Cable news is a hyper-competitive environment full of huge egos fighting with each other for every scrap of a ratings point. And at this time of year, with all the shouting heads descending upon the political convention like a gang of ferrets into a small sack, conflict is inevitable. Plus it's hot, and there's not too much real news anyhow, so everyone is grumpy. After the jump, an illustrated guide to the most vicious feuds in the cable world. Pick your side, demonize your enemies, and play along:

Here's a fun video of Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews of MSNBC being vicious and bitchy to one another when they're supposed to be discussing the Democratic National Convention yesterday. All you really need to know is that all three men hate each other, although you might as well learn why, since we had to: Scarborough and Olbermann are blowhards from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Matthews thinks Scarborough is too partisan and Matthews and Olbermann constantly try to out-wonk one another out of insecurity. Everyone's big egos might be good for ratings, but they're making it very hard to cover the convention. Matthews was heckled by Hillary Clinton supporters, Olbermann briefly recused himself from gushing about Michelle Obama because he realized he sounded like a "sycophant" and Scarborough got into the middle of the fracas shown in the video. Be sure to stick around for the Matthews-Scarborough nastiness at the end. (Click the video icon to watch.) [YouTube via TVNewser]

We take it back: The Democratic National Convention is more than just a meaningless dog-and-pony show. It clearly remains a hotbed of vibrant political discourse, as demonstrated an hour ago on MSNBC, when a brave protester stood behind talking head Michelle Bernard and sent a message to the Obama-PepsiCo cabal conspiring against delicious beverages pushed off the margins of society. This is truly a defining moment of our era.

"NBC News’ strategy in hiring young Luke Russert is now clear: whenever anything happens, Brian Williams can ask Luke what his dead father thinks about it." [Wonkette]

Update: MSNBC does have its very own terrible stupid sportsbar to broadcast from Denver in. Though we're not sure if they tricked it out like CNN and Fox did theirs. "Morning Joe" was live today from a place called "Sam's No. 3 Grill and Bar." It is a "USA Mexi Grill and Bar" that serves "comfort food with an attitude." UGGGHH. We put a stupid video of this after the jump because why not. It takes place at a strip club so click!! [Observer]

Last night was Dan Abrams' final show on MSNBC following the decision earlier this week to cancel his Verdict and replace him with Rachel Maddow. It was a bit awkward—especially when Abrams suggests that viewers not write him off completely since he's had three MSNBC shows come and go in the past five years—but inviting fellow cancelled MSNBC host Tucker Carlson to join him during the last few minutes was a nice touch. A clip after the jump.

• Barack Obama will appear on the cover of Time for the seventh time this year. [Drudge]

Rachel Maddow, liberal MSNBC pundit, was supposed to get Chris Matthews' show when his contract ran out, but MSNBC decided to capitalize on election fever and complete her transformation from feminist Rhodes Scholar AIDS policy wonk to television star right away. They gave her Dan Abrams show, even though everyone at the network loves Dan and his show's been doing well. But he's a soft-spoken legal analyst and she's a phenom in the making. She's the Keith Olbermann liberals won't be embarrassed to admire! Keith, stentorian wiseass and former sportscaster, is clearly a raving egomaniac. When his ire is directed outward at figures deserving of his scorn, it's incredibly watchable television. But you cannot ever escape the obvious fact that the man, admirable moral center or no, is a smug jerk in private and public life. Which is a plus in televised punditry, but it's exhausting. Maddow, smart and cool, is now poised to make the most of an Obama presidency. She presents a perfect liberal alternative to a Bill O'Reilley or Sean Hannity: not because, like them, she's a bullying cheerleader for Obama and his party (that's a little more Olbermann), but because she's principled enough to fight for the Democrats when they're right and criticize them when they're wrong, without engaging in the partisan horseshit of official party mouthpieces like Carville and Begala. (This, by the way, is the important difference between the liberals of MSNBC and the liberals of CNN: Olbermann and Maddow are angry constituents, not party operatives.) In other words, she's an idealized version of her theoretical audience (educated urban liberal), much like O'Reilley is a caricature of his own (enraged suburban/exurban male). And mark our words, we'll soon be seeing her on the front page of the Times Magazine or Newsweek as THE NEW FACE OF CABLE PUNDITRY and then will come the longer psychoanalytical think-pieces in New York and The New Yorker (she's slightly less suited for that Olbermann-profile treatment in Esquire but you never know). Which, it could be worse. We like her! Plus, as the 2000s have taught us, Americans are totally willing to and love out lesbians on their televisions (thanks Ellen!) as long as they're not really annoying (sorry Rosie). (And in the [totally likely!] event of a McCain presidency, Maddow might actually do even better, as advocate-y liberals always operate best in opposition—which is why they always undermine the Democrats so effectively.) [Photo: dipdewdog]

The supposedly liberal news media hired talking heads like George Stephanopoulos and James Carville from Bill Clinton's presidential administration, but they were even more eager to Hoover up "talent" from the conservative Bush White House two elections later. In the image at left, our Photoshop wizard Steve Dressler shows which top Bush staffers have landed job as commentators, and with whom. Hint: It's not just Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page hiring these Republican operatives. Click through to see the full-sized image.

After frequent guest and guest-host appearances on Keith Olbermann's left-leaning Countdown, political commentator Rachel Maddow will get her own MSNBC show as everyone predicted, replacing Dan Abrams' Verdict 9 pm weeknights. The Times' Brian Stelter writes that "Ms. Maddow will almost certainly be a closer ideological fit with Mr. Olbermann's," reinforcing our earlier point that, despite its protestations, MSNBC will inevitably become basically the Fox News of the left as it moves to hold on to the young viewers Olbermann has attracted. Judging by the comments attached to Stelter's blog post, this should be a popular decision. Maddow, at least, is un-Fox-like in one way: She hasn't been afraid to smack down her MSNBC colleagues. After the jump, no fewer than three videos of Maddow doing so, with Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan.

As we suspected a few weeks ago, Dan Abrams' show on MSNBC has been cancelled. Taking over will be (delightful!) Rachel Maddow. [NYT]

In the tangled web woven by media conglomerates and Web companies, MySpace which is owned by News Corp. under Fox Interactive Media has a partnership with news broadcaster MSNBC — the cable partnership between Microsoft and NBC. Fox News, another News Corp. property and direct MSNBC competitor, has now signed a deal with Facebook, which counts Microsoft as the lead investor. Admitting that Facebook is now leading MySpace in the social networking space, Fox News VP of development Joel Cheatwood told reporter Brian Stelter, "They also have a user that’s a little older and a little more sophisticated." Enough with the diplomatic double-speak, Cheatwood — tell us what you really think.

MSNBC is still not comfortable with the idea that it is the liberal counterweight to Fox News. Executives at the cable news network bristle at the comparison, claiming that while individual "point of view" shows like Keith Olbermann's Countdown skew leftward, the network as a whole has no unifying ideology, as at Fox. But demographics may be making such a bias inevitable. The Times points out today that, amid heightened political activity among young, mostly liberal voters, MSNBC has added nearly 40,000 18-to-34-year-old viewers during prime time, far more than either Fox News or CNN. It is now number one among the young in those hours, while Fox News is dead last. That makes sense politically: Republicans are, as a group, significantly older the Democrats. Perhaps most revealing are the news nets' seemingly bizarre choices of internet partners.

So apparently a hysterical new "non-partisan" group, started mostly by bitter supporters of Hillary Clinton, has been formed with a very important mission. The New Agenda will fight for paid maternity leave, affordable health care and fair pay for women. Or at least they will do those things once they are done getting Chris Matthews fired from his job as host of Hardball on MSNBC, which is at the top of their self-described "to-do list," because Matthews, a longtime Democratic Congressional aide, is at the nexus of all types of awful problems for women, including wife beating:

Breakfast shows can fail if the anchors don't have compatible chemistry. But the on-air flirtation can go too far. Case in point: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC. The former Republican congressman-now reinvented as a liberal darling of cable news-hosts a show called Morning Joe with Brzezinski, daughter of Jimmy Carter's cold-war national security advisor. As this clip shows, Scarborough and Brzezinski-both married, Scarborough for the second time-have an exceedingly warm relationship; they'd better tone it down a bit because their on-air antics have convinced MSNBC grunts the two are pursuing an off-camera affair.

Columbia Journalism Review was wondering why MSNBC has been calling every Tuesday "Super Tuesday," when the term is a reference to the Tuesdays when the most presidential primaries happen. So they asked! An MSNBC flack said they'd simply re-claimed and re-branded the term: "It's part of our election year coverage. We've branded every Tuesday as ‘Super Tuesday' with the prime focus of the day on politics." [CJR]

Everyone is out to get Bill O'Reilly! First Scott McClellan, the elven former White House press secretary, said on MSNBC last weekend that he and his minions used to feed Bush administration talking points to O'Reilly and other Fox News shouting heads. "It was done frequently, especially on high-profile issues," he told O'Reilly nemesis Keith Olbermann following an appearance on Chris Matthews' Hardball. Then CNN covered the allegations as though they were news! Clearly a conspiracy is afoot. O'Reilly said on his show tonight that McClellan and MSNBC "look to be partners in this enterprise," while CNN picked up "garbage." So O'Reilly can presume MSNBC is in cahoots with McClellan simply because it aired and editorialized on his statements, but MSNBC can't say O'Reilly was in cahoots with McClellan even when McClellan himself says that's what happened. Watch this twisted logic unfold by clicking the video at left.

Hah. Here is friendly Joe Scarborough taking the most thinly-veiled shot EVER at his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann. "I know a couple of hosts ran this last night, made a huge deal because a liberal blogger picked it up. I guarantee the hosts that ran this, waving their arms, had no idea whether the Sunni Awakening or the Surge began at the same time." Hah. Way to not name names, Joe! See, it's funny because Keith Olbermann is running for president as an experienced foreign policy pro. Do Joe and Keith not get along? Clip after the jump.

So is the media blitz accompanying Barack Obama to Iraq actually evidence of that nasty pro-Obama bias we keep hearing about? Sure, whatever. WHO CARES. The media's been self-flagellating about everything for the past, like, six months, so all the pro-Obama bias is corrected by the Obama hype-debunking and "oh we are being unfair" handwringing that every cable news panel has to engage in. Half the coverage of the Obama trip has been of the "will this dispel the myth that he's a naive fool about foreign policy?" nature. Which is goofy because, hey, John McCain's foreign policy chops are not exactly respected by anyone. But he's old! Of course then Nouri al-Maliki (we actually can't believe ol' Nouri is still alive, good on him) accidentally endorsed Barack Obama's Iraq plan (the 'get the hell out of Iraq' plan). This is "a PR boost" for Obama. We're including this MSNBC clip covering the trip primarily because they break in halfway through to show "new video" of Obama in a room with some Iraqi officials like it is somehow enlightening.

Phil Griffin was only promoted to president of MSNBC last week, but he's already escalated the cable news network's feud with competitor Fox News Channel. That probably shouldn't be surprising given that Griffin is the chief patron of Keith Olbermann, the antagonist most detested by Fox. But Griffin's swipes at his competitor in the Kansas City Star are still startlingly raw: "You can't trust a word they say," Griffin said of Fox News. "THEY made the business decision to create an ideological network. We didn't. They were the ones that got in bed with the Bush Administration, so that most of the time, where did the Bush Administration officials come out and make their points? Fox News." Well, OK then! But isn't MSNBC adding a lot of left-wing opinion to its own newscasts, via Olbermann and others? Totally different, said Griffin: