Strong beer, but spot on, again, as he is wont to be. This week Bush joined his Defense secretary in linking those who would question his policies with those who failed to corral the Nazis prior to World War II. This absurd and cynical ploy included an attempt to poison the very notion of “media” for his listeners — or, at least, those feebleminded enough to fall for it.

Crooks and Liars has both the video and the transcript of Olbermann’s response. I urge you to at least read what he has to say.

He begins:

It is to our deep national shame — and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret — that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies — or even question their effectiveness or execution — to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 — without ever actually saying so — the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.”

Make no mistake here — the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.”

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:

The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word — “media” — the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.