God bless Keith Olbermann

For those of you with access to MSNBC this is a must watch. They will reshow this tonight at midnight EST. It's remarkable in so many ways, not the least of which is that it took a man famous for cohosting a sports show to be the one to say it. In a world where television shows are seemingly handed to just about anyone who can screech about liberals (seriously what ARE Joe Scarbarough's qualifications besides having a dead woman in his office once?) there is only one news show dedicated to getting at the truth of a story and not kowtowing to power, no matter who is in charge.

Countdown With Keith Olbermann has distinguished itself with it's tough and fair approach on stories like Terry Schiavo and the Ohio voting mess last year. Olbermann has shown himself to be a true journalist dedicated to cutting through the BS and getting at the facts.

Tonight he outdid himself with an editorial blasting the pathetic response of this nation's politicians, particularly the Bush administration. I'm sure video feed will be up at other blogs soon and this will be something that will be discussed (at least I hope it will be. But the full transcript is available here.

Tonight Bill O'Reilly spent his editorial attacking the New York Times for daring to criticize Bush through two of their finest columnists Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert (both of whom's columns can be accessed here and if you haven't registered do so now please). Olbermann could have done the same to score cheap ratings (he could use them frankly) but instead he went after the truth.

For this he will no doubt be smeared and tarred and feathered by the vicious right wing spin machine. And sooner rather than later he will be cancelled, but he will leave with his head held high for moments like this.