Enjoy Gibby's dissection of the media attacks on Sarah Palin, then get ready to recap another weary Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

Gibby has a theory, and he tries to explain it to callers. And there's even a passing reference to the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann, just to keep it on topic. Listen up, listen uppers, and then recap tonight's Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

Comments are open!

Once again the Olbermann Watch Research Division poured through the MSNBC online transcripts to see how much attention was paid to key stories and issues over the past week. Here is what our keyword searches found:

Notes: References to Iraq do not include Olbermann's ritual closing mantra.

Congratulations Sarah Palin! You are once again the most important story on Countdown--in fact Sarah Palin was more important than Afghanistan, Iraq, Nidal Hasan, Iran, Pakistan, and unemployment combined! It looks like Keithy has a krush on someone. Awwwwww. Get ready to recap tonight's Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

Among the many videos that were purged from youtube when the Olbermann Watch account was nuked was this look at Keith Olbermann, so ready to pompously object to Nazi comparisons, and so eager to use them himself. Here's the post from February 3, 2008, and a freshly uploaded version of the video:

Keith Olbermann is the "journalist" who has compared Fox News to Nazis, who said the Bush administration is an example of facism, and who likened its rise to that of The Third Reich. And how many other news anchors have been censured by the Anti-Defamation League (who are still waiting for their apology)?

This is the same Edward R Olbermann who slammed Condoleeze Rice for suggesting that Saddam might have been like Adolf Hitler. The same Keith Oralmann who sermonized that such comparisons must be stopped: "There's no place for the reference in this culture. Not about the Republican tactics, not about the Democratic tactics, not about Guantanamo Bay."

Keep those words in mind. Because in his latest Special Education Komment, Olby does it again. Yes, he compares the Bush administration to the Third Reich! A more stunning example of Olbypocrisy could not be imagined. This video explores Herr Olbermahn's love/hate relationship with Nazism:

A special Olbermann Watch hat-tip to youtuber ThePenIsMightier2007, whose excellent video on Keith's Nazi hypocrisy inspired our small effort.

Recap the last Hour of Spin of the week. Comments are open!

Edward R Olbermann spent Wednesday's Hour of Spin without reporting on Fort Hood, emails to Al-Qaeda, Hasan, or anything else that didn't fit his talking points. Because on OlbyPlanet, if Olby just decides not to report it, then it didn't happen! Prepare to recap tonight's propagandarama right here. Comments are open!

The infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann couldn't be bothered yesterday to report on Malik Hasan or all of his contacts with jihadists and repeated emails to Al Qaeda. He didn't even bother to do a segment on the Fort Hood memorial. Instead, he devoted over seven minutes to grade-school vulgarities directed at Carrie Prejean. More of that OlbyPlanet news judgment. No doubt he'll have something really special for Veterans Day. You can recap it right here. Comments are still open!

Once again the Olbermann Watch Research Division poured through the MSNBC online transcripts to see how what kind of attention was paid to key stories and issues over the past week. Here is what our keyword searches found:

Notes: References to Iraq do not include Olbermann's ritual closing mantra.

Hmm. An awful lot of coverage of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Not so much about Fort Hood, which got relegated in each case to a non-leading short segment. In fact, on yesterday's Hour of Spin, Edward R Olbermann didn't even mention Fort Hood, with no reporting whatsoever on all the new developments regarding Nidal Hasan's background and troubling contacts. Truly, another Dog That Did Not Bark. Such is the vaunted news judgment prevalent on Olby Planet. We'll wait for next week's chart for a fuller spectrum of Oralmann's "journalism". But we pretty much know what to expect tonight--and chances are it won't include an apology to Peter Johnson for Monkeymann's repellent, still uncorrected smear. Comments are open!

To understand how Keith Olbermann concocts his ritual character assassinations of people on his enemies list, one must appreciate the modus operandi involved. More often than not, Olby spots an attack in a blue blog, preferably a Fox hating one, lifts it without checking, contorts the content even further to suit his own agenda, and then for a big finish tosses in a healthy dose of name calling, ridicule, and personal attacks.

This week brought us an egregious example of OlbyCarthyism, one that appears to have had its genesis at one of David Shuster's favorite sources, Talking Points Memo. They excerpted a few sentences from a four hour program: an exchange the Fox & Friends hosts had with Geraldo Rivera regarding the Fort Hood massacre. The article links to, but does not embed, a snippet of video. But even this skimpy documentation was too much information for Olbermann, who attacked all three hosts by cropping things even further and just quoting their questions and ignoring the answers. Here he cites Gretchen Carlson:

CARLSON: Could it be that the military was exercising political correctness in not approaching him as seriously as they would have had he not been a Muslim?

Why does this question make Ms Carlson a "worst person" nominee? After all, MSNBC's employee Clift van Zandt made a similar point about political correctness, and just today NBC's own David Gregory asked a question that echoed Carlson's about the military missing warning signs. Will they be named "worst persons" by Olbermann? There was a lot more that Gretchen Carlson said--not merely the questions she posed (the job of an interviewer) but her own analysis--that Keith Olbermann neatly avoided telling his viewers about. Before asking that verboten question, she noted:

CARLSON: It puts any Muslim American in a tough situation here because by all accounts most Muslim Americans living here are living here peacefully. I mean, this is the extreme element--potentially--of this religion, and we don't know exactly if the religion was his motivation or not, or if it was the act of war, or that he went nuts. I mean, we don't really know right now.

There's no way Olby is going to let that be heard! Olbermann's distortion of Carlson is pretty bad, but his defamation of Peter Johnson Jr is even worse. Here is the quote as Olby cites it:

JOHNSON: You won't countenance special screenings for Muslim soldiers, will ya?

Olbermann attacks Johnson for this cropped quote as if Johnson were calling for such screenings. Again, neither Olby nor Talking Points Memo (which frames this statement as Johnson "grilling" Geraldo, as if they were disagreeing) bothers to note anything Johnson said before that interview, which just might shed some light on the situation. Here is what he said after a statement from a CAIR spokesman calling for Americans to remain calm because the motives of the attacker are not known:

JOHNSON: Well that's absolutely accurate, and it calls for restraint, and it calls for concern for fellow citizens. And obviously whether an assailant is Christian, or is Muslim, or is Jewish, is irrelevant.

What? How can that be? Olbermann wants you to believe Johnson is some sort of depraved racist! Well Keith did have that one-sentence quote as "proof". But even that one sentence has been falsified--doctored to change its meaning and intent. Here, in context, is precisely how the exchange between Peter Johnson and Geraldo Rivera went down. After Brian Kilmeade asked if there should be special screenings for Muslim soldiers, Geraldo disagreed. After Geraldo rambled a bit away from the question, Peter Johnson jumped in:

JOHNSON: You can't, you won't countenance special screenings for Muslim soldiers, will you?
RIVERA: You know, it's a hard--
JOHNSON: You can't. As a civil libertarian, can you countenance that, Geraldo Rivera?
RIVERA: It's a hard step for me to take, to countenance. This is an American born person.
JOHNSON: Yeah it is!
RIVERA: This is not a naturalized citizen.
JOHNSON: Right!

This is the exact opposite of what Olbermann claimed. Peter Johnson Jr was not supporting "special screenings". He was agreeing with Geraldo Rivera and arguing against them! But that doesn't matter to Olbermann, who slanders him as a "worst person" based on his dishonestly cropped quote. Par for the course on Countdown.

But wait, there's more. We haven't yet dealt with Olbermann's specialty: over-the-top insults and name-calling. In this instance it was to accuse Fox News of, among other things, racism:

OLBERMANN: Since we're asking questions, I have one for Carlson, Johnson, and Kilmeade. You guys ever wonder if you all succeeded inside a company like Fox mostly because you're not Muslim or black or Asian or Hispanic?

We noted above that Olbermann was careful to quote only questions, but not answers. This of course made it easy to strip all context from the discussion, but now we find there was another reason. Because the person the Fox hosts were talking to was Geraldo Rivera. You know, the fellow whose successful Fox News program beats MSNBC and CNN weekend after weekend? Now we're not sure, but we think Geraldo is Hispanic. You know, like Julie Banderas. That's the other reason why Olby avoided even mentioning Rivera. Because if he had, how could he wail that Fox News won't allow Hispanics to succeed? Oh that racist FNC! If only it could be more like MSNBC, where Hispanic anchors are plentiful. Why MSNBC is a veritable haven of Muslims, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics:

Keith Olbermann owes someone an on-air apology. Big time.

Originally posted at johnny dollar's place.

Greg Gutfeld and Andy Levy were filling in for John Gibson on the radio today. They got in some good shots at the infamous, deplorable one, then kicked it up a notch by bringing in Ann Coulter. It's perfect Friday fun listening, so listen up, listen-uppers.

It was an odd moment when the time rolled around for MSNBC's "special live edition" of Countdown on election night at 10:00 pm. Because show host Keith Olbermann wasn't there. A hasty pre-recorded Olby tossed it to Lawrence O'Donnell, who proceeded to update viewers on the elections for about 20 minutes, then a rerun of the 8:00 pm showing of Countdown was joined in progress. The first apparently official explanation from MSNBC or from Olbermann came from mediaite:

We hear Olbermann was visiting his dad in the hospital...

But why did MSNBC promise a live Countdown, if they knew they weren't going to air one? For that matter, why did Olbermann himself claim that he would be back at 10:00 pm?

Lawrence O'Donnell and I will be back with the latest on the votes in New York 23rd, Virginia and New Jersey at 10:00 Eastern, 7:00 Pacific. Until then, I'm Keith Olbermann...

There was one thing that changed between 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm: the Corzine loss in New Jersey. Keith already had to endure the victory of Bob McDonnell in Virginia, whose electoral chances he had previously dismissed with a sneering: "Good-bye, Mr McDonnell". He would then have to report another Republican victory at 10:00 pm. If he stuck around.

Was his father's condition so serious that he had to bail on his responsibilities at MSNBC and skip the 10:00 pm show? If so, there was a miraculous recovery because less than 24 hours later KO was merrily blogging at Yankee Stadium, snapping pics and cracking wise. Remember, Olbermann has a pattern of ducking his job when there's news he doesn't want to report. After all there's a reason he's called "bathtub boy". Just ask John Gibson.

Most telling of all is how flimsy and ephemeral the hospital excuse turns out to be when you look at it more closely. Mediaite's only reference is "we heard"...exactly what you would expect when someone is tossing out a BS excuse but doesn't want to get caught having done so. Why wouldn't Olbermann, or someone from MSNBC, say this on the record? To Mediaite's credit, they did try a second time. And MSNBC's non-response speaks volumes:

Mediaite's Steve Krakauer reported that he "heard that Olbermann was visiting his dad in the hospital, which accounted for his absence." When asked for confirmation of this an MSNBC spokesperson provided no comment.

Isn't it time for MSNBC and/or Olbermann to address this , and do it on the record?

Discuss, resolve, and recap. Comments are open!

MSNBC boasted that on election night they would present a "special live edition of Countdown" at 10:00 pm. But with bad news for the Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a funny thing happened on the way to the bonus Hour of Spin. Keith wasn't there! After a live update (not from Olby but from Lawrence O'Donnell) A-Mess-NBC ("the place for politics") proceeded to rerun the 8:00 pm showing.

Keith had obviously left the building. But why? Where in the world was Keith Olbermann? We don't know yet, but we think we have a pretty good idea:

Update: Steve Krakauer hears one possible explanation of Olby's whereabouts:

Around 10:15pmET, there was a commercial break, and the repeat 8pmET Countdown kicked in. It aired the rest of the hour. We hear Olbermann was visiting his dad in the hospital, which accounted for his absence. But that doesn't answer why O'Donnell or Matthews didn't fill in during the prime results hour. In the MSNBC release Monday, it was listed as a live edition of Countdown.

Update update: Does anyone really believe what is almost certainly an MSNBC leak, that he was visiting his sick Dad? Especially when nobody is willing to go on the record to say it's true? Keith announced at 8:59 pm that he and Larry O'Donnell would be back at 10:00. So what happened between 9:00 and 10:00 pm that might have sent Olby to the bathtub? Could it have been Corzine losing? Ya think? Will Oralmann show up tonight? Or will he end up at Yankee Stadium? That would be peculiar, if his dad's illness prevented Olby from staying at work past ten o'clock, but allows him to spend all night at a ball game. We'll know a few short minutes from now, and we're counting on you to recap tonight's festivities in this thread.

Update Update Update: Well Keith is just where we thought he'd be: Yankee Stadium, merrily posting one blog entry after another at tonight's game. So either his Dad made a miraculous recovery from just 24 hours ago, or MSNBC's PR line explaining away Keith's sudden disappearance on election night is even shadier than we suspected. Discuss and resolve. Comments are still open!

Great thanks to all the websites that linked to this post, including:

• Hot Air
• Chickaboomer
• Weekly Standard
• Riehl World View
• National Review
• Colossus of Rhodey
• Right Angles
• Jammie Wearing Fool
• Ace of Spades
• Newsvine
• Political Derby
• Lonely Conservative

The Olbermann Watch Research Division chuckles every time it hears someone on A-Mess-NBC attacking Fox for being a partisan operation, since we know there are more opposing views aired on any given hour of Hannity or The O'Reilly Factor than you will hear in a month of Edward R Olbermann. Having just finished one such month, here's the proof. We poured through the MSNBC online transcripts and tallied up the Hour of Spin guest list. Take a gander at the results:

Behind the numbers
Democratic and Republican politicians: these are office-holders invited on Countdown for tough, aggressive grillings. Actually, that was a joke. Since they are all Democrats, they are trademark Olbermann blue-dress interviews. These included Ron Wyden (4 times), Anthony Weiner (3), James Clyburn (3), Alan Grayson (2), and one each for Maria Cantwell, Sheldon Whitehouse, Charles Schumer, and Sherrod Brown. Strangely, not one Republican.

Democratic and Republican strategists: These are partisan "experts" who have toiled in the partisan vineyards to get candidates of their persuasion elected. The big winner here is Democratic strategist "Crazy" Larry O'Donnell: ten appearances, either as a guest or guest-host. Plus we find Chris Kofinis (4), Howard Dean (2), Joe Trippi (1), and Markos "Screw 'em" Moulitsas (1). And then there were the Republicans: zero.

Liberal / Progressive vs Conservative / Traditional: These guests are not officially identified with party activisim but they appeared on OlbyPlanet to promote a political viewpoint. People like Wendel Potter (from the Center for Media and Democracy--two appearances), Shannyn Moore of Huffpo (1), Eric Burns of Media Matters (1), and so forth. We included three appearances from the National Association of Free Clinics, since they were present not to promote a philanthropic effort, but rather to hold free clinic events "in five key cities, in five key states represented by Democratic senators who have not yet said they will oppose a Republican filibuster of the public option." Yes, A-Mess-NBC organizing, promoting, and sponsoring political events to oppose Republicans and promote Democratic legislation. Gee, that sounds a little bit like, what would you call it, acting as the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party? In the interest of fairness, we didn't include the washed-up "comedians" and vulgar "entertainers" who also used their Countdown appearances to further Olby's partisan agenda. We have our limits, even if the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann does not.

Discuss, resolve, and then recap tonight's Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

Once again the Olbermann Watch Research Division poured through the MSNBC online transcripts to see how much attention was paid to important and not so important stories over the past week. Here is what our keyword searches found:

Notes: Olbermann only worked two days during this week. References to Iraq do not include Olbermann's ritual closing mantra.

It's a new week for the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann and the start of yet another chart. Will Krazy Keith actually show up on a Monday? Does anyone really care? Do your part by recapping the longest 60 minutes in television--right here. Comments are open!

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From his radio show today. Enjoy the mockery, and the inside references that true Olby scholars will understand--like the allusion to KarmaBites. Then use this space to recap tonight's Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

Gibson lays out the facts in one of his best dissections of the infamous, deplorable one. Maybe he'll be named WPitW tonight, an honor we're still hoping for here at OlbyWatch. Recap tonight's Hour of Spin right here. Comments are open!

Comments are open!