A long time ago, long before I was born, back when the world was black and white and red all over, there was a man who spoke so eloquently, so wisely and so bravely that he righted the course of a nation that had lost its way. His words, spoken from a comfortable chair behind a small wooden desk on which sat little more than a microphone and an ash tray, defanged a rabid wolf and made history. Edward R. Murrow was a patriot without equal; a believer in freedom and democracy; an American hero.

Murrow died before I learned who he was or why he was special. If George Clooney hadn't made a movie about him, most people who weren't alive in the 50s wouldn't have the slightest idea who he was. They don't make men like Murrow anymore.

These days, if you take the time to form an eloquent opinion, you've already lost the argument. It doesn't matter what anyone says anymore; all that matters is that you use the right code words. Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican: if the person speaking has a label that doesn't match your own, you can safely ignore his words. They're probably all lies anyway, right?

Keith Olbermann is one of the few people alive today who both has a voice and is worth listening to. Not because he fits all the right labels or because he yells at people until they give in, but because he's got an amazing talent for turning coherent thoughts into words, putting them on a piece of paper, and then reading them on TV. It's such a simple concept you'd think more people would be doing it, but for some reason it's more precious than gold these days.

The bitch of it is that, in the end, he'll probably just get lost in the noise. TV only had three channels in Murrow's day.