he needed was an up-and-comer usurping his tiny, wonky niche. [TVNewser]

Shouty mad man Chris Matthews' primary selling point and liability is that he will loudly say any damn thing that comes to him. This morning, on Scarborough, this came to him: "Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around." That's Hillary Clinton he's talking about, in case you thought he was maybe referring to Pat Leahy. See, Chris, unless "messed around" means "secretly gave Rudy Giuliani cancer and replaced him with this lunatic," that statement really makes no sense. Of course, it is the Clintons, so you never really know. Crooks and Liars has the video, plus a thousand angry lefty internet nerds piling on in the comments. [Crooks & Liars]

Get ready for the Hillary-Rudy girlfight! Thanks to our sources in the future, not only can we now report that the home teams will prevail against Obama, McCain, Gravel [ :-( ], et al., we've also got some footage from the first televised debate. Chris Matthews moderates.

While the rest of us are drinking and snoozing, the television is trying to transmit important information into our homes. Today, our special correspondent for T.V. punditry catches us up on the week in chat shows. Because we totally wouldn't watch that shit if you paid us. Get your tinfoil hats on!

Courtesy of our slutty sisters at Wonkette, and only because few things make us happier than mildly homoerotic mainstream entertainment, we present a highlight from Chris Matthews' Wednesday appearance on The Colbert Report. Sure, Matthews is in the driver's seat at first, as you'd expect. But then he tenderly offers Colbert a turn on top, and, well, times like that are why they invented TiVo.