Olbermann on Bush: A Textbook Definition of Cowardice

Keith Olbermann's commentary on MSNBC's Countdown is quickly becoming something that the next generation will study when they look at how the media gave George W. Bush a free pass on the conduct of the Iraq war, with Olbermann held up as an example of how a real journalist seeks -- and speaks -- truth.

Here's Olbermann last night on former President Bill Clinton getting blindsided with right-wing spin on Fox News over the weekend, after he had been promised the interview would be primarily about his Global Initiative project.

"It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.

"It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as 'crazed.'

"Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit."

On Bush and the total failure to get Osama bin Laden, the man the administration said they would bring to justice "dead or alive.":

"The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.

"The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

"The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S.'

"The Bush Administration did not try.

"Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest 'pass' for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!"

And the attempt by the Right Wing to blame this administration's failure in the true war on terror on Bill Clinton:

"After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

"Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

"As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.

"Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

"Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.

"The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

"It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted: Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.

"And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for 'e-mailing' you the question.

"Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.

"He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.

"Mr. Clinton was brave.

"Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail."

And directly at Bush:

"You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.

"You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.

"And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

"And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

"And there it is, Sir:

"Are yours the actions of a true American?"

Here's the full video -- it will absolutely make your day.