Red Eye Robot Theater presents: David Shuster!

Tonight it will not be just one hour of spin...but two! The infamous, deplorable one joins forces with Democrat Chris Matthews and Err America alum Rachel Maddow for a 120-minute thrill-packed spectacular--in Obamavision! The President's Q&A will be rebroadcast by the Gang of Three, with special interruptions for their special comments. And as a bonus, no analysis by anyone who isn't in the midst of a slobbering love affair. That way no matter what questions the GOPers raise, or how the Prez handles them, the Gang of Three will be able to protect their guy and invariably get the last word.

Edward R Olbermann trumpeted tonight's desperate ratings ploy on his blog of choice, The Daily Kos (hat-tip to Inside Cable News):

We will be running, as they say, "large chunks" and then cutting back to the studio to see which one of our jaws can drop the closest to the floor.

No doubt this is a reaction to Herr Olbermann once again being trounced in the critical, all-important, vital, supreme "money demo" by the eeevil Mr Bill, who only beat him last night by 500%. Olby even lost to Nancy Grace on Headline News. So it was obviously time to try something different, and toss Rachel and Chris "I forgot he was black" Matthews into the mix as well.

But isn't this an abdication of MSNBC's news responsibility? Aren't they completely ignoring the Biggest News of the Day?!? How can Krazy Keith not devote the first 1/3 of his program to "Watergate Jr"? How will his phone booth full of viewers survive without another twenty minutes about the nonexistent "wiretapping" conspiracy that has dominated The Hour of Spin night after night?

Use this space to recap tonight's Pulitzer-worthy journalistic triumph. Or maybe you have something better to do, like watch The Factor or the finale of Dollhouse--either of which will provide you with far more redeeming social value. Whatever. Comments are open!

Has every last vestige of common sense drained from the sinkhole that is A-Mess-NBC? Follow: Impartial hard-news journalist David Shuster went and exposed himself again on Twitter, screeching at arrestee James O'Keefe that he was guilty and was going to jail:

@DavidShuster: a) you are not a journalist b) the truth is you intended to tap her phones c) it's a felony d) you will go to prison.

Whoa. Isn't this something like deciding the case ahead of time, like declaring the defendant guilty before any testimony is taken, let alone a verdict entered? Well no, it's not something like that. It's exactly that! Of course it's nothing new for Slippery Shuster, if you remember one of his earlier Pulitzer-worthy scoops.

But there is another twist to the tale. How did MSNBC react when one of their alleged straight news journalists declared O'Keefe guilty until proven innocent? Did they smack him down, like they did to Morning Joe? Not exactly. In fact, A-Mess-NBC rewarded Shuster for his lack of objectivity and assigned him to go to New Orleans and cover the story. Cover the exact same case in which he just found O'Keefe guilty without a trial and sentenced him to jail!

Is this the kind of journalism that was pioneered by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley? The standard that Tom Brokaw stood for? Or does this mean the tendentious demagoguery of Keith Olbermann is now infesting even MSNBC's so-called 'straight news' hours?

If there's anyone who shouldn't cover a court case, it's someone who has publicly declared the defendant guilty ahead of time. And yet of all the 'journalists' at A-Mess-NBC whom do they pick for the assignment? The one who has a conflict of interest more glaring than a freshly buffed diamond tiara on the Bonevian Salt Flats at high noon. It's almost like Keith Olbermann is making the decisions at MSNBC. Oh wait, that can't be. Can it?

If MSNBC permits Shuster to cover this case as a 'reporter', it will relinquish any shred of respectability that may remain after all the embarrassments of Edward R Olbermann.

What say you? Discuss, resolve, and then recap tonight's atrocious Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

Note: In yesterday's ratings, A-Mess-NBC's primetime line-up finished in a dismal fourth-place in the all-important, nothing-else-matters, critical, key "money demo". Bill O'Reilly outpointed the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann by nearly five to one, and Olby even lost to Nancy Grace again. (No doubt Grace's increasing tendency to grab more of these viewers than Oralmann accounts for Keith's increasing tendency to attack Nancy Grace as he has done this week.)

Actually more than just one, but the only way to keep Keith Olbermann honest is to do it one lie at a time. On his Monday night program, Edward R Olbermann once again smeared his chief competitor and uber-Olbsession. Olby quoted Bill O'Reilly, the man who triples or quadruples his ratings on a regular basis:

OLBERMANN [quoting O'REILLY]: "To be fair, CNN has covered the Haiti story very well. There's no question about it. And I applaud the CNN correspondents who have done such a good job. But our Fox News correspondents are just as good."

OLBERMANN: Then why don't you put them on, instead of stroking yourself in front of the American public? Just once.

O'Reilly won't put Fox correspondents on the air to cover the Haiti earthquake? Not even once? Is that what you're saying, Keithy?

ITEM: The Factor debriefed Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan, who has been reporting from the ground in Haiti. "The biggest surprise," Harrigan said, "was driving around a corner and seeing fifty women and girls naked, soaping up on the street...."

ITEM: Geraldo Rivera, who was in Haiti over the weekend, joined The Factor with his reaction. "I was at the airport," Rivera reported...

ITEM: FNC's Jonathan Hunt, also in Haiti, expressed his personal reaction to the carnage. "The smell of death is hanging over large parts of this city," Hunt said...."

ITEM: Two parents whose daughters are missing in Haiti gave an emotional appeal for help on Wednesday's program. As promised, The Factor pursued the story with Geraldo Rivera, who reported from the hotel where the girls were staying. "This is a very melancholy place," Rivera said....

It should surprise no one that Keith Olbermann lies. Remember that we're still waiting for him to retract one of his whoppers from last week. So don't expect him to tell the truth about Bill O'Reilly. Ever.

Another Hour of Spin begins. Comments are open!

The Olbermann Watch Research Division poured through the MSNBC online transcripts yet again to see how much attention was paid to various stories and issues over the past week. Here is what our keyword searches found:

Notes: Iraq reference count does not include Oralmann's ritual closing mantra.

Get ready to recap another dismal five days of The Hour of Spin...comments are open!

Keith's Olbermann's manic, embarrassing diatribe of personal attacks and name-calling against Scott Brown has been widely denounced. But what about the truthfulness of Oralmann's harangue? A few have attempted a fact-check of Krazy Keith's polemic: Tommy Christopher rendered a split decision, but seemed to side with Olbermann on points. A commenter's detailed rebuttal finds far more Olbermann falsehoods than accuracies. But there is little disagreement about one key Olby assertion:

I said Mr. Brown was a supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees. Specifically, this past Sunday, when a man at a Brown rally shouted they should, quote, "shove a curling iron up Martha Coakley's butt," Brown responded by answering, "We can do this." Or, if that remark was unconnected to the shout, he never refuted, condemned, nor disassociated himself to the call for violence and even sexual assault.

Whatever you think about the other personal attacks in Olby's philippic, there is little room for doubt on this one:

Brown told reporters this morning that he didn't hear the remark, that it was "inappropriate" and that he would have "said something" had he heard it.

"This morning" refers to January 18. Two days later Keith Olbermann is still claiming that Brown "never disassociated himself" from the statement. That, dear reader, is Another Olbermann Lie.

We don't expect Edward R Olbermann to retract all of the disputed allegations in his tirade. The chances of that would be slim and none, given Keith's shoddy track record of correcting his many lies over the years. So we'll focus on this statement--one that nobody can defend.

Our challenge to Keith Olbermann: for once, man up. Grow a pair. Retract this lie tonight.

Two analyses of the Supreme Court's McCain-Feingold decision. One lasts over 11 minutes. The other about two. One is a raving diatribe. The other addresses issues and facts. One is peppered with manic name-calling, personal attacks, and hyperbolic extrapolations. The other focuses on the US Constitution. Watch, compare, and then ask yourself... Which is real journalism? Which informs rather than inflames? And which is the work of a 'real news channel'? We report, you decide:

UPDATE: As they did with Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL), members of the Project 21 black leadership network are taking MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann to task for his wrong-headed and offensive behavior in equating the free speech victory in the Supreme Court case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to the infamous Dred Scott case.

Deneen Borelli: "For starters, to equate a decision that gives people more freedom of speech to a decision that denied basic rights to blacks is offensive and wrong. Then there is Olbermann's assumption that the American public today is a flock of sheep. Unlike Olbermann, the Court realizes freedom of speech is under assault, and the American people can't be bamboozled by the increased participation of a few rich individuals or companies. I think the failure of Obamacare - despite massive spending by the drug lobby and unions to promote it - is proof of that.

"It also seems as if the pot is calling the kettle black. MSNBC is currently owned by General Electric. GE Capital was bailed out by the taxpayers. GE CEO Jeff Immelt is a close advisor to President Obama, and GE would profit from Obama policies such as cap-and-trade. Olbermann has served as a cheerleader for all of this. Are Immelt and Olbermann simply afraid to allow others to possibly gain the attention and influence GE has had all along?"

R. Dozier Gray: "The idea that Obermann would connect the infamous Dred Scott decision to this new ruling is appalling, though not surprising. Olbermann's comments are, at best, hyperbolic. In my mind, the two decisions are opposites. The Dred Scott decision denied rights to an entire class of people and their descendants. The Citizens United decision recognizes both the rights of individual and entities that they can use to amplify their voice. To bring up Dred Scott is to introduce race where it simply does not belong."

It's a classic. Watch and enjoy, watch and enjoyers:

For your Hour of Spin show-prep for today, make sure to read Miami's premier tv critic, Glenn Garvin, who unleashed on the infamous, deplorable one and his minions in a scathing denunciation of A-Mess-NBC:

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, positively enraged that Massachusetts dared to elect a Republican, delivered two hours of nonstop bilious rage toward the state's voters, calling them "irrational" and "teabaggers," engaged in "a total divorce from reality," and hinting that they're vicious racists to boot....

The network's coverage was idiotic, one-sided and downright ugly....

It may be too much to expect NBC, these days reduced to a national wisecrack, to be embarrassed over the frothing lunacy that passes for news coverage at corporate stepchild MSNBC. But both networks are part of the same news division. If news boss Steve Capus thinks his reporters can continue to appear with Olbermann and Maddow without suffering credibility contamination, he's dumber than whoever was behind the Leno/O'Brien late-night shuffle.

There's more...much more...so make sure to read the whole thing. Thin-skinned paranoid Oralmann has already attacked another tv critic for daring to question the Great and Powerful Olb. Will Mr Garvin be the next victim of another lying smear from Edward R Olbermann?

Don't be shocked that the protector of habeas corpus, Mr Civil Rights himself, Edward R Olbermann, thinks that the burden of proof is not on the accuser, but rather that people should be presumed guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. Because he got this logic from a highly regarded repository of intellectual thought:

We report, you decide:

Olbermann on election night. You know what you're promised, but you never know what you get. Do you remember November? That's what Olby told us he'd have a special second live hour of Countdown at 10:00 pm. But fate intervened: Democrats lost two big races in New Jersey and Virginia. And come 10:00 pm what happened? Instead of a second live hour of Countdown, there was a brief update from "Crazy" Larry O'Donnell, and then A-Mess-NBC proceeded to rerun the 8:00 o'clock show!

And that's not all. Edward R Olbermann disappeared from the show entirely for several days. He claimed he was visiting his sick father, but MSNBC refused to confirm his story! And then those embarrassing photos of Olby at Yankee Stadium put the lie to Keith's tall tale. But we're sure his ill father (for whom we hope only the very best) appreciated being used by Keith as a fictitious alibi.

So what happens if Scott Brown wins tonight? Does Monkeymann stick around until 10:00 pm to spew more spittle at the camera (with or without his trademark pivots)? Does Crazy Larry have to rush in yet again? Or will A-Mess-NBC just rerun the 8:00 o'clock show, while Oralmann soaks in the bathtub? Since KO is starting to make a habit of coming in last place in his critical, all-important, nothing-else-matters "key demo", maybe a better question would be: does anyone care? Why should they? They're all watching Fox!

Whichever channel you watch, use this thread to post your comments on the election, the coverage, and of course the infamous, deplorable one. And we didn't forget about last week's chart either:

Comments are open!

Here is what the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann spewed tonight (via The Right Scoop):

Moments later, in a rare example of criticism from his own colleagues, his diatribe was blasted by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough:

Keith's phone booth is getting smaller all the time.

UPDATE: On the air this morning Joe didn't mention Olby by name but clearly was referencing him when he called the tirade "sad and pathetic".

Those hard-working MSNBC staffers haven't gotten around to posting Friday's transcript yet, so we can't prepare or weekly summary of keywords and topics. We'll give them one more day, and if it still isn't up we'll do a four-day summary instead. Meanwhile, enjoy watching Herr Olbermahn froth at the mouth. It seems a Kossack dared to print a criticism of Keith:

As if the human tragedy did not present enough drama by itself, Keith had to go fishing for more. Not once, but twice, he went beyond the facts of the story in a sad, transparent effort to drum up even more high drama and doom than the more-than-ample supply of tragic facts warrant.

Uh oh, this is a capital offense on OlbyPlanet. And it didn't take long for Edward R Olbermann to make his calm, rational, reasoned response:

You trolls are getting freakin' desperate. Is this to protect Limbaugh for turning this nightmare into an excuse for his on-air racism about this today? To cover O'Reilly for having done twenty seconds on Haiti in two nights (and the twenty seconds was spent devoted to bashing the President for not holding a news conference after Detroit as he did after Haiti)?

DKos is undergoing a full scale Troll attack, object, divide and conquer, muddy pools, etc.

Yes, if anyone dares to criticize the Great and Powerful Olb, they must be 1. a troll B. part of a Limbaugh plot against him III. part of an O'Reilly plot against him. d. an evil right-wing troll. Paranoia strikes deep.

Get ready to recap the first Hour of Spin of the week. Comments are open!

UPDATE: Olbermann loses his mind over the MA Senate race (via The Right Scoop):

Well, it's not like it'd be the first lie from the infamous, deplorable one. But if reports are correct, it would be one of the most audaciously egregious. On yesterday's Hour of Spin:

The conservative Web site RedState has a front page link for Haitian relief donations via the Salvation Army. The sites "National Review" and Town Hall and FOX News have front page links for Haitian relief donations by the Worldview Organization. SeanHannity.com has a front page link to Haitian relief donations via the Red Cross. RushLimbaugh.com has a front page link to a company that sells gold coins.

Wow, what a searing indictment from Edward R Olbermann. Unfortunately, it seems to have been a lie, according to multiple sources. Example:

• Olbermann lied last night. Olbermann said that Limbaugh's site did not have a link in order to donate to Haiti-of course I checked it out and there WAS A LINK on the top of the page- and its still there.

And another:

• Olbermann pointed out that RushLimbaugh.com has a CAPITALIST ADVERTISEMENT FOR GOLD INSTEAD OF AN AD FOR THE RED CROSS! After hearing Edward R. Olbermann create a bitch storm about how evil Rush is, I checked RushLimbaugh.com myself... and low and behold, the first banner ad deals with news and donations for the Haiti relief effort. Hey bathtub boy, you miserable piece of shit, it took me 30 seconds to check RushLimbaugh.com to figure out you were lying yet again. Does this douche even have staffers anymore who tell him he has a basic obligation to fact check before going national on "The Place for Politics"?

Did Olbermann just get caught in another lie? We report, you decide:

Get ready to recap the last Hour of Spin for the week. Comments are open!

Keep in mind that the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann doesn't have much interest in actually covering news. Last night he was on the air live and managed to avoid coverage of the earthquake in Haiti entirely! But the story continues to grow so it's likely he will have to cover it tonight. And what do you know? Fate delivered to Oralmann the perfect hook to use his time attacking people he disagrees with (in their absence of course) instead of actually covering news:

Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson says Haiti has been "cursed" because of what he called a "pact with the devil" in its history. His spokesman said the Wednesday comments were based on Voodoo rituals carried out before a slave rebellion against French colonists in 1791.

Spokesman Chris Roslan says Robertson never stated that Tuesday's earthquake was God's wrath. He says Robertson's Operation Blessing group is sending millions of dollars in medication and relief workers to the country.

What do you think the odds are that Monkeymann will leap at this, and, well, pretty much forget all about the millions of dollars in aid? Joe Scarborough would say the odds are pretty good:

Hmm, now who in the world is the MSM ideologue that Joe is talking about? That's a real puzzler. Prepare to recap another atrocious Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

The Olbermann Watch Research Division poured through the MSNBC online transcripts yet again to see how much attention was paid to various stories and issues over the past week. The results are unusually revealing. Here is what our keyword searches found:

Notes: 'Crazy' Larry O'Donnell filled in for Edward R Olbermann on Friday. Iraq reference count does not include Oralmann's ritual closing mantra.

Who knew that the three most important news developments of last week were health care, George Bush, and Brit Hume?!? Get ready to recap another dismal five days of The Hour of Spin...comments are open!

Enjoy the clip, then recap another dreary Hour of Spin. Comments are open!

First Oralmann tells us the crotch bomber was no big deal, just a schlub who didn't pose any real threat to anyone. But consistency is not considered a virtue on OlbyPlanet, so Krazy Keith goes on from there to suggest that our spy organizations deliberately buried the intel about the crotch bomber--knowing he could kill 300 people. Why? To embarrass the Obama administration! John Gibson has the details on the latest Krazy Keith Konspiracy...listen to the end as a genius caller takes it to the next level.

The infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann has completed another year of Countdown, one that has solidified the show as the most biased program this side of Radio North Korea. An analysis of the MSNBC transcripts for the month of December reveals once again just how Edward R Olbermann prevents any dissenting views from entering his echo chamber on OlbyPlanet:

It is safe to say that no other news program in the free world is as severely and consistently cleansed of dissenting views like Krazy Keith and his Hour of Spin. Congrats, Bathtub Boy, on preventing your audience from hearing even one voice that disagrees with yours. But then again, what choice do you have? How else could you possibly win an argument other than by not letting the other side speak?

Discuss, resolve, and then recap The Hour of Spin. Comments are open!