Countdown Guest Rips CNBC For Softball Interview Of Blackwater Founder

Eric Prince, the head of the private security contractor Blackwater, announced he is stepping down from government work recently, and tonight’s Countdown guest, The Nation‘s Jeremy Scahill, could not believe how easy the media has gone on him despite claims of questionable activity in America’s Middle Eastern warfronts. But it wasn’t the accusations that made Keith Olbermann shrug at him– the “media” in this case were the interviewers at CNBC.

Scahill suspected that Prince’s retirement from federal government work did have something to do with the Congressional “proctology exams,” as Prince described them, and noted that there is talk Prince is planning on moving his family United Arab Emirates, “a convenient place to relocate,” he argued, “to service the corrupt monarchies of the Middle East,” especially because there is no US-UAE extradition policy.

Olbermann then wondered why Prince was on TV to begin with: “so we’re putting him on TV– and I don’t mean just CNBC– we’re putting him on as an industry, we’re putting him on TV to encourage people to invest or buy his plane ticket for him?” Scahill sheepishly noted that he knew CNBC was a “sister network,” to which Olbermann clarifed that he wasn’t criticizing them, and Scahill rapidly responds “Oh, I will. I mean, how can you have this guy on and not confront him with all that he’s alleged to have been involved with? I think we need to have some journalistic integrity.” Olbermann responded with an “I did what I could” shrug.

Video of the discussion (first a clip explaining the core of the discussion, then the CNBC comments) below:

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