Friday, March 02, 2007

Bryan will write about this later, I’m sure, but let me tell you: I was eating dinner when Charles sent me the link to his post, and when I saw the picture I literally dropped the fork and scrambled to the phone to call MM’s husband. My hands were still shaking 15 minutes later. I know some people will read that and think I’m exaggerating to claim the mantle of victimhood on her behalf, but I swear to you I’m not. Nor did I freak out because Stark’s a Lefty! and we can’t have Lefties! that close to Michelle. I freaked out because this guy has a history of being physically aggressive to get close to conservatives he doesn’t like, as you’ll see by clicking through the series. Numbers 1 through 8, especially. Which culminated, of course, in this. Like I said to Charles, if some right-wing nut with a habit of pulling belligerent ambush stunts smiled his way into a shoulder-to-shoulder “fan” photo with Jane Hamsher or Jeralyn Merritt or some other lefty woman blogger, the nutroots would go nuclear. And I wouldn’t blame them a bit.

On Tuesday night, Keith Olbermann speculated about what may have motivated a California man, reported to be an acolyte of conservative pundits such as Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, to allegedly send threatening letters to personalities including the MSNBC host himself.

39-year-old Chad Castagana was arrested on Saturday, accused of sending more than a dozen envelopes containing "fake anthrax" to anti-war celebrities, journalists, and politicians.

"Castagana has also been identified as a gushing online admirer of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham," Olbermann said. "And the Web site RAW STORY reports that many bloggers believe he is also a contributor, under a different name, to the conservative Web site Free Republic."

Users at the liberal websites Democratic Underground and Daily Kos brought to light the similarities between Castagana's Internet footprint and Costanzo's writings at Free Republic, and RAW STORY unearthed a series of eyebrow-raising connections between the two men, as reported on Monday.

[...]

"While the NBC Nightly News had earlier run a story by correspondent Lisa Myers describing Murtha's involvement in the ABSCAM scandal, even showing a secretly recorded video of Murtha speaking with an undercover FBI informant about potential bribery, Olbermann only vaguely referred to a Washington Post article citing 'Democratic concerns over Murtha's alleged ethics issues,' as the Countdown host provided no details on the scandal," Brad Wilmouth wrote for Newsbusters. "But Olbermann spent almost seven minutes discussing conservative bloggers and domestic terrorism."

In an open letter to Olbermann posted at its Web site, Olbermann Watch vows "We will not be intimidated."

"While we are generally amused by your megalomania, you have lurched into dangerous territory in your attempt to link Castagana to 'right-wing blogs' thus tarring all bloggers that do not agree with your world view as advocating, condoning or turning a blind-eye to terroristic 'pranks' like those alleged of Castagana," the site's editor Robert Cox writes.

There is no disguising the fact that we have been extremely unhappy with the recent decision of NBC Universal to not only retain Keith Olbermann for four more years but to elevate him in an unprecedented fashion. We had held out hope that MSNBC would allow Olbermann's contract to expire even up until the last few weeks. But the deal is done and our Countdown Clock expired at midnight on March 1, 2007.

Given this, we have come to the conclusion that we have done more harm than good over the past 2+ years in keeping Olbermann in the public eye at a time when few were watching his show and even less cared about his assault on the journalistic standards we hold dear. So, after careful consideration and consultation with the entire staff, we have decided the time has come to retire OlbermannWatch.com.

It's been a great run. We certainly had a lot of fun running the site but it's just been increasingly difficult to maintain our enthusiasm as Olbermann's ratings have increased and a compliant media has done everything to boost Olbermann and his show.

We wish all of you the best over the next four, painful years.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Cox
Managing Editor
OlbermannWatch.com