Countdown

President Obama infuriated the leaders of Poland on Tuesday while honoring Jan Karski with the Medal of Freedom. He said Karski smuggled into a “Polish death camp” to see the Holocaust. (Um, no, that’s a Nazi death camp located in Poland). Despite the international incident, ABC, CBS, and NBC aired nothing on the gaffe.

But shamelessly, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today both found “news” in the scoop-let that the Romney campaign misspelled “America” in an iPhone app. (CBS skipped both.) The gaffe also recalled the so-called “fashion faux pas” of 2005, when Vice President Cheney wore a parka to an anniversary at Auschwitz -- except the Poles weren't furious at that one.

On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer confirmed that he had renewed his contract with network, prompting applause from his fellow hosts and this zinger from weatherman Al Roker about Lauer's potential replacement: "Yeah, because it was either you or Keith Olbermann." The entire studio erupted in laughter. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Lauer quipped in response: "You made out alright, didn't you?" Ann Curry referred to Olbermann suing his former employer, Current TV: "Yeah, and our bosses don't want to be sued." A relieved Roker proclaimed "Thank goodness!" and rounded out the mocking of the left-wing bomb-thrower by doing his best Olbermann impression: "You're the worst person in the world!"

NewsBusters readers likely know Kirsten Powers as one of the many intelligent, reasonable, liberal contributors to Fox News.

On Sunday, Powers published a piece at the Daily Beast entitled "Rush Limbaugh Isn’t the Only Media Misogynist" that is guaranteed to be applauded by the Right and heavily ridiculed by her colleagues on the left:

Just how totally out of touch is MSNBC's Chris Matthews?

At the beginning of Wednesday's "Hardball," he said the actor who famously rode the bomb at the end of the classic film "Dr. Strangelove" was "Sam" Pickens (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, as the panel discussed MSNBC’s double standard in suspending Time’s Mark Halperin for calling President Obama by a vulgar word on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, even after the network tolerated former host Keith Olbermann’s numerous examples of harsh language about President Bush, liberal FNC contributor Alan Colmes was obsessed with inserting Rush Limbaugh into the discussion as he spent most of the segment missing the point about the Halperin/Olbermann comparison.

When Colmes finally noticed that the other panel members were concerned about MSNBC’s internal double standard, the liberal commentator contradicted himself from his earlier efforts to insert some of Limbaugh’s alleged name-calling against liberals into the discussion.

Tonight MSNBC's cast and crew will gather in Washington D.C. to celebrate their network being on the air for 15 long years. In that time its hosts, reporters and guests have attacked conservatives and Republicans on everything from impeaching Bill Clinton and conducting a war on terrorism, up to the fight over public unions. All the while some of its reporters and hosts have been thrilled by the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev and Barack Obama.

For that entire 15 years MRC analysts have been dutifully watching and noting these often outrageous outbursts of leftism from NBC News' cable outlet.

The following collection of the worst MSNBC quotes, year-by-year, is just a sampling of the Lean Forward network's decade-and-a-half long devotion to advancing the cause of liberalism under the guise of journalism.

(video compilation after the jump)

On MSNBC you can call a sitting president a "murderous" "fascist" even muse about putting the President on trial for war crimes, so long as that president is a Republican. But if you dare call a Democratic president a "d–ck," as MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin did this morning it's grounds for indefinite suspension.

While calling any president the D-word is probably not showing the proper respect for the office, it has to be asked where does it rank compared to essentially accusing a president of mass murder and war crimes?

Today's official announcement by Republican Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann that she is running for the GOP nomination for President could spawn a whole new round of frenzied attacks by the liberal media on the Tea Party favorite.

A review of the MRC's archives shows a particular disdain for Bachmann coming from the likes of MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who once accused her of being a "zombie," even going as far to ask her on live Election Night coverage if she "hypnotized?" 

The Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden are being widely hailed as heroes -- in stark contrast to previous descriptions of them from liberals in the media.

It was not long ago, over in the wetlands of the left, that these courageous warriors were demeaned as little more than homicidal thugs acting at the behest of war criminal Dick Cheney.

Here's how Keith Olbermann, then at MSNBC, described claims made by New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh in 2009 (h/t, RealClearPolitics; video after page break) --

In Tuesday's Kansas City Star, reporter Aaron Barnhart revealed that Current TV, the cable channel launched in 2005 by Al Gore, would be the least missed, only managing to be viewed by 18,000 households in the fourth quarter of 2010. Also on the list of "Cable's Least Wanted" were the DIY network, ESPN Classic, Fox Soccer Channel, Logo, and Sleuth.

Despite such abysmal ratings for Current, Barnhart argued that the addition of former MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann to the channel would turn things around: "The good news for Current is that it won’t be counting its audience in the high five figures, at least not when Olbermann is on the air." He later remarked: "Unlike Current, the rest of Cable’s Least Wanted don’t have a ratings savior waiting in the wings."

HBO's Bill Maher on Friday perfectly demonstrated liberal hypocrisy concerning how Democrat and Republican presidents should be treated by the media.

In a lengthy segment on HBO's "Real Time" about how "disrespectful" Bill O'Reilly was during his Super Bowl interview with Barack Obama, Maher castigated the Fox News host for his "unpatriotic" behavior moments before debasing former President George W. Bush for not being "aware of s--t" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday gave some advice to Fox News about how to treat Keith Olbermann now that he's partnered with Al Gore's struggling cable network.

"Do not ever talk about what goes on over there and nobody will ever hear about it" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The rumors about Keith Olbermann joining Al Gore's struggling television network came true Tuesday morning with the announcement that the former "Countdown" host was indeed moving to Current TV.

The press release contained comments from those involved that were nothing less than hysterical:

Jon Stewart on Thursday marvelously lampooned Keith Olbermann and all his former colleagues that can't fill the "Olbermann-shaped hole" his departure has left at MSNBC.

The "Daily Show" host began the segment (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

Since the moment he announced he was doing his last "Countdown" on MSNBC, people have wondered where the controversial Keith Olbermann will land.

On Wednesday, News Corp's Rupert Murdoch told Neal Cavuto it won't be on Fox News (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Keith Olbermann must be starving for attention since his surprise exit from MSNBC.

On Sunday, he actually bashed a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe written about him by a Vietnam vet:

For the second day in a row, MSNBC's Chris Matthews mercilessly attacked Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) while repeatedly referring to her as a "balloon head."

Knowing what he was going to be up against, Texas Tea Party leader Phillip Dennis came prepared for the "Hardball" host's hostility, and at the end of a lengthy segment, marvelously summed up exactly why Matthews and others in the media attack this movement and all of its members saying, "You fear the Tea Party" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It was to be expected that MSNBC commentators would publicly wish Keith Olbermann well after his surprise exit last Friday.

But the nonsense that spewed out of Lawrence O'Donnell's mouth Monday evening - "He invented op-ed TV...For eight years...No one in television history has ever done anything like it" - was so sycophantic and factually bereft it was almost sick-making (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC abruptly ended the run of Keith Olbermann on Friday, bringing to a close an era in which the left-wing host compared conservatives to Nazis, accused them of "murderous deceit," of "urinating on the Constitution" and told President George W. Bush to "shut the Hell up!"

Olbermann certainly became more vitriolic as the years went by, but back in 1998, he frothed about special prosecutor Ken Starr: "Facially, it finally dawned on me that the person Ken Starr has reminded me of facially all this time was Heinrich Himmler, including the glasses."

Olbermann's 15 worst, most outrageous quotes can be found below.

[Video and MP3 audio below.]

Just how far to the left is Time's Joe Klein?

He actually thinks "Keith [Olbermann] is a brilliant writer, and presenter; I always enjoy watching him, even when he's occasionally wrong":

Editor's Note: The following is a brief statement released by NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) president Brent Bozell earlier today regarding MSNBC firing Keith Olbermann.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Olbermann was a failure because he was vicious, insulting and off-the-charts liberal. And they replaced him with Lawrence O'Donnell, who is Olbermann but without talent. It is absolutely guaranteed that MSNBC will sink even lower. This network is clueless.

Links to related content follow the page break:

Media critic David Zurawik and former MSNBC contributor David Shuster got into quite a heated debate Sunday over the surprise exit of Keith Olbermann.

Appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources," the pair also quarreled about the difference in journalistic standards at Fox News and MSNBC (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's been less than 24 hours since Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure from MSNBC, and folks are all atwitter with predictions about where he'll end up.

TV critic Tim Goodman's suggestion that the former "Countdown" host should go to Fox News is destined to anger people on both sides of the aisle:

Just three days after the FCC approved the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, MSNBC's contract with Keith Olbermann was terminated.

The cable news network reported at its website Saturday:

 On Friday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, host Keith Olbermann announced that the episode would be his last, and spent a few minutes near the end of the show saying goodbye. He mentioned a number of infamous and pivotal points in his show’s history when he went after the Bush administration:

The show gradually established its position as anti-establishment from the stagecraft of "Mission Accomplished," to the exaggerated rescue of Jessica Lynch in Iraq, to the death of Pat Tillman to Hurricane Katrina, to the "Nexus of Politics and Terror," to the first "Special Comment."

As he listed a number of prominent supporters of his show, he ended up notably giving credit to the late Tim Russert of NBC for being "my greatest protector, and most indefatigable cheerleader."

Below the fold is the video and a complete transcript of Olbermann's announcement from the Friday, January 21, Countdown show on MSNBC, from about 8:53 p.m.:

 On Wednesday’s Countdown show, as he plugged a segment on former Democratic-turned independent Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman’s retirement, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann referred to Lieberman as a "delusional liar," and suggested that he had experienced a "departure from reality" for describing himself as a "moderate Democrat" after endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama for President. At the top of the show, the MSNBC host teased: "The end of the line for Joe Lieberman, self-described ‘moderate Democrat.’ Don’t let the delusional liar door hit you in the delusional liar butt on the delusional liar way out."

In another plug, Olbermann accused the Connecticut Senator of "lying even on the way out the door." And, after a segment with Minnesota Democratic Representative Keith Ellison in which the two discussed the Congressman’s experiences with death threats and hostile messages to his office, Olbermann almost seemed to lament that Lieberman had not gotten more grief even as he contended that public figures should be "untouched," and ended up declaring "good riddance" to Lieberman. Olbermann:

And then there are those politicians who sail through their public lives untouched, which is fortunate, which is the way it should be, unless what they are untouched by is reality. Tonight, goodbye, Joe Lieberman, and good riddance.