Sure, there was the little matter of a presidential race to be settled.  But tuning into MSNBC this evening, there was also the suspense of seeing whether another spat would break out between Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.  And the pair didn't disappoint.  Renewing the on-air feud that began out during the DNC, tonight's tussle left no doubt there's still plenty of bad blood between the two.

Matthews sparked the spat by suggesting that Obama had gone back on his word to take public financing for his campaign.  When Olbermann sprang to Obama's defense, Matthews suggested that his, um, colleague was being naive.

View video here.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Barack Obama, I'm not saying he's cleaner than other politicians, or other Democrats, but he's different.  He's different. He doesn't like having his hands on street money, he doesn't like making cabinet deals, he doesn't like the old politics, he doesn't work with the committee chairs, the county chairs.  He does it his way.  I'm not saying it's better.  In fact it may offend me in many ways.  But it is different, and we ought to take account of that tonight.

And by the way, he's not super-clean, because he didn't take the federal money; he changed his mind on that. Let's keep clear about that --

KEITH OLBERMANN [dismissively]: No he didn't.  He didn't.  He didn't change his mind on that.

MATTHEWS: Don't buy the blue-plate special from anybody.

OLBERMANN: I've read the document!

MATTHEWS: [inaudible] politicians all my life.  Don't believe them all. And don't believe everything they tell you.

Boys, boys: can't we just all get along?

—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.