Olbermann, Impartiality and MSNBC

[Commentary] MSNBC, worried that its reputation as a fair broker of the news hung in the balance, sent Keith Olbermann to the woodshed for an unpaid suspension because he had donated $7,200 to some of the Democratic politicians he had championed on his hit show "Countdown." Golly, that ought to take care of everything.

If MSNBC were really worried about coming off as impartial, don't you think it would have chosen somebody besides Mr. Olbermann, one of the most rabidly partisan figures in national news, to anchor its election coverage? Even Fox News knows better than to do something like that. MSNBC is new to the network-as-political-identity game, and its parent company, NBC, is far less comfortable with pure play political programming than the News Corporation -- and it shows. So what message is being sent by the suspension, which will end on Tuesday? Apparently, Mr. Olbermann is supposed to fire up the base like a convention keynote speaker at 8 p.m., but conduct himself like Brian Williams the rest of the time.