Howard Fineman of Newsweek calls this “a good question.” Perhaps, only if you’re a blithering idiot, or if you’re shilling for the world’s worst news anchor of all time. Keith Olbermann’s question? It comes at the very beginning (via The College Politico):

OLBERMANN: The Republicans and the Tea Partiers will tell you what happens tonight with Scott Brown tonight, whether he wins or comes close, is a repudiation of Obama policies, and surely one of Obama’s policies from the viewpoint of his opponents is that it’s okay to have this sea change in American history, to have an African-American President. Is this vote to any degree just a euphemism the way state’s rights was in the 60s?

FINEMAN: Wow, that is a good question.

Yes, because the state that gave Barack Obama a 26-point win in November 2008 has suddenly discovered its inner Bull Connor.  That’s not “a good question,” it’s a baldfaced smear on the people of Massachusetts.  They elect one Republican, and suddenly in Keith Olbermann’s eyes, everyone there wears a hood and burns crosses. It’s absurd, and Fineman should have said so immediately instead of playing along with Olbermann’s vicious fantasy world in which 201o Massachusetts has become 1966 Mississippi.

Fineman himself goes off the rails with this, however:

FINEMAN: Maybe not in Massachusetts, but maybe in some places, there are codes, there are images, ah, you know, there are pickup trucks, uh, you could say there was a racial aspect to it one way or another.

OLBERMANN: What were the Scott Brown ads, though?  Every one of the Scott Brown ads had him in a pickup truck.

FINEMAN: That’s why I mentioned pickup trucks.  I mean, my mind goes back to Fred Thompson down in Tennessee.

Pickup trucks are now racist?  I’m curious; do the people who make trucks also qualify as racists?  How about the truck manufacturers that advertise on NBC and MS-NBC?  I wonder if they like the implication that pickup trucks and the people who buy them are really latent haters and bigots.    Maybe someone should let them know about it, huh?

Update: Jim Treacher notes that for a sportscaster, Olby’s not much of a sport.  He cut away for most of Brown’s acceptance speech.  Good thing no one expects actual news any more at MS-NBC.