Posted on 09/19/2006 5:15:22 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
by Mark Finkelstein
September 19, 2006 - 07:46
In the course of the last few weeks Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comments' have become a Countdown staple in which the host plays to his Daily Kos demographic with vitriolic condemnations of all things Bush. I thought Olbermann had reached the nec plus ultra of nastiness with his suggestion a couple weeks ago that the Bush administration represented "a new type of fascism." I might have been wrong. MRC's Brad Wilmouth has comprehensively documented Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comment' of last night. In the course of those comments, Olbermann chose to invoke, of all things, the people's right to overthrow a tyrannical government.
The object of Olbermann's ire was President Bush's response to a press conference question alluding to Colin Powell's statement that the US is danger of losing its moral leadership in the world.
Said the president: "It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."
Not the most elegant turn of phrase, but what the president meant - and did not mean - seems clear. Substitute "It is unthinkable" or "unimaginable" for "unacceptable" and you've got it. Only someone churlishly trying to twist W's words for partisan gain would suggest that the president was seeking to outlaw dissent. The best proof is that, night after night, Olbermann obviously feels free to go on his show and utter his over-the-top condemnations of Pres. Bush. And rather than goverment sanction, all he gets in response is more netroot adulation. But those facts didn't stop Olbermann from seizing on the line to suggest that the Bush administration had become the thought police, and for the MSNBC host to melodramatically muse "what next will be said to, or about, anyone who disagrees?Or what will next be done to them?"
Olbermann tried to imagine the president's response to language even more provocative than that of Powell's. And of all things, he came up with an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, recognizing the people's right to rebel: "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government."
Wondered Olbermann: "What would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter or written to you by a colleague? . . . Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that antithetical to the status quo just now?"
Olbermann didn't call on the Kosmonauts, netrooters and moveoners of the world to take to the barricades today. But with an entire universe of provocative statements from which to draw for his hypothetical, Olbermann chose the one invoking the people's right to rebel and overthrow an oppressive government. Let's say he put revolution in the air. To do so in response to the president's polite demurral to the words of his former Secretary of State says much more about Olbermann's hyper-partisanship than anything about an imagined threat to the right of dissent in our country.
Finkelstein lives in the liberal haven of Ithaca, NY. View webcasts of Mark's award-winning TV show 'Right Angle' here. Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
MSNBC-Olbermann/NewsBusters to-the-barricades ping to Today show list.
It's about time for a sedition trial.
He's a clown performing for an audience of half-wits.
I don't watch this guys show - but from the postings I see regarding his "rants" - you have to wonder what's bothering this guy - I mean deep down inside.
In the closet?
Bad marriage?
Bad childhood?
This guy has serious issues - I just can't imagine goign through life this mad all the time.
Oh well - f-him. Not my problem.
Liberals favor gun control because they know that if there is a second Revolution, they will be the redcoats.
Does this mean we can kill him and all his friends, supporters and allies, and seize their assets if they try?
DUDE! GO FOR IT!
Overthrow the government? The Libs better be careful what they ask for.
keith olberidiot is a boon to the makers of small TV's, where DUmmies and KOSkids buy these TV's and can "watch" keithy behind a closed bathroom door.
If he has these comments every night, how special can they be?
"hoplophobia"
That set me a-Googling. I see it means an irrational fear of guns. I figured it might have meant an excessive fear of Hopalong Cassidy, which come to think of is about the same thing ;-)
What exactly are the Olbermites going to use to overthrow the government.
A frothy latte?
He makes these oddball comments every night. If the Bush admin. were truly a fascist regime, wouldn't Keith and his ilk be in prison right now?
In that event, who do they think will be the first to get kilt?
Spell checker not working. s/
So how're these libs gonna do it, sit outside the White House and sing Kumbaya?
How bad does O'Reilly kill Oberidiot in the ratings. He show his class when he left ESPN. Espn President ""He didn't burn the bridges here, he napalmed them."
He obsesses about Bill O'Reilly who has more viewers in a night that OberIdiot has in a month.
The call for violent revolution appears regularly on dim underground.com (yes, I shower after reading that tripe). They can't win elections fairly, so what else is left?
Only fruitcakes and idiots watch this hateful loser. If he thinks being the voice and leader of that crowd means ANYthing...he is seriously living in his very own made up fantasy land.
That's a lot of big talk from someone with such small ratings.
Getting near the time to rise up and overthrow the establishment thatIslamofascist bootlicker Olbermann represents and works for.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes."
Overthrowing a long established government based on charges you know to be false fits the definition of "light and transient causes," Mr. Olberman.
Nobody but a handful of DUmmies watch this guy, but reguardless with these reckless comments I can't believe that he stays on the air.
Olbermann gets press disproportionate to his worth.
That said, conservatives already attempted a "Revolution" and were partly successful with the impeachment, if not Senate conviction, of Bill Clinton. That revolution has since had profound affects on how we are governed, much to the chagrin of the DUmmies and KOmmies.
We didn't need guns. We used our intellect, our persistence, our strength in numbers and of course, FreeRepublic.com!
Is this the same Keith Olbermann that used to do a sports T.V. show in Utah?
LOL! Indeed!
LSP Syndrome is my guess. The LS stands for "laughably small" and you can figure out the rest.
You know, if Newsbusters and Media Watch and so forth quit watching UberDork's show, there wouldn't be anyone left who did...
Excellent point Jake. He is similar to the other well known flakes that have melted down at various times. Rosie O'Donnell, John MaCain, Max Cleland and those types have a darkness that escapes them from time to time as they act out and show their true colors. I often encounter folks that go off the deep end and it's usually because "something else" is bothering them.
There is a REASON fox fired olberman.
Hey guys,
C'mon over to "Olberman Watch" and voice your opinion towards this hateful POS:
http://www.olbermannwatch.com/
He hates his own president more than he hates Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Huessein or the terrorists,
Ex-ESPN highlight-show announcers discussing overthrowing the U.S. government.
Someone should explain to Olberman that what the President was saying here was the moral equivalency argument will not fly! Of course that doesn't fit KO's aganeda.
Keith O has ... uh ... issues. I think he's upset that he's no longer on ESPN and is in desperate search for relevancy.
Yeah seriously, if they overthrew the government, the first thing I would do is rid the country of the traitors within. Who is going to protect lightly-armed and unarmed socialists and communists from a hundred million righteous and well-armed patriots given their first opportunity to act decisively to spare future generations the curse of this leftism? How well will the jihadi-sympathizer and the pervert-protector fare then?
After they have their a$$es handed to them in November, a lot of Democrats are going to decide that they can't win this game, and are going to be looking to flip over the checkerboard. They are going to start howling about election fraud and DIEBOLD and computer manipulation of voting results, in an effort to cast doubt on the entire (small d) democratic process. It's going to get real ugly, real fast.
It could be that MSNBC is preparing to pull the plug, and Olberman is using the anti-Bush hyperbole so that he can claim martyr status when the show ends. He could claim that Rove pressured MSNBC to cancel him.
He is a clown, indeed. But I think you give his audience too much credit, by half.
Going off the deep end, hate speech, and BDS are requirements for employment by MSNBC....just look at Chris Matthews, David Schuster, Joe Scarborough and Tucker....they all do it. I think they must have to sign a contract that they will repeat DNC talking points in order to pick up their weakly (spelling error intentional) checks. Some CNN Headline News shows are now beating MSNBC...shows you what their hate speech gets them.
MSNBC = The Air America of videoland. Where will all these losers surface once the hate channel bites the big one?
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