Keith Olbermann has an interesting piece in Salon about "taking responsibility", the gist of which is that Ann Coulter is at least partially responsible for 9/11, due to her incessant appearances several years ago on the cable news channels over Monica Lewinsky. Although I have taken a pretty hard-line approach to the writings and wisdom of Fraulein Goebbels in the past (see here and here), I can't buy the argument that 9/11 happened because the nation was distracted by ephemera, just as I couldn't agree with the far right's claim last year, that it was all Clinton's fault. By Olbermann's standard, Jon-Benet Ramsey, Elian Gonzalez, and Gary Condit (and the media whores who exploited those stories; damn you, Dominick Dunne !!) are responsible for 9/11 as well, since they also distracted a nation's attention from the pressing goal of confronting international terrorism (in any event, why blame Coulter, who never appeared on his MSNBC show; a more apt villain would be Christopher Hitchens, who was practically a regular during the Lewinsky scandal, and blasted Clinton's going after Bin Laden in September, 1998, as a phony, "wag the dog" threat used to distract the country).

What really bothers me about the Olbermann article, though, was his attack on Pete Rose for denying he bet on the Cincinnati Reds at the beginning of the piece, asserting "Rose is about to complete Year 13 of his nonstop insistence that he didn't do it -- bet on the baseball team he was managing -- even if he signed a document saying he did." O.K., my interest is piqued; when did Pete Rose sign a document admitting he bet on the Reds. Where is that document now, and why hasn't it been released to the public? As far as I know, the document Rose did sign with then-Commission Giamatti explicitly stated that there was no finding he bet on baseball games, much less an admission he bet on Reds games.