For those who have missed Keith Olbermann's passionate nightly political analysis on MSNBC, there is good news. He announced recently that his new show on Current TV will launch on Monday, June 20th at 8 pm ET.
Perhaps no great surprise, but the "new" show will be called Countdown with Keith Olbermann. That's right, just like the old show. Same name, different network. I have missed Olbermann and look forward to hearing what he has been up to.
If you just can't get enough of the whole Olbermann thing -- his sudden departure from MSNBC last Friday -- be sure to check out the latest from the NYT's Bill Carter (here along with Brian Stelter). It looks like it wasn't really so sudden, at least not to those on the inside:
Many people inside the television industry are astonished that a cable network's highest-rated host, whose forceful personality and liberal advocacy had lifted MSNBC from irrelevance to competitiveness and profitability, would be ushered out the door with no fanfare, no promoted farewell show and only a perfunctory thanks for his efforts.
But underlying the decision, which one executive involved said was not a termination but a "negotiated separation," were years of behind-the-scenes tension, conflicts and near terminations.
Whatever.
The fact is, Olbermann made MSNBC what it is, which is to say, relevant (and more watched than CNN), and while he may be temperamental, and difficult to deal with, so what? He was one of the very few liberals who responded to Fox News and the rise of conservative media, and the rising extremism of the Republican Party, not by cowering in fear but by fighting back with all the strength of his convictions, with all the strength of justice on his side.
Yes, maybe it was time for him to go, and maybe he was partly responsible for what happened. But we need him back on the air, somewhere, soon.
Keith Olbermann announced on air on Friday that that edition of Countdown would be his last. He is leaving MSNBC.
He did not say why, but he hinted that he was being let go: "I think the same fantasy has popped into the head of everybody in my business who has ever been told what I have been told: that this is going to be the last edition of your show."
His was MSNBC's flagship show, its most popular and, in a way, the show that defined the entire network. His being let go may have something to do with Comcast taking over NBC. Perhaps his new bosses just didn't want him anymore.
Perhaps they dislike him, perhaps they dislike what he stands for, perhaps they intend to move the network away from the left. Or perhaps not, or at least not yet. The prime-time line-up will still feature Maddow and O'Donnell, the latter of whom will be moving to Olbermann's 8 pm slot, as well as Schultz. (As Politico is reporting, however, "Comcast distanced itself from any notion that it had something to do with the decision, releasing a midnight statement saying it had not yet closed its transaction with NBC Universal and so does not yet have operational control," and had no intention of interfering with NBC's "news operations" in any event.)
Perhaps money had something to do with it. Given Maddow's success, if not quite as his level, perhaps he just wasn't needed anymore, and perhaps the network, new owner in place or not, figured it was best to buy him out of the remaining two years on his four-year, $30-million contract.
Or perhaps it was just time, given that it was bound to happen eventually. As The New York Times's Bill Carter notes, "NBC's management had been close to firing Mr. Olbermann on previous occasions, most recently in November after he revealed that he had made donations to several Democratic candidates in 2010," including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Similarly, Politico reports that "several sources close to the situation said its roots lay in Olbermann's defiant reaction to being suspended," a suspension that was incredibly stupid.
So while Olbermann may only have learned of his firing, if we may call it that, on Friday, or while perhaps a deal was reached sometime within the last couple of days, it's pretty clear that the network was just waiting for the right time to push him out.
Anyway, I'm sure more will leak out before too long.
As for me, needless to say, I'll miss Olbermann immensely, and I highly doubt that MSNBC will be the same, that is, as effective a vehicle for liberal-progressive commentary in opposition to the conservative propaganda of Fox News, without him.
But of course he'll be back. He'll likely have to do like Conan and stay off the air for awhile, but I'm sure he'll find another network soon enough, assuming he wants to do what he's been doing.
I'd say CNN, but that network, once a leader, is apparently committed to lameness and irrelevance. It's the network of Piers Morgan, after all, all due respect to Anderson Cooper.
So we'll see. We still have Maddow, of course, and Colbert as well. I'd add Stewart, but I fear he may have jumped the shark, as they say, some time ago. But there's no one quite like Olbermann, no one I've found so moving and so inspiring while also so admirably pugnacious among television's leading commentators. I think back to his Special Comment about his father last February, one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on TV, and I'm still almost brought to tears.
What country is this? A country that needs Olbermann on the air.
With those words, Jon Stewart gave another eloquent speech at the beginning of Monday night's Daily Show, dispensing with humor to address Saturday's horrific events in Tucson.
With each passing hour and day since alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, critically injuring her, killing six and wounding 14 others, it becomes clearer that this 22-year-old man was not a political partisan but someone who was severely mentally ill. With Arizona government offices finally open Monday, The Washington Post finally was able to answer one simple question that's not open to debate: his voter registration. The answer turns out to be that he was a registered independent but was considered inactive because he hadn't bothered to vote in such a long time, including in November. Hardly indicative of a Tea Party participant.
I am guilty of jumping to conclusions. With the precursors without body counts such as smashed windows, threats, cut gas lines, it was an easy assumption to make. However, in my horror of the moment I forgot the old line about what happens when you assume: it makes an ass out of u and me. Subconsciously, there probably was part of me as there consciously was in many others who wanted this tragedy to turn out to be that way for political advantage. I may disagree with the Tea Party, believe them to be terribly misinformed and inflamed by the likes of Glenn Beck, but they aren't all homicidal lunatics.
When so many on the left criticized Jon Stewart's rally, claiming he was trying to make both sides equivalent, in the wake of Saturday's events, now he seems more right than ever. Keith Olbermann's Saturday special comment didn't say so explicitly, but if you read between the lines, it was a bit of a mea culpa for his own role. As Sarah Palin rushed to delete her graphic with the gunsight over Giffords' district, Daily Kos also had to delete a post where one of Giffords' constituents said that Giffords was "dead to me" because she voted against Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader.
Already, both sides are starting to revert to old habits. Because we on the left rushed to link the act of a madman to the politics of those we oppose, now those on the right revert to defensive mode and attack us. Hopefully, someone can stop this quickly. This is an opportunity for everyone to step back, take a breath and restore civility to the political process. I'm not saying compromise your principles, but it's long past time where both sides stop treating political opponents as the enemy. As it's been said many times, you can disagree without being disagreeable. The political climate probably didn't set Loughner off, but both parties need to look at themselves critically and seriously.
I hope that people take Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Gupnik to heart and start rejecting the Becks and Limbaughs, but the only way that happens is when they get hit where it really hurts: the wallet. Beck has shown those signs with the loss of lots of sponsors, being taken off a big New York radio station and even dropping numbers on Fox News. I wish their listeners realized they were in it for the money, but oh well.
What really needs to be addressed seriously is the fact that this country has a gun problem and it's had a gun problem for a long time. A man rejected by the military, kicked out of college and who worried others around him was still allowed to legally purchase his Glock and, more importantly, his high-volume ammunition clips. He had three clips which had 33 rounds each. These sorts of clips were illegal under the assault weapons ban which was allowed to expire during the Bush Administration. If that law were still in place, he could only have purchased clips that held 10 rounds, meaning he would have to reload more frequently and the bloodshed would have been less. I hope the NRA and their friends in Congress are proud. Right now, Arizona is considering allowing faculty and college students to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
We also have to improve our ability to treat the mentally ill. In a rare moment of a television newsperson saying something profound, Lester Holt did the other day when he said that in the end, the motive doesn't matter. Six people are still dead, including a 9-year-old student council president born on 9/11.
Okay, let's start a Craziest Pundit of the Day series. (Given all the material, it was only a matter of time.) And let our inaugural winner be that smug, self-important advisor to so many presidents, David Gergen.
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A short while ago, R.K. Barry, one of our fine co-bloggers, e-mailed me this:
Do you fucking believe that David Gergen just said on CNN that Democrats bear responsibility for the violent tone of political debate in America because their "mal-governance led to a citizens' revolt"? And of course John King sat there and said nothing. They are both assholes.
Have a good night.
That hardly helps me to have a good night. David Gergen, sort of like David Broder, likes to position himself as an above-the-fray independent, but most of his punditry serves the right, including the Republican Party, by lending it media-sanctioned legitimacy. (Because the media, and particularly CNN, spins the lie that Gergen is non-partisan, legitimately, and utterly sound in his punditry.) And John King, of course, is nauseatingly Republican-friendly. (Think back to the glee he expressed back in November.)
This is among the stupidest things Gergen has ever said. What he is essentially saying, if we really get down to it, is that Democrats don't have a right to govern, that their authority is somehow illegitimate, that they shouldn't have done anything even with the White House and solid majorities in both houses of Congress.
And what, exactly, did they do? Pass health-care reform, which is supported (either the Affordable Care Act or a more progressive package of reforms) by a majority of the American people -- a reform package that a Republican, Mitt Romney, passed in Massachusetts and that, for the most part, Republicans themselves were in favour of back in the '90s as an alternative to "Hillarycare"? Pass an economic stimulus package that, owing to Republican objections, was much smaller than it should have been (but that still pulled the economy back from the brink)? Pass DADT repeal, supported not just by a majority of Americans but by military brass and a majority of those in uniform? Pass New Start with enough votes to overcome a Republican filibuster? Pass bank and auto bailouts, which were actually quite centrist (and "Gergian") in their application? Etc., etc.
Oh, but all this somehow justifies a citizens' revolt of right-wing extremism? And somehow legitimizes acts of violence?
Democrats and those on the left generally certainly deserve some share of the blame for all the incendiary and violent political rhetoric that pollutes American political discourse -- Olbermann made that case himself -- but there's no way there's an even balance, or even anything close to it, between left and right.
And if you really think the Democrats are to blame, even indirectly, for what happened in Arizona on Saturday, you're a fucking idiot without a shred of credibility, no matter how much an enabling media establishment might prop you up.
In the wake of yesterday's deadly shooting in Arizona, the assassination attempt on Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with fingers being pointed (justifiably, I think) at the likes of Sarah Palin (and the Tea Party, as well as much of the Republican Party), much of the talk today is about political speech:
Do Palin and others deserve any of the blame for what happened yesterday? More broadly, what is appropriate and what isn't?
At Slate, Jack Shafer defends "inflammatory rhetoric and violent imagery," criticizing those, like Keith Olbermann, who are calling for American political rhetoric to change. Shafer writes:
Only the tiniest handful of people -- most of whom are already behind bars, in psychiatric institutions, or on psycho-meds -- can be driven to kill by political whispers or shouts. Asking us to forever hold our tongues lest we awake their deeper demons infantilizes and neuters us and makes politicians no safer.
At The Daily Beast, Howard Kurtz, another media-focused pundit/apologist, takes a somewhat more balanced approach, noting that such violent rhetoric, while "highly unfortunate," is hardly new. He writes:
Let's be honest: Journalists often use military terminology in describing campaigns. We talk about the air war, the bombshells, targeting politicians, knocking them off, candidates returning fire or being out of ammunition. So we shouldn't act shocked when politicians do the same thing. Obviously, Palin should have used dots or asterisks on her map. But does anyone seriously believe she was trying to incite violence?
To a certain extent, Kurtz is right. And it isn't just in politics. How often do we hear military terminology used in sports? Take the NFL, where winning the war in the trenches is part of every game. But to a certain extent, he is also deeply naive. Palin may not explicitly have been trying to incite violence, but the reality is that words have consequences. This is hardly a new observation, but it bears repeating.
(Update: I realize I'm being way too nice to Kurtz here. His piece, like Shafer's, is appallingly smug. For a sound critique, see Sullivan.)
When you whip up a frenzy and try to mobilize the mobs who follow you unthinkingly, as Palin did during the '08 campaign and again last year, you plant seeds in the minds of those who may not quite get what you're doing, who may not appreciate all the various nuances of political speech. Even if we give Palin and others on the right the benefit of the doubt and allow that all they were doing was trying to rally their "troops" to vote, the possibility, if not the likelihood, remained that one or more of those "troops" would misinterpret the message.
Palin may not have been talking about killing Giffords when she put her in the crosshairs, but it's hardly a stretch to think that others might take her literally. And when you add to that the obsession with guns that animates so much of the right, including both the Tea Party and the Republican Party -- think back to the guns that showed up at health-care town halls a couple of years ago -- what you end up with is a cauldron of potential violence just waiting to explode.
In a perfect world, or at least in a world of universal rationality, Shafer may well be right. We should all be mature enough to understand the context of political speech, including that which is inflammatory and violent. But we don't live in such a world, and the fact remains that all is takes is one person with a gun, or whatever other weapon, to turn whispers or shouts into a bloodbath.
What's more, this isn't just about speech but about ideology as well. It's not just that Palin put Giffords and others in the crosshairs, targeting them, or that military terminology is prevalent specifically on the right, but that conservatism today, as reflected in both the Tea Party and the Republican Party, is exceedingly violent. It isn't just about limited government, it's about conspiracy theories rooted in anti-government, and specifically anti-federal government paranoia. It isn't just about the right to bear arms, it's about owing guns en masse, carrying them in public (whether concealed or right out in the open), and flaunting them (and also using them) as political protest.
All of this, too, is in that cauldron, and it's threatening to bubble over for years. From time to time it has, and what happened yesterday was just the most dramatic incident so far. It could very well get even worse.
As I do not in theory disagree with Shafer and Kurtz, I do not necessarily disagree with Olbermann (see his comment below) and others who are calling for political speech to be more responsible. I certainly do not want this to be yet another Janet Jackson moment, with a single incident (however tragic, in this case, unlike the mere exposure of a nipple) leading to gross over-reaction. Remember when 9/11 was supposed to have been the end of irony? Of course it wasn't. People moved on. And there will continue to be violent political rhetoric even after this.
No, what I worry about is not so much political speech itself but that speech, when violent, combined with a similarly violent political ideology, as we find on the right today. That's when it gets dangerous, and when, as we have seen in the past, long before yesterday, it can get literally violent.
No, let's not over-react, but let's not just dismiss what happened yesterday as merely the violent outburst of an insane individual acting alone, haunted by demons disconnected from political reality. The context and the discussion need to be broader, absorbing not just political speech on its own, which can usually be justified, but the context of that speech, the ideology behind it and the climate in which it is expressed.
It may still be far too early to pin the blame on anyone or anything in particular, but it's pretty clear, I think, if we do consider speech alongside ideology, that our fingers ought to be pointing at Palin and all those like her on the right, which is to say, at much of American conservatism today, including the Tea Party and the GOP.
We must not allow them to get away with what they're doing. And they should not be allowed to get away with claiming that they had nothing to do with it.
Did anyone see the great montage of the Worse of Michele Bachmann on Olbermann tonight? It was just hysterical.
UPDATE: Bill adds: Here's the link so you can watch it at the Countdown website. Click on the picture of Bachmann screaming. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#32307302 Great clips, great soundtrack. Contributor MarkH liked "We've Only Just Begun"; my favorite was the use of track by Gnarles Barkley--"Crazy."
