Posted on 11/12/2006 8:18:15 AM PST by SmithL
Keith Olbermann just needed to find his voice. He'd been a droll sportscaster, a serious news anchor and a bickering critic of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. But none of those personas really clicked.
Then he found one. A little over a year ago, as the White House fumbled and botched the Hurricane Katrina recovery, Olbermann finally blew up.
He concluded a broadcast of his MSNBC cable news show, "Countdown,'' with an indignant rant in the rat-a-tat-tat cadence of his idol, Edward R. Murrow. He called it a "Special Comment.''
And just like that, Olbermann found his voice -- the angry everyman. He became a liberal counterpoint to conservative media ranters like O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and an Internet star, too.
The result has been a cultural earthquake.
"Here's what happened,'' Olbermann said in a phone interview this week. "Five years ago (on Sept. 11), 50 percent of the country went quiet. There was this self-imposed censorship. Suddenly it became unimaginable to criticize the administration. And no one else was brave or stupid enough to say, 'I don't remember signing that document.' ''
Today Olbermann is hot, in every sense of the word. He likes to say that the first step to creating one of his blistering editorials is to "get pissed off,'' and that's certainly how he sounds.
But there's something more to it, too. Conservatives may hate his attacks, but no one doubts that he comes across as one of the smarter guys in the room. When he laid into then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Aug. 30, he threw in references to Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement. Let's see NBC network anchor Brian Williams pull that off.
Not that he would try it.
"Broadcast networks are not interested in the controversy,'' Olbermann says
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Really did not have to get past the by-line...more liberal MSM crap.
This really pathetic and delusional beyond belief.
This is really pathetic and delusional beyond belief.
Olbermann? Never heard of him.
Um, I doubt it, because I don't equate left wing kookism with a high I.Q.
Olbermann taps his foot to the beat of his hand.
It's a very shallow well judging by the ratings for Olbermann's show.
He's found a niche...just like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart.
His obviously capable agent got him featured in the Cronicle...which spreads the word among his potential audience.
It's really nothing more than that.
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Only if it's a kindergarten classroom. (and even then I'm not so sure.)
Pretty shallow well based on the numbers of folks who watch him.
To us, yes.
To the other 50% of the electorate, he's gaining publicity.
He is ensuring himself a fatter bottom line...whether it's MSNBC or perhaps CNN someday.
Yes! Right! Except, uh, who is Today Olbermann?
The San Francisco Chronicle gays may have the hots for Olberman, but he isn't a blimp on the gaydar screen compared to Al Franken of Air America fame.
The hate out of that braying ass Ol'Beerman won't win ratings, and that's what matters in TV-land.
Sorry for stepping all over your thoughts. I guess great minds think alike.
Just like Bryant Gumbel, Olbermann was a boring low-talent sportscaster who is even worse as a news guy and only got there by being a shrill liberal and hooking up with the right people at cocktail parties.
I'd agree if that said "annoying, self-humiliating, angry jackass."
Yup, he da man! He's so popular he ought to get his own radio show and compete with Rush. He's got a tv show and can't compete with O'Reilly.
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