Countdown with Keith Olbermann - February 29, 2008
"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET)
Host: Nobody
Topics/Guests:
Nobody
This year there is always news breaking,
But on Countdown there's nothing new baking.
It's another news snub
Bathtub Boy's in his tub,
As a Day Off Herr Olbermann's taking.
If it's Friday, it's our weekly assessment of Krazy Keith's masculinity. This week, Monkeymann attacked Fox and other broadcasters 35 times. Olby's source (Hillary Clinton's Media Matters) criticized (MS)NBC 17 times, but Keithy protected his corporate masters with zero criticisms. That makes this week's Olbermann Manhood Quotient: -104 [eunuch limp].
I will be on NPR's Talk of the Nation this afternoon.
I am going to take some time out from the critical work I do here each day - making the world safe from the most dangerous man in journalism today - and waste it by discussing the International Olympic Committees recent decision to allow athletes and coaches to blog at the Beijing games this summer and such trivialities as the free speech implications, Chinese censorship of blogs and how issues like Darfur and Taiwan might come into play.
If you are not able to tune in live between 3 and 4 PM ET today you can listen via their web site once they get the podcast up at the NPR Talk of the Nation web site.
One of the other scheduled guests is supposed to be Tommie Smith who knows a little bit about what happens when Olympic athletes engage in free expression.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann - February 27, 2008
"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET)
Host: Keith Olbermann
Topics/Guests:
HILLARY DOWN, OBAMA UP: Dana Milbank, Eugene Robinson
OBAMA'S CASH: David "Slippery" Shuster
OBAMA'S BRILLIANT, McCAIN IS STUPID: Margaret Carlson
Keith Oralmann barked the opening spiel: Super delegates switching to Obama! Obama is "unflappable"! Obama's advantages! Slam on McCain! CunninghamGate! ClemensGate! But that's chump change. Wait until you get to Bathtub Boy actually uttering a criticism of Barack Obama--you won't believe why. It's hump day at Olbermann Watch.
#5: Clinton worried about Super delegates (Blue Blog Source: HuffPo). Every defection is "symbolic" (what, not a "metaphor"?) Debate: Clinton made "attack after attack", Obama "unrattled", "well prepared", "unflappable" (again!), will "resonate with voters". Clinton "tries to scold" Obama, who didn't "John McCain it" and gave a straightforward answer, "so rare in politics". Yikes, Keith, Stop drooling! Dana Milbank, sans splashy suits, nattered that the media see Hillary as "a loser" and was Great Thanksed. Hillary trying to "stall" the Super delegates. Robinson parroted; he wasn't Great Thanksed but he was Pleasured.
#4: Obama's cash surge! But first, breaking news! Hillary was asked about a "dream ticket", but didn't answer. With that breaking news out of the way, on to Obama's moolah. Obama never agreed to accept public financing; his position was actually "very nuanced". Keith pimped out Slippery Shuster, who rationalized away a Barack discrepancy over donations.
Comedian! [Ding!] After attacking CNN for bragging how they beat Countdown in February, Olby went on to #3: McCain "tries to school" Obama on Iraq, but gets "smoked" by Obama who "runs rings around him". And then, the bizarre, the unusual, the unexpected. Yes, worthy of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Bathtub Boy actually utters a criticism of Barack Obama. And it's an OlbyPlanet classic: Oralmann complained because Obama said he respects McCain's service. No, we are not making this up. Hey, people, this is what's called a "news hour"? Monkeymann claims to be a "journalist"? He's no Edward R Murrow. You want a better comparison? Think Leni Riefenstahl. Leftist Carlson of the constipated face yammered.
#2: Bill Buckley remembrance, with Merkle taking the opportunity to roar how "gloriously wrong" he was on so many things. #1: Roger Clemens..
In the Media Matters Minute, Herr Olbermahn attacked "lunatic fringer" Jonah Goldberg (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Clinton's Media Matters), and a Republican (natch!) Florida state rep (Blue Blog Source: DailyKos). "Worst" was John McCain, for not remembering that he met Bill Cunningham (Blue Blog Source: AmericaBlog). We don't think there's been an Hour of Spin with such a lopsided ObamaSuckUp-to-McCainSmear ratio as this one, complete with "Man on Fan" Olbermann actually objecting to honoring his wartime service. If this were 1974, Keith would be Jane Fonda.
Tonight's MisterMeter reading: 2 [LOW]
And that's The Hour of Spin for this, the 662nd day since the declaration that "Karl Rove will be indicted".
MSM KO Bandwagon #479: LA Times Goes for the Another Gold
Members of the Television Critics Association are required annually to perform a bit of verbal fellatio on Keith Olbermann in order to remain in good standing with the venerated organization. Matea Gold was past due on her account but was marked "paid in full" after her OlbyLovin' puff-piece in yesterday's L.A. Times.
Loyal OlbyWatch readers will recall that Gold interviewed the world's leading authority on Keith Olbermann for her previous bit of lefty propaganda posing as "journalism" all the way back in November 2006. Wow! 15 months since her last KO Profile. What will the neighbors think!
Here's a few tidbits worth noting:
830,000 viewers on average have tuned in during weekday prime time -- 46% more than last year.
You know what that means right? Keith has been DROPPING in the Demo for the past year and any growth he's shown has been in that Geritol bracket that Keith was mocking just a few shorts months ago! After years of hyping "the demo" MSNBC and their allies in the MSM have dispensed with once it no longer allowed them to calculate doubt-digit "growth" for Countdown. Of course, that might mean comparing Keith's TOTAL audience to O'Reilly where he gets trounced nightly - so Gold ignores such cross-network comparisons and confines herself to whatever good news she can mine from the Nielsen ratings.
"Our people are not in straitjackets," said Phil Griffin, NBC News' senior vice president in charge of MSNBC.
Interesting that Keith's boss would be using the term "straightjacket" when referencing Keith :-)
Tom Fiedler, the visiting Murrow lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, rejected the idea "that you can move from one side to the other and not confuse most viewers. I don't think even Fox would attempt to take Bill O'Reilly and put him in a position of being seen as a news anchor."
A nice bit of irony here. The "Murrow lecturer" at Harvard? Ripping Keith and praising Fox News? What next, a glowing tribute to Rush Limbaugh in the New York Times Sunday magazine?
The November 2006 article is no longer online at latimes.com so for those who missed here is the "exchange" I had with Keith via Matea:
Robert Cox, who runs Olbermann Watch, a critical blog that monitors the cable news host's comments, said that Olbermann employs some of the same tactics that he decries.
"I think at the end of the day he has, by and large, become that which he has criticized - a demagogue like Bill O'Reilly," said Cox, a management consultant in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Olbermann rejects the comparison.
"I'm not trying to whip up a political frenzy," he said. "If I was out there every night beating people over the head with this, I would become a Rush Limbaugh. That's not my goal. I don't make the facts up to fit the political viewpoint that happens to parallel what it is I'm trying to express."
I say Keith is a demagogue. He denies it. I leave it to the readers to judge who's right.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann - February 25, 2008
"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET)
Host: Keith Olbermann
Topics/Guests:
CLINTON V BARACK: Richard Wolffe, Dee Dee Myers
AP & CNN DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON OBAMA: Rachel Maddow, Err America
McCAIN DOUBLE TALK: David Shuster, A-Mess-NBC
Could it be? Will we get Day Four of the McCain flogging? Is the Pope a Catholic? Oralmann bellowed the opening spiel: Obama in the lead! Clinton campaign "jumping the shark"! Lapel pins! Yes, Day Four! It's blue Monday at Olbermann Watch, a day when Merkle's writers worked overtime scouring the blue blogs for story ideas.
#5: It could be Clinton's "political obituary". Her campaign is "off the tracks". The leaked Obamaphoto "emailed to various media" (no way Keithy is going to credit Drudge). Series of Hillary clips with requisite sarcastic snarks. Man, when Kos tells Olby which way to jump, all he can say is, "how high?" The Wolffeman simpered and was Great Thanksed.
(Side note: for all the loose talk about how Fox hates Hillary, we've never seen any of their news programs do a one-sided attack on her like Herr Olbermann served up tonight. She was right when she said Fox treats her more fairly than MSNBC.)
Why is the Clinton campaign floundering and why can't Hillary be more nice? Dee Dee Myers bloviated--a nice change from Maddow as Dee Dee actually has a background in political analysis. Just don't let her drive you home from a party.
#4: Time to attack the Associated Press (Blue Blog Source: HuffPo) and CNN too (Blue Blog Source: Daily Kos). "Far right"! [Ding!] (There is no "far left" on OlbyPlanet.) The RNC is "racist". [Ding!] Oralmann objected to the AP quoting Roger Stone (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Clinton's Media Matters). Oops, we spoke too soon. Keith pimped out Maddow, now an expert on journalism. She wasn't Great Thanksed, but she was Pleasured.
#3: McCain's "double talk". How long until the New York Times story comes up? Tick... not even time for tock. Just ten seconds! Day Four into the record books. Flip-flop on Iraq! Flip-flop on Paxson! "Outright deceit". Glam photo of the female lobbyist displayed. The sextuply-discredited Slippery Shuster sneered: "I'm convinced that John McCain will, in fact, be indicted." Well, not really. But we couldn't resist.
#2: Razzies, Brangelina. #1: SNL and the Oscars (Olby actually complaining about a Jon Stewart Obama joke that Stewart's been using for months!). Coultergeist! [Ding!]
In the Media Matters Minute, Herr Olbermahn attacked tv station WHNT in Alabama because a report on Karl Rove was "mysteriously" blacked out (Blue Blog Source: Daily Kos). Another Olbermann lie; there was nothing "mysterious" about it. He also said viewers there didn't see the report on WHNT. Yet Another Olbermann Lie: it aired just a few hours later. Of course, Olby left that part out. Next up, Fixed News [Ding!] (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Clinton's Media Maters), and Bathtub Boy took it up a notch with the lie that Fox "compared Obama to Chairman Mao". And yet again Fox Noise [Ding!]: this time "liar" Mort Kondracke (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Clinton's Media Matters). Fixed News! [Ding!]
Tonight's MisterMeter reading: 2 [LOW]
And that's The Hour of Spin for this, the 660th day since the declaration that "Karl Rove will be indicted".
How Olbermann Tricks His Audience: The Lie of Omission
There are many techniques to turn news into propaganda, and Keith Olbermann knows them all. Friday night's Hour of Spin provided an example so typical, and so deceptively elegant, that the credulous viewer (Countdown's stock in trade) no doubt swallowed it whole, oblivious to the disinformation tactics used by Herr Olbermann. They're not new, as those old enough to remember The Third Reich can attest, but even they didn't deploy them with Keith Oralmann's ruthless virtuosity.
The purpose was, of course, to smear a Republican: John McCain. And Olby was in top form. Here is, verbatim and in its entirety, what he had to say about a fund-raising email from the McCain camp:
The Senator meantime continued to try to have it both ways, refusing to take any questions about the story while campaigning at Indianapolis, while at the same time continuing to try to raise money based on the Times report with his campaign's most successful fund-raising email to date. It read in part: Objective observers are viewing this article exactly as they should: as a sleazy smear attack from a liberal newspaper against the conservative Republican front-runner. Sean Hannity said, after reading the article three times, etcetera. Washington attorney Bob Bennett, who was the Democrat council during the Keating investigation said, etcetera.
"Objective observer" Bob Bennett is McCain's attorney. "Objective observer Sean Hannity is: Sean Hannity."
The first thing clear-headed readers will note is that Edward R Olbermann stripped out all the quotes from Hannity and Bennett, replacing the substance with a generic "etcetera". These quotes were just a few words. Why take them out? So as not to allow the other side of the issue to be heard. Plus the dismissive use of "etcetera" immediately marginalizes any comments they made as not even worth hearing. Keith Olbermann, gate-keeper of the nation's free flow of information!
But there's more. Note the sarcastic use of "objective observer" to describe Bennett and Hannity. This is archetypical Bathtub Boy humor, and it works with his gullible lemmings because Bennett and Hannity do have dogs in this hunt. (Of course so does Olbermann, but he is exempt from the laws of OlbyPlanet.) Yet there's something else Olbermann's dupes don't know, because he didn't tell them about it: the missing sentences, stripped from that paragraph by Merkle. To be aware of that you'd have to read the original email, and the full, undoctored paragraph:
Objective observers are viewing this article exactly as they should - as a sleazy smear attack from a liberal newspaper against the conservative Republican frontrunner. Sean Hannity said, after reading the article three times, "It was so full of innuendo and so lacking of fact, and so involved in smear, I came to the conclusion that the goal here was to bring up a 20-year-old scandal." Washington attorney Bob Bennett, who was the Democrat counsel during the Keating investigation, said, "This is a real hit job." Joe Scarborough called the allegations "outrageous." Even pundit Alan Colmes--not known for his conservative leanings--concludes "this is a non-story."
So one of the email's "objective observers" was a liberal: Alan Colmes. This poses a problem. People might actually consider him "objective", and that would ruin Olby's snarky joke. So poor Mr Colmes got erased.
Even worse, the email quotes Joe Scarborough! The guy "Man on Fan" Olbermann chit-chats with during election night coverage. And--worst of all--he works for A-Mess-NBC, Krazy Keith's corporate masters. KO can't very well make a sarcastic crack about Scarborough's objectivity, let alone allow Joe's comments to be heard. What's a discredited baseball card collector to do? Simple: just as with Alan Colmes, strip all mention of Scarborough from the email. Presto! He becomes a non-person. And the propaganda flows.
So the operation was a success. Monkeymann was able to misrepresent the contents of an email, the arguments stated therein, the ideological diversity of the people quoted, and even whom they worked for. All made possible by a carefully targeted and deployed lie of omission.
Keith Olbermann, the next Edward R Murrow? More like the next Joseph Goebbels.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann - February 22, 2008
"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET)
Host: Keith Olbermann
Topics/Guests:
2008 ELECTION: Dana Milbank, Washington Post national political reporter; Jonathan Alter, Newsweek senior editor and MSNBC political analyst; David Shuster, MSNBC correspondent; Dan Froomkin, washingtonpost.com
BILL O'REILLY "CONTROVERSY": Rev. Jesse Jackson
The operative number tonight is "three". Day three of flogging the John McCain story. Day three of flogging the "irredeemable racist" O'Reilly. Opening spiel: Hillary is "not so conciliatory". Plagiarism charge backfires on Hillary. McCain again! FISA! O'Reilly attack #420! It's a "non-apology"! The Rev Jackson! And Olbypocrisy to the ultimate power! It's casual Friday at Olbermann Watch.
#5: Clip of Hillary. Oralmann accuses her of plagiarizing from John Edwards (Blue Blog Source: HuffPo). A Hillary staffer at an Obama rally: it's a "microcosm"! ("Metaphor" had the night off.) Dana Milbank, lacking loud livery, yammered as Bear used his affected, phony laughter as punctuation. Dana was Great Thanksed.
The pile-on continued. Clinton has not "clarified" her campaign. She contradicted herself "literally seconds later". Her answers change "literally every 15 seconds". (Is "literally" the new "assidiously"?) Lefty Alter nattered in football analogies, and we're lucky "Man on Fan" Olbermann didn't resort to saying Barack "Chicken and Waffles" Obama. Lefty opined Clinton's best move is to get out of the race, and for that he was Great Thanksed.
After a plug for "Lock-Up Raw: Violence Behind Bars" came #4: more McCain flogging (Blue Blog Source: BuzzFlash). McCain "tries to have it both ways". McCain attacks the NYTimes! The only nod to any substantive criticism of the Times article was Olby sarcastically noting comments by the White House, McCain's lawyer, and Sean Hannity. Are they the only people raising questions about the journalism? Well they are on OlbyPlanet. (See canines, below.) Oh, and Edward R Olbermann says this is all the Republicans fault for nominating a dishonest candidate.
McCain: Hypocrisy! Corruption! Slippery Shuster, having finished his double-secret off the record probation, sneered his way through Day Three of the McCain jihad with a dissertation on "letters", "issues", and the like. He was Great Thanksed, despite his previous infractions. Oh that's OK. He apologized. Yeah. More on that below.
#3: Fisa fears. Another rehash. Radical right! [Ding!] Come to think of it, isn't it the third day flogging this story too? Bad things do come in threes. Dan Froomkin parrotted.
#2: The Media Matters Minute: Frank Luntz (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Clinton's Media Matters...you can see the unedited video of this shocking outrage here). Fixed News! [Ding!] Worst: Mukasey and McConnell for not wanted to lose valuable intelligence.
#1: O'Reilly attack #420. Yep, it's day three of the holy war against the eeevil O'Reilly. So what if he apologized? Jesse "Hymie-Town" Jackson said it wasn't an apology at all. And Olby insisted it was a "flaccid non-apology" because he said "if my statement offended anybody".
Stop the tivo! Olbypocrisy Alert! Was it a flaccid non-apology when Al Sharpton--on MSNBC--said "if I offended Mormons with the misuse of my words, I would apologize"? Or how about Chris Matthews: "If I offended anybody, I'm sorry"? Oh and most delicious of all, your very own Slippery Shuster: "To the extent that people feel I was being pejorative, I apologize for that." We're waiting for you to do three days of resignation demands on these people, Olbercrite!
Quiescent canines: Day after day of smearing John McCain, a P.O.W. and decorated war hero. Of course Keithy did not go into the ethics of the New York Times piece, even though several distinguished journalists have been strongly crtitical. That's because Bear is a slovenly political hack. Plus Day after day of smearing Bill O'Reilly for defending Michelle Obama with a word Fat Ass doesn't like. (And we know what kind of words are on the Bathtub Boy approved list.) So with all that important, breaking news to cover, Olbermannijad just didn't have time to make any mention of this. Aside from his weird, homoerotic Olbsession with Bill O'Reilly, Oralmann's most predictable spin is covering for his buddies in Tehran.
If it's Friday, it's our weekly assessment of Krazy Keith's masculinity. This week, Monkeymann attacked Fox and other broadcasters 26 times. Olby's source (Hillary Clinton's Media Matters) criticized (MS)NBC 11 times, but Keithy protected his corporate masters with zero criticisms. That makes this week's Olbermann Manhood Quotient: -74 [sissy limp].
And that's The Hour of Spin for this, the 657th day since the declaration that "Karl Rove will be indicted".
Countdown with Keith Olbermann - February 20, 2008
"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET)
Host: Keith Olbermann
Topics/Guests:
DECISION 2008: Chuck Todd, NBC News political director; Jonathan Alter, Newsweek senior editor and MSNBC political analyst
Keith Oralmann skipped the opening spiel, because of Big, Huge News: ten years ago McCain's staff kept a female lobbyist away from him because they feared there might be a romantic involvement. Man, KO sat in the bathtub rather than report on this stuff when it involved Bill Jefferson Clinton, but now it's so important that Oralmann comes on early and even bumps the opening spiel! This is all, as you will see, a demonstration of Monkeymann's "restraint". And there's more: the OlbyPocrisy meter tonight went way past 11, in as repellent and deranged a spectacle as the infamous, deplorable one has ever engaged in. Oh, we almost forgot: it's hump day at Olbermann Watch.
#5: It's "eerily similar" to the Lewinsky situation. It's "deja vu"! Oh really? Did John McCain lie under oath and try to fix a court case? Merkle: hey, remember McCain's savings and loan "scandal"? The Wolffe Man simpered by phone and lefty Alter nattered via satellite that right now it's fairly thin. Buchanan via phone didn't think it's much of a story adding that the Times's charges are "terribly unfair". So wouldn't that description apply to Bear's hysterical frothing as well? Remember, the key factor here is Edward R Olbermann'a eagerness to hype and repeat "breaking news" that is immeasurably less newsworthy than the B.J. Clinton situation, the situation that found him gurgling in his bathtub.
Hilariously, right after boasting about the "restraint" he was showing in covering what could have been "an improper relationship", unless it wasn't, Fat Ass promptly plugged segment #4: Even more about McCain and the lobbyist! Perhaps Bear should work on his restraint a little more assiduously. After the break Merkle read from the article for what must have been the 89th time. Restraint. Chuck Todd played Kreskin and said the Times may know more than they printed. Again, Olby brings up Clinton/Lewinsky! More restraint. Reads from the article yet again.
#3: Here's an idea: let's read those quotes from the article yet again. That's "restraint" on OlbyPlanet. With half the show over, it's finally on to another topic: the Dems. Delegate counting with Todd.
#2: None. In the Media Matters Minute, Herr Olbermahn was more deplorable than ever. Not for attack #416 on O'Reilly: Bill stepped in that one fair and square (Olby's Blue Blog Source: TVNewser, but the true source is one that Herr Olbermoronn would never admit to). Of course Olby told a few fibs to make it juicier. Then another attack on E.D. Hill (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Cliton's Media Matters). Fixed News! [Ding!] Fox Noise! [Ding!]
But Bathtub Boy's fevered Olbsession reached new heights of repellent psychosis when he did an entire segment on Bill O'Reilly. On his radio show Mr Bill was defending Michelle Obama over her recent controversial statement, saying he didn't want a "lynching party" going after her without evidence. Oralmann, under orders from his masters (Blue Blog Source: Hillary Clinton's Media Matters) frothed at the mouth about why O'Reilly shouldn't have a job, why he's eeevil because he used the word lynching.
Stop the tivo! OLBYPOCRISY ALERT!! How is it that it's OK for MSNBC to allow "lynching" as in the media "lynching of Hillary Clinton"? And for Dan Abrams to read that quote on the air? Approvingly? And need we remind you, Monkeymann, that a guest on your very own Hour of Spin trivialized the term by talking about a singer being "lynched if he appeared at a karaoke contest"? Where was your outrage over your own network, your own program, your own miserable performance?
And here you--the man censured by the Anti-Defamation League--you are claiming Bill O'Reilly is a racist and should be fired because he used the word in defending Michelle Obama? Hey, Olberdunce? Frack you!
Tonight's MisterMeter reading: 3 [GUARDED]
And that's The Hour of Spin for this, the 655th day since the declaration that "Karl Rove will be indicted".
Who to Believe? The Director of National Intelligence...or Keith Olbermann?
Money Quote Gibson compares expertise of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Keith Olbermann:
McConnell is a graduate of the National Defense University and the National Defense Intelligence College. He worked as an intelligence officer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States Secretary of Defense during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
He's a spy.
He developed approaches for improving information flow among intelligence agencies and combat forces in the Gulf War.
He served as Director of the National Security Agency.
He's a retired Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy after 29 years of service, 26 as a career intelligence officer.
In addition to many of the nation's highest military awards he holds the nation's highest award for service in the intelligence community.
He also served as the Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Keith Olbermann went to Cornell University, collected baseball cards and did sports broadcasting for twenty plus years.
Gibson references a story from "Press TV" which is the Iranian version of Al Jazeera.
For those not familiar with Press TV, Wikipedia describes it as "an English language international television news channel which is funded by the Iranian government, based in Tehran and broadcasts in English on a round-the-clock schedule."
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