The true meaning of Keith Olbermann
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The true meaning of Keith Olbermann
First of all: A necessary disclosure that most long-time readers of Attytood already know, which is that more than three decades ago, I went to high school with Keith Olbermann; in fact he was the first editor, on our school newspaper, that I ever worked for (I'm about 10 days older than Olbermann, but he had skipped two grades ahead of me -- even his enemies have never said the guy isn't smart!). So we knew each other somewhat, way back when, and then about seven or eight years ago we became occasional email buddies; I've also been a guest on "Countdown" twice. So when I watched Olbermann on MSNBC, there's always been an element of "I knew him when" pride, and when people talked about his foibles like his mercurial disposition, I was never that outraged as some folks were, because it was pretty much just the same guy I remembered as a teenager...Keith being Keith.
Today, and at least for the near future, Keith being Keith means being unemployed. I was just as shocked as everyone else when I flicked on CNN Friday night and saw the large breaking news chyron that Olbermann was suddenly "out" after eight years at MSNBC in which he went from moderately known ex-sportscaster to icon of a new liberal media that might not have existed were it not for him. Both the supersized breaking news coverage on rival (and thus not so disinterested) CNN on Friday and the inevitable discussion panel yesterday on that network's "Reliable Sources" with Howard Kurtz occasionally touched on a "talking point" certain to drive progressives crazy -- which is that Olbermann has been the perfect left side of a mirror image with angry conservative Fox hosts like Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck.
Well, they all can be loud and take strong points of view, but otherwise the comparison is more than a tad ridiculous. Olbermann's list of worst transgressions would be headlined by an over-the-top rant about Sen. Scott Brown -- which he quickly apologized for! -- and violating a policy he said he didn't know existed by giving money to three Democratc candidates. Compare that to the unapologized-for sins of Beck -- telling viewers last summer of progressives to "shoot them in the head" or claiming that President Obama has "a deep-seated hatred of white people" -- or O'Reilly's frequent harangues against "Dr. Tiller the baby killer," who was later murdered by a right-wing zealot.
Beck's words have not only inspired death threats against an elderly female professor but actual gunmen like Pittsburgh's Richard Poplawski, who bought into the host's conspiracy theories before killing three cops. I challenge anyone to find an act of Olbermann-inspired violence or threats (and while you're searching, check out his record as host of "Countdown" in supporting charitable causes).
The irony here -- and it's a big one -- is that one of Olbermann's best contributions to our political dialogue was going after the bogus idea of false equivalency, that people on the left and the right are always equally bad in equal proportions while only centrists are the possessors of beauty and light and truth. Ironic because no one has been a bigger victim of false equivalency than Keith Olbermann himself.
But then, Olbermann's odyssey as a journalist has always been grossly misunderstood, not just by the right-wing haters but even by the media critics who are paid six-figure salaries to know more than they do. The naysayers have tried to portray him as a kind of "Manchurian candidate," a hard-core doctrinaire leftist who must have been some kind of community organizer in a past life if he didn't emerge directly from the Politburo. What balderdash! I can tell you certainly that in high school the only "left" that Olbermann cared about in high school was who was in left field for his beloved Yankees. Which may explain why he so focused on his future career...in SPORTScasting! He was just not a particularly political guy.
Which also explains the true meaning of Keith Olbermann. He became a hero to so many TV viewers (and saved MSNBC, which was really in its proverbial "last throes") in the mid-2000s because his journey was not that of a liberal ideologue but simply an American citizen who was appalled at the lies coming from the Bush White House and increasingly looked for ways to use his platform as a national journalist to relate something he came to see as not just a news story...but a threat to the Republic.
Olbermann alluded to this odyssey when he signed off MSNBC on Friday night:
The show gradually established its position as anti-establishment, from the stage craft of Mission Accomplished, to the exaggerated rescue of Jessica Lynch in Iraq, to the death of Pat Tillman, to Hurricane Katrina, to the nexus of politics and terror, to the first special comment.
It was a gradual thing, indeed. My clear sense as a regular viewer of "Countdown" during those mid-2000s years was that Olbermann's initial outrage was not that of a partisan but that of a journalist, that he was incensed that the government was lying over matters like the Lynch and Tillman cases. It was only several years into it that he realized that -- with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney ensconced in a second term and lingering talk that "real men go to Tehran" -- he needed to do more. And so was born 'the special comment" -- his first one coming in August 2006, rebutting a speech that then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had delivered to the American Legion.
Said Olbermann that night:
The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
People who try to define Olbermann's significance as "finally a liberal came along as a counterweight to Fox News Channel" totally don't get it. Olbermann started the 2000s not as a liberal but a guy who still wanted to be a sportscaster. Things changed because he registered his disbelief at things that so many other regular Americans also could not believe were happening -- that America has pre-emptively invaded another country on false pretenses, that a country founded on civil liberties was now promoting torture and indefinite detention, that the government was not capable of responding to the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. There was a time when so many citizens who saw these things and were appalled by them did not have any voice in the mainstream media -- until Olbermann spoke up.
And if you're thinking thet Olbermann's move to the left was a shrewd career calculation...it wasn't. Around the time that MSNBC was hiring Olbermann, it was also firing its top-rated host at the time, Phil Donahue, because at the tme the network thought liberal views like Donahue's were out of step with post-9/11 America. Again, I would ask you to contrast Olbermann with Beck, who went from pony-detailed pro-choice and anri-death-penalty libertarian in the 1990s to political conservatism because he was a failed "Morning Zoo" jock who emulated guys like Rush Limbaugh and Shaun Hannity who'd become multi-millionaires through their right-wing blather . Olbermann, in contrast, was not just copying but going well beyond a guy, Donahue, his bosses had just canned.
But people responded because after several years of Cheney and Bush, Olbermann was telling them they were not crazy, and they were not alone. Olbermann empowered others in the media to be more brash in reporting on the abuses of the Bush years, and eventually the pessimism of that era dissipated for a new emerging American majority that elected a more forward-thinking Congress, for a time anyway, and a more progressive (we can argue how progressive some other time) president in 2008.
As someone in the media who -- on a much, much smaller scale -- was also radicalized by the war in Iraq, the massive failure of our profession in exposing that war's faulty underpinnings, and other Bush-era outrages, I can also understand why -- leaving aside the role of personality conflicts and the looming arrival of MSNBC's Comcastic new management -- Olbermann might have felt that now was the time to go. What he inspired during Bush's presidency was nothing less than a revolution, and it's often hard to adjust when the romance of revolution fades. I doubt that covering the ups-and-downs and occasional broken promises of the Obama White House had the same thrill as exposing Obama's thoroughly corrupt predecessors.
Ironically, Olbermann's tenure at MSNBC may have really ended because of something very much like the thing that he rightfully ridiculed Bush for more than anything else, the words that he reminded his viewers about night after night after night.
Maybe he really left because of a Mission Accomplished.
Just want to thank all of you for the posts and comments. Hopefully the surely soon to be MSNBC obits by Willy of the Sarge and Madcow will be as entertaining and hilarious.— TomM
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
Will, perhaps you want to read what normal people think.
http://attytoodadjustment.blogspot.com/2011/01/worst-person-on-unemployment-special.html- msnbc the 28th rated cable network spike tv crushed them the carrot channel kills them thanks bill o— rysagr
- btw fox is fourth — rysagr
Hey Guys, there's a great class in rhetoric over at Delco! Let's all sign up together. I hear this really Cool instructor is teaching it!— Mr. Smith- it's always funny how the libs here have time to find the smallest things said months ago. i guess that's because all of us conservatives have jobs to go to and a life. in other words trolling for minutiea seems to be all consuming for the left wingers— rysagr
Wow, Will, I always notice two things about your excellent blog whenever I visit: 1) You typically do a great job wading through the massive deluge of right-wing media sludge that pollutes the daily dialogue and write some very cogent and spot-on commentary; and 2) You have--and I don't know why you attract them--a faithful gaggle of the most toxic, moronic, logically-challenged, and intellectually-mypoic right-wing trolls I've ever seen on a left-leaning blog.
You know what made Olbermann so special? Unlike so many feckless and effete liberal public intellectuals, he spoke with great confidence and fought back against all the loudmouthed, right-wing bullies on FOX News, which drove right-wing dingbats crazy, of course. Next to maybe John Stewart, Olbermann was the biggest thorn in the side of the right-wing noise machine. You always got the feeling that, in a real debate against those right-wing, loudmouthed bullies like Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, et al., Olbermann would wipe the floor with them. But those cowards would never agree to such a forum. Sure, he's mercurial, difficult, and full of himself, but he's also wildly brilliant and carries himself with a confidence I find lacking in far too many left-wing public intellectuals, pundits, and journos.
I'm sure Keith saw the writing on the wall with Comcast coming on board and extricated himself before it started to get seriously ugly with the new bosses. Whether he comes back or not doesn't matter: his success was an inspiration that liberal TV pundits aren't all feckless ninnies afraid to take the fight to the right-wing noise machine.— Mr_Cool- Mr. Koolaid: Is this the SLOTH posting under another name? Do you also live in mom's basement? Have you visited the real world lately?
— georgel - "Next to maybe John Stewart, Olbermann was the biggest thorn in the side of the right-wing noise machine." So, in other words he wasn't a balanced journalist, but rather a partisan mouthpiece. How special. Wanna know what made him so phony? His incessant b-tching about the wars, Patriot act, civli liberties, etc when Bush was in charge, followed by his silence when his team took the reins. He's a hack. — RG
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- If only Haldol didn't have such devastating side effects, poor old SBVT Contributor. Those delusions of yours must be quite a burden to bear without an effective treatment. I tip my hat to you. Do you still blame the fluoridated water supply? Or ZOG? I forget what "enemies" du jour you tin-foil hat types are fighting these days. — Mr_Cool
- " I forget what "enemies" du jour you tin-foil hat types are fighting these days." This coming from the person who just mentioned a lack of irony. Still fighting the good fight against those "right-wing, loudmouthed bullies"? — RG
- Not only do you have trouble with logic, you also don't seem to know the difference between sarcasm and irony. Swifty was being sarcastic, not ironic. — Mr_Cool
- Whats ironic is you calling anyone delusional or paranoid after your railing about "loudmouthed rightwing bullies", the "rightwing noise machine" or "uber-rich plutocrats". Its doubly ironic after you called bill, Archie w/o the irony. — RG
- Actually, irony probably isn't the best term. Lets just say you lack self awareness. — RG
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- Bill, you're like Archie Bunker without the irony, a metaphorical angry and tubby, middle-aged white man perched on a musty old recliner with your chili-dog-stained wife-beater T-shirt and a can of crappy beer, a useful idiot fighting the fight for a class of uber-rich plutocrats who wouldn't let you park their Beamers. I find it amusing how effectively the right-wing noise machine taps into the insecurity and anger of obtuse slobs like you and helps it fester into a complete irrational intellectual breakdown where all reason and logic are suspended and you slobs wildly thrash around like punk rockers in a mosh pit, trying your best to inflict maximum damage for no other reason than it almost--but not quite--eases some of your self-loathing and hatred. It's like nihilism for ninnies. Bravo! — Mr_Cool
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- Mr Cool, you use way too many words to say nothing of substance. All this rambling diatribe shows is your fantasy perception of a poster. Its faux intellectual posturing. You're not a psychiatrist, don't play one on blogs. — RG
- Whatever. You sure like to trip over yourself seek out my comments and argue with me. And badly, I might add. Seriously, you need to take some classes in rhetoric and logic. Notice I don't chase you down to point out the utterly fallacious reasoning you employ all over on here? You know why? I don't care. — Mr_Cool
- Did Coolio actually suggest someone "take some classes in rhetoric"? Five words may have never ever summarized an individual poster on Attytood as perfectly and succinctly as those five. Classes in rhetoric? That's priceless! — Mr. Smith
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- Bill, don't question Mr. Cool's "reasoning". — RG
- whatever valley girl speak wow — rysagr
- All your comments are filled with name calling and the same phrases repeated over and over again. I like to point out wanna be intellectuals who arm themselves with talking points from the media, ie eliminationist rhetoric. You think I didn't know that Krugma, Tomorrow et al had been using that buzzword before you tried that awful argument? What reasonings skills and logic did it take to imagine bill atkins clothes? — RG
- aren't you self rightous — rysagr
- Obvious that the bloviating right-wingers here are celebrating the temporary quieting of a powerful voice of truth, albeit an oftentimes strident one. For eight years, Olbermann assailed with truth these treacherous right wingers and their ill-conceived policies, foreign and domestic. For eight years, righty policies brought our nation to the verge of collapse. You righties are the same ilk that hang on every insane word from your idol, Glen Beck. Olbermann will be back soon, policing your treachery and deceit once again. Don’t breathe a sigh of relief!— musicmaven
Hamlet - I am trying to pay my debt but the software is fighting me. Maybe it thinks someone hijacked my password since I am writing nice things about Obama.— bird11- He did a nice job dying his hair. — Mr. Smith
- OK Here goes. First congrats to the Steelers - I was just glad we made a game of it after that horrible 1st half.
One thing that has struck me about President Obama from the time he made the national stage is that he is a tremendous father and husband. The man truly loves his family. That may not sound like much for the most powerful man in the world but since my side of the aisle likes to talk about "family values" I think we should acknowledge when someone shows those values who can serve as an example to the entire country. I would be shocked if he were ever unfaithful to Michelle, and while that may not sound like much with Obama's rockstar imagine in '08 I'm sure he had opportunity.
On a policy matter, I think Obama is doing a good to great job on the war on terror. Obama doesn't seem comfortable talking the talk but his handling of matters, without the so called "cowboy" speak of Bush, show he can walk the walk. I know many progressives/liberals feel that he has broken promises in regard to Gitmo, etc but I think Obama saw a much different picture once he was in the big chair and realized doing what was right was more important than those promises. I particular applaud his use of drones in areas the U.S. didn't venture into previously. I feel our enemies are plotting against us daily and Obama has kept them looking over their shoulders and it has helped to disrupt their planning.
And if I can say one more nice thing about Obama - the Obama Presidency will forever be remembered as the era that we ridded the airways of Keith Olbermann!
Peace out - please returning to the vitriol.— bird11 - Olberman is a hate filled troll. Being the highest rated on PMSDNC is no honor, considering the journalistic standards there. Maddow, Sgt. Schultz and ODonnell aren't much better. That network is low rated because the majority of the public doesn't really want to liten to their whinney twisted view of the world.Good riddance, he will not be missed by the general public.— georgel
- "A necessary disclosure that most long-time readers of Attytood already know, which is that more than three decades ago, I went to high school with Keith Olbermann;"...social archeologists will use this to confirm that the decline of US public education system was in full swing by the end of the 1960s.— 2ndNlong
This entry pretty much sums up why Will Bunch and the liberal left have lost all credibility. They are as guilty or more so of all the things they accuse others of being and they think people are too stupid to realize that. Will Bunch for this column you are the worst person in the world.- I think it is funny that people actually consider Will Bunch or Keith Olberman journalists. Last time I checked, neither actually accumalated facts prior to saying / printing their "political vitriloic rhetoric" that comes from them. I counted at least 3 inaccuracies in Mr. Bunch's article alone. To place blame on someone for the actions of others is non sense and seems to be a favorite of the left. Plain and simple with Olberman, Comcast was coming in and they actually have some integrity and could not have someone like him as an employee. For all of those who bash Fox News, I challenge you watch a full nights lineup and count the amount of liberals / democrats that are guests and compare that to the amount of conservatives on MSNBC and CNN combined. You actually get two points of view on Fox and allows the viewer the chance to make a choice on who has better views / ideas. Maybe that is why their ratings smoke the rest combined!!!!— phlfan
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- Will, just like your friend Keith, you (AGAIN) failed to do some actual research into some of your statements. Take this one "Compare that to the unapologized-for sins of Beck -- telling viewers last summer of progressives to "shoot them in the head" And then you link to (TA-DA!!) MediaMatter.org. REALLY? So your another "Cut-and-Paste" "Journalist" too? Here is a link you should really go to and READ, please!!!
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2011/01/21/sorry-liberals-glenn-beck-did-not-tell-viewers-shoot-people-head
Here is the quote, IN ITS ENTIRETY "But what the politicians don't understand, the ones who have co-opted these revolutionaries and brought them in the process, is they are dangerous. Why? Why? Well, because a lot of them have called for violent revolution in the past and they never distanced themselves from it…Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. Shoot me in the head before I stop talking about the Founders. Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government.
— KG071 - KG, if you are going to say "Here is the quote, IN ITS ENTIRETY" you might want to actually post the whole thing. Where is the part of the quote where Beck says "You're going to have to shoot them in the head" when talking about fellow Americans who he disagrees with? Did you accidentally leave that part out?
— one_eyed_jack - I would like to see Will respond to this comment. I am way too lazy to verify his quote being authentic, but if it is, Will (and others) need to acknowledge their mistake. [Holding my breath in 3... 2... 1... — phillyjeffsr
- KG071 ... Congrats, you have just done more research than Bunch, Olberman, and the majority of the posters in ths forum! You forgot to set the record straight about Francis Fox Pive however. Per Bunch, if it was in the NY Times it has to be true! If Bunch or the NYT would have researched his comments, he was talking about comments from late 2010 where she said that violence like that in Greece needs to be done by the unemployed in the US. Sounds like your normal old lady who bakes pies???? — phlfan
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Until Olbermann I had though the entire American news media had been taken over by yes men (owners, editors, not the journalists themselves, well, not most of them) who would shape the news anyway the Bush Administration wanted. Even when they knew their viewers and readers knew they were being lied to. It was as if they were all spitting in our collective face and saying, "What are you going to do about it, huh, punk?" Thanks Keith.— Hamlet- Comment removed.
- What does it say about a person that they have to lie about what someone said to score points (not)? You continue to earn your nick name, batty. — Hamlet
- I can't believe the number of Right Wing wingnuts who felt they had to respond to this article. Olbermann has been a point of sanity against the lies of the Bush administration. Even then, he was the Lone Ranger against the entire gang of regressive hacks at Faux News.— Critic46
- Olbermann, sanity?? LOL!!!! — OrangeSoda40
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- I vividly remember Keith and others on the left claiming that the war was about oil and profits, and they screamed at gas prices above $3.00 a gallon as being proof of the conspiracy of the oil mongers Buch/Cheney. Yes, the war is atrocious no matter how you look at it, but now gas is over $3.00 a gallon again, and not a word from the left about any conspiracy....hmmm, by the way, who is in the White House now?— STEPHEN1988
- I don't care what the wingnuts on this site say, Keith Olbermann WILL BE MISSED!— AHiredGun
- LMAO, O'Reilly has Democrat politicians on every day, left-wing commentators all day . . . he's been trying to get Obama on forever, now will finally get to interview him on Super Bowl Sunday . . . face it, Fox truly is Fair and Balanced . . . as much as you delusional liberals would like to deny, they are 100 times more balanced then MSNBC ever will be— cd456
- It's amazing how many former Hippies became neocons. You know how I can tell? The flashbacks and hallucinations. — Hamlet
- It's amazing how many former hippies become 9/11 Truthers. You know how I can tell? The flashbacks and hallucinations.
- Lacking imagination and lame, but at least your comment isn't a lie. It is your opinion that I'm a truther. — Hamlet
Now the real story , BUNCH dated Olbermann back in highschool, now that Keith is down on his luck, maybe he will coming crawling back to Bunch his old "FRIEND".- and how many left leaning guests does Fox have? They offer no counterpoint, and if they do, it's by some weak centrist like Colmes.— j$
Now we need a major television network that will go beyond Olbermann to attacks on capitalism itself. Not relevant? Over the past forty years, the percentage of America's wealth that is concentrated in the hands of the richest one tenth of one percent of the population has sky rocketed, while taxes on these most privileged Americans have dropped from over seventy percent to a mere thirty-eight percent. Beyond the numbers, we are talking about the shrinkage of the middle class, the rise of a plutocracy, and the arrival of a Second Gilded Age. Few Americans understand these facts, in part because such facts, constituting "class," are almost never discussed in public. This leaves a big opportunity for a smart and charismatic figure. Where is he or she?- He made Suzy Kolber cry.— Seegs
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- ===]]] These "chaos agents" are so convinced of the utter infallibility of their own views that they have no tolerance for anybody but themselves. They are the worst kind of "American".
— BooCocky [[[===
You know - it's really inspirational to see yet another "conservative" who's dedicated his/her life to eliminating vitriolic rhetoric. And this isn't just a recent life quest for "boococky." No. why read this comment from a full three weeks ago.
--snip--
While I agree that Philadelphia is an impoverished, trash-covered, and crime-infested excuse for a "city" that is barely worthy of the cash-for-gold and bullet proof glass Chinese takeout joints that dot its landscape, let alone a world-renowned collection of high-brow art, there is something satisfying in watching these smarmy losers in Lower Merion not get their way for a change.
--snip-
Oh, and Boococky's "concern" about vitriol extends even further back:
--snip--
Tue., 10/26/10 - 13:59 PM
I'm getting tired of all these people who claim to be "offended" by something a complete stranger says. Everybody's always "offended" by something. So what? Get over it. You're not always going to like everything you hear. That's life. Stop getting so worked up, or "offended" by words from strangers.
--snip--
Yes, indeed, just three months ago Boococky was saying "So, what?" with reference to offensive rhetoric.
Oh.
My.
Sides.
.— Talking point sleuth - Na, the true meaning of Keith is extremism is bad whether left wing or right wing. His opinions are just as extreme as anyone on Fox and he spun stories to support his political slant just as they do. His ego and his condescending attitude towards anyone with a different political view were his undoing. Hopefully this is just the beginning of MSNBC's house cleaning and they will dump all their political hacks and get back to being a legitimate news organization again.— Jangocat
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- Keith Olbermann averaged 1.2 million viers every night and was always close to O'Reiley with the 18-34 demo as O'Reiley appeals to the middle aged whites who can't think for themselves. By the way, I am a middle aged white who does not watch Oreiley.
The other important thing to remember: Comcast is about to buy out NBC and there is NO WAY that Obermann would have survied that relationship. Comcast will turn MSNBC into Fox #2 network within six months. The only voice on cable will then be the Becks and Hannities of the world. That will end any cable news stations I watch.— matty177 - To all the people saying that ratings determine relevance: does this mean that McDonald's, which serves billions and billions every year, has a tastier, fresher, more nutritious menu than a corner BYO? Really? Do you not see that intelligence, like taste, takes time to develop, and that a vast majority of right-leaning America is short on both?— Charlie Reed
- ///Do you not see that intelligence, like taste, takes time to develop, and that a vast majority of right-leaning America is short on both? ///
So right-wingers are both stupid and lack good taste. Got it.
Someone forward Charlie Reed the memo about toning down the rhetoric. - An adequate obituary for this point in his career. Let's hope he finds another forum for his voice, and soon!— Charlie Reed
- Wow, Will's man love gene is in overdrive. Overbite will be missed by the 1 million or so people who tuned in for his rants, while more people watch NCIS or Housewives of East Falls reruns on a nightly basis. He was a lightweight who had no relavance.— jimmymack
- this is delightful, i feel there was very little you could learn from Olbermann, Chris matthews is exponentially a more worthy news anchor.
here is the full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/business/media/24olbermann.html?_r=1&src=mv&ref=homepage— ryan08 
Repeat Visitor - You sir/madam are an idiot.— DaveCicc- How many conservative guests would Olbermann have on in a week? maybe 1-2, meanwhile O'Reilly has 3-4 on each night . . . Olbermann constantly attacks member of the political "right" based on little to no factual evidence . . . as evidenced through his Scott Brown rant . . . meanwhile O'Reilly may go over the top sometimes, but usually when someone is sidestepping his questioning, or if not, because he has a personal gripe that is backed up by facts . . . the two are like black and white . . . and Olbermann's entire show was basically hate-mongering, all he did was talk smack, but I guess in Mr. Bunch's eyes, it is okay to speak ill of "right-wingers"— cd456
- I see that comments are being censored . . . what happened to my first comment about comparing Olbermann to O'Reilly . . . Bunch, are you approving the comments yourself?— cd456
- LOL, Bunch - your book looks like a real winner "Already fretting over the U.S. Census Bureau prediction that by 2050 whites will no longer be in the majority in the U.S. and worried by the loss of jobs and home equity, a certain element of the white population has been unhinged by the election of the nation’s first black president, argues Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bunch. Thus, the Tea Party, Birthers, Oath Keepers, the 9.12 Project, and other right-wing radicals are on the rise, spurred by television and Internet hustlers, most prominently Glenn Beck." . . . race-baiter, typical liberal . . .— cd456
- Good riddance!— Dunsmore
- ===]]] Plain and simple, he was not relevant, [[[===
Which is why jmc feels compelled to comment about him, and to follow the his TV ratings closely. Because he was no relevant.— Talking point sleuth - Olberman was hard to watch. I continually gave him second chances but he never changed his schtick. He didn't want me to watch him. I am center right and he took every opportunity to smash mouth people like me. He was so paranoid that his WORSE people finale as well as his other rants were mostly focused on Fox. Why? He is gone. Goodbye. Maybe he will reappear at Pravda. You should join him Billy.— abnrgr
- I always enjoyed Keith Olberman's show. He was a breath of fresh air after all of the hate talk on Fox. I will miss him. But then I don't know that he ever shared the views of the owners of Comcast. Given the change in ownership, I move over to Parker Spitzer. I feel a little sorry for the Fox viewers. I'm sure the majority have problems with ulcers what with working up their next set of hatreds.— palmer1619
Every single Fox News show, O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Baier, Smith, and Van Sustern had better ratings that Olbermann. This has been going on for years, and he could never improve the situation. Plain and simple, he was not relevant, and certainly not deserving of the lengthy obituary posted here. He's just another failed liberal broadcaster, angry, humorless, condescending, venomous, and now unemployed.— jmc
You people in here crack me up. I always stop by, just to see how many people read Will Bunches garbage. And now I see you comment, and some of you actually listened to Keith Olbermann.- I love how you make it sound like your so smart that we make you laugh at having an opposing idea.How ignorant are you to think that only your one way of thinking is so superior to another that you would never even tune in to hear an opposing viewpoint. — j$
- He's a blowhard, Will.
He deserves credit for having the stones to take politically unpopular stances and for basically creating a voice in TV MSM outside of the middle of the road and rightwing voices such as CNN and Fox. But he is an insufferable blowhard.
Ultimately, it is good that he'll be gone, so he can be replaced by more respectable media figures on the left, such as Maddow and O'Donnell. Olbermann isn't a conspiracy-ranting lunatic, but if you have blowhards such as him, you only help justify the vitriol of O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, etc. The frightwingers will do what they will do anyway, but for those in the middle, folks like Olbermann provide justification for folks like Beck. People on the left don't need to lower themselves by imitating frightwingers.— Talking point sleuth - //Olbermann isn't a conspiracy-ranting lunatic, ///
Really? Olbermann built his (albeit small) audience last decade on two words: "Bush lied." Olbermann’s constant performance as the dysfunctional “Sherlock Holmes”, the man who alone appears to constantly unearth the criminal acts of the President is good for a few laughs but upon continual repetition places his credibility alongside the 911 truthers, and Code Pink.
He spent seven of Bush's 8 years constantly attacking the executive branch and outright accusing them of lying, power-grabbing, and profiting from war.
I'm A-OK with someone questioning the government and government's hidden agenda, but to imply that Olbermann is not a conspiracy theorist is way off base.
To me, Olbermann and Beck are two birds of a feather. - Comment removed.
- Too many exclamation points!— notojm
- Comment removed.
- No, he isn't stupid - just willfully ignorant or a purposeful liar. His arrogance will not be missed.— Mirror
- Comment removed.
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