Page Six is out with an item that, well everyone else is denying besides their source:

TIM Russert's body wasn't even cold in the ground before MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann started jockeying for his job, sources claim. Matthews was heard loudly discussing what seemed to be his strategy for landing Russert's "Meet the Press" show at Wednesday's memorial reception for the NBC Washington bureau chief at the Kennedy Center in DC. After Brian Williams, Carl Bernstein, David Gergen, Barbara Walters and NBC brass eulogized their friend, Matthews huddled with an unidentified "agent type" and seemed to be plotting. According to our spy, "Chris, with his loud voice, was going over a pitch for Tim's job. He was saying, 'You know, Tim's thing was this, and my thing is that.' It was unbelievably tacky." But Matthews told Page Six that the man he was with was real-estate developer Bob Monahan and that they were talking about a speech Matthews will give soon to a group of mayors in Gettysburg, Pa. "We started fighting about it. He wanted me to talk about block grants. I want to give my general political speech," Matthews said. "I swear to God that's what happened."

And...

A rep for MSNBC said, "All of this is utterly untrue."

And so it goes...(Personally, we don't believe the above story).

Jack Shafer looks at the Russert-Bob Novak relationship.