simply recapping the news of the day in a "5-4-3-2-1" format as the title suggested. Countdown began to attract liberal and progressive viewers in 2005 when Olbermann began critiquing and satirizing conservative media commentators, specifically Fox News and its main primetime anchor Bill O'Reilly. He criticized Fox and O'Reilly for purportedly deceiving their viewers in service to their alleged right-wing biases, frequently including the latter in Countdown "Worst Person in the World" segment. O'Reilly, while not directly mentioning Olbermann, launched an online petition implicitly asking MSNBC to fire him, and, in conjunction with a call-in campaign organized by Mike Stark, threatened Stark for mentioning Olbermann by name after phoning in to O'Reilly's radio show. O'Reilly and other Fox personalities accused MSNBC of facilitating a liberal media bias, in what Olbermann described as a war of attrition intended to force him into silence. In 2006, Olbermann started delivering occasional "Special Comments" in which he has expressed sharp criticisms of members of the George W. Bush administration, including then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush. While further Special Comments were directed at members of the Republican Party, Olbermann occasionally targeted Democrats as well. Issues addressed in the Special Comments dealt with the Bush Administration's foreign and domestic policies, mainly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the Special Comments spoke out against the passage of Proposition 8 in California on November 4, 2008, for which he was awarded the 2009 GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding TV Journalism Segment". Olbermann's Special Comments were compared to Edward R. Murrow's signature essays. On two occasions, guest hosts for Countdown proved popular enough to be given their own MSNBC shows, contributing to a widespread perception of MSNBC being a left-leaning network. In 2008, Air America Radio personality Rachel Maddow hosted Countdown in Olbermann's absence, leading to the debut of her own program, The Rachel Maddow Show. In 2009, left-wing political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell hosted Countdown for an extended period, leading to the eventual launch of his show The Last Word. Subsequent guest hosts included progressive radio hosts Cenk Uygur and Sam Seder, Obama biographer Richard Wolffe, journalist Chris Hayes, and DNC chairman Howard Dean. Hiatus and first cancellation On October 28, 2010, five days before the 2010 U.S. elections, Olbermann donated $2,400 each to three Democratic candidates for Congress: Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Democratic Representatives