While Joe Lieberman is arguably not a wise VP pick for John McCain, choosing the Connecticut senator would have on effect on politics: Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist could get un-engaged.

That's the theory Chuck Todd floated today, sort-of-but-not-entirely outing Crist — who's widely suspected to be gay — while discussing McCain's potential running mates and the idea there's a "glass ceiling" for the unmarried.

SCARBOROUGH: Did he get married? I thought he was engaged. Is he engaged or did he get married?

TODD: After Friday the engagement might be off if he’s not the running mate., right? … I don’t know!

EVERYONE ELSE: *awkward!*

Those affected by 30 Rock's budget cuts, such as the producers who were told they would not be needed at this year's two presidential conventions, will be pleased to know MSNBC is shuttling its high-profile talent around in a Cadillac Escalade stretch limousine. Reports the Observer: 'Keith Olbermann took photos as the massive, tricked-out partymobile swallowed the MSNBC political panel whole: Michelle Bernard and Eugene Robinson, Pat Buchanan and Rachel Maddow. The inside of the stretch Escalade had the pundits in stitches. There were Champagne glasses, leather seats, tinted windows, disco lights, and outrageously cheesy, curvy everything. “It’s like Battlestar Galactica in here,” said Ms. Maddow. “This is how MSNBC rolls out.”'

Riding around Denver in a prom-mobile is important, of course, because it shows MSNBC is one of the big boys and that it can play hardball with the other networks.

Hope everything in NYC and D.C. is just swell!

Well, at least you know where MSNBC and NBC stand on this whole DNC "civil war" going on between the regular folks and the crazed Hillary fans — the stations are firmly planted on the side of sensationalist journalism. While Republicans and Democrats are expected to snipe at each other during election time, the media at this convention locked eyes with a contingent of Dems who believe Hillary Clinton should have won the nomination and are threatening to vote for McCain come election time. Even NBC's political director Chuck Todd spoke out against the station spending all its hard-earned Denver drinking money covering the PUMAs (that's Party Unity My Ass), the particular anti-Obama group composed mainly of middle-aged white women, who receive a disproportionate amount of coverage based on their small numbers.

This is the political equivalent of Elisabeth Hasselbeck making those statements about Jeffrey Dahmer and bologna sandwiches; not everyone who likes processed meats is also a serial killer, and only a small, small percentage of people who voted for Hillary Clinton are running around the convention like Star Wars fans at Comic-Con. But since PUMAs are the most, uh, colorful turnouts of the event so far, and since nothing actually happens at the national conventions except network in-fighting, you can bet there is going to be a disproportionate amount of coverage on the crazy cat ladies.

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So nice to see MSNBC's anchors have learned something from, uh, the last 48 hours. There was the Scarborough "shovel" incident, the Scarborough v. David Shuster incident, and yesterday, leading up to Hillary Clinton's powerful speech, a Chris Matthews v. Keith Olbermann incident, shown here. Trying to do something to resuscitate his sexist image, Matthews doesn't appreciate Olbermann signaling to him to wrap things up. This is now the third such on-air spat between MSNBC talent, and competitors and closely watching to see just how much chatter this week is about the DNC, and how much is about the fact that nobody on 30 Rock's pay roll actually likes each other.

Holy, holy crap. If you thought last night's blow up between Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews/Keith Olbermann was explosive, you didn't see today's Morning Joe, where Scarborough all but tore into his colleage David Shuster. While Mika B. unsuccessfully played referee, Joe and David's sparring over John McCain (around the 4:00 mark) only hinted at a deeper disconnect: The two guys hate each other. Read into Joe's complaining about David "sleeping through" and skipping three recent Morning Joe appearances as you will, but according to one control room source, "producers couldn't believe it. Some know these two don't get along, but it was awkward even for us. I watched [the clip back] later and it was even worse the second time."

Of course, this is just a long list of internal MSNBC feuding. Scarborough has aimed his ire at Keith Olbermann (later excused as an attack on Anderson Cooper, though nobody believed it). And more interesting, Scarborough appeared excited when he turned to David Gregory on remote — since these two hate each other as well.

Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, who are not exactly friends, have been tag-teaming the DNC coverage, while folks like David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, Brian Williams, and, here, Joe Scarborough, have been relegated to remote fill-ins. Even Tom Brokaw has been treated like a second-class citizen, though we love his white pop star mic. But it's here, in the Scarborough interview, where viewers are treated to what's really going on behind the scenes: An on-going power struggle where Olbermann reigns supreme, Matthews accepts he's become MSNBC's No. 2, and everybody else remains in disbelief that things have unfolded this way. [via]

MSNBC goes macabre: In Denver, a jet-lagged Brian Williams and Luke Russert play a game in which they try to imagine what Luke's father (insert Star Wars joke), Tim Russert, would think of the goings-on at the DNC. Just one more reminder that the only reason Little Luke is sitting there is because 30 Rock misses his dad. Clip after the jump (the weirdness starts about 1 minute in):

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When it comes to finding a cable news bar to drink at while "reporting" from Denver, there are, like the cable news offerings, options for liberals, conservatives, and people with no opinion whatsoever. [Gawker]

Dan Abrams on last night's Verdict, the show's last: "This is the third goodbye show I've done at MSNBC in five years. So don't count us out entirely." [Cityfile]

JOSSIP REPORTS — With budgets already stretched thin — do you know how much Keith Olbermann costs? — cable networks like MSNBC find themselves covering one of the most expensive presidential election cycles ever. Those primaries went on for eternity, and the DNC and RNC will demand a few million more bucks. And then there's the damn presidential debates still coming!

All those costs explain why network head Phil Griffin has handed down travel restrictions — namely, the number of producers heading to Denver and St. Paul is nothing like it was just four years ago, we're told. Well-placed informants tell us many producers who went to the conventions in '04 aren't going to either the DNC or RNC this year, while the producers who did make the cut will have to pull double or triple duty, handling multiple talent at the same time.

Sounds pretty crappy, but cutbacks are the reality, right?

Well, it's the reality for everyone — except a one Andrea Mitchell.

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One quick thing to interrupt your celebration of Rachel Maddow getting her own show on MSNBC: There was a chance she could have scored her own show … on Fox News.

Maddow's agent, Jean Sage at TV Talent (also Keith Olbermann's agent), asked to send her tapes over to FNC's head of programming, Bill Shine, we're told by a reputable insider. But Shine declined. (The blog Radio Equalizer rumored about this, and notes that even at Air America, Maddow has "consistently been one of Air America's lowest-rated hosts, with a show that has been picked up by relatively few affiliates and an almost total inability to drive revenue growth.")

That Sage went to FNC could've been a simple negotiating tactic, so he could tell MSNBC there's interest from other networks, and thus have leverage to increase her price. To be sure, this is standard operating procedure for cable news talent when signing contracts.

Or maybe Sage was genuinely exploring all of her options. And if that was the case? It makes Olbermann look a little silly boasting about how he got her the MSNBC show, since, perhaps, she was just as willing to take a deal at Fox if it came through.

D.C. gossip sheet Politico got all up in the New York Times derriere when, in reporting on MSNBC, Bill Carter failed to mention his newspaper's relationship with the network. (They've partnered for an irregular political roundtable show.) In scolding the Times, Politico's Michael Calderone then went on to realize his own employer has a partnership with CBS, which he's also failed to disclose.

Liberal lesbian Rachel Maddow — introduced here with her two most important traits — just went and scored herself her own MSNBC show, which was some time in the making. Officially, NBC says Rachel's debut on Sept. 8, or 09/08/08, is the "final leg of the political race this year."

Unofficially, though? On 09/08/08, a one Keith Olbermann will mark his nearly complete takeover of the network. Yes, Olbermann might as well hold Phil Griffin's title as MSNBC chief, since, according to knowledgeable sources and all outside appearances, he's making the calls.

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When Don Imus made that unfortunate remark on the quality of hair on Rutger's College female basketball team, it had one beneficial side-effect: A window opened for one of the largest discussions about race politics to go down as a proxy to the race issues going on in politics (if no one has noticed yet, Barack Obama has dark skin). But Imus got fired for performing this public service, so you would think Pat Buchanan would be a little smarter than to appear on a morning radio show helmed by the same sort of crazy right-wing bigotry that Imus so frequently spewed.

But Pat Buchanan has it covered, people — right after e makes some comments about the Jews on this White Power radio station.

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Rachel Maddow, the Air America radio host and perma-filler-in-er at MSNBC, is at last getting her own show on the network. The well-liked (by NBC News staffers) and well-received (by MSNBC viewers) commentator will take over the 9pm slot — a pretty hefty change, given that we're only weeks away from the election. This means, of course, that Hamptons playboy Dan Abrams is losing his show Verdict. None of this is entirely surprising to insiders, nor Jossip readers — MSNBC chief Phil Griffin hinted Maddow getting her own show was a near inevitability, and we've been regularly covering her ascent at the network.

Though removed from primetime, Abrams, however, isn't going far: He remains NBC News' chief legal correspondent, and is expected to continue appearing on the network.

But the real matter at hand is now how well Maddow's show will do, but how well Keith Olbermann's Countdown will do without her. Certainly, Olbermann carries his own weight at the network. But Maddow, as an omnipresent guest and sometime fill-in anchor, has lent her expertise to Olbermann's crusade against the Bush administration and John McCain. It's likely that, with her own show to handle, she will have little to no time to appear on Olbermann's program, nor anywhere else but daytime.