Keith Olbermann on Katrina and "our" government

Keith Olbermann broke his editorial silence Monday and lashed out against "our" US gov't and their response to the Katrina crisis:

"...these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water. Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'? I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant."

Read the full text here.
See the video of the above spiel here. Or here.
Mr. Olbermann hosts my favorite daily news show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC Mon-Fri at 8pm eastern. For my money, he's the best TV news man anywhere. If you don't watch him regularly, i would gently encourage you to tune in. Take the Grape Nuts challenge: watch Keith for a week, and see how much better you feel. i guarantee you'll get all the news you need along with your recommended daily allowance of context and perspective that won't leave you bloated. Keith has a knack for delivering the news with creativity, insight and honesty. And perhaps most importantly, he is appropriately cynical about the business of journalism and its role in our culture. That is why he is uniquely awesome.