Posted on 06/27/2009 12:53:35 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Newsbusters.org:
Contrasting Olbermann’s struggles, Fox News is dominating more than ever. FNC has ranked fifth or higher for 24 straight weeks among all cable channels in prime time, while MSNBC ranks seven spots below the Food Channel. A typical ratings score looks something like this one from June 22: O’Reilly – 2.9 million, Olbermann – 1.2 million.
It must be hard for Olbermann now that he doesn’t have George Bush to call a fascist or to compare to the Nazis. Crediting Obama with defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon’s elections just isn’t cutting it…
Olbermann’s uncritical coverage of Obama is one reason some liberals are starting to turn on him.
During last year’s campaign, liberal Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald noted the hypocrisy of Olbermann’s fire-breathing reaction to Bush over the FISA bill--“Now it begins to look like the bureaucrats of the Third Reich.”—versus his rationalization of Obama’s support of the bill, praising Obama for “refusing to cower even to the left on the subject of warrantless wiretapping.”
Greenfeld asked:
Is that really what anyone wants -- transferring blind devotion from George Bush to Barack Obama? Are we hoping for a Fox News for Obama, that glorifies everything he says and whitewashes everything he does?
The viewers have answered that question, and KWolfman over at the Daily Kos chimed in on July 18 as well. Wolfman points out that Olbermann’s show is now devoid of politics and consists entirely of Republican bashing.
Countdown's coverage of the "horse race" between Obama and McCain gradually became less and less about substantive politics and more and more about "calling out" the nameless, faceless blowhards shouting racist crap at McCain/Palin rallies. Countdown became 60 minutes of redneck-bashing. … At one point, he spent the last five minutes of the show yelling at McCain for "aiding and abetting" terrorists. ... The show has degenerated completely, now resembling nothing more than the left-wing equivalent of Fox News politico-pop. Keith loves to mock Bill O'Reilly's ridiculous shtick and arrogance, but it is increasingly difficult to see the stylistic difference between KO and Bill-O.
Wolfman laid out a pretty accurate lineup for what a typical Olbermann show consists of, for any of you who have not yet been subjected to the inhumanity:
Item #5 will always be on the biggest news item of the day. … Item #4 will be about the latest baseless talking-point laid by Dick Cheney. … An "expert" will come on and fervently agree with Keith… Items #3 and #2 will be pretty much repeats of Item #4… Finally, there's item #1 … which usually highlights -- you guessed it! -- the latest baseless political talking points laid by a cranky obsolete conservative.
Wolfman accompanies his post with a poll asking if Olbermann has lost it, and a plurality of the Kos community has actually voted that yes, Olbermann has lost it.
Tom D’Anoni, writing for the Huffington Post, agrees that Olbermann—and MSNBC as a whole—has degenerated past the point of news.
Many progressives are avoiding Keith Olbermann altogether because there is no news on his program, just endless coverage of what the Republican party is doing, clips of Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney like any of that was relevant to anyone in the real world.
In fact, D’Antoni notes, MSNBC wasn’t even offering any coverage of the Iranian protests last weekend:
While the world was watching the conflict in Iran, MSNBC was showing you cop video and convicts. He even went so far as to commit liberal heresy:
All of a sudden MSNBC fell off the map. Even Fox was better. Even Fox.
It’s not just Olbermann’s utter lack of any real news coverage, his mean-spiritedness is riling some Daily Kos bloggers, too. In fact, Larry Wohlgemuth agrees with Joe Scarborough that Olbermann has been getting a twisted amount of satisfaction out of Sanford’s improprieties.
I don't like Mark Sanford nor do I like his politics. To me he is the worst of what the Republican Party has to offer and the antithesis of anything this country might need. The sooner we rid this country of his ilk the better. But Keith Olbermann made Rush Limbaugh look like Albert Schweitzer tonight on his program. Have you no decency man?
It must hurt Olbermann to be compared to Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and Fox News by one of his own. I must say the comparisons do have some validity but for one crucial difference: ratings.
Olbermann, the fragile ego he is, was in fact hurt by the comparisons and attempted to offer a response to Wolfman’s post.
After getting through lines of his insipid pseudo-poetic prose, you get to the meat of his post:
I would be delighted to invite you to conceive, create, and perform a version of what you want, on broadcast or cable television, and make it also fit the business’s requirements (profit-making), while dodging rocks, every day, from all sides. If anything the task is more difficult now because so many believe that those who would use the media to buttress the regressive cause simply vanished with last year’s vote. They didn’t. Death threats are up, not down. Corporate pressure is up, not down.
If corporate pressure is up, perhaps that’s because unprecedented government takeovers in business are making executive nervous.
Or maybe it’s simpler than that. Corporate pressure is up on Olbermann for the simple fact that his ratings are down 26% since last year.
I heard that he is also known to pee his pants a lot on the set. What a freak.
Olberman to me seems a bit unbalanced.
That might be enough when the target is the most powerful man in the country. But who wants to tune in to watch an out-of-power party be bitched at every day?
He wears a diaper because of his disease.
Also he can’t drive a car because of a severe head injury he suffered in a subway accident.
All points that make him a a standout for the liberal mindset.
Not unbalanced, but definitely the product of a gros miscalculation. Liberals watch Fox and recoil at the very notion that their most cherished nostrums are questioned. To them, it’s cheerleading and abuse of the other side. So, in an addled marketing move, MSNBC decided to beome the left version of Fox. Sadly for them, they could see only that it involved abuse. Hence Olberman’s inconsistent and splenetic rants.
It would surprise me not one bit if he were found one day a la David Carradine.
As I mentioned in other posts, Obama will be the death of the leftist media the way Clinton started its decline, and the way Clinton’s time also destroyed a whole bunch of left wing “non-partisan” groups’ credibility like NOW. The reason FOX, Rush, Hanity and others continued to do well under Bush (though a little bit less well than under Clinton), is that they did oppose him on many initiatiaves that were liberal in nature (immigration “reform” the farm bill, the expansion of the drug program for seniors, the pork, big government. etc.). The drive-by media has decided to totally toe the line and never to deviate from the Obama line. People are slowly catching on.
Just hanging out?
True?
If i’m not mistaken the disease he suffers from is called “restless leg syndrom”. And the “severe head injury” that prevents him from driving is an ambulance chasers scam.
Even reruns of O’Reilly have better ratings than Olbermann.
ABC is the network that glorifies everything Obama says and whitewashes everything he does.
The funny part is that even the loony left is starting to realize he's just hurting them with his insane hate. For those haters to conclude that Olbermann is too much of a hater, he has hit a new low, even for him.
His whole show, every night, is a hate-filled rant against anybody right of Pol Pot, without a single news story, and buttressed by a handful of Bolshevik talking heads who totally agree with their deranged host. Olbermann is Josef Goebbels without the IQ.
Levin interviews Mike Pence while Democrats cheer to the passage of cap and trade in the background
http://hbhls.blogspot.com/2009/06/mark-levin-mike-pence-democrats-cheer.html
Really? Ever seen MSNBC? They make ABC look impartial.
Obviously liberals were getting tired of Olbermann when Ben Affleck was invited to impersonate him by NBC’s Saturday Night Live in 2008.
And here it is, one of the funniest bits I've seen in years... set your beverages away from the keyboard, FReepers:
Olbermann suffers from a mild case of celiac disease,[68] as well as restless legs syndrome.[69] He also suffered a partial loss of depth perception following a head injury on the subway and, consequently, avoids driving.[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann#Personal_life
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