I'm so grateful to him, because he's helping to bring America back to me. I haven't been able to fully mourn September 11, 2001 — because by September 14, 2001, it was turned into a Bush/Cheney commercial. That was the day that I took my flag off my house in Shaker Heights, Ohio, because I heard what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said: that tolerance for gays and abortion brought the terrorist attacks upon us. And nobody repudiated them. I figured that if they weren't contradicted, that wasn't an America I wanted to promote or believe in.

Ever since that day, one of the worst days in my country's history has been a recruitment poster for the Republican Party — a party that has, in the last five years, called me, my husband, and everybody I care about, un-American. How can I possibly describe how devastating that's been — particularly when the media have gone along and endorsed the Bush point of view? There was nobody — NOBODY — speaking for me.

My reaction? Get the hell out of here. And so, two years ago, my husband and I bought property in Montreal, Quebec.

Quebec — the bluest state in North America. A place settled by French Catholics, and now so comfortably secular that anyone can feel at home there. We are gladly leaving. We'll retire to a place that understands us better than the Bush nightmare America has become.

But then, commentaries like Olbermann's pull me back — make me think that the United States, at least the United States that existed in the mind of Edward R. Murrow, is still possible. Is it?

Or is it just an illusion — a rejuvenating hope, born from an ingenious system of government that the Founders devised over 200 years ago, that our best instincts could somehow take shape and govern us in a civilized manner? Is it just a dream that springs from an irrational faith — that no matter how tightly the boundaries of democracy and the separation of powers are stretched, they somehow will always snap back?

I don't know the answer to that, yet. But in the meantime, five years after one of the momentous days America has experienced, I'm left to find hope in the commentary of a former sportscaster who is staking out a lonely place on cable TV.

How sad.

First Jon Stewart, who is sooo dreamy and still holds a special place in your heart.

Then Stephen Colbert, the bad boy, came along and caught your eye. You couldn't resist him.

Now Keith Olbermann rides in on his sensible, low emmissions motorcycle, and you're all in a tizzy!

Puppy love is so cute.

K.O. is WONDERFUL. Finally, someone with the articulate ability and fortitude to speak back to this embarrassment of a president. This president who took office in an embarrassing scandal of missing votes, misread votes, etc. This president who was somehow saved by the lack of support from an uninspired and dumbfounded nation by the sudden and horrific events of 9-11. This president who either cannot preside successfully because he doesn't know how, or who is unwilling, doing only the minimum required by his VP and cronies to amass more money out of oil-producing countries where they are already entrenched. Now I hear him on the television prattling the same old useless message - be afraid...be very afraid, iknowing full well that when America wakes up and stops being afraid, it will realize it doesn't need George Bush for anything. When will everyone wake up?

K.O. gives me hope that I might watch the news again and hear something besides the organized lies and mistruths and propaganda and spin that this administration's party put out over the airwaves to insulate this president.

K.O. I salute you, I thank you, and I hope your network supports you! If they don't, it will be the last time I watch anything on MSNBC. Thank you.

Liberals and progressives are not looking for someone to hand out talking points, or arguing for our side. All we want is that the media do its job: report on what is happening in an open and transparent way. Olbermann is not perfect, but he beats the heck out of his competition at that.

The reporters he gets, Dana Milbank, Richard Wolfe (sp?) and so on, are free to say what they think they are seeing, and to ignore the spin they are tossed. That is enough.

Anyway, Michael Musto is probably right about Suri.

We need someone blowing hard from our point of the compass. If using big, strong words and compound sentences to shout out the emperor's state of nakedness will convince some of the two-digit population (those with IQ's under a hundred) that no, George Bush is NOT the savior of this country and YES we'd better wake up and do something while we're still the United States of America and not the Fractured States of Fear -- if all that is being a blowhard, then have at it, Mr. Olbermann.

I think my exercise was completely valid in context, Mr. Floodgate. In today's media, please name me more mythical figures than Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O'Reilly? By choosing a side, you are not only putting your politics on display, but giving us a window into your soul. Not to mention helping me with my thesis: “KaPow: How the Archetypes of the Sequential Art and Adolescent Power Fantasies Are Influencing Your Media.” In this context, Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O’Reilly are not merely media figures, not merely men, they are two modern gods battling it out in the skies.

I will confess, however, I am unfamiliar with the Red Herring. Was he Marvel or DC?

I think my exercise was completely valid in context, Mr. Floodgate. In today's media, please name me more mythical figures than Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O'Reilly? By choosing a side, you are not only putting your politics on display, but giving us a window into your soul. Not to mention helping me with my thesis: “KaPow: How the Archetypes of the Sequential Art and Adolescent Power Fantasies Are Influencing Your Media.” In this context, Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O’Reilly are not merely media figures, not merely men, they are two modern gods battling it out in the skies. I will confess, however, I am unfamiliar with the Red Herring. Was he Marvel or DC?