Interesting equation in today’s Howard Kurtz story on MSNBC going left.

Do these two elements add up?

This:

Olbermann has also unloaded on the presumed Republican nominee, sometimes with the on-screen headline “Double Talk Express.” When McCain missed a vote on legislation to expand educational benefits for veterans, Olbermann accused him of “political opportunism.” When the Arizona senator suggested that as president he would regularly answer questions before Congress, Olbermann said: “John McCain would last 11 minutes doing it before he swore or punched somebody or stormed out or all three.”

And this:

But news and opinion often seem to merge on primary nights. MSNBC’s coverage is anchored by Matthews, a onetime Democratic operative, and Olbermann, the “Countdown” host who recently finished one anti-Bush commentary by instructing the president to “shut the hell up.”

On election nights, Griffin says, Matthews and Olbermann “put on different hats. I think the audience gets it. . . . I see zero problem.”

Zero problem, perhaps, if there’s zero problem with a presidential nominee being called the worst person in the world?

CNN’s Rick Sanchez, discussing Teddy Kennedy:

SANCHEZ: According to doctors, that condition put Kennedy at greater risk of having a stroke. Speaking of doctors, let’s bring in our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He’s good enough to join us now. We got him on the phone. Sanjay, I’ve got a question for you.

VOICE OF DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Rick.

SANCHEZ: This word seizure, when I hear seizure, I have a picture in my mind of my wife having postpartum eclampsia and literally shaking uncontrollably in front of me, which is a scary thing to see. Is this the thing that could have happened to the senator as well?

And a follow-up: Dr. Gupta, does this look infected to you?

A touching Tucker Carlson anecdote in The Hill today:

Carlson comes with quirks. For one thing, he never locks his car even though a woman once stalked him and another accused him of rape. The stalker wrote a letter to his daughter, then 6, that said, “Your father has to kill me or I’m going to kill you.”

But the unlocked car? He once found a guy asleep and wrapped in newspaper in the back seat of his Volvo station wagon. “I beat on the windows and made him get out,” he says.

And what happened to the guy in the car?  As fate would have it, that guy went on to host a little show on TV called “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.”

A Wolf Blitzer question on “Late Edition” yesterday:

“What do you think about this whole notion of the president right now…?”

No word on whether he planned this follow-up: How’s the weather?

Congratulations Larry King on your contract extension. We all hope we’ll look this good when we turn 77.

Fun tidbit in The Cable Game:

CNN’s Fredericka Whitfield, reporting on the spate of shootings in Chicago, said, in the course of her report, that these shootings underscored the need for “more sensible gun control laws.”

Well, obviously something bad is happening in Chicago-all these people, 31 in all, getting shot, with six dead. But how does one automatically conclude that we need gun control. The CNN clip showed Chicago Police Chief Jody Weiss complaining about AK-47s in the hands of criminals.

Barack Obama’s been having a lousy couple of days. So it’s probably a welcome respite for him that HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel” debuting Tuesday night focuses on his love of basketball.

The timing couldn’t be better, coming shortly before the Pennsylvania primary. Obama tells Gumbel that as a kid he had this famous poster of Julius Erving as a Philadelphia 76er, playing at the Spectrum:

And basketball-crazed Indiana is next on the schedule. Maybe we’ll see him playing hoops in public there.
There’s an ironic moment in the program when Obama jokes that if he wins the presidency, he’d tear down the White House bowling alley and replace it with a basketball court. Yes, the interview was conducted a month ago, well before Obama bowled a 37 in Altoona.  If Obama wins in November, he want to keep the bowling alley.

Huffington Post affiliate 23/6 posts this hilarity — a one-minute version of CNN’s “Situation Room.”

Click here to view.

But can 23/6’s sensational work be sped up even more? Can “The Situation Room” be reported in 30 seconds?
We think so.

Leaving only one remaining question about “The Situation Room”: Will it blend?

Here’s something you don’t see all that often — Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen attacking Keith Olbermann.  The subject: Barack Obama and Pastor Jeremiah Wright:

In other words, how is it possible that a man who has made judgment the centerpiece of his presidential campaign has shown so little of it in this matter?

One possible answer to these questions is that Obama has learned to rely on a sycophantic media that hears any criticism of him as either (1) racist, (2) vaguely racist or (3) doing the bidding of Hillary and Bill Clinton. You only have to turn your attention to the interview Obama granted MSNBC’s fawning Keith Olbermann for an example. Obama was asked whether he had known that Wright had suggested substituting the phrase “God damn America” for “God bless America.”

“You know, frankly, I didn’t,” Obama said. “I wasn’t in church during the time when the statements were made.”

But had you heard about them? Did your crack campaign staff alert you? And what about Wright’s honoring Farrakhan? Had you heard about that? Did you feel any obligation to denounce those remarks — not Farrakhan’s, as you had done, but those of Wright himself? Don’t you consider yourself a public figure whom others look to for leadership? Do you think you failed them here?

Olbermann asked none of those questions.

Cohen had to be serious about the subject matter: He didn’t cite his favorite sourcing — himself — once in that entire excerpt.

OK, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way first.

• Yes, the following takes advantage of poor old Larry King.
• Yes, we cherry-picked what we liked to make our case stronger, er funnier.
• In fact, yes, we take much of it out of context.
• Yes, it ignores the greater body of impressive work that Larry King has contributed over the years.

OK, now the fun.

A sampling of questions Larry King asked his panel last night about the Eliot Spitzer story:

• “Under what circumstances, Jason, did you first connect with her?”
• “How successful was she when she went to work for you? How successful was she at what she did?”
• “Because someone is physically beautiful, does that mean they would be a good prostitute?”
• “Not wanting to wear a condom. What would it be to you, Babydol?”
• “How does the escort feel, Kathleen?”
• “And, apparently, it’s going to get, if the term is right, more huge”
• “Kathleen, is this going to be bigger and bigger, do you think?”
• “Natalie, do any hookers ever marry their johns?”

If only he had asked, if you were a big prostitute tree, what kind of big prostitute tree would you be?