NP: John McLaughlin Trio, Live at Royal Festival Hall

Karen Tumulty at Time teases out an Ed Rendell quote from her article in the magazine:

"It's stunning. Does Keith Olbermann get checks from the Obama campaign?"

I'm a fan of both Olbermann and Obama, and sometimes I'm shocked at the degree to which Keith seems to be building Barack up and tearing Hillary down. Except that only a very superficial read of the situation. Obama has done a pretty good job of sticking to his "above the fray" vow, of moving away from the slash-and-burn politics of the past twenty years or more. Clinton hasn't. I think what we're seeing reflected in Olbermann's views is that dynamic more than support of one candidate over the other.

What may be happening here is that Olbermann has come around to certain aspects of politics and politicians that he is reflexively very critical of, and the Clinton campaign embodies far more of those aspects, so he's naturally going to unload more on them. It's also a very consistent response for the campaign to take that personally.

Or maybe I just think that Obama has run a more noble campaign because I support him and because I watch Keith. Chicken and egg.