‘Countdown’ has bizarre way of showing full screen quotes

This has been bugging me for a few days now. “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” has been using the traditional TV news concept of showing quotes in a full screen graphic but overlays the text over video of a person rather than using an animated background with mug shot.

To me, it just looks odd. I actually thought it was a mistake at first, but it’s kept popping up on the show, so I guess it’s supposed to be that way.

In the sample shown here, all you can see of John McCain his the top of his balding head. Now, Countdown does play a few seconds of the video without the text overlay so it isn’t totally impossible to tell who the person is, but again, it just like an awkward design.