Why Keith Olbermann was #1on my list

I'm astounded and grateful for the positive response to the Brilliant 20 of 2006 list. Some of you thought Howard Dean should have been #1; one person even thought little "Action" Jackson Jones should have been (and his story is now available here).

But last night Keith Olbermann once again showed why he deserved to be #1 -- because no one else is as able to get to the Heart of Darkness that is the Bush Administration, and smack us right in the face with it:

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?

Would you at least protest?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

[snip]

If the BBC is right — and we can only pray it is not — he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for “sacrifice.”

Sacrifice!

More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked.

More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended.

More American families will have to bear the unbearable and rationalize the unforgivable —“sacrifice” — sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever.

And more Americans — more even than the two-thirds who already believe we need fewer troops in Iraq, not more — will have to conclude the president does not have any idea what he’s doing — and that other Americans will have to die for that reason.

(Video at Crooks and Liars.)