Ouch.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann devoted 20 minutes of his “Countdown” program Wednesday evening to an all-out attack on the Tea Party and its candidates.

“It is,” he said, “as if a group of moderately talented performers has walked on stage at a comedy club on Improv night. Each hears a shout from the audience, consisting of a bizarre but just barely plausible fear or hatred or neurosis or prejudice.”

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“And the entertainment of the evening is for each to take their thin, absurd premise, and build upon it a campaign for governor or congressman or senator,” the MSNBC host continued. “The problem is, of course, when it turns out there is no audience shouting out gags, just a cabal of corporations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and political insider bloodsuckers like Karl Rove and Dick Armey and the Chicken Little Chorus of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.”

Olbermann also attacked numerous candidates by name:

The Tea-Party-and-Republican-candidate for New Jersey’s 3rd House seat, Jon Runyan, defended corporate tax loopholes: “Loopholes are there for a reason. They are to avoid people from really having to pay too many taxes.” The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate for the Senate in West Virginia, John Raese, explained, “I made **my** money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that’s a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country.” The inheritance tax applies only to estates larger than $3.5 million. For the 99.8 percent of Americans not affected by the estate tax, there is the minimum wage, which Mr. Raese also wants abolished. Or there is Social Security. The Tea-Party-and-Republican-candidate in the Indiana 9th, Todd Young, says “Social Security, as so many of you know is a Ponzi scheme.” The Tea Party-and-Republican candidate in the Wisconsin 8th, Reid Ribble, disagrees. Social Security “is, in fact, a Ponzi scheme.”

MSNBC’s full transcript of Olbermann’s jeremiad is available here.

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