Just last week, Keith Olbermann brought in one of his typical impartial experts to analyze the NSA surveillance issue. On Tuesday night's Hour of Spin, James Bamford was back, and--surprise!--it turns out he is one of the plaintiffs in a frivolous lawsuit against the government over the eavesdropping program. The lawsuit is being sponsored by the American Criminal Liberties Union and what Olby only described as the "Center for Constitutional Rights". Keith gave his viewers no background on this organization, which has what might be called a colorful history.

KO complained about all the "useless leads" that the surveillance turned up, as if intelligence gathering didn't always turn up a lot of useless leads. Wasn't it just last year that Keith was complaining about not connecting the dots? Bamford called it all a wild goose chase, and said that anyone who Googled Al Qaeda "might" have been spied upon. With that kind of evidence, it's going to be fun watching Bamford and his cronies demonstrate to the federal courts that they even have standing to file a lawsuit.

Need we mention that no one with an opposing point of view was interviewed? In Olbermann's Court, every dispute has only one side. Olbermann's side.

A taped David Gregory report documented attacks by Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, and generously included one sentence of the White House response. Another taped piece summarized the kidnapped reporter in Iraq. Sprinkled around these were teasers for a segment on Hillary's "plantation" comment, with every tease bringing up today's talking point (all over the blue blogs) that Newt Gingrich once used the term "plantation" as well.

Olby got to the plantation story in the #3 slot, and again brought up Newt Gingrich! Soros is getting his money's worth tonight. Yet again Abramoff (and his head wear) are brought up, but not the scandal surrounding William Jefferson (D). A seemingly endless montage of reporters hectoring Scott McClellan (always a favorite on the Hour of Spin) preceded KO finally addressing Hillary's statement. Keith brings up Newt yet again, but without noting that Gingrich wasn't speaking at an MLK event, and didn't follow the reference with Hillary's "You know what I mean"--in other words, attention people, these are code words.

Olby interviewed E.J. Dionne and once more referenced Newt (he probably got more mentions than Hillary did), describing critics of Hillary as "holier than thou". (John Gibson would no doubt find Keith's use of that phrase to be deeply ironic.) Dionne blamed it all on "right wing blogs" and agreed with every one of KO's postulations (a requirement if you ever want to be invited back onto Countdown). Keith quickly diverted the conversation to Abramoff, and Dionne was so considerate of KO's spin that he too refrained from bringing up William Jefferson (D).

Aside from the fluff that consumed the rest of the show (the only clip KO played from the Golden Globes was George Clooney's about Jack Abramoff), there's always the Media Matters Minute. This time the "worst person" was the head of CNN Headline News, for daring to hire Glenn Beck. Media Matters fits into this because Keith obediently lifted a Beck quote from their latest screed expressing outrage that CNN would hire anyone to the right of William Kunstler. Choosing the CNN guy was just a pretext for taking a shot at Beck, and when Olby squeezed in a crack about Bill O'Reilly (attack #53), that just confirmed what he was up to.

But what happened to Ray Nagin's (D) comment that the hurricanes were divine retribution? Again that didn't merit "worst person" status? It always has for Pat Robertson. We know that Media Matters doesn't have it on their page, but can't Olby, at least once, be something other than a shill for the blue blogs? Not tonight. Like the William Jefferson (D) scandal, Nagin's remarks have not even been mentioned on the Hour of Spin, let alone given the "worst person" treatment. Conclusive proof of Olbermann's hypocrisy and blind partisanship. As if we didn't know.