Posted on 12/19/2006 11:31:27 AM PST by AnnGora
This review is taken from the November 2006 issue of The American Spectator. To subscribe to the monthly print edition, click here.
The Worst Person in the World: And 202 Strong Contenders by Keith Olbermann (Wiley, 267 pages, $22.95)
GEORGE M. COHAN USED TO SAY, explaining why he always refused to record his songs, "You gotta see me to appreciate me." The same might be said of Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown. There are performers and there are writers and never the twain should meet. Usually they don't because they are such different species that Nature herself keeps them apart. Sometimes, however, they get together and commit an unnatural act.
The disappointment that the dedicated Olbermann fan experiences while reading this book is a testament to the offbeat brilliance of the performance it seeks to reproduce. Nobody can follow Olbermann, including Olbermann, and especially not on mere paper. He acknowledges a stylistic debt to George Carlin, his favorite comedian, but fans of British comedy can trace him all the way across the Pond. At his no-holds-barred best he is a one-man "Beyond the Fringe," his mock solemnity is reminiscent of Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers, and he could rival John Cleese in an American version of Fawlty Towers.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanprowler.com ...
Civilization, as I have come to know and love it, has come to an end.
I was a little concerned, myself, as I read the review the first time, but in going over it again I remembered that 'Miss King' has never followed anyone or anything. She tells you what she thinks. And here she tells us what she thinks of this book.
It's actually very reassuring to see her in print again. I was worried she had crawled into the jug and disappeared for good.
Silly me.
Florence King is indeed a brilliant writer, although severely lacking in judgment and morals. Actually I thought she had died, and seeing this encomium to a wormbag like Keith Olbermann almost makes me sorry she hasn't.
I had no idea about her very sick proclivities until a few years ago. While it can not destroy the pleasure I got from her wonderfully misanthropic essays over the years, it did make it tougher to root for her.
Looks like she's hitting bottom now.
I was heretofore a major fan of Florence King. This article could have been written by James Carville. Quelle disappointment.
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