A few blogs this week picked up on an item originating from Jossip saying Dan Abrams found out about Rosie possibly taking his time slot by reading the good ‘ol NY Times. Kind of ironic then that his featured segment each night is “Beat The Press.” Rest assured, Dan, it looks like your higher-ups found out that Rosie may not be the one after all by reading her very own blog.

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When MSNBC attempted a few years back to be a liberal alternative to FOX News, putting Phil Donahue on the air, along with several other liberal pundits, bosses at the network were nervous. President Bush’s approval ratings were high, 9/11 was still fresh on everyone’s mind, and conservative TV talk, led by Bill O’Reilly, seemed to be the key to ratings gold.

Not surprisingly, the experiment fizzled after a short time; Donahue was dumped, and MSNBC went on to try to re-brand itself once again.

But now, as the country’s overall attitude has seemingly shifted, so, too, have the attitudes of a new set of bosses. Keith Olbermann, with his nightly commentaries belittling the sins of the White House, has gotten tons of attention. Ditto on Chris Matthews, whose biggest ratings as of late came after he belittled Dick Cheney during a recent book party. The network has swung so far to the left that the cable’s logo has literally turned green, as various hosts promote a “Green Is Universal” theme through the week via special reports on climate change and environmental issues.

“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, tells the NY Times. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

And, now, comes word that Rosie O’Donnell may join MSNBC. If she can come to terms on a deal with the net, she will likely host the 9 p.m. slot each weeknight, which will put her up against CNN’s Larry King and FOX’s Sean Hannity.

Oh, what fun it would be to see Rosie’s antics every night with Olbermann as a lead-in. The duo couldn’t be more different than O’Reilly and Hannity. And, with Olbermann already pushing O’Reilly’s buttons on a nightly basis, the ensuing cable wars would surely heat up even more. And you thought Rosie versus Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View was a scorcher!

But maybe we’re a little biased ourselves here. After all, we love a good fight.

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“Bill O’Reilly sent his producer, Jesse Waters, to ambush Rosie O’Donnell at a book signing in Huntington, New York to ask her a loaded and distorted question, which he then tried to use against her on The Factor,” News Hounds reports. “In fact, O’Reilly concluded that Rosie O’Donnell and ‘her ilk’ are responsible for an increase in ‘left loon’ incidents which he claims are dangerous and will eventually lead to violence. The fact that O’Donnell is no longer a visible media influence doesn’t seem to matter to BOR. He thought it was just fine to disrupt her book signing and then verbally attack her during three segments of tonight’s show.”

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Soon after Washington’s loudest squawker aired a segment last night regarding Rosie’s latest terrorist-driven tantrum with Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View yesterday morn, O’Donnell took to her blog to call Chris Matthews out. She believes that “elite reporters” like those featured on Hardball “aided and abetted the rush to war in Iraq and fostered the terrorist policy that has resulted in this catastrophe.” Matthews had said on Hardball that people like Rosie are harming anti-war efforts.

All’s fair in war and war?   

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Rosie O’Donnell calls him a gay Nazi. The Toronto Star calls him the Hunter S. Thompson of snark. Perez Hilton calls him his mentor.

We call him just another guy who hates bush.

Big Head DC recently caught up with legendary NYC columnist Michael Musto as he prepares to embark on a tour of Washington, DC to promote his new book La Dolce Musto, a gathering of his greatest hits from his popular Village Voice column over the past twenty years. Watch, love and learn, kids:

BHR: People probably best know you as the prince of celebrity pop culture, but sometimes you have Washington-focused items. Have you ever thought about leaving NYC to come here to gossip?

MM: Ah, there’s no way that’s gonna happen (laughs). I only can exist in New York, really. I know that there’s been gossips who’ve come out of DC to New York – and maybe did better in DC – but New York is just the milieu that’s right for me. I can’t drive. I don’t drive at all. I’m completely hopeless in any place other than New York City.

BHR: In your book, you recall an interesting time at the one of the Reagan inaugural balls. Have you been to any Presidential balls since?

MM: No. I was really a fish out of water in that case… It was the second batch of Reagan inaugural balls that I went to, I went to one of them, and I describe it as one of the eight circles of hell. I just didn’t belong. I had on a ratty rented tuxedo, you know, I was the only non-Republican in the room. I was trying to stuff myself on the trail mix. I think they called it shuttle mix. Yeah, I went running back to New York.

BHR: So you don’t feel comfortable here?

MM: Well, when I’ve gone there for nightlife jaunts, I’ve felt very comfortable. I’ve had a great time.

BHR: Mary Cheney has been in the news recently because of her pregnancy. Love her or hate her?

MM: Well, everybody’s always coming down on her, but I think it must be really difficult to be Mary Cheney. You know, she’s between a rock and a hard place. She’s a lesbian in a family that can’t be thrilled about the fact that she’s a lesbian, and her family has to act like they’re okay with it because she’s their daughter. Yet, they have to advocate public policy that seems to be against her way of life. So, I wouldn’t want to be her… She has to feel kind of like a second-class citizen in her own family. It’s easy to target her as a villain, but she’s in a very unenviable position.

BHR: What about Dick Cheney? Do you think he loves Mary or hates her?

MM: (laughs) I think he’s probably torn between the policies he’s chosen to espouse and the fact that she’s obviously a decent person and she’s his own flesh and blood. The good thing about Mary Cheney is that she holds up a mirror to the Republican Party’s own hypocrisy. And people keep reminding him and asking him how he feels about his daughter. He says it’s irrelevant, but it’s not irrelevant… If your own flesh and blood is a lesbian and has a family, then why shouldn’t she be afforded the same rights as anybody else?

BHR: Does Dick scare you at all? Read more…

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The king of FOX News appeared on the View this morn, and Rosie even made popsicle stick stop signs that read “disagree” and “wrong,” so that she could politely hold them up whenever he spoke. How, um, sweet in a childish 6-year-old kind of way.

Barbara probably made her do it, as the old dame made sure to firmly note to Rosie that he’s a friend of the program before he came out.

“Barbara gets the kiss,” O’Reilly said as he swaggered on stage, a la John Wayne. He then called Rosie and Joy Behar “secular progressives” and Babs and Elizabeth Hasselbeck “traditionalists,” along with Martin Luther King, Jr. Ha.

“I buy all your books,” Rosie said toward the end of a boringly combative interview. “I think you’re interesting.”

Then, Babs noted again that he’s always been a friend of the View. Finally, dear readers, we changed the channel.

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