I know your material

Comedian Richard Lewis (Curb Your Enthusiasm) was a guest on Keith Olbermann's Countdown last night and delivered a priceless, and hilariously scathing, anecdote about his only encounter with our Senator, Creepy Joe™ Lieberman. Be patient while viewing as Olbermann spends some time skewering Michele Bachman before he gets to Lewis.

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Creep's "wrongness" unmasked

Thank you Keith Olbermann.

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Betrayal is unconventional too

On Sunday's Real Story on Hartford's Fox 61, Creepy Joe Lieberman continued his deflection of criticism, avoidance of blame, and refusal to apologize by calling his actions "unconventional."

In addition, Lieberman seems suddenly concerned with Connecticut. Where was that concern when these troubles were brewing throughout last year when he was on the stump for John McCain.

Lieberman also declares, "I've been a good Democrat," but he seems to forget that he left the party during the campaign against Ned Lamont, and that he campaigned for the Republicans.

He strangely admitted that he feels Barack Obama is still less qualified than John McCain for the role of president, but claims he never said Obama was "unready" during the campaign. Keith Olbermann on Countdown, pointed out the inaccuracy of that statement.

Olbermann gets his comeuppance via Ben Affleck

Well, it ain't a pitch-perfect parody, but it's damn funny. I hope Olbermann is laughing.

Who's a socialist, Sarah?

Message from the padded cell

At the Alfred E. Smith dinner, John McCain suggested that Keith Olbermann belonged in the rubber room of an insane asylum. Keith Olbermann, who has vowed to issue a special commentary every night until the election, has his own suggestion for John McCain.

Olbermann pleas for McCain to suspend campaign again

Senator, grow up

Since the deserved and needed attacks on the McCain campaign have not materialized in the first day of the Democratic National Convention, I offer this splendid dismemberment offered by Keith Olbermann. I missed it last week when I was vacationing in Maine, but it's classic Keith. BTW, when was the last time you heard a TV talking head use the words, "calumny" or "persiflage" or "dyspeptic." Where did I put that dictionary?

Gotta lover her "holy mackerel-ness"

If you haven't had the chance to hear a commentary delivered by Rachel Maddow, or to have seen her fill-in for Olbermann (it's called upstaged), or listened other show on Air America, then you're missing one of the brightest lights in the TV news world. Rachel Maddow has spunk, substance, brains and beauty. She can skewer a blathering conservative with facts, and jolt a glib pundit with her analysis.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Mr. Surge™ confuses "surge" with "in-surge-nt"

To get some sense of how a McCain presidency would multiply the appalling consequences of the current incompetent in the White House, one need only watch a few of the segments presented by Keith Olbermann on Countdown last night.

McCain shows little ability to grasp the subtleties, or the even the larger, more transparent issues of international affairs. Worse, when he demonstrates his stupidity with an unbelievable gaffe, he complicates it with a ludicrous justification for his incredible claims.

Creepy Joe™ Lieberman a "worst person" runner up

Dishonor, two nights in a row.

BTW, "worst person" honors go to Dunkin' Donuts for caving to the right wing on the Rachel Ray "terrorist scarf" scandal. These are grounds for a Dunkin' Donuts boycott by every liberal in the land.

Olbermann to Bush: shut the hell up

Last night, Keith Olbermann blasted the bubble-boy president for his persistent practice of focusing on his own inane foibles, while others are suffering real pain.

Olbermann blasts Clinton

That pefectly legal thing for which you need immunity

Keith Olbermann at the boiling point over FISA.

The January cold

The wind chill in Central Connecticut today is -7 degrees, and driving in I noticed the stretch of Connecticut river that forks to the West of Wilcox Island in Middletown has frozen over.

I was listening to a radio report about the Justice Department prosecutor John Durham (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Colin McEnroe) who has been assigned to pursue a criminal case involving the destroyed CIA torture tapes, and I thought about a great Richard Meyer song, The January Cold.

Meyer was one of the talented songwriters who performed on, and helped edit The Fast Folk Musical Magazine, a quasi-monthy subscription magazine and LP (later CD), which was a compilation of songs written by up and comers in folk music. Some who recorded for FFMM, were Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, John Gorka, Hugh Blumenfeld, Pierce Pettis, Greg Brown and just about anybody, who was anybody, and anybody who was nobody in folk music at the time.

Meyer's song was written on a bet. I can't remember which songwriter he wagered, but the challenge was that each songwriter would challenge the other with an impossible topic about which to write a song. Meyer was challenged to write a song about the Teapot Dome scandal. He did, and The January Cold is magnificent. It first appeared on FFMM 105, May 1984, which also included performances by Jack Hardy, Shawn Colvin and another amazing song, The Sentinel, by John Gorka. The song later appeared on Meyer's album Laughing Scared, and on a Fast Folk Musical Magazine compilation on the Smithsonian Folkways label called, A Community of Singers. The songs is currently available on iTunes. Here are the lyrics:

THE JANUARY COLD

The year was nineteen twenty one
Woodrow Wilson was not well
He was beaten by the aftermath of the ‘War to end all wars’
And handsome Warren Harding stood in the January Cold
And swore to restore America’s God given heart a soul

Harding was an average man whose friends played him for a fool
They abused the nation and the man to keep their pockets full
The consecrated president with a child by an affair
Assured me and my countrymen with his wife who’s name was clear

And how the flappers danced
How the movies flashed
And how the strength of business before the market crashed
And how the modern world was born in the aftermath or war
While the bally-hoo went on and on
before the market hit the floor

We made late peace with Germany and I marched and celebrated’
For Lindbergh’s flight and prohibition we toasted and awe hated
My government in Washington by of and for the people
Isolated and disarmed the country that seemed to have saved the world

I worked the naval oil reserve in Wyoming’s Teapot Dome
When the Secretary of the interior sold the navy down the road
From the oil fields to Canada where the corporate deals were made
Or secret loans and gifts before the Congress learned the game

Chorus

So how did free American take the selling of her oil
And the butchering of offices by appointed criminals
They called the Senate committees scandal mongers malicious and unclean
Bolsheviks and Partisans that the country did not need

The Harding I remember our hail-fellow well met
Abused by native faith in friends and naïve unworldliness
Died poisoned in Alaska when the scandals came to fame
Some say it was his wife’s revenge or mercy for his name

The song readily brings to mind the many problems and scandals of the current administration, not the least of which is the alleged involvement in the destruction of evidence in the CIA torture case. Yesterday, bipartisan members of the 9/11 commission published an accusatory op-ed in the New York Times, and today the Times an encouraging editorial on Attorney General Mukasey's appointment of Durham to investigate the case. The Washington Post believes Durham is the right man for the job because of his integrity and his dogged pursuit of other cases.

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional expert from George Washingon University, speaking with Keith Olbermann on Countdown last evening, is not as confident about the effectiveness of the investigation, since Durham is not being assigned as an independent prosecutor. Turley claims that it is the Justice Department investigating itself, and in the end, Durham's boss is Mukasey, and Mukasey's boss is the President.

To be sure, there is no evidence to cast aspersions on Durham's reputation. He's brought down the mob, the FBI in Boston and Connecticut governor John Rowland, and several other Connecticut political slimeballs.

Projections are that there will be claims of executive privilege and state secrets, and that the investigation will likely extend beyond George Bush's presidency. Still, the jails will be ready to embrace all whom Durham is able to identify as culpable. As Martin Luther King said, the arc of justice is long, but sure.

On Countdown, Dodd talks sense on Pakistan

Chris Dodd appeared last night on a special edition of Countdown which dealt with the death of Benazir Bhutto, and the effect it will have in Pakistan and the world.

Dodd advises caution, stability, and delayed elections so that the People's Party of Pakistan can get back on its feet before an election is held.

Dodd gets his due on Countdown

Chris Dodd gets praised for his courageous stand against FISA, immunity for telecoms, and Harry Reid.

Good for you Chris.

1500 Iraq and Afghanistan vets already homeless

On Keith Olbermann's Countdown last night, Olbermann and Paul Reickhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, talk about the already shameful treatment of returning vets, and the absolute disregard, and disrespect that the Bush administration demonstrates toward these vets. Watch the segment below.

Support the troops, right.


Bush lacks respect for troops?

And who do you think is more credible?

Sy Hersh continues to speak out about the bellicose blusterings of the White House over Iran, and White House Press Secretary Dana Perino scolds Hersh without denying the substance of his claims. Good segment on Countdown last night.

We're making a list, checking it twice...

Keith Olbermann and Senator Jim Webb discuss the newly uncovered proof, the Spanish "Downing Street memos," which prove that George Bush intended to attack Iraq long before there was a UN resolution, and long before he admitted to the American people that he would do so.

What's more, Webb, who served in the military in Vietnam and the first Iraq War, gives his opinion of the chickenhawks who are chomping at the bit for war in Iran, and calling military dissenters, "phony soldiers."