Here's what I thought you'd like to hear about today:

1. Olbermann and the Monkey - The Ranter in Chief
2. Does Iraq Fuel Terrorism? - "How do we get rid of them, other than going after them"
3. Wretched Capitulation to the Propaganda of the Enemy

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Olbermann and the Monkey

Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC is one of my least favorite programs on TV. I do watch it occasionally, since it is opposite the O'Reilly Factor on Fox at the same time, which I also dislike. But Keith has some good staffers who assemble funny clips of people and pandas doing cute or silly things. But I can't stand his segments on the "Worst Person in the World". The people he sites are always Republicans or others on the right, never Democrats. Their transgressions are always misinterpretations of their words or deeds to spin them as wrong. There is no attempt at fairness or debate. His dunderheadedness is breathtaking. But his segments dubbed "Special Comments" are absolutely stunning in their foolishness.

After Bill Clinton's rant on Fox News Sunday a week ago, he had words for Chris Wallace that have to be heard to be believed. I'm going to play the first few minutes of his "Special Comments" from that night, then play the actual question that leads Olbermann to call Chris Wallace a "monkey".

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So, what was so obscenely untoward that Chris Wallace asked the former president that Olbermann calls a "smear by proxy"? Listen to the actual question that sent Clinton over the brink and Olbermann to his defense.

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That sounds like a perfectly reasonable question to me. "Why didn't you do more?" It could have been answered by saying that no one had the imagination to suspect they would do what happened. He could have left it there, but instead he chose to go on a "tear" citing paranoid fantasies about conspirators on the right.

Commenting on the Clinton Fox News Sunday appearance on Monday last week, former CIA Al Queda chief Michael Scheuer had this to say on Good Morning America. Thanks to Hot Air for pointing to Newsbusters who had the video:

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But I can't end this segment without playing the last few minutes of Keith's "Special Comments" on the Clinton appearance. He really gets going. This part starts with an accusation that the Republicans are to blame for any failure in the Clinton Administration because they "distracted" him by talking about Monica. Yeah, that's it, Keith. If the nation hadn't brought attention to Clinton's peccadillos, he would have captured Osama and put him on trial. Right.

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Olbermann refers to the number killed in Iraq being greater than the number killed on 9/11. I hear this all the time nowadays, since the numbers are roughly equal now. I wonder, though, what if we had said the same thing about the battle of the Pacific in WWII following Pearl Harbor? Stop after x deaths? Is that any way to fight a war? Have to stop once the number of dead reaches the number killed? This is crazy. It is a reportable milestone, nothing more. It was only one of the several dozen dissemblies in Keith's "Special Comments", but it is one that is too outrageous to pass up.

Does Iraq Fuel Terrorism? - "How do we get rid of them, other than going after them"

That was a question, and an answer from Afgan President Karzai, from a news conference last week at the White House. It was held the day after the NY Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times all published leaked excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate. One might say "cherry picked" excerpts. At the news conference, President Bush announced that he would be releasing all of the Key Judgments section of the document, so people could decide for themselves the degree of "cherry picking". I'm going to play the first question and answer cycle from the conference, where President Karzai steps in to ask the rhetorical question from the title of this section of the podcast: "How do we get rid of them, other than going after them?"

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Wretched Capitulation to the Propaganda of the Enemy

Tony Blair is one of the most articulate leaders of the West on the subject of Islamo-Fascism. He is a member of the Labor Party, which is the equivalent of the Democrats in America, except they are intelligent. President Bush likes to cite Blair in his speeches, as he did in a talk to the Reserve Officers Association in Washington last week. I'll play a clip of President Bush, and then splice in Tony Blair's speech at a Labor Party meeting, which Bush cites. Then I return to President Bush's conclusion based on the Blair remarks. Thanks to Hot Air for the video of the conference.

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