I've withheld comment about the recent firing of Keith Olbermann by MSNBC for no other reason than I quite literally didn't know what the hell to make of it. A lot of people are assuming that it had something to do with the recently approved sell of NBC to cable giant Comcast. I myself said as much to several different people, and it does seem to make sense at first glance, but something here doesn't pass the smell test. For that matter, it fails the test of any of the known senses.
There is usually, I don't know, I guess you might call it a grace period, you know? You give a person notice, usually two weeks, or at least one. You don't just call somebody in to the office and unceremoniously fire him outright. But in this case, that seems to be exactly what happened. Assuming this is an accurate account, its wrong to do anybody that way, even an insufferable douchebag like Olbermann. Unless of course there's some compelling reason that we don't know about. If someone is guilty of sexual harassment, or some other kind, or he has been deemed a hazard to those around him. Or maybe if something has turned up in his private and/or his professional life that is so profoundly disturbing you come to realize this person could turn out to be a distinct liability to your company's reputation.
Love him or hate him, Olbermann almost single-handedly revived the fortunes of MSNBC. While they never came close to approaching the ratings of Fox News, they did pull ahead of CNN, and Olbie deserves the lion's share of the credit for that. Nor do I begrudge the need for a news network with a decidedly liberal slant. Come on, let's face it, MSNBC does deserve credit for being openly progressive, just as Fox News makes no bones that as a matter of editorial policy, they slant to the right. They at least aren't hypocrites about it, and neither is MSNBC, unlike big brother NBC which tries to portray itself as objective and fair, but, like most other members of the mainstream media, is clearly anything but.
Those of us who have more or less followed the train wreck that was the MSNBC career of Keith Olbermann are aware of his problems. We know of the controversies, the open feud with Fox's O'Reilly, the insane off-the-wall rants, and finally his recent suspension for contributing to three political campaigns of Democratic candidates without permission from his network bosses.
This was in my opinion nothing more than an artifice intended to allow Olbermann a cooling off period following the recent election. The man obviously bore watching during this period. Who knew what he was liable to say or do?
By the way, one of the three candidates Olbermann contributed to was Gabrielle Giffords. When Olbermann made a recent comment about the need to tone down the rhetoric, and included himself in the list of those who needed to be more circumspect in their remarks, I think he was honestly blaming himself for what happened to Giffords, and to the other victims. He may have honestly thought that there was at least a slight chance that he might have inspired Loughner to carry out his monstrous act, maybe to spite Olbermann, the well-known Giffords supporter.
Olbermann seems to have such an exaggerated sense of his own importance not only to his own self, but to those within the sound of his voice, it doesn't take much to ascertain that he would entertain such notions. But more to the point, there has been a great deal of circumspection in the offices of MSNBC, like the other news networks, some of whom have seemingly gone to ridiculous extents to avoid giving the impression of encouraging hateful rhetoric by engaging in it themselves.
So did Olbermann say something, or do something, on the air or in the studios, that drew attention to him as someone who might be in danger of going completely off the rails and saying or doing something that might be explosive, let's say in a figurative sense? I don't know, and we likely never will know. But did his recent lambasting of Joe Liebermann, just a night or two before Olbermann's final broadcast, provide what amounted to the final straw in the face of some new MSNBC policy regarding hateful rhetoric aimed at public officials in the wake of the Tucson tragedy? Again, we may never know for sure. What we do know is that Olbermann, for all his talk about toning down the rhetoric, seemed to be showing signs of already coming slightly unglued.
But the longer we go without a clear definitive reason, the more speculation will run rampant, at least for a while. For example, you have to wonder if it might actually be due to some internal matter or conflict at MSNBC. Or maybe something in Olbermann's personal life that might have come to light, and might yet explode into the public sphere.
Whatever is wrong, Olbermann isn't talking about it, not even on his usually busy Twitter page. I tweeted him and asked him if it was a live boy or a dead girl, and I wasn't completely kidding. But as of now, the last tweet precedes his firing by maybe a couple of hours, and there is nothing there that provides any clues as to what happened or why. At the top of the page is a notation that a baseball oriented page will debut there on February 14th. Other than that, nothing but a deafening silence.
Owing to the recent mob bust in New York and elsewhere, is it possible that some information about Olbermann has come to light, or is about to? No, I'm not kidding, at all. Olbermann always fancied himself a modern day Edward R. Murrow, and he was willing to look into the most bizarre source on the planet in any attempt to bolster his credentials as a worthy heir to the Murrow legacy. In some cases, he made himself look foolish doing so. In fact, some of his "credible sources" were so laughable it would have been enough to have him fired from any other network. But as long as they seemed to bolster his preconceived notions and supported his own apparent agenda, he would accept such sources as would be laughable even taken at face value. Here's one example of a report that became Countdown's number one story of the day.
On September 7th, Olbermann reported on an Indiana University study that found parents lose 12 to 20 IQ points after having children and quoted a Dr. Hosung Lee saying the report "explains why every parent thinks their child is the smartest kid in the class or the best athlete... even if that child is as dumb as a box of rocks or needs a calendar to time their 40-yard dash."
The source Olbermann used in citing a supposed study from Indiana University was The Hoosier Gazette, a satirical website that is similar in content to the Weekly World News.
The point here, in so many words, is that owing to Olbermann's history of using sources that are not legitimate, he might have become a target of unscrupulous persons. There could even be a chance Olbermann was on the verge of walking blindly into a potential lawsuit and maybe dragging MSNBC along with him.
Now he's gone, and I want to make it clear, I am not happy about it. I enjoyed watching the bizarre Countdown with Keith Olbermann what times I did on rare occasions. It had its share of entertainment value, and also sheer outrage. But perhaps most importantly, Olbermann served a vital function to the right, more than he ever did for the left. He made it all too clear just what the liberal American progressive left was all about, stripped of its thin veneer of cordiality and what they seem to consider reason. He made it all too clear that there was precious little difference between mainstream Democrats like Harry Reid, and their more nutcase fringe allies of convenience, running the gamut from the SEIU to ACORN, all the way from the NAACP to the New Black Panther Party, from NOW to Code Pink. These are people who are willing to tear the country apart in order to rebuild it according to their vision, all the while laughably proclaiming their patriotic devotion to their Mr. Magoo version of the Constitution that contains elements and precedents no one but them could ever conceive at the closest examination, or would want to.
Olbermann served as a poster boy for what the liberal progressive American left was all about, and he was available five nights a week from eight o'clock until nine, in all his nutty, bizarre, liberal progressive glory. Who knows, really, how many votes he gained for Republicans in the last election? It's almost like he was a plant, a kind of Manchurian Journalist, if you will. Remember this screed against then Massachusetts Senate candidate Scott Brown?
Maybe we'll get real lucky and, sometime before the 2012 election, Obama will go batshit insane enough to name Olbermann his White House Press Secretary.
Could we really be that lucky?
