Video: Unlucky blogger misses out on Olby’s Worst Person award

posted at 8:00 am on January 27, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Bummer. And when e-mail reports of getting mentioned by Keith Olbermann began pouring into my e-mail bin, I thought for sure I’d nailed the big brass ring. Unfortunately, I just got a mention on Olby’s “Still Bushed” segment for my criticism of Barack Obama’s attack on Rush Limbaugh, in which Keith Olbermann inadvertently makes my point for me, to the extent he’s coherent at all. It comes in the first moment, in a segment he calls — for some weird reason — “Henchmengate”:

Number 3, Henchmengate: Ed Morrissey of the right-wing blog Hot Air criticizing President Obama for calling out Republican officeholders who actually act on the words of comedian Rush Limbaugh, revealing one of the most underrated sleaze factors among the Bush men. “One doesn’t make points at all about bipartisanship by explicit — explicitly attacking another partisan voice,” Morrissey writes. “George Bush never attacked Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, or other voices of the rabid Left by name.” No, he had Vice President Cheney attack us by name, and Senator McCain. At minimum, Obama has the guts to do his criticizing himself. Bush didn’t!

Um, okay, Keith. See if you can follow along with me. What do Dick Cheney and John McCain have in common? They’ve never been President. My point was that Presidents shouldn’t get into verbal grudge matches by name with specific pundits because it makes them look weak, and in this case undermines any claims that President would have of “post-partisanship”.

If either had won the Presidency, I doubt seriously that they would have given Olby or any of his colleagues a moment’s notice. They’d be a little busy, especially during the on-the-job training phase of the Presidency, on which Obama needs to concentrate a wee bit more than most.

As far as “Henchmengate” goes, if Cheney and McCain attacked him, then it almost certainly resulted from Olbermann’s nutcase rants against both men and not attacks on Bush. McCain was a presidential candidate, not President, and the VP has nothing much to do but to battle with the press. I don’t recall occasions where Cheney attacked Olbermann by name — I’m sure Olbermann keeps a list — but I’d bet that on those few occasions, Cheney was defending himself and not George Bush. Either way, adding the “-gate” scandal suffix is indicative of Olby’s normal hysterical mode, and MS-NBC’s.

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