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Just when you thought Keith Olbermann couldn’t go any lower, he plunges to new depths that seem almost unimaginable for someone pawning himself off as a journalist. On Friday, the "Countdown" host actually told his viewers that National Review editor Rich Lowry’s published opinion of Sarah Palin’s performance during Thursday’s debate "read like soft core porn." MSNBC’s leading on-air personality disgustingly concluded: "I don`t really care if you sat there last night during the debate and masturbated. But was it really necessary to tell America about it?"

"Shovel your ratings" might have been Morning Joe's unstated message to Keith Olbermann today. With the latest ratings showing Rachel Maddow's new MSNBC show beating Olbermann's Countdown, the MJ panel went out of its way to congratulate Maddow on her success, repeatedly mentioning what a "good person" she is and how nice it is to see such people do well. The crew was riffing off the Drudge headline "Move Over, Olbermann, Rachel Maddow Tops MSNBC Ratings." As seen in the Drudge screencap [after the jump], on Tuesday Maddow beat Olbermann--the perennial MSNBC ratings leader--by a count of 1.8 million to...

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win. We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that. -- memo from Mark Halperin, then the ABC News Political Director, to his staff, October 8, 2004. All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the...

What a week. If anybody doubted liberal media bias they can't now, now that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has come on the scene. I finally got my cablevision money's worth just to see the countenance of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, not to mention the unhinging of Bill Maher, et al. Then the feigned concern of the liberal talking heads and late-night ankle-biters, what was Sen. McCain thinking when he picked a mom with too many irons on the fire, and who does she think she is, ignoring her family to pursue her ambitions? Those liars. Those hypocrites. If Gov. Palin was...

We thought Olbermann was bad in covering the two conventions, but his performance tonight on Countdown was even worse. Sadly, this is not surprising given how he has been demoted at MSNBC because he is too extreme even for their management! Tonight Olbermann shamelessly accused our military men and women of a "massacre of civilians" in Azizabad, Afghanistan. (Excerpt--read the rest at Not WRIGHT for America)

<p>By Howard Kurtz The decision by MSNBC to yank Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor duty during live political events did not exactly send a thrill up the leg of liberal bloggers. A number of them denounced the cable channel yesterday ...</p>

After the Democratic Party obtained a majority in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in 2006, some believe the mainstream media saw this as an indication the country had made a decided turn to the left. Suddenly, what was once a clear case of media bias became a strident effort by many in the media to promote a liberal agenda. No network was more guilty of this departure from journalistic objectivity than NBC and its sister cable outlet, MSNBC. NBC's news division, which had been losing viewership at an alarming rate, made a decision to roll the dice...

The decision by MSNBC to yank Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor duty during live political events did not exactly send a thrill up the leg of liberal bloggers. A number of them denounced the cable channel yesterday for making a change that had long been sought by NBC News veterans, saying MSNBC was caving into pressure from John McCain's campaign and the right wing. MSNBC President Phil Griffin denied that complaints from either Republicans or NBC journalists were a factor. He said he reached the decision after "talking to my guys, mainly Olbermann," after the Republican convention. Olbermann...

Rachel Maddow is so Keith Olbermann's protege, she's supposedly trying to get people fired. Just like her mentor! "Maddow tried to replace all the staffers who work on the 9 p.m. time slot, which she takes over on Monday, but management refused," claims the indefatigable Page Six. This would be, of course, Dan Abrams' former team at Verdict. And ya know who Olbermann can't stand? A one Dan Abrams, who for a time played MSNBC general manager, and thus, Olbermann's boss, but the two never clicked, and neither wanted to pay mind to the other. You'd expect, then, that the...

Ordinarily, I would never recommend MSNBC viewing to anyone. After all, when I'm not hosting my radio show or writing for Townhall.com, I work at Fox News Channel as a contributor. But if you happened to be Tivo'ing MSNBC last night after Sarah Palin's home run speech, you MUST check out poor Keith Olbermann. After fawning and gushing and salivating over the Democrats during their convention in Denver, Keith looked and acted last night like he had swallowed a fish bone. I mean, this guy was mad. Pathetically trying to use words like "condescending" and "saracastic", he did his best...

Subtract the subdued demeanor and the good tailoring, and how much difference is there between Brian Williams and Keith Olbermann? Take Williams' post-Palin speech analysis last night. The Nightly News anchor suggested that Palin's appeal is rooted in racism, then made a clarion call to his fellow MSMers to keep up the good fight against her. Have a look at the video, here. First is a clip of Ann Curry interviewing a woman delegate after the Palin speech, then Williams, then Joe Scarborough this morning. ANN CURRY: What was the most important message, do you think, that Governor Palin gave...

Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann began to poignantly patch things up two nights ago. But there's clearly still mucho trabajo to be done to heal the rift between Joe Scarborough and the temperamental Countdown host. Readers will recall that during the Dem convention, Olbermann was caught [accidentally on purpose?] on an open mic suggesting Scarborough "get a shovel" for his failure to toe a sufficiently pro-Obama line. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took a thinly-veiled shot at Olbermann for the way he tried to keep Republican analyst Mike Murphy off the air, and then tried to pull the plug ["let's...

Reviewing speeches at the Dem convention, Keith Olbermann was like a mother describing her child's performance in a middle-school musical. "A grand slam across the street," enthused Olbermann over Hillary's effort, only to outdo himself by calling Obama's speech's "spellbinding" and "extraordinary." But when it came to reviewing Fred Thompson's speech at tonight's Dem convention, Olbermann suddenly morphed into Frank Rich with a migraine back in his theater critic days. Sniffed Olbermann: "We have heard two speeches in the last forty minutes or so, Chris, first from President Bush and now from former Senator Fred Thompson. I think it's fair...

If a hypothetical tabloid owned by, say, Richard Mellon Scaife had a cover story with scurrilous accusations about Joe Biden, do you think Chris Matthews would be waving it about on camera and Keith Olbermann citing it? Neither do I. But Matthews saw fit—not once but twice—to display the cover of Us magazine, with its story "Babies, Lies and Scandals" about Sarah Palin. Olbermann alluded to it as well. And who is the owner of Us? Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone . . . and a big-time donor to Barack Obama. How big a donor? You can view...

It's a love-in, man! Looks like the grown-ups at NBC/MSNBC have taken the kids aside and told them to kiss and make up. After the embarrassing "tension convention" [to quote Imus] at the DNC amongst Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, we've already seen the Countdown host plucked out of the GOP convention, under the convenient excuse that he would be anchoring—back in NYC and safely removed from St. Paul—the coverage of Hurricane Gustav. When Olbermann and Matthews appeared on split-screen during the 7 PM EDT hour this evening, they were clearly on their best behavior. The dueling duo...

The MSNBC promo bills the network as "the place for politics." Looks like it's the place for rib-ticklin' comedy, too. Check out Keith Olbermann's side-splitter from the ad: KEITH OLBERMANN: This is one of those turning-point-in-history American elections. We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world, but that merely, we may function. VOICEOVER: MSNBC: The place for politics. View video here.

The implosion of MSNBC's DNC coverage is ironic since the narrative being sold by the media going into the convention was whether the Democrats could achieve party unity. Since the Clintons resoundingly stifled that storyline, the question now is, will Olbermann, Matthews and Scarborough unite to save MSNBC? Jon Stewart called the infighting, "Lord of the Flies on the NBC roof!" If you've been enjoying the convention on C-SPAN or one of the other networks, this clip from The Daily Show will get you up to speed. Kudos to them, satirizing the surreal is a difficult task.

Talk about a complete LACK of professionalism! But in the case of Keith Olbermann, I'm not surprised. Last night MSDNC's Olbermann launched into an attack on an AP reporter who dared to be mildly critical of Barack Obama's speech at the Barackopolis. Guess what? It followed the same script as that posted by KOmmie KOs himself posted in KOmmieland just minutes earlier as you can see in this THREAD titled, "Fournier outsources AP anti-Obama attack." You can get up to speed on the Olbermann attack and the update about KOmmie KOs feeding him his lines at NEWSBUSTERS. We already...

How does Keith Olbermann view pre-Obama America? Apparently akin to the Soviet Union, and South Africa under apartheid. Here was his statement from the top of tonight's DNC coverage. CHRIS MATTHEWS: It is an iconic night in history: we'll all remember this night as long as we live. This is the night that the first Western government, the first Western political power, or party, has nominated an African-American, someone of African heritage, to lead the country. It's something that took a long time to happen, almost like an old Polaroid film developing. But here it is. It happened officially last...

Very few Republicans have made it onto MSNBC air during the networks' Dem convention coverage, but even that is apparently too much for Keith Olbermann. As Chris Matthews was interviewing GOP consultant Mike Murphy in the interlude between Bill Clinton and Joe Biden tonight, Olbermann could be heard off-camera angrily demanding "let's wrap him up, alright?" It was Murphy's surmise that, in the privacy of the polling booth, Bill and Hilary would pull the lever for McCain that seemed to set Olbermann off prompt him to call for the hook. View video here.

Another chapter in the ongoing Matthews-Olbermann feud, or simply Chris's frustration with a technical glitch? Yesterday, a catfight broke out between the two when Olbermann suggested Matthews had stolen an idea from two female pundits, and later made a hand gesture mocking Matthews gabbing [YouTube here, h/t Undercover Black Man]. Were the warring duo at it again this evening? You be the judge. Click on the image to the right to view the video. Again co-anchoring the MSNBC desk with Olbermann tonight, Matthews was just about to throw it to Luke Russert out on the convention floor. The son of...

It appears that Keith Olbermann might be vying for the title of Most Annoying Anchor On Television. First we had Olbermann dissing Joe Scarborough during a live broadcast on Monday from the Democrat convention. Then a day later, Olbermann managed to enrage Chris Matthews during another broadcast. And now it looks like Olbermann is going for broke in the insult department by pushing to have Tom Brokaw banned from appearing on MSNBC as reported in Page Six of today's New York Post: At a forum on Sunday, when Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell called MSNBC "the official network of the Obama...

In her black-rimmed glasses, black T-shirt, jeans and orange sneakers, green iPod wires dangling from her ears, Rachel Maddow cuts an unassuming figure at odds with her growing celebrity. "I know I don't look like everybody else on television," MSNBC's newest host says at a Mexican restaurant here. "I'm not that pretty. Women on television are over-the-top, beauty-pageant gorgeous. That's not the grounds on which I am competing. There's a basic threshold you have to cross: not looking like you're insulting. You ought to wear makeup, comb your hair." And if she tried for a makeover, she says, "I would...

Keith Olbermann has forgotten the figure-skating judge's cardinal rule: be sparing in the marks you award early contestants, to leave room for the favorites who perform at the end. After his gushing appraisals of Michelle Obama's and Hillary's convention speeches, how can Olbermann possibly top it in his praise of Biden's and Obama's to come? Mixing metaphors here, let's compare the baseball-analogy grades that the Morning Joe crew gave Hillary's speech at show-opening today with Olbermann's assessment of last night. As you'll see, they range from solid single to Keith's grand slam. View video here.

Dateline USA.... Media matters. NBC/MSNBC TV news sources say veteran, professional commentators and journalists--most notably, Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell--are appalled by the network's amateurish, biased coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Industry insiders say Matthews is incensed by Keith Olbermann's commentary, which amounts to little more than a nightly adulation of Barack Obama. Only two days into the event, the obnoxious, out-of-control Olbermann, one of the most outrageous and arrogant personalities to ever make it in TV news, has insulted and over-talked his colleagues to an alarming degree. At one point in Tuesday night's coverage, the totally bald, toupee-topped...

MSNBC's team at the Democratic National Convention needs to get more sleep and maybe also one of those massages that Arianna Huffington is giving out. The cable network's anchors are sniping at one another tonight, just like they did last night. About 20 minutes ago, ahead of Hillary Clinton's speech, Chris Matthews was talking about how some women feel disenfranchised within the party. It's a touchy subject for Matthews, who has been accused of sexist commentary against Clinton, and he did not appreciate a producer telling him to wrap up his ramble. He also didn't appreciate his sometime rival Keith...

Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann put their own feud aside to agree on something tonight. Hillary honcho Howard Wolfson is a puppet, nay, a Tokyo Rose traitor, for going to work for Fox News. It was the McCain campaign's use in its ads of Hillary's anti-Obama statements that triggered the outburst. KEITH OLBERMANN: Irony upon irony, instead of the commercials designed to destroy Hillary Clinton, [the Republicans] are using Hillary Clinton in commercials designed to destroy the Democratic nominee. CHRIS MATTHEWS: Those are crocodile tears. And you wonder whether an objective person, either rational or post-rational, would be able to...

Keith Olbermann seems to be suffering from a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease during the Democrat convention coverage. As noted earlier by NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein, Olbermann, after commenting ecstatically about Michelle Obama's speech declared that he was "beginning to sound borderline sycophantic." Also last night, an open mic caught Olbermann dissing fellow MSNBC team member, Joe Scarborough. You can hear the dissing on the Olbermann Watch YouTube audio from the John Gibson radio show below the fold but here is a partial transcript: JOHN GIBSON: I've got to tell you, we have news here tonight! We have the first open...

Beginning? Borderline? How unbalanced was MSNBC's convention coverage tonight? Keith Olbermann felt himself getting verklempt over Michelle Obama's speech. So who did he throw it to for some fair-'n-balanced commentary? Chris Matthews. At the conclusion of Michelle Obama's appearance, Olbermann seemed ready to call the election off and just hand the presidency to Obama by acclamation. KEITH OLBERMANN: Ye-a-h-h-h. Case closed. Matthews responded with a very guttural "uh-h-h-h." OLBERMANN: That could not have done better for them. That could not have done better for them. Right to the point of the little girls taking the mikes away and suddenly turning...

If there is a chief spokesman for the far left, it has to be MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. It is difficult to think of a talking head that is more fawned over by liberals. On his nightly cable television show, the #1 show on MSNBC, he "analyzes" the news and adds his own angry, leftist flavor. One of his segments is to name a "Worst Person in the World." People such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly and Robert Novak have made the list. Recently, he named Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the "Worst Person" for his role in...

On Wednesday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann claimed that pro-gun groups like the NRA "are trying to increase deaths by gun," as he used his "Worst Person" segment to attack a gun rights activist who infiltrated gun control groups to spy on them: "Mary Lou Sapone infiltrated the executive boards and learned the plans of organizations trying to decrease deaths by gun in this country, and apparently reported it back to organizations like the NRA, which are trying to increase deaths by gun in this country." A month earlier, on the June 26 show, after the Supreme Court struck...

Keith Olbermann had a temper tantrum at a memorial reception for the late Tim Russert.

The liberal press crowed loudly when cable TV’s Keith Olbermann beat out Bill O’Reilly in a key demographic during a recent week, but Olbermann’s ratings success has been isolated and press reports about it have been much overblown, Newsmax has learned. MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” did average 477,000 viewers in the age 25 to 54 demographic during the first week of June, narrowly edging out Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” which averaged 472,000 in that demo, according to Nielsen Media Research. “This marks the first time that MSNBC has beaten Fox News in O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. time slot,” the...

TIM Russert's body wasn't even cold in the ground before MSNBC anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann started jockeying for his job, sources claim. Matthews was heard loudly discussing what seemed to be his strategy for landing Russert's "Meet the Press" show at Wednesday's memorial reception for the NBC Washington bureau chief at the Kennedy Center in DC. After Brian Williams, Carl Bernstein, David Gergen, Barbara Walters and NBC brass eulogized their friend, Matthews huddled with an unidentified "agent type" and seemed to be plotting... Meanwhile, Matthews' MSNBC cable cohort Olbermann, who was also at the memorial, is "threatening to...

Cannot post due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/23/080623fa_fact_boyer

A profile of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann by Peter J. Boyer in the current edition of the New Yorker, gives us a good clue as to why the man known for his laughable impressions of Edward R. Murrow is so antagonistic towards CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric. She beat him out of a job as anchor at CBS. Yes, you read that right. In fact I had to read it twice in amazement when the article, "One Angry Man," stated that the CBS execs actually considered Olbermann for the anchor position (emphasis mine): After Rather’s unhappy departure from CBS, the...

Commentary Editor's Note: During the next week, RFFM.org will do a series of columns on the state of journalism in America today. We will look into the failures of the dominant media and the lack of adherence to journalistic integrity on the Internet. The profession of journalism truly lost one of its most distinguished representatives with the sudden death of Tim Russert. The host of NBC's Meet The Press had developed into one of the best interviewers in the dominant media and the profession cannot afford to lose such individuals who ply their trade with dignity and pride. However, the...

THE perplexing mystery of why Keith Olbermann acts like a twitchy, hopped-up geek on his MSNBC show has been solved. The New Yorker's Peter J. Boyer reports the TV loudmouth "has been given a diagnosis of Wittmaack-Ekbom's syndrome, also known as 'restless legs syndrome' (and also 'the kicks,' 'Jimmy legs' and 'the jitters'), a neurological disorder that produces a prickling, itching or crawling feeling in the legs." Known as a women's ailment because it strikes twice as many women as men, the syndrome has stirred controversy among doctors who don't agree whether it's even real or instead caused by various...

ALBANY, N.Y. -- MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann, who spotlights misbehavior nightly with his "Worst Person in the World" recognition, owes New York state for unpaid business taxes, according to a tax warrant notice. And his conservative counterparts and bloggers are making sure the debt is fodder in the ongoing political commentators' feud. Olbermann, the host of "Countdown," owes New York $2,269.50, according to a tax warrant obtained by The Associated Press. State Tax and Finance Department spokesman Tom Bergin said the debt recorded against the TV host's Olbermann Broadcasting Empire Inc., based in Los Angeles, is still open. MSNBC spokesman...

The Old Media feeding frenzy surrounding former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s “tell all” book continued unabated this week across television, radio, print and the Internet. However, something is noticeably absent from the volume that sparked a jubilant liberal orgy: Jeff Gannon. Howard Kurtz noted the omission in his Washington Post column Monday pointing out McClellan’s first cable talk show appearance was an interview with MSNBC’s Bush-hating Keith Olbermann: Olbermann hailed the book, "What Happened," as "a primary document of American history" that contained "poetry." Talk about role reversal: It was Olbermann who said in 2005 that "whenever I...

IF you can stand watching Keith Olbermann going off on some political moralistic tirade, you would think he is above reproach and has his own house in order. Then again, we are talking about the mother of all broadcast liberals... Looks likes the New York State Tax Warrant we reported on yesterday is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Al Franken isn't the only shrill leftist who doesn't like to pay his taxes. New York State has issued a tax warrant against MSNBC moonbat Keith Olbermann. A judgment was issued against Olbie just weeks before he closed on a $4.2 million luxury condo at Trump Palace. No wonder Olbermann recently made a lame attempt to defend his fellow tax cheat Franken. As Leona Helmsley, another supporter of Democrats, famously said, "Only the little people pay taxes."

The amiable Gene Robinson is a regular MSNBC guest, but he's apparently not a regular MSNBC viewer—at least not of Keith Olbermann's show. Otherwise he would have never claimed, as he did tonight, that no one accused Geraldine Ferraro of being a racist back in March when she said that, for current political purposes, Obama was lucky to be black. For it was none other than Olbermann host who accused Ferraro of precisely that. On this evening's Race for the White House, David Gregory invited Robinson to comment on a Ferraro op-ed in today's Boston Globe in which the former...

Of all the people to call for a "truce" on excessive partisanship . . . Interviewing Scott McClellan tonight, Keith Olbermann sanctimoniously suggested that a "truce" on partisanship "would be nice." But speaking with John Dean just minutes later, the Countdown host—he who has repeatedly called President Bush a liar and a fascist—reverted to form and regretted that it might be too late to impeach him. SCOTT MCCLELLAN: [The 1988] election was very much a turning-point election. I think that George Bush, George Bush 41, George Herbert Walker Bush, is a decent individual, and a man who really believes in...

This statement is in the article that's already been posted here, detailing how Murdoch believes Obama will win by a landslide: What about MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who's now spending much of his time attacking O'Reilly and Fox? "No. I fired him 5 years ago," when he was on FoxSports: "He was crazy."

Rumor has it that Keith Olbermann might be in meltdown mode over at MSNBC. His strange behavior is accelerating at the Peacock Network.

Can it be coincidence that on the day it's reported that Keith Olbermann is feuding with Chris Matthews, the Hardball host goes out of his way to shine up the clown prince of Countdown? As NewsBuster Noel Sheppard has noted, the New York Post, in the course of reporting today that Olbermann has been "lashing out" at his network's talking heads, states that Olbermann's "feuding with 'Hardball' host Chris Matthews is nothing new." So on this evening's Hardball, how does Matthews promote tomorrow night's primary coverage that he will be co-anchoring with Olbermann? CHRIS MATTHEWS: Remember, tomorrow night with Keith...

"...I find this behavior more on the left than the right and it can be scientifically quantified. When given an intellectually superior argument to Socialism, Surrender, Race and class division, there tends to be a response from the underbelly of the left that is simply Thuggish, Orwellian and Disturbing. There are very few in this group that can give an intelligent rebuttal to any of my videos. Some resort to personal attacks, name calling and mocking of my style, when none of them make videos themselves and others just make threats of physical violence. There are dozens on the left...

Who said leftists are opposed to the death penalty? It's just a question of who's being hung. . . Many Americans might wax nostalgic for the long lost America immortalized in Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post cover drawings. Not Keith Olbermann. He longs for the good old days when people like Rush Limbaugh . . . could be strung up. Here's the Countdown host tonight, speaking with Air America's Rachel Maddow: KEITH OLBERMANN: Legally, we've come a very long way since the Haymarket bombing in Chicago in 1886 when we wound up hanging some anarchist writers, who were not even...

Leave it to liberals to pile on Sen. John McCain with cheap shots about his age, and we're not talking making jokes about him serving in the Civil War or what not. Mocking John McCain's age, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann imagined that the senator could easily segue from talking about foreign policy or the economy to talking about "buying more Depends or something like that." (h/t Conservative Punk) "You can dissassociate yourself from that remark if you wish," Olbermann immediately added in his exchange with Rachel Maddow of the liberal Air America radio network. Yesterday NewsBusters noted a liberal blogger who...