Self-proclaimed left-leaning Democrat though I am, I could barely tolerate the angry, mean-talking lefter-more-liberal-than-thou Keith Olbermann, who, for reasons that remain unclear (my bets lie with those who think he was fired), abruptly quit MSNBC last night. With its Dracula organ music, its swift, nasty verbal assaults, and its dizzying graphics, Olbermann’s Countdown was always more performance than politics, more yelling than analysis, and more about Olbermann’s contorted face and impassioned, run-on sentences, which frequently left him out of breath, than about any sort of reasoned persuasion or argument.
Yet for irrational reasons (political leanings, deeply infused by the passions and emotions, are only partly informed by logic, reason, or knowledge), I’ve liked knowing Olbermann was out there balancing the screamers on the Right. During the 2008 Presidential election, Olbermann was a steam valve for a lot of angry liberals like me whenever he would unleash his ferocity on the beautiful, populist Sarah Palin, mocking her for being the penultimate American nincompoop.
When I look around me, I see that save for putative “Independents” (although I’ve yet to meet one, I’m always reading that it’s their vote that determines every election), most people are locked into either being conservatives or liberals by the age of 30. After that, few people know how to genuinely listen to what people with different political views from their own are saying. Instead, mostly we hear only what we want to hear. Watching Olbermann was never any different from watching Glenn Beck or listening to Rush Limbaugh. A pox on all their houses.
28 Responses to The End of ‘Countdown’
record - January 23, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Locked in by thirty? Maybe, but there must be shifts of emphasis from generation to generation. During the 1960′s, (surely a time liberals deem important), I remember my father, born in 1919, making distinctions between 1960′s liberals and 1930′s liberals. I cut my liberal teeth during the Civil Rights/Viet Nam war era, and find very little today on either the left or the right that works very well. I don’t think I’ve found an effective default position either, although independant is often used by people looking for one. Mostly I’m just appalled. Many of my liberal friends consider President Obama a Republican.
pocvecem - January 23, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Good bye, good riddance, a pox on all their houses, etc. No complaint there. But it looks like it’s my turn again to fire up the controversy.
And for some odd reason, I am reminded of the Duke Rape Case. At Duke, we had a bunch of professors and a DA pushing unfounded accusations excessively hard. The accusations were found to be baseless and, aside from the loss of credibility academe experienced, the Left suffered a tangible defeat there too. (The defeat was that women are probably less safe on that campus now. Although that’s a defeat for people of all political persuasions, the “they’re out to unfairly destroy the men” hurts Left politics the most.)
So back to more current events. We saw overwrought accusations against the Right (and especially Palin) that their rhetoric contributed to the Tuscon shooting. It turns out that the shooter was just a loon; even though some of the criticized rhetoric was inappropriate, the right learns (or “learns,” if you prefer) that accusations against their political talking heads are unfounded. So Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin come out unscathed. As with Duke, this is not a good result for the Left.
But, the Left is more than capable of showing a lack of hypocrisy. After running around screaming about the Right’s rhetoric for so long, it must have been hard to tune in to MSNBC and see Olbermann characterizing his foes as the “worst person in the world.” Like Fendrich, my bet is also with the people who think he was fired; a chunk of his audience probably wasn’t going to tolerate his tone in the new political environment. But, I also think it’s possible that he truly believed that overheated rhetoric had become a problem and felt he could not go on the way he had. I doubt we’ll have a good idea of what happened until we see what he does in his next gig.
record - January 23, 2011 at 5:54 pm
“…see what he does for his next gig.” Olbermann will probably look for a viable default position, and perhaps one that relieves him of contemporary, stylistic/editorial pressure to use overheated rhetoric,(surely by now he’s as sick of it as anyone). Though whether he finds a toned down broadcasting gig that also pays the bills, will be interesting to follow. Somehow I don’t see him fitting in at NPR.
goxewu - January 23, 2011 at 5:55 pm
1. Olbermann’s “worst person in the world” bit had considerable irony to it. It’s in the very title, and the joke was that no matter how bad that show’s conservative target was, it was obviously over the top to call him or her “the worst person in the world.” (Dick Cheney might have been an exception to that.)
2. If I had to choose, politics aside, among a former coke-head drive-time DJ, a former TV gossip reporter who had to settle a sexual harrassment charge out of court, and a former sports anchor, I’d go with the last one.
3. The preponderance of nasty rhetoric (no, it’s not “hate speech”) in the media still comes from the Right: Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Dinesh d’Souza, Michelle Malkin, et al.–not to mention the bevy of rightwing preachers such as Pat Robertson all over the airwaves. And there’s nothing on the Left remotely approaching the partisan “news” juggernaut that is Fox.
4. In a way, I, as a left-liberal, would love to have a lineup of aggressive, articulate jerks the size of the Right’s, but it ain’t in the cards. The Right has the advantage of being simplistic (e.g., the Tea Party), which fits better with soundbite media, and the Left has the disadvantage of–as with most humanities academics–essentially saying that things are more complicated than people think.
5. So we left-liberals will have to settle for Rachel Maddow (who’s great), Chris Matthews (who’s almost too fair–he has all those conservatives on the show), and Ed Schultz (who’s bad; the hair dye alone should send him packing).
6. Prof. Fendrich didn’t mention the Comcast-Universal/NBC merger. Comcast is known for its conservative leanings, and Olbermann left–quite suddenly–only a couple of days after the approval of the merger was announced.
goxewu - January 23, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Addendum:
“But, the Left is more than capable of showing a lack of hypocrisy.”
Gee, thanks for the compliment.
record - January 23, 2011 at 6:18 pm
“Comcast…conservative leanings…Olberman left…” I think you put your finger on it. The mystery may be solved.
pocvecem - January 23, 2011 at 6:35 pm
@ goxewu:
I think you missed my message. I wasn’t trying to go back to the “which side of the aisle has the more detestable rhetoric?” I was trying to say that overwrought accusations from the Left tend to boomerang and hurt the Left. No finger pointing was intended.
record - January 23, 2011 at 6:45 pm
pocvecem, Actually your message was very clear, at least to me, and I suspect you are right. You point to an interesting irony.
goxewu - January 23, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I’m probably a lot older than pocvecem, and remember how for such a long time–practically the whole Cold War–”overwrought accusations” were mostly the specialty of the Right. “I have in my hand a list of [fill in a number] Communists,” etc. In fact, I felt like I’d been swept up in some kind of HUAC (look it up) time warp when Obama was accused of being a “socialist.” (The fact that he’s a black man probably pre-empted the term, “pinko.”) The Left’s overwrought (and some of them were) accusations about rightwing rhetoric causing the murders in Tucson were, remember, a very recent occurrence following a two-year period in which the preponderance of “overwrought accusations” (Obama’s “socialist” agenda, Obama’s birthplace, “death panels,” etc.) came from the Right.
I should probably act a little more kindly toward pocvecem’s olive branch, but I think I’ve been down this road of his/hers before: a de facto conservative posing, for some reason, as a neutral Earnest Seeker.
“…the Left suffered a tangible defeat…overwrought accusations against the Right (and especially Palin)…After running around screaming about the Right’s rhetoric for so long…” And then: “No finger pointing was intended.” Sure, and I just fell of the turnip truck from Durham.
trendisnotdestiny - January 23, 2011 at 9:14 pm
While there is always much to the left-right brainstorm divide as Pocvecum, Record and Goxewu discuss, I am relatively undisturbed by the reports of Olbermann leaving or about the relative imbalances of corporate voices.
Instead, I am more concerned about the implication of the merger (Comcast/NBC merger). What has always concerned me about our bright and sometimes simplistic brethren on the right is their righteous paucity of institutional analysis.
A good example might be looking at who owns our media companies. General Electric who owns NBC (hardly a bastion of progressive or leftist thought) has made some huge in-roads recently as Jack Welch’s successor at GE, Jeffrey Immelt is now one of Obama’s major economic advisors after Larry Summers (Harvard’s Slumdog millionaire) went back to his roots as sediment in the earth’s crust. Between Immelt, Welch, & Murdoch, these guys are hardly anything but sales people for the corporate apparatus designed to fragment the masses into categories and sell them product.
It used to be that they would spent time with us before the corporate coitus erupted, but there are new global pockets to exploit (and then come home to us later suggesting that we are not doing enough in the country to support business)….
No, I am much more worried about the concentration of power in our top industries (who are much more aligned with up-and-coming BRIC countries than our own)…. After all, they are all able to opt out of this country when things bad and suck the portholes dry during the boom times; of which neoliberal economic policies ensure the boom and bust….. I wish more people could have figured it out, but they are too busy watching Olbermann, Limbaugh and Beck…. How sad.
pocvecem - January 24, 2011 at 4:07 am
@ goxewu
You were on a turnip truck and didn’t bring me back any delicious gifts? For shame!
jlfuller - January 24, 2011 at 12:55 pm
As most folks now know, Keith Olbermann was fired because he wanted it that way. He wanted more money, was arrogant and difficult to deal with. His firing had nothing to do with his political ideas. It was about money apparently. Fine. I didn’t like his ideas and disagreed with his nasty Limbaugh-esque persona. But he had a place. I didn’t go there but I recognize that limiting people like him and Limbaugh and Beck and Hannity and Ed Schultz and the others is bad for America. Like the man said, change the channel if you don’t like what is on and let the marketplace dictate success.
goxewu - January 24, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Is not the irony in the advice, “Change the channel if you don’t like what is on and let the marketplace dictate success” readily apparent to the likes of jlfuller? Which is: Why don’t Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Schultz, Olbermann et al., follow it, too? Why don’t they just shut up and let the market–the voters and the people they elect–have its way? Because, in a nominally “informed” democracy, commentary from anybody and everybody has its place. So if one doesn’t like what Beck or Olbermann says on television, it’s one’s perogative (some would say duty) not to simply let it go at changing the channel, but to squawk about what’s on the channel so that–one hopes–a bunch of other people will squawk, too, and that, in the end, a huge number of people will either change the channel themselves or be apprised of the faults of–depending on what your politics are–Beck or Olbermann or their confreres.
jlf9999 - January 24, 2011 at 3:18 pm
goxewu – What you seem to be advocating is centralized thinking which is analogous to centralized planning and we all know how that turns out. We get better as people when we have more choices not fewer. Forcing someone out who we disagree with sets up a hierarchy of “the best or “smartest” people whose only skill is organizing others to do what critical thinking can’t. I think it sets up a mob mentality where force and coercion rules. What works is better ideas not more sticks and clubs.
marktropolis - January 24, 2011 at 4:07 pm
jlf9999 – “We get better as people when we have more choices not fewer.”
So the fact that there are now over 500 cable channels is an indication that we are becoming better people? The fact that I can now tune into a channel that is dedicated *solely* to reality shows, and that’s an indicator of progress?
Also, there’s a big difference between “centralized thinking” which is NOT what goxewu is talking about, and good organizing. That said, if “Forcing someone out who we disagree with sets up a hierarchy of ‘the best or ‘smartest’ people whose only skill is organizing others to do what critical thinking can’t,” what does that say about the Tea Party? The left gets hammered all the time over “group-think” (code for socialism, of course) but when the Tea Party does it (for their own specific policy aims) it’s called “grassroots.”
I’m on the fence about how I feel about Olbermann. I didn’t have any big issues with him, but I also didn’t watch him much. I will say that his often heavy-handed rhetoric often didn’t work for me – although the way it was presented, pretty much everyone knew he’s not doing “news” here, he’s doing “opinion.” Which is actually different from Beck – who presents himself as “news” and has a infrastructure (if a shrinking advertising base) that supports that interpretation.
p.s., best as I can tell, no one has blamed Olbermann for any lefties going on any shooting rampages, or sending death threats. Which is more than I can say for Beck (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/24/qt).
goxewu - January 24, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Re jlf9999:
WTF? All I’m advocating is that–on ALL sides–people who object to a certain politial commentator make their opinions known by more than by just changing the channel. I suggest they have conversations, write letters to the editor or the network or the commenter, blog, comment on blogs, etc., etc., to make their opinions–and the REASONS for their opinions known. If, in the “marketplace of ideas,” this causes the commenter in question to be pulled off the air, or have his/her program expanded to two hours / five nights a week, or get a book deal, or be drafted to run for office, so be it. What this has got to do with “centralized thinking which is analogous to centralized planning,” is beyond me.
Does jlf9999 really think that people ought to restrict their effect on political programming on television to merely, silently, changing the channel? And if that’s the case, why doesn’t jlf9999 simply “change the channel” on this thread and go somewhere else without leaving a comment?
Petard, hoisted, etc.
hoodlib - January 24, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Part Python (Monty) and part Murrow. He criticized the conservative media for its lack of accuracy, the political right for its lack of compassion, the President for his lack of fortitude, the left for its money, and himself when he was wrong. He gave kudos to many on the right and left and to his many mentors along the way. He was fun to watch with his craziness and many times boring to watch as he beat the same drum too much. SNL had to get a major movie star to imitate him. He taught us about baseball and Thurber. I think his next media attempt should be sitcom of how a old sportscaster turned political pundit gets fired and becomes an editor of the small town newspaper in upstate New York and saves the American newspaper.
trendisnotdestiny - January 24, 2011 at 4:33 pm
QUOTE
“We get better as people when we have more choices not fewer.”
Oh, you mean like when we took simple 30 year fixed mortgage products and turned them in an array of assorted variable rate loans disguised as safe and targeting sub-prime populations?
Or do you mean the harvard attorney fine print complexity of choices that comes from credit cards? Averaging over 7 billion solicitations by these credit card companies per year. All spouting off about the more choices; the more innovation.
Or do you mean how we have taken debt instruments and broken them up into SIV’s, CDO’s, and derivative products that are designed to be leveraged and traded while our municipalities and state governments stave off default?
Or do you mean the number of investment options for consumers, pension trustees and retirees who need some interest to live off of without getting into their principal (see the Fed Board of Governors)….
Or do you mean all the choices that we have as consumers for:
1) Banks/Financial/Insurance Institutions
2) Big Pharma
3) Energy Companies
4) Retail Outlets
5) Media Companies
Only If you call the greatest consolidation of corporate power over the last few decades “as getting better as a people”. Someone please explain how the outcomes of corporate personhood have made us better as a people (beyond the obvious oligopolies that exist in our top five industries)…..
marktropolis - January 24, 2011 at 4:41 pm
goxewu: “What this has got to do with “centralized thinking which is analogous to centralized planning,” is beyond me.”
It’s because you’re a communist. Or getting someone booted off the air is communist. Or some such drivel.
trendisnotdestiny - January 24, 2011 at 5:11 pm
To the tropolis of mark & Wu goxy style,
I imagine there is a button somewhere in the back of some peoples’ heads that still can trigger and evoke a Pavlovian ‘ruskie’, ‘red’, or ‘bolshevik’ response; even in the face of a world that changed significantly. These efforts that went into fighting communism are so entrenched in our cultural institutions, that the short and long term reactions to them still persist in the same conservative behavior (as if they have to be just as vigilant in this domain versus Islamo-fascism, GLBT communities, immigrant populations and the impoverished). All while spewing tough love rhetoric and wiping out indigenous populations all over the globe in the name of free trade…
I’ll stop making lists of how we have harmed the multitudes people who are not US, white, male and privileged world citizens when I start to hear a few of these people own their roles in creating fictive crisis of difference while obfuscating their complicity (see Gulf of Tonkin)…..
Who is next? Well we have a number of possibilities:
1) Enemies from within the US (#1 fear)
2) The Chinese
3) Pot Luck Du Jour (Iran, North Korea, Venezuela etc.)
4) Wikileaks
Same old song, different verse
mavprof - January 24, 2011 at 5:38 pm
The left-liberal connoisseurs of political entertainment shows seem never to have accepted cum grano salis the success of free market-financed talk radio and Fox television news. There are today of course more choices available for this political theater than ever before, however much Cold War-era nostalgics like goxewu may savor the limited choices of political viewpoints that 60s-70s-era major networks cum partially government-funded ones like NPR and PBS offered, though not apparently the “overwrought accusations” supposedly made by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (its proper name–look it up). Those indeed were dark days, goxewu–where the disloyal activities or stunts of a Hiss or the Rosenbergs et al had to be pursued covertly rather than openly in the glorious 60s and 70s as with campus rads and movie space bunnies like Jane Fonda!
Of the MSNBC lib-left gang (Olbermann, Schultz, O’Donnell et al) perhaps the “almost too fair” Matthews was in some ways the worst, for “all those conservatives on the show” could expect from this veteran liberal Democrat operative was a preemptory counter-statement peppered with the odd insult, followed by a nasty insinuation masquerading as a question, and topped off by snide and continuous voice-over cracks after the adversary’s fifth uttered word–before the next verbal salvo. As pure political entertainment, the hoarse and brazen calumniators of the now-defunct Air America coven had a lot more to offer in unintentional humor.
And much of this political theater, like political journalism in general, concerns what these radio and TV pundits say about each other, not just what their commentaries are about.
goxewu - January 24, 2011 at 10:20 pm
1. I’m hardly nostalgic for the Cold War, which is perfectly clear in my comment.
2. I’m also supposed to favor the old days of three networks plus PBS. That’s not true, either, and nowhere in my comment is there anything to indicate that.
3. HUAC had a long proper name. So does NATO. I know what both mean. I chose to use the acronym.
4. With the exception of Alger Hiss, HUAC didn’t turn up much. It probably did more undeserved harm to the subsequent careers of people who were communists in the 1930s than it did good by catching spies. As far as I know, HUAC didn’t have anything to do with the prosecution of the Rosenbergs.
5. Brow-beating and interruption are rather standard with partisan TV pundits who have guests of differing politics. But Chris Matthews does have conservatives on, steadily, they keep coming on and, from what I can see from admittedly sporadic sampling, they’re treated more fairly than liberals on conservative shows.
6. Air America wasn’t very good. Liberals don’t do that stuff well. But Harry Shearer’s “Le Show” is very good, and so is “The Daily Show.” Conservatives don’t do that stuff well.
6. Keith Olbermann didn’t weep.
tomian - January 24, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Let’s wrap this up:
Olberman — sucked.
Matthews — sucks.
Beck — sucks.
Limbaugh — sucks.
The rest — don’t matter.
Can’t we all just get along?
fruupp - January 25, 2011 at 3:05 am
Olbermann left because he saw what was coming: the acquisition of MSNBC by Comcast, the far-right, Koch Brothers-like media giant, a prominent shareholder of which is a billionaire Christian financier of fundamentalist causes. Do the math.
fizmath - January 25, 2011 at 8:20 am
The big corporate media has been failing us for over a generation, worthless celebrity infotainment. None of this really matters anyways. TV is dying.