Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence.

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In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President... of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.

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A noticeably subdued Keith Olbermann, acknowledging his membership in the 'professional left' about which Robert Gibbs groused, set the record straight on whom to blame for the slings and arrows constantly suffered by the Obama administration since entering the White House.

In Olbermann's mind, the fault lies not so much with the left, but with the administration expecting a mirror image of party loyalty from the left as Bush enjoyed from the right.

Olbermann's distinction is an important one. The authoritarian mindset of the right wing base demands fealty, even when undeserved. Their brains will turn themselves into logic pretzels to rationalize away anything that undermines that loyalty. The left, however, has no such need to compartmentalize and rationalize. We can appreciate the job that Obama has done and yet still wish it to be more progressive simultaneously. Yes, it's wonderful that the country was pulled back from the brink of another Great Depression, but does that mean that we're not allowed to voice our dissatisfaction that the health care reform has been watered down to its current tepid state or that Guantanamo remains open?

Moreover, much of the frustration, not only on the part of the professional left (which I take to mean MSNBC, as their self-identified anchors on the left have taken some legitimate and not legitimate shots at the White House, not the progressive blogosphere, as important as some of us want to make ourselves), but all of Obama's base is that in some backwards notion of "bipartisanship", Obama has not only given the right wing--whose openly expressed sole purpose is to derail any success Obama and his party might have--seats at the table, but all the seats, and the table and the carpet on which it rests. Anyone knows that when you negotiate, you don't start from a compromised center and move further right.

And for that, the Obama administration has no one to blame but themselves.

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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 Olbermann's Special Comment tonight is without a doubt, one of his hardest hitting and most emotional to date. Keith absolutely lays waste to President Bush's lies and rhetoric about the surge. He contrasts his callous disregard for the truth and the troops between his six hour photo op in Iraq and the interview with Draper released this weekend.

This video is a must-see, hold on to your hats.

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And there it is, sir. We've caught you.

Your goal is not to bring some troops home -- maybe -- if we let you have your way now;

Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal;

You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and another, and anon.

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Keith delivered a scathing Special Comment tonight about the rank partisan fearmongering speech Rudy Giuliani gave before a New Hampshire Republican meeting yesterday (CSPAN stream).

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"Claim a difference between the parties on the voters' chances of survival -- and you do Osama Bin Laden's work for him.
And we -- Democrats and Republicans alike, and every variation in between -- We -- Americans! -- are sick to death, of you and the other terror-mongers, trying to frighten us into submission, into the surrender of our rights and our reason, into this betrayal of that for which this country has always stood."

(transcript below the fold...)

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