November 30, 2005
'Tis the Season To Be Olby
Looking past all the partisan propaganda, one must conclude that the President's Wednesday speech on the Iraq War scored some points. Why else would we find Olby, a few hours later, making it his personal mission to try to counteract Bush's address in every way possible? Referring to the published National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, Keith asked:
Is the implication here that we didn't have one of those already?
The speech broke "no new ground"; it had "very little in the way of actual strategy"; what strategy there was is "debatable". These are not opinions of analysts or clips from Democrat leaders. These are the words of the impartial, nonpartisan Olbermann, in just the first two minutes of The Hour of Spin.
KO introduces a clip of Sen Reed by describing him as a "West Point graduate and former paratroop commander in the 82nd Airborne". Perhaps Olby will make it a habit to lay out the military record of everyone he runs a clip from. Or perhaps not. Pundit-for-all-occasions Howard Fineman offered the observation that the speech was "great theater", and shrewdly referred to not dates but milestones to "buy time" before he withdraws troops. Since Howie didn't immediately parrot KO's talking points for the evening, the nonpartisan host thought it was time for another of his patented leading questions:
Make these speeches about the need for Iraqi self-reliance, then declare that there is increasing amounts of self-reliance, withdraw troops, repeat a few times, and then define victory and get out?
Fineman immediately got with the plan: "That's what I think is going on." He added that in truth the Iraqi battalions have to be "led around by the hands" by US troops. A taped report from NBC on Iraqi capabilities continued the work of the evening, using Bush's words and then undercutting them with "yes, but..." formulations.
By now we're at the halfway mark, but even in the #3 segment Olby is still spinning his web. Here he exposed stories written by US military personnel that end up in Iraqi newspapers. "Fake news!", proclaims KO. Mark Mazetti of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote the article that so fascinated Keith, is the interview guest, but he refuses to characterize the articles in question as false or deceptive.
Other than a sleazy report on strippers and fluff about fat bottoms, the only other element of note is, what else, the "worst person in the world". Olby was in hog-heaven tonight, as he named Bill O'Reilly as worse, worser, and worst--an Olbsession Trifecta! Apparently Mr Bill's most grievous sin was:
This whole attack on Christmas nonsense that he made up, some sort of fantasy in which the liberals are coming to your town to force you and your family to not call it Christmas anymore
That of course is a moonbatty caricature of the issue, but we don't exactly expect Keith to traffic in truth. He is up in arms that one can buy "holiday ornaments" at the Fox News online store, and adds triumphantly:
Who is trying to change Merry Christmas into Happy Holidays? Bill O'Reilly, that's who!
As usual, KO's shot lands wide of the mark. Bill O'Reilly has nothing to do with the Fox News online store. He doesn't run it; he doesn't sell the items; he doesn't write the wording of the descriptions. In fact, if you go to Bill O'Reilly's own online store, it doesn't sell ornaments at all. And the heading reads: "Bill O'Reilly's Christmas Store".
Olby is so obsessed with slamming Mr Bill that facts just don't matter. What pushed him over the edge tonight? Maybe it was the today's release of the November ratings, giving The O'Reilly factor well over 2,500,000 viewers. And The Hour of Spin? Less than 1/5 that number. How to counteract the votes of America's news consumers? Fire another salvo of false charges at the nation's most-watched cable news program. Yeah, that's the ticket.
We're Back!
It's Tuesday, the technical problems here at OlbermannWatch have been resolved, and Keith is back with another installment of The Hour of Spin. Leading off tonight was Bush's upcoming speech, and KO framed the questions to Newsweek's Richard Wolffe in his usual leading fashion:
Is there anything that's going to separate these, in the final analysis, these speeches from the previous ones, or are we going to get this repeated drumbeat, or are they going to try a series of different drumbeats and see if there is one that really works?
Is there anybody in power telling the President, you know what, we're in charge of the White House, the Senate, the House, if we can't get this message out now either we're not very good at getting out messages or the message isn't very good?
Wolffe's opinion was that Olby is "right to be skeptical", and referenced "the people who believe that you represent the liberal media conspiracy". Who could possibly believe such a thing about our Keith?
After some anonymously sourced reports (channeled by Sy Hersh) designed to portray President Bush as too religious, in comes Wayne ("Bush's Brain") Slater to pontificate about how Bush is...what else? Too religious. Slater speculated that the President sees the Iraq war as "a test of his faith", and worried about Bush imposing a "narrow religious agenda" on an unwilling populace.
The Great Leak Case made the #4 position. Unfortunately for Keith, today's Washington Post story suggests that Viveca Novak's testimony might actually help Karl Rove's defense. But Olby has a way around that; drag in Dana Milbank and bring up a "report" from one of Keith's favorite moonbat sites: the left-wing Raw Story. Milbank properly warned Keith that Raw Story has not had a great record of accuracy. But since KO had already given this rumor from a discredited source equal prominence with the Washington Post article, Soros got his money's worth on this one.
The #3 story on the Countdown was sports stuff, focusing on something about Terrell Owens, restraint of trade, and Senator Specter. The next segment dealt with stress. (We know all about it; we have to watch Olbermann five nights a week.) Monica Novotny did a piece on health care for artists. In the #1 slot: apologies, inspired by Rep Duke Cunningham.
Nothing political in the "worst person in the world" segment tonight, but that gives us a chance to document Olby's winners during our short hiatus. Last week he managed to award the prize both to anyone who believes in Intelligent Design, and to Ann Coulter. And yes, he used that same picture of Ann with the eye patch. His reason? Olby disagreed with her latest column. That's all it takes, you know. If you don't parrot Keith's spin, you are a bad person. Who are we to argue with megalomania?
November 29, 2005
Thanks to the efforts of Alex Yuriev my Movable Type database which became corrupted last week has been recovered and is now back on line. At this point it's late so I will be back posting tomorrow.
November 22, 2005
Giupetto and Garafalo
Countdown opened with the most important news of Tuesday, November 22, 2005: the "cut and run" comments made last week by Rep Jean Schmidt, which Olby flogged just one day earlier in his "worst person in the world" segment:
Today, the individual whom she claims she was quoting, says he never said that.
and again:
The colonel she quoted, Ohio state representative Danny Bubp, is now denying ever having said what Miss Schmidt said he said.
Well, not exactly. According to Rep Danny Bubp's office:
he did not mention Congressman Murtha by name nor did he mean to disparage Congressman Murtha.
You'll note that Bubp's office did not claim he "never said" it. That formulation is strictly a creation of the Hour of Spin. Keith went on to a "potential bombshell": Bush was told ten days after 9/11 that Iraq wasn't involved in the attack. Well, duh! Added Olby:
Some might call all that a conspiracy.
Countdown Crony Howard Fineman showed up to chew over all this big news, along with the non-developments in the Tom DeLay case. It's all part of the "crumbling" of Bush's Republican support, according to Fineman. After a bit on Thanksgiving and pardoning turkeys, KO found a way to drag Richard Nixon into all of this. Very nicely done.
In the #4 slot we got a combo: a taped piece on the prosecution of Jose Padilla (whom Olby suggested was not that much of a threat), and questionable loans in the aftermath of 9/11 (via a taped Lisa Myers report). After a "top 3 newsmakers" bit where the on-screen list didn't match the text Keith was reading, we got #3: weather and travel nightmares. NBC's Michelle Kosinski (of the phony canoe in the water stunt) was the ideal choice for this segment.
In the #2 slot, we got yet another taped NBC piece, this time about convicts who escaped during Katrina and posed as college students. With all these recycled reports from network headquarters, it seemed like Keith was hardly even trying.
But there's always the #1 story, a chance to bash a conservative with an unfunny installment of "Robert Novak Puppet Theater". He turned yet again to Air America for fair and balanced commentary. Jeanine Garafalo immediately called Novak a "right-wing partisan hack". Olby giggled in appreciative agreement, but when they went off on a tangent about the evil of Fox News, that's when we threw in the towel. No point in wasting any more time with these two arrogant buffoons if it means we might miss even one minute of The Amazing Race.
Jossip: Keith Olbermann will be
Jossip:
Keith Olbermann will be back on the radio dial Monday thru Friday alongside Dan Patrick at 2pm. Even if MSNBC doesn't like it, too bad it's good PR.
November 21, 2005
Olby Bar the Door
A good video clip is like money in the bank to Keith Olbermann. So it is that tonight Olby jumped on the video of President Bush trying to open a locked door. He played it not once, but twice--and that's just in the opening teaser! When the show proper began, Keith intoned:
For metaphors, nothing could surpass it in a year's time.... Our fifth story on the Countdown, we'll show you the President's struggle to achieve a literal exit strategy in a moment...
You will? Twice wasn't enough already? But first KO ran clips from Dick Cheney and Joe Biden; to avoid any sense that the Hour of Spin is balanced, he brought in Countdown Crony Dana Milbank, and fed him loaded questions:
In terms of using that reference to the intelligence being bad, does that represent cutting their losses?
Is [Cheney] trying to hold four fundamentally opposing positions at the same time?
Milbank mumbled something about Cheney using a "have you stopped beating your wife" approach, so Olby got his money's worth. And then it was time to run the locked door clip for the third time. This is Big News, so let's bring in the big guns: David "Turncoat" Gergen. Keith started right in on the talking point of the day:
Is it unfair to call that one a metaphor for what's going on?
Gergen giggled that doing so is "inevitable", which it is, on the Hour of Spin at any rate. As the interview continued, the video clip ran twice more (one of these as a series of still frames!); Olbermann continued, bringing up Scott McClellan's Murtha comments:
Those don't qualify as accidents. Those qualify as sloppy mistakes, do they not?
Turncoat rushed to agree (the best posture for anyone who appears on Countdown and has any interest in being invited back). Keith brought up the "rift" between Bush and Cheney again, Gergen patronized him, and the first commercial break mercifully interrupted.
In the #4 slot, the Iraq Quagmire report, a summary of all the bad news of the day. Then a topic of actual relevance, what would happen if US troops withdrew? Colonel Jack Jacobs opined that announcing a troop pullback wouldn't have "any deleterious effect" on our forces, but might not be too beneficial for the government of Iraq. Olby tried another loaded question:
Is this debate now, by itself, the kind of danger to morale or to safety that the administration has been portraying it as?
Jacobs said ours is a highly professional force. The debate doesn't have a deleterious effect, it's healthy. It could over a longer term, but by then we'll be withdrawing forces.
Because he actually reported a little real news, the nightly specularama on The Great Leak Case got bumped back to the #3 position. Citing such reliable sources as "Raw Story", it was another fun guessing game: who is Bob Woodward's source? Last week Olby wanted it to be Dick Cheney, but that was all forgotten tonight as the speculation circled around Stephen Hadley and Richard Armitage. More GOP corruption coverage: Jack Abramoff's former partner enters a guilty plea and perils unnamed "top administration officials" (according to Norman Ornstein).
Radio news was the #2 segment. Afterwards Olby managed to slip in a plug for his new expanded role at ESPN radio. Shameless self-promotion: how O'Reillyish. #1 was an oh-so-hip, irreverent look at political bloopers. Hey, let's show that Bush locked-door video a sixth time!
The "worst person in the world". Was this the night that the glass ceiling would be broken? Will a Democrat finally achieve the ultimate notoriety? The runner-up was Col James Brown. His crime? He was "trotted out" to reply to Rep Murtha, but yesterday he was rotated out of Iraq. And that makes him a bad person...why? Don't ask. It's OlbyLogic.
The winner, of course, was a certified GOPer, the Congresswoman who relayed a comment from a constituent: "cowards don't cut and run". She is evil, Eeeeeeevil, personally attacking a Democrat. Of course, the personal attacks from Democrats (including Murtha) on the Vice-President, the President, or any other Republican just never seem to measure up to "worst person" status. On the Hour of Spin, that sort of thing just makes them more likely to be invited in for a friendly chat.
November 18, 2005
Chemical Olby
Only on the Hour of Spin would the top story of the day be another Olbermann specularama. Thursday night a good eight minutes were spent bloviating about who Bob Woodward's source is. Olby framed the story with a bunch of photos on the screen, carefully selected so that he could rule all of them out except for one: Dick Cheney. Dana Milbank joined in the guessing game, but when all was said and done, there was no news at the top of this "newshour".
After a few shots at Woodward (Keith is always right on top of the Soros talking points), Jonathan Turley came in to, you guessed it, take a few shots at Woodward. With the enforced unanimity of viewpoint that is a Countdown staple, Olby and his guests are the conversational equivalent of synchronized swimming. Incredibly, KO again trumpeted his great "known" insight from Wednesday. Maybe Keith ought to read the transcript of Fitzgerald's press conference, where at one point he flatly stated:
He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter.
Note to Olby: he didn't say "the first official known to disclose". He said Libby was "the first official to disclose". Got that? Can you please put away your new toy now and talk about something else?
The #4 story was, predictably, Rep Murtha calling for a pullout from Iraq. Murtha said the war was unwinnable and discussed pulling out over a year ago, though Olbermann made no mention of that. Then a clip of John Kerry from Hardball (that aired less than an hour before), but no clip of Matthews's other guest, John McCain. The topic morphed into "white phosphorus", described at least a half-dozen times as a "chemical weapon". Sheesh, even the BBC realizes it is not a chemical weapon.
In the #3 slot was talk of a rift between Bush pere and fils. This was from a Washington Times article, and Keith brought on the reporter who wrote the story--to dish some dirt about the President. That's all a writer for the DC Times, usually an object of Olby derision, has to do to get Keith's attention. Just print something negative about Bush, and KO's welcome mat is out.
#2 was another Olbermann antismoking piece; #1: Japanese game shows.
What Republican was named "worst person"? All of them! Well, not all of them, but a goodly number: the Republican National Committee and its webmasters, because of the song they used on a video. Olby is truly scraping the bottom of his smear barrel if this is the best he can come up with.
November 17, 2005
Olby to the Max
Ever wonder what goes on behind the curtain at Countdown? How exactly do Keith, The Laughing Stagehand, and their happy gang of toadies ensure that every broadcast will contain the requisite amount of propaganda? Inside Cable News has alerted us to this interesting account of just how the Countdown staff chooses its guests. It won't come as any kind of surprise to OlbyWatch readers. But it's always interesting to see someone peel away Olbermann's phony facade of nonpartisanship, and reveal the real facade.
November 16, 2005
Known-Sequitur
Bob Woodward delivers manna from heaven for the Hour of Spin. His revelation that he heard about Valerie Plame way before Libby did gives Olby carte blanche to make the Great Leak Case the lead item on Wednesday's Countdown. Keith took full advantage of Woodward's involvement to make a link to Richard Nixon, Watergate, and the "I am not a crook" speech.
Woodward's testimony puts in doubt Prosecutor Fitzgerald's claim that Libby was the first person to leak the information to the press, but Olby was ready with immediate damage control. Fitzgerald didn't say Libby was the first person to leak, he said he was the first person "known" to leak. And according to Mr Humility:
The word "known" will appear prominently around the country, I think, tomorrow morning, and the explanations thereof.
Keith Olbermann, the man who sets the news agenda around the country, and a legend in his own mind. Unfortunately, his brilliant insights ended there. It never occurred to Olby that the prosecutor about whom he ran one shameless puff piece after another has proven to be a rather incompetent investigator. Whether or not he said "known", Fitzgerald didn't even get this basic fact of the case right, and completely missed critical evidence that made a shambles of his purported timeline.
Next comes Olby's favorite felon, John Dean, who delivers several minutes of meaningless speculation. Dean does some more damage control for Fitzgerald, and congratulates KO for pointing out the word "known". That gives Olby the opportunity to point out other news agencies that didn't catch this mind-boggling insight, humbly hyping his own brilliance once again. As he goes to a break, Keith again brings up the "crucial word". Looks like we know what tonight's talking point is.
Hardly a surprise: the #4 story is more on the Great Leak Case. Mr Subtlety again brings up "known". Former prosecutor Solomon Wisenberg then appears to pooh-pooh any notion that this has any negative impact on the Libby case. And they discuss--what else?--the impact of "known".
The return of the FEMA-bashing segment is #3, complete with the obligatory reference to "Brownie". Then Keith runs the soundbite of the day, which turns out to be Howard Stern replaying yesterday's Rush Limbaugh "worst person" bit and then lauding Olby as a "hero". But praise from Stern is rather like a civil rights leader getting the endorsement of David Duke. But Keith will take an ego massage wherever he can get it.
Fast-forwarding through more Michael Jackson puppets (#2) and celebrity news, we have the worst person in the world. Why do we have the feeling Bill O'Reilly is going to show up here once again? Could it be because KO flashed his picture at the top of the show? Maybe it's because Media Matters ran another O'Reilly quote (something about a San Francisco militia) and Olby's contract with George Soros dictates that he use every quote they run on his program. The lameness of this O'Reilly "offense" was so obvious that KO hardly even tried to make a case for its worstness.
Finally, the #1 story, about dating farmers. At last we can purge our minds of Olby's toxic waste and enjoy an hour of Lost. And no, that is not a documentary about the mind of Keith Olbermann.
November 15, 2005
Magnificent Olbsession
The US Senate delivered the top story for Tuesday's Hour of Spin, passing a non-binding resolution about Iraq. Olby likened it to Walter Cronkite's famed comments about VietNam, and chatted with Dana Milbank of the Post, who called it a "rebuke" to the President. There was more reporting of poll numbers--never much of a concern to Keith when the President was riding high, but now it's a nightly feature. And just as some guy who heckled Dick Cheney during the hurricane coverage was Big News, tonight KO made it a point to spotlight some other guy who heckled Cheney.
After Olby made fun of a conservative song supporting President Bush, we got the #4 story: torture. A recycled NBC report detailed a "torture chamber" found in Iraq, attributed to Shia militia. But Keith was in hog heaven with #3: a resolution from San Francisco to take Bill O'Reilly off the air. Feeding KO's principal Olbsession is akin to offering free crack to Marion Barry. "Obnoxious and perverted but fundamentally buffoonish" was how Keith described Bill O--a textbook example of projection that would have impressed Dr Freud himself.
So we got replays of O'Reilly's hyperbole, then clips of a later O'Reilly interview, followed by still more O'Reilly sound bites (where he refers to it as a satiric riff). Keith falsely described this last as O'Reilly "changing his story again", adding "and you thought Sen Joe McCarthy was dead". In the spirit of fairness and balance, Olby brought in the San Fran commissioner sponsoring the resolution. Keith noted that O'Reilly was engaged in "hate speech", and is "several light bulbs short of a marquee". At the end of the interview, Mr Freedom of Speech wished his guest "good luck" in silencing Mr Bill.
Porn on the iPod was story #2; #1, Michael Jackson and Michael Musto (they deserve each other).
And of course, Countdown wouldn't be the Hour of Spin without bashing Republicans and conservatives in the "worst person in the world" segment. The runner-up was Brent Bozell; the "worst person" was Rush Limbaugh. We keep saying it: never a Democrat or liberal as "worst person". As long as Olbermann persists in saying he is "nonpartisan", we will continue to remind people of the proof that he is a liar.
November 14, 2005
North to Alaska
The Monday night Hour of Spin began with Olby introducing a clip of the President's Alaska speech in his typical fair, nonpartisan manner:
He met the troops, and also to mete out a little punishment to any Democrat irresponsible enough to criticize the war in Iraq and how we got there.
After that misrepresentation, KO talked about poll numbers and brought in the chameleon of punditry, Howard Fineman. Howard, of course, is like silly putty--whether he's interviewed by Olby, or Laura Ingraham, somehow he always seems to give 'em what they want to hear. Keith repeated his misrepresentation:
...essentially accusing anybody who's critical of the war in Iraq...of being deeply irresponsible. We just heard tonight, in Alaska, he did exactly the same thing.
Olby must think that if he tells this lie often enough, people will swallow it. And Howie, by nodding in agreement, is his enabler. A taped NBC report from Andrea Mitchell followed, dealing with how much intelligence data the Democrat critics actually had. It started with a straw man fallacy:
[VIDEO - BUSH]: [Democrats] had access to the same intelligence...
[MITCHELL]: But did Senate Democrats really have as much intelligence as the President?
The President said they had access to it; Mitchell changes the wording to did they actually have it? She makes points like, oh that was buried on page 84 of a report so it doesn't count, and her piece has several Democrat soundbites but none from Republicans. There were a few bones of fairness thrown in at the end, but the thrust was clear.
With the #4 story Olby faces his nightly dilemma. How exactly does he make the Great Leak Case one of his top stories when there is no news to report? In the grand tradition of the National Enquirer, if there is no news, just create some. A "new theory" that the target of the investigation is actually Dick Cheney. It must be a reliable theory, since it's being promoted by Keith's favorite felon, John Dean. The ex-con speculated about release of classified information, but neither he nor Olby ever addressed a key question. How can someone (like the Vice-President) who is authorized to declassify information possibly be indicted for declassifying information?
In the #3 slot, the Jordan bombing (via a recycled NBC report) with Steve Emerson opining. #2 was eye candy: amateur video of a twister; and #1 was wacky inventions.
And oh, KO named another worst person in the world. Now what Republican (because Democrats and liberals never qualify) was the horrible, evil person for Monday? The Governor of Alaska. There is no corner of the USA too far-flung for Olby when he's on the hunt for Republicans he can smear.
November 11, 2005
Olbermann's Brain
Friday night's Countdown can be summed up in one sentence:
Bush is a liar.
But we can't let it rest at that. Here at OlbermannWatch we go the extra mile, as repellent as the job may be. So put on your toxic waste encounter suit, we're about to wade into the sewage that is the Hour of Spin. Olby started out with his first cannon blast:
With nearly six in ten Americans calling him a liar, President Bush chooses Veterans Day to call them something else.
[VIDEO OF BUSH]: it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.
But wait, there's more:
If you are part of the 57% of this nation that believes, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, that the President deliberately misled us to make the case for war with Iraq, Mr Bush has just called you deeply irresponsible.
Is that whom the President was talking about? Here is the entire quote. We report, you decide:
While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and antiwar critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure...
If KO is to be believed, the President accused 57% of the American people of trying to "rewrite the history" of the war. Is that whom Mr Bush was talking about? Or is Olby just lying to make a dishonest point? For the answer to these and other questions, let's go to Countdown Crony Craig Crawford. You'd think there wouldn't be room for both Crawford and Olby on that high horse, but you'd be wrong. Crawford managed to perfectly parrot the statement of Sen Kennedy:
Getting so partisan here on Veterans Day was quite surprising.
Keith again warned Republicans that this speech was going to backfire (he only has their best interests at heart) and pulled out the L-word. Again:
He's got liar poll numbers now.
And when Olby suggested that Bush shouldn't be distracted by replying to his critics (in other words, just bend over and take it), Crawford (hereafter "Olbermann's Brain") giggled that even Republicans don't like the President's new approach:
Many of the President's supporters, Keith, are very concerned because they see some good things coming out of Iraq...some of the other positive news they want the administration to focus on, instead of engaging this old partisan debate with Democrats.
Really?!? The President's supporters don't want him to answer his critics? Just what Bush supporters would those be, Craig? Olbermann's Brain didn't name a single one, and we doubt that he could. Meanwhile, Keith derails the conversation to bring up Karl Rove. Big surprise.
Continuing with the "Bush lied, people died" talking point for the evening, the #4 story was "the truth test". Did Democrats really have access to the same intelligence as the White House, as the President said? Richard Sale was the guest expert for this Olby Investigation. Richard Sale. Why does that name sound familiar? Perhaps because he has written for the far-left truthout.org, where he fearlessly predicted five indictments in the CIA leak case? Maybe it rings a bell because Sale is said to hate neocons with a vengeance. No point in transcribing the conversation, because you already know Olby's questions, and Sale's responses. Once again, a single guest is brought in to echo the host's chosen spin. Investigative journalism, Olbermann-style.
The #3 story was talkative kids; #2 was a taped report about English usage. Meanwhile, top stories on the MSNBC web page that Olby didn't think were important included the Jordan bombing, Arab reaction, Secretary Rice in Iraq, an accused rapist now charged with murder, and the Pope's comments on creationism.
The worst person in the world was another twofer: a conservative runner-up (from the Federalist society) and the winner, Republican Rick Santorum. The amazing streak, that defies all laws of probability, continues: no Democrat or liberal is ever the worst person in the world.<
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