MSNBC host Keith Olbermann had a "Special Comment' for President George W. Bush. Olbermann accused the President of "panoramic and murderous deceit" and said that his interview with political website Politico.com was unforgiveable. Click here to a read a transcript of Keith Olbermann's statement.
Click here to read and watch the Politico Yahoo interview that inspired Olbermann's comment. Read an excerpt from the interview below.
In a White House interview with Politico and Yahoo News — a president's first for an online audience — Bush said his doomsday scenario for a premature withdrawal “of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States."
"The United States pulling out of Iraq or pulling out of the Middle
East or not maintaining a forward presence would send all kinds of
signals throughout the Middle East," he said in the Roosevelt Room.
"And it would shake everybody's nerves, and it would embolden the very
same people that we're trying to defeat.
For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried
to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.
“I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the
commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the
families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think
playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the
United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de
Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high
commissioner for human rights.
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad
as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life,” he said.
“I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled
me off the golf course and I said, ‘It's just not worth it anymore to
do.’"
In a reversal of the usual question that’s put to him, a query
submitted online asked the president whether he felt he had been misled
about Iraq as he made the decision to go to war.
“‘Misled’ is a strong word, it almost connotes some kind of
intentional,” Bush said. “I don't think so. … Intelligence communities
all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was
disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was.” source
Watch Keith Olbermann's entire special comment above.
On Wednesday's Countdown, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann's latest "Special Comment" attack on President Bush accused the President of "panoramic and murderous deceit," and of "creating" an America that "includes 'cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives,'" contending that "they are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes." He further accused Bush, whom he referred to as having an "addled brain," of "laying waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives" in an "insurance-scam, profiteering, morally bankrupting war." Outraged by Bush's declaration that he had given up playing golf out of respect for those killed in Iraq, Olbermann called on the President to "Shut the hell up!" Video of Olbermann's rant can be seen here. (Transcript follows)
The Countdown host was responding to comments the President made during an interview with Politco.com. When asked what was the "worst that could happen" if U.S. troops were withdrawn from Iraq, Bush argued that extremists could feel "emboldened" to engage in "another attack on the United States," and referred to the "ideological struggle" in Iraq "against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives."
The MSNBC host thought it was insightful to take President Bush's words about terrorists and apply them to the Bush administration. Olbermann: "Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created, includes 'cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives?' They are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes."
Olbermann continued: "Through your haze of self-congratulation and self-pity, do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives? 'This ideological struggle' you speak of, Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country."
He soon accused the President of forming in Iraq "an American viceroyalty, enforced by merciless mercenaries who shoot unarmed Iraqis and then evade prosecution in any country by hiding behind your skirts, sir," and charged: "Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush!"
The MSNBC host referred to what he called Bush's "panoramic and murderous deceit" as he recounted recent Republican losses in Congress:
And as a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats in places like North Carolina and last night Mississippi, you can actually say with a straight face, sir, that the members of Congress, "the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes," while you greet the political heat and try to run and hide from your presidency, and your legacy, 4,000 of the Americans you were supposed to protect are dead in Iraq, with your only feeble, pathetic answer being, "I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction."
Olbermann was most offended at the President's declaration that he had given up playing golf out of respect for those lost in Iraq, as the MSNBC host thought Bush instead should have chosen to give up the war effort: "Sir, to show your solidarity with them you didn't give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war." source
