Two MSNBCs In One

Past performance is no guarantee of future results:

[D]epending on the guest, Olbermann either wonders aloud with him whether Republicans even know how stupid and corrupt they are, or impatiently asks him why the Democrats aren’t doing more to topple the despotic “Mr. Bush” and his Orwellian cohort.

Olbermann’s insistence on calling the president “Mr. Bush” instead of “President Bush” is his way of saying that Bush holds office illegitimately. In the weeks following the 2004 election, Olbermann seized on scattered stories of voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida to suggest that Republicans had somehow rigged the election. He told a reporter for his alma mater’s newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, “I don’t think there is any question that Ohio messed up the election [in some way]. The question is: Was it deliberate or accidental?”

The 2004 presidential election marked the turning point between Olbermann’s early ambitions to do a hard-news show and his more recent efforts to resemble, as much as possible, a left-wing blog. And the conservative bloggers have responded. Olbermann’s obsession with the election-fraud conspiracy theories circulating on the Internet prompted Robert Cox to create OlbermannWatch.com in order to document Olbermann’s “careless reporting, reckless reliance on unreliable sources, and monomaniacal obsessions over lunatic fringe jihads.” OlbermannWatch.com contributor Mark Koldys fact-checks Countdown each night, and tallies the references to “Mr. Bush” on his “MisterMeter.”

— Stephen Spruiell, National Review, October 30, 2006.

On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews claimed that conservatives and Republicans are attempting to “delegitimize” President Obama by calling him “Obama” or “a liberal leader,” Matthews said.

“It seems there’s a very interesting compelling continuing effort to delegitimize this president,” he told “Bush’s Brain” author Wayne Slater.

“People on the right say he’s a disaster, which he’s not. Look at what he’s already accomplished,” he added, apparently oblivious to Obama’s record deficits, failed foreign policy and the overall state of the economy.

“But they first of all referred to him, not as the ‘President of the United States’ but as a ‘liberal leader.’ They refer to the health care act of 2010 as ‘a bill.’ They refer to him as ‘Obama.’ They don’t say the ‘the president.’ They don’t say the ‘a law.’ They don’t even speak the language we normally speak in civilized political debate,” he added, as though he would know anything about “civilized political debate.”

“They’ve changed it so much that he’s actually not really supposed to be there,” he continued.

Sounding more like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist than a thoughtful political pundit, Matthews insisted it was all part of a concerted effort to create the conditions where history would regard Obama as an illegitimate president, Noah Rothman added.

“And I’m not paranoid,” he concluded.

— “Matthews: ‘I’m Not Paranoid:’ GOP Deliberately Avoiding Calling Obama ‘President,’” Joe Newby, Newsbusters, today.

They really build the memory hole deep at MSNBC, don’t they? And yes, we often refer to Mr. Obama as “Mr. Obama.” It’s our continuing homage to Keith Olbermann and the glory days of MSNBC and the left’s rabid case of BDS.

Earlier: “Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 Film Network: Big Media’s How-To Guide for the Obama Era.” Both Olbermann and Chris Matthews do awesome Howard Beale impersonations.