Olbermann: Rush, Robertson's lives not worth 'lowest' of Haiti's victims

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann pulled no punches in criticizing Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson over their eyebrow-raising comments in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, now estimated to have taken the lives of "hundreds of thousands" of people.

"Even the worst of us in this political mosh pit of the early 21st century can stop on occasion in grief and human sympathy and mourning, or just in self-preservation," Olbermann said on Countdown Wednesday night. "Not Rush Limbaugh, and not Pat Robertson."

Olbermann took Limbaugh to task for the radio host's comment earlier Wednesday that the Obama administration would benefit politically from the disaster in Haiti because they would "use this to burnish their ... credibility with the black community, in ... the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them."

But Olbermann saved his most scathing comments for Pat Robertson, the televangelist who said on Wednesday that Haiti's suffering was the result of a "deal with the devil" that Haitian rebels made when fighting French colonial rule.

Olbermann referred to Robertson as "mister," rather than "reverend," because "it is laughable now to try to call him reverend.

"Sir, because of your tone-deafness and your delight in human misery and your dripping, self-satisfied, holier-than-thou senile crap, I'm likelier to believe now that you are the devil," Olbermann told Robertson.

The prime-time news host ended his segment with this:

"Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. You serve no good, you serve no God. You inspire only stupidity and hatred, and I would wish you to hell. But knowing how empty your souls must be for you to be able to say such things in a time of such pain, I suspect the vacant, purposeless lives you both live now are hell enough already."

The following video was broadcast on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Wed. Jan. 13, 2009, and uploaded to YouTube by user FixedNewsAlerts.