Jon: Olbermann did not make the same claim as Rachel Maddow. He said that he has criticized the Obama administration more in a week than Fox News did in 8 years of the Bush administration — this may still be an exaggerated claim but is different from Rachel Maddow’s claim. Not that criticism or how much you do it is or can be a measure of how fair you are.

You’re right. That’s true, but the rhetorical purpose is the same, I think.

You cannot apply different standards to evaluating the statements. If you are trying to infer the rhetorical purpose of the specific statement that Keith Olbermann made, then you cannot at the same time truth-squad the literal wording of their statements.

You would then have to evaluate whether, for all practical purposes, Fox’s criticism of the Bush administration is practically non-existent, and for that, 10 or 15 news reports over the period of 8 years would cease to be sufficient evidence against the claim.