Opinion: Keith O. lets it slip

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Sometimes with all the lights on and thousands of eyes on you, with the cameras staring and every uttered word relentlessly recorded for later reference, candidates let things slip out by mistake.

But the same goes for television commentators.

Witness MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann the other night. According to his network’s website, Olbermann’s show is ‘a unique newscast that counts down the day’s top stories with Keith’s particular wit and style.’ Americans like to talk back and argue with their televisions. Like his competition over at CNN, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly at Fox, Keith is certainly an outspoken fellow. Even Borat on his first day off the plane could figure out Olbermann’s political affinities. But this time good old Keith just came right out and spoke for his employer too.

It was right after President Bush’s address to the nation on a troop withdrawal from Iraq. We questioned the timing of the president’s speech and forecast that Bush had needlessly made himself the target again. Sure enough, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island gave the Democrats’ predictable response; they disagreed with the president.

But to drive home his campaign point, liberal former Sen. John Edwards, who’s trailing in many polls, bought two minutes of precious time on MSNBC to issue his own response; not surprisingly, he disagrees with the Republican president and his Democratic Party opponents as well.

After the ad aired, Olbermann looked at the camera. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, ‘you at home were part of a signal moment in the history of American political television...I don’t want to be diverted to talking about commercials in the middle of the show, but...why on Earth did he buy that commercial?...I don’t think I’m saying anything unknown to the audience. I don’t think he would have gotten a hard time from this particular network.’

So now it’s out in the open. The network gives a hard time to some candidates and not to others like Edwards. Let’s see now if all the Republican candidates boycott MSNBC’s next debate the way Edwards and his Democratic colleagues refused to go on the Fox News-Black Caucus debate.

--Andrew Malcolm