With Joe Scarborough on vacation this week, MSNBC needed a Republican foil to balance Harold Ford, Jr. in their "Insiders" segment during primary coverage tomorrow.

The network landed someone high profile — former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Huckabee will provide, "insight and analysis throughout the evening," during MSNBC's primary programming, beginning at 6pmET.

TVNewser will have all the coverage notes from the networks and cablers tomorrow for the West Virginia primary (not scheduled to last until well after 1amET this time) tomorrow.

Newsbusters found the video from almost four years ago at the Democratic National Convention, showing Chris Matthews gushing over Sen. Barack Obama (sound familiar?).

After Obama's keynote address, the MSNBC anchor says, "I have to tell you a little chill in my, in my legs now. That is an amazing moment in history right there. It is really an amazing moment. A keynoter like I've never heard."

A few seconds later he echoes guest Dick Gephardt's comments, saying, "A star is born." Now, years later, the chills have turned to thrills.

MSNBC debuted a new daytime hour on Monday, a partnership with the New York Times called, "NYT Primary Edition." It had practically no promotion, with TVNewser and other outlets learning of the special programming through a Times internal email.

The New York Observer's Felix Gillette writes about the ratings for the hour, which were, "not great."

The show finished with 271,000 total viewers and 101,000 in the A25-54 demo. That put MSNBC in fourth place behind CNBC but ahead of HLN in Total Viewers. Still, the numbers were not much different than usual. The April average at 2pmET on MSNBC is 276,000 Total Viewers and 104,000 in the demo.

We twittered about it yesterday (look to the right under TVN Twitter Updates, and click here if you want to follow us), and now Patrick Gavin has the photo evidence of Chris Matthews pulling "a reverse David Gregory."

See for yourself at FishbowlDC...

TVNewser received this internal New York Times email from an anonymous tipster, apparently detailing a new program beginning today on MSNBC. The email:

MSNBC (Check your local listings) Today at 2:00 p.m.

The New York Times Special Primary Edition, a new NYT/MSNBC political program hosted by John Harwood debuts today at 2 p.m. Guests include Adam Nagourney, Pat Healy, Jeff Zeleny, Gail Collins and other Times reporters.

This is the first in a series of special programs featuring Times journalists which MSNBC hopes to broadcast throughout the rest of the political season. Segments will also run on NYTimes.com.

We hope you will tune in.

We have calls in to MSNBC to find out more information...

> More: Could this be a further expansion of the 4-month old NYT/CNBC partnership?

> Update: The hour kicked off with Harwood and MSNBC's Contessa Brewer (not mentioned in the original email) anchoring, with the NYT's Nagourney on set. A NYT logo is seen in the lower third:

MSNBCer and NPR host Alison Stewart (pictured here with her husband, MSNBC VP Bill Wolff, at Countdown's 5th aniversary party April 2) has announced on her The Bryant Park Project program blog that she expects her baby "will join us by Friday, so the doctors tell me. Stay tuned."

Stewart was due in April and has begun her maternity leave.

(Photo by Chris Ariens)

Calling it "much worse than Pimp-Gate," HuffPo's Rachel Sklar writes about (and has video of) a comment made by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann the other night. It came during a post-PA discussion with Howard Fineman about how the Democratic primary race might finally come to an end. Fineman said it was going to take "some adults somewhere in the Democratic party to step in and stop this thing, like a referee in a fight that could go on for thirty rounds. Those are the super, super, super delegates who are going to have to decide this."

Said Olbermann: "Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

"Words matter, and so do the images they evoke," surmises Sklar.

> Update: Olbermann responds to TVNewser: "It is a metaphor. I apologize: the generic 'he' gender could imply something untoward. It should've been 'only the other comes out — from a political point of view.'"

The White House Correspondents Association dinner has suddenly turned into the locale for more drama than Les Deux during a The Hills episode. Mainly, because it is a The Hills episode.

The New York Post reported today that moderately-famous Heidi Montag had been bumped from the MSNBC guest table, because, "she couldn't get expenses paid for her Svengali-like boyfriend, Spencer Pratt."

But, according to the Post, Pratt totally wasn't invited. MSNBC denied the invite to Montag as well.

Then Radar took it to the next level — maybe Montag didn't go because her arch-nemesis Lauren Conrad was already going to be at the party, as a guest of Bloomberg TV.

But then, in the big twist, it turns out MSNBC did not invite Montag as they said, but that MSNBC.com did invite her, and she declined.

But what about LC-buddy and possible-Heidi friend Audrina Patridge?! How come she can't get some free publicity from the...WHCA dinner?

And on the next episode of The Hills — Heidi endorses Sen. John McCain (oh wait)...

We're following the volley between USA Today columnist Lorrie Lynch and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

It started here on Sunday and continued here this morning. After Olbermann named her "worse" person the other night for criticizing CNBC and its policy of staffing interviews with PR handlers, Lynch wrote that she had in fact interviewed Olbermann without a handler in November, 2005.

Well, late this afternoon, after an exhaustive investigation, MSNBC assures TVNewser that yes, in fact, there was a PR handler present when Lynch interviewed Olbermann. Since the interview was done on the phone, Lynch might not have known if there was or wasn't a PR handler listening in.

MSNBC VP of communications Jeremy Gaines tells TVNewser, "This writer has a bad memory. It's our policy to staff our talent and executives when they conduct interviews. She obviously doesn't understand the role of a media relations department."

MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann took the short trip up Broadway from his studio last night, to guest on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Olbermann said he is hoping for a Democratic candidate to be settled "sometime before the election," or before the inauguration. "Because that would make it easier when it comes time to vote on the Democrat or Republican," he said.

He also joked about the point of all the primaries. "It gives us six hours to kill almost every Tuesday night," he said.

Click continued to see Olbermann talk honestly about the media's knowledge of the state of the campaign...

continued...