Keith Olbermann Quotations

Our country is wounded and bleeding now if we don't know whether or not habeas corpus exists.

The corporation is one of the great unheralded human inventions of destruction. It is a way to absolve from any personal liability a bunch of people. They form together in a massive ID and they do whatever they want.

I'm difficult for management. That's why I have the reputation because nobody challenges management.

Once the Republicans get rolling, they assume they're going to win everything. They are zealots, and zealots assume the last five percent of whatever their plan is will be taken care of by their own greatness or momentum or divinity.

Even on the greatest teams, there's always one role player.

I'm not an anarchist. I believe in government.

Reagan's dead, and he was a lousy President.

All the things that people like me supposedly don't do, I do.

Fox News is hated because they're elitists, and the worst winners television's ever seen.

I guess the painkillers wipe out your memory along with your ethics.

I'm a natural management guy. I had forgotten that. And I forgot how much I hate it.

I have achieved what I wanted to achieve. I'm better off at some sort of independent place where they not only like what I produce but also trust me to be the one to produce it.

It's not about 'NBC is evil.' It's about that media structure - CBS, ABC, CNN, even some of the smaller operations are now multinationals, with these extraordinarily diverse holdings.

At Current, television is all we do - that's our business. We don't have amusement parks I have to worry about, we don't have environmental cases against us, we don't have a series of outdoor-advertising companies.

As part of the process by which you hire me, you hire me. You just don't hire an hour of me to do a performance.

I can't think of an instance at MSNBC where anything I said on the air was influenced by what was going on behind the scenes.

Selling his new book about this phony baloney war on Christmas, John revealed a very ugly side to himself. He is one of those people who think all religions but his are mistaken. You know, the way a lot of these religious nut bag terrorists think.

I don't think we missed America by that much. It was a huge-volume election that didn't turn overwhelmingly one way or another, which was what we said was going to happen. There were some nuances, but I don't think we missed that much.

Having been a fan of him on the weekend CBS News in the '70s . . . he's good at what he does, comfortable with it, and in changing times has the impossible-to-rush benefit of being familiar to the audience. Plus, all former Rotisserie League commissioners make great news anchors.

Like watching the Jesse Ventura show. It's too bad you couldn't get the White House Press Corps to work from a script like that. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post will be along presently to try to figure out who thought that was a good idea. But first, wait, there's more from the fog of war, playing three acts, to White House Press Room unscripted. The first topic there was, guess what, whether or not the whole deal with the soldiers had been rehearsed. Once again, you are there.

Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? The White House by the script.

Well, we're out of time here. Regardless of that, and what might be perceived as our disagreement on the substance of this, my great thanks for coming out and speaking to this under these circumstances.

Unfortunately for Mr. McClellan, the evidence that Mr. Bush's chat with the soldiers was rehearsed and rehearsed within an inch of its life was all on tape.

Two days later, FBI director Mueller declares that another terrorist attack is 'inevitable.'

And the White House, totally off the script.

Powell finishes his answer, admitting much of the information he had been given about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was-

Speaking from Russia, Attorney General John Ashcroft reveals that an American named Jose Padilla is under arrest, accused of plotting a radiation bomb attack in this country. In fact, Padilla had, by this time, already been detained for more than one month. Number three. February 5, 2003. Secretary of State Powell tells the United Nations Security Council of Iraq's concealment of weapons, including 18 mobile biological weapons laboratories, justifying a U.N. or U.S. first strike. Many in the U.N. are doubtful. Months later, much of the information proves untrue. February 7, 2003. Two days later, as anti-war demonstrations continue to take place around the globe:

Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI director Mueller warned that intelligence from multiple sources-

As I tried to emphasize in the commentary, hindsight plus the logical fallacy can be a dangerous combination. But can you look at the list of the 10 juxtapositions, especially the two that pertain to around the time of the Democratic Convention last year? And obviously, there are lists that are longer that have been compiled elsewhere that are based on different criteria and are of different merit. But can you look at that list of 10 juxtapositions and say that, in your heart, you're comfortable that not once were political considerations a factor in any of the counterterrorism statements or actions of the government?

This is a second chance for me, ... There's not much more you can ask for than that.

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.

It's not like the Rex Sox the year before. It's not even close.

The next day, the Department of Homeland Security issues warnings of attacks against railroads nationwide, and against New York City landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. Number two. Thursday, June 6, 2002.

Homeland Security issues warnings of further terrorist attempts to use airplanes for suicide attacks. Number five. December 17, 2003. 9/11 Commission co-chair Thomas Keane says the attacks were preventable. The next day, a federal appeals court says the government cannot detain suspected radiation bomber Jose Padilla indefinitely without charges. And the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr. David Kay, who has previously announced he has found no weapons of mass destruction there, announces he will resign his post. December 21, 2003. Four days later, the Sunday before Christmas:

If he does not sue, he is a drug user, a repeat steroid user, a knowing steroid user. He has to sue for everything that the next 50 years of merchandising is worth.

The idea of negotiating with the President of the United States runs contrary to everything that the Republicans have done since January 20, 2009.

It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it.

I stand up to people.

I do know without fear of contradiction what the definition of life is and it is 12 words long. 'Life is defined by how much you improve the lives of others.'

An uprising of the reasonable is our only chance.

What was the more likely cause of the Oklahoma City bombing: talk radio or Bill Clinton and Janet Renos hands-on management of Waco, the Branch Davidian compound?...Obviously, the answer is talk radio. Specifically Rush Limbaughs hate radio....Frankly, Rush, you have that blood on your hands now and you have had it for 15 years.

What would you do, sir, if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country? Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that....Because they die individually of disease and not disaster, [radio host] Neal Boortz and those who ape him in office and out, approve their deaths, all 45,000 of them - a year - in America. Remind me again, who are the terrorists?

As a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats....When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation; when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead; this advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up! Good night and good luck.

Matt Millen, you draft a wide receiver every year. HOW DARE YOU SIR, HOW DARE YOU!

Can Ken Starr ignore the apparent breadth of the sympathetic response to the President's speech? Facially, it finally dawned on me that the person Ken Starr has reminded me of facially all this time was Heinrich Himmler, including the glasses. If he now pursues the President of the United States, who, however flawed his apology was, came out and invoked God, family, his daughter, a political conspiracy and everything but the kitchen sink, would not there be some sort of comparison to a persecutor as opposed to a prosecutor for Mr. Starr?

On so many levels [S.E. Cupp]’s a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does.

And if Sarah Palin whose Web site put and today scrubbed bull's-eyes targets on 20 Representatives, including Gabby Giffords, does not repudiate her own part - however tangential - in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics. She must be repudiated by the members of her own party. And if they fail to do so, each one of them must be judged to have silently defended this tactic that today proved so awfully foretelling. And they must in turn be dismissed by the responsible members of their own party.

If you're a baseball fan and you don't know what BP is, you're working in a mine without one of those helmets with the lights on it.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But he still says so. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida. But he still says so. And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads - around him and before him - darkness, like some contagion of fear. They are never wrong, and they never regret - admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.

Fox News is worse than al Qaeda. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan.

The key to terror, the key to terrorism, is not the act - but the fear of the act. That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotaped statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings. But why is the Republican Party imitating them? Bin Laden puts out what amounts to a commercial of fear; The Republicans put out what is unmistakable as a commercial of fear. The Republicans are paying to have the messages of bin Laden and the others broadcast into your home.

What's the difference between a hockey mom and a mass turkey-murdering machine? Looks like about 15 feet.

You risk becoming a parody of yourself by not innovating.

If racism is not the whole of the Tea Party, it is in its heart, along with blind hatred, a total disinterest in the welfare of others, and a full-flowered self-rationalizing refusal to accept the outcomes of elections, or the reality of democracy, or the narrowness of their minds and the equal narrowness of their public support.

Success is overrated.

[Michelle Malkin] has been supporting a party which includes most of the idiots in this country who would judge her entirely and exclusively on her [Filipino] appearance.

Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda - worse for our society. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.

Anything that prevents you from taking an action or actions that might reasonably dispel legitimate anxieties. Fear is what paralyzes you.

Courage is a mutual thing.

Without humor, a sports fan is a religious fanatic. Without humor, a newscast is a terrible, depressing, unpalatable thing.

If you make a decision in your life, even one as eminently logical and self-improving as "Why'd you start washing your hair every day?" and you start getting questioned hourly about it, you're going to start second-guessing yourself.

The format of the nightly newscasts is still very much 1981 "Tremble, onlookers! I am the anchorman and now here is a miracle: a report by satellite from many thousands of miles away. I will return to introduce another one in due course.

Without [hatred] Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it.

Just a threat of a boycott has got the Russians spinning.

It's very tough to get yourself around the idea that there could be a mechanism being used or abused to restrict and alter the society in which we live.

I don't think there are huge divergences between my personality and what they see on TV. And I think that's why I have been gainfully employed doing this. I'll always deliver what an employer wants.

[T]he strike is inherently dangerous to the rich, and to the corporations who have brought this country to her knees, because it is the only defense the ordinary citizen has.

A past President, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back....The nation's marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would've quit....As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he [President Bush] is having it done for him, by proxy. Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.

What, on the eternal list of priorities, precedes health? What more obvious role could government have than the defense of the life, of each citizen? We cannot stop every germ that seeks to harm us any more than we can stop every person who seeks to harm us. But we can try dammit and government's essential role in that effort facilitate it, reduce its cost, broaden its availability, improve my health and yours, seems, ultimately, self-explanatory.

My last sort of crisis was about overcoming the people who were more interested in what I had done than what I was doing in the present.

A bully is fighting out of a need to dominate. And is usually unwilling to take the consequences.

Health care is, at its core, about improving the odds of life in its struggle against death. Of extending that game which we will all lose, each and every one of us unto eternity, extending it another year or month or second.

You know the Art Rule: Do something that entertains/interests YOU, if you're lucky it'll do (the) same for others

I was one of the first people to put [Ambassador] Joe Wilson on TV and, of course, exposing that entire attempt to smear him by exposing his wife [CIA operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson]. And we sat down to do a long interview by satellite and we publicized it for several days.

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

I just think if you're 44 years old and you're not smarter than you were when you were 35 years old or 25 years old, just stay in your room.

Abraham Lincoln did not shoot John Wilkes Booth. Titanic did not sink a North Atlantic iceberg. And Fox News is neither fair nor balanced. These are simple historical facts intelligible to all adults, most children, and some of your more discerning domesticated animals. But not... to Bill O

Because I am so intensely identified with opinion and analysis and contextualization, I think I just need, for my own psychological benefit, a small island in which I can stand and say, 'I'm going to sit this one out.'

Wanting to be on television is a mental illness. Wanting to be president of the United States, wanting to be an actor - these are degrees of the same mental illness. If you need to be approved of simultaneously by more people than are in this room now, there's a problem.

Good evening. A President who lied us into a war and, in so doing, needlessly killed 3,584 of our family and friends and neighbors; a President whose administration initially tried to destroy the first man to nail that lie; a President whose henchmen then ruined the career of the intelligence asset that was his wife when intelligence assets were never more essential to the viability of the Republic; a President like that has tonight freed from the prospect of prison the only man ever to come to trial for one of the component felonies in what may be the greatest crime of this young century.

Apparently, the people in the [George W.] Bush administration who wanted to confront me on this could not spell my name correctly. They wanted to send a series of emails thinking that perhaps MSNBC was perhaps favorable to the Bush administration. They thought that they could send me a series of questions or talking points to disprove Joe Wilson with.

One side sticks to the facts, and the other side is close to playing with its poop.

Your anger will cool into hardened passionate insight if you wait a day. Most of the things that make me angry I let them sit. The heat that remains will be sufficient. The stuff that evaporates is the stuff that would have simply offended or made it histrionic.

The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you're not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don't take it personally when they say 'no' - they may not be smart enough to say 'yes.'

The Department of Homeland Security raises the alert status for financial centers in New York, New Jersey, and Washington to orange. The evidence supporting the warning, reconnaissance data left in a home in Iraq, later proves to be roughly four years old and largely out of date. Number 10. Last Thursday, at 10 a.m. Eastern time, the President addresses the National Endowment for Democracy, once again emphasizing the importance of the war on terror, and insisting his government has broken up at least 10 terrorist plots since 9/11. At 3 p.m. Eastern time, five hours after the President's speech has begun, the Associated Press reports that Karl Rove will testify again to the CIA leak grand jury and that special prosecutor Fitzgerald has told Rove he cannot guarantee that he will not be indicted.