Twice in the past week, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has on his Countdown show tried to dismiss the popularity of Sarah Palin’s book Going Rogue by mentioning discounts like Newsmax’s promotion that offers the book for $4.97 to new subscribers. Olbermann first raised the issue on the Thursday, November 19, show, as he mentioned rumors of high sales numbers. Olbermann: "Publishing industry rumors, first week sales more than half a million. No idea if any of them were not at these 50 to 75 percent discounts."

On Monday’s show, during a discussion with MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, Olbermann again tried to credit the popularity of Palin’s book to discounts after Wolffe commented that she would soon have millions of dollars:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Millions, she got it upfront, right? Because she's not going to get millions if they're selling this book at Newsmax for $4.97. You and I, as authors, understand: Get it upfront, right?

RICHARD WOLFFE: We would hope that Bob Barnett did his job in that way. But look, you know, she is turning out the crowds. This book is selling, and let's hope people are reading it.

OLBERMANN: It's $4.97! If we sold books for $4.97, they'd be stacked up out here and people would be taking them as they went home.

Also on the November 19 show, the Countdown host suggested there was "tackiness" in Palin’s plan to visit Fort Hood and donate book proceeds to victims of the massacre there, and quoted a Palin critic who compared her to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, as Olbermann called the comparison "apt." Olbermann:

On Monday's Countdown show, responding to Mississippi Republican Governor Haley Barbour's recent contention on NBC's Meet the Press that President Obama has personal popularity -- based partially on being the first black President -- that is separate from the unpopularity of Obama's policies, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann labeled Barbour's words as "incoherent," and charged that President Obama is in reality a "target of racism from the right." Olbermann:

But it was Mississippi's Governor Haley Barbour who had perhaps the most incoherent read, explaining that Obama, the target of racism from the right, remains popular not because of his policies, but in a Donovan McNabb way, because of his color.

During a discussion with MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, Olbermann also suggested that "Barbour knows that members of his party hate the President for being a black Democrat," as he posed a question to Wolffe about Republicans being in denial about their party's unpopularity and the meaning of the 2009 elections. Olbermann:

Less than a week after likening conservative blogger Michelle Malkin to a “mashed-up bag of meat” on his Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on Monday called out former President George H.W. Bush for daring to call him and fellow MSNBC host Rachel Maddow “sick puppies,” as Olbermann described Bush’s words from a recent interview as a “weird term."

As he characterized Bush as being hypocritical for making the comment while denouncing the incivility in American politics, Olbermann accused Bush of helping to create the climate of incivility himself in 1988 with the Willie Horton ad, although the ad Olbermann was referring to which showed a photograph of Horton – and which Olbermann displayed images of – was produced by an independent group, the National Security Political Action Committee. The Bush campaign never used Horton’s image, but instead ran the “Revolving Door” ad attacking Michael Dukakis’s support for a prison furlough program.

Either Richard Wolffe is blatantly shilling for the liberal/progressive agenda in the United States or he really is incredibly cynical about how the Republican Party picks its leader.

Wolffe, appearing on MSNBC's Oct. 5 "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," gave his thoughts on the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele. Wolffe, a MSNBC regular and former Newsweek columnist, shared his low regard for the former lieutenant governor of Maryland.

"Well, look - it's certainly being clumsy politics," Wolffe said. "And you know today, Michael Steele says he doesn't do policy. Tomorrow he'll say he doesn't do politics either."

If you've ever wondered why the mainstream media didn't show much curiosity about how 20 years of attending Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church shaped President Barack Obama, there is a perfectly logical explanation. Obama wasn't really there.

According to Richard Wolffe, an MSNBC contributor and former Newsweek columnist that covered the Obama presidential campaign for the weekly magazine, people don't have to worry about the rantings and ravings of Obama's controversial preacher having any impact on his world view because he wasn't there.

Wolffe, in an appearance at the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. on June 15 promoting his book about Obama, "Renegade," told the audience the president wasn't naïve about Wright - he was ignorant.

"Countdown" host Keith Olbermann Friday evening accused Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of using her daughters, as well as the brouhaha surrounding jokes made about them by "Late Show" host David Letterman, to further her political career.

In a twelve minute segment about the former vice presidential candidate, Olbermann called her, "Sanctimonious, holier than thou, exploitative, undignified, pedantic, childish, self-inflicting, insipid, backwards, embarrassing, over-reactive, overreaching" as well as a "delusional lunatic."

Potentially even more disgraceful, in Olbermann's almost unimaginably perverted view, Letterman is actually "the victim" who has "continued to take the high road" in this sordid affair.

The video of this disgusting attack is embedded below the fold with a full transcript:

Keith Olbermann’s Fox News-hating frenzy on Monday night might have obscured the nasty accusations against pro-lifers Olbermann drew out of Richard Wolffe, who recently left his job as a political reporter at Newsweek to be a full-time MSNBC pundit.

Wolffe said Tiller’s killing had a "direct link" to people yelling "Kill him" at McCain-Palin rallies and insisted pro-lifers need to look themselves hard in the mirror and ask themselves "Have I played a part" in Tiller’s death by charging that Tiller "committed horrendous acts"?

Wolffe also insisted Republicans were hypocrites for objecting to "Muslim terrorism" while encouraging terrorism against abortion doctors, since that's a natural "result" of abortion protests:

OLBERMANN: The homeland security secretary, Ms. Napolitano, bowed to Republican outrage in April, apologizing for that DHS assessment that warned of violent acts by right-wing extremists - are the Republicans in Congress still of the belief that the threat of right-wing extremist violence is some sort of fantasy out of the Obama administration?

As he appeared as a guest on Thursday’s Countdown show on MSNBC to discuss Joe the Plumber’s recent criticism of the Republican party, Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe started off by suggesting that Republicans had "lost their heart" in the 1980s and had "lost their mind" in the 1990s. Wolffe: "You know, if they lost their heart in the 1980s, and they lost their mind in the 1990s, what we've seen in the 2000s is Republicans losing their image, and they lost it on national security."

Wolffe later demeaned the intelligence of participants in the recent Tax Day Tea Parties, whom he referred to as "tea baggers," and charged that they want to "have their cake and eat it." Wolffe:

On Thursday's Countdown show, MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe of Newsweek compared Rush Limbaugh to rapper Sister Souljah and Barack Obama's racist former minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as Wolffe advised the Republican party to "kill some sacred cows" by denouncing "extremist" Limbaugh. Wolffe: "What they first of all need to do is to kill some sacred cows here. ... for President Clinton, it was Sister Souljah. For President Obama, he had to confront Reverend Wright. This is their Reverend Wright. And unless they deal with extreme voices within their own party, within their own movement, they're not going to reach those independent voters..." And after showing a clip of Limbaugh bouncing up and down on stage at CPAC, host Keith Olbermann cracked that "killer clowns from outer space is less disturbing for children."

The general election has apparently begun. This week, the liberal media launched a pre-emptive attack on Republican campaign tactics even as TV interviewers slobbered all over Barack Obama. Here are the Media Research Center’s "Worst of the Week" (audio and video links below the fold):

# GOP: Merchants of Slime and Hate. It’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign, not the GOP, which has pummeled Barack Obama these past weeks, but journalists are nevertheless impugning Republicans as dirty campaigners. The May 19 Newsweek cover story channeled Democratic talking points to claim "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968." (Ever listen to Democratic rhetoric on Social Security?) Co-authors Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas questioned whether John McCain really wanted to "rein in the merchants of slime and sellers of hate who populate the Internet...who exercise their freedom in ways that give a bad name to free speech."

In this week’s cover story, Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas juxtapose Democratic talking points about the sliminess of Republicans (“successfully scaring voters since 1968”) and testimonials to the managerial wizardry of Barack Obama (“he has ‘grace under fire’”) and present the entire package as an insightful look inside “The O Team.”

The eight-page spread, decorated with several behind-the-scenes photographs of the candidate and his top aides, paints Republicans and independent conservative groups as the source of all campaign nastiness. The authors even question whether John McCain, who has earned innumerable media accolades as a champion of more government regulations on free speech (“campaign finance reform”) is not perhaps a co-conspirator with those awful conservatives:

Newsweek’s May 5 cover story professes to address Barack Obama’s "Bubba Gap," the growing chasm between the would-be Democratic nominee and white "working class" voters. Evan Thomas, Holly Bailey, and Richard Wolffe don’t so much report on the gap as complain about hateful conservative rumor-mongering. The authors complain that Obama is not just running against Mrs. Clinton or Sen McCain, but against every historical hobgoblin who liberals can dig out of a musty closet. Obama's not only opposed by George W. Bush, who hates pointy-headed intellectuals, but in Newsweek's historical imagination by "demagogues like the anti-Semitic right-wing radio priest of the 1940s, Father Charles Coughlin; Red-baiter Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, and race-baiter Gov. George Wallace of Alabama."

The Newsweek team explicitly tied these men to the people who posted damaging tidbits from Reverend Wright sermons on YouTube and the spreaders of Obama's leaked remarks on the Huffington Post about bitter people clinging to guns and religion. They began by lamenting the injustice that a black man, long so oppressed, could be accused of elitism:

President Bush is holding a press conference on the U.S. economy. I'll be blogging the questions to the president below.

Video of Bush/Raddatz clash here (audio available here).

Video of Stolberg and Ryan on recession here (audio here)

My bottom line analysis (11:25): The two R's of bias from this Rose Garden presser: Martha Raddatz on Syria and numerous reporters on the dreaded R-word, recession. Of course a recession is two consecutive quarters of NEGATIVE economic growth, and we've yet to see one quarter of negative growth, much less two. But all the same, NY Times's Stolberg made it sound like Q1 numbers on GDP tomorrow will show a recession.

The questions below will be posted in reverse chronological order:

For a moment, let's step away from the commentary, per se, and focus on the commentators. Liberals love to chide Fox News for its alleged conservative bias. So why don't we see, when it comes to being fair and balanced, how this morning's Fox News Sunday panel stacked up against that of its main competitor, Meet the Press?

Here are the line-ups—you be the judge.

MEET THE PRESS

Host–Tim Russert

Panel

• David Broder–Washington Post columnist
• John Dickerson–Slate
• Gwen Ifill–PBS
• Andrea Mitchell–NBC
• Richard Wolffe–Newsweek

MSNBC was so excited about a Thursday New York Times story with a derogatory look at Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s supposed relationship with a female lobbyist eight years ago, that the network broke into the 7 PM EST re-run of Hardball to read from the Web-posting of the article which Keith Olbermann described as “extraordinary.”

Olbermann insisted the alleged efforts of staffers to “protect” McCain sound “eerily similar” to Clinton-Lewinsky. Later in his 45 minutes of “Breaking News” coverage, Olbermann proposed: “If this doesn’t sound like deja vu all over again, I don’t know what does.”

As I mentioned earlier today, Newsweek's Richard Wolffe has an article on Republicans for Obama. This is a little like Vegetarians for McDonald's. The star of this piece is "dedicated" Republican Susan Eisenhower, a granddaughter to the distinctly non-ideological president of the Fifties. There are two problems. First, she's not much of a Republican. Second, this is the second time she's starred in an anti-GOP Newsweek piece in this election cycle. Wolffe began: 

Susan Eisenhower is more than just another disappointed Republican. She is also Ike's granddaughter and a dedicated member of the party who has urged her fellow Republicans in the past to stick with the GOP. But now Eisenhower, who runs an international consulting firm, is endorsing Barack Obama. She has no plans to officially leave the Republican Party. But in Eisenhower's view, Obama is the only candidate who can build a national consensus on the issues most important to her—energy, global warming, an aging population and America's standing in the world.

"Uncivil Discourse: Bush pressures Dems to fall in line for his final year."

That's how Newsweek.com teases a Richard Wolffe Web Exclusive analysis of President George W. Bush's final State of the Union address. Wolffe lamented the bitter partisanship in Washington, noting that the Bush-Pelosi-Boehner agreement on an economic stimulus plan was "the rare exception" of "respect and cooperation" that "is hard to find in the halls of Congress at the end of the Bush era."

Too bad, Wolffe gripes, that President Bush used his final State of the Union to chide Congress for failing to make tax cuts permanent (emphasis mine):

It's one of the great MSM rituals of presidential politics: the labeling of leading Dems as "moderates" or "centrists." Gail Collins honors the tradition in her New York Times column of today. Now it's true that Collins ostensibly speaks more of Obama's tone than of his politics. But, ultimately, as you'll see, she melds the two to portray a thoroughly moderate man. We'll do a reality check, but first let's look at the excerpt from Collins's column [emphasis added]:

Barack Obama turns out to have a positive genius for making moderation sound exciting and is perhaps the only politician in American history who can get a crowd all worked up with a call to politeness. “We can disagree without being disagreeable,” he said in his New Hampshire farewell, drawing a roar of approval.

In a country where the spoils go to the loudest shrieker, this is absolutely revolutionary and very important. Most Americans want a moderate government, but nobody has ever before been able to make moderate seem interesting, let alone sexy. (Remember Joseph Lieberman.)

Does it get much lower than this?

After first extolling the "F--- Bush" headline, MSNBC's David Shuster, substituting for Tucker Carlson today, later engaged in a grotesque game of "gotcha," exploiting an Amercan soldier killed in Iraq to make his partisan point.

Chatting with Newsweek's Richard Wolffe and MSNBC analyst Craig Crawford, talk turned to the controversy surrounding the editorial in the Colorado State student newspaper headlined "Taser This: F--- Bush" [f-word spelled out in headline].

Wolffe went first, and was patently delighted by the incident. With a hearty grin, he observed . . .

What would you call a candidate whose interest group ratings include:

• 100% from Planned Parenthood
• 100% from NARAL
• 0% from the Illinois Association for Right to Life
• 0% from Americans for Tax Reform
• 100% from the NAACP
• 8% from the American Conservative Union
• 100% from the NEA [teachers union]
• 100% from Children's Defense Fund [Hillary's old group]
• 100% from NOW
• 88% from the American Immigration Lawyers Association
• 0% from the Federation for American Immigration Reform
• 100% from the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees
• 100% from Americans for Democratic Action [gold-standard of old lefty groups]
• 0% from NRA
• 'A' from Illinois Citizens for Handgun Control

Again, what would you call such a candidate? Well, if he's Barack Obama, and you're Richard Wolffe, you'd call him a "centrist."

View video here.