Countdown

Here’s a shocking thought for your Election Day: A Keith Olbermann-style anchorman on every television news program on every channel spewing vitriol and animus as only he can. Some Halloween trick, huh? Well, if Aaron Barnhart, television critic of the Kansas City Star is right, this could be the case in the near future (hat tip to TVNewser).

Barnhart’s column on Monday entitled “Numbers look good for Keith Olbermann; Is MSNBC newscaster's 'Countdown' journalism's saving grace?” absolutely gushed praise on America’s premiere Bush-hater (emphasis mine throughout):

Keith Olbermann is, to date, the most perfect expression of [the fake newsman] idea. As he continues to pick up steam -- that he will pass CNN’s Paula Zahn for second place at 7 p.m. seems inevitable -- it’s worth asking if his brand of journalism will be, and should be, the future of TV journalism.

The article apocalyptically continued:

Contending that “it's hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one, certainly not in non-presidential years,” MSNBC's Keith Olbermann ended his election-eve Countdown show with another anti-Bush diatribe in which he urged viewers to vote against the administration -- though this was his shortest, at just under five minutes. Olbermann saw suspicious timing in the death penalty assessed Sunday on Saddam Hussein: “Each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.” Mocking Bush's assertion that if radicals takeover in the Middle East the price of gas will soar, Olbermann asked Bush whether he went “to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here?” and then proposed: “Or did you go to war in Iraq to keep gas prices down?”

Olbermann complained: "Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you've stayed the course, having belittled us about 'timelines' but instead extolled 'benchmarks,' you've now resorted, sir, to this? We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?” He argued: "Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow. Sir, you have been making this up as you went along.” And Olbermann fretted: “Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and maybe thousands more. He'll get out faster than we will.” He concluded to exhorting his viewers to return “checks and balances” to the political system, slamming the Bush administration: "Unchecked and unbalanced. Vote."

Video clip (4:55): Real (3.7 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (3.1 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (1.7 MB)

With less then a week before Election Day, members of the mainstream media are doing everything they can to elect Democrats. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has stepped up his fevered attacks, referring to President Bush as both "stupid" and a liar. Later on in the week, he included Media Research Center President Brent Bozell in the November 2 "Worst Person in the World" segment.

Speaking of cable networks, an analysis of the CNN "Broken Government" special shows that Lynne Cheney was right in denouncing it as nothing more then left-wing Daily Kos-style propaganda.

Over on CBS, "The Evening News" featured a laudatory segment on "trend setting" California. Not so coincidentally, all the trends were liberal. On the subject of morning bias, "Today’s" David Gregory turned over a segment to Michael J. Fox and his promotion of Democratic candidates.

Completing the network trilogy, ABC’s "Good Morning America" talked to a group of "real-life actual voters"in a Ohio diner. Oddly enough, none of these hungry citizens seemed to like Republicans very much. Perhaps this was a Democratic diner.

For daring to criticize Keith Olbermann's Wednesday night “Special Comment” rant against President Bush for inspiring “domestic terrorism,” the MSNBC host on Thursday night named Media Research Center President Brent Bozell his “bronze” nominee in his daily “Worst Person in the World” segment. Olbermann, who misidentified the MRC as the “Media Research Council,” proceeded to claim that Bozell was on the phone ordering men's underwear to don “on his head.” Olbermann ridiculed Bozell: “The bronze to funny man Brent Bozell, self-appointed President of the self-created Media Research Council, responding to my Special Comment last night with a press release headlined, 'MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Preaches Hate Speech.'...[T]his is the guy who wrote the Willie Horton ad and in the press release he calls me a 'brown shirt.' And he thinks other people are preaching hate speech. Buy this man a mirror!”

Moving to his next nominee, the designer of men's underwear in which “the fabric cup protrudes everything out in front instead of down toward the ground. The design of the underwear separates and lifts,” Olbermann sarcastically quipped: “I'm told Brent Bozell is on the phone looking to order a dozen -- to wear on his head."

Video clip (1:01): Real (1.8 MB) or Windows Media (2.1 MB), plus MP3 audio (365 KB)

On Wednesday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann used his latest "Special Comment" not only to demand that President Bush apologize to American troops over the Iraq War, but he also blamed Bush for inspiring acts of "domestic terrorism" against critics, a la King Henry and Archbishop Thomas Becket, and bizarrely chose to inject racism by making a comparison between Bush supporters attacking the President's opponents and the 1856 caning of anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner by pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks, and at one point even mentioning charges of racist "fear of miscegenation" in the current Tennesee Senate race. As Olbermann concluded his rant, he addressed Bush: "You instructed no one to mail the fake Anthrax [received by Olbermann], nor undermine the FBI's case, nor call for the execution of the editors of the New York Times, nor threaten to assassinate Stephanie Miller, nor beat up a man yelling at Senator George Allen, nor have the First Lady knife Michael J. Fox, nor tell John McCain to lie about John Kerry. No, you did not, sir. And the genius of the thing is the same as in King Henry's rhetorical question about Archbishop Thomas Becket: 'Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?' All you have to do, sir, is hand out enough new canes." (Transcript follows)

In Keith Olbermann's latest contribution to the 2006 Democratic Party campaign, the MSNBC host on Monday accused President Bush of "lying" on the campaign trail as he relayed that the President was making campaign appearances without charging admission. Olbermann: "The state of play for the Republicans is such that the President is no longer charging admission for each of his campaign appearances. That's right. He's now lying for free."

The Countdown host further ridiculously claimed that Bush was accusing Democrats of being responsible for problems in Iraq, playing a clip of Bush in which the President merely charged that Democrats lack a plan of their own to win in Iraq. Olbermann: "And earlier in Statesboro, Georgia, billed as a victory rally, and yet Mr. Bush somehow making the claim not only that the Democrats are the ones jumping the gun, but that the minority party is somehow responsible for the mess that is the war in Iraq." (Transcript follows)

On Monday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered his latest anti-Bush, anti-GOP "Special Comment," (also posted on Countdown's Web site) this time accusing President Bush and Republicans of committing the "dictionary definition" of terrorism in trying to scare Americans into voting for them, even contending that "the leading terrorist group in this country right now is the Republican Party." Olbermann laid blame for the delayed discovery of the remains of 9/11 victims at the feet of President Bush and Republicans. Olbermann: "And yet you can actually claim that you and you alone can protect us from terrorism? You can't even recover our dead from the battlefield, the battlefield in an American city, when we've given you five years and unlimited funds to do so!" (Transcript follows)

Video clip, starting about four minutes into the nearly 11-minute long screed (6:30): Real (4.9 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (4.1 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (2.3 MB)

On Friday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann previewed what could be one of his closest steps yet towards falling off the edge of the Earth in far-left Bush-bashing in the form of his latest "Special Comment" segment. Two days after suggesting that President Bush poses a greater threat to America than the terrorists for not granting habeas corpus to terror suspects, Olbermann previewed his next "Special Comment," planned for Monday, attacking a "Republican scare commercial" featuring clips of Osama bin Laden, which Olbermann characterized as "meeting the dictionary definition of terrorism" because of its "scare tactics." Olbermann further accused Republicans of "doing the terrorists' work for them by trying to terrify Americans." (Transcript follows)

I DVD'ed Olbermann overnight to check just how fawning a performance he would put in with his guest Barack Obama - whom FCC regulations require me to describe as "the rising star of the Democratic party." When it came to Olbermann's sycophancy, I wasn't disappointed. After accusing Republicans of "terrorizing" Americans, the MSNBC host continued:

"proposing an alternative course for American politics, one that replaces fear with - of all things - hope, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and his new book, The Audacity of Hope."

NBC's efforts to reestablish itself have gone poorly, and its cable network MSNBC is still stuck in last place. Execs are considering putting MSNBC's two biggest stars, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, on business channel CNBC, and using the rest of MSNBC for taped programming about "murder mysteries" and similar tabloid material. From Broadcasting and Cable:

NBC Universal employees are bracing for the worst as Chairman-CEO Bob Wright and NBC U TV Group CEO Jeff Zucker are convening town hall meetings in Los Angeles and New York for what is expected to be news of restructuring and job cuts.

Sources say Wright will appear on the Universal Studios lot near Burbank on Thursday while Zucker holds a similar meeting with East Coast employee in New York. NBC press reps were not available at press time.

On Wednesday's Countdown, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered the latest in a recent series of "Special Comment" attacks on President Bush, inspired by the recently passed Military Commissions Act, as he suggested Bush was as big a "threat" to America as the "terrorists." The Countdown host not only referred to the government "becoming just a little bit like the terrorists," but he also labelled some of Bush's "invocations" as "terroristic" and compared the wish of a 9/11 planner to end America to what President Bush himself "has wrought." Olbermann: "One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks, you told us yesterday, said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America. That terrorist, sir, could only hope. Not his actions nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists, real or imagined, could measure up to what you have wrought...These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would constitute the beginning of the end of America." Olbermann also charged that Bush has "imposed subjugation and called it freedom," accused Bush several times of telling "lies," and proclaimed, addressing Bush, that "the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you." (Transcript follows)

Video clip of last 5:35 of 9 minute diatribe: Real (4.2 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (3.5 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (2 MB)

On Tuesday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann fretted about an Oval Office meeting of President Bush and several conservative talk radio hosts -- verbally tagged by Olbermann as "right-wing radio yackers" and labelled on-screen as the "Legion of Doom" -- as the Countdown host contended that Bush was devoting "90 minutes worth of your taxpayer dollars" to the meeting. And in an amusing faux pas, Olbermann's staff, for the second time in less than a year, accidentally displayed a photograph of former liberal Democratic Senator Max Cleland instead of conservative talk radio host Neal Boortz.

During the show's opening teaser, Olbermann proclaimed: "The born again and the born talkers: The President takes 90 minutes worth of your taxpayer dollars to entertain right-wing radio yackers in the Oval Office, and will set up a radio row for them on the White House grounds next week." (Transcript follows)

I'd like to thank Keith Olbermann of MSNBC for putting himself on my radar last week by naming the NewsBusters staff, and me personally, "Worst Persons in the World", a signal honor, usually reserved for the likes of Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh (and by the way, where's my trophy?).

Anyway, now that I'm aware of Mr. Olbermann and his little cable show, I found this quote of his in the Denver Post rather puzzling [emphasis added]:

"As a critic of the administration, I will be damned if you can get away with calling me the equivalent of a Nazi appeaser," Olbermann told The Associated Press. "No one has the right to say that about any free-speaking American in this country."

After his May 8 prediction that White House aide Karle Rove "will, in fact, be indicted" blew up in his face as investigators into the Valerie Plame non-scandal told Rove he would not be charged, you'd think MSNBC correspondent David Shuster would have stayed away from making prognostications based on his own reporting.

If you predicted that, however, you would've been wrong.

Last Wednesday, Shuster confidently asserted that his sources told him that GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert would be ousted from power by a week. Well, it's Thursday now and Hastert is still very much in the Speaker's Chair. Will Shuster trouble himself to issue a retraction? Perhaps the perpetually inaccurate Keith Olbermann might bestir himself to force one since he now seems slightly more interested in accuracy, especially since Shuster's remark was made on his show.

In any case, Shuster should definitely consider developing some better sources since they've steered him wrong rather profoundly on two instances in less than six months' time.

Full text of Shuster's comment is below the fold. Tip of the hat to Olbermann Watch for reminding me of when Shuster made his false prediction.

"Didn't the MSM get the memo? Keep Foley on the front page!" That seemed to be Chris Matthews' attitude when he was interviewed on this afternoon's MSNBC Live regarding Pres. Bush's press conference of this morning.

Appearing during the 2-2:30 PM ET slot, the transparently ticked-off Hardball host was asked: "The Mark Foley scandal has been dominating the news for over a week now. It was barely touched upon in the news conference today. Was the president, do you think, successful in refocusing attention on to the economy and national security today?"

A palpably PO'd Matthews:

"Well, he was successful to a large extent because the press, for whatever reason, decided not to ask him about the Foley scandal, which has dominated this network and so much else of the media for the last couple weeks and has been a big part of the American conversation. I don't know why though the correspondents - and they're the best in the business - chose to stick right to the issue of Iraq and North Korea, but they did, giving the president a chance to grab the headline tomorrow morning and tonight, with a big story about North Korea and his position on that topic. He has won the day on controlling the topic."

On Friday's "Countdown," MSNBC host Keith Olbermann named NewsBusters the "Worst Persons in the World." Olbermann took issue with a posting by NB contributor Al Brown, who mistakenly said Brian Williams instead of Brian Ross. Brown corrected the post after an NB commentor, SMGalbraith, noticed the error. But it was too late: Olbermann had seized the error and made it the centerpiece of his "Worst Person" segment.

A name error tops the list as the "worst"? The "paper of record," the New York Times, runs a daily corrections page and has an average of seven errors per day.

Video clip (1:30): Real (2.5 MB) or Windows Media (2.9 MB), plus MP3 audio (0.5 MB)

"But tonight's winners: NewsBusters. Rabid right-winger Brent Bozell's self-styled media watch dog, with its typical kind of breathless headline: 'Is Brian Williams the Next Dan Rather?' Somebody named Al Brown claiming that the Mark Foley instant message story was a prank, and that in breaking it, quote, 'Brian Williams and ABC have already abused the anonymous source dodge at least once in this saga,' and, quoting again, 'Perhaps Brian Williams should resign. But for now, ABC is standing by their story.'"

In an article posted Friday on Time.com, the magazine’s critic James Poniewozik suggests the Fox News Channel, which he sees as tilted to the right, is also responsible for the multi-minute rants that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has lately been emitting. Time also dismisses the idea that the rest of the mainstream media (presumably including itself) is tilted to the left, with Poniewozik parenthetically noting that “the MSM really slant toward the institutional, establishmentarian center, which is a bias as dangerous as any other.”

Poniewozik’s theory on Olbermann is that Fox’s climb to the top of the ratings has led to changes at other TV news outlets, including at MSNBC, although he paints Olbermann as the party most likely to be embarrassed by the link to Fox News: “Keith Olbermann ranting at George W. Bush and O'Reilly on MSNBC's Countdown: that's Fox through and through, whether Olbermann would like to admit it or not.”

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered another of his “Special Comment” rants on Thursday night -- this one his longest yet, clocking in at just over 11 minutes. Olbermann began the diatribe, which concluded the October 5 Countdown, by saying his topic was “lying,” specifically how President Bush is making false claims about Democrats. Olbermann cited how Bush charged that Democrats “don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists” and “think the best way to protect the American people is wait until we're attacked again.” Maintaining that the accusations are baseless, Olbermann asserted: “A President who comes across as a compulsive liar is nothing less than terrifying.” But by Olbermann's reasoning that since no Democrat has said exactly what Bush asserted when he made the political points about the implications of Democratic positions, no one should be able to accuse Bush of lying about Iraq since he has never said he lied about Iraq.

Olbermann proceeded to allege that Bush “has savaged the very freedoms he claims to be protecting from attack” through his “terrifying attempt to hamstring the fundament of our freedom -- the Constitution -- a triumph for al Qaeda, for which the terrorists could not hope to achieve with a hundred 9/11's.” He accused Bush: "You want to preserve one political party's power. And obviously you will sell this country out, to do it. These are lies about the Democrats, piled atop lies about Iraq, piled atop lies about your preparations for al Qaeda.” Olbermann also denounced Vice President Cheney for how he “lives on, in defiance, and spreads -- around him and before him -- darkness, like some contagion of fear.” Sounds more like Olbermann. (Transcript follows)

Video clip (11:10): Real (8.3 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (7 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (2.6 MB)

Since last week, MSNBC's Countdown show has reached new levels in displaying personal insults as host Keith Olbermann, as well as regular guest Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly, have repeatedly made fat jokes about the subjects of their conversation. Both their targets were conservatives – Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes and Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert. While Ailes was at the receiving end several times last week, once directly called "fat ass" by Olbermann, on Monday's show guest Crawford took a cheap shot at Hastert's weight. While discussing the possibility that Republicans would "throw Hastert under the bus" by forcing him to resign over his handling of the Mark Foley sexual abuse scandal, Crawford quipped: "Well, if he fits, if the bus has a lot of clearance." (Transcripts follow)

As the Virginia senate race continues to degenerate into a media cesspool of preposterous racial accusations, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" took things further downward Friday by deliberately editing a report on the latest Democratic activist accusing Republican George Allen of being a racist:

On Friday, "Countdown" reported on the latest allegations against George Allen. We noted that they did so by rerunning a report that aired Thursday on Hardball. David Shuster interviewed a woman who said she heard Allen using racial slurs.

But as we revealed exclusively on Olbermann Watch, the Countdown version differed from the original "Hardball" broadcast in one significant respect. Snipped from the taped piece were a series of questions that revealed the political affiliation of accuser Pat Waring.

Read the rest of the story over at Olbermann Watch.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that a TV host whose idea of a show-closer is tossing wadded-up balls of paper at the camera would indulge in middle-school-worthy taunts about someone's weight. And yet . . . I actually was surprised when on tonight's show, Keith Olbermann unleashed a string of jibes aimed at Roger Ailes' physique. So surprised that when Olbermann first began his barrage, with a comment about Ailes doing something "between pies," I truly wondered whether I had misheard him or perhaps misunderstood his intent. Fat jokes? Could my fellow Cornellian really be stooping that low?

He could. Olbermann's mean-spirited motive soon became manifest. Displaying what was presumably the least flattering photo of the Fox chief he could find [shown here], Olbermann followed that comment with this string of insults:

A night after slamming Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes as the “Worst Person in the World” for saying former President Clinton's reaction to Chris Wallace was “an assault on all journalists" (NewsBusters item), MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Thursday mocked “the circular gentleman” for telling the FNC staff on the tenth anniversary of the network that in the future they need “to focus more on taking audience away from broadcast networks, not the other cable news networks.”

“Not so fast, Sydney Greenstreet,” Olbermann fired back, in an apparent insulting reference to the rotund and bald actor who passed away in 1954. “Check out last night's ratings,” Olbermann directed his viewers, with viewership numbers on screen for four cable news channels. He proceeded to seriously tout as meaningful how, in the 25 to 54 years-old demographic, the midnight EDT repeat airing of Countdown the night before beat FNC's re-run of Brit Hume's show -- by a bare 16,000. Then, without noting how more than three times as many people watch FNC during Countdown's live airing, or how within the age demographic 50 percent more watch Hume at 6p EDT than Olbermann at 8pm EDT, Olbermann ridiculously suggested: “Mr. Ailes might want to focus back on keeping the other cable news networks from taking audience from his own network and leaving some food for Canada.” Whatever that means.

On Wednesday's Countdown show, MNBC's Keith Olbermann attacked Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes during his regular "Worst Person in the World" segment because Ailes criticized Bill Clinton's angry response to Fox News host Chris Wallace's question about why Clinton failed to capture Osama bin Laden. Olbermann, who just days ago conducted a sympathetic interview with Clinton, attacked the Fox News president for calling Clinton's reaction "an assault on all journalists" as the Countdown host referred to Ailes as "Ming the Merciless," the villainous character from the Flash Gordon series." Olbermann also personally insulted Ailes as "having achieved the perfectly circular shape" as the Countdown host awarded the night's top "Worst Person" dishonor to Ailes. (Transcript follows)

Reports the New York Post:

MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick. The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment.

Keith Olbermann ended Monday's Countdown with his latest “Special Comment” rant, complete with video from a man on a rack in the movie 1984 as Olbermann described President's Bush's supposedly awful deeds. In praising how, in his interview aired on Fox News Sunday, “Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years. He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration,” Olbermann portrayed Chris Wallace, who conducted the interview, as an agent of the White House and delivered the lowest of insults, calling Wallace “a monkey posing as a newscaster.”

On Bush, Olbermann accused him of "cowardice" and argued: “After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts -- that he was President on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s. Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly. As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy. Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.” Olbermann concluded his 10-minute plus diatribe: “Mr. Bush: Are yours the actions of a true American?”

Video (10:30, but worth watching for how Olbermann goes off the deep end): Real (7.9 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (6.6 MB at 81 kbps) or MP3 audio (4.3 MB)

On Friday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann featured an interview with former President Clinton, during which he invited Clinton to attack President Bush, while not challenging the former President. Olbermann again brought up Bush's awkwardly worded statement that it was "unacceptable to think" that the actions of America are similar to those of terrorists, a statement which Olbermann had previously made the subject of two "Special Comment" anti-Bush attacks on his show. Clinton came to Olbermann's defense admitting "I'm more close to where you are," contending that "it's wrong for you to be portrayed as not patriotic." Olbermann also wondered if the "demonizing" of dissent was causing America to "get closer to what the terrorists want for us to change anyway." Olbermann ended on an anti-Fox News note attacking the network for trying to "reprehensively sandbag" Clinton in his interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace: "And our compliments to President Clinton for having today staved off a reprehensible sandbagging by Chris Wallace of what is jokingly referred to as Fox News." (Transcript follows)

Well sports fans, that big bounce in ratings that Keith Olbermann received as a result of his vitriol-filled rant about President Bush on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is now officially over. It appears that those who tuned in last Tuesday and Wednesday to see what all the fuss was about – including those that were lobbied by liberal bloggers to do so – learned what many with a better-than-room-temperature intelligence quotient already knew.

In fact, the gap between Olbermann’s paltry ratings and what Paula Zahn and Nancy Grace are getting in the same time slot has widened. According to TVNewser:

In the course of the last few weeks Keith Olbermann's "Special Comments" have become a Countdown staple in which the host plays to his Daily Kos demographic with vitriolic condemnations of all things Bush. I thought Olbermann had reached the nec plus ultra of nastiness with his suggestion a couple weeks ago that the Bush administration represented "a new type of fascism."  I might have been wrong.  MRC's Brad Wilmouth has comprehensively documented Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comment' of last night.  In the course of those comments, Olbermann chose to invoke, of all things, the people's right to overthrow a tyrannical government.

In the latest of a series of "Special Comments" attacking members of the Bush administration, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann used his Monday Countdown show to make an over-the-top demand for an apology from President Bush for his recent comments that it was "unacceptable to think" the actions of America could be compared to those of terrorists. As recounted by NewsBusters on Friday, Olbermann took an awkwardly worded, off-the-cuff remark by Bush at his Friday press conference, which was more likely intended to mean that it was "ridiculous to claim" a comparison between America and terrorists, and blew it out of proportion as if the comment were an attack on the right to think, and therefore a grave threat to democracy.

On Monday Olbermann chastized Bush for his "unrestrained fury" which the MSNBC host compared to that of a "thwarted three-year-old" who "demonizes dissent." Olbermann fretted about Bush taking America on a "fearful path," and worried about "what will next be done" with Bush's critics in the future. Harkening back to Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott meeting with former President Richard Nixon to convince him to resign, Olbermann suggested that Republicans similarly need to convince Bush to apologize. (Transcript follows)

Video clip of last two-thirds of Olbermann's eight-minute diatribe (4:45): Real (3 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (3.6 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (1.6 MB)

On Friday night's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann renewed his "Special Comment" attack on President Bush, replaying the original comments from Monday's show, and adding a condemnation of Bush for an awkwardly worded, off-the-cuff remark made by the President during Friday's news conference that it is "unacceptable to think" the actions of America can be compared to those of terrorists. Not catching on to the President's likely meaning that it is "ridiculous to claim" the actions of America are similar to those terrorists, Olbermann referred to a favorite topic of his, George Orwell's 1984, as he attacked Bush's "chilling" words. Olbermann: "'It's unacceptable to think.' Sounds like something straight out of George Orwell's 1984. Instead, it was something straight out of George Bush's mouth. ... And not only issuing those chilling words, 'It's unacceptable to think,' but doing so in answer to the call to conscience from his own former Secretary of State, Colin Powell." (Transcript follows)