Scandalous news from the hallowed and arbitrarily-festooned halls of MSNBC: Network president Rick Kaplan has replaced the big poster of Dan Abrams from the lobby of MSNBC headquarters -- and replaced it with a poster of Rita Cosby. Yikes!

Cosby, who earned props for scoring key interviews with Michael Jackson's family after the trial (Tito, Jermaine and Mama Katherine), but doesn't yet have her own show, is now represented alongside MSNBC luminaries Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson and his best bud Don Imus. Cosby is now the lone woman in an all-male lineup; Abrams is now the lone man "banished" to a dinky hallway. Ouch.

Lloyd Grove has the scoop from the inside:

An NBC News type gasped: "Dan's picture has been taken down? You're kidding!"...An MSNBC insider, meanwhile, told me: "People have been confused for weeks, watching Rick's growing vendetta against Dan."

Kapln denies anything is afoot, praising Abrams as "a hugely valuable asset to MSNBC" and noting that the change merely reflected Cosby's imminent addition to the prime-time lineup. More juice from Lloyd:

Kaplan denied that he's punishing Abrams because the latter - or so I'm told - flatly turned down Kaplan's request that he co-host a 9 p.m. show with Cosby instead of doing his own show.

It's definitely a bizarre and very public move on Kaplan's part - especially when he's been a stalwart supporter of the ratings-challenged Carlson and the good taste-challenged Imus. He'd be wise to tread carefully though - I don't know much about the ratings for "The Abrams Report" but Dan went out on a limb last fall in sharing his own story about beating testicular cancer, making the choice to make the personal public for the benefit of MSNBC/NBC viewers. That kind of goodwill goes a long way.

Do pictures tell a story at MSNBC? [Lowdown]