One Angry Man-Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?

[babylonsister]

One Angry Man
Is Keith Olbermann changing TV news?
by Peter J. Boyer June 23, 2008


Olbermann reveres Murrow, but Murrow never called a President “Idiot-in-Chief.’’



It was nearly midnight before Keith Olbermann left the NBC News election studio on May 13th, having spent five hours on the air, co-anchoring coverage of the West Virginia Democratic primary. Olbermann had a short ride home from Rockefeller Plaza to his condominium on the Upper East Side, and he was in bed by 2 A.M. But he lay wide awake, overcome by an urge to get up and move about. He has been given a diagnosis of Wittmaack-Ekbom’s syndrome, also known as “restless-legs syndrome” (and also “the kicks,” “Jimmy legs,” and “jitters”), a neurological disorder that produces a prickling, itching, or crawling feeling in the legs, profoundly disturbing sleep. Reclining exacerbates the condition, so Olbermann got out of bed, took a pill for the ailment, and, while waiting for the drug to kick in, scrolled through his BlackBerry, scanning recent messages. One arrested his attention. It was a link to the Web site Politico, which featured an interview conducted that day with President Bush. Olbermann was struck by two questions from the interview, and by Bush’s answers to them:


Q: Mr. President, turning to the biggest issue of all, Iraq. Various people and various candidates talk about pulling out next year. If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what’s the worst that could happen, what’s the doomsday scenario?
BUSH: Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States. The biggest issue we face is—it’s bigger than Iraq—it’s this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives. Iraq just happens to be a part of this global war. . . .
Q: Mr. President, you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?
BUSH: Yes, it really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as—to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.

Olbermann suddenly had another sensation, unrelated to neurology—a feeling, he later recalled, that was “like being hit by lightning.” He sat down at his computer and began to write. After an hour, he had the first draft of a lacerating indictment of Bush, a twelve-minute-long (eighteen pages in teleprompter script) j ’accuse, addressed personally to the President.

“Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created includes ‘cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives’?” Olbermann wrote. “They are those in—or formerly in—your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes.”

lots more...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/23/080623fa_fact_boyer?currentPage=all

[90-percent]

1. Keith ROCKS

Keith ROCKS!

That is all.

-90% Jimmy

[LaurenG]

2. Kicked and Rec'ed

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[bluerum]

3. Great story from the New Yorker - thanks for posting.

[fasttense]

4. What is it with the corporate media and their fear of angry liberals?

I mean Rush Limpball is all hate spewing angry, O'Lielly has his uppity rants and hate seems to be just under the surface of most of Fox Noise's broadcasters. So what's the big deal with angry Liberals? Why are right wing wackos so afraid to see the likes of themselves reflected in Liberals?

Could it be a guilty conscious? Right wing wackos really have no excuse for being angry. They created every political problem confronting us today. So their anger is just show, just a fake facade to direct the simmering anger from the vast Middle Class American population. If the Liberals start doing it, then the Liberals (having a real cause for being angry) will be the come to guys for the angry Middle Class.

We need more angry liberals.

[90-percent]

5. Regrets

I regret that I have BUT one rec to give for this post for my hero keith!

-90% Jimmy

[givemebackmycountry]

6. Number 5 rec - off to the greatest page where this belongs...

That's right...

[rox63]

7. For those who insist that Olbermann was biased against Hillary in the Dem primary

A snippet of the article: "Olbermann says that he began the campaign season determined to remain neutral on the Democratic race, although he was plainly friendly with the Clintons. (During an interview with Bill Clinton in 2006, Olbermann handed the former President a personal donation to the Clinton Foundation.)"

[Captain Hilts]

11. Then why'd he say someone should go in a room with her and beat her up?

[Berry Cool]

13. He didn't say that.

He asked if someone didn't need to "go into a room with her and only one of them come out." That doesn't mean "beat her up" and you know it. First of all, he meant it metaphorically, and second of all, he was talking about someone needing to have a private conference with her about whether or not it was wise for her to go on. In those kinds of private conferences, it's often the "someone" who comes out and the person who has been talked to who stays inside, dealing emotionally with what they've been told.

I am sick of seeing people plug this idea that Olbermann is into the abuse of women as an excuse to hate him. This is a man who testified on behalf of many women who filed sexual harassment charges at ESPN against his colleagues, and now he's suddenly the worst misogynist in the world? Please.

[Captain Hilts]

15. And, why would "only one" come out of such an encounter?

The leftover machismo of the sports world...

[Berry Cool]

17. Because the other one is feeling a bit emotionally devastated?

Please. You're barking up the wrong tree entirely. No one coming from the sports world has a lower degree of "machismo" than Keith. If he were talking to your face, he'd admit it.

[babylonsister]

21. Because the other one is still inside licking their wounds?

You're reading way more into that comment than is there, but that's not surprising.

[skooooo]

8. Murrow never called a President “Idiot-in-Chief.

Murrow never saw the likes of GWB either.

[Faygo Kid]

9. Agreed. Murrow's heyday saw FDR, Truman and Ike.

Say what you will, none of those three were "idiots." Which doesn't even begin to describe the excrement that is George W. Bush.

[Berry Cool]

19. Bingo.

I like to think that if you could reassemble the ashes of the cremated Murrow, they would rise as one and tell GWB to "shut the fuck up."

[psychmommy]

10. i am a nightly watcher.

i was pleased to find out my mom was watching too. she used to watch cnn. i would come over and being the brat that i am would turn to msnbc. now i come over or call and we talk about politics all of the time. she even asked for an obama shirt. my mom is young 75 yr old who is on top of her game.
see olbie even bridges the generations.

[roguevalley]

22. your mom is a doll. hug her for me.

[Botany]

12. Snort!

Why did Olbermann need to end his commentary by telling the President of the United States to “shut the hell up”?

“Because I can’t say, ‘Shut the fuck up,’ that’s why, frankly,” Olbermann responded. The line stayed in.

[Berry Cool]

14. This article was not written by a particularly friendly journalist.

It's obvious where his sympathies lie--he thinks Olbermann is a biased crackpot who's going to cause more misery than joy for NBC.

Phil Griffin's quote toward the end was also unfortunate: “It was, like, you meet a guy and you fall in love with him, and he’s funny and he’s clever and he’s witty, and he’s all these great things. And then you commit yourself to him, and he turns out to be a jerk and difficult and brutal. And that is how the Hillary viewers see him. It’s true. But I do think they’re going to come back. There’s nowhere else to go.”

Wow, way to make them sound like abused women going back to their batterers, Phil! Way to support Keith, by calling him "a jerk and difficult and brutal." Maybe you're only talking about how the Hillary fans see him, but you're buying into the vision of women saying "Keith's a misogynistic battering man, but I have no place else to go, so I have to continue being abused." That's not how I see it at all.

Funny thing is, this article confirms what I thought all along--that KO tried not to be biased at all when he began covering the primaries, and was not really all that impressed with Obama as a strong candidate, but as he began winning states, he began to be impressed (even though this article doesn't admit quite that much) and he began to become impatient with Hillary for running a bad campaign and not seeing the writing on the wall.

[Berry Cool]

16. There's also a misleading inaccuracy in the article.

It says:

Olbermann’s central place at MSNBC is nowhere more evident than in the network’s extensive political coverage. One on-air promotional ad extolled MSNBC as “The Place for Politics”: it showed a full-screen image of Olbermann, followed by smaller images of such NBC News figures as Russert, Williams, Mitchell, and Tom Brokaw, who were presented in groups of four. The ad reflected the decision, made in 2006 by NBC News managers, to install Olbermann as co-anchor of MSNBC’s election coverage, along with Chris Matthews, the host of “Hardball.”

True, that's how ONE of these ads looks. But there's another ad with a quote and a full-screen image of Williams, with everyone else (including KO) in groups of four--and one with Brokaw--and one with Tweety--and there was one with Russert too, which I assume they are no longer using (and I believe they've already removed him from the "groups of four" on the others they still run). There are several versions of the ad, and not all of them put KO front and center.

[babylonsister]

20. What's inaccurate about that? The writer says, "...One on-air

promotional ad..." That's accurate.

[Doctor_J]

18. SInce Countdown is the only 4 hrs during the week where wingers don't dominate the screen

I would say the answer to the title question is a resounding no

[roguevalley]

23. I feel for him having restless leg syndrome. that is a living hell. My

mother had it so badly, she would twitch when she laid down. Imagine yourself with bugs crawling under your skin and making you jump. that is restless legs syndrome.

[27inCali]

24. Keith gave us all hope in those dark days

just after Kerry's defeat.

[pnwmom]

25. What will KO do with all that anger when the Democrats are in charge?

Who will he target then for all the Worst Person awards?

[babylonsister]

27. Democrats if they're deserving, and I'm sure some will be. And

there will always be rethug thorns in our sides to contend with.

[rebel with a cause]

28. O'Reily....that's who.

Runner ups will be democrats and republicans, because there will still be congress and other politicans in office. There are corporations with CEOs and the list goes on. Just because the dems will be in charge does not mean all will be roses and sunshine.;)

[Lugnut]

32. This is just my opinion but....

I suspect he'll be working to keep them honest as he should be.

[Phred42]

26. He's Not an Angry man - He just gets PISSED OFF from time to time

there's a difference.

KO is the man.

[Starfury]

29. These days, I'm more concerned about anyone who DOESN'T get pissed off!

[Phred42]

30. Point

[Prophet 451]

31. Lord bless Keith

Keith's not perfect by any means; he's blustery, often pompous and probably thinks a bit too much of himself but the fact remains that he is an island in a sea of dross. He's the only outright liberal in this kind of high-profile position (Colbert and Stewert are satirists so they don't count and Maher is a libertarian). He gives us some kind of voice, however imperfect, in the mainstream media.

Plus, I have to love a guy who's main hobby is pissing off Bill O'Lielly.

[Cha]

33. Murrow was never reporting on

bush, either. KO is as startling with the facts as fauxnoise is with they're Democratic smears.

[RNdaSilva]

34. Bill O'Reilly...

tells the sheep what to think. Sad that many lacking even a modicum of gray matter betwixt the ears falls for his spoken diarrhea. There is only one correct side to every argument...Bill O'Reilly's.

Keith Olbermann tells you what he thinks but is willing to hear both sides of an argument, i.e., witness the Hillary interviews et al.

My main problem with Olbermann, I often feel that I've written his script for him...agree about 95% of the time.

Years ago I used to say; "What scares me most about Pat Buchanan is the fact that I find myself agreeing with him about 10% of the time." O'Reilly? Difficult to suffer through, e.g., blacklisted. Sean Hannity? Never!