He's been fodder for late-night jokes and even helped inspire one of the TV season's biggest hits ('The Good Wife'). Now, is disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer about to become a legitimate TV star?

Or, as one media expert suggests, is he about to become a TV "car wreck" you just can't not watch?

Fox and MSNBC have been attacking each other with more frequency (but probably less violently) than the Black Spy and the White Spy, and one of their main forms of ammunition have been their respective ratings.

So naturally 'Countdown', hosted by the rather large (both in stature and physical size) talking head Keith Olbermann, had to respond to a report that appeared in the New York Post's "Page Six" column claiming that his show is one baboon hair away from cancellation hell.

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Last night during MSNBC's coverage of the State of the Union Address, Chris Matthews said about President Obama, "I forgot that he was black tonight, for an hour." Now, even if you give him the benefit of the doubt about this statement (a dumb statement for many reasons - what, he does remember that he's black all the other times of the day? What exactly does it mean?), it's still an odd statement to say out loud. He "clarified" the statement on Rachel Maddow's show.

Don't think what he said was odd? Imagine if someone on FOX News had said it.

Remember last week when Jon Stewart turned his eye on pundit mimicry against MSNBC's rather large talking head Keith Olbermann?

It seems that Mr. Olbermann saw Stewart's glasses-removing "special comment" on The Daily Show, so Olbermann dedicated the end of Monday's show to a little "special comment" of his own. Get ready to hear something you may never hear again on a cable news pundit show for a rambling, incoherent and baseless attack on a public figure on either side of the political aisle: an apology!

Someone want to turn to The Weather Channel and check on Hell's wind chill? Because it may have just dropped to -2 Celsius.

If you missed Jon Stewart's impersonation of Keith Olbermann - calling him out on the comments he made about new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and other politicians and pundits - here it is. It's pretty funny (and accurate). Olbermann's response? "It was a little bit of a rip-off of the Affleck thing, but overall I'd give it a B-."

[Watch clips and episodes of The Daily Show and other shows at SlashControl.]

The Democrats are getting desperate to retain the baboon hair thin majority they have in the Senate.

How desperate are they? They actually asked political TV shouter Ed Schultz to run for a vacant seat.

The pundit and host of MSNBC's The Ed Show got a call from Democratic Rep. Merle Boucher asking him to run for retiring North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan's vacated seat.

Schultz hasn't said whether he'll run one way or the other but when he does, expect his booming voice to knock out a few car windows and the occasional fragile wine glass. Don't say we didn't warn you.

You can probably guess that Fox News dominated the ratings in 2009. In fact, thirteen of their shows made it to the top fifteen of the year. The other seven spots of the top 20 are made up of various MSNBC and CNN shows, with only Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Larry King Live cracking the top fifteen.

After the jump, the top fifteen (and here's the whole list).

Sort of lost in the shuffle of the pre-Christmas news was this item. MSNBC has cancelled the Dr. Nancy show. What? You didn't even know there was a Dr. Nancy show starring NBC medical/health expert Dr. Nancy Snyderman? Don't worry. Most people weren't either. MSNBC plopped Dr. Nancy at 12 noon on June 29 and then did next to nothing to promote the show.

Even if MSNBC had done some publicity, it may not have helped. MSNBC daytime is a major problem for the network. They've been juggling and re-juggling the personalities, but nothing has worked. So while Dylan Ratigan is getting another slot on the channel, Dr. Nancy will return to her work as NBC's chief medical editor doing the NBC News and Today.

Rick Sanchez is one of those CNN personalities -- it's hard to call him a news reporter -- who doesn't really fit the mold. He never fit the mold as a local guy down here in South Florida either. However, CNN seems to believe that Rick has an appeal. That said, CNN will give Rick Sanchez a new show in just a few weeks. Commencing January 18, 2010, Rick's List will be a daily two-hour installment of Rich Sanchez. The timing is interesting because they're cutting an hour into Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room.

This actually makes sense. The Situation Room is very political and during the campaign and the election, the ratings were high. We're in a post-election period now and will be for a while.

The CNN idea is to fill the afternoon with more fluff and general interest news, the kind of stuff Rick Sanchez is better suited to handle. He can talk about lists for hours, taking calls, reading Tweets and vamping. The man enjoys the sound of his own voice.

Morning Meeting, a horrid hour long morning news and shout show featuring former CNBC talking head Dylan Ratigan, invited Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on a recent show and conducted the kind of interview that would cause the Bill O'Reilly from that infamous Inside Edition clip to calm down. Although it would probably sound more like "calm the f*$& down."

Ratigan tried to take Schultz to the mat over the recent health care bill, but the only thing he accomplished is turning his own show into the kind of wall of incoherent noise that has dominated the cable news clusterf&$%. He has since issued an apology.

On the ninth day of Festivus, TV gave to me... nine on-air breakdowns.

Director Alfred Hitchcock once said, "Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it."

Yes, having a camera stuck in your face for an hour or more a day must take a toll on your sanity. Your privacy is virtually limited. Your every move is scrutinized and criticized by faceless meanies. Your therapist is one session away from owning his own fishing trawler.

It's only a matter of time before the grasp of sanity is clipped away like a loose thread on a homemade snowman sweater and you turn into a blubbering, snotty, incoherent mess for all the world to enjoy. These are the personalities who lost it and may or may not have gained whatever "it" is back.

If you're wondering who actually flicked the switch for the always impressive Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, you might be surprised or violently angry depending on your personal opinions.

MSNBC's professional right-wing pundit impressionist Keith Olbermann lit the tree during last night's episode of Countdown while dishing on Tiger Woods' series of trysts with gossip monger Michael Musto like a couple of housewives in a beauty parlor with baritone voice. Olbermann officially ushered in Christmas with a switch that looks like he raided the trash bin after NBC dismantled the Family Feud set. Then without missing a beat, the two jump right back into the Tiger trashing.

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This is an amusing clip from Sunday's episode of Family Guy. It's one of those pop culture flashbacks that the show does and has Chris Matthews and his giant head, talking over and interrupting his guest just like he does in real life. Special bonus: an appearance by someone from That 70s Show!

[Watch clips and episodes of Family Guy and other shows at SlashControl.]

Who doesn't love Thanksgiving? I'll be enjoying mine with all the usual staples: turkey, cranberries, cornbread stuffing, some weird brown thing my father attempted to make and my Mom's mind-numbingly good meliton dressing. I'm literally chomping at the bit to take that first of 227 bites of homemade turkey. I've gone through three remotes in the last hour.

But I have to come up with something to do after all the food has been ravenously devoured by that wolf pack I call my family. And rather than list 100 reasons for regretting life (because 99 of them would be "Why did I eat that?"), here some things I have to be thankful for instead.

If you're playing a TV news drinking game wherein you and your dumb little buddies have to do a shot every time someone posts fake footage or film for a story, you might want to think about switching to Tang.

Now MSNBC's Morning Meeting has been caught dipping their hand in the Photoshopping jar when they aired rather obvious fake photos of Sarah Palin while doing a diss-session on the former VP candidate and her never ending book tour. Seriously, why is there this much coverage over one book? Even The Never Ending Story has an ending.



Dylan Ratigan issued an official apology to the viewers, Palin and her family for "mistakenly" using the doctored images. He also said he and the network took the weekend to ensure this would not happen again. I guess that means there's one less email forwarding fratboy on MSNBC's research payroll now.