The Obsession Continues: Olbermann Condemns George Will’s Praise of Michele Bachmann

Want to be noticed by any one of the hosts that have a primetime show on MSNBC's weeknight lineup? Just figure out a way to make Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.  the subject matter, and there's an excellent chance either Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow will take a shot at it, or her, during their shows.

In the Oct. 25 Washington Post, George Will penned a column about Bachmann, outlining her ascendancy into the national spotlight, which told of her start in politics and how she grew to become reviled by the left. And it was just a matter time before one of the charming personalities on MSNBC made some sort of remarks about the column, albeit two days later. That came on Olbermann's Oct. 27 "Countdown" broadcast.

"Dateline, Anoka, Minn. - number one, best revelation: George Will, in a profile of Michele Bachmann, writes, ‘When she was a teenager in Anoka, Minn., she was a nanny for a young girl named Gretchen Carlson," Olbermann said. "Today, Carlson, a Stanford honors graduate, who studied at Oxford, is a host of ‘Fox & Friends,' the morning show on, wouldn't you know, Fox News Channel. See how far ahead the vast-right wing conspiracy plans?'"

But it was only after Olbermann dedicated some 20 seconds of his show during his "World's Best Persons" segment to recite the last paragraph of Will's column, that he took the cheap shot. The shot? Praising Carlson and Bachmann as a "waste" of Will's skill.

"Yeah, George, but not far enough to make sure Carlson's nanny would grow up to have some credibility of some sort," Olbermann said. "And certainly not far enough to make sure you didn't waste your considerable skills defending the likes of Gretchen Carlson, Michele Bachmann and Fox News."

Earlier this month, Olbermann complained when Bachmann referred to certain personalities on the network as "stalkers" for their fixation on attacking her and demanded an apology from Bachmann to everyone that had ever been stalked. And the Minnesota congresswoman isn't exactly one of the most powerful members of the U.S. House of Representatives, having ranked 363rd out of 435 members in the most recent "power rankings" put out by a group called Knowlegis, making the attacks even more curious.