With dire predictions of what Tropical Storm Gustav might do, the news networks are in high gear planning for coverage of the potentially catastrophic storm. That also might mean scaled back coverage of the RNC next week, depending on when and where landfall ends up. Last night on MSNBC, Chris Matthews asked "the managing editor of the NBC Nightly News" Brian Williams which story "would come in first" on Friday's broadcast: Gustav or Sen. McCain's VP pick. Williams:

Well, it looks like as the calendar's going to have it, we'll have the second answer first. We'll have a veep, then we're going to have landfall either late in the weekend or early next week. So mother nature will take care of that. You've got to put, I suppose at the end of the day, and we're all in hypothetical land here, you've got to put humans before politics but you've got to exert a whole lot of fairness and make sure that our coverage is even-steven.

As for Gustav, it's looking more like an early Tuesday morning landfall, possibly as a major hurricane, somewhere along the central Gulf coast.

And as my Florida weather friend Wayne Shattuck used to say....and that's not all. Tropical Storm Eight formed in the Atlantic overnight. The Weather Channel forecasts it will strengthen into Tropical Storm Hanna later today.