Keith Olbermann’s special comments are about the closest thing liberal Americans have to guided missile strikes in the war of words that surrounds our politics. His comments have thus far been directed towards the Bush administration - Bush himself, Cheney, and Rumsfeld - but last night he set his sights on Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker of the House and now 2008 presidential hopeful.

Gingrich had given a speech in New Hampshire arguing for a massive curtailing of American free speech rights in the face of today’s terrorist threat. Ironically the speech was presented at the annual Loeb First Amendment Dinner, a dinner that apparently is not normally a former for people opposed to civil liberties. Gingrich wants to limit speech on the internet to prevent terrorists from blowing up an American city. Olbermann’s comment correctly observed that Gingrich and those who would support his regressive, anti-American ideas follow in the footsteps of the “the Colonial English…the Slave States…policemen who shot strikers…those who interned Japanese-Americans…those behind the Red Scare…and…Nixon’s Plumbers.”

Olbermann goes on to say, “We fight for liberty by having more liberty and not less.” I can think of no better way to describe the value of American liberty and the best means by which we preserve it than Olbermann has here. The video and full transcript is available at Crooks & Liars. Here is his closing:

But apparently there are some of us who cannot see, that the only future for America is one that cherishes the freedoms won in the past, one in which we vanquish bad ideas with better ones, and in which we fight for liberty by having more liberty, not less.

“I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.” [Quoting Gingrich]

What a dark place your world must be, Mr. Gingrich, where the way to save America, is to destroy America.

I will awaken every day of my life thankful I am not with you in that dark place.

And I will awaken every day of my life thankful that you are entitled to tell me about it.

And that you are entitled to show me what an evil idea it represents — and what a cynical mind.

And that you are entitled to do all that, thanks to the very freedoms, you seek to suffocate.

The only other thing that I would add is that comments like this from Olbermann, in addition to being the product of moral and civic brilliance, are incredibly powerful tools to use in rallying support against Republican presidential candidates. I’d love to hear what Olbermann has to say about John McCain and his rubber-stamping of the Bush torture bill. Perhaps an opportunity for this will be afforded Olbermann when McCain comes out against Dodd’s revision on the MCA.


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