Happy Eighth Anniversary To Hardball

MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews is celebrating eight years on television this week. Here’s the press release. Cable news shows don’t usually last this long — and especially not with the same host.

On Monday, Matthews spoke to ten of the senators involved in the bi-partisan filibuster accord: Seven in-studio, one remote, one by phone and one on tape. And on Tuesday, Rudy Giuliani was in the hot seat.

Tonight, Hardball “takes an intimate look at Opus Deil;” Thursday, Matthews talks to comedian Darrell Hammond about his SNL parodies; and Friday, he interviews Bill Maher. (And there’s an interview with Condoleezza Rice on Monday.)

> Also: “Congratulations on eight years,” Giuliani said last night. “It’s been terrific. Very, very interesting. Very entertaining, and very good.”

> Update: 2:14pm: “Hardball has been on the air for more than eight years. This is just a stupid publicity stunt for MSNBC,” an e-mailer says. “Chris had his ‘Politics with Chris Matthews’ show on America’s Talking and CNBC for quite a few years before it was renamed ‘Hardball.’ The name change came right after the 1996 election. So even if u were to use the Hardball name change as the anniversary, it has been 8.5 years. On top of that, it wasnt even shown on MSNBC at the time…”

> Update: 2:20pm: Hardball’s home on MSNBC.com has lots of links. “The MSNBC lineup needs someone who will keep on asking rapid-fire, hard-charging questions,” Katrina vanden Heuvel blogs on Hardblogger. Here’s a web-exclusive video from Matthews talking about Hardball…