“MSNBC’s decade-long identity crisis may finally be over,” J. Max Robins declares.

He says last week’s Decision 2006 coverage “was chock-a-block with smart reporting and political analysis” from NBC News luminaries.

Yes, this has happened before: “MSNBC showed its promise during the aftermath of the 2000 election, when the Florida recount stretched on for weeks and the network drew on the NBC News bench to follow it. The coverage put the listless network back on course and turned it into a credible cable competitor.” Hopefully this time, the network won’t lose the post-election momentum…

>Update: 12:56am: “EVERY network has a post-election viewer drop… MSNBC won’t be exempt,” an e-mailer says, “especially since this is what, the 4th time since politics ‘gave MSNBC an identity?’ They’ll have to keep up politics for at least six months — not a couple weeks — for it to become a full-fledged, network-wide identity…”