TVNeswer has the ratings from Friday night.  Guest host Rachel Maddow took over for Keith Olbermann and hit it out of the park.  She beat O'Reilly by 100,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo.

Full results after the jump.

Rachel Maddow fans everywhere were delighted that she got to sit in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown last Friday.  It's probably the first time anybody live blogged a guest host on one of the cable shows.

TV Newser has the ratings from Friday night and Rachel did great.  The numbers are after the break.

Those of us who lean towards conspiracy theories are wondering how Eliot Spitzer came to be the subject of a federal investigation, especially for something that is usually a state crime.

Talking Points Memo is reporting that the investigation started with a bank bringing suspicious transactions to the attention of the IRS.

Banks turning in their own customers is required under federal law, in some circumstances.  The fact that it happens at all is a whole other issue for civil libertarians.  For the Spitzer case, the problem is, it doesn't usually happen that way.  Follow after the break and I'll explain.

This national nightmare of the writers strike is really getting out of hand.  We all suffer in our own way, but the latest Bill Maher show is more than the country can bear.

It's not that we don't get the cute little intro scene.

It's not that we don't get the cute products in the middle of the show.

It's not even that we don't get "New Rules", even though it's a national treasure.

It's not really writing at all.  More after the break.

OK, kids, the big day had to happen and it finally came on Friday night.

TV Newser reports that last Friday Keith Olbermann beat Bill O'Reilly in the key demographic by 41,000 viewers.  There have been other nights where Keith beat a substitute host, but on Friday it was Billo himself.

Keith keeps trending up, and Billo keeps trending down.  There had to be a first time.  Here's the ceremonial toast to this being the first of many more.

I can't believe this one.  I just got a fundraising e-mail from Brian Wolff at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee bragging about all the good things the Democrats did today by passing the supplemental spending bill and asking me to send in more cash to reward them for today's good work.

Is he really that clueless?

The e-mail and my response after the break.

The White House Press Briefings can be a lot of fun.  I don't usually bother with the answers because any relationship between an answer by this White House and the actual truth is purely a coincidence.

The questions are a different thing, because they tell us whether the MSM is getting it.  They had a pretty good day today tying old Tony in knots.  Highlights after the flip include asking Tony why they can claim executive privilege if Bush doesn't remember anybody talking to him, Tony getting out from under his own opinion piece rejecting executive privilege during the Clinton years, and Tony not explaining an 18 day gap in the e-mails right before the firing.

OK, this is just a drive by diary with a link and a little commentary, but it's good news.

We've been watching for a couple of years as Keith Olberman has gradually built his ratings up from scratch and Bill O'Reilly's huge ratings have slowly declined.

Well, the happy day when Keith actually passes Billo is right around the corner.  TVNewser reports the ratings from Monday October 2.  Billo had 389,000 viewers aged 25-54 in the 8:00 EDT hour.  Keith had 333,000 viewers in the same hour.  That's the age demo the advertisers care about.

I can't verify this, but I think 333,000 viewers in the demo is Keith's all time high.  I can't imagine that Keith has been closer to Billo than 56,000 viewers.

I'm looking forward to the day Keith actually passes Billo.  Billo's head will explode and Keith will dance on his grave.

The table is on the other side.  I hope the formatting sticks.

Raw Story is reporting that somebody leaked them a 91 page Senate Republican strategy memo outlining the campaign plans for the August recess.

A PDF of the complete memo is here.  The three big themes are (1) beat the "economics" drum for a week then (2) beat the "family values" drum for a week then (3) beat the "homeland security" drum for two weeks.

The most striking reaction is that it's all the same old stuff they've been serving for the last couple of years.  It's hard to see how more of the "same 'ol, same 'ol" is going to change voters' minds.  It that's the best they got that's really good news.

There have been a few diaries about the death of the electric car, and a movie now in limited release.

Tonight a start up company introduces their new electric car with lithium ion battery technology.  Tesla Motors is unveiling an upper end roadster that they claim will go 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, top out at 130 mph, and go 250 miles on one charge.  The price numbers are about as high as the performance numbers  - roughly $100,000 per car.  That's out of reach for most people but sounds like one way to get the technology out there, and hopefully it can then filter down to more middle of the road cars to follow.

Ed Schultz had a guy from the company on this afternoon, and Ed sounded pretty excited about it.

C-Span finally announced which network would be covering Yearly Kos,  It's C-Span 3, supposedly starting at 11 EST but they are already running an interview of one of the organizers, Gina Cooper.

Yeah, this is a one-line diary but it's the kind of thing I was looking for somebody else to post, so sue me.

I really hate to add one more Paul Hackett diary but there is another angle to the story that really hasn't been talked about much.

An awful lot of anger has been directed at Sherrod Brown this week.  What I want to suggest is that Paul's supporters may have the wrong guy.  Based on what we know so far it is at least equally plausible that the real villan here is Mike DeWine, or his people, and Mike is sitting back reading everything here and laughing his ass off.

Explaination after the break.

A story is making the rounds now that Saddam's version of Dick Nixon's oval office tapes shows that Dubya was right all along.  Here's a link to the ABC News version of the story.

I've only heard Drudge's spin on the story second hand, and don't want to see for myself, but the news that there are tapes from the mid 1990's showing Saddam talking about hiding his WMD program is being taken to mean that Dubya was right all along.

Of course Drudge has it wrong.  More on the flip.

Today's press briefing started with an announcement that Bush's chief advisor for domestic policy, Claude Allen, has resigned.

Allen's name hasn't shown up a lot around here, but he sounds like George's kind of guy, and that's a bad thing.  Some details after the break.

Scott McClellan had another great day as the nation's favorite punching bag.  As usual, I don't bother with his answers except maybe to give context to the questions because whatever Scotty says is just noise.

Here's the link.

Highlights come after the break.  What's important is that the press is calling bullshit on Scotty's spin about Katrina and the spying scandal.  At least the people in the room seem to get it.  Now it just has to get from there to the screen.

I read the White House press briefings differently than Karateexplosions

He does great work looking at what Scotty has to say and translating it for the rest of us.

I, on the other hand, think that what Scotty says is just noise.  It's never the truth and in any event Scotty's job is to talk without really saying anything.  Instead, I'm mostly interested in what the reporters have to say, because the questions show something about the way they think and that may influence the news everybody gets.

That's why I thought today's question was a bombshell.  It comes after the break.

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman gave a great example of the current White House spin.  The thing is he made it so clear that he gave away the code.  What they have done is simply changed the question to the one they want to answer.  All we have to do is listen to what he actually said compared to what we think he said.

Here's today's transcript.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9967566/

The translation comes after the break.

The administration was ordered to release the rest of the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib weeks ago.  We still don't have them but we have moved one step closer.

This week Judge Hellerstein denied the CIA's motion for partial reconsideration of the order requiring production.  The order extends the deadline for production to November 15 but we won't see the pictures then either.

More on the flip.