"And also here, we have institutionalized the terrorizing of the opposition. True domestic terror. Critics of your administration in the media, sir, receive letters filled with fake Anthrax. Braying newspapers, sir, applaud or laugh and reveal details the FBI asked to have kept quiet, and thus impede or ruin the investigation. A series of reactionary columnists, sir, encourage treason charges against a newspaper that published supposed 'national security information' that was openly available on the Internet. One radio critic receives a letter threatening the revelation of as much personal information about her as can be obtained and expressing the hope that someone will then shoot her with an AK-47 machine gun. And finally, a critic of the incumbent Republican Senator, a critic armed with nothing but words, is attacked by the Senator's supporters and thrown to the floor in full view of television cameras as if someone really did want to re-enact the intent, and the rage, of the day Preston Brooks found Senator Charles Sumner.
"Of course, Mr. President, you did none of these things. You instructed no one to mail the fake Anthrax, nor undermine the FBI's case, nor call for the execution of the editors of the New York Times, nor threaten to assassinate Stephanie Miller, nor beat up a man yelling at Senator George Allen, nor have the First Lady knife Michael J. Fox, nor tell John McCain to lie about John Kerry. No, you did not, sir. And the genius of the thing is the same as in King Henry's rhetorical question about Archbishop Thomas Becket: 'Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?' All you have to do, sir, is hand out enough new canes. I'm Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck."