By now most of you have seen this Keith Olbermann clip:

I include it here just in case you haven’t seen it or you wish to enjoy it again and again. Of course, a lot of people started saying how Olbermann reminds them of Edward R. Murrow.

He’d be one of my heroes. The man who said:

“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.” Which everyone on the intardweb should memorize and take to heart.

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

“We cannot make good news out of bad practice.”

“When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.”

“If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.”

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”

A little while ago, Clooney made a movie called Good Night, and Good Luck, named, of course, after Murrow’s famous sign off. It is a fantastic film and in it they reproduce, slightly cut (click here for a full transcript of the speech), Murrow’s speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association convention in ‘58. Here is the movie version of the speech:

Anyway. Is Olbermann the “new Murrow”? Not yet. Will he be? Time will tell. Certainly he has studied Murrow. His timing, delivery and cadence all attest to that. And hey, if you are going to pattern yourself after someone, there are far worse choices to make.