Olbermann's anti-Bush statements have caused his popularity to soar.

"As a critic of the administration, I will be damned if you can get away with calling me the equivalent of a Nazi appeaser," Olbermann told The Associated Press. "No one has the right to say that about any free-speaking American in this country."

Since that first commentary, Olbermann's nightly audience has increased 69 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research. This past Monday 834,000 people tuned in, virtually double his season average and more than CNN competitors Paula Zahn and Nancy Grace.

Cable kingpin and Olbermann nemesis Bill O'Reilly (two million viewers that night) stands in his way.

Olbermann stood before Ground Zero on Sept. 11 and said Bush's conduct before the Iraq war was an impeachable offense. "Not once, in now five years, has this president ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space and to this, the current and curdled version of our beloved country," he said.

His latest verbal attack, this past Thursday, criticized the president's campaign attacks on Democrats.

"Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?" he asked.
Olbermann has become a hero to Bush opponents, who distribute video files and transcripts of his commentaries. One poster on the Daily Kos who's been trying to spread his own four-year boycott of cable news wondered: "Is it time to modify the boycott to allow for Keith's show 'Countdown' - and only his show?"

Keith has shown himself to be one of those special people who are willing to stand up and confront powerful individuals and groups that are doing horrible things due to the fact that the majority of Americans are intimidated by them.

If Keith had been in Nazi Germany he would have most likely been sent to prison, if he had been around during the 1940's "Red Scare" he would surely have been labeled a communist by Joseph McCarthy, and if he had been on the air during Watergate you can bet he would have made Nixon's enemies list with a bullet.

And we need him now, just as much as intelligent, courgeous people were needed during those historic black periods. Keith is our Edward R. Murrow. He is our voice. He is our conscience. And he is hopefully going to inspire even more journalists to finally confront the treasonous behavior of this White House and this President, and make them answer the questions that they have been dodging for six long years.

With Keith, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the unstoppable Bill Maher on our side, perhaps we really do have a chance of getting our country back from the evil people who have stolen it from us. (Yes "stolen", that 2000 election was a travesty.)