"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET)

Host: The Doctor is In!

Curiouser and curiouser. Reportedly the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann appeared live on A-Mess-NBC today to promote tonight's Hour of Spin, tossing in a blatant lie about how he trounced O'Reilly on Wednesday. But tonight, no Bathtub Boy. Err America comedian Rachel Madcow showed up in his place.

So we will bring you instead an astonishing report by someone who had a close encounter with "Man on Fan" Olbermann himself. A chance meeting near the NBC building that reduced Edward R Olbermann to uncomfortable blabbering.

We'll get to this dramatic first-person account momentarily. But a few words about tonight's Hour of Spin are in order, since our OlbyWatch recappers team still found a few things notable.

• Quads: Olby is in the bathtub acting like Kris Kristopherson. Rachael Maddow....A STAR IS BORN!
• Philly: Madcow tarts up once more to spew her brand of Err America agitprop for the MSDLC Hour of Spin. Where's Olby? Is he hiding under his desk? She is wearing the same suit as Gordon Smith. They must have the same tailor.
• SP: Poor Keefie. After all the hard work last night going after Limbaugh, indignantly calling him a "hole," Rush refused to take the bait today and, as usual, never mentioned KO. So Keefie sulks in his tub, his ploy to gain a few more fewers through a manufactured feud with Rush is foiled again.

We wonder if the publication of the following incident threw Oralmann off his game tonight and sent him back to the tub. Annie NYC tells her readers that she had a chance encounter with Edward R Olbermann:

He was nervous and nerdy, hands in his pockets the whole time, he really seemed like a hollow fool. i was actually very surprised, i thought he had more than this.

It already sounds convincing.

Ok, what is with the hillary hate.

I don't hate her.

gimme a break. what is your problem with her, just tell me.

i don't hate her, i hate her policies and tactics

her policies? Obama is to the right of her!

he's moving to the middle because he's trying to win!

This sounds truer by the minute. The immediate springing to defense of Obama for moving to the middle, something he condemned Hillary for doing just a few months ago. Just what a tank-dweller would say.

what about late may Axelrod faxing YOUR worst person in the world report on her RFK comments to all the media, really? Hillary is the worst person in the world?!

that was only 10 minutes, and that's axelrod, it's not him...

Oh man, on the lame-o-meter, that's at least a nine. Hey, don't get mad. I didn't make Hillary a worst person in a 30-second segment. No, I screamed at her and pounded the table for ten solid minutes! That's his defense? Annie concludes:

The entire time, NO INTELLECTUAL RESPONSE WHAT-SO-EVER. NONE. NADA. ZILCH. Nothing new, just anything that some uninformed kid on the street would say. WOW. He was very nice, but i was blown away by how lame his responses were. amazing. He even at one point mentioned that he was called a misogynist, as if he couldn't understand why! wow. Maybe he didn't think suggesting someone should kill Sen. Clinton, hatred.

These are just highlights. Read the whole deal, and decide for yourself if this doesn't in fact capture the essence of Keith Olbermann, deprived of a teleprompter, faced with an opposing view, without The Laughing Stagehand to prop up his failing self-esteem.