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Seriously, Keith? (Olbermann makes veiled threat against Hillary)
The Columbia Journalism Review ^ | April 25, 2008 | Megan Garber

Posted on 04/25/2008 8:21:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

This is getting ridiculous. On Wednesday night’s Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman, discussing Hillary Clinton’s continued presence in the Democratic nominating contest, conducted the following exchange:

Fineman: What this is going to require…is some adults somewhere in the Democratic party to step in and stop this thing, like a referee in a fight that could go on for thirty rounds. That’s what’s going on. Those are the super, super, super delegates who are going to have to really decide this.

Olbermann: Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.

You can watch the exchange here: [Video at link]

There’s been an outcry (though not, tellingly, in the mainstream press) against Olbermann’s comments, most of it crying sexism. Which could be right, to be sure—but I’m not completely convinced. (You could certainly build a case for sexism based on the many other inappropriate things Keith Olbermann has said about Hillary Clinton; in this instance, however, the Olbermannian impropriety seems rooted in its wink-wink suggestion of violence, rather than the fact that that suggestion was directed at a woman.)

Regardless. There’s really no getting around the core problem here: that a prominent newsman suggested, on national television, that a candidate for the presidency of the United States should be beaten up (or worse). Even being generous and leaving aside the sexism/violence stuff…it was a stupid thing for Olbermann to say. Not “stupid” as in “inappropriate”—although it’s that, too—but “stupid” as in “intellectually vapid” and “insipid” and “a waste of everyone’s time.” There’s so much that the press, reporters and commentators alike, could be talking about right now when it comes to the campaign—and when it comes to everything else that’s going on in the world. Instead, here’s one of the most powerful men in the media, a man who can boast an audience of nearly a million viewers each night, vocally amusing himself at the image of the Democratic superdelegates “deciding” the nomination by beating up the second-place candidate. It’s frustrating. It’s insulting. It’s baffling.

Olbermann uses Edward R. Murrow’s famous words—“Good night, and good luck”—as a sign-off in his own Countdown broadcast. That never made sense to me; why call attention to greatness when you yourself are so far from it? But today, the day that would have been Murrow’s 100th birthday, the comparison seems especially ironic. And especially sad.

Update: Per a wonderfully thoughtful piece from Salon’s Joan Walsh: looks like Olbermann has apologized—sort of—for the remark.

“It is a metaphor. I apologize: the generic ‘he’ gender could imply something untoward,” Olbermann said, in a statement MSNBC spokesperson Alana Russo forwarded me a few minutes ago. “It should’ve been ‘only the other comes out — from a political point of view.’”


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: election; elections; hillary; media
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What a moron.
1 posted on 04/25/2008 8:21:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Isn’t the election process still going on?

Hussein can’t get enough delegates to win this thing, either. Not sure why Hillary should quit.

I think they should have a duel.


2 posted on 04/25/2008 8:23:26 PM PDT by Tex Pete (Obama for Change: from our pockets, our piggy banks, and our couch cushions!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I guess the concepts of “democracy’ and “count every vote” are lost on this micro-cephalic imbecile.
3 posted on 04/25/2008 8:23:42 PM PDT by Mad_Tom_Rackham ("The land of the Free...Because of the Brave")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

whats really funny about this is that hellary would eat this loon’s lunch in a new york minute.


4 posted on 04/25/2008 8:23:53 PM PDT by kingattax (99 % of liberals give the rest a bad name)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Yes, sounds like a job for H. Dean

Photobucket

5 posted on 04/25/2008 8:24:14 PM PDT by geo40xyz (McCain, Obama or Hillarybeast possibility of 4 Supreme Court Justices, Gore @UN. The WINNER is?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Good ole American Democrat politics. When their guy/gal isn't winning, they cheat!

That's what they get for having a jackass as their party "leader"

And Olberman????.....What's to say??

To call him a jackass is to disparage well spoken donkeys everywhere.

6 posted on 04/25/2008 8:26:01 PM PDT by FixitGuy (By their fruits shall ye know them!)
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To: geo40xyz
Yes, sounds like a job for H. Dean

Sounds more like a job for the Secret Service .

7 posted on 04/25/2008 8:26:11 PM PDT by kbennkc (For those who have fought for it , freedom has a flavor the protected will never know)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Keith, you’ve got to be kidding. There’s not a man in that party mean enough to kick Hillary’s ass. Bubba definitely included.


8 posted on 04/25/2008 8:26:32 PM PDT by RichInOC (Hillary Rodham Clinton is a lying slag.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Someone oughta veil her, double in case the first on tears.


9 posted on 04/25/2008 8:26:54 PM PDT by OeOeO (Sic Transit Gloria Mundi... Gloria get me a beer,and hurry..)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Photobucket

Owl_Eagle

”You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in.  I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being”

-Hillary Clinton
(Yes, she really said that
Peggy Noonan
The Case Against Hillary Clinton, pg 55)

10 posted on 04/25/2008 8:27:37 PM PDT by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my Dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Fineman: What this is going to require…is some adults somewhere in the Democratic party to step in and stop this thing,

There is no adult in the Dem party.

11 posted on 04/25/2008 8:28:35 PM PDT by Red Steel
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“that a prominent newsman suggested”

Newsman? Give me break. He is nothing but a nasty sissy boy.


12 posted on 04/25/2008 8:29:27 PM PDT by shaft29 (Just your typical black woman.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Even as much as I DON’T like her, and can’t stand her husband; that is a HORRIBLE thing to say about her. Keith O is an awful, awful person.


13 posted on 04/25/2008 8:29:29 PM PDT by NordP (Global Warming is Natural - We're on our way to an ice age. PLEASE drive SUVs and warm our planet!!!)
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham
Those are the super, super, super delegates who are going to have to really decide this.

I'm waiting for the Super-Super-Duper-Duper-Super Delegates to get this thing hashed out and over and done with ... until then, please pass the Popcorn

14 posted on 04/25/2008 8:30:22 PM PDT by Mr_Moonlight
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Maybe he should threaten civil unrest in Denver.


15 posted on 04/25/2008 8:31:24 PM PDT by John Jorsett (scam never sleeps)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Not “stupid” as in “inappropriate”—although it’s that, too—but “stupid” as in “intellectually vapid” and “insipid” and “a waste of everyone’s time.”

At least Keith is consistent in his vapidity. This fits right in with his "chicken and waffles" comment regarding a black man and his guacamole comment regarding hispanic Bill Richardson.

16 posted on 04/25/2008 8:31:34 PM PDT by MovementConservative (John Roberts and Sam Alito.... Thank you GWB)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Kelly Tilghman (sp?) of the golf channel received some time off for her on air comment that Tiger Woods be taken into an alley and lynched. POS KO gets away with an as bad if not worse statement. If his bias was toward the Hildebeast, he probably would have used the “L” word and passed it off as OK in a political sense. I do not watch his show, he turned me off long ago.
17 posted on 04/25/2008 8:33:31 PM PDT by BatGuano
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To: NordP

The thing is....the clintons are just like him. I’d say worse if all the dead FOB stories are true.


18 posted on 04/25/2008 8:33:36 PM PDT by BARLF
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The woods, parks and byways of America are strewn with the bodies of those that have made threats against the Klintons. Be afraid, Keith, be very afraid. ;-)


19 posted on 04/25/2008 8:37:11 PM PDT by doc1019 (Acts 16:31, Romans 10:13 ... nuff said.)
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To: Tex Pete

If it’s based on who’s is bigger my money is on Hillary


20 posted on 04/25/2008 8:37:54 PM PDT by misterrob (Obama-Does America Need Another Jimmy Carter?)
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