Keith Olbermann — Is it live, or is it Memorex?: We watch, because we’re paid to

During the “Tweet of the Day” segment, Olbermann read a tweet from comedian Eddie Izzard, who just “discovered Keith Olbermann exists.” (Go back, Eddie! Pretend it never happened! It’s not too late for you!) He also recommended his Twitter followers watch “Countdown.” Keith bragged, “How about that!” Yes, it’s remarkable, one celebrity sucking up to another on Twitter. What’s really remarkable is for a nationally broadcast “news” host to spend valuable airtime reading mash notes on air.

As Howard Fineman might put it, “Sure, you catch more flies with honey, but in this neck of the woods, it’s beating a dead horse, so why not just let sleeping dogs lie.”

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1: In Tuesday’s show, Olbermann named Sarah Palin the runner-up Worst Person in the World for making a minor typo in a Tweet, which is just exactly what Edward R. Murrow would have done.

Well, “Keith Olbermann, Factchecker to the Stars” continued tonight, with Olbermann — still obsessed with Beck’s August 28 rally — accusing Beck of “lying” about going to the National Archives and holding a copy of George Washington’s first inaugural address. Olbermann called up the National Archives and was told that not just anyone can hold these documents. It sounds like pretty small beans, but a starving man won’t turn those down.

Sure enough, the next day, Beck admitted it! Mediaite reported that on his radio show, he dug deep and admitted to claiming he held the address, when in fact he only held it in front of him. Or something. Here’s how he put it: “Yesterday I went to the National Archives, and they opened up the vault, and they put on their gloves and then they put it on a tray. They wheeled it over and it’s all in this hard plastic and you’re sitting down at a table. … They have it in this plastic thing and they hold them right in front of you. You can’t touch them, but then you can say ‘can you turn it over,’ and then they turn it over for you and then you look at it.”

Without Keith Olbermann, crusader for justice, we would never have known this. Keep fighting the good fight, sir.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2: When there’s not enough for Olbermann to get mad about, there’s one foolproof source to count on: President Bush. Tonight brought a rambling (even for Keith) rant about Bush, the press, the war, and some other stuff. Again I suspected a rerun, but a slow motion replay indicated this was in fact a brand-new show. It was 8 minutes long, but it felt like 16. I suppose that’s one way to get yourself some extra air time, although if we start to measure Keith’s ratings by *perceived* hours on the air, I’m not sure he’s going to like the results. But at least it would give him something new to get mad about.