I thought you might be amused by the following email that I sent Keith in response to his latest blog entry. Keep up the good work!

Mr. Olbermann

I can understand why you have come to the conclusion that the Rather story has been tremendously overblown as it appears that you come from the same school of so-called journalism. In your blog today you railed against Armstrong Williams and his admittedly stupid decision to take money to support the Bush ?No Child Left Behind? initiative. The focus of your rant was a quote that allegedly came from Williams that indicated that ?there are others? out there doing the same thing. You insinuate from this quote that these others MUST be conservative commentators and/or conservative web bloggers:

?But the Williams revelations do remind me that I?ve always wondered how some of the monolithic, elaborate websites, especially conservative ones with a million links, have managed to stay afloat financially, and if somebody in government wasn?t supplying them with more than just hot news flashes.?

But could it be that what Williams was referring to was the fact that the practice of paying for on-air or in-print commentary actually pre-dated the Bush administration? I?m sure this never crossed you mind Keith. It probably never crossed your mind when you (I?m sure) read the following in the January 8 New York Times:

But public relations executives said that the government distribution of prepared news segments without on-air disclosures of their origin was a bipartisan practice that predated the Bush administration.

"The Clinton administration was probably even more active than the Bush administration" in distributing news segments promoting its policies, said Laurence Moskowitz, chairman and chief executive of Medialink, a major producer of promotional news segments. After the Government Accountability Office decision last spring, he said, his firm began advising government clients to disclose each tape's nature in its script.

Its interesting that this little piece of information failed make your ?in-depth? report on the story. Its good to see how deep your journalistic skills are.

Here is a little tip: next time you go on another self-righteous partisan rant, do your homework.