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.