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Richard Wolffe returned to Countdown this week, absent from MSNBC airwaves for only a month after Glenn Greenwald pointed out that his full time employer was no longer Newsweek, but a lobbying firm:

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

This is a conflict so severe that it's incurable by disclosure: who wouldn't realize that you can't present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators? But the fact that they don't even bother to disclose that just serves to illustrate how non-existent is the line between corporate interests and "news reporting" in the United States. Then again, Wolffe himself -- when it was previously revealed that he was exploiting his position as a Newsweek reporter covering the Obama campaign to leverage access to Obama in order to write a glowing book about him -- said this:

And [Wolffe] suggested he’s not that different from other reporters in an era in which the business and the profession of journalism have gotten closer and closer.

"The idea that journalists are somehow not engaged in corporate activities is not really in touch with what's going on. Every conversation with journalists is about business models and advertisers," he said, recalling that, on the day after the 2008 election, Newsweek sent him to Detroit to deliver a speech to advertisers.

"You tell me where the line is between business and journalism," he said.

And yet, he's back...with nary a word about his absence, still as an MSNBC political analyst.

Don't get me wrong, I like Richard Wolffe in general, and appreciated his appearances on Countdown in the past, but to name him as a "Senior Strategist at Public Strategies" is truly the sparest way to describe him as a lobbyist and really blurs the lines between journalism and promotion/propaganda beyond what should be acceptable. How can we ever know if Wolffe's analysis is truly what he believes or if it's what he's been paid to promote by a client?

And frankly, I'm tired of the insular nature of these broadcasts, when the same predictable people show up day after day after day. To be fair to Keith, Olbermann is not the only news anchor with a retinue of guests they stick with over and over. They all do it. Even Rachel Maddow brings on "Uncle Pat" Buchanan, whose views are generally factually wrong or so far outside the mainstream, you can't but wonder why he's still on television. Wolffe isn't like that. But as I've documented before on media balance and biases, so much critical information is withheld from we viewers already that we generally don't get a fair view of the issues of the day, I really do have to ask if there are no other voices that Olbermann can turn to that he has to bring back a DC lobbyist?

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Keith Olbermann calls out the dangerous rhetoric and lies of Sarah Palin and her other GOP cohorts--such as Glenn Beck and Sen. John Cornyn--scaring the populace with their outrageous fear mongering over health care reform.

You shouted "fire" in a crowded theater -- a hot one -- and then today tried to roll it back with "no, no, sorry, not fire, I meant flashlights."

Too little, too late, too obvious.

Madam, you are a clear and present danger to the safety and security of this nation.

Whether the 'death panel' is something you dreamed, or something you dreamed-up, whether it is the product of a low intellect and a fevered imagination, or the product of a high intelligence and a sober ability to exploit people, you should be ashamed of yourself for having introduced it into the public discourse, and it should debar you, for all time, from any position of responsibility or trust in the governance of this nation or any of its states or municipalities.

It is exactly this kind of lowest demoninator scare tactics of Palin's and her other GOP buddies that has brought about the aptly albeit bluntly named PleaseCutTheCrap.com.

And while it's semi-nice to see Palin back-pedaling slightly, the fever pitch is such that a concerted joint effort by the White House and the Democrats in Congress is required to push back on this inciting and ugly rhetoric, before it goes too far.

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[h/t to Heather.] On Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked about the power of words and why Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News Channel are at least partially responsible for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. As his guest, he had author Frank Schaeffer, who wrote "Crazy for God" about his years in the religious right.

Yesterday, Schaeffer wrote a heartfelt apology apology at Huffington Post for his part in forming the anti-abortion movement. Keith contrasted his apology with the response by Bill O'Reilly, in which Billo blamed - well, just about everyone but himself and Fox News.

Keith spoke thoughtfully about hate speech and how it influences people, then posed this question:

So, what to do? Viewer boycotts mean little. You are already here. You are not watching Fox News channel. Advertiser boycotts are of limited value, most make barely a dent in a company. Besides which, in this economy, an advertiser who found its sales boosted by association with malaria would start breeding mosquitoes.

If there is a solution, it is perhaps an indirect boycott. It is probably your experience, as it has been mine that stores, bars, restaurants, waiting rooms, often show Fox News on their televisions. Don't write a letter. Don't make a threat. Just get up and explain if they will not change the channel, leave the place and say calmly why it is you are taking your business elsewhere.

If you know a viewer of that channel, show them this tape, or just the tape of the attacks on Dr. Tiller that set the stage for his assassination. Fox News channel will never restrain itself from incitement to murder and terrorism. Not until its profits begin to decline, when its growth stops. So, not so much a boycott here as a quarantine, because this has got to stop.

I'd like to add that I already do this, and it really does have an impact. After all, businesses aren't going to anger the few customers they have left.

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On MSNBC's Countdown, David Shuster called out FOX News and Dick Armey for astroturfing the tax party teabaggers...

Can we roll that footage, the FOX News coverage of the Million Man March backing in October of ‘95?Of course, the Million Man March occurred, as NewsHounds.org points out, almost a year before FOX News was on the air.We can only speculate why widespread teabagging made Cavuto think of the Million Man March, unless he got them confused with Dick Armey. And in Cavuto‘s defense, if you are planning simultaneous teabagging all around the country, you‘re going to need a Dick Armey.

Heather posted the full version last night with some very astute insight from Lawrence O'Donnell. Make sure you check out his thoughts.

Heather and the Video Cafe crew have been posting a tremendous amount of videos. Make sure to stop by...

I understand that this movement is all about trying to reorganize the conservative movement because they have become a rudderless tanker lost at sea, but even their attempts at "grass roots" is a Gingrich/Rove/Armey/FOX News driven event.

Pat Garafola writes:

Do those attending tea parties truly oppose Obama returning the top marginal tax rate to where it was under President Clinton? Are they really concerned that multi-national corporations may have to pay taxes on profits they earn overseas? Or are they simply following Fox News’ cheerleading, straight into the waiting arms of Dick Armey?

Keith Olbermann puts forth all the idiotic moves and conflicts of interest that have followed Rep. Eric Cantor around.

Huff Post:

Rep. Cantor played a key role in getting bipartisan approval for the controversial $700 billion bank bailout bill in September, although since then he has been a vocal opponent of the surprising way the money is being spent: buying up stock in banks.

Still, it is one of those strange quirks in politics that $267 million of the money is going straight to a privately owned bank where Cantor's wife, Diana, is the managing director at a subsidiary. It's a job she apparently started early last year, after years in finance.

Cantor's people maintain that his wife and he did not even know that her employer was applying for a federal taxpayer bailout.

I guess he forgot to tell her all about it. I guess all that advice from Gingrich is paying off.

Propublican has more.

Rob Collins, Cantor's deputy chief of staff, said the congressman didn't know the bank was seeking bailout money and never interceded on the bank's behalf with government regulators. He also said Cantor had never intended the bailout bill to be used to buy up stock in banks.

"No one knew outside the Treasury Department, including Congressman Cantor, how the bailout money would be used," Collins said.

A spokesman for the bank said Diana Cantor "has nothing to do with the operation of the main bank" and was "never aware that the parent bank was seeking or received [bailout] funding."

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It didn't take twenty four hours after the end of the Bush presidency for the latest scandal to come out---hopefully, it will not go down the memory hole of those eager to "look forward."

Despite all the assurances of the Bush administration that their wiretapping activities were only to protect Americans from terrorists and that only concerned foreign targets, I'm sure you will share my surprise to find out that that was not true. To be clear, it was not even close to being true.

Whistleblower Russell Tice, who back in 2006 had exposed the NSA program illegalities is back with Keith Olbermann to go even further than his earlier allegations, things he was perhaps afraid to say while Bush was still in office considering the smear job they did on him the first time around: The NSA, under the direction of George Bush, was monitoring ALL Americans' communications, specifically targeting journalists and news organizations.

TICE: [W]hat was done was a sort of an ability to look at the meta data, the signaling data for communications, and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected. Basically, filtering out sort of like sweeping everything with that meta data, and then cutting down ultimately what you are going to look at and what is going to be collected, and in the long run have an analyst look at, you know, needles in a haystack for what might be of interest.

OLBERMANN: I mention that you say specific groups were targeted. What group or groups can you tell us about?

TICE: Well, there's sort of two avenues to look at this. What I just mentioned was sort of the low-tech dragnet look at this. The things that I specifically were involved with were more on the high-tech side. And try to envision, you know, the dragnets are out there, collecting all the fish and then ferreting out what they may. And my technical angle was to try to harpoon fish from an airplane kind of thing. So it's two separate worlds.

But in the world that I was in, as to not harpoon the wrong people in some -- in one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations just supposedly so that we would not target them. So that we knew where they were, so as not to have a problem with them.

Now, what I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7, and you know, 365 days a year, and it made no sense. And that's -- I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me, to fire me. But an organization that was collected on were U.S. news organizations and reporters and journalists.

OLBERMANN: To what purpose? I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every e-mail sent by all the reporters at the "New York Times?" Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York? Is it like that?

TICE: If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything. Yes. It would be everything.

Hmmm....lying to the American people and flouting the laws of the land. Whodathunk? Tice will be on Countdown again on Thursday to discuss this further.

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On the eve of his inauguration, Keith Olbermann exhorts President-elect Barack Obama to do the one thing that will tell the world that we are a country of laws, and that will enable us to look forward without fear that we could once again face the trampling of the Constitution and the slide towards totalitarianism we've seen in the last eight years.

Mr. President-Elect, you are entirely correct.As you say, "what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

And that means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush Administration's torture of prisoners -- and starting at the top.

You're also right that you should not "want your first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch-hunt." But your only other option might be to let this sit and fester, indefinitely.

Because, Mr. President-Elect, some day there will be another Republican president -- or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country's moral force -- and he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush -- or what you did not do -- and he will see precedent. Or, as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time.

Prosecute, Mr. President-Elect, and even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good, for generations unborn.

It's not as if Olbermann is going out on a limb here. On Obama's own site Change.gov, it's one of the most popular issues (though one the team is reluctant to answer), no doubt aided by Change.org's Bob Fertik's campaign to force it on the President-elect's agenda.

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Keith Olbermann shines the cold, harsh light of reality on BushCo's attempt to catapult the propaganda and spin his legacy based on an LA Times report of talking points handed out to staff:

A two-page memo that has been sent to Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials offers a guide for discussing Bush's eight-year tenure during their public speeches.

Titled "Speech Topper on the Bush Record," the talking points state that Bush "kept the American people safe" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lifted the economy after 2001 through tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained "the honor and the dignity of his office."

The document presents the Bush record as an unalloyed success.

Clearly a work of fiction. And while it's all fine and good to castigate the Bush administration for their non-stop public relations messaging over substance, I do wish that Olbermann would be as equally harsh on his colleagues in the media (besides the ones on Fox News) only too happy to repeat these talking points, because it is they who will continue to give a platform for the lies.

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Keith Olbermann asks those who voted for California's Proposition 8 how in the world it should affect them whether gay couples wish to legalize their relationship.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

On a related note, California Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed his disappointment in the passage of Proposition 8, and cheered protesters up and down the state by telling them the "fight isn't over" and said he hoped to that the California Supreme Court overturn Prop. 8.

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From emailed press release:

MSNBC has voted for four more years of Keith Olbermann and the top-rated "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," it was announced today by Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC. The new four-year agreement calls for Olbermann to continue as host of "Countdown;" additionally, Olbermann will play a prominent role in MSNBC's coverage of all major news events. He will also continue to co-host NBC's "Football Night in America" studio show.

"Keith Olbermann is at the core of MSNBC's current success," said Griffin. "'Countdown' is our signature program and I'm thrilled that we're going to be able to bring it to Keith's loyal viewers for another four year term."

"I'm delighted that we can continue to lock Countdown into the nation's political dialogue through at least the next election," said Olbermann. "Personally, I noticed that as of about six weeks ago, I'd been doing this show longer than I did SportsCenter, so it's delightful to have a true home."

In October 2008, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" had its best month ever in the key Adults 25-54 demographic, and is up a tremendous 170 percent in A25-54 from Oct. 2007 and up 180 percent in total viewers. "Countdown" continued its dominance over CNN at 8 p.m., out-rating "Campbell Brown" by 35 percent in A25-54 and 41 percent in total viewers. Excluding coverage of the presidential debates, "Countdown" is the #3 top-rated show in cable news in A25-54. "Countdown" is also the #1 cable news show among young viewers, Adults 18-34.

Since the last presidential election in 2004, "Countdown" has seen dramatic ratings increases, up a huge 238 percent among Adults 25-54 and 206 percent in total viewers.

Congratulations, Keith! I like to think that C&L played a small part in your success.

Sadly, this news comes not without some detractors. Broadcasting & Cable worries that without a Bush administration to be outraged by, Keith and fellow "liberal darling" Rachel Maddow will be without boffo ratings material. Talk about being laughably clueless. It wasn't partisan rantings that made viewers come to MSNBC, it was having someone intelligently cover the news and provide context instead of dutifully regurgitating White House talking points. I am sure that Keith (and Rachel...and The Daily Show, come to that) will find ample news to keep viewers interested. And I'm sure that there will be moments of criticism towards the Obama administration as well. We're not blinded by partisan loyalty on our side.

Want further proof that honest coverage of news is appreciated? Look at this slideshow of the Obamas and Bidens on Election Night. What channel is the Obama team watching? Hint: It's not Fox. I'm just sayin'...