We all laugh a lot about Keith Olbermann and his manic, over-the-top style, but I suggest that you look beyond his performance (bordering on self-parody in light of Jon Stewart’s recent skewering) and read the text of his “Special Comments.” They often border on the kind of lunatic diatribe you read in the comments section of the Huffington Post written by one of our more unhinged friends on the left.

This is from last night’s show:

At its center, is a man paid a salary by Mr. Breitbart to recount all his adventures, who might be offered a way out of years in jail if he turns on say, some hypothetical person who paid him.

I suppose NBC News thinks they are in the clear if they throw that little “Comment” graphic up in the corner of their screen, but those words seem rather irresponsible even for an editorial opinion, don’t they?

Olbermann cleverly couched that sentence right in front of this colorful quip:

It’s like throwing a light on in the kitchen and watching the cockroaches scatter but one of them is stuck to the floor, Andrew Breitbart.

So everyone’s immediate attention focuses on the cockroach line and not the implication made that O’Keefe “has the goods” on Andrew. Maybe Olbermann thinks that throwing in the word “hypothetical” makes his statement more of a whimsical ponder rather than an outright irresponsible charge, in the same way the Washington Post thought they were covering themselves by using the word “Alleged” when falsely claiming O’Keefe was arrested for ‘Bugging’ Sen. Landrieu’s office (he should read the WaPo correction to the article to see how that worked out for them).

Two questions:

  1. Mr. Olbermann, your comment clearly implies that Mr. Breitbart could be implicated by Mr. O’Keefe in exchange for a lighter sentence (nice that he is already being sentenced within a day of his arraignment). So Keith, what information do you have, if any, regarding Andrew’s involvement in this incident? Are you aware of any federal investigation focusing on Andrew that would benefit from Mr. O’Keefe’s testimony?

  2. Question for Steve Capus, President of NBC News: Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews both proclaimed on your network that there was a wire-tapping scheme in Sen. Landrieu’s office when there were absolutely no facts to support that claim, and David Shuster did the same on his Twitter page (featuring your corporate logo in the background). Now Keith Olbermann is implying that Andrew Breitbart is (or should/could be) the target of a criminal investigation. When will you, as arbiter of issues that involve ethics and standards, address these basic violations of journalistic standards? Is it not enough that your network’s ratings are rivaling ‘Hello, Larry’ in its final season? At what point do you force some sort of correction before your competence begins to be questioned?