One for the history books

A big h/t to Stageleft. Keith Olbermann's masterful speech (not, in my view, a "rant" at all, not that I have anything against a good rant) is something I hope might appear in a movie fifty years hence about the struggle for America's soul--word for word, all ten+ minutes of it. It would be a challenging role. This is pure, genuine, hurt outrage from an obviously patriotic American steeped in the narrative of his country, reacting viscerally and yet in measured fashion to the latest sleazy move by the morally bankrupt Bush administration. The echoes of Emile Zola are a little self-conscious, but amply justified: from Olbermann we hear, once again, a piercing cry for justice.

Ma protestation enflammée n'est que le cri de mon âme, Zola said, concluding his 4,000-word indictment of the corrupt and venal system that convicted and imprisoned the innocent Captain Alfred Dreyfus. And Olbermann's spirit cries out with like passion when another corrupt and venal system permits a guilty man--a disgrace to the public office he held--to walk free because his President has set both himself and his willing stooge above the law.