Has Keith Olbermann "Jumped the Shark?"

Keith Olbermann is perhaps best know as the goofy former anchor of ESPN's highlight show SportsCenter.

He should be best known as the finest modern day impressionist of Edward R. Murrow. Or known as the guy who injected liberals and democrats with a much needed backbone during his "Special Commentaries" which appear periodically on the nightly Countdown show on MSNBC.

Olbermann's best special commentary was one of the most powerful acts of American patriotism and courage that I have witnessed by an American Citizen in the last 20 years.

In that commentary, Olbermann takes on the Military Commissions Act. A heinous act which overturned 500 years of Western beliefs that limited the power of government to arrest and dispose of its citizens with impunity.

Keith's emotional plea and outrage is best summed up by this quote:

"We have handed [Bush] a blank check drawn it against our own freedom."

I found in Olbermann's near loss of emotional control and cracking voice the only "sane reaction" I have encountered regarding the loss of the 4th Amendment.

On his game Keith Olbermann is the most compelling figure in broadcasting. And that is not just opinion. It is confirmed by the ground-storm of support Countdown with Keith Olbermann has enjoyed during the latest ratings sweep.

Keith has weathered the ship of low ratings during his introduction to an unprepared American audience. He has mastered the ratings rudder by offering the lone voice of dissent amidst a background of acquiescence among the MSM.

His thundering increase in viewership is driven mostly by liberals, discovering Keith via these special commentaries. It is convention wisdom for the demons of this liberal viewership that their electoral failures are a result of softness in the face of attacks by the Republican machinery.

In order to placate his new found allies and kowtowing to his well known ego, Keith has emphasized in his new commentaries a political bias so overt as to be impossible to deny.

He has askewed the natural neutrality of reporters and instead infused his newscast with a vileness and anger that bares comparison to Rush Limbaugh in its tone and frivolity. It is still fun to watch. Well done hackery usually is.

Keith takes the rough and tumble talk of politics as treason. He would insist that the real danger to our democracy lies not in the efforts to obstruct our democracy, but in the spin doctoring of hollow political lies and Bush's careless semantics. His view is dangerously naive.

The best way to examine the danger we all face is not to deconstruct the political ramblings of an idiot, but to lay bear the many fold losses Freedom has suffered. We are not simply faced with another "bad" Republican administration. We are facing down evil.

George Bush and Corporate America are hell bent on destroying freedom. Their wish is to usher in the Surveillance Society.

I implore you, Keith give no credence to political partisanship or politics as usual. I urge you to attack the real threat to our democracy. The creeping Silent Totalitarianism™ of the corporatocracy and right- winged religious fundamentals.

Why are there no comments on the Diebold and E-Voting crisis in this Country? Why no 'special' comments on the passage of a National I.d. Card or the countless other real trespasses on our civil liberties?

Let Rush and Coulter distract this country from the real issues with their diversionary reliance on spinning the hot button issue of the day. And go back to defending the Constitution.

It needs your help.

Update:

Readers of this blog are always a day ahead of the curve. The venerable blog The Daily Howler in its November 3 issue takes Keith to task for spinning the controversy surrounding a comment by John Boehner.

The Howler exclaims," Yes, Keith was playing his viewers for fools, trying to act like a pseudo-con spinner. And you could just tell that Keith was angry! Why, he even affected the outraged tone he’s been perfecting in the past year."

Like me the Howler thinks Keith is a "hero," but wants him to address real issues and quit "trying to act like a pseudo-con spinner."