video As the Eric Massa story continues to unfold, the media's wall-to-wall coverage of it becomes thinner and thinner. On last night's Countdown, fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell spent 3 entire segments on the Massa story, alternately cracking wise about the Navy and obsessing over the sexual slang term "snorkeling." Drew Grant points out the offensiveness of some of O'Donnell's treatment, but the show was also guilty of the lesser crime of dullness. (more...)

Despite the absurdity of the Liz Cheney/Keep America Safe "Al Qaeda 7" ad, and the fact that Cheney's group sounds like its mascot ought to be a pee-pants version of Woodsy Owl, the spot has been generating a lot of heat. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and frequent Countdown contributor Eugene Robinson wrote a scathing op-ed yesterday attacking the fallacy behind the ad, but it could have easily been directed at his friend and colleague, Keith Olbermann. (more...)

It's been an interesting 24 hours for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. He let his sense of humor see the light of day on last night's Daily Show Chatroulette satire, and now he's already got another notch in the belt of being more down to earth than evidence sometimes suggests. The target this time is ESPN's Bill Simmons - a.k.a. The Sports Guy - and his far-reaching Tiger-Woods's-Comeback-is-Like-Muhammed-Ali's column that went up on Wednesday on ESPN.com. Update: Simmons responds! (more...)

video On Countdown tonight, host Keith Olbermann called Mediaite "gullible" for posting a video clip critical of his evaluation of the Tea Party movement - most notably the apparent lack of diversity amongst their ranks. The low-budget clip (made by the Dallas Tea Party movement) invited Olbermann to visit their Tea Party convention, and more pointedly, criticized the MSNBC talent line-up for lacking their own diversity. Somehow pointing this out makes us "gullible." Then again - some people will believe anything. (more...)

video On Wednesday night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann called out several conservative blogs for responding to his Special Comment about the Tea Party's lack of diversity (without addressing similar charges leveled at his own network). One of the blogs he called out was Hot Air, so I thought I would give Ed Morrissey the chance to respond to Olbermann. (Video below.) (more...)

There's a neat symmetry to the fact that, the day after Keith Olbermann responded to gleeful rumors of his own demise, he posits the end of the line for Sarah Palin. Emboldened by the release of thousands of Palin emails, the inauspiciously racist kickoff to the Palin-headlined "Tea Party Convention," and Palin's truckling response to Rush Limbaugh's cowardly "retard" litany, Keith asks if the countdown is on to the end of Palin's political career. (more...)

As I reported yesterday, the media sharks are circling Countdown, hoping for a quick meal. Since then, Newsbusters and the NY Post joined the dogpile, prompting another rebuttal from host Keith Olbermann. The message? Countdown is doing just fine, thank you, and these critics are just part of the right-wing noise machine. He's mostly right, but that doesn't mean he should ignore them. (more...)

video Isn't Countdown host Keith Olbermann supposed to be inside some kind of tank for President Obama? That's what I keep hearing, but you wouldn't know it to watch his segment on the POTUS' proposed SOTU spending freeze. It's one thing to say that the freeze is a gimmick and a bad idea, but quite another thing to not tell the whole story. For a guy who constantly mocks Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan, Keith displayed a marked lack of both. About 2 minutes into this clip, Keith points out that it was Senator John McCain who proposed a spending freeze during the 2008 campaign, only to have the idea "heartily rebuffed" by Obama. Then, he plays the same clip everyone else is playing to illustrate how candidate Obama opposed a spending freeze, while President Obama proposes one: (more...)

Give credit where credit is due: Keith Olbermann's Friday apology, however slight, was a rare thing, indeed, in the world of political punditry. Responding to a scorching Jon Stewart parody of Countdown's Special Comment segment, Keith gently needled the Daily Show host's early work, offered to come on his show, and mildly conceded Stewart's point. While I don't doubt that Keith had a true moment of self-recognition here, I'm also fairly certain that this apology was equal parts reflection and self-preservation. Will it be  enough to stave off the Jon Stewart Wrath-O-Matic? (more...)

video MSNBC President Phil Griffin sent a memo to staff reminding them "we do not publicly criticize our colleagues," in the wake of Joe Scarborough tweeting that Keith Olbermann's recent Scott Brown rant was "reckless" and "sad." Huffington Post has the full memo. The note was sent Friday, which we hear came after behind-the-scenes back-and-forth took place between all sides. (more...)

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Just hours after Jon Stewart's sharply observant takedown of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment segments, the Countdown host launched into a diatribe that made Stewart's segment look like a love letter. In railing against yesterday's hotly debated Supreme Court decision, he effectively said it was worse than slavery, and compared Floyd Abrams, who is Jewish, to a Nazi.

Is Keith losing it? (more...)

This is what happens when your late-night show tapes at 5 in the afternoon.

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took on Keith Olbermann's 3-day Scott-war against the newly-elected Republican Senator from Massachusetts, incinerating the Countdown host's Special Comment segment along the way. In a case of life imitating art, Olbermann parodied the Special Comment hours after Stewart taped his takedown, saying that yesterday's Supreme Court decision legalizing corporate campaign contributions was worse than the Dred Scott decision. (more...)

For a third straight night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann pressed his attack against Scott Brown, whom he first called "racist" and "homophobic," among other things, then apologized for not attacking harder. Last night, he noted that defenders of Brown had accused him of lying, but offered no refutation. He then laid out the proof of his claims in his new "quick comment" segment and dared someone to disprove him. I'll give it a shot. (more...)

A segment from last night's Countdown is generating a lot of heat in the conservative blogosphere, with the general consensus being that Keith Olbermann cried "Racism!" on the Massachusetts special election, and cited Scott Brown's pickup truck as an example. I watched the exchange between Keith and Howard Fineman last night, and I don't think the right is being fair to Keith. In fact, I think they might owe him an "attaboy" or two. Here's the segment in question: (h/t Eyeblast) (more...)

video Many believe that the level of civility in today's political discourse has been on a slow and steady decline, perhaps as a result of the increased volume of partisan media on cable news. So it was a welcome site when Keith Olbermann announced plans to apologize for last night's comments toward Republican Senatorial candidate Scott Brown, who he called "irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees…" But not all apologies are really apologies, as you can see by the video below. (more...)

video As the carnage in Haiti rightly dominates the news, the seeming cliche´ that this "puts it all in perspective" really can't be made enough. The horrified shame that Rachel Maddow displayed at the idea that the Haitian ambassador might think that Pat Robertson speaks for all Americans was remarkable. A smaller such moment, on last night's Countdown, spoke volumes about the triviality of the current political media. (more...)

video While Sarah Palin was making her debut on Fox News on The O'Reilly Factor, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was discussing the hiring during his 8pmET show. Here are a few of Olbermann's pre-debut thoughts - and some comments from other TV critics after Palin's first appearance aired. (more...)

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Like the rest of the news media, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann likes to spend the slow last week of the year reminiscing, and it's only natural that his nemesis Rush Limbaugh should get special attention. But there was something slightly off about last night's "Best of Rush Limbaugh 2009" segment on Countdown: namely, that an awful lot of seemed to be about Keith Olbermann. (more...)

As we noted yesterday, earlier this week Sarah Palin was handed the ignominious 'lie of the year' award by non-partisan political fact checkers Politifact.com for her "death panel" explanation of parts of the health care bill earlier this past summer. Last night on Countdown Lawrence O'Donnell wondered how Palin would ever recover from the shame of such an award, to which we said: ha! Because really, she's Sarah Palin, this is barely a blip on the 2009 scale of Palin (anyway, she's apparently too busy banning bloggers to concern herself with much else). (more...)

What one Special Comment giveth, the other taketh away: two months after devoting an episode-long Special Comment to the urgent need for health reform, Olbermann announced last night that he had given up on the health reform bill as it had evolved, calling it a scheme for "medical mobster protection money."

Olbermann even made the (just a bit melodramatic) claim that he would go to jail rather than buying whatever government health insurance emerged from the "hollow shell of a bill:" (more...)

exclusive On Monday, we reported that the New Oxford American Dictionary had named "teabagger" a runner-up for its "Word of the Year." Notably missing from Oxford's definition was any mention of the term's other meaning, a subject that makes members of the Tea Party Movement more than a little bit testy. I contacted Oxford University Press to find out why, and the answer is sure to either please, or disappoint, the MSNBC anchors who put "teabagger" on America's lips. I also found out what you can do to get "teabagger" into the dictionary. Most recently, it was Keith Olbermann dipping into the "teabagger" controversy, as he reported Oxford's honor on last night's Countdown, and tried to claim credit:

While Keith wasn't the first to apply the double entendre (it was me) to the Tea Party protesters, he and his colleagues at MSNBC elevated it to an art form. Rachel Maddow started the ball rolling on her April 9 show, but it was David Shuster's teabagging tour de force that cemented the term's status as permanent conservative goat-getter. According to Oxford Senior Lexicographer Christine Lindberg, however, the term is nothing to become inflamed about. We asked her why the word's definition contained no mention of the alternate meaning:

It should be noted that the term “teabagger” appears on Oxford’s list because of the usage cited on that list, not because of any other meaning. Citations for the political sense were found in a number of legitimate sources throughout the year. As a reference to members of the currently active Tea Party, the word has been used in speech and print by both liberals and conservatives. In this context, the term “teabagger” is a reasonably conceived informal name for an affiliate of the Tea Party, and as a word in the news, it earned a mention for the year 2009. Having deliberated carefully over the word-usage evidence, Oxford’s lexicographers are confident in their judgment that “teabagger” the political term stands distinctly apart from “teabagger” the vulgar term.

So, there you have it. The two definitions may dangle side-by-side, but they are separate and distinct. When David Shuster refers to teabaggers and their "Dick Armey," he's only talking politics, and teabaggers aren't allowed to get mad about it. Being an Oxford "Word of the Year" finalist, as it turns out, is no guarantee of a word's inclusion in the dictionary. Oxford Acquisitions Editor Grace Labatt explains the process for us:

The words on our Word of the Year shortlist are under considered for inclusion in the next dictionary—they are on our “words to watch” list. Depending on frequency of usage, which we assess with the Oxford English Corpus (a two-billion-word collection of texts), we will determine whether they should be added to the next edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary, to publish in Fall 2010.

So, if you want to see "teabagger" in the next dictionary, start making all of your  friends say it. Next page: a good way to start would be to review these "Great Moments in Teabagging."

video As we noted on Monday, "teabagger" was one of the runners-up for the New Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year. From the start, it threatened to get more buzz than the winner, the trendy/techy neologism "unfriend." Enter: Keith Olbermann. (more...)

It’s been less than two days since the first election under the Obama administration, and Countdown host Keith Olbermann has been curiously absent from the airwaves. Given that MSNBC touts itself as “the place for politics,” and that this is arguably the biggest political event of the year, it would seem to be a loss for MSNBC to lose its star anchor for the night of, and after, election results come in. In fact, Olbermann's absence has given fuel to his critics on the right who have simply claimed that he didn't like the results. (more...)

Let's get the facts out of the way first - Keith Olbermann went to see Game 6 of the World Series, watching the Yankees close it out, instead of hosting his 8pmET MSNBC show Countdown last night - the day after the first elections of the Obama administration. We know this because he wrote all about it on his MLB blog. There's photo evidence he was hanging out...with a Fox News host! Now that the facts are settled - does this make any sense? (more...)

VIDEO Was President Obama's trip to Dover Air Force Base early Thursday morning to salute the caskets of 18 dead American soldiers as they were returned to American soil from Afghanistan a moment of presidential piety, or an irresistible photo-op? And could it have been both? (more...)

video When you think of "America's political watchdog," who comes to mind? The answers will vary, but how about we try one Keith Olbermann from MSNBC? At least according to a new promo the network - while another (fake) promo touts the network as "the undisputed leader in cable news." (more...)

exclusive During his interview with ACU Chairman David Keene, John Ziegler name-checked Countdown host Keith Olbermann several times. On last night's edition of Countdown, Olbermann returned the favor. He and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis had themselves a good chuckle about the confrontation, with Kofinis calling the showdown a "good old conservative rat fight," and Olbermann wondering if Ziegler was "defending his own crush." In a Mediaite exclusive, Ziegler reacts by challenging Olbermann to a debate about the former Alaska Governor, and puts his money where his mouth is. (more...)

If you happen to be a fan of Keith Olbermann's occasional, lengthy, "Special Comment" monologues, you're going to love tonight's show. And if you're not, well you may want to avoid MSNBC for the entire 8pmET hour. That's right, tonight will be an hour-long Special Comment. (more...)

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Last night, Keith Olbermann fill-in (that guy sure seems to take a lot of vacation) David Shuster took on Fox for pushing the latest scary trend: the indoctrination of school children by the Obama administration. (more...)

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It's 1993 again! Last night, Countdown fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell ran a segment on the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Riffing off of Bill Clinton's Meet the Press appearance, in which the former president said that the conspiracy is "as virulent as it was" during his presidency, but not as big, O'Donnell and guest David Neiwert of Crooks and Liars went one further and agreed it was bigger and nastier. Does the claim hold up? (more...)

EXCLUSIVE

Earlier today, we wondered if Keith Olbermann knew that footage of his show was being used in an ad by Change Congress, a political group, and brought up the issues that would be raised if he did. An MSNBC spokesperson tells Mediaite no permission had been given for the ad, and says that the network has demanded that Change Congress stop running it. (more...)

DEVELOPING Even his biggest fans probably wouldn't argue that Keith Olbermann is a transcendently non-partisan journalist. Like his right-wing counterparts on Fox News, Olbermann has carved out a niche for himself as a righteously indignant voice from the left, and he's upfront about that. Earlier we asked if Olbermann was crossing the line by appearing in a political ad, and it turns out that he did not give permission and MSNBC is asking Change Congress to stop using it in their ad. (more...)

video A staple of MSNBC's top program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, is the host's frequent jabs at others in the media. The target of a lot of those jabs - FNC's top host, Bill O'Reilly. But if you've watched Countdown recently you may notice a lull in O'Reilly mentions. We checked it out, and the results are surprising. (more...)

Steve Krakauer wondered Friday if the LA Times would make Countdown's "Worst Persons" list for mixing Keith Olbermann's newscast up with MTV's "Jackass" in its TV listings. Sure enough, it did. In the number 3 spot, Olbermann went off on a long, mean-spirited rant to counter what he imagined to be an insult to his audience size. (more...)

VIDEO Keith Olbermann's Fox News bashing in the face of a supposed 'truce' lasted one night, before changing topics. Instead, last night he turned his attention to CNN's Lou Dobbs as the "Worst Person in the World." There was a new voice, a new caricature and a new vitriol. Almost enough to make you forget all about that Bill-o guy. (more...)

Future former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post yesterday, in which she roundly dismissed the idea of cap-and-trade. The piece is generating quite a lot of discussion, including rebuttals from John Kerry and Sarah Palin From Several Months Ago. (more...)