The Virginian-Pilot has published an editorial condemning Olbermann for the use of Nazi imagery to promote his floundering television show.

Here's the money quote:

Keith Olbermann , take note. Olbermann, the MSNBC host, has a running feud with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly . It's pretty funny. The routine goes like this: O'Reilly says something outrageous, Olbermann lampoons him, then O'Reilly overreacts. It never fails, and O'Reilly never learns. Recently, Olbermann appeared at a meeting of the Television Critics Association. He whipped out a Bill O'Reilly mask and gave a Nazi salute. Not funny.

Here's the rule of thumb: Whenever a political debate gets to the point where someone invokes Nazis or Hitler, it's time to stop. There is no connection between Hitler and ... well, pretty much anything or anyone else. Maybe Pol Pot. Maybe Serbia. Maybe Sudan. But that's about it. But not Bill O'Reilly.

They allow moderated comments on their web site so I posted one. Hopefully the will print it...

=======================

Excellent editorial but...

The Olbermann Nazi Salute was far worse than simply "not funny". As noted in the Miami Herald the Nazi Salute was pre-planned as part of NBC's promotional strategy for their cable news channel. Worse, the supposed basis for the stunt - that Bill O'reilly has defended Nazis is knowingly false and malicious.

That GE executives would permit NBC to stoop to using Nazi imagery to boost ratings at their floundering cable news channel is a disgrace.

=======================

Of course, sharp-eyed readers will note how the editorial depicts the "feud" from Olbermann's point of view:

O'Reilly says something outrageous, Olbermann lampoons him, then O'Reilly overreacts. It never fails, and O'Reilly never learns.

At the Pilot, O'Reilly is Charlie Brown to Olbermann's Lucy. O'Reilly says "outrageous" things then "overreacts" and "never learns". Keith "lampoons". Somehow they missed the part where Olbermann makes things up, bases charges on erroneous transcripts lifted from blogs, touts propaganda from Media Matters for America, takes things out of context or, in the most recent case, flat out lies. The fail to note that Olbermann routinely slanders his opponents, especially O'Reilly. However, it does say something when even an MSM paper like the Virginia-Pilot takes issue with Olbermann's Nazi Salute. Too bad it's for the wrong reason - that it was "not funny".

The Olbershphere weighs in...

The Cable Game - mainstream America, in the form of the Virginian-Pilot op/ed page, is revolted too...

ICN - Still more Nazi salute stuff...

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Keith joins Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show (that's after Letterman on CBS). Keith and Craig may have loads to talk about; when Ferguson first began working the UK Comedy Circuit in the nineties he went by the name Bing Hitler

Once again, I am ponying up a free copy of Keith Olbermann's new book (seriously) to the OlbyWatch Reader who can guess how many times Olbermann will say "O'Reilly" during his appearance. I open the bidding at 8.

UPDATE:

KO Review

Dressed like the professor on Gillians Island, Keith was once again lost at sea on a late night talk show. Like Leno, lot's of "Really's?" and "Rights" from Ferguson in response to Keith's "jokes"... Mel Gibson was arrested he said "dont' blame me, Jesus was driving (thud), "fundamentalists don't believe in gravity" (clank) about al Qaeda appearing in Pet Shop Boys videos (clunk).

In fairness to Keith his was much more relaxed (perhaps because he was the second guest on the Late, Late show, on past one in the morning and few were watching). He did get off a few good lines including one about bringing "reality TV" concepts to the voting process (vote another candidate off each week) but, once again, rambled on so long that they had to edit down the segment and go straight to the hard break at the end of the show.

KO Makes Olbermann Watch reference

Earlier in the week, we wrote on Olbermann's appearance on Leno:

KO swung and missed with "got out here in time for the freeways to melt"

KO swung again and missed with "Al Gore was wrong that global warming would take 10 years - more like 10 minutes"

KO was caught looking on "forecast tomorrow, 60% fog in the morning, 60% the four horseman of the apocalypse"

I tried to go culture and...a swing and a miss

NOTE TO KEITH: Keep reading OlbyWatch. We love having you here!

Keith Largely Passes on O'Reilly

We have a winner! In a shocker (to everyone but Steve), Olbermann failed to utter the name "Bill O'Reilly" once during the entire show confining himself to the occasional pronoun as in "He's an idiot". There were two taped mentions so those don't count which means SteveMG is the "lucky" winner of KO's new book!!! Congratulations.

Reeling from the pressure brought to bear by Olbermann Watch, KO steered clear of any Nazi references, this time tossing the old "Coit Tower" canard for the uninitiated and perplexed audience.

KO: there was a bill passed by the City Council of San Francisco that said you can't have - a voluntary thing - you're not supposed to have military recruiters on high school campuses in San Francisco. A voluntary thing but you know we just don't what you to do that. You want to send 'em across the street that's great but not on the campus. It adds something like you can get a better grade if you sign up for the military. His response to that was to say "Well OK al Qaeda if you want to attack anybody in the United States we're going to defend every place but San Francisco". Isn't that a little bit of an over reaction to...? (nervous laughter).

Of course, Keith is lying. What KO failed to mention is that while the resolution that passed was a "sense of the city" resolution, what O'Reilly was reacting to was the ongoing effort to BAN military recruiting on ALL high school and college campuses in San Francisco - not some "voluntary" program. KO also failed to mention that the "College Not Combat" organization is yet another front group for those lovable lugs, the international communists, who have been drafting resolutions for school boards and city council across the United States as part of its master plan to totally demilitarize the United States. The stated goal of those behind the College Not Combat initiative is to ban campus military recruiting and that they pushed the City Council resolution in San Francisco (they have other such resolutions in motion in Seattle and elsewhere) as part of a step by step "consciousness raising" process (the standard left-wing tactic) akin to boiling a frog. This point is even mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle article to which Media Matters linked in their piece.

By the way, I am not using the term "communists" here as hyperbole. These folks really are part of the alive but barely kicking international communist movement which is organized around International A.N.S.W.E.R. yet another front group, but good luck trying to get them to admit that as they know that if Americans really understood who they are, what they believe and what they are attempting to implement here and around the world they would be rejected out-of-hand by Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike.

According to George Soros Media Matters for America, O'Reilly said:

Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

I do not think it was appropriate to for O'Reilly to go so far as to say "You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." But he was clearly not advocating that. He was using hyperbole wrapped in a hypothetical inside an outburst to make a point - that San Francisco was trying to have it both ways - they want to ban military recruiting (the "College Not Combat" initiative "discouraged" military recruiting but, as noted above, was drafted as a first step towards a ban) but they want to be protected by the same military they disavow. O'Reilly was laying out the logical consequences of the international communist agenda - that if we have no military recruiting we will have no soldiers and there will not be anyone to protect San Francisco and that will mean open season on U.S. citizens not just in San Francisco but around the world and so the actions of the City Council in San Francisco is the first step in putting all Americans at risk. As O'Reilly is one of them he is upset about it. His point was that it was totally irresponsible for elected officials to be actively in engaged in efforts to undermine the U.S. military during a time of war (or ever, for that matter) and that if they were successful those chickens would come home to roost. What he expressed was the frustration that those chickens are more likely to come to roost where he lives (New York) than San Francisco.

San Francisco did not ban military recruiting on college campus because, under current law, had they done so they would lose federal funding for their colleges. In other words, they want to disavow the U.S. military, they want to deter students from joining the military, but they still want all the money.

BTW, you can look for efforts from the international communists to de-couple federal dollars from military recruiting on college campuses once they have gotten enough local governments to go along with their international communist agenda.

KO Trivia

We got a little KO trivia - that he interviewed for the job to replace Pat Sajak on the CBS Late Show, that he has a unibrow and shaves in between his eyebrows. Also, and KO fans know this, but he is doing a voiceover on Family Guy during the fall season.

KO Admits Supporting Al Gore

Ferguson asked "What side do you dress on...politically?"

And we got the usual "I've been accused of being a liberal" drivel and then the tired "I did 218 shows about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and no one accused me of being a liberal then" without mentioning that he threw a hissy fit in a speech at Cornell revealing publicly that he had quit his job for "moral" reasons (i.e., he quit in protest over reporting on the Clinton Sex Scandal, reporting that he now claims shows his "independent" bona fides).

KO continued "It's very interesting how you can be pigeon-holed . I like to think of myself politically as 'correct'. All those Al Gore bumper stickers, they weren't a good investment but..

And then we got the big lie...

KO: I tried...I try to not be...to the degree you can be neutral now a days...for instance, I don't vote.

Ferguson: You don't vote at all?

KO: I don't vote because I don't think I should have a rooting interest in the outcome of an election.

Ferguson: Isn't it your duty as a citizen to vote?

KO: ...If everybody who's in the news stayed away from the ballot box I don't think we'd have a significant decline, people would still have that bias that's perceived one way or another but you could say "well I didn't vote...I don't contribute...I'm try to stay out of it to the degree that I can. I don't have a rooting interest other than what happens to the country.

Olbermann Advocates Poll Tax

Just days after President Bush reauthorized the Voting Rigths Acts of 1965 for another 25 years, Keith Olbermann is pining for the good old days of the Poll Tax:

KO: ...in Australia, if you don't vote you get fined and I mean it's like eleven dollars or something but you have to get a receipt from the voting booth and you mail that in with your tax return or they send you a bill...we could translate that here..and as soon as you get that receipt you get twenty five dollars off your tax return...

One can only wonder what civil rights leaders might think of Keith's plan for a regressive "poll fine" which would only be refunded to tax payers who voted. Apparently Keith did not get the memo that a large chunk of the Democratic base doesn't pay taxes and that quite a few of those are African Americans so that the effect of his "plan" is to revive the Jim Crow laws under a new guise. Talk about "open mouth, insert eyebrow". Jeez, how dumb can you be?

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Oliver Burkemen of the UK's infamous left-wing rag, The Guardian, chews up a few pages from the Media Matters playbook, adds a dash of hyerbole and produces a prototypical KO-BOR "feud" piece where everything from Olbermann is taken as gospel whike O'Reilly and FNC take it on the chin at every turn.

Here are a few of Burkemen's whoppers..

The Olbermann Nazi Salute provoked a "furious response"from Fox's chairman, Roger Ailes.
[not a single report from TCA described Ailes's reply to a question on Olbermann as anything other that matter-of-fact]

O'Reilly "has a habit" of telling guest to shut up.
[I don't have the count but I believe this has happened about three or four times in ten years]

O'Reilly extended an "open invitation" for al Qaede to attack San Francisco
[O'Reilly said if the City government was not willing to allowing military recruiting in San Francisco they should not expect help from the military if they are attacked by terrorists]

Olbermann is a "professional ironist"
[is that what he is?]

"Legal documents" included a transcript of a telephone call O'Reilly had made
[unsubstantiated accusations, but here taken at face value]

The attacks on O'Reilly have caused "detectible surges" in KO's ratings.
[KO's ratings have been on a straight line down since the Winter Olympics ended]

There is an "unmistakeable rightwing bias" in FNC's coverage
[while the politcal talk shows lean right, studies have consistantly found FNC news coverage is among the most objective coverage in the U.S.]

O'Reilly and Ailes are "unable to control their tempers"
[O'Reilly does have a temper, there has never been any indication he is unable to control it and lumping in Ailes based on a reaction he did not have to a question at TCA is aburd]

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The cable news blog industry is buzzing with the sudden appearance of mystery blogger "Dylan" at TVNewser.

> An e-mailer asks an innocent question: "Could Dylan be a Media Bistro replacement for Brian Stelter who has been rocked recently by the "Live Plus" scandal?"

> a tipster says "the word around Stelter's dorm room is that "Dylan" is actually a psuedonym that Brian has adopted to deal with future journalistic transgressions. The plan is to respond to all future criticism with "Blame Dylan". But a second tipster asserts "Wow, a whispering campaign has begun on Dylan? Be careful with that, it could be just some muddying of the waters."

Update: 5:33pm: "There is nothing to this and nothing to look into," a Media Bistro spokesperson says. "Sounds like a tip from a competitor who is envious of 'TVNewsers' great success."

Developing...

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This time it's Daily News staff writer Helen Kennedy taking a big bite out of the MNSBC PR sandwich. Kennedy provide a textbook example of the well-documented anti-Fox, pro-Liberal, pro-KO bias of most members of the TV Critics Association.

In this piece, every Olbermann attack line is played straight and his characterizations of O'Reilly taken as received wisdom. Anyone who has followed Olbermann's increasingly desperate antics knows that Olbermann originally sought out a feud in the hope of generating interest in himself and his show and has stated publicly that he believes, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that his ratings increase when he attacks O'Reilly. After a few ill-advised retorts, O'Reilly has largely ignored Olbermann. In other words, Olbermann is constantly pitching the "feud" story to the media which is more than happy to oblige Olbermann and his liberal agenda. Today, Kennedy opens wide for Keith.

In this piece, the feud is portrayed as harmless and amusing ("long-running feud", "rumpus", "fun", "comic relief".) and not only mutual but something sought out by O'Reilly (the complete opposite of the case). When Olbermann attacks O'Reilly its all positive: "gleefully taunting", "snarky", "Ivy League", "blithely". Words associate with O'Reilly in the article are are all negative ""self-regarding", "Worst Person in the World", "embarrassing details", "the Big Giant Head". Even O'Reilly's occasional responses are described using negative language - "O'Reilly frequently fails to ignore".

It's no surprise that when she mentions Olbermann Watch this blog is falsely described as a gathering of "O'Reilly fans" who "trash" Olbermann's "every utterance". As Olbermann Watch readers know this is a site ABOUT Olbermann not O'Reilly; the only reason O'Reilly gets mentioned at all is because Olbermann is constantly raising the subject and doing so by making false or misleading statements. Poking holes in Keith's liberal propaganda does not make one an O'Reilly fan but the label does serve Kennedy's goal of dismissing all criticism of her beloved Keith.

The dog that is once again not barking is contained in this passage:

[O'Reilly's] called Olbermann - whose name he never says on the air - a "smear merchant," complains about MSNBC's "cheap shots" and has warned NBC brass that he would "go into greater detail about the problems besetting that network" unless Olbermann is reined in.

To date, not a single TV critic has bothered to explore whether Olbermann's justification for his tasteless Nazi Salute - that O'Reilly had "defended Nazis" and called American victims of a Nazi atrocity "war criminals" - is true (hint: it is not). Instead they have done what Kennedy does here: parroted Olbermann's "when do you stop beating your wife" accusations, inserted an an old quote taken out of context, tried to make it look responsive to Olbermann's latest claims and painted O'Reilly as defensive and evasive (and therefore "guilty").

If Kennedy was an honest journalist instead of an pro-KO, anti-Fox, liberal she would have researched Olbermann's "defending Nazis" claim, discovered that it was false and said so herself.

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Posted by RCox at 2:15 PM | Comments (7) | View blog reactions

I told readers the other day that I might be tilting at windmills in questioning why GE executives would condone NBC's use of Nazi imagery to promote its cable news channel.

One reader went so far as to write:

I admire your case. I don't, however, see it getting much traction. Bill O'Reilly hasn't and probably won't comment on it outright. Roger Ailes has weighed in, and not in the harsh terms I would have liked...you seem to be carrying this one alone.

I may not be as alone as it might appear.

The Wall Street Journal: "Crazy Keith"

"MSNBC can spin this all they want but it's hard to understand how Olbermann thought this was a good idea at a time when real news anchors are in harm's way as Israel is attacked by the Muslim incarnation of the Nazis," says Robert Cox, who monitors the antics of the MSNBC anchor at Olbermannwatch.com.

The New York Daily News: Talking heads butt! What fun!

O'Reilly fans gather at a blog called Olbermann Watch to trash the MSNBC host's every utterance.

Olbermania: Why is This Man on Television?(emphasis added):

How else could one explain his latest desperate ploy for attention, donning a mask of Bill O'Reilly while doing a Nazi salute? Now, via Olbermann Watch, we learn that NBC and the "Countdown" staff planned the entire thing...Of course, Bob Cox and the other OW folks might be lying. After all, it's quite possible Olbermann came up with the joke right after relaxing with his Bill O'Reilly hand puppet backstage.

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The always excellent Political Diary, a subscription-based e-mail newsletter from The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Page and OpinionJournal.com, weighs in on Olbermann's Nazi Salute.

Today, John Fund writes:

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is a witty guy and his nightly show bashing President Bush and all things Republican often demonstrates just why liberal talk radio has largely flopped -- it doesn't have people as talented as Mr. Olbermann.

But then even liberal talk radio might not put up with Mr. Olbermann's antics, which last week involved appearing before several hundred TV critics and holding up a face mask of arch-rival Bill O'Reilly of Fox News while raising his right arm and delivering what he called a "hilarious" Nazi salute.

"MSNBC can spin this all they want but it's hard to understand how Olbermann thought this was a good idea at a time when real news anchors are in harm's way as Israel is attacked by the Muslim incarnation of the Nazis," says Robert Cox, who monitors the antics of the MSNBC anchor at Olbermannwatch.com.

Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, was also not amused. He appeared before the same meeting of the Television Critics Association yesterday. After much prodding, he called the MSNBC host's behavior "over the line... the use of corporate assets for a personal vendetta" against Mr. O'Reilly. "Clearly he has no viewers except those he gets when he attacks Fox News," he concluded.

Indeed, if success is the best revenge for slights, Mr. Ailes plans to revel in it this fall when top-rated Fox will mark its 10th anniversary with a "Thank You America" tour. Fox hosts will fan out across the
country to do live versions of their shows from ten cities, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas and San Diego. No word yet on whether Mr. Olbermann plans to shadow the tour by making funny faces behind the Fox anchors as they do their location shots.

You can subscribe to Political Diary for $3.95 per month and start receiving the daily e-mail.

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