I wish the Journolist disclosures weren’t happening, but some of them are pretty amusing. I, too, am utterly bored by Keith Olbermann’s schtick. I’m glad he’s on the air, but I don’t enjoy watching his show anymore, and haven’t for a couple of years now. When he has Special Comments I make sure to turn him off, but mostly I just don’t turn him on these days.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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so why are you linking to the daily caller and sending them traffic?
Because the emails are amusing.
Yeah, I’m with you on that. The real revelation came when he was essentially proved right on the “Terror & Politics” peice he did years ago during the Bush administration. He showed the old segment, and I was sitting there thinking: Holy shit, where did THAT guy go? That guy who actually put together a segment of journalism that required depth and sweat and deduction. That guy who used the facts to make a point about substance, and not just the politics and optics. That guy who was more Murrow than O’Reilly. That guy is freakin’ GONE now.
And that’s the ultimate shame about what Countdown has become. Olbermann has the smarts and the talent. He could be just as insightful as Maddow, and with the larger audience have even more impact. Instead he traded his scapel for an ax, and now would rater talk about how the politics will play out than even approach out the policy might.
I, too, have not watched KO in quite some time. I used to find much of what he presented to be compelling, thoughtful, honest and correct. He was a breath of fresh air during the latter half of the Bush Administration, when everyone else in the media was fawning over the codpiece. But over the last 12 months or so, we seem to see less and less of that person. He can still get right to the crux on any issue, if he has the mind to. But I just don’t know what has happened. And I can’t put it into so many words on the spur of the moment here, but he seems to have lost his focus to some degree. Maybe it’s just the nature of politics and punditry on television and the need to always have the ratings issue in the back of you mind. When he began to lose it for me was when he started the whole sideshow with Bill-O. The ridiculousness of it just became too much for me. There are enough thoughtful blogs and podcasts where I can get good information without the sideshow crap thrown in. I miss the old Keith, I hope you come back to us some day.
It’s not helping that Maddow runs rings around KO in the “level-headed logical argument” category either and is, you know, right there after him for such a shocking comparison.
Yeah, I think she made him worse. It’s almost like he’s got it in his head that since she handles the more level-headed and journalistic aspects of things…he’s free to go to 11 on the bombastic scale.
I’d love it if rational argument were the norm, but it’s not. The problem is that whenever I see Rachel doing an interview in which she should be confronting someone, she comes across as wimpy.
I’d like something between Keith and Rachel.
Quiet, rational discussions are great. But sometimes the idiots need to be called idiots and shown the proper disdain.
Damn, I just saw this.
Journalism Legend Daniel Schorr Dies At 93
I really enjoyed him over the years on NPR. Will miss his voice and perspective on the radio.
Oh, man, that’s a drag. Cheers to Daniel Schorr…
Oh, man. I didn’t realize he was that old. Didn’t I hear him on NPR just a few months ago? Magnificent that he still had his faculties intact.
I get very sick of him teasing a story throughout the damn broadcast, he spends almost as much time talking about what he’s going to talk about than he does actually talking about it. He could probably squeeze in about a third more stories if he didn’t tease us so much.
My wife can’t watch him at all anymore, I have to confess that I still watch him but tune him out a lot of the time and read Booman instead. I do avoid his special comments because they are what I call “Drama-news”. Over-the-freakin-top hyperbole.
And Ezra Klein isn’t a bit of a wanker himself? Heck, I wonder what he was thinking letting the list grow to 400 or so people(if that really is the number). Did he not realize that a number like that gets too cumbersome and he’d likely get burned by someone as he is now? Are stations like MSNBC even talking about the Journolist nonsense?
Hmm, I bet many of you here weren’t so down on Keith back in late 2007 and 08 when he began aggressively waving the pom-poms for Obama.
Or that’s my memory of that period on the show. I tuned out about the time in early 2008 that he was clearly turning his show into a nightly one-hour infomercial for Obama (who was only my second choice in the primaries).
Came back, of course, after a decent interval and the heat of the primary season had long since dissipated.
Today, Keith’s major weak points are going on a bit too long (and often) on the Special Comments. The content, however, as with the last one, is largely on the mark. He also tends to trot out some of the same tired pundits to pontificate about their area of expertise. Especially annoying Keith regulars: the rather smug Jonathan Turley on constit’l issues, the rather unoriginal and dull Gene Robinson on politics, the shallow Jonathon Alter on politics/history. (another worthless Keith regular, one Gerald Posner, has now been exposed as a plagiarist and hasn’t been seen since)
Especially annoying Keith regulars: the rather smug Jonathan Turley on constit’l issues, the rather unoriginal and dull Gene Robinson on politics, the shallow Jonathon Alter on politics/history. (another worthless Keith regular, one Gerald Posner, has now been exposed as a plagiarist and hasn’t been seen since)
I don’t mind KO as much as a bunch of you seem, but don’t forget Richard Wolfe as another guy that needs to go, if he hasn’t yet
I feel like the last liberal who still like Keith.
crickets
Anyway, I still tune in. Love Rachel, too. The only time I tune out is when he talks about Sarah Palin. Then again, I tune out when Rachel talks about her, too. Or anyone else.
And sometimes I tune it ALL out and watch NCIS. Or the Powerpuff Girls.
I don’t watch a lot of television anymore, but I still like Keith and watch him now and then. I’m just politic’d out, I suppose.
Plus, football starts soon, just in time for me to not have to stab my eyes out to distract myself from the pain of watching baseball.
Drew, I think I love you. 🙂 I hate this time of the sports year and absolutely CANNOT WAIT for football season to begin. Le sigh.
I’m back into it–politically speaking–because there’s a huge primary where I live and lots of local races and such. There’s no way I can totally unplug.
BUT.
I’ve found that watching NCIS is much better for my blood pressure. Some fluff is good for the soul. And my sanity. Working out takes care of the rest.
Likewise. I definitely hear ya on NCIS. My wife’s gotten into this show, Psych, that’s kind of corny but cute, and it certainly does better by my health than cable news. 🙂
I don’t think I’ve fully recovered from the emotional rollercoaster of 2008.
Fortunately, I’m in the process of moving from one safe district in Virginia to another in Florida, and I’m fairly sure the residency requirements mean I can’t vote in the general down there.
Which kinda sucks, because Florida politics is obviously enjoying a pretty exciting gubernatorial and senatorial competition.
The Dolphins are supposed to be pretty good this year (or at least not completely suck as has been custom for about 10 years), assuming the injuries from last year — Ronnie Brown’s and Brandon Marshall’s, especially — don’t prove too much of a problem. Can’t wait to see those two in prime form again.
Our stupid owner is going to jinx us, though, with all this talk about a Super Bowl.
And Florida State seems to be finally — oh, how I’ve waited for this — getting its shit together. New coach. New defensive staff. Hopefully, at last, an end to the Lost Decade.
So I’m especially looking forward to football this year, since I finally have stuff to look forward to in it.
I love Keiths show. I have been watching it for years and I still watch it. Lets not fall into the trap that just because he doesn’t do hard hitting jourvalism he should not be taken seriously. You can’t compare him to what Racel Maddow does. Keith’s show is a different kind of show, which is about pulling back the curtain on the right wing and criticism of media (mostly Right Wing media).
We need him, especially when we have FOX news just creating their own bizzaro world that is picked then picked up on Right wing radio and broadcast on the airwaves by dozens of networks all over the country.
We need more of Keith Olbermann’s actually.
Only reason I said 3 instead of 4 is there have consistently been excellent pieces –
* exposure of Phil Graham’s relation to finance/housing [?] deregulation,
* promotion of free health clinics and their necessity for the working poor even after the health care bill,
* early reportage on the Gulf disaster, including the respirator issue.
I got p’d at MSNBC for something else yesterday and changed to CNN – only to find Anne Coulter, on Rick Sanchez show, I think. Not sure, I changed it back so fast.
We don’t watch anyone anymore, having discontinued cable and satellite several years ago. I have the luxury of a DSL connection and can be much more selective in my news diet that way. (See also Athur Gilroy’s many anti-TV rants).
I’m with you Booman. Haven’t watched him in probably a year. Well, that’s not true. I turned on Countdown a month or so ago and saw him reading passages from a book. I was blogging at the time, so asked someone “WTF?” and was told he had been doing that ever since his Dad died. Weird…
I didn’t know his head could get any bigger but the fawning by some at Daily Kos over the past few years I think truly expanded that already oversized ego beyond all belief. I think the moment that happened was his first Special Comment (that actually was very good). Now they are anything but special.
Other than the weird obsession with O’Riley, his more recent obsession over Palin, along with almost every progressive and democratic blogger, pundit, columnist, etc is driving me nuts. I swear to God, we are more obsessed with her every move than the most rabid of Red State bloggers. I’m thinking the only one who doesn’t continuously comment on her is Rachel Maddow. Even my favorite Booman has gone there more than I expected you would. What gives? She only has as much power as we give her. Other than the “lipstick on a pig” thing, which was a mistake, Obama COMPLETELY ignored her in the primaries.
I would love to see between now and November, totally commentary blackout of her idiotic whatever the hell she is doing. Because she really is useless and her 15 minute fame clock went off about 2 years ago.