Olbermann: Obama One of the 1000 Smartest People in America

"They had 140 players on the field and the other guy had one, other team had one guy, and they lost to him."

So said Keith Olbermann Friday about President Obama's meeting with House Republicans earlier in the day.

Shortly after Chris Matthews gushed on fawned over the President during MSNBC's two hour special on the event Friday, the "Countdown" host unashamedly uttered superlatives of his own.

These included Olbermann claiming Obama is one of the 1000 smartest people in America (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

KEITH OLBERMANN: Yes. Well, you and I had this conversation when we went to the White House, that it was, it was really one of those moments where you thought, well, maybe we do have one of say the 1,000 smartest people in the country is the President of the United States. Maybe he`s 999. Maybe number 83 - we don`t know.

But that sense that you have that guy knows what he`s talking about under almost all circumstances and almost all topics is overwhelming. And I think this is the entree into it, to what degree it changes anything.

I would imagine there are - we`ve already heard from some of them. There are Republicans who are going, "What did we do that for?" And you know, I`m - you remember this, Chris, better than - as clearly as I would have, if not better, the story about when Rose Mary Woods was supposedly the one who erased the tapes on the White House Dictaphone or whatever it was, the 18-minute gap and for some reason, they let "Newsweek" into the White House to her desk to photograph her reaching back and having to do something physically impossible to erase the tapes.

And it looked stupid and it was just a disaster because it was towards the end of the Nixon presidency. Leonard Garment said afterwards, "I don`t know why we did that." Everything went wrong. All we`ve seen off the record, on the record from the Republicans after this tells you what maybe will change.

I don`t know that it`s necessarily for the better. They may be saying, "We`re never going to get close to him again. We have to avoid him as much as possible, and we certainly can`t be seen trying to negotiate with him because we`re not negotiating from strength." They had 140 players on the field and the other guy had one, other team had one guy, and they lost to him.

Fitting analogy, for MSNBC hosts are now almost as impartial as local sportscasters.

General Electric and NBC must be so proud.