It is not a compliment to human nature to say that there is something within us that is sometimes drawn to watching — for a limited period of time, anyway — the comically deranged on display. Which brings me to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

By now Olbermann’s hyper-partisanship and straight-from-the-fever-swamps mentality — witness just about any of Keith’s “Special Comments” for ample evidence — is well documented. What is interesting to me, during the times I’ve tuned in to his program, is that he never interviews anyone who holds an alternative point of view. He appears — unlike the competitors he often obsesses about — to be afraid to expose his ideas to the light of day.

		McCarthy: An Unreasonable Decision Lopez: The Week Sex Spruiell: Seven Big Lies about the Stimulus Costa: No Amnesty for Obamacare Geraghty: A Tale of Six Counties Spruiell: Saved, Created, or Fake? Williamson: War Is the Health of the Taxman Lowry: On Health Care, Should Dems Fear Failure or Success? Nordlinger: Criticism that will cost you, &c. Charen: Nurse Ratched Democrats Sowell: Solving Whose Problem? Symposium: Condition Serious but Not Hopeless Williamson: The Battle of Presidio Editors: Decision Time on Iran Interview: Tom Brady & KSM Black: The Specter of Default

Olbermann has on his program either spokesmen from the Obama campaign or, much more frequently, journalists who share (though usually in a less offensive and more camouflaged way) Olbermann’s political biases. They almost never challenge the assumptions of Olbermann; their role is to give his prejudices the patina of “journalistic objectivity.” I’m speaking of people like Air America’s Rachel Maddow, Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe and Howard Fineman, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and, until earlier this week, Dana Milbank.

According to Olbermann’s post on The Daily Kos (how perfectly appropriate), it seems Milbank notified Olbermann that after four years of appearing with him, Milbank accepted another television offer. Olbermann was apparently irate about a column by Milbank last week that created difficulty for Barack Obama, and therefore banned Milbank from his program. Olbermann alleges that Milbank took a comment by Obama out of context (readers can decide for themselves whether that is in fact a fair charge) and would not explain himself. And so Dana Milbank, who after four years of playing up to Olbermann deigned to write a single critical column on The Great Obama, was quickly censured. Such are the exacting journalistic standards of Olbermann, and, apparently, the network for which he works.


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