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Last night was the first night that the TV commentators really had a chance to respond in full to Wanda Sykes’ jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

And, both surprisingly and not, Keith Olbermann took Wanda to task a little bit for her comments that she wanted Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys to fail. Surprisingly, because Limbaugh is one of Olbermann’s mortal enemies. Not, because Olbermann is so principled.

As I watched and listened to all of the commentary on Sykes’ Limbaugh/911/drug/kidney bit, no one dug as deeply into the joke as I wanted. Personally, I think that section of her performance was her most most nuanced, subtle, and sophisticated.

With the “kidney fails” bit, Sykes wasn’t just tossing off an “I hope he dies” throwaway line — she was inoculating herself against criticism of the Rush Limbaugh jokes and pointing to his own hypocrisy.

Keep reading and watch video of Olbermann’s complaint, after the jump.

Here’s what I mean:

Wanda was brilliant throughout her performance. Her words and delivery were perfectly measured and poured. Was she really going to have a throwaway line about wanting Rush to die?

I don’t think so.

Instead, I think, after making a decent argument that Rush is a kind of domestic terrorist for hoping that Obama’s economic policies fail and, by extension, hoping that America’s fail, Wanda skewered Limbaugh’s attempted defense against that statement.

Remember when he tried to explain his anti-Obama comments away by saying, “I didn’t say I wanted America to fail — I said I wanted his policies to fail.”

This is the exact same structure that Wanda used at the Dinner. Imagine someone asking her why she said she wanted Limbaugh to die. Her answer would probably be something like, “I didn’t say I wanted him to die — I said I wanted his kidneys to fail.”

But we all know what she meant. And we all know what Rush meant.

So, if it’s true for Wanda words, then it’s true for Rush’s. By saying she wanted Rush’s kidneys to fail, she was pointing to the hypocritical logic that would need to be employed to attack her but defend Rush.

To my thinking, it was a battle of wit and words, and Wanda won.