Countdown

I don't know what I would do without Keith Olbermann on TV every night. He's been on Cheney and torture all week and always shows the proper outrage when the laws and traditions of our democratic republic are breached by the powerful and ignorant. When I was in college I was a faithful reader of I.F. Stone's Weekly, a brilliant newsletter and commentary written and published--at his own expense--by the great journalist Izzy Stone. Year after year Stone demolished the Viet Nam policy of Johnson, MacNamara, Rostow, and all the rest. He was a shaft of sunlight in a very dark time. I wonder how many Americans read Izzy Stone in the 1960's and remember him today. A remnant of us do, and if Keith Olbermann can continue to stand up to the powerful and ignorant forces of today he may well brighten his time just as Izzy Stone did his.