Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Time for Olbermann to go

Keith Olbermann is easily the most polarized pundit masquerading as a news anchor. It's time for him to go. He is giving MSNBC and its parent operation NBC a black eye.

You know things are bad when a news anchor's biases become the subject of jokes. It started last year when Steven Colbert said,
Bombing Iran isn't Dick Cheney's pipe dream. His pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into the New York Times office while drinking light sweet crude from Keith Olbermann's skull.
Now, Colbert pitches his show at the politically aware. If you aren't keeping up with politics then you miss half the jokes. But what does it mean when you make the comics page? In this case, I'm talking about Get Fuzzy and not Dunesbury or Mallard Filmore. The punchline of a recent Get Fuzzy is Bucky Katt saying, "Go watch Olbermann you reality TV-hating elitist."

If you are not familiar with just how over-the-top just compare the pundits here. They were asked who won the October 7th debate. Three pundits, none of them shrinking violets, gate fair assessments. Then there was Olberman who launched into personal attacks.
You would also be hard pressed to find a candidate who thought he would gain benefit from a format that him walk around a room like an ailing man, winding up walking directly in front of the moderator's camera as the moderator is trying to say good night.
By employing Olbermann as a news anchor MSNBC has raised its ratings, attracting the far left who want nightly doses of venom. That is not a foundation to carry a news organization. It could well back-fire, also. If Obama wins then Olbermann will either spend his nights defending the inept stumblings of an inexperienced candidate who is not qualified to be president or he will turn on the Obamesiah and his base will turn on him just as it did on Cindy Sheehan.


2 comments:

Matt said...

You've lost the plot, evidently. Colbert, an unmistakable satirist, is making a joke about the perceived bias of Olbermann, not about actual bias &mdash grouping him with the New York Times speaks to this.

The same goes for the Get Fuzzy comment.

As far as Olbermann's comment last night, the one paragraph you included was the only personal attack of the set of comments, and it wasn't entirely inaccurate.

I struggle to see how this is in any way 'far' left: Perhaps you ought to consider exposing yourself to more extreme media, and you will see how moderate Olbermann's comments really are.

Nora said...

It is hard for many to hear actual facts...they are so unused to it in Fox news and the lies the Bush administration spews.

If Olberman's views are leftist as you say...at least he has real facts to back them up...and he also has real passion and anger on behave of the american ppl. His special comments have made KO someone that the audience knows means what he says and says what he means....and he is reaching out and bringing in more ppl...MSNBC was the only cable news network that increased it's ratings...maybe because americans are no longer afraid of intelligence and in fact are hungery for some coherent thoughts that KO and Ms. Maddows offer