The fact that Lawrence O'Donnell has an ego the size of Montana, that he is often insufferably self-aggrandizing and has an obnoxious tendency to talk over his guests is hardly a secret to those of us who watch his MSNBC show "The Last Word" with any regularity.
However, as annoying as he can be, most of the time I'm willing to give him a pass because he's smart, he understands Congress better than just about anyone else and he created and wrote one of my favorite television shows of all time, The West Wing. But even if you give him a pass, there's only so much a person can take before you find yourself wishing you were in close proximity to Mr. O'Donnell with a taser in your hand.
This usually takes place during "The Last Word" part of "The Last Word". I'm not sure how long this segment actually lasts, but once he revs up and gets going, it feels like hours. In case you've missed it "The Last Word" segment is dedicated to any recent occurance or event that happens to spark O'Donnell's compassion (these can be quite nice), his interest (again, not so bad) or his outrage (kill me now).
What makes his outrage "last words" so hard to take, is not the subject, about which I often agree with him, but his pathalogical need to make sure that everyone who is watching understands that he was the first to identify the outrage (this part is usually accompanied by video excerpts from previous shows demonstrating his prescience), the first to report consistently on the outrage (also accompanied by video excerpts), and finally, the only one able to say "I told you so!" now that everyone else has caught on to the outrage (this is accompanied with a self-satisfied look of gleeful triumph).
Last night's show was a perfect example of O'Donnell in full outrage mode. There is no question that he was the first media person to say from the beginning that there was no scandal in the IRS scandal. He very clearly and coherently made the case that the IRS agents who questioned the Tea Party groups about their tax-free status were only doing their job as the law dictates. So far, so good.
However, as the rest of the media continued to buy into the Republican attempt to link the scandal that didn't exist to the White House, O'Donnell became justifiably indignant. Night after night, he would attack Darrell Issa (no problem with that), attack the ignorant press (again, on the same page) and then prove his point by smugly recapping the same talking points that he had recapped every night since the story began (big problem with this). As his outrage grew, it became apparent that he wasn't just mad at the media for getting it wrong, he was mad at them for refusing to listen to him so they could get it right.
It all came to a head yesterday morning when the online magazine, Salon, published an article titled "How The Media Outrageously Blew the IRS Scandal: a Full Accounting". When O'Donnell read it, he saw red. Not only had Salon lumped MSNBC in with the rest of the media, ignoring that Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell had all reported that the scandal was phony, Salon had also left out the important fact that O'Donnell was the only one who reported that the scandal was phony literally every night since it began. Needless to say, the s^*t hit the fan.
Last night's "Last Word" was dedicated to ripping Salon a new anatomical opening. This was not a full accounting, O'Donnell raged, it was just more evidence of an incompetent media hell-bent on screwing up. Of course to prove his point, we were treated to the obligatory recap, accompanying videos, and trademark self-satisfied look of gleeful triumph at the end of a tirade that stretched on forever. The fact that he was right didn't make me wish I had a tranquilizer dart any less.