MSNBC Jumping Through Hoops To Pay For Rosie’s Flying Gold-Plated Trapeze

As we told you earlier, MSNBC’s been hard at work courting currently unemployed talk show host (and loudmouthed lefty) Rosie O’Donnell in an effort to knock Bill O’Reilly off his uncontested reign as cable news king and build up the star wattage of its predominantly liberal lineup.

Their plan? To have the opinionated O’Donnell step in and take over the time slot currently occupied by the network’s GM-turned-on-air persona Dan Abrams, (who recently waived his managerial responsibilities to become Joe Scarborough’s full-time replacement as host of Live With Dan Abrams).

Which would explain why Abrams reportedly flipped out upon hearing that MSNBC’s been aggressively vying for Rosie O???Donnell to inherit his timeslot.

And according to Correspondent Wendy, that’s not even the worst part. Sources tell her that Dan found out the bad news in the same exact manner the rest of us did: by reading about in the New York Times, presumably leaked by none other than MSNBC. Which, for those of you unfamiliar with newsroom etiquette, is essentially the journalistic equivalent of getting dumped via post-it note.

Meanwhile, the question on everyone’s mind seems to be just how desperate is MSNBC to land Rosie? As it turns out, very. Sources tell us the network is frantically trying to scrounge up the cash to bankroll her outlandish list of demands (Think a gold-plated trapeze and a private chopper to take her to and from 30 Rock every day. Seriously). But why now? Because MSNBC’s on the eve of renegotiating their contract with their cable provider and landing a big star (no pun intended) and proving they can go toe-to-toe with O’Reilly will give them infinitely more leverage.

Until then, you can bet network execs are left trying to figure how to placate their potential new hire and run damage control with Abrams all while digging up what little remains of the savings they already burned through to re-up with Keith Olbermann. And we’re left with the rather unpleasant mental image of Rosie O’Donnell hanging upside down and shouting orders from a flying trapeze.