Britt Combs: Is Keith Olbermann the "Worst Person in the World?"

Last week we discussed Rush Limbaugh and his impact on Republican fortunes. We learned he was largely responsible for shaping and articulating an ideology that led to victory for his party in 1994-95. We discussed how he had abandoned those comparatively conservative values to support the Bush administration's abuses of power, and how the future revival of Republican fortunes are being held back by his continued domination of his party's dialogue.
This week we will discuss the ascension of his counterpart, MSNBC's leading uber-Democrat Keith Olbermann.
Since Rush became prominent in about 1990, the Democratics have desperately sought someone to counter him. This Sisyphusian task was complicated by the fact that, by and large, Democratics are not funny people. Their innate rage often prevents them maintaining the light hearted sense of proportion a host must have if an audience will tune in daily. Often, when a Democratic tries to be funny, he is reduced to cruelty-based humor; making fun of the sick and the infirm and victims of birth defects or crippling injury (see Al Gore's many attempts at humor for examples).
The audience for that kind of humor is indeed small. This is why the failed leftist radio network "Air America" crashed. Hosts Al Franken and Rachel Maddow had little to offer beyond sociopathic rants.
Olbermann, whose show airs weeknights at 8 p.m., was a grand alternative for the first couple of years. Light-hearted and injected with consistent humor, the show was eminently watchable, with Washington elite-slanted but generally good-natured news analysis and even healthy doses of "dumb criminal caught on camera" videos – the kind of fun that his competitor, Fox News' maniacal Bill O'Reilly utterly lacked. At last the Democratics had an intellectually appealing and commercially viable organ for the dissemination of biased analysis and carefully filtered factoids. It was a good show. Even my wife, who hates any political discussion that lasts longer than ten seconds, enjoyed the show.
He had the stuff a good talking head should have: a career sportscaster, Keith's lifelong obsession with baseball made him interesting to New York television execs. (All New York newsheads have a bizarre and inexplicable obsession with baseball, known throughout the normal world as an irrepressibly boring "Yankee game.") He was tall, with majestic, poofy silver hair. His nascent interest in politics meant he could make conversation. He suffered from all the trendiest diseases like Restless Leg Syndrome.
Then something hideous happened. While never competitive against O'Reilly (about whom he nightly demonstrated an unhealthy obsession) in terms of national audience, Keith nevertheless became the closest thing the network had to a success. He became as important to the news and politics junkies in his party as Jon Stewart is to the pothead slacker contingent. He became A Star. He found fist-pounding recitation of the party talking points earned him the loyalty of fanatical moveon.org types. His show soon became unwatchably droll and awful to all but the most perverse viewers, such as yours truly.
A man's character can be judged by how he treats his subordinates when no one is watching. As his star rose, he became a terror around the MSNBC offices, demanding the demotion of Dan Abrams and the firing of arch-libertarian Tucker Carlson after getting him bumped to such a dead spot in the schedule that Carlson was likely not kidding when he thanked "all eight" of his viewers. These men had dared invite guests whose views differed from Olbermann's own, and at the brave new MSNBC, to invoke George H. Bush, "this will not stand."
Keith's antics raise the network's profile and fill its coffers even as they sacrifice their journalistic credibility. Once insistent that he could wear multiple hats, providing irate commentary this hour and anchoring hard news the next, he humiliated his colleagues when he, along with the impish Chris Matthews, fawned absurd, pathetic hosannas at the Democratics' convention last summer. He issued a goofy apology – on behalf of Republicans (!) – for their having mentioned 9/11 during their convention.
Far from anchoring the convention coverage, he and Matthews invited several dozen B-list commentators of the Maddow variety, along with a few hundred drunken college kids, to take turns telling Pat Buchanan he's old and fat. Wow! TV can, too, inform!
We become that which we hate, it is said, and now that he has assumed utter mastery of his network Keith resembles no one more than Rush Limbaugh. Like Limbaugh, he never, ever, under any circumstances allows anyone on the show with whom he disagrees. The entire contribution of all his guests can be summarized: "Gosh, Keith, you sure 'nough are smart. Will you be our king?"
Which is dang entertaining and can be highly lucrative so it's no bad thing. No one ever said journalists can't have opinions or even can't express them when it's clearly identified as such. He makes money and that's all that counts.
It is fine and good for MSNBC to be a "left-of-center" news outlet, if that's their wish. But firing and banning all dissenting voices is a sure road to self destruction from a journalistic stand point.
One pattern in Keith's career will hold true. One day he'll stamp his little feet and quit in a tizzy. The network will have lost their golden boy and then find he took their reputation with him. They'll be just another notch on his belt of humiliated former employers.