Olbermann Nostalgic for Days Rush Could Be Hanged

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Who said leftists are opposed to the death penalty? It's just a question of whose neck's in the noose . . .

Many might wax nostalgic for the America immortalized in Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post cover drawings. Not Keith Olbermann. He longs for the good old days when people like Rush Limbaugh . . . could be strung up. Here's the Countdown host tonight, speaking with Air America's Rachel Maddow:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Legally, we've come a very long way since the Haymarket bombing in Chicago in 1886 when we wound up hanging some anarchist writers, who were not even in the state, as murderers by proxy. And legally there is this question of "temporal remoteness" [separation in time between the statement and the act]. You say this now on the radio, it happens in August. It's not like yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater; it is protected speech. But do you think that Limbaugh has any idea that were he to repeat what he said on the air, say the day before the convention, or during it, he might actually be morally or legally responsible for incitement to riot?

View video here.

Responding, Maddow took some ad hominem shots at Rush's personal life.

RACHEL MADDOW: I think that, with the exception of things involving his housekeeper, and painkillers, and other people's Viagra at airports and stuff, I think that with the exception of stuff in his personal life, Rush is such a pro that he knows exactly where the legal line is that he's toeing. And so I'm sure he knows that when he's speaking through his golden microphone in April about something that's going to happen in August, he's not in any danger of any criminal charges here. But, if he said this not through the golden microphone and in person and in August and in Denver, if he keeps with this line--he was very overt what he was asking for--then sure he would be in trouble. He's not there yet, but if he repeats this in the right place, then that's absolutely the line he's walking.

Let's put aside the absurdity of all this for a moment and make a legal point. The people who would be rioting in the streets of Denver would be Obama supporters outraged that Hillary had managed to snatch the nomination away from him. People like . . . Keith Olbermann viewers. Is the Countdown host suggesting his audience would be taking their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh?