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Special Comment: Olbermann Over the Top
In a post from a couple weeks back, I wrote about enjoying Keith Olbermann’s castigation of President Bush over his “giving up golf” comments. I even appreciated the freshness of finally having an unabashed liberal beating the O’Reillys and Limbaughs at their own sensationalistic game. But I did express a bit of a hesistancy over the way Olbermann’s style risks losing the message within the machinations of the messenger/entertainer.
Well, I think Olbermann’s latest “special comment” concerning Hillary Clinton’s reference to the assassination of Robert Kennedy just confirms my worries. And I’m not alone. James Poniewozik, TIME’s TV critic, writes:
The substance (or lack thereof) of the controversy notwithstanding … Olbermann is edging ever-closer to self-parody, or, worse, predictability. (As soon as the Clinton gaffe broke, blog commenters were wondering how ballistic he would go, and he obliged, and how.) Even if we concede his argument — that Clinton was at best callously and at worst intentionally suggesting she should stay in the race because Obama might be killed — every time he turns up the volume to 11 like this lately, he sounds like just another of the cable gasbags he used to be a corrective to.
While years of frustration might have — might have — justified Olbermann’s outburst over Bush’s disregard for soldier’s lives, Clinton’s comments don’t rise to that level.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I see Clinton as the consummate Machiavellian — and I’m sure, apologies notwithstanding, that she really was saying that an assassination might just happen this year and that is a reason to stick in the race (although I can’t imagine she wanted to say it publicly). I don’t give her the benefit of the doubt.
But all she did was make herself slightly more irrelevant than the day before. And that’s not worth the anger.
Posted at 1:05 PM | Permalink | | 
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May 28, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Raising the notion, intentionally (not likely) or somewhat inadvertently (likely) (given she’d raised it before) also helps to elevate the notion of assassination for some whacko out there. In that respect, the risk to Obama was elevated though conjecture only tells us how much. In that regard, I think she owed a specific apology to Obama and not just the Kennedys.
I think Olberrmann just blew his stack after string of this crap from Clinton.
May 28, 2008 at 7:34 pm
It is despicable for Olbermann to make a living by spitting his hatred from his foaming mouth towards anyone who disagrees with his God Obama. For him, Obama makes no mistakes, but only Hillary does. He is a world’s biggest misogynist pig who thinks that he can verbally abuse white women with impunity. Is not this the same coward who suggested someone taking Hillary to somewhere and only him coming out? Thant sounds to me that he is encouraging violence against Hillary. If he was saying samething to Obama, he would be begging for forgiveness by now bending to the knees of all Afro-American leaders and Sharpton would relentlessly be demading his firing from MSNBC.
May 29, 2008 at 6:30 am
While I understand some concerns here about Olbermann’s style of commentary, I still find it to be rather modest in comparsion to these recent news stories:
* Rachael Ray ad pulled as pundit sees terror link
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24860437/
* Despite McClellan criticism, network anchors still refuse to re-evaluate their own complicity
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/28/despite-mcclellan-criticism-network-anchors-still-refuses-to-re-evaluate-their-own-complicity/
* Anchor Spun From Job for O’Reilly Protest
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4919516&page=1
There’s a lot wrong with mainstream journalism in America these days, but what Olbermann recently said about Clinton doesn’t even come close to the root of the problem.
May 29, 2008 at 9:45 am
^^
Very weak argument.