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Keith lets Rep. "Wrong-Way" Wilson have it in this Special Comment.

And finally, as promised, a Special Comment about the shout of "You Lie" during the presidential address to the joint session of Congress last night on the matter of health care reform.

The 43rd president of the United States lied the nation into the war, lied 4,343 of his fellow citizens to death in that war, lied about upholding the constitution, and lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction.

He lied about how he reacted to Al-Qaeda before 9/11 and he lied about how he reacted to Al-Qaeda after 9/11.

He lied about getting Bin Laden, and he lied about not getting Bin Laden.

He lied about nation-building in Iraq, lied about the appearance of new buildings **in** the nation **of** Iraq, and lied about embassy buildings in nations like Iraq.

He lied about trailers with mobile weapons labs in them, and he lied about trailers with Cuban prostitutes in them.

He and his administration lied -- by the counting of one non-profit group -- 532 times about links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. Only 28 of those were by that President, but he made up for that by lying 231 times about W-M-D.

And yet not once did an elected Democratic official shout out during one of George W. Bush's speeches and call him a "liar."

Even when the president was George W. Bush, even when he was assailed from sidelines like mine, even when the lies came down so thick the nation needed a hat... he was still the President and if he didn't earn any respect, the office he held demanded respect.

More over, that President and his Congressional tools like Congressman Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson of South Carolina insisted not just unquestioned respect for the office; they wanted unanimous lock-step compliance with the man.

And when the blasphemy of mere respectful criticism somehow came anyway -- say by, or built on that by, the real Joe Wilson -- lord help he who might have made the slightest factual error in that criticism.

Congressman Wilson and his masters and the flying monkeys of right-wing media would pursue the erroneous critic to the ends of their careers, firing hot accusations of moral or intellectual confusion and incompetence at the unbelievers.

And that is the line Congressman Wilson crossed last night when he shouted "you lie" at this President of the United States.

Not the respect line.

The stupid line.

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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.

Transcripts below the fold

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From Countdown Aug. 3, 2009, Keith's Special Comment on health care reform. Michael Moore wrote this today about the Special Comment:

It is nothing short of brilliant -- and if all of America were to hear what he is going to reveal tonight, we are certain the vast majority of Americans would be on the phone to their elected representative immediately, calling for an end to the private, for-profit, rip-off health insurance companies who have wrecked our country.

Olbermann writes:

Tonight I will present what I believe is the longest Special Comment I have ever aired, naming names and citing dollar amounts to call out the politicians -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- who are paid by the Health Care Monopolies to bring to life one of my favorite quotes, the observation of the Belgian essayist Maurice Maeterlinck...

Some of the highlights.

PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the "public option" - the truly non-profit, wieldy, round-up and not round-down, government, from helping you pay your medical bills with about a billionth of the recklessness with which it is still paying Halliburton and its spinoffs to kill your kids.

And much of this money is going to, and through, Republicans. But that's the real point tonight. Not all of it is going through Republicans...

[.....]

Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas.Leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You're the guy demanding a guarantee that Reform won't add to the deficit. I'm guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq.
You're a Democrat, you say, Congressman?

You saw what Sandy Barham said? Sandy Barham is 62 years old, she's got a bad heart, and she's hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can't afford insurance. Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross. And why should you give a crap?

Because Sandy Barham's restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Café, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas.
Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross.

Your home town. You are Sandy Barham's congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross's and Blue Shield's, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you.

[.....]

I warn you all. You were not elected to create a Democratic majority.

You were elected to restore this country.You were not elected to serve the corporations and the trusts who the government has enabled for the last eight years.

You were elected to serve the people.

And if you fail to pass or support this legislation, the full wrath of the progressive and the moderate movements in this country will come down on your heads. Explain yourselves not to me, but to them.

They elected you, and in the blink of an eye, they will replace you.

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From Countdown, Keith's Special Comment after watching Dick Cheney's speech today. Keith takes former Vice President Cheney to task for defending the use of torture while refusing to accept any responsibility for his actions.

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment about Mr. Cheney's speech.

Neurotic...

Paranoid...

False to fact and false to reason...

Forever self-rationalizing...

His inner rage at his own impotence and failure dripping from every word...

And as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane, as any terrorist...

The former Vice President has today humiliated himself beyond redemption.

The delusional claims he has made this day could be proved by documentation and first-hand testimony to be the literal truth, and still he himself would be wrong, because the America he sought to impose upon the world and upon its own citizens, the dark hateful place of Dick Cheney's own soul, the place he to this hour defends and to this day prefers, is a repudiation of all that our ancestors, all that for which our brave troops of 200 years ago and two minutes ago, have sacrificed and fought.

I do have to congratulate you, Sir. No man living or dead could have passed the buck more often than you did in 35 minutes this morning.

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From Countdown April 16, 2009.

As promised, a Special Comment now on the president's revelation of the remainder of this nightmare of Bush Administration torture memos. This President has gone where few before him, dared. The dirty laundry — illegal, un-American, self-defeating, self-destroying — is out for all to see.

Mr. Obama deserves our praise and our thanks for that. And yet he has gone but half-way. And, in this case, in far too many respects, half the distance is worse than standing still. Today, Mr. President, in acknowledging these science-fiction-like documents, you said that:

"This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke."

"We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.

"But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.

Mr. President, you are wrong. What you describe would be not "spent energy" but catharsis.
Not "blame laid," but responsibility ascribed. You continued:

"Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future."

Indeed we must, Mr. President. And the forces of which you speak are the ones lingering — with pervasive stench — from the previous administration. Far more than a criminal stench, Sir. An immoral one. One we cannot let be re-created.

One, President Obama, it is your responsibility to make sure cannot be re-created. Forgive me for quoting from a Comment I offered the night before the inauguration. But this goes to the core of the President's commendable, but wholly naive, intention. This country has never "moved forward with confidence".without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past.

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From Countdown, Keith responds to Dick Cheney's recent fear mongering interview with Politico.

(A)t heart, Mr. Cheney is not interested foremost in protecting this country. He is interested foremost in protecting Mr. Cheney.

And the business of being Dick Cheney, of rationalizing one's own existence after one of the most reprehensible, myopic, unprincipled, and even un-American careers in the history of our government, depends on continuing to convince the gullible of us to live in abject fear and not with vigilance and common sense and principles.

We, sir, will most completely assure our security not by maintaining the endless, demoralizing, draining, life-denying blind fear and blind hatred which you so thoroughly embody. We will most easily purchase our safety by repudiating the "Bush System." We will reserve the violence for which you are so eager, sir, for any battlefield to which we truly must take, and not for unconscionable wars which people like you goad and scare and lie us into.

You, Mr. Cheney, you terrified more Americans than did any terrorist in the last seven years, and now it is time for you to desist, or to be made to desist.

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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 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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You know I loves me some Keith Olbermann, but I think when he got to the point where he was doing a Campaign (Special) Comment daily and got pulled off debate coverage by Brokaw because of fears that he would not be able to keep from editorializing that a SNL spoof was coming up.

Ben Affleck tries to hold onto Keith's gravitas as he delivers his #5 story, does Worst Person in The World and delivers a Special Comment against the president of the co-op to which he applied. I lost count how many resignations he called for. Ouch.

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What's that old saying? When you point a finger at someone, you have four fingers pointing back at yourself. Well, just like every other smear that the McCain campaign has desperately flung at the Obama campaign, the reality of this new "palling around with anti-Israel types like Rashid Khalidi" looks bad...bad for McCain.

Senator, Senator, Senator...Morals aside, this is the classic problem of guilt by association:

Obama and Ayers gave Khalidi's organizations 80-thousand dollars. McCain gave Khalidi's organizations 448 thousand dollars.

Obama and Ayers. Obama and Ayers. Obama and Ayers... and McCain.

Obama and Ayers and McCain. Ayers and McCain.

Ayers and McCain!

So now, not only is Rashid Khalidi your problem, not Obama's. But now you're connected to Bill Ayers. The only difference is who gave this nebulously nefarious guy with the Arabic name more money, you or Ayers?

Golly, Senator, that'd be you... by a figure of at least 5-1.

Which is also the ratio of your campaign's sleaze bombs that blow up in your own face.

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Making good on his assumption (or was that a threat?) that the waning days of the election may result in a Special Comment every day, this time Keith Olbermann reminds Sarah Palin that actually understanding the responsibility of the Office of the Vice President would not make you a liberal elitist.

I mean, I'd like my President and Vice President to have memorized the Constitution, and abide by it...

Or at least, I'd like them to know more about the Constitution than I do.[..]

Maybe I'm raising the bar too high...

But at least wait until you achieve office before trying to seize power extra-Constitutionally!

"The founders" were not George Bush and Dick Cheney!

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Due to the ongoing hatred and vile nature of the McCarthy McCain/Palin campaign and Republican politicians and pundits, Keith Olbermann is moved yet again to another Special Comment. This time, Olbermann castigates the entire notion 'Us vs. Them' notion that the Republican Party mouthpieces have been perpetuating in their support for John McCain's candidacy. And worse, for someone who has made his ability to reach across the aisle in a bipartisan manner a mainstay of his campaign, John McCain's allowing his proxies to divide Americans into "good" and "bad" camps shows how far he has slid from his "maverick" days.

(Senator McCain,) I disagree with you on virtually every major point of policy and practice.

And yet I do not think you "anti-America." I would not hesitate to join you in time of crisis in defense of this country.

Fortunately you did not echo this chorus of base hatred.

But neither have you repudiated it.

What is "pro-America", Senator?

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Keith delivered a scathing, impassioned Special Comment tonight, calling out John McCain and Sarah Palin's dangerous, out-of-control hate rallies and their responsibility for stoking them.

Disgraceful?

Obviously, Senator, you haven't heard your own speeches, and Governor Palin's, and what people shout during them.

And you haven't heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia...

With a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden - to emphasize bombings and terrorism.

And you haven't heard those volunteers, your volunteers Senator McCain, shout back "and he won't salute the flag" and "we don't even know where Senator Obama was really born."

Senator McCain -- these people are speaking for you!

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Now that the McCain campaign has made abundantly clear that their only shot at salvaging this election is by going full-bore negative against Barack Obama with despicable, disgraceful and dishonorable smears, Keith responds with another great Special Comment.

"The Governor of Alaska wants to start calling people terrorists -- and insisting of Senator Obama that quote "this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America" -- and whose rhetoric like that and the "pallin' around with terrorists" line were rightly described by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation because it's a nifty trick to remind the white folk that (psst) Obama is black.

But overriding this sleaziness -- and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaska has got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at the moment -- there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself become the bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists.

Governor -- Bill Ayres? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate group for which you recorded a video.

Governor -- Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor, is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch and which is the governor."

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Keith Olbermann takes on John McCain and his campaign managers with another powerful Special Comment on Monday's Countdown. McCain has consistently voted against our troops, but he and his campaign continue to spread lies and distortions about Barack Obama, painting him as unpatriotic and anti-military, while glossing over his own betrayal of our military on the floor of the Senate.

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Now as promised a Special Comment on the remarks of the Senior Senator from Arizona about Senator Obama at the VFW Convention, and about NBC News and MSNBC.

Four times in just two days, Senator McCain's campaign managers have, simply, hung him out to dry.

First, trying to scapegoat the media, in the exact way that has spelled doom for other presidential candidates already watching from the sidelines.

Second, doing so with a petulant statement so full of holes that it virtually **confirms** that which was reported, and which set off this pointless temper tantrum in the first place.

Third, sending the candidate out to speak before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, even as the millstones of a series of disastrous, anti-veteran votes, still figuratively dangled from around his neck.

And fourth, encouraging Senator McCain, while there, to address his opponent in the language of unseemly contempt, undignified calumny, and holier-than-thou persiflage unsupported by reality... near-nonsensical bluster that -- at best -- makes the speaker look like a dyspeptic grouchy neighbor shouting "Hey you kids, get out of my yard."

Transcript below the fold.

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