Either Relevant or True » We’ll do it LIIIIIVE!!!!!

Monday’s tie: Generically dark tie. On my computer it looks navy, on my TV it looks black. You decide.

Segue music: None, but you can groove out to the Bill O’Reilly mega-mix. (NSFW lyrics.)

Worst Person in the World: It’s been a big day for Billy Boy. After attacking the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for refusing to publish photos of alleged terror suspects, he sent a member of his production staff to the home of their publisher, Roger Oglesby, to harangue him about it. Turns out those suspects weren’t terrorists, they were businessmen visiting from Europe. The P-I wants an apology.

5. Hillary Clinton is going to win the West Virginia primary tomorrow night. That’s not in dispute. In fact, Barack Obama has basically conceded the contest already. Hillary has already declared West Virginia to be a turning point and then she compares her projected victory to that of JFK in the 1960 election (leaving out the part about Joe Kennedy possibly buying the WV primary, of course). Like it matters. Not only did the Obama camp claim the lead in the superdelegate count over the weekend, they’ve already adjusted their campaign strategy with an eye towards McCain and the general election. Howard Fineman makes a thing out of Obama wearing his flag lapel pin today (this earns a slight eye-roll from Keith, who points out that he has worn the flag pin in front of veterans groups before and not just like a fashion accessory). Howard also says that Hillary staying in the race probably has nothing to do with helping Obama save face in preparation for defeat in West Virginia. John Harwood practically vomits at the prospect of an Obama/Clinton ticket (it’s not going to happen - as he puts it, Hillary doesn’t have the “juice” for it - I’ve been saying this for months, man). It’s slightly (although not entirely) more likely that the Obama camp could help buy the Clinton camp out. According to Harwood, the Clintonistas have basically really run out of options - there is no knock-out punch left to hit Obama with. The Rev. Wright scandal didn’t work and voters aren’t buying the gas tax proposal, so now we just have to wait for the inevitable.

Dig it, kids: Keith and Chris Matthews will be teaming up once again for live coverage of the West Virginia primary, tomorrow night starting at… OMG, Brian Williams is on MySpace. Anyway, expect them to declare Clinton the winner within moments of starting. The team will then… play Scrabble or something for the next several hours.

4. Et tu, Joe Lieberman? Appearing on the Sunday news shows, Lieberman reiterated the supposed “support” from Hamas for a Barack Obama presidency. Just so we’re clear: Hamas did not endorse Obama. A spokesperson for Hamas just said he thinks Obama is a neat guy. Keith is like, “WTF, Jon Alter?” And Jon Alter is like, “Yeah, Lieberman does that sometimes.” This isn’t the first hatchet job he’s pulled, and the McCain camp is likely to keep him around to try and pick up some independents. Jon also says the whole thing is absurdity: just because John Hagee endorsed McCain doesn’t mean McCain subscribes to all of Hagee’s ideas, so why should we assume that one guy with ties to Hamas giving kudos to Obama means Obama hates Israel and all that? (And Lieberman might want to watch his ass.)

Oddball: It’s an anteater walking on his hind legs! And this guy who smashed coconuts with his finger is retiring. And his finger looks nasty.

3. The McCain camp is complaining (specifically to Newsweek) that the media is showing bias towards Obama. Lending considerable gravitas, Keith is joined by Bill Moyers. Moyers freely admits that the media tends to show bias - but towards simplifying things, not towards candidates. Essentially, they’d all like to fit “the message” onto a bumper sticker and leave it at that. Moreover, since the media has adopted this ideology, they won’t be able to adequately report on the larger issues and deeper meaning of this campaign. However, Moyers was encouraged to see that voters saw through the Wright scandal (he says he’s never seen anything like that) and the gas tax pandering. He is also glad the Interwebs are around because it allows people to go online and become more informed so they can make up their own minds, rather than relying on the condensed message the media gives them. (Well, maybe Bill Moyers. But there’s a lot of crazy stuff on the internet.) Also, I guess Bill Moyers and Jon Alter had some really good convo in the green room.

2. Keeping Tabs: OMG, Bill O’Reilly totally lost his shit on Inside Edition. (NSFW, unless you are Bill O’Reilly, in which case this is standard how you talk to people behavior.) Oh, come now Keith. I think there’s plenty examples of your off-screen behavior out there.

1. Keith seems to have some sort of residual bitterness due to an injustice done to him during Model UN. But clearly it’s nothing compared to the bitch-slap that Saturday Night Live delivered to Hillary Clinton this weekend. Well it’s not like she could count on their support forever. And for Dana Milbank, this pretty much indicates that everybody but Hillary Clinton thinks the race is over. But she might not have seen the sketch since it was meaaaan. And to answer Keith’s question: Dana Milbank will be played by Fred Armisen. Especially now that SNL has all summer to come up with a better Barack Obama.

Model UN…or debate class in junior high. Hated it! I did all this hard work on why China should not be allowed in the UN…and I always was against the two most popular jocks in school whose opening argument was throwing an egg on the ground. They always won even though the egg was their own rational argument.

Poor ant eater. He can come to my house. We have plenty little proteins running around for him to nibble. But, Cheese Whiz is a good reward in animal training. Easy to handle…much easier than a clicker, treat bag and treats. Although I sometimes think BF Skinner is the Bill O’Reilly of animal training.

Keith is like, “WTF, Jon Alter?” And Jon Alter is like, “Yeah, Lieberman does that sometimes.”

I’m sorry, but that cracked me up. :slow hand clap: You took a three minute conversation and cut it down to that without really losing anything. Bravo!

I get the feeling there are plenty of KO anger moments out there. But the difference is Keith seems to find humor in them (now anyway).

I want Dana Milbank to do the #1 story every night whether the celebrity is political or not.

Lieberman. That man drives me crazy. I am glad that Jon Alter is reminding everyone that he is not this sage independent with the moral high ground, juts another political operative. I do understand he is angry with the Democratic party for going with his opponent (who fairly won the primary) but if he is accepting their leadership positions then he should not be actively campaign for the other party’s presidential candidates.

Great recap, Erin, as always. Giggling and snorting to myself over some of those lines.

While it was great to see Bill-O’s rant on the big screen, unfortunately MSNBC had to bleep all of his best lines, errrr, word.

I know that we can all melt down, as even I, sweet and angelic as I am, have had such moments, but from the stage manager’s reaction, this seemed “normal”. And wasn’t Bill-O’s hair wild? Neither the density nor the color looked natural.

Is this show getting into the stratosphere of news, or what? I know that Moyers has a new book out and is probably doing the rounds, but I got the impression that he also watches and appreciates Countdown. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the green room with Moyers and Alter.

I am still a bit in shock over Mort Sahl’s appearance last week, as like McCallif re Russert’s Dad, well, my parents were big Mort Sahl fans and had LP records of some of his routines, so naturally I thought that Sahl was in the great beyond somewhere.

For some reason these aging comics no longer seem to have much juice. I felt the same way about Richard Lewis. Perhaps their long crafted stage comedic timing does not match up to the wonderful back and forth informed banter that Keith has with Rachel, Dana, Richard Wolffe, and for goodness sake, Jon Alter.

I had also been wondering how they were going to fill the coverage of the Primary tonight. Let’s just say that I did not run out and buy an 8 hour video tape to preserve it for posterity.

Whatever they do do should be much more amusing than whatever CNN has in store.

Perhaps like the children’s long car trip games of counting horses, cows, etc., I will keep track of the movie analogies, the more tortured, the better.

That’s how I do, b’s.

Actually, my interpretation on the Keith/Jon Alter conversation is even more in-depth than my notes, which looked like this:

Keith: WTF
JA: Lieberman = jackass

And I’m a little concerned about the anteater, because when I was looking for the video, I came across all this stuff that said when anteaters walk on their hind legs, it’s a sign of aggression. I’ve got a feeling there’s going to be some sort of follow-up indicating this woman got her face ripped off.

I had a nightmare about that damn anteater last night. I guess, technically, what I had was a dream, as it wasn’t doing anything but walking on its hind legs, but for some reason the unnatural lumbering seemed - while watching it on TV last night and in my head early this morning - deeply threatening.

And for the record, an MSNBC analyst/pundit Scrabble tourney? I would drop cash, PayPerView-style, to witness that one.

This reminder: Blow-out-the-budget(TM) West Virginia Primary coverage tonight (5/13) starting at 6 ET/3 PT, 1 PM in Hawai’i. Be there, aloha.

I must say, Keith’s crisp white shirt with dark suit & tie was 50’s retro anchorman HOT. He should treat us to that combo more often. ;)

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