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?