As everyone must know by now - if you don't, see Keith Olbermann's diary at the top of the Rec List right now, right here - Rachel Maddow is getting the 9 PM Eastern time slot on MSNBC starting 8 September (her grandmother's 93rd birthday: advance Happy Birthday to Grams!)

As Rachel now has her own show.. it needs a name

Dear Rachel,

CONGRATULATIONS!  Keith Olbermann announced today that you will be getting your own show on MSNBC and I want to let you know that I am thrilled to hear about this and that you will have an instant happy, giddy, enthusiastic audience!  It is so, so well deserved.  You, along with Keith, represent the best that we have to offer and will create a team that will be unbeatable....

Now that we will have the thrill of watching our two smartest, brightest, most articulate, funniest, prescient, most courageous...(what am I leaving out) "Speakers of Truth to the Powerful", in one block of time from 8-10pm EST, we can truly take back this country.  

We need both your voices badly and it is a thrill Rachel, that your voice will be getting its proper podium!

    What's the old saw? Never get into an argument with people who buy ink by the barrel? Is there an electronic equivalent?
    I'm not even sure you can't beat a media organization. But if you're a presidential candidate and you come after it with a craven and silly argument - and you follow a path previously tried by a now ex-presidential candidate - you've probably been poorly advised.
    Thus tonight, between Senator McCain's manager's broadside against us, and his creative but tinny-sounding attacks on Senator Obama today at the VFW Convention, I've got a Special Comment planned.

There was a very important diary posted here last night through much of today on the death of Hiu Lui Ng.  It was by Gorette, and if you missed it: http://www.dailykos.com/...

You should also check out the original New York Times article on this incident, which is one of the most horrific stories of human cruelty I've heard in a long time: http://www.nytimes.com/...

Keith Olbermann addressed this awhile ago on his show, and his words--dripping with anger--summed up how I felt about this last night.  Here is my original comment in that diary: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Mr. Olbermann, you have a unique opportunity that perfectly suits your ability and interest.

The world is watching China’s presentation of the Olympics for the next two weeks.  In the United states, NBC provides the lens for this focus, and you anchor the most popular public affairs show on NBC’s news network.  You are an editorialist who prides himself on challenging hypocrisy and injustice.  I ask that you spend at least one minute during each episode of Countdown during this Olympic period holding China to account.

Yesterday Nate put forward and interesting thesis regarding a possible "checkmate" move Obama might make. Or at least the opportunity exists. Frankly, I am somewhat amazed I saw no mention of this commentary by Nate.

We know Obama shifted slightly on drilling off shore if it were a part of a lager energy solution or compromise. Nothing horrific, but a practical politic if anything is to be done (imho).

Nate suggests:

I try and avoid using grandiose rhetoric of this kind. But there is a potential checkmate scenario sitting on the board for Barack Obama, and it involves the 'Gang of 10' energy compromise bill currently being floated by a bipartisan group of ten senators.

Yes, there is a connection.  

Reports are coming in from across the country that cases of West Nile Virus have increased.

From MSNBC.com:

CONCORD, Calif. - Standing on the edge of a swimming pool gone bad, public health worker Jeremy Tamargo scoops up a sample of murky, brown water to make sure the mosquito treatment he administered earlier is still working.

A collection of plastic toys stashed in a corner of the yard and a stuffed toy floating forlornly in the swampy water indicate a family once played here, until foreclosure forced a move.

Now the once-sparkling, turquoise jewel is a "green pool," a legacy of the foreclosure crisis — and a breeding ground for millions of potentially disease-carrying mosquitoes that have kept health officials busy in California and elsewhere.

More below the fold....

In yesterday's Olbermann diary, Keith told us Dana Milbank had taken another job, and that it certainly wasn't better than what he had going at MSNBC. Lots of folks posited Milbank was going to Faux News.  

I left a comment, stating it was my bet that Milbank would go to CNN, likely to Campbell Brown's show.  

Milbank's taken a new TV gig for sure, but he's denying there was any dispute at Countdown.  

Since I was a little less than proactive about this issue last week on television (for reasons which I think will become readily apparent), I thought I'd offer a little preview of an item on tonight's Countdown.

The headline: Dana Milbank won't be on the news hour any more.

I have read more diaries here than I can count lamenting the failure of the (Democratic) Congress to take any meaningful steps to hold this administration accountable for any of its criminal acts and incompetencies.

Like everyone else, I have shaken my head in disgust and anger at the spinelessness of the leadership, their utter abdication of true responsibility - they'll vote to spend money, but not to confront this White House on issues that go to the very heart of what it means to be the United States of America. From constitutional issues (warrantless searches, eavesdropping, torture, corruption of the Justice Department, to name just a few), to health care, the environment, energy policy, war-mongering, defense contracting fraud - these people, our elected representatives and senators, have let us down.

Well, no more.

As many of us know, the title of this diary was borrowed from Barry Goldwater's (in)famous 1964 GOP acceptance speech.  While this is the first (and likely the last) time I will ever quote a Goldwater speech here (or anywhere else), there's another line that's equally applicable today:

That, let me remind you, is the land of liberty built by decentralized power. On it also we must have balance between the branches of government at every level.

Those words need to be seriously contemplated by every House Dem today.  Yesterday's Judiciary vote on contempt for Rove and today's district court ruling rejecting spurious Executive Privilege claims make it painfully clear that the time has come for a more aggressive approach.

Effective communication of message is of fundamental importance in any political campaign, providing you have a good message. While we are extremely effective reaching a certain audience, there is a larger audience we miss entirely. These are what I think can be fairly called victims of the traditional media. Our most effective messenger, I might say only effective messenger, in this realm has been Keith Olbermann. And so, for when danger looms in perilous politcal times, I propose the KO Signal.  

eclecticbrotha posted a diary early this morning containing this video about Scott McClellan's admission that the White House provided propaganda items directly to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing media outlets.

In response to the request from several people for a transcript, I have transcribed the last half of the segment where Keith Olbermann asks Rachel Maddow for her comments on the situation.

If someone else wants to take a stab at the beginning with McClellan and Tweety, be my guest.  But to do these transcripts without a dictation machine you have to listen to the clip over and over again and I didn't have the stomach to take that much Matthews this afternoon.

After the jump: my transcript includes abbreviated questions from Keith and Rachel's pointed commentary in its entirety.

I was thinking that after Nas performed his "Sly Fox" song on The Colbert Report the other night, it made me think about something deep.

Seriously, whenever most in the rap/hip-hop game talk about the networks, and especially Fox News, they really talk about only a few things but mainly these two: Calling O'Reily an asshole or talking about the media focusing on the negative factors in the urban community over the positive.

We have been listening to stories about a liberal bias in the MSM for years now. All the while we have been witnessing an MSM that has become  so afraid to be labeled as liberal, that they no longer can do their job. The Iraq war itself is the worst consequence of this situation. And I believe the coverage of the McCain campaign is the culmination of this phenomenon. While it is hard to get traction complaining about the MSM giving a pass to McCain on his plethora of gaffes, the recent CBS attempt to cover up one of McCain's more spectacular rewrites of history, rises to a new level. It's time to turn the tables and start doing some very loud intimidating of our own. The evidence now exists and it is incontrovertible. I would like to see KO start a new countdown, number of days since CBS and Katie Couric joined the McCain campaign.

The McCain campaign responded to questions about his gaffe on the CBS Evening News on the timeline of the Sunni Awakening and it was reported by Ed Henry on AC 360 tonight.

The surge strategy that was supported by John McCain and opposed by Barack Obama was responsible for the reduction in violence we have all seen over the last year and a half. If Barack Obama had had his way, the Sheiks who started the Awakening would have been murdered at the hands of al Qaeda, and the US forces would have already left Iraq in defeat.

Watch the panel at AC 360 try to spin this one in the video below the fold.

Larry Hunter, a lifelong conservative who worked in the Reagan White House, was chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years, and helped write the Republican Contract for America, appeared on Countdown tonight,and talked about his support for Obama.  

Larry Hunter had an op-ed in the New York Daily News today where he stated that he was voting for Obama because "Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill conceived tax and economic policies -- this is the difference between venial and mortal sins."