After much mocking by Ellen Degeneres about Chris Matthews' dancing abilities on his last appearance on her syndicated show, the "Hardball" host chatted with Degeneres, on Thursday's show, about the election of Barack Obama and actually grabbed a shot glass to toast his win with Ellen (audio excerpt here):

ELLEN DEGENERES: Amazing! And you must be thrilled? I mean what, what a moment.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well I am thrilled!

DEGENERES: Yeah.

MATTHEWS, picking up shot glass: To Barack Obama!

DEGENERES, toasting: Yeah. To Barack Obama!

A little later in his interview segment, Matthews also took a different kind of shot, the verbal kind, against the outgoing administration:

In an interview with Victor Balta of Comcast.net, openly gay talk show host Ellen DeGeneres effusively praised Keith Olbermann's November 10 special comment denouncing the passage of Proposition 8 in California, maintaining the traditional definition of marriage:

I thought Keith Olbermann was so eloquent and so brilliant. I just thought that what he said is all that needs to be said. It really is just about following your heart and people paying attention to what the right thing is. (The movement) needs for people to not be ignorant.

It needs for people to open their minds and understand that it is a fundamental right: people need to be allowed to love who they want to love and marry who they want to marry. I don't know what it's going to take, but I have faith that people will realize that this is wrong.

DeGeneres has convinced herself that her on-air activism for homosexuality isn't "political" at all. When asked about any negative feedback for her activism, she declared:

While co-host Harry Smith described a Texas school allowing teachers to carry guns as "a controversial decision" on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, he teased an upcoming segment on Ellen DeGeneres marrying actress Portia de Rossi as simply exciting celebrity gossip: "And we have the wedding pictures from the marriage of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. That happened over the weekend."

The Early Show covered the DeGeneres-de Rossi wedding on Friday and Monday as well, with no suggestion of it being controversial at all. On Monday, Chen declared: "And wedding bells. Comedian and talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres, ties the knot with her long-time partner. We'll have details about the wedding." Correspondent Michelle Gillen then reported: "The DeGeneres-de Rossi wedding is perhaps the highest profile same-sex marriage since California legalized such unions just over three months ago... In 1997, Degeneres became the first television star to come out publicly on her sitcom ‘The Ellen Show.’" At the end of Monday’s segment, Smith wondered: "The thing I'm curious about, she's been so public about it. Then why would you keep the ceremony so private?" Chen replied: "So you can sell it to People magazine for $4 million."

Today Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an appearance on the daytime program "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," and the topic quickly turned to the issue of same-sex marriage. The issue arose after Ms. DeGeneres revealed on her show last Friday that she will be marrying her parter, Portia de Rossi. The marriage announcement came a day after the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on gay marriage. View video here.

Here's a partial transcript of the conversation:

Is there something in the water at NBC that gives its TV talent restless leg?

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is the latest journo to bust a move, on the March 19 "Ellen DeGeneres" show.

Looks like colleague David Gregory has some fresh competition, but I'm confident the NBC White House correspondent has what it takes. After all, he can get down to anything from Hilary Duff to Mary J. Blige.

That Hillary Clinton -- what a card!

According to an email I've received from her campaign, the intrepid Hillary is venturing into the lion's den, with TV appearances scheduled tonight on Letterman and September 4 on the Ellen DeGeneres show. Daring stuff!

In any case, according to the email:

Ellen is soliciting questions from her viewers to ask of Hillary, and we want to turn it around on her. So if you have a question for Hillary to ask Ellen, submit it here.