Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann is one of the political commentators on MSNBC, he comes before Rachel Maddow and he is really good. Here is a sampling of his views.

Viewpoints
Although it began as a traditional newscast, Countdown With Keith Olbermann has adopted an opinion-oriented format. Much of the program has featured harsh criticism of prominent Republicans and rightward leaning figures, including those working for or supporting the George W. Bush Administration, 2008 Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain, [22] and rival news commentator Bill O'Reilly, whom Olbermann routinely dubs the "Worst Person In The World."[2]

In January 2007 The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote that Olbermann was "position[ing] his program as an increasingly liberal alternative to The O'Reilly Factor."[23] The media watchdog group Media Research Center (MRC) compiled a list of the recipients of Olbermann's "World's Worst" for about a year from its beginning on June 30, 2005, and reported that, of the approximately 600 recipients, 174 (29 percent) of those fit their definition of “conservative” people or ideas while only 23 (6 percent) were what they considered “liberal.”[24] During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries Olbermann frequently chastised presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton for her campaign tactics against her principal opponent, Senator Barack Obama, asserting at one point that Senator Clinton was campaigning "as if [she] were the Republican" in the contest (see Criticism of the Hillary Clinton campaign below). Olbermann has also posted on the liberal blog Daily Kos.[25]

In a Countdown interview with Al Franken on October 25, 2005, Olbermann noted that in 2003, after having Janeane Garofalo and Franken on his show, a vice president of MSNBC had questioned him on inviting "liberals" on consecutive nights, contrasting that occurrence to the apparent ideological latitude he enjoyed at the time of the second Franken interview.[26]

In November 2007, conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph placed Keith Olbermann at #67 on their Top 100 list of most influential US liberals. It said that he uses his MSNBC show to promote "an increasingly strident liberal agenda." It added that he would be "a force on the Left for some time to come."[27] Investigative journalist Robert Parry has characterized Olbermann as being on the "left side of the scale."[28]

Olbermann has refused to pigeonhole himself politically, once telling the on-line magazine Salon.com, "I'm not a liberal, I'm an American."[29]


[edit] Criticism of the Bush administration
In Olbermann's "Special Comment" segment on July 3, 2007, he called President George W. Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence the "last straw," and called for the resignation of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Olbermann said:

We enveloped our President in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship. And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.[30]

On his February 14, 2008 "Special Comments" segment, Olbermann castigated Bush for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it provided full immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies. Olbermann stated,

Mr. Bush, you say that our ability to track terrorist threats will be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger, yet you have weakened that ability, you have subjected us, your citizens, to that greater danger. This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough even for you to understand. For the moment, at least, thanks to some true patriots in the House, and to your own stubbornness, you have tabled telecom immunity, and the FISA act. You. By your own terms and your definitions, you have just sided with the terrorists. You got to have this law, or we‘re all going to die. But, practically speaking, you vetoed this law.[31]

During the same commentary, Olbermann stated: "If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it. There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend. You‘re a fascist—get them to print you a T-shirt with 'fascist' on it. What else is this but fascism?".[31]

In a special comment on May 14, 2008, Olbermann took Bush to task for announcing that he had stopped playing golf in honor of American soldiers who died in the Iraq war. Stating that Bush never should have started the war in the first place and accusing him of dishonesty and war crimes, Olbermann snapped,

It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game! And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20 will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heartfelt thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice . . . when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead. This advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up!

Asked by MSNBC senior vice-president Phil Griffin if it was really necessary to tell the President of the United States to "shut the hell up," Olbermann replied that it was, because he couldn't say "fuck" on television.[32]


[edit] Criticism of Hillary Clinton campaign
On March 12, 2008, Olbermann used his "Special Comment" on Countdown to condemn what he characterized as Senator Clinton's "tepid response" to Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro's controversial remarks that Barack Obama would not be where he is if he were white or a woman, and pled with Senator Clinton to "take back the reins of the campaign from whoever has led you to this precipice".[33]

On May 23, 2008, Olbermann made Senator Clinton the subject of a "Special Comment" due to a remark that she made on the same day. He criticized the senator's reference to Robert F. Kennedy's June 5, 1968 assassination which she made as part of a rationale for continuing her second place presidential campaign. [34]


[edit] Feud with Bill O'Reilly
Since beginning Countdown's "Worst Person in the World" segment in July 2005, Olbermann has repeatedly awarded Bill O'Reilly, host of the The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel, the dubious honor. The feud between the anchors originated with Olbermann's extensive coverage of a 2004 sexual harassment suit brought against O'Reilly by former Fox News Channel producer Andrea Mackris during which Olbermann facetiously asked Countdown viewers to fund the purchase of lurid audio tapes allegedly held by Mackris.[35][36]

O'Reilly eventually stopped retaliating against Olbermann on The O'Reilly Factor, and Fox released a public statement saying, among other things, "[...]people might tune in [to Olbermann] out of morbid curiosity, but they eventually tune out, as evidenced by Keith’s recent ratings decline[...]"[37]

However, an MSNBC press release in April 2007 cited ratings that had sharply increased from the same time the previous year.[38

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