Lawrence O'Donnell

{{pundits}}
'''Lawrence O'Donnell''' is a political analyst and television personality for [[MSNBC]].  His show, ''The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell'', which was started as a replacement for [[Keith Olbermann]]'s ''Countdown'' which was canceled with Olbermann's departure from the network, is primarily him complaining about [[Republicans]] and reaffirming his own beliefs with guests who agree with him on everything.

Just about all of his program is devoted to calling out [[bullshit]] spewed by [[politician]]s and other [[pundit]]s, often in the form of sentence-by-sentence breakdown analyses, in addition to highlighting key aspects of the day's events.  Unlike [[Bill O'Reilly|other]] [[Sean Hannity|political]] [[Neil Cavuto|corres]][[Ed Schultz|pond]][[The Five|ents]], he has absolutely no problem with criticizing [[Liberal|people he normally agrees with]].

O'Donnell is a former [[United States Senate]] aide, and was also a consulting writer for ''The West Wing'', appearing on the show as President Bartlett's less-than-liberal father. He tends to take small acting gigs from time to time,<ref>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0640713/</ref> and his acting resume includes appearances on ''Big Love'' and ''Monk''. He acted as himself in ''Homeland''.

==On socialism==
O'Donnell identifies as a "[[Social democracy|practical European socialist]]." In what seems to be an [[Holy Grail|endless quest]] for him, he devotes copious amounts of airtime trying to take the [[snarl word|snarl]] out of the word "[[socialist]]."  He explained on his show<ref>25 May 2011</ref> that all [[American]]s are socialists in that they benefit from publicly-funded, government-controlled [[Public education|schools]], hospitals, [[US Armed Forces|military]] and [[prison]]s, and that these socialist enterprises do not detract from freedom. 

He has stated that he is "not a progressive. I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the extreme left of you mere liberals, okay?"<ref>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/06/lawrence-odonnell-calls-h_n_779909.html</ref>  A bit of a head-scratcher since most of his screenwriting was politically moderate.

===Taxes===
He also appears to be on a quest against [[Extremism|superlatives]].  In one instance, in response to [[Bill O'Reilly]]'s claim that an anti-wealthy [[tax]]-hike proposal by [[Democrats]] (which, in reality, was simply a proposal to return taxes on millionaires to the levels they were during the prosperous [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] administration) would be so much to make him quit doing his show,<ref>Oh, what a tragedy that would be!</ref> he noted that O'Reilly started doing his show during a period of higher taxes and that the show only provided some of his total income (O'Reilly earns a substantial amount of money from speaking fees and selling 
[[propaganda]]
 books).  The actual tax increase from 35% to 39.6% for O'Reilly on his [[Fox News]] income alone would be a drop in the bucket, particularly since only earnings above a certain threshold are subject to that higher tax rate (see [[progressive taxation]]).

==See also==
*[[Keith Olbermann]]
*[[MSNBC]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:O'Donnell, Lawrence}}
[[Category:Political pundits]]
[[Category:Left-wing activists]]
[[Category:Media]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Social democrats]]

Categories: Political pundits, Left-wing activists, Media, Living people, Social democrats