Keith Olbermann: Also, Lindbergh Has Just Landed In Paris

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/8/778706/-Also,-Lindbergh-Has-Just-Landed-In-Paris-(Updated)

An update on this: to clarify something I obviously didn't previously, I'm not talking about letting up on criticism of Lonesome Rhodes' work here. I am talking about calling off the Baker Street Irregulars - while reserving the right to reactivate them. Trust me, I'm going after him tonight on the tweet to his masses that precipitated this, the "find out everything you can" about three Obama appointees.

Also David Carr has updated his post.

I very much like Carr and his work in The New York Times, but I couldn't have been more surprised by his post on the subject of Beckian info-gathering had I read something about "Cell Phone Service May Start In U.S. Next Year."

What might Mr. Olbermann do if someone digs up dirt on his intended targets, who, like him, work in the infotainment industry and have been elected by no one? Once the game of oppo research on the press begins, it’s hard to tell where it might stop, no?

Ummm... the marching band is in the runway and the game is, at minimum, in the late second quarter.

In 2006 or 2007, Glenn Beck responded to something I said about him by going on his HLN show and ranting about me. He described how I write my show, how my research copy is delivered to me, and how the technical issues of handling and ordering questions are handled in my script. This came from a staffer or ex-staffer, directly or otherwise.

NewsCorp has been playing this game since I left its employ in 2001 mostly in Page Six of the New York Post (and 90% of what was printed hasn't even been true). The Post once printed my then street address, sent somebody over to terrify my neighbors, and mocked the fact that I (and Letterman, and Sumner Redstone, and others) had received fake anthrax, and that the police had ordered me to go to the hospital to make sure it was fake anthrax. Later the Post staked out my home, so a goober of theirs could shout insults at me about three-figure tax disagreements I'd had with the state of California seven years previously (which had been resolved five years previously). It has written about everything from my relative sexual prowess to my agent's disgust with my commentary after Peter Jennings' death (only it wasn't my agent their tipster overheard; she was 3,000 miles away from the place of the supposed overhearing - so the Post changed the locale and the speaker since it inconveniently disproved the story).

And this just scratches the surface. The stuff I've been threatened with would take an hour to recite. Happily, I am surprisingly dull and law-abiding, and the threats were usually hilariously wrong and would have enabled lead-pipe-cinch lawsuits.

But this is called "Opposition Research." It's here. It's now.

While Mr. Beck may be serving as a proxy for the party of opposition, his targets are members of the administration, a rugged game to be sure, but not one that attempts to investigate journalists and commentators for having contrary opinions.

In the '40s, Drew Pearson used to close his radio broadcasts by noting how many times his rival Walter Winchell had mentioned himself in his radio broadcasts.

Yet, all of this does raise an issue. Just because Fox and Beck have done this, do I want to? Do I want to, even for a moment, be Glenn Beck? I mean, I am risking at least three things he doesn't have: the respect of my peers, self-respect, and a conscience.

Your thoughts are solicited. Space provided below. Stay in school and listen to your parents ("This just in: GOP and many school districts tell kids: don't stay in school and don't listen to your parents!"). And thanks to all who responded to Sunday's post here.

links
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/keith-olbermann-calls-for-oppo-research-on-glenn-beck-others-at-fox/
Keith Olbermann Calls for Oppo Research on Glenn Beck, Others at Fox