Yeah, Yeah. Too Soon.

I was watching The Last Word on Tuesday night and Lawrence O'Donnell decided to give "the last word" to his MSNBC colleague, Reverend Al Sharpton. He proceeded to play a clip of Rev. Sharpton speaking about his 87 year old mother who had just passed away in Alabama. In referencing how the country has changed in her lifetime, Rev. Sharpton says:

When she was born in (Alabama) in 1925, she didn't have the right to vote.

Am I the only A-hole who watched that segment and whose first thought was "hmmmm, you know, Al, if she was born in the United States in 2012, she still wouldn't have the right to vote." Why? Because newborns don't vote!

This Has Gotten Unwatchable

By now it is old news that Keith Olbermann left MSNBC and caused a prime-time lineup shakeup at the network. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell got the honor (and pressure) of moving into the 8pm timeslot where Mr. Olbermann had posted solid ratings (though, of course, still got crushed on a nightly basis by The O'Reilly Factor).

As something of a news junkie, I decided I'd stick with MSNBC in the time-slot. Mr. O'Donnell is clearly a smart guy and is informed on the inner workings of Washington. He had been a frequent guest and guest host for Mr. Olbermann and actually seemed like a reasonable moderate (particularly for their primetime lineup).

However, after almost a month in the time slot, I don't know if the ratings are slipping and the network suits want him to try to emulate Keith more but Mr. O'Donnell is going off the rails!

Last night provided a good example. His "interview" with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) was about the most uncomfortable thing I could think of short of watching my sister give birth. It was basically 10 minutes of Mr. O'Donnell yelling at Chaffetz. I mean, I am all for trying to get a straight answer from an evasive interview subject but this was ridiculous! And it's probably even all the more hypocritical since Mr. O'Donnell did multiple segments ripping on Bill O'Reilly for his continued interruption of President Obama in their pre-Super Bowl interview (which, in itself, was arguably another pathetic attempt to emulate Keith Olbermann).

Anyway, if you can, try to get through this and let me know if I'm mistaken.

It looks like maybe I'll have to start checking out Parker Spitzer again.

Hmmm... it looks like a lot of what I said here was previously said (probably much better) by this actual working journalist.

Lawrence O'Donnell Has Kids To Feed

As President Obama hastily called a press conference yesterday to try to tap down the liberal backlash against his "compromise", I shared an e-mail with my father predicting that primetime MSNBC hosts would have their pitchforks out. That is exactly what happened:

Olbermann CRUSHES Obama in Special Comment

Maddow argues Obama is on road to irrelevance

However, it turned out I was not entirely correct. Lawrence O'Donnell was a dissenting voice who thinks Obama made the best deal at the right time. He took a stance that it would be Armageddon to let tax rates go back to the Clinton rates on January 1st.

Am I the only one who thinks that O'Donnell just got a new primetime hosting gig (probably with a nice fat pay raise) and now he is looking out for the pocketbook of Lawrence O'Donnell?

And I was especially perturbed by his Rewrite segment where he slammed our least favorite pelican enemy, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La). O'Donnell said:

(Landrieu) was one of the few Democrats in the senate who voted for the Bush tax cuts that set the Treasury on the road to ruin.

Okay, so in O'Donnell's analysis, the Bush tax cuts set the country on the road to ruin? His solution: extend the Bush tax cuts. Good call, Larry. Good call.