In the "better late than never" category, it looks like the axe has fallen on the Tucker Carlson show on MSNBC. It wasn't his hysterical overreaction to the idea of being transgendered, or even his glee at recounting the story of his assault of a gay man who "bothered" him in a restroom. Those things were perfectly acceptable to MSNBC, but what they could not abide were low ratings.

He joins a list of loudmouth MSNBC "personalities" given the boot, including Don Imus, and Michael Savage, who was canned back in 2003 for telling a gay call-in viewer to "get AIDS and die". Unfortunately, even though his show is gone, Tucker will be sticking around. He's going to become a "political contributor" to the network at least through the 2008 election, popping up occasionally to give his two cents, ala Pat Buchanan.

The thought of the two of them prowling the halls of MSNBC like a lunatic Batman & Robin must be giving Keith Olbermann fits. There's no word yet on who Tucker's replacement will be, but hopefully the network will finally realize that trying to imitate Fox News is a lost cause.

You can watch the clip of Tucker's potty problem after the jump, but I still can't decide if he's exaggerating about the whole thing. What do you think?