(I apologize in advance for defiling this blog with Keith Olbermann-related content. But some things just have to be said.)

I stumbled across Keith Olbermann’s latest “special comment” today.

Trust me, it was accidental. As a matter of practice, I make it a point to avoid reading or listening to anything that is hyperpartisan, whether left or right. I don’t listen to Rush, I won’t watch Jon Stewart, I avoid Sean Hannity and—as you know from yesterday—I cannot stand Bill Maher.

So you can probably guess that I don’t catch much of Olbermann’s work.

But I have to admit that the headline of this article sucked me in: “Olbermann chastises McCain: Grow up! Senator is acting like a child, needs immediate attitude adjustment,” it read.

If you know anything about post-SportsCenter Keith Olbermann, who has become but a caricature of the popular TV personality he once was, you know I could just leave it right there.

First of all, regardless of one’s political disagreement with a candidate, it takes a special kind of arrogance for someone who’s never served in the Armed Forces—i.e., Olbermann—to take this sort of tone with someone who spent five and a half years being tortured in a POW camp.

But that Olbermann, he’s an overachiever. He’s turned his special brand of arrogance into twisted, grotesque art.

I thought about dissecting this “special comment,” as Olbermann so humbly calls his regular, vitriolic TV diatribe:

Thanks to the technical wizardry of oanow.com site coordinator John Walker, we have a new poll this morning!

Scroll down a bit and check out the poll between the calendar and the map. Of course, the subject is Barack Obama’s VP selection, the announcement of which now seems imminent.

Want to bone up on the candidates? Before casting your vote, check out CNN’s veepstakes rundown, which gives the pros and cons of both parties’ VP prospects.

So come on, readers: I know you’re out there! Get in the scrum! Let’s have some fun with this before reality ruins it for us. 

Drudge is all a-twitter about a report in the New York Times that Barack Obama has settled on his vice presidential choice and is readying his announcement, which could come within 30 or so hours of this posting.

According to those omnipotent, omnipresent, always-anonymous advisers, Obama just made the decision during his Hawaiian vacation last week—which means, if that’s true, he knew who his VP choice will be when he was sitting with Rick Warren at that huge forum on Saturday night.

The remarkable thing about this story is the story within the story: The Obama campaign is apparently going to great lengths—the NYT writers say the campaign is contriving an “elaborate rollout plan”—to properly stage the announcement.

We already know it will commence with a text message to millions of Obama’s closest and dearest supporters ... along with a bunch of nosy journalist-types like me who signed up to get the message just so we can see what everyone else is getting.

And from there, it’s all about the hype. The Obama campaign is using the press like a little toy to whip up enthusiasm and anticipation about the announcement—by talking about all the enthusiasm and anticipation about the announcement.

That’s what we call circular reasoning, folks.

Consider these comments from Obama’s anonymous advisers about the VP selection and announcement process: