Keith Olbermann: Speaking Truth to Truthiness and Humiliating Stoopidity
By Mona
Count me as a huge fan of the MSNBC host. For he does stuff like this, smacking down the historically illiterate Secretary of State when she utters manifestly erroneous factoids about FDR, his Congress, and WWII (yeah, I know it is shocking, but BushCo is still stuck in that era) in the service of the Bush regime’s propaganda needs, and so embarrasses us as a nation:
… you can’t cherry-pick life — whether life in 2007, or life in the history page marked 1945….And if you’re going to try to do that; if you still want to fool some people into thinking that Saddam was Hitler, and once we gave FDR that blank check in Germany he was no longer subject to the laws of Congress or gravity or physics, at least, stop humiliating us..Get your facts straight..Use….. the Google!
You’ve been on Fox News Sunday, Secretary Rice.
That network has got another show premiering tomorrow night.
You could go on that one, too.
It might be a better fit.
It’s called “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?”
There’s something about him that suggests that, one night, he’ll say something that will cost him his career in television.
Oh Keith, my man, I do think so!
Comment by Joe Strummer —
February 28, 2007 @ 9:37 am
That’s a good bit. I’ve seen Olbermann a few times on YouTube clips snipped by mediamatters. It’s probably just me, but I find him smarmy and patronizing in ways that make me not like him even when I agree with most or all of what he’s saying.
Comment by Mona —
February 28, 2007 @ 9:48 am
Oh, I’m sure it is not just you. My personality type is such that I like that sort of righteous, fire-breathing indignation when it is appropriately directed at the truly outrageous — and Olbermann doesn’t do his “Special Comment” thingie routinely; the spirit must actually move him.
Somewhere I read that while he was eating lunch recently in a NYC restaurant, a woman walked up to him in tears barely able to speak, and then got out the words “thank you.” I understand both her distress and gratitude.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
February 28, 2007 @ 9:57 am
I was with him all the way until he skidded out and hit the wall:
It’s called “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?”
Yes, Keith: Secretary Rice is smarter than a fifth grader. She is fully aware that what she was saying is unadulterated bullshit, in the purest Frankfurtian sense of the word. Her remarks are intended for two discrete audiences: (1) people who really aren’t smarter than fifth graders, and (2) people who are, but who are willing for political reasons to transmit and amplify her bullshit.
This is one of those occasions–and they are legion with this administration–where accusations of stupidity are counterproductive, since they obscure something much more sinister. She’s not dumb; she’s a pathological liar.
Comment by KCinDC —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:06 am
I’m not sure Olbermann’s right on Beck. It’s hard for a “conservative” to be fired for saying anything outrageous nowadays. How much more bigoted can Beck be, and why would the reaction be any differemt from the “ho-hum” it’s been in the past?
Comment by Eric Martin —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:23 am
My personality type is such that I like that sort of righteous, fire-breathing indignation when it is appropriately directed at the truly outrageous — and Olbermann doesn’t do his “Special Comment” thingie routinely; the spirit must actually move him.
I’m with you Mona, and I’ll add a few points to this:
First, we should view Olbermann contextually. Over the past five-plus years, many of this nation’s most revered principles have been abandoned, so many vital institutions such as the rule of law have been betrayed. This administration led us into the biggest foreign policy blunder in the history of this nation - and their bloodlust does not appear sated. We are only beginning to grasp the enormity of the bill, but team Cheney is eyeing another big purchase.
So, with that background, yeah, it’s nice to finally hear someone like Olbermann breathe fire. And if he lays it on a bit thick, so be it. I’m not about to make the perfect the enemy of the good, and am more than willing to give a little room to Keith because, well, it’s television after all. And there’s always a bit of theater in that.
Comment by Suckerpunch —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Mona:
Sorry but are you being ironic or sincere when you talk about “how artfully Olbermann rebuked her”?
I thought the former (as the quoted text contained no meaningful ideas at all, let alone artfulness). But after reading the comments I’m not sure anymore.
Comment by Mona —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Suckerpunch: I took from Olbermann’s conclusion and enjoined my readers to click the link for the substance that supports same. Said substance was too lengthy to reproduce.
KCinDC: I know it is hard, but I counsel patience. The MSM is coming around, thanks to the blogosphere. It may be that within a year or two the Becks of this world will be seen for what they are, as a result of patriotic and astute bloggers driving the media elites to really look at how vile the right has become in both word and deed. Olbermann’s ratings have taken a huge jump in the past year — he is still well behind the wretched O’Reilly, but there is substantial progress and Olbermann is definitely part of that.
Comment by mds —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:50 am
I thought the former (as the quoted text contained no meaningful ideas at all, let alone artfulness).
So, Saddam Hussein was the equivalent of Hitler? FDR did have unlimited extraconstitutional powers purely on his own say-so? Congressional checks on executive power are fictional? Thanks for making it clear that pointing out egregious factual flaws in a historical analogy isn’t substantive. At least we have Suckerpunch’s comment to set the gold standard for substance in criticism.
Comment by Suckerpunch —
February 28, 2007 @ 11:07 am
Mona thanks for the clarification.
mds, learn how to read English.
Comment by mds —
February 28, 2007 @ 11:27 am
mds, learn how to read English.
How about we trade? Learn context, the thing that made it entirely clear from the excerpt what Olbermann’s argument was. Then I’ll enter a remedial English reading class, just for you.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
February 28, 2007 @ 11:51 am
Mona:
I’m always a bit mystified when I see folks say stuff like that. At least for my whole adult life, it’s been obvious to me that the right was vile (Reagan kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi?). It’s not that they’ve become more vile, it’s that they’ve become more powerful.
Comment by sglover —
February 28, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
Never forget that, in the early days of the Mesopotamian fiasco, “Dr”. Rice was publishing horseshit op-eds likening nascent Iraqi partisan fighters with the overblown Nazi “Werewolf” guerilla war scheme. Nothing to worry about here, she was saying, this will all blow over. This was back in the days when she was making blithe comparisons between Iraq 2003 and Germany 1946.
If it’s done nothing else, the last five years have really yanked the prestige away from academic political science and international relations. Many of the idiots who argued for our current disasters have advanced degrees in those “disciplines”, from some of our most exclusive universities.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
February 28, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
Gsnorgathon: I think you’re falling for the fundamental atttribution error. That is, you’re almost certainly overemphasizing dispositional factors and underestimating situational factors in explaining the behavior of others. This isn’t unique to you, by any stretch, but it’s something that I’ve noticed becoming more and more common in the rhetoric of comments on this blog, and you just hit my threshold for saying something about it.
Consider John Ashcroft. It’s worth remembering that in the 1990s he was one of the strongest Congressional opponents of government-mandated key escrow encryption — that is, he was one of the strongest opponents of universal government spying and wiretapping. Did his disposition change between then and his tenure as Attorney General, or did his circumstances? I’d say it was almost certainly the latter, not the former.
This gets to the heart of procedural liberalism; institutions constrain our behavior, and good ones discourage bad behavior and encourage good. The Republicans today are much worse than the Republicans five years ago in large measure because they’ve dismantled a lot of the strictures that helped block bad behavior. What’s terrifying about this is that unless they are re-instated, the Democrats (when they take over in 2008) will be worse than they would have been five years ago, because those strictures help everybody.