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Add Brian Williams to the list of proud multi-millionaire populists at NBC/MSNBC. The Nightly News host just declared on Andrea Mitchell’s MSNBC show today that “a lot of us know that . . . something is basically not right” about how much money some people at companies receiving government bail-outs are making. You mean, like someone making at least $10 million a year working for a company whose subsidiary recently received a $139 billion loan guarantee from the federal government? Somebody like . . . Brian Williams? That’s right. As reported here, the US government has agreed to guarantee as...

When it comes to coverage of the campaign for president 2008, where one goes for news makes a difference, according to a new study. ... Things look much better for Barack Obama -- and much worse for John McCain -- on MSNBC than in most other news outlets. ... MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall). ...

If you believe in the pendulum theory of politics, one sign that the clock has struck midnight and might not be far away from heading toward dawn [to mix a few metaphors], is when the party in power engages in an excess of triumphalism. When ruling party members or their media claque do the political equivalent of singing “na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey: goodbye!” followed by a rousing chorus of “We Are The Champions,” there’s reason to think their power might just have crested. Rachel Maddow gave a perfect example of the phenomenon on her show last night....

“The men of the past were called Robber Barons… The ones who dreamt of cornering the Gold Market, or monopolizing silver, or even of paying 450 million in bonuses to 400 people who caused a company to collapse — that last example coming from the ancient history that was… yesterday. But in our fifth story tonight, financial treason so injurious to the nation that it makes a beggar out of language, and an angry President out of a heretofore almost imperturbable new chief. 18 billion in bonuses for Wall Street last year… the year you and I gave Wall Street…billions...

Has Chris Matthews [file photo] recuperated from that bad case of restless leg? The last couple Hardball episodes give reason to hope so. As I noted here, on yesterday’s show Matthews took Dem congressman Bob Wexler to task for his defense [echoing Nancy Pelosi] of inclusion of family planning funds in the stimulus bill. Matthews saw shades of China’s one-child policy, skeptically asking: “why should the federal government have a policy of reducing the number of births?” By today, that funding was gone from the bill, as Pres. Obama apparently told Rep. Henry Waxman to deep-six it. On this evening’s...

Hey Keith: “try to hang onto that gig you’ve got, cause you’re running out of places to work!” That’s a sample of the less-than-reverent advice that Fox News Watch doled out to various members of the MSM this evening. The show took as its inspiration the messages that Pres. Bush left for Pres. Obama and the Bush twins shared with the Obama girls. But the News Watch counsel was considerably cheekier than that of the Bush missives. To be entirely accurate, whereas Jenna and Barbara’s letter was published in the Wall Street Journal, we don’t know what W wrote to...

Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent, at this juncture. Not gonna say that Keith Olbermann was proclaiming a 1,000 year Democratic Reich. That would be falling into the same Hitler-analogy loser’s lagoon I condemned Olbermann for just two days ago. However . . . when the Countdown host proclaimed tonight that donating to congressional Republicans is “throwing money down a rat hole,” just what did he have in mind? Does he believe that Republicans are doomed to perpetual minority status? That the colossi that are Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and their successors, are destined to rule forever? Sen....

When it comes to adolescent adoration, Keith Olbermann has outdone the giddy pre-teens at yesterday’s Jonas Brothers performance. The object of the Countdown host’s excitement was not a boy band, but, of course, the new president. Olbermann’s opening spiel this evening was a summary of the wonderfulness that was the inauguration, capped by an abject plunge into the deep end of the sycophants’ swimming pool, claiming: “the rest of us can neither outlast nor out-think him.” View video.

Q. How do you know the Obama inaugural speech was a bit of a flop? A. When even an unreconstructed Obama fan like Eugene Robinson pans perhaps its key passage. The Washington Post columnist participated in the post-inaugural kibitz session on MSNBC. Before moving to his remarks, lets’s consider the lineup the network chose for the segment: Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, the aforementioned Robinson, and as cherry on top . . . Keith Olbermann. Now that’s what I call fair-and-balanced coverage! Olbermann suggested that a certain passage was the heart of the speech. Robinson agreed, but then proceeded to politely...

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered his latest "Special Comment," in which he called on President-elect Barack Obama to prosecute President Bush and administration members on a charge of torturing prisoners, and invoked extreme examples such as slavery leading to the Civil War, and the handling of Germany after World War I leading to the rise of Nazism and World War II, to illustrate that "this country has never succeeded in moving forward without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past," and that Obama must try to prosecute Bush for the sake of the country’s future. After...

“Whoever mentions Nazis or Hitler first, automatically loses the argument.” — venerable Usenet rule. Looks like Keith Olbermann’s a loser. In his Special Comment tonight calling for the prosecution of Pres. Bush for war crimes, the Countdown host broke out the Nazi analogy, throwing in the Ku Klux Klan and even Citibank for good measure. I’ll spare you the whole of Olbermann’s Special Comment, which seemed to go on longer than the two Bush terms. His gist was that if Barack Obama fails to prosecute Pres. Bush and others for their supposed crimes, he’ll be taking the same path of...

Far be it from me to sow discord in MSNBC ranks, to stir up old animosities between colleagues there. But if Joe Scarborough is going to do a mocking imitation of Keith Olbermann in full Special Comment rant, well then, blogging ethics compel me to report it. The jumping-off point on Morning Joe today was Eugene Robinson's current WaPo column. After claiming that he didn't want to kick the president on his way out the door, Robinson proceeded to do just that. The columnist described a variety of measures adopted by the president in prosecution of the war against terror...

A new year means a time to look back and honor those who have achieved greatness in the year preceding. For that reason, we take this opportunity to reveal the winners of the 2008 Olby Awards, as determined by the Olbermann Watch Awards and Recognition Committee. With no further ado, the 2008 Olbies... The Edward R Murrow Courage Under Fire Award Presented for conspicuous reportorial bravery under hazardous circumstances. And the Olby goes to... Keith Olbermann! For his remarkable valour standing up to the corporate suits at MSNBC and refusing to go to Minnesota for the GOP convention, where his...

All in all, I like Politico's list of the top ten media blunders of 2008, by staff writer Michael Calderone, appearing on the website this evening. How can you not like a list that includes, among other faux pas: * MSNBC's use of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as election night and convention co-anchors; * The New York Times's suggestive but unsubstantiated story about John McCain and lobbyist Vikki Iseman; and * The MSM's lack of curiosity despite the National Enquirer's solid reporting on the John Edwards affair? But no story about a list would be complete without some beefing...

An important lesson on guilt by association from a man who surely never would have objected if John McCain had once worked with, say, an unrepentant abortion clinic bomber. I can’t decide which part is my favorite: Is it Kayo comparing The One’s knowing, voluntarily association with a terrorist to Palin being saddled months ago with an in-law who was busted just this week? Or is it him using Palin’s own supposed lack of empathy to declare open season on this story, replete with nasty drug jokes from an actual comedian about what Bristol Palin’s baby should be named? It...

"Red Eye" host Greg Gutfeld marvelously blasted the insufferable Keith Olbermann Friday for his "homoerotic obsession with Bill O'Reilly." This deliciously came hours after the "Countdown" host bashed former Nixon administration figure Chuck Colson for having the nerve to speak out in favor of California's Proposition 8 which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. What really caught the ire of Gutfeld and company was a false assertion Olbermann made on air Wednesday about what transpired on a recent "Red Eye" (video embedded right, partial transcript below the fold):

Though there's not a ruble's worth of difference between their politics, I normally find Rachel Maddow a kinder, gentler, smarter version of Keith Olbermann. Not tonight. Granted, the Countdown host was on hiatus. But even if Olby had been around, he would have been hard-pressed to outdo Maddow for sheer silliness. The preposterous proposition Rachel propounded? Republicans just don't want Americans to make good wages. That's how Maddow in part explained the decision of Senate Republicans to oppose the Big Three Bailout. View video here.

The purest “Countdown” segment you’ll ever see: Not only is his reaction a foregone conclusion before the tape begins, but the commentary itself is largely dispensed with in favor of a sustained, closed-captioned sneer. Why they don’t use this gimmick for all footage of Republicans, with Olby’s theatrical mugging acting as a form of sign language to the nutroots faithful about precisely how disgusted they should be, I don’t know. No special comment, at least. In the spirit of the season, for this we give thanks. (Video after the jump_

Chicago—As his transition continues in full swing, Senator Barack Obama, D-IL, has announced that Reverend Jeremiah Wright will deliver his swearing in invocation on January 20, 2009, to help “begin the healing process of the racial divide in America.” The announcement comes after the election of the first black President of the United States, and according to newly appointed Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, is “an indication of just how President-elect Obama plans to rule America.”

If Keith Olbermann is going to engage in violent fantasies about Sarah Palin, can't he at least come up with some original material? On tonight's Countdown, Olbermann drooled at the prospect of Palin remaining in national politics, saying: She might stick around to be the slowest-moving target imaginable for comedians and commentators. It would be like shooting moose from a chopper. Despicable, yes. But also a "borrowing" of Bidenesque proportions. As we noted here, Bill Maher plumbed those noisesome depths weeks ago, imagining Palin being "shot from a plane" like a wolf. Olbermann got off his loathsome line in a...