Day 13: October 17

18 days to Election Day

The show opens with some breaking news: the Obama campaign has requested that the Attorney General's office include within a supposed investigation of voter fraud by ACORN a separate investigation into possible involvement of the Department of Justice or the White House in supporting the McCain campaign's claims about voter fraud. He asked for a special prosecutor to investigate whether any kind of collusion or conspiracy to suppress voter turnout had occurred. Olbermann interviews Robert Bauer, chief counsel to the Obama campaign, about the move. This is one of the more journalistically pure segments this show has had since this analysis began, as Olbermann asks for no speculation and allows no bias in the segment -- it's simply him talking to the major actor in an important political story about what he has done already and why, as well as what he will do next. There's no partisan bias here, because there's really no way to balance this, and no reason to -- nobody in the McCain campaign would have anything to add to this issue at this juncture, at least not in terms of what Olbermann and Bauer talked about, specifically.

Next Olbermann talks to Rachel Maddow about the political implications of Obama's decision to head off the voter fraud investigation from the start. There's some political and journalistic bias here: the journalistic bias comes from Maddow's statement that "there's nothing unusual about the tactics that are being used here," and the political bias from the fact that Maddow and Olbermann are so pleased and almost relieved that finally a Democrat has been able to fight off Republican attacks. Maddow even says that she is "impressed by the Obama campaign on this like I haven't been with the Democratic politician in a long time." They sound almost like the Obama fan section here.

Next, Olbermann and Clarence Page have a wide-ranging discussion about issues including David Letterman's interview with McCain -- which they say was the "most substantive interview" that's likely to take place with McCain in the election cycle -- as well as McCain trying to blame Obama for intruding on Joe the Plumber's life, and whether newspaper endorsements are still really a relevant measure of a candidate's popularity or success. There's an odd sense of cynicism about their discussion about Letterman, but it would be tough to call it journalistic bias because the point of the discussion was that journalists aren't going after McCain hard enough. All in all, though, this segment was just about how they felt about events, so it's interpretive journalism.

The next segment is about the Alfred E. Smith Dinner, in which the candidates speak in a kind of roast format and trade zingers. Olbermann shows clips of each of the candidates talking, but the segment gets odd when he shows tape of McCain taking some shots at him. Olbermann then returns the favor, doing a fake stand-up routine in which he says that it will be "a long night in America...four years long" if McCain actually wins, and that he can't think of a bigger joke than Sarah Palin. If there was anyone in doubt at this point as to whom Olbermann is voting for, this segment would end that doubt.

The "Worst Persons in the World" today include Bob Grant, who claimed that Obama wanted to be a dictator because he'd made up his own flags -- which were actually the state flag of Ohio -- Sarah Palin's Secret Service detail, for preventing reporters from leaving the press section at Palin rallies to interview crowds; and Rick Santorum, for complaining about Obama's lack of a flag pin when he's actually almost always wearing one -- and neither McCain nor Santorum himself wear the pins. As always, the segment is an example of the show's political bias.

The final segment is a discussion on the effect that Saturday Night Live has had on the election. The two main focuses are the show's portrayal of McCain as delusional by saying that Joe the Plumber was an imaginary friend, and the planned appearance by Sarah Palin on the show. Emily Hein is asked about whether the risk of letting Palin go on the show is outweighed by the reward, if Palin has become a kind of self-parody, whether it's within bounds for SNL to have the portrayal of McCain and his imaginary friends that they did, and if SNL and other shows like it are valuable as a way to give the public a sense of who the candidates are outside of the bubble of the campaign. There's some political bias evident in this segment; Olbermann and Hein both mimic Palin's speech pattern at one point, and Olbermann says that she will need to work on "self-awareness" before she can get the ability to be self-deprecating.