Yes, it was a remarkable show tonight. Yes, the closing commentary was beyond remarkable. It caused me to alternately cheer and to tear.

But there's something here that is even more important than this one show. More than that great closing speech.

Keith Olbermann - consistently, day in and day out - IS that good.

Quite some time ago, I posted here that I thought Olbermann was the prototype of the absolutely perfect network television news anchor for the current flavor of America's culture. As perfect for his time as was Murrow, he is little more, today, than a nostalgic look back in a modern black and white movie. A man right for his time, but not for ours.

Walter Cronkite was the right man for his time. Aptly hailed as 'The Most Trusted Man in America' he was all of that and more. Today ... a beloved grandfather figure to some of us and the answer to a crossword puzzle clue for others.

We had the Jennings and the Brokaws and the Rathers. All were of their time, but not necessarily perfect for the times, each being always in the shadows of their predecessors - Chancellor and Huntley and Brinkley and Smith and others.

Today we have fill-ins and Williams. Soon to be Couric. Lightweights.

Olbermann is exactly what the smartest news organization on the planet needs to have in order to, in fact, *be* the smartest news organization on the planet.

We have a nation of uninvolved and uninformed citizens. Olbermann could penetrate that crowd with his perfect soupcon of hard news, humor, self deprecation, righteous anger, and derisiveness. His show both informs completely and entertains gently. He not only gets an audience, he holds them. He draws them in. He *compels* you to watch. To pay attention. And, in the process, to be well and truly informed.

If a network wanted to bring their nightly news show to preeminence in the ratings, to make tons of money, and to be informative to boot, they need only hire Olbermann.

There was Murrow.

There was Cronkite.

And now there's Olbermann. Perfectly perfect for *this* time in America's culture.

No. I do not think that's over the top.

We now return you to your cheering and adulation already in progress!

May I join you?

(edit to spell the poor man's name right.)