The architect of said problem, sex columnist Dan Savage, was on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" last night to take a victory lap of his own, and explained how SpreadingSantorum.com might have hurt the conservative candidate at the caucuses:

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Mayor Quan, as Keith Olbermann pointed out on his program last night, has devoted herself to progressive causes throughout her career -- oftentimes putting her at odds with police. However, she was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the protests, and wound up downplaying the severity of the crackdown for lack of information, a misstep that has her at the receiving end of an Olbermann screed.

Mayor Quan is left with two choices. She can dismiss the acting police chief, Howard Jordan, and use her mayoral powers to authorize Occupy Oakland to protest again without harassment. Or, having betrayed everything she supported and all those who have supported her, she must resign.

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This is organic, it is genuine, it is amassing more and more support by the day. It has touched a nerve, and I think this could really begin to say to the Obama administration, "Hey, you don't understand what we, the public, are saying to you." He has been so flat on this issue -- Wall Street and the economy -- maybe this will finally push the president to speak with a new, more aggressive, dynamic voice.

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Appearing on "Countdown" Monday, Lizza told Keith Olbermann that he witnessed Bachmann "being a politician" as he joined her on her campaign launch.

The Minnesota Republican, he explained, made her name in state politics touting social conservatism, notably a staunch opposition to gay marriage. Lizza noted that Bachmann is now under the guidance of a highly professional campaign team, steering her away from such talking points.

She now cuts off interviews when gay marriage is brought up, according to Lizza, because she understands that "there's no percentage in talking about this issue in this race." (Republicans who share Bachmann's stance on gay rights are, for the most part, already in her corner.)

Lizza emphasized, however, that Bachmann's "transition" to focusing on mainstream issues is simply politically expedient. "I don't think we should confuse that with a change in philosophy, a change in who she is," he told Olbermann.

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However, new evidence is emerging to the contrary, largely in anecdotal form. As Truthout reported this week, a number of stories have come out about forced water choking and other uses of water for torture at sites including Gitmo.

Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill discussed the issue with Keith Olbermann Thursday. He recalled an incident he had investigated (which would not be classified as waterboarding) of a former Guantanamo detainee having a high pressure water hose fixed up a nostril. Water would be forced up his head until suffocation.

Scahill noted President Obama's "extremely poor record" at holding people accountable for torturous acts and expressed concern that little has changed at Guantanamo.

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He told "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann that we need an "American Spring" like the Arab Spring, with our own version of Tahrir Square, to reinvigorate political activism in America. However, Gore made clear with a number of qualifications that he was not calling for revolution. Rather than advocating taking to the streets, he seemed to be calling for more Americans to get online to make their political views heard -- a far cry from the revolutionary activity in the Arab world.

Gore also emphasized that he does not see the Tea Party as an example of grassroots political activism, largely because the movement has the support of billionaires like the Koch brothers pushing agendas in Washington.

Watch the "Countdown" clip below:

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Speaking with Democratic strategist and syndicated columnist Karl Frisch, Keith Olbermann on Tuesday asked what was behind Beck's comment: "Is this ignorance? Is he obtuse? Is he insane?"

Frisch noted that the youth camp -- organized by Norway's ruling Labor party -- where Anders Behring Breivik murdered 68 people actually seemed more reminiscent of the YMCA camps scattered around America.

Olbermann went on to criticize Bill O'Reilly's troubling analysis that Breivik -- a self-identifying Christian -- could not really be a Christian because Christians do not commit acts of terror (the preserve, in some conservative eyes, of Muslims).

"There is no logic. You will never hear the words 'respected theologian' and 'Bill O'Reilly' in any other sentence than the one I just said," Frisch noted.

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Dean said that in the "technical parlance" of scandals "we're in a phase two... A real scandal," but that it is still early days. And Dean knows a thing or two about high profile scandal; the FBI once referred to him as the "master manipulator of the [Watergate] cover up" (for which he spent four months in jail and aided the prosecution in exchange for a reduced sentence).

Watch Dean and Olbermann discuss Murdoch's fate as well as actor Jude Law's options in a civil suit in the United States against News International for phone hacking and the FBI investigation into 9/11 families having reportedly been hacked, via Current TV:

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[Gay marriage] won't destroy the democracy; it doesn't destroy the family; it strengthens the institution of marriage and its principal premise of fidelity; and it increases the number of people living in stable and loving homes. ... This is, corny as it seems, not about politics or religion or power or lobbying. It is about love. In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is already yours. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want: a chance to be a little less alone in the world. And your acceptance of their love turns out to be your own expression of love to your fellow human beings.

 Watch the full clip here:

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I always respected Olbermann when he was at MSNBC because he was both philosophically consistent and a flat-out terrific writer, dismantling Republican gasbaggery and Democratic gutlessness in a torrent of lawyerly rhetoric. And his breathless monologues were remarkable. Impassioned, smart, constructed from "Deadwood"-dense run-on sentences, and often combatively sure of their correctness, they read, and played, less like 21st century political screeds than some relic of 1950s radio that happened to have video attached. Olbermann was hugely influenced by Edward R. Murrow, to the point where you could accuse him of broadcast news karaoke. But so what? Who besides Jon Stewart is really even bothering to carry on in the Murrow tradition and be both pugnacious and literate? I mean, of the five or six liberals who are even permitted to have a talk show on a major cable network, and to actually be unabashedly, leftishly liberal, rather than faintly to the left of Fox News?

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There are obstacles. Olbermann doesn't have MSNBC's analysts and contributors. His contributor list is sort of absurd (Donald Sutherland!). But he's better at television than anyone left at his old network -- better at television than anyone this side of Letterman and Shep Smith -- and, freed from the strictures of pleasing timid NBC executives, his new show could be an insane trip into his unfiltered ego, or the only genuinely independent liberal voice on television. Or it could be a very watchable combination of the two.

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Watch the interview here: