Last night Olbermann brought on Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss issues with regard to Nevada, and the Obama’s whole “I loveReagan” crap.

What he was unaware of was the fact that Lawrence O’Donnell wrote a truly stupid article on HuffPo a few days earlier titled “John Edwards is a Loser.

His thesis was that John Edwards should get out of the race, because he was in Obama’s way, and because Obama was black, it was borderline racist for him to run against him and strengthen Hillary.

The article was stupid for the following reasons:

• It was a patronizing and quite frankly RACIST calculus, as if Obama cannot campaign for himself.
• It’s dead wrong. Every poll on the issue has shown that Edwards takes more from Hillary than from Obama

Well, a number of folks (not me) took the time to drop a line (hopefully a polite one) on Olbermann, and he responded on Daily Kos about 18 hours later.

He did the unthinkable, he apologized, and he says that he will be addressing it tonight.

Lawrence O’Donnell Hotlist
by Keith Olbermann [Subscribe]
Fri Jan 18, 2008 at 02:00:01 PM EST

Forgive the fairly minor focus here but I spot at least three diaries on his appearance on Countdown last night to discuss Obama, Reagan, and Edwards.

Those of you complaining about it are right.

His HuffPo piece was news to me.

Shouldn’t have been, obviously, but it was.

I don’t read every blog, nor everything written by my guests. I often don’t know until an hour beforehand who will be a guest on a given show (if it matters to you, these scheduling nightmares tend to come in waves for some reason, and last night was a Nor’easter). Also, to announce, on-air, each guest’s preferences, prejudices, shillings and shiv jobs, would reduce the rest of the show to “Good Evening. Call Me Ishmael. My Boat Sank. The End. Good Night.” And Lawrence O’Donnell’s insight is almost always perceptive, relevant, and enlightened.

But even with these caveats, the point about this appearance, especially in the wake of such a freshly-written piece, is well-taken and I’m very sorry.

It will be addressed tonight on the show.

Thanks.