It is pretty darn astounding that with all of the insistence from the White House that Fox News Channel is “not a real news network,” their preferred channel, MSNBC, did not have live coverage at 10 p.m. Eastern on ELECTION NIGHT. They reran Olbermann’s 8 p.m. coverage, which was, of course, two hours out of date.

No, really, when you stop covering the news, people can legitimately say you’re not a news network. That has nothing to do with percieved bias or ideology (although we can speculate as to why Olbermann disappeared from the 10 p.m. coverage, where he was previously expected); it’s because you’re not actually bringing any new information to viewers.

UPDATE: Mediaite reports that Olbermann “was visiting his dad in the hospital, which accounted for his absence.” That explains why he wasn’t there, but not why the network reverted to rerun programming on an Election Night. New York’s 23rd District was still being counted, and New Jersey had just been called!