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.

“During the long night that was the 2012 Iowa Caucus, Fox News came out on top in the ratings. For the first contest of the 2012 GOP presidential nomination process, FNC averaged 2.6 million Total Viewers in primetime. That’s about what the network does on an average night, but it doubled CNN’s take of 1.3 million (which is about double what CNN does on an average night). FNC also lead in A25-54 viewers averaging 683,988. Among the three cable news channels, Fox News was also the only one to see Total Viewer and A25-54 increases from the 2008 Iowa Caucus, when Democrats and Republicans both had candidates vying for their party’s nomination.”

• Primetime (8-11pmET)

FNC: 2,630,909 / 683,988 A25-54
CNN: 1,310,366 / 486,184 A25-54
MSNBC: 1,195,230 / 302,631 A25-54

• Full night (7pmET to-3amET)

FNC: 2,144,817 / 636,868
CNN: 999,518 / 390,118
MSNBC: 932,412 / 258,602

• Ratings Peaks

FNC: 10:00-10:15pm with 3.1M / 880,000 A25-54
CNN: 10:15-10:30pm with 1.5M / 664,0000 A25-54
MSNBC: 10:00-10:15pm with 1.3M; 12:00-12:15a with 385,000 A25-54

• Comparisons to Iowa 2008 (7pm-3amET):

FNC: +30% in Total Viewers / +7% A25-54
CNN: -36% in Total Viewers / -38% A25-54
MSNBC: +1% in Total Viewers / -36% A25-54

(Source: Nielsen Fast Nationals)

CLICK on http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fox-news-leads-in-coverage-from-iowa-peaks-with-3-1-million-at-10pm_b105138

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 Imitation Game by Moore is “the story of British WWII cryptographer Alan Turing, who cracked the German Enigma code and later poisoned himself after being criminally prosecuted for being a homosexual” and is based off the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma.”

For the full story by Deadline Hollywood click here.

Susan Sher, Graham Moore and Valerie Jarrett at a book party celebrating the publication of Moore's "The Sherlockian"

He spent the last few years at Quinn Gillespie & Associates and as co-editor of MediaBistro’s FishbowlDC.  Politico’s Mike Allen broke the news this morning of the job change and talked to QGA’s Jack Quinn who said “I’ll miss him terribly.” I think the rest of DC would agree.

Matt Dornic with Christine Delargy at the Jefferson for a WHC Insider bash

Matthew Morrison with FLOTUS COS Tina Tchen and daughter, Emma

One hundred lucky military family members will join Matthew Morrison “Back on Broadway” for his concert tonight at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.  Inspired by Joining Forces, the First Lady and Dr. Biden’s effort to support military families, the Glee star reached out and invited 100 service men and women in the NYC area to show his appreciation for their service and sacrifices.

Morrison is in the middle of his first tour with his self-titled debut album, which features duets with GRAMMY winners Elton John and Sting, and GRAMMY-nominated actress/singer Gwyneth Paltrow.  He most-recently opened for NKOTBSB on their nationwide tour.

It looks like you can teach an 84-year-old a new trick. Pope Benedict XVI launched the Vatican’s news information portal via Twitter on Tuesday using, what else? An iPad.

This is the latest in a series of moves from the Vatican to improve communication both internally and with the public. But don’t be fooled by all the “Benedictus” handles on Twitter, the Pope does not have a personal account. The papal tweet was sent from @news_va_en.

Check out the pontiff working the touch screen in this video released on the Vatican’s YouTube Channel. Yes, the Vatican’s been on YT since 2005.

David & Susan Axelrod with daughter Lauren and NPR's Peter Sagal

Vice President Joseph Biden shared his deeply personal story of brain trauma at the annual Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE) fundraising gala on Tuesday. He told the Chicago crowd gathered at Navy Pier’s Grand Ballroom about the life-threatening aneurysm and two subsequent seizures he suffered in 1988. Biden called epilepsy “a terrible lightning storm in the brain.”

“It’s amazing what we don’t know about how the brain functions,” Biden said. “For the first time in human history, significant resources and human capital are being applied to unlock how to catch that lightning.” REUTERS has more on the story.

CURE was founded in 1998 by Susan Axelrod, wife of former White House senior Adviser David Axelrod, and other parents frustrated with their inability to protect their children from the devastation of seizures and the side effects of medications. The Axelrod’s daughter, Lauren, lives with the disease.

“There is no lonelier feeling — and many of you have experienced it — when you know your child has a chronic illness which can’t be controlled,” David Axelrod explained.

Epilepsy affects over 3 million Americans of all ages and some 50 million people worldwide. It can develop at any age and may be a result of head injury, brain tumor, stroke and many other unknown causes.

“I can only image what it’s like to stare at your child while their eyes roll back in their head,” Biden said, quoted in The Chicago Tribune. “But the truth is, I believe with every fiber of my being that (a cure) is just around the corner.”

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn were among the 900 people attending the gala that raised almost $800,000 for the nonprofit organization. In addition to the Vice President’s keynote speech, the event featured Peter Sagal, Host of NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.” Since its founding, CURE has raised $15 million to fund epilepsy research and has has awarded over 107 cutting-edge projects.

More information about CURE can be found at cureepilepsy.org. WHCI is proud to support the work of CURE and if you would like to donate, please click HERE. The video below premiered at the annual CURE gala and features poignant, personal stories of families who have battled epilepsy.