You, sir, are no Edward R. Murrow

So, it wasn't enough for Keith Olbermann to destroy "Football Night in America," which you couldn't pay me to watch anymore. Now he's got to go bashing golf, too. Or rather, he's bashing President Bush's statement earlier this week that he gave up golf after the murder (in Iraq) of special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he told Politico. Well, he's right. And while President Bush came off as overly simplistic, I understood what he was trying to say. Yes, that's right; for some reason I don't feel the urge to bash Bush for this one. He doesn't get it, he's never going to get it. I mean, what would be the point? At this point Bush reminds me of a puppy I had once that I tried to house train. He'd sh*t in the house, so I'd wag my finger at him and toss him out on the porch, like all the books told me to do. Guess what? He just started sh*tting on the porch instead. He'd give me this look, like he honestly didn't get what on Earth he was doing wrong. Bush has that same look. (Later, Max went to live with a friend who had a farm, where he could frolic all day and sh*t where he pleased. Eight months, George, don't worry.)

But leave it to Olbermann to uncover a picture of Bush apparently golfing a few months after Vieira de Mello's death. BUSTED! Woo-hoo, Pulitzer for Mr. Olbermann! Wow, I feel so much safer with Ol' Keith keeping tabs on the world. And there he goes, co-opting Edward R. Murrow's "Good night, and good luck" tagline again. Golly, gee, Keith just oozes integrity, doesn't he?

Check out this video, part of a 12-minute rant on last night's "Special Comment" segment:



Whenever I catch these little rants, I always find myself wondering about a few things ... They're too seamless and organized, not to mention articulate, to be improvised. So that means somebody has to write this and program it into a teleprompter. Olbermann has to practice it. Which means that his seemingly on-the-fly Howard Beale-esque outrage is ... an act.

I might possibly find myself in agreement with some of what Olbermann says if his self-righteousness weren't so darn transparent. When he's fuming, I just can't shake this mental image of him back in his dressing room before the show, trying out various inflections to see which version sounds the most genuine, crossing his fingers that someday George Clooney will make a movie about him, too.

And really ... I don't care how gratifying it might be, how does this kind of "shut the hell up" dialogue contribute in any way to our public discourse?