When the former vice president asks for your presence at the Museum of Natural History to celebrate his book's release, you go — if only to excuse yourself from hanging out with a bunch of Internerds. So last night we hit up Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth book party, where publisher Rodale had gathered a who's who list of industry powerhouses. None of which we recognized or cared to talk to, but we're certain they were among us.

Without a single bottle of bubbly available, we settled on white wine as we listened to Gore, standing beneath the precariously positioned giant blue whale, wax environmental for 10 minutes. No mention of inventing the Internet, which automatically bumped his speech up to a B- at least. Though his closing comments – "It's a spiritual crisis [...] I'm an optimist because I believe that we are capable of rising to solve this crisis and making a better world" – almost let us forgive the beads of sweat rolling off his face when we shook hands and chatted with him afterward.

Since we weren't about to waste our precious moments with Mr. VP showering him with praise – especially when we hadn't seen the movie nor read the book – we cut right to the chase: Was he sad to see Katie Couric leave the Today show? "I'm just glad she got a promotion!" he boomed. Okay, okay, we did discuss more than Ms. Couric's lower-half, but when Keith Olbermann finally freed himself from Gore's grip – "he paved a path to introduce himself," Keith lamented – we knew we had some questions for TV's most esteemed Counter-Downer.

The rest of our evening, after the jump.

Having brushed us off when our paths crossed at at the entrance – "What a coincidence running into you," he offered, before dashing past the manatees and heading into the party – we cornered Olbermann and his self-described "friend" Katie, whose square-rimmed glasses and conservative red top gave her the "hot librarian" appeal without any of the vericose veins.

What, we wanted to know, the hell was going on at MSNBC? Rick Kaplan out? Dan Abrams running the network? More importantly, Keith Olbermann answering to Dan Abrams? "I don't answer to anybody," Olbermann assured us. (Right-o.)

So does Abrams have the chutzpah to carry a whole cable channel? "He's capable," Keith said, an adjective he repeated at least three times — and the most positive descriptor he used on Abrams.

Meanwhile, Olbermann was more happy to report he learned of Dan's promotion yesterday morning during a breakfast meeting with NBC and MSNBC chieftan Phil Griffin, and not that afternoon when everyone else did. As for ex-boss Rick Kaplan: "Smart guy, things have always been interesting and unpredictable." Will he be missed? Not so much.

And Tucker Carlson? If he died tomorrow, laughed Keith, his obit would include his fight with Jon Stewart and mention of his bowtie "in the first graph." And with that, Keith marched merrily on to his week-long vacation, from which he'll return from on Monday — with guest Al Gore.

Us? Another glass of wine to get Gore's Brandon Davis-like sweat off our minds.