First Olby, then Scary Larry O’Donnell, now this. With each new hire, we creep a little closer to seeing an MSNBC host actually take a swing at one of his guests.

In honor of AB’s last public meltdown, a commenter in Headlines suggests calling the show “Foot Up Your Ass with Alec Baldwin.”

Mediaite has learned from a senior source in the cable news industry with knowledge of MSNBC’s programming that actor Alec Baldwin is getting his own weekly show in MSNBC’s primetime lineup.

According to our source, the so far untitled show will air Fridays at 10 p.m. ET and will feature a large dose of Baldwin’s outspoken liberal politics.

The gig would make sense, considering Baldwin’s long history with the NBC family. He starred on the network’s award-winning sitcom 30 Rock for seven years, has frequently hosted Saturday Night Live, and hosted the network’s American airing of 2007′s Live Earth concert. Most important, Baldwin’s fiercely liberal and often combative political views make sense for a network that has become the place for progressive viewpoints on cable.

Consider this the logical conclusion of the brief, abortive movement to get Capital One to fire him as spokesman after he called that Daily Mail reporter a “toxic little queen.” Despite hulking out publicly in various embarrassing ways over the years (NRO has a list of five lowlights), he’s paid no penalty. He’s a celebrity, usually likeable in his roles as an actor, and he’s got the right politics, so he can count on powerful allies to go to bat for him when need be. Getting his own show on America’s most stridently liberal cable news net is the icing on the cake. Look at it this way: He’s a far more innocuous figure than Al Sharpton, right?

Besides, in fairness to him, his show will probably be the most watchable thing they have on the air. As a performer he’s vastly better than, say, Chris Hayes, and he can probably swing some A-list guests who wouldn’t deign to appear on MSNBC otherwise. If he interrupts the “Republicans are a cancer on America” boilerplate for interviews with Matt Damon, people will watch. Better this than another thousand “Lock-Up” re-runs, in any case.