Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, May 23

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING
Guest: Craig Crawford, Josh White, Mark Silva
OLBYWATCH GUIDE: Poor Olby. Here he had this great plan to lead off his show with "the truth" about Pat Tillman's death. And then those pesky senators had to go and spoil it all by coming up with a bigger story: the filibuster compromise.

No problem. Keith can spin on a moment's notice:

Good evening. You had a sense that compromise might be possible when the majority leader of the Senate suddenly changed the name of the worst-case scenario from "the nuclear option" to "the constitutional option".

Eliminating judicial filibusters, according to Olby, would be the "worst-case scenario". Really subtle, Keith, like a ton o' bricks. (And ignorant, since Republicans have been calling this the "constitutional option" for months. In fact, "constitutional option" is already old hat; the current favorite is "the Byrd option")

OlbyConvergence of the day: the compromise came on the same day that Sterling Hayden died. You see, Hayden had a part in the movie Dr Strangelove, and he played a psychotic General, and he wanted to drop a bomb on the Russians, and so he was employing a "nuclear option", and...oh never mind.

KO GOP Cheap Shot:

OLBERMANN: A tape turned up of [Rick Santorum] comparing the New York Times to the Nazis...
SANTORUM: If you look at the other alternatives to religious pluralism, and that is radical secularists, there are many in our society, some of them happen to be at the New York Times, that believe in that. [edit] I just want to remind people of the societies over the last couple of centuries that have been secular in nature...starting with the French Revolution...to the fascists, and yes the Nazis, and then the Communists, and the Bathists. All of those purely secularist, hated religion, tried to crush religion. That's the kind of peaceful public square that the New York Times would advocate for.
OLBERMANN: ...Is Sen Santorum's threshold for comparing things to Nazis a little lower than we thought?

KO FNC Cheap Shot:

Olby reports on the Karzai/Bush meeting, stating that you will hear how Karzai criticized Newsweek "on the 1984 channel" (OlbySpeak for Fox News), but:

...you are less likely to hear the President agree with the US Commanders in Afghanistan that the rioting and deaths were not the result of what Newsweek reported.

But Olby is talking through his wig once again. Hours before KO's bottom-rated newscast was aired, Fox's Special Report (with about four times as many viewers as Olby can muster) included this from Carl Cameron:

CAMERON: Karzai confirmed US military assertions that the real instigators were extremists who'll do anything to disrupt democracy.

Cameron's report continued with a clip of Karzai: "They were more against the elections in Afghanistan..." Gee, isn't that the clip Olby played, and said you wouldn't see on Fox?

Oops. Caught again. Are any of Olbermann's jabs at Fox News ever accurate or truthful? One could ask the same question about the rest of his "news" show.

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Friday's Countdown is not our regular beat, but we couldn't resist after the performance Olby gave on tonight's show. Recall Keith's reporting on the article in Newsweek (a content partner with MSNBC)--KO bent over backwards to suggest that it didn't spark any riots (apparently Olby knows more than Newsweek on this point), and besides, it was all the fault of the "treasonous" Scott McClellan.

But for KO the Saddam photos are manna from heaven: not just the #5 (lead) story, but #4 as well! And instead of pooh-poohing any notion that publication could lead to trouble overseas, Olby was openly salivating at the prospect. You see, this time it wasn't MSNBC's partner, Newsweek--it was Keith's nemesis and all-around villian-in-chief, owner of The Sun and The New York Post: Rupert Murdoch.

While he found time on Monday to mention the MSNBC-Newsweek connection once, in passing--minimizing it as mainly internet-related--the rules are a bit different when the KO Fox Fetish has to be fed. In the first half hour of the program alone, how many times did Olbermann connive to mention Rupert Murdoch's name? Three? Five? How about six?

Wrong! Seven times in about twenty minutes of actual coverage--which amounts to bringing up Murdoch every three minutes.

Murdoch references #5 and #6 are particularly brainless:

Where is the big blast against Rupert Murdoch?

Does Murdoch get a pass because he owns the President's fan-club tv network at Fox News?

Earth to Olby: calm down, straighten your wig, switch to De-Caf, and do at least the merest modicum of research before you go off tilting at windmills. AP has been reporting since early this morning--well over twelve hours before your "news" show aired--that the US "condemned" the decision of the paper to publish the photos. Don't you read the newswires? Besides sports scores and punting records, that is?

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Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, May 16

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING
Guest: Craig Crawford, Jane Slaughter, Jack Rice
OLBYWATCH GUIDE: Presenting the many faces of Keith Olbermann, in his own words:

OLBY, THE INVESTIGATIVE SLEUTH:

Something smells funny to me about this Newsweek apology, then retraction.

OLBY, THE IMPARTIAL REPORTER:

Newsweek quotes a government source on this, as you mentioned, then gets blasted by the White House. Newsweek apologies but won't retract. Then Scott McClellan makes himself available to the networks for interviews--a rare occurence--in which he blasts Newsweek even further. And then late this afternoon Newsweek retracts. Are these events interrelated, or am I a victim of my own favorite logical fallacy here?

OLBY, THE RELENTLESS FACT-CHECKER

How do you feel if you're Gen Meyers tonight, or if you're Gen Eikenberry in Jalalabad, and you said the Afghan riots were not caused by the Newsweek story and today the White House said yes they were...

Note: KO repeatedly brings up these early assessments that didn't connect the riots to the Newsweek story, but ignores more recent reports:

Thousands of Muslims gathered in Pakistan's main cities yesterday after sermons in mosques denouncing the desecration..."The Holy Koran was defiled by the dirtiest of hands, by American hands," a protester shouted as others burnt American and Israeli flags.

OLBY, THE NON-PARTISAN INTERVIEWER:

[talking to Rep Jane Slaughter about charges that intel was "fixed" to support the Iraq War...]

Two devil's advocate questions...the second devil's advocate question...

When was the last time KO ever apologized for a question to a Republican or conservative by going out his way to note that he was being a "devil's advocate"?

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Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, May 12

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING
Guest: Howard Fineman
OLBYWATCH GUIDE: It was your run of the mill KO show, with the obligatory slams on the GOP, the War in Iraq, and Michael Jackson. The best clip was of the astounding woman in Asia somewhere suckling two baby tigers on her breasts.

The show started with the Bolton story, and featured Howard Fineman as commentator from Newsweek. KO ran clips of George Voinovich stating that if Bolton were in a corporation, he would be fired. No mention of the fact that Voinovich would also be fired if he worked for a corporation for running afoul of the FAA when he started screaming at the Air Traffic controllers for not letting him take off when the airport was momentarily shut down due to Air Force One flying overhead. Voinovich said he was going to take off anyway and dared them to shoot him down, for which he was ultimately fined and let go. Far worse than Bolton ever did, at least Bolton had a policy reason for his outbursts. Oh, and then there was the story about the Secret Service having to break in to then President Clintons hotel room to protect him from an enraged and screaming Hillary.

But hypocrisy by Senate Democrats won't find a voice on this show, when Fineman stated that Democrats are looking for blood wherever they can find it, KO quickly interjected, "but this was Republicans looking for blood", referring to Voinovich. Yeah right, it is the Republicans that are doing all this, not the Democrats.

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Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Friday, May 6

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING
Guest:

OLBYWATCH GUIDE: KO and staff must have had the day off because the first three pieces were straight up NBC pieces undoubtedly played on other NBC programs for which KO added only a brief intro. KO did manage to get into one Christian bashing piece about a small church in East Waynesville, North Carolina that expelled nine Kerry voters for voting for Kerry. Which is fine if there was any context, or any balanced stories, ever, of blue state discrimination against Bush voters of which there has been plenty.

On to his usual tabloid news show, Michael Jackson, Runaway Bride, yawn, Paula Abdul and the Pope's old Volkswagon, yawn. Finally, his #1 story was about some bogus study that pronounced that housewives should be paid $131,417 a year-another blow for feminism struck by KO.

The problem as usual with this show is that most of the news is tabloid, far left biased, or done by someone besides KO, ie NBC news.

KO spent a lot of time ridiculing the Runaway Bride, perhaps she is his new Michael Jackson, although he managed to take a few shots at him tonight too. Is it just me, or does it not seem like the media has a big share of responsibility for the Runaway Bride story? They ran with a story where a bride was missing for only three days, and hyped it into an abduction/murder case when another explanation was far more likely at that point. The woman never asked for all this coverage, and the huge coverage is what is making people so resentful of her at this point. I think the media could do a little soul searching about this one, including KO.

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Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, May 5

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING
Guest: Kristen Dahlgren, NBC, James Bone, Times of London

OLBYWATCH GUIDE: One really notices a pattern with KO the last few days, take whatever story relates to terrorism and minimize it. Tonight's version is the grenade attack in New York, which KO minimized by describing it as toy grenades blowing out a window.

On to Dana Milbank reporting on how Tom Delay is doing anything to avoid reporters who are apparently chasing him around the capital, complete with a clip of Delay speaking in a "rare" public appearance, and the sound is Delay calling himself a lowly sinner. Geez, no bias there.

Finally, a hit piece on the FBI amongst all the other oddball stuff. I noticed the promo announcer has a new line for KO "You're getting the news Olbermann style" at first I thought he said "you're getting the screws Olbermann style, but then I thought, yeah, that's true, we are getting the KO style 'slam the Republicans' style news as usual--and that's the screws for anyone interested in actual news.

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Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, May 4

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING

OLBYWATCH GUIDE: Tonight was your typical KO anything to run down the GOP news, starting with a report on the captured high level Al Qaeda operative Al Libbi, the sum total of which was KO has never heard of him so he must not be very important. One more scam from Bush says KO, even after his guest told him that every intelligence service in Europe confirmed he was a big fish with much valuable information, such as where Bin Laden is. Nothing about what a major success this was for the Bush war on terror, the entire segment centered around the irrelevant fact that KO had never heard of him.

It went from there to the Pat Tillman story where reportedly information concerning his friendly fire death was withheld (isn't this one everyone already knows?), a new poll says only 41% of Americans now think Iraq war was worth it, and of course the suicide bombing news from Iraq. All the bad news that slams Bush that fits to print is the KO motto.

On to the Runaway Bride story, where we are shocked to discover that it cost $60,000 in police time over the week of this search---wouldn't the police have cost that much in a week in salary if they were all sitting around eating doughnuts? KO also brought out the HAA--Hispanics Across America, which appeared to be two guys at a microphone with no one else around but press, demanding an apology from Ms. Runaway Bride for labeling her supposed abductor an Hispanic. Silly stuff, and has anyone ever heard of HAA by the way?

The rest, more silly stuff from KO.

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Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, May 2

Host: Keith Olbermann

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING
Guests: Shannon Goessling, Carley Roney, Craig Crawford

OLBYWATCH GUIDE: Before dealing with tonight's Countdown, we just wanted to acknowledge the amazing responses to our report of last week, where we caught Olby lying about a quote from Sen Lindsay Graham. Almost immediately, the story was picked up by Howard Kurtz; Eric Alterman wrote a column decrying the lack of standards and ethics at MSNBC. World O' Crap then chimed in with a stinging article on how KO was "wrong again", and Crooks & Liars gleefully posted video of Olby's embarrassment. Over at Media Matters, David Brock headlined: "Keith Olbermann uses misleading editing and false information to misrepresent Lindsay Graham". TVNewser mockingly ran Olbermann's version of what Graham said side by side with the actual transcript; salon.com ridiculed what they referred to as "propaganda masquerading as journalism". And Oliver Willis put up a graphic of KO with the battle cry: "American Truth Under Seige--Olbermann Must Resign!"

Yeah, right. On Bizarro Planet maybe. Here on terra firma, Olby gets a pass. After all, he doesn't work for Roger Ailes.

But we digress...on to the Countdown!

#5: Olbermann decided to crow about how Nancy Grace and (surprise!) Bill O'Reilly ("the big giant head") were wrong in suspecting the missing bride was a crime, but I Am The Great Olby, and I foresaw that it wasn't. This comparison lost some effectiveness since Olby telegraphed the whole thing by providing TVNewser his cherry-picked quotes earlier today, where they were reliably posted long before the Hour of Spin aired. It was all rather like the old Laugh-In segment, with KO bragging he can bring you the "News of the Future". In his opening segment tonight, Mr O'Reilly openly admitted he was snookered on the bride story. Quite the contrast to Olby, who, when caught in outright lies, just stonewalls and arrogantly lectures others about "journalism".

After spending well over 25% of the show on this story, Olby finally made it to #4: Iraq and Abu Ghee-raib (as KO prounounced it). Keith took this opportunity to ridicule Pat Robertson for stating he fears activist judges more than terorrists. How exactly does Robertson fit in here, topic-wise? Don't ask us--it's just another Olbyconvergence.

#3: After Oddball [cue The Laughing Stagehand], Keith did a segment on Laura Bush's Saturday night speech. He decided to intro the report with yet another delightful reminiscence about about the person Olby most admires, the one who is always foremost in his thoughts:

The last time I actually went to the White House Correspondent's Dinner was in 1998. It was the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and I was one of three guests of the Washington Post. They sat me between Al Gore's best friend and Bill Clinton's secretary...

If only there had been more time, Keith could have told us so much more: I was a most delightful child, quite extraordinary in every way. I loved animals, especially my cat "Duranty"...

#2: Steroids in baseball. Finally Olby is in his element. When it comes to sports--the toy department of our lives--Keith is the sharpest commentator on MSNBC...weeknights...at 8:00 pm. Also covered: Michael Jackson's phone records, Cameron Diaz's divorce, Ozzy Osborne [cue TLS].

#1: The teenagers who were lost at sea. A recycled NBC report kept KO from doing much damage here. Another crumpled mass of paper thrown at the camera and the latest Hour of Spin grinds to a conclusion.

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