Nick Denton seems to think so, calling them the “cosiest co-anchors” and saying their “on-air antics have convinced MSNBC grunts the two are pursuing an off-camera affair.” Of course, Denton also calls Scarborough a “liberal darling,” so who knows if it’s true?

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Keith Olbermann is working overtime to have people believe that WaPo’s Dana Milbank, a longtime contributor to his MSNBC program, was forced off the network as a result of pressure from Olbermann over a piece Milbank wrote last week satirizing Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential presumptions.

Not so, says Milbank. “I started contract talks with CNN on July 7,” Milbank told Big Head DC this afternoon. “It has nothing to do with last week’s column. I like Keith, and I’m sorry he’s angry about my departure.”

Milbank began appearing on CNN last night on Campbell Brown’s program — the network’s competitor to Olbermann.

“Keith, working ever harder to court his liberal fan base, obviously wants people to believe he was directly involved in Dana’s exit,” a cable TV honcho not affiliated with CNN or MSNBC told BHDC. “The truth is simply that Dana got a much better offer. And Olbermann decided to spin it his way.”

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An MSNBC tipster tells Big Head DC that David Gregory and executive producer Noah Oppenheim got “spanked hard” last week due to falling ratings for the duo’s Race for the White House. We’ve even heard buzz of a screaming match between top honcho Phil Griffin and Gregory. Such displays of temper were far less common under Tucker Carlson — the guy Gregory replaced, but has had difficulty in out-pacing, ratings-wise, at least.

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Everyone already knows about that tingling feeling Chris Matthews gets up his leg when he hears Sen. Barack Obama give a speech, and now campaign cash contribution records reveal another MSNBC anchor who might have some pro-Obama leanings.

Financial records indicate that Beth Wilkinson, wife of MSNBC White House reporter David Gregory, has contributed $4,600 to Obama’s presidential campaign. To Big Head DC’s knowledge, the newsman has not disclosed this contribution to viewers.

Gregory’s new MSNBC show, Race for the White House, debuts today at 6 p.m.

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Big Head DC interviewed Tucker Carlson on the eve of his last MSNBC show, a retrospective which airs tonight at 6 p.m. ET. Declining to talk much smack about his soon-to-be former employer (he’ll show up for a while as a commenter on various network shows), the conservative talker seemed, in the spirit of Eliot Spitzer, perhaps, to be quite ebullient about his future: 

Big Head DC: How do you feel about the end of the show?

Tucker Carlson: Weirdly, I feel great and have all week. Not sure why.

BHDC: Any hard feelings toward MSNBC?

TC: Can’t complain about MSNBC.  I wish they weren’t killing the show - I like it and think it’s good - but other than that, they’ve been nice to me.  

BHDC: Do you see yourself headlining another political show soon? 

TC: I’m confident I’ll wind up doing something interesting.

BHDC: But nothing set in stone yet?

TC: I’m in good shape.

BHDC: Thanks, Tucker, and best of luck.

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Did Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s chief political anchor, step over the line in criticizing Sen. Hillary Clinton’s response to the Geraldine Ferraro controversy?

And do you believe his claim that he wasn’t implicitly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama?

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Pat Buchanan got so riled up during a discussion last night about Geraldine Ferraro’s controversial comments that he yelled out “shut up” at pundit Keli Goff during an on-air debate. Liberal talker Rachel Maddow ended up scolding him for the outburst, and MSNBC host Dan Abrams was noticeably shaken:

What did you think of Buchanan’s style?

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So, conservative talker Tucker Carlson has been fired from his 6 p.m. MSNBC show, Tucker. Instead of trying to find a new host with the same name, we hear the network is leaning heavily toward Rachel Maddow, the liberal lesbian who Keith Olbermann desperately wants made into a nationwide star. Maddow has long been a provocative radio gab girl and has had some major success as a guest during MSNBC political panels — chiefly, telling Chris Matthews to his big, yellow face that he’s a sexist. Upon which, his leg got this sort of funny feeling running all up and down. And then he had a stiff drink (allegedly!).

P.S. Now we know why Carlson was so mad at the media on Friday.

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Both Chris Matthews and Nora O’Donnell constantly refer to the Great Lakes state as “Mich-ia-gen.” The mispronunciation was illustrated in graphic detail via an MSNBC screen graphic briefly this afternoon, we’d guess, as a producer’s way of mocking the anchors’ mistaken pronunciations.

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MSNBC continues to distinguish itself as the apology network.

Last night on Hardball, a graphic titled “Words About Words” prominently featured an image of Osama bin Laden. The story, however, was about the recent claims of plagiarism in Barack Obama’s speeches. See link below.

Fifteen minutes later, anchor Chris Matthews issued an on-air apology: “You may have noticed the graphic over my shoulder. A picture we showed over our shoulder, that was a mistake earlier in the broadcast. We apologize for the error.”

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