Day 18: October 24

11 days to Election Day

The first segment of this show is devoted to Sarah Palin. It attacks her on two fronts: first, it portrays her as operating against the wishes of the campaign, with claims that a faction within the McCain campaign believes that Palin is "playing...McCain off the conservative base," and that her "palling around with terrorists" line was given without campaign approval. The campaign is portrayed as dysfunctional and is mocked. Additionally, he plays Palin off of Obama -- while Palin was testifying in the Troopergate case, Obama was in Hawaii visiting his sick grandmother.

The preponderance of the segment, though, is spent with Richard Wolffe talking about Palin's speech on spending. During her speech, in which she talked about a spending freeze, she made a derogatory remark about medical research done with fruit flies -- which, according to Olbermann, is odd because such research has been instrumental in autism research, which is one of the issues Palin is supposed to be knowledgeable about. Though it's a big slip-up, Olbermann and Wolffe go off the deep end a bit. Olbermann asks, "Who is stupid or insensitive enough to let that happen?" Wolffe says that he has to make an effort to be "restrained and measured" about the issue, then says that it is the "most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment" that Palin has made, "and there's been a lot of competition for that prize." That's pretty blatantly politically biased -- again, not in reporting her mistake, but in the tone that their reactions had.

In this segment there's also a sampling of journalistic bias. They discuss the spending freeze idea that has been floated by the McCain campaign, and describe it as possibly "politically effective,' but that since entitlement programs and defense would be exempt, not particularly effective in reality. Essentially they make the claim that the idea is purely a cynical political ploy to get people to think they're trying to cut costs.

Next is further discussion of Palin, this time concentrating mainly on her clothing expenditures. Craig Crawford joins here, and though the news is bad for Palin, they actually seem to handle it better than usual. They don't really mock Palin (though Crawford's voice seems to be stuck in a constant chuckle), and the tone of the segment is reasonable. However, Crawford does say of her that "symbolism without truth is just demagoguery." This seems to be more journalistic bias -- the implication that Palin doesn't actually mean anything she's saying.

The next section is devoted to the Ashley Todd story: she claimed to have been physically and sexually assaulted by an African-American man because she supported John McCain, but was revealed later to have made the story up. This segment is uneven -- it's hostile toward Matt Drudge, who broke the story and is referred to by Olbermann as the operator of a "garbage website" and a party to "Reconstruction-era race-based fearmongering." It's also hostile toward McCain's campaign, which is accused of fueling the story by releasing information to reporters before the police report was published. There's also some speculation; Olbermann asks Eugene Robinson if this could kill the McCain campaign by linking it to racial strategy, and whether they're responsible for creating an atmosphere of dirty tricks and even fraud. Additionally, though, Robinson does a pretty fair job of impartially examining the racial conflict, referring to "blood-libel against black men," but isn't too heavy-handed about his treatment of the McCain campaign -- he says that if they did fuel the story, it's "reprehensible," but doesn't accuse them of doing so himself. However, beside that, there's a fair amount of anti-McCain bias and journalistic bias in the form of possibly connecting Todd's actions to the campaign.

Chuck Todd is the next guest, and does a relatively fair, impartial analysis of the current electoral map. There's little bias in this segment, but a fair amount of speculation and interpretive journalism -- obviously, since they're discussing things that have not happened yet. This is also a fair example of the "horse race" mentality -- who's ahead, who's behind, and who will win.

"Worst Persons" is "Worst Persons," as usual. Rupert Murdoch gets the business from Olbermann, with a pirate impression and everything -- not exactly hard-hitting journalism, but entertaining nonetheless. "Comedian" Rush Limbaugh wins the day's award for claiming that Barack Obama was in Hawaii not to see his grandmother, but to somehow do something questionable concerning his supposedly fake birth certificate. As usual, bias abounds.

The final segment is devoted to ranting about Bill O'Reilly and his odd claim that there's a conspiracy within the Nielsen ratings system to give MSNBC better ratings than FOX News. Olbermann reads O'Reilly's transcript while doing his impression of O'Reilly. He says that "Bill-O the Clown has jumped the shark tank that is delusional paranoia," that he's entered "stage-3 'We'll do it live!' uncontrollable anger," and that "Bill-O has long eluded reason's grasp." The segment can be summarized with Olbermann's theory on why he has higher ratings than O'Reilly: "It's 'cause...you suck." This isn't really bias of any kind, nor is it interpretation or anything else Patterson despises; it's just pure malice. This isn't journalism, it's just an attack.