MSNBC and Sarah Palin: A Love Story

There's one thing very nice about watching Keith Olbermann in podcast format: the little timer that pops up at the bottom of the screen. It would have been a real hassle to time his story on the Sarah Palin-David Letterman feud had I watched it on cable. Thanks to iTunes, I can tell you that he covered that tempest in a teapot for a full 14 minutes on Friday (June 12)...the lead story, mind you.

What on earth is going on at Countdown? After relying on this program to deliver the kind of news and commentary that I needed to hear for the last several years, the show is being turned into a three-ring circus, and a rather abusive one at that. It's happening at a time when the country is in very big trouble, with serious problems facing the President and Congress which MSNBC helped to elect. Why are 14 minutes of precious airtime being devoted to slamming Sara Palin?

I haven't heard one word on Countdown (or on Rachel Maddow's show for that matter) on the biggest, hottest issue under debate in Congress at the moment: healthcare reform. The pressure being put on Congress to refrain from making needed changes to our failing healthcare system is going completely un-noticed. Why isn't Olbermann's razor-sharp tongue lashing out against the vested interests that are fighting healthcare reform tooth and nail?

Oh, wait a minute...that's right. One of those vested interests, General Electric, signs Keith Olbermann's paycheck. Among its many businesses, GE markets ultra-high-ticket medical imaging systems like MRIs and Computerized Tomography. These systems, while surely miraculous in their capabilities, are being grossly oversold to hospitals and imaging practices. In order to pay for all this cool stuff, the owners need to do lots of imaging. Doctors are encouraged to order imaging studies whether patients really need them or not. Thus all this sophisticated gadetry becomes a big contributor to soaring healthcare costs.

If healthcare reform is to be successful, some sort of brakes will have to be put on the acquisition of these behemoth imaging systems. GE ain't gonna like that. Surely Keith and Rachel can't say anything nice about healthcare reform, so better they say nothing at all.

GE also provides high-ticket items for the oil and gas industry and credit services to businesses and consumers. I guess MSNBC won't be covering those hot issues any time soon, either.

Wow, despite all the verbal abuse they fling at her, MSNBC must really love Sarah Palin.