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Greedy Bastards met Crooks and Liars as MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan returned to Washington courtesy of The Week magazine. Politicos and media mavens watched the heated discussion Dylan Ratigan moderated between Senator Bernie Sanders and GOP Rep. David Schweikert. Bill Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week introduced Ratigan to the enthusiastic crowd. Ratigan’s book, Greedy Bastards, is already a New York Times bestseller and Ratigan is fearlessly flacking changes to the American system of elections and the way or economy works.

Check out photos from the event below:

Here is Mr. Carr’s column from Monday’s New York Times:

When I saw the story last week about Keith Olbermann and Current TV lawyering up, I couldn’t help thinking, My, that was quick.

It was just six months ago that I wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine about the well-traveled anchor’s bold new partnership with Current TV, the low-rated liberal cable channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

I wondered how Current TV and the hot-headed Mr. Olbermann would get along, but back then, it was all hugs and hopeful rhetoric. At a Yankees game I attended with Mr. Olbermann, he said he was looking forward to working at a place where he would hold the title of chief news officer and where the corporate meddling would be at a minimum. Mr. Gore was similarly upbeat in a phone conversation for the article.

“Yes, he is a piece of work in all that that implies, but I have read all kinds of things about him and the Keith Olbermann I know is a good friend, extremely intelligent and uniformly positive,” Mr. Gore told me, adding, “The relationship is way more textured than owners and an employee. We are partners and friends, and this will be the first time that he has been an equity participant and co-owner of a channel that he works at.”

That didn’t seem to count for much on Tuesday night when Mr. Gore found himself participating in Current TV’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses while Mr. Olbermann was nowhere in sight. Without the star power of Mr. Olbermann and the trappings of a well-financed news outfit, the former vice president looked as if he were trapped in the studio of a midsize public access station.

Meanwhile, Mr. Olbermann refused to participate in any programming outside the parameters of his regularly scheduled “Countdown,” a show where he has all but taken himself hostage by broadcasting against a black backdrop. The motif scans as a running protest against the technical problems at the channel, with a candle lit to mark the start of the vigil. That nice, gooey start-up rhetoric now seems very far away.

Mr. Olbermann did excellent on-air work for CNN, Fox, ESPN, and MSNBC, but that never stopped him from burning bridges faster than they could be built. It rarely ended well in spite of his skills.

As it turned out, past performance was a good predictor of results going forward. Current executives have been reduced to communicating with their biggest talent through his manager and lawyer, with both sides working the media to get their story out. By creating drama in yet another high-profile assignment, Mr. Olbermann could be running out of options, but don’t bet the house on that, given how desperate cable channels are for anyone who can generate ratings, never mind the rough edges.

Having worked for big, moneyed cable outfits in the past, Mr. Olbermann was clearly disappointed in the deep technical problems at Current TV, a cable news start-up that had trouble producing live news programming, including “Countdown,” his 8 p.m. show. He declined to lead the channel’s special political coverage until those problems were resolved, but Current TV officials called his bluff and went ahead without him, pre-empting his show in the process. It was a game of chicken in which everybody ended up with egg on their faces.

The impasse has been remarkable to behold, even if few people are watching. Mr. Olbermann, who is reportedly being paid $50 million over the course of a five-year contract, had more than a million viewers when he left at MSNBC at the start of last year, but in the most recent ratings period, he was reaching just 200,000 people a night at Current TV, according to Nielsen. He’s been very disappointed in those numbers, and the fact that the channel has hired talent and built out capacity on the West Coast without his input. After a summer of production problems that never seemed to be resolved, a power failure darkened his studio last month. He responded by sitting in the dark.

Current TV executives are going through all kinds of gyrations to patch things together, while at the same time expressing surprise that Mr. Olbermann is acting like, well, Mr. Olbermann. When I talked to David Bohrman, president of the channel, he praised the quality of Mr. Olbermann’s show; but when I asked him about coverage of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night, all he could say on Friday was, “I hope Keith is part of our political coverage on Tuesday night and beyond,” adding, “That’s up to him.”

(Over the weekend, both sides said that progress had been made, and that although Mr. Olbermann will not be in front of the camera on Tuesday, he will be involved in Current’s election coverage on future nights. He confirmed as much on Twitter late Sunday. Earlier Sunday a spokeswoman for the channel said, “He’s told us he will do upcoming special election coverage, we hope he does and we would love for him to do it.”)

Mr. Olbermann’s contractual rights at Current TV are significant — he has control over the content of his show and his lawyers have argued that the channel has no right to pre-empt it for special election coverage — and management has very little leverage over him. So the channel is left to check his Twitter updates for indications of his mood, which is usually not very good.

Executives at Current TV told me they contacted Mr. Olbermann two months before the Iowa caucuses about being the anchor and executive producer of their coverage, and he declined. Mr. Olbermann thought it was silly to attempt to expand coverage when the channel’s marquee show lacked reliable production. But that didn’t stop him from calling in his staff for a news meeting on the day of the Iowa caucuses as if his show were going to appear, when he clearly knew that no such thing was going to happen, a pretty callous stunt by any measure. It fell to Mr. Bohrman to send a memo to the staff saying there would be no installment of “Countdown” that night. Ugly business, that.

But if Mr. Olbermann is disappointed in the widespread technical failures at Current TV, it should be pointed out that he helped choose the studio, an old building on the far west side of Manhattan that has turned out to be a lemon. He is a part of the management team, and you generally don’t get to rail against the Man if the Man is you.

Executives at the channel say the embarrassing public fight has more to do with his unwillingness to play, let alone play well, with others. Which is kind of a running meme in Mr. Olbermann’s career, but this time was supposed to be different.

By enrolling him at a high level in the remaking of Current TV and keeping the bureaucracy at a minimum at the small, privately held company, Mr. Gore and Joel Hyatt, the founders, hoped that the brilliant but chronically oppressed anchor would find the angel of his better nature. No angel has been forthcoming. Instead Mr. Olbermann has expressed multiple grievances through letters from his lawyers.

(Problems have only deepened since Mark Rosenthal, a chief executive Mr. Olbermann got along with, left in the middle of last summer and Mr. Bohrman, an experienced news executive, was brought in from CNN.) Current TV wants to be a player in the cable news/opinion world and most especially in the 2012 election, but their production capabilities are not ready for prime time and the man who was supposed to take the lead has barricaded himself within the four corners of his show and, so far, he’s not coming out. Mr. Hyatt, who is also the chief executive of Current TV, did not see that coming when we spoke last May.

“We think of Keith as our partner and as our friend,” he said then. “We don’t think of him as our employee, we don’t think of him as we’re a conglomerate and management, he’s the talent or worse, the employee.”

He was right about the last part. If Mr. Olbermann were simply an employee, they could tell him to show up at 7 p.m. Tuesday to anchor coverage of the New Hampshire primary. They can’t, and he won’t.

“Now that Iowa is behind us, it’s on to New Hampshire. ABC airs a GOP debate Saturday night and NBC has one Sunday morning — both with one less candidate — as a special “Meet the Press” and inconjunction with Facebook.

MTP goes live at 9amET each Sunday, but airs at various times on NBC affiliates across the country. But this Sunday, the debate will also air live on MSNBC at 9am. At the same time, this page will be up and running for Facebook users to ask questions and share thoughts about the candidates.

For the past few months NBC News and Facebook have been asking voting-age users what they think is the most pressing issue facing them. Here’s the break down:

In New Hampshire:
Economy: 58%
Federal Budget Deficit: 19%
Health Care: 11%
Illegal Immigration: 6%
Foreign Policy: 5%

Nationally:
Economy: 56%
Health Care: 12%
Illegal Immigration: 9%
Foreign Policy: 5%
Federal Budget Deficit: 5%.

The NBC News Facebook Debate on “Meet the Press” will also:
• air live and re-air on MSNBC
• air live on New England Cable News (NECN) throughout New Hampshire and New England
• stream live and be available on demand on msnbc.com and on facebook.com/Uspolitics”

Two women get rare promotions in the cable news world. Rachel Maddow is MSNBC’s sole anchor of their coverage and new CNN anchor Erin Burnett has earned a slot on the CNN’s election desk.  Keith Olbermann anchors CURRENT TV’s coverage.  Here is the New York Times’ Brian Stetler’s preview of your favorite channel’s coverage.

“America’s trifecta of cable news channels, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, are just about ready to show off their election year staffs.

Each channel plans to cover the one-night Iowa caucus for a stretch of several days, maximizing both their investments in the state and the ratings potential of a Republican presidential campaign.

On caucus night, Jan. 3, each channel will replace its usual prime time schedule with special reports. The extensive coverage plans highlight the importance of politics to the bottom lines of the cable news channels.

Past ratings indicate that the more seriously the channels treat events like the Iowa caucus, the more viewers tune in. So the networks are starting early.

Candy Crowley, the chief political correspondent for CNN, will report from Iowa starting Wednesday. Chris Matthews will anchor his MSNBC show, “Hardball,” from there starting Thursday, and the MSNBC anchors Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell will be there starting Friday.

But the coverage will be most visible starting Sunday, when the weekly public affairs programs like “Fox News Sunday,” anchored by Chris Wallace, and “State of the Union,” anchored by Ms. Crowley, will emanate from the state. On Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern, both Fox and CNN will have caucus previews.

On Monday, the day before the caucus, more cable anchors will plant themselves in Iowa, including the Fox News anchor Shepard Smith and the cast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Sean Hannity also will have his radio show and prime time Fox show there.

A new generation of anchors have stepped up since the last presidential election, so the coverage this year will look quite different than it did on Iowa caucus night in 2008. Back then, Brit Hume and Mr. Wallace led Fox’s coverage; this time, the co-anchors will be Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.

They will both be in Iowa beginning Sunday. On Tuesday, they will be on from 8 to 11 p.m.; Mr. Hannity will then be on until midnight.

Similarly, in 2008, Keith Olbermann and Mr. Matthews led MSNBC’s coverage; this time, Rachel Maddow will be the main anchor, joined by Mr. Matthews and the channel’s other three prime time hosts, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

They will be on from 6 p.m. until midnight; then Chris Hayes, a weekend host, will be on until 1 a.m.

Current TV, the upstart competitor to MSNBC, has scheduled four hours of special caucus coverage on Tuesday starting at 7 p.m.

CNN’s top two anchors back in 2008, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper, will be on again this year, but joined this time by Erin Burnett, who joined the network earlier this year from CNBC. They will also be joined by Ms. Crowley and John King, who will be stationed at his “Magic Wall.”

They will be on from 7 p.m. to midnight, when Piers Morgan will take over for an hour.

CNN, which generally is lower rated than Fox or MSNBC, but benefits from big periods of breaking news, seems to be positioning itself as a nonpartisan option for viewers who perceive Fox to favor Republicans and MSNBC to favor Democrats.

In a news release on Wednesday, CNN’s Washington bureau chief, Sam Feist, said, “As the only cable news channel that has not chosen a side in this election, CNN will tap into the expertise of our anchors, reporters and analysts to equip viewers with information to decide for themselves about the candidates.”

The main anchors for the network news divisions also will be in Iowa for the caucus. Additionally, CBS says that Bob Schieffer, the Sunday morning “Face the Nation” host, will be an anchor on “The Early Show” on the morning of the caucus. “The Early Show” is being replaced a few days later by a new morning program called “CBS This Morning.”

CNN, meanwhile, is using the caucus to introduce its new morning team. On Tuesday, Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin will start their new 5 to 7 a.m. shift, and Soledad O’Brien will start her new 7 to 9 a.m. shift.”

Here is the letter that went out to the democrats list today.

Friend – You may have heard that Mitt Romney’s offering a supporter a chance to donate and win to spend election night with him in New Hampshire. Kind of like Dinner with Barack. But there’s a catch: Deep pockets could go a long way to you joining him. You see, for every dollar you donate to Mitt, you automatically get another entry to win. So someone who makes a $1,000 donation would be exactly 200 times more likely to win Mitt’s contest than someone who only chipped in $5. We do things differently. Every few months, the President has asked to get together with just a few grassroots supporters to talk about what’s on their mind. And we don’t think your chances of winning should be determined by a big contribution. So donate $3 or whatever you can to be automatically entered to win dinner with the President and First Lady. You’ll have the same chances as everyone else, no matter how you enter. This is precisely the difference between us and the other side. Instead of auctioning the President’s time off to the highest bidder, we believe anyone should have a shot at a seat at his table. And instead of relying on big spenders, corporate lobbyists, and Super PACs to do our work, we rely on grassroots supporters like you. The President wouldn’t have it any other way. Chip in $3 or what you can to be automatically entered for dinner today: http://my.democrats.org/Dinner-Our-Way And remember, when Mitt’s spending election night with other folks who can afford $10,000 bets, we’ll be doing things our way. Thanks, Hildy Hildy Kuryk Finance Director Democratic National Committee

Even if turnout far exceeds projections, only a small percentage of Iowa’s 3 million residents will participate in the event that plays an outsized role in determining which Republican candidate will face off against President Obama in November — and possibly lead more than 300 million Americans over the next four years.

Despite the national media saturation, the process by which the Iowa caucuses are run can seem incomprehensible even to politically attuned outsiders, and it is rarely explained in detail.

But some quintessential Iowa quirks notwithstanding, the Republican caucuses are rather straightforward.

Iowans who wish to participate on Jan. 3 must first find the voting site of their local precinct. The venues tend to change every four years, so even longtime caucus-goers are advised to double-check with one of the campaigns, the Iowa Republican Party website, or their local newspaper.

There are 1,774 precincts in this year’s caucuses, and many of the state’s rural outposts will see just a trickle of participants. On the other hand, some of the more populous counties combine their precincts into one location, which means that thousands of caucus-goers will gather at a single location.

Blackhawk County, for instance, is holding this year’s caucuses at the UNI-Dome, where the University of Northern Iowa football team plays its home games.

The gatherings are run entirely by the state Republican Party, which will deliver to each precinct a list of registered Republicans as of Nov. 14.

Once people start arriving at their caucus sites, they will be checked in and directed to their seats if they are already registered with the party. Non-Republican voters are allowed to register on site with the GOP upon providing a driver’s license or other photo ID with proof of residency and will be added instantly to the party’s registration rolls and can participate that night.

Seventeen-year-olds who will turn 18 by Nov. 6, 2012 are allowed to take part.

Refreshments are typically provided, and neighbors and friends will mingle before the session is called to order by a volunteer precinct captain.

The caucuses begin at 7 p.m. Central Time, but Iowa GOP officials and the campaigns themselves encourage voters to show up early, since the process typically starts on time. Michele Bachmann’s website, for instance, directs supporters to be at their caucus precincts by 6:30 p.m. and does not mention that the event actually begins a half-hour later.

After a few minutes of procedural business, the captains will move on to the main event: the Presidential Preference Poll.

Each campaign will then be allowed to have one surrogate speak on its behalf. These speeches, which typically last two to three minutes, are among the most important elements of the entire process and figure to be even more critical this year, given the especially high percentage of undecided voters.

“I hope to make a decision before I go in there, but a lot of people will actually go in there, visit with their neighbors not knowing what they’re going to do, and say, ‘Who do you support?’ ” said longtime Iowa Republican activist Becky Beach. “And what happens a lot is people who they are friends with or that they respect, they’ll vote with those people because they know them and like them.”

In the past, well-organized campaigns have placed volunteer speech-givers at almost all of Iowa’s precincts, providing them with talking points for closing the deal.

But in a year that has seen a much lower level of organizing than usual, not a single campaign has announced chairpersons in all 99 counties. Bachmann seems to have come the closest, as her campaign announced earlier this month that she has 91 counties covered.

Mitt Romney’s campaign will not say how many county chairpersons it has in place, though the remnants of the extensive organizing Romney did in the state throughout 2007 may prove invaluable.

At his Ida County precinct in 1996, Iowa GOP campaign veteran Tim Albrecht delivered his first caucus night speech on behalf of Pat Buchanan — while just a high school senior. According to Albrecht, the visual stimuli at each site can have a significant last-minute impact.

“You want to plaster that room with your signs and plaster anyone who will wear one with a sticker, because people like to go with a winner when they are undecided this late,” he said.

The candidates themselves will usually speak on their own behalf at one or two precincts in the more heavily populated counties.

Once the speeches have concluded, voting begins promptly.

Though methods may vary from precinct to precinct, each caucus-goer is typically handed a blank piece of paper on which to write the surname of the candidate for whom they are voting.

“In our precinct, I know this sounds cliché, but we passed around a red-white-and-blue sequined shoebox with a hole slit in the top, and you drop your ballot in there,” said Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn, who plans to attend his local caucus this year but will not vote out of deference to his position.

In contrast to the far more complicated procedures involved in the Democratic process, Iowa Republicans do not maintain a viability threshold, and there is no second-choice realignment vote for candidates with little support.

Votes will be tallied in full view of attendees at a table in the back of the room, where each campaign is allowed to station an observer.

Decisions about misspellings are made by precinct leaders, but a liberal interpretation of voter intent is typically employed. There have been surprisingly few disputes over the years.

The results for each precinct are announced to everyone who is still on hand, and precinct chairs then forward their counts to the Iowa Republican Party.

The state GOP is likely to launch a website in the coming days, which it will use to announce the results as they come in on caucus night.

In 2008, the Iowa GOP tabulated and announced the outcome soon after the caucuses closed, and the party has enacted further improvements that it hopes will help it determine the outcome even more efficiently.

Unless the tally is extraordinarily close, the winner should have enough time to make a victory speech while most TV viewers on the East Coast are still awake.

The candidates who decide to continue their campaigns will then hop on red-eye flights to New Hampshire, where a one-week sprint in the first-in-the-nation primary state begins promptly the next morning.” Thank you Scott!

The “Today Show” sent a battalion of talent both on-air and off, beginning with Matt Lauer and his daughter; Ann Curry; Washington favorite Savannah Guthrie; and top producer Don Nash and his wife, Geylan.

Chuck Todd’s mom gave Gene Sperling a frontline small business pool report, while Bloomberg’s new TV Chief Andrew Morse caught up with ABC colleagues Ann Compton who brought her newly engaged daughter Annie Hughes, Robin Sproul and daughter, and Kate O’Brien and daughter. Terry Moran, Rick Klein, and Jake Tapper brought their better halves, too. Polson Kanneth brought young brother, James, before they jet off to India.

NBC News President Steve Capus with Elena Nachmanoff, and CBS’s Bob Schieffer and his daughter. Meet the Press EP Betsy Fischer brought fiancee Jonathan Martin, and MTP host David Gregory brought his wife, Beth Wilkinson.

All the president’s men attended in force from Jay Carney, Jon Favreau and Cody Keenan to Ben Rhodes. Marvin Nicholson stood tall in his new role as the president’s body man, and Sam Tubman lead the parade of media for the grip and grin photos.
The new webified David Chalian brought his step father while C-SPAN’s Steve Scully brought a priest.

No one looked happier then the man who issues the invites, White House Social Secretary Jeremy Bernard. He knows the joy the holidays bring.

Hilary Rosen, Jo Dee Winterhoff, Campbell Spencer and David Chalian

PBS Newhour’s political editor, David Chalian, is moving to Yahoo News as their Washington bureau chief.  This is a big move for Yahoo heading into the 2012 election, having just announced a partnership with ABC News (which is where Chalian won an Emmy for producing President Obama’s inauguration).

Read the full story from Yahoo here.

Bohrman, one of the most innovative producers in news, moved to the West Coast this spring after taking on the role of Chief Innovation Officer at CNN.  Best known for his creative eye and his ability to make risks pay off – he was the driving force behind the first CNN/YouTube debate, hologram correspondents and John King’s “magic wall.”

Read the NY Times article by Brian Stetler who first predicted the news via Twitter here and the entire announcement from Current TV here.

Mark Halperin (far right) with the Game Change crew: director Jay Roach and writer Danny Strong at the WHCD BLoomberg|Vanity Fair Afterparty

Washington’s “Gang of 600″ (500 + web crowd) watched the return of Mark Halperin on MSNBC who coined the phrase “Gang of 500,” to explain the movers and shakers in politics. Halperin was suspended earlier this year for his comments on the President.  MSNBC explained their decision to bring back Halperin after one month at the Television Association Critics summer tour.   Click here for The Washington Post’s coverage by Lisa DeMoraes and watch Halperin’s return in the video below:

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