( Keith Olbermann & Chris Matthews - Ren & Stimpy of MSNLSD ( MSNBC ).
Posted on 09/11/2008 12:20:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
The executive suite at MSNBC is the last hardened corner of America to concede that maybe Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews are nowhere close to the textbook definition of detached, "straight news" anchor. Their decision to abandon what was tenderly called their anchoring "experiment" only acknowledges that the idea was a bust: MSNBC was regularly coming in dead last among the commercial cable-news and broadcast-news network covering the conventions.
NBC News is coming to the realization that Olbermann and Matthews aren't only suppressing MSNBC's ratings on election and convention nights, they're ruining whatever credibility NBC's brand retained. When the boos really kicked in during Sarah Palin's acceptance speech in St. Paul, the delegates started chanting "NBC! NBC!" as the foremost example of partisan excess from an "objective" source. It's gotten so bad that old NBC warhorse Tom Brokaw is decrying how these men have "gone too far." This is shocking stuff coming from an anchorman who gave a Reagan-trashing interview to Mother Jones magazine in his Eighties heyday.
It's important to note that in the day-to-day flow of anti-Republican acid at MSNBC, this announcement means very little. It's not like their shows were canceled, like poor Tucker Carlson. Matthews and Olbermann still retain their regular hours of fulmination. In fact, the network brass made it very clear in their statement that abandoning the anchorman experiment would enable the two liberal agitators "to offer more candid analysis during live coverage." Translation: We don't think these blabby, childish embarrassments to journalism are animated enough.
The convention coverage wasn't embarrassing enough, apparently.
Start with Olbermann coming typically unglued because the Republicans dared to show a video in remembrance of Sept. 11. It was about three minutes long. It contained allegedly controversial themes like jihadists have wanted to kill Americans for decades. They still want to kill Americans. We say never again. No more attacks like Sept. 11. So what?
Sounding like he was trying to choke down tears, or maybe vomit, Olbermann declared the video was inappropriate, and that if his network showed this much 9/11 footage, "we would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again." This is ludicrous, considering how much Matthews and Olbermann boosted the Kerry-endorsing "Jersey Girls" in 2004 and their crusade to charge President Bush with the crime of 9/11.
The day after the Republican convention ended, Olbermann named John McCain the "Worst Person in the World." Olbermann lamented that when McCain suggested to Time magazine that Iraq is now a "peaceful and stable country," he revealed "a man suffering from at least one actual delusion, to say nothing of an utter disrespect for the meaning of the loss of life. It is not funny. It is shameful."
And MSNBC wants more "candid analysis."
After Barack Obama concluded his Athenian oration from Invesco Field in Denver, Olbermann and Matthews weren't glum. They were absolutely giddy. Olbermann was wowed: "For 42 minutes, not a sour note and spellbinding throughout in a way usually reserved for the creations of fiction. An extraordinary political statement." Matthews found a way to top that, and thumb conservatives in the eye: "You know, I've been criticized for saying he inspires me, and to Hell with my critics! ... In the Bible, they talk about Jesus serving the good wine last. I think the Democrats did the same."
The goo flowed like lava from a volcano over Barack's historic acceptance address. Restraining his thrilled leg, Matthews also announced: "It is an iconic night in history: We'll all remember this night as long as we live." Olbermann oozed that Obama was both Mandela and Gorbachev: "it happens as suddenly in some respects as the Soviet Union crumbled or apartheid was beaten in South Africa."
Outside of special events coverage, MSNBC's executives haven't really seen the light about how their Obamaholics Unanimous lineup is bad for ratings. Even as they yank Matthews and Olbermann away from the anchor desk, MSNBC's adding hard-left Air America radio host Rachel Maddow to consolidate the "progressive" carpet-bombing after dark. They think they're the Genius Channel. In a gooey Boston Globe puff piece on Maddow, MSNBC prime-time boss Bill Wolff declared his network is a brand for "high-powered intellects ... I'm not saying we're NPR, but there is an appetite for really smart discussion of the news."
And these people think John McCain is suffering from a delusion.
I used to watch NBC Nightly News before I got cable. Now I don’t waste my time watching any of the alphabet networks’ news anymore. They have lost me for good.
everything Tim Russert worked so hard to build...and poof! out the window
So MSNBC wants to be PBS? That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. PBS would die without taxpayer dollars, and if NBC was run like a business instead of like a RAT propaganda outlet, they would pull the plug on MSNBC altogether.
I was channel surfing today and saw Olbermann bragging that he would trash the GOP’s 9/11 tribute in a “special comment”
tonight. He was horrified that the GOP actually showed the terrorist attacks on the WTC. Apparently showing the murdering behavior of Islamic terrorists is offensive to Olbie. Considering that this kind of behavior got him pulled as an election commentator, he must be a very slow learner.
Now if they would just dump the blowhard Olberman from Sunday Night Football.....
Russert was just another big liberal politician. Prior to becoming host of Meet the Press, Russert worked as a special counsel, and later as chief of staff, to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In 1983 he became the counsel to Governor Mario Cuomo.
I'd like to know what Russert thought about Olbermann. He probably felt that Matthews was somewhat goofy and harmless, but I bet he had very dismal views about that lunatic Olberbaby. And I wouldn't be surprised he shared those views with Brokaw and Williams. Would be nice to have been a fly on the wall when they got together.
I’ve never been able to figure out how MSNBC stays afloat...... Is it being propped up by people like Soros? Why would any legitimate company advertise on that network.....? I should start watching it to see who actually does advertise, then boycot those companies.....
As much as I personally like and love Pat Buchanan (an old freind of my late father, he gave the eulogy at his funeral service back in the 80’s) he is nothing more than a distraction on PMSNBC: he can’t need the money that much to allow himself to be used by Griffin et al as “proof” that they indeed do have a bonafide “conservative” to cite when criticized for being uber-liberal & biased. Poor Tucker has been marginalized to the point of obscurity, but he is excellent once they put him on. And that walking political almanac, Chuck Todd, God Bless Him, does the best he can to make sense of things, but alas, falls prey to the overall goofy, unprofessional way MSNBC ends segments and is left in the cold sometimes when he trying to be serious. Witness Wednesday’s ending to The Schlomo Joe Show where Todd was dragged into a gag and wound up looking for something under his chair: hard to be taken seriously when the whole network comes across as a cartoon of itself ala a Saturday Night Live skit. When SNL does Matthews, it’s a Memorex Moment: one cannot tell the difference between the skit and the real thing. Brent’s right:
“Outside of special events coverage, MSNBC’s executives haven’t really seen the light about how their Obamaholics Unanimous lineup is bad for ratings. Even as they yank Matthews and Olbermann away from the anchor desk, MSNBC’s adding hard-left Air America radio host Rachel Maddow to consolidate the “progressive” carpet bombing after dark.”
Things cannot ever get better at this artificial network: they can only get worse.
Great article by Brent Bozell III. Thanks for posting. Great FReeper comments BUMP!
They both seem a little paranoid. Apparently Chris was upset that Palin doesn’t have the prehistoric monkey bones graphs in order (i.e., Darwinian evolution theories). What issue of national importance or urgency has anything to do with prehistoric monkey bones?
Unless they want the Department of the Interior to locate Bigfoot.
Tim Russert VEILED his hatred of anything on the right.
I was flipping through the channels last night and happened upon Olberdork making a rant against McCain.
This guy needs to be put in a straightjacket and hauled off to an asylum.
He is incapable of making sense. NBC has destroyed NBC with kooks as anchors.
I watched with an odd kind of horror that any network would pay this snarling fool. I believe he is possessed.
Call a Priest NBC.
Right. Keith Überloon on the other hand is capable of pushing his bosses around, getting what he wants, and has become outrageously emboldened to look and sound like a loon on TV.
Tim Russert’s on. Luke, is NOT veiling his contempt....he made fun of how Sarah talked about her husband saying “He’s still my guy” in a SNIDE VOICE. DISGUSTING!!
Tim Russert’s son. Luke, is NOT veiling his contempt....he made fun of how Sarah talked about her husband saying “He’s still my guy” in a SNIDE VOICE. DISGUSTING!!
For what it’s worth, here’s a cheery note I e-mailed to MSNBC:
Thanks to Olberman and Matthews, the NBC brand is now longer taken seriously as a news organization. If you want to regain your credibility as a source of information and escape the cellar in the ratings competition you should clean up your house. Your bias is so glaring that I only turn to MSNBC for a laugh.
Tim Russert....was a very left leaning fellow.
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