Either Relevant or True » Dear Internets,

Dear Internets,

Please stop creating controversies involving the subject of my blog (one Mr. K. Olbermann) on days when I am away from the tubes. I am but halfway through the 500+ items collected by Google Reader in my absence, but can see that the more “righteous” and colorful among you have characterized recent remarks thusly: “openly calls for physical attack, if not murder,” “solution … is to kill Hillary and it’s unmitigated hate speech.” And then there’s this:

We need to say this. It does not preclude talking about the other elements that may be subsumed under that final act, that she would also be battered and raped, but the clear message sent out by Keith Olbermann is he wants someone to murder this woman.

Murder? Hate speech? Really? Are you people fucking stupid?

What amuses me about this is that none of you had anything to say about these remarks on Thursday, the day after they aired. No, nobody got their knickers in a twist until Rachel Sklar at HuffPo said:

What does that mean? Really, it can only mean one thing: Beating the crap out of Hillary Clinton, to the point where she is physically incapable of of getting up and walking out. At minimum.

Fortunately for me Pale Rider at Blue Girl, Red State (quite unknowingly, I’m sure) picked up my slack:

In order for what Sklar is saying to be true, you would have to believe that Olbermann is the problem. Not Rush Limbaugh, who is calling for riots and chaos in Denver. Not the likes of Michael Savage, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, those idiots we told you about at any number of hate-oriented blogs in recent weeks. or even our old pal Roger Stone. Yes, Olbermann. Wow. Sorry, but I’m not gonna go there.

Yep–the only man who has kept us sane, who has given us a goddamned voice–the only man who, by dint of his Special Comments, endless efforts at reminding people about Mission Accomplished, The US Attorney Scandal, Plame Gate and a whole host of things that the regular media would just as soon sweep under the rug–yes, Olbermann’s the problem! Poor Keith has to be saying to himself, sheesh–what does a guy have to do to operate around here without taking fire from people who are 90% in agreement with him on the important issues?

Jesus Christ on a fucking spoon. I cannot wait for this primary to be over so I can stop reading about how anyone with a disparaging remark against Hilary Clinton is a hateful misogynist. Maybe then we can focus some attention on actual hateful misogynists.

No love,

Becky

And that was even after KO, through MSNBC media relations, issued an “apology” that it was only a metaphor, and a fairly acknowledged one at that.

Here’s my comment about this crap (I love how KO always says “crap”) on the Skler piece on HuffPo — in one of my many “assumed” identities:

“This election is getting ridiculous, not only for Hillary dragging out the inevitable but the media nitpicking every single comment made by a candidate, a friend of the candidate, a surrogate for the candidate, someone who rode in an elevator with the candidate and the news media.

I guess news people and viewers (and candidates and their mouth pieces) are not smart enough to tell the difference between metaphor, irony, constructive criticism and hyperbole. I guess that says a great deal about the poor quality of our media as well as our educational system.

Olbermann used a metaphorical reference. He is an intelligent news person (one of the few). I would suggest Sklar and other viewers who are not his intellectual equal to get your news from Fox News where you may be more able to understand the level of discourse.

As for Olbermann being a misogynist, I’m a woman and Hillary is pissing me off as well. By now she is putting her ego ahead of the Democratic party… I will have to vote for her if she ends up being the candidate (while holding my nose) but her tactics are self-serving. She’s playing right into the Republican spin machine hands.

Now someone please take her into a room and show her a metaphor!”

I’m too sensitive and prone to worry to be able to read much of these kind of posts about Keith.

Thank you, ERT, for putting up with this stupid manufactured outrage supposedly felt by all women.

I am a female in her early 30’s. I have been watching Countdown since late 2004. I have never heard Keith say anything that offended me in all this time. He has been and continues to be one of the most respectful and egalitarian people in news and on television. He is a gentleman, in a non-condescending way.

I used to watch Hardball, but I just can’t anymore. I remember seeing, live, some of Chris Matthew’s statements and antics that have earned him the attention of Media Matters and others. There just came a point where I decided, I don’t like the way he talks about women. It went from being cute and old-fashioned to being unpleasant.

And I found I liked Keith better. Because he was right about so many things. He and his guests have so often been ahead of the curve. He is the most progressive newscaster I know of.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been in disagreement with Rachel Sklar’s views on something or someone. She is being annoying, and wrong, once again.

Oh, Goddess, forgive me, It appears that I am a MISOGYNIST! (And with Keith in that category, at least I am in good company.)

Here I am, a woman, raised by a feminist mother, active in everything from the Equal Right’s Amendment to equal pay and child care and especially the violence against women and children movement, plus volunteer work re rape crises and counseling mothers dealing with child loss.

In High School I was elected as the first female Sports Editor for the school paper, to the shock and dismay of the football player who was the other candidate and the journalism teacher who said afterwards that I would not have been allowed to run had he known that I might win.

So, I thought that my credentials were in order. And yet, just on Thursday, I said a negative thing about Hillary and also think that someone needs to talk to her privately about the damage she is doing, especially to women.

Her largest constituency appears to be older women on the lower economic rungs, and by continuing this she is giving them false hope and encouraging those least able to afford it to donate to her campaign when she is mathematically no longer a viable candidate. (When I think of what that campaign paid Mark Penn, the idea of anyone who is scraping by being lured into donating to the campaign makes me see red. The Clintons are millionaires many times over. Let them retire their own campaign debt.)

By creating a climate so much more favorable for a McCain Presidency she is also dooming those same older, lower income women to an executive branch that will care nothing for women such as they and leave them in an even more precarious situation.

On Thursday evening my eight year old was playing his online game of Disney’s Toon Town, which is cartoon characters and playgrounds and pets, but also has the apparently now necessary violence angle covered with battling the evil robotic COGS who are trying to take over Toon Town.

He became so excited as after many, many weeks and hours he had finally fought his first female COG.

Without thinking, I commented, that she must be the Hillary COG.

I could develop a very complex metaphor just using this children’s game.

I have good friends who are supporting Hillary and are excited by her campaign. I am certain that there are those here and many among Keith’s larger audience who are also supporting her.

I respect that and that we see this situation differently. I respect those who are honestly supporting McCain as well.

The whole idea behind a Republic is that people differ and we work together to find solutions and consensus.

I am not quite clear on why the “Politically Correct ” crowd of the left thinks that the best approach is to mimic the behavior of O’Reilly, Limbaugh, etc.

When he first said it I cringed. I was sure Fineman would say “I like my referee metaphor better” to bring KO’s attention to it - so he could quickly change the pronouns or add ‘figurately speaking’- but alas, he didn’t. It is the kind of thing though that clearly was not meant in any way other than a metaphor. It was just a bad choice of phrasing, nothing more.

I’m a Hillary supporter and the comment just flew by me when he said it. I know a metaphor when I hear one.

Girl, I *cannot* watch the MSM right now without my head exploding. I am getting all of my news from Countdown, Newsweek (Fineman and Jon Meacham != head explosion), and Washington Week (ibid, Gwen Ifill). I don’t count the Daily Show as news, because by the time it shows up on TDS, it’s usually not, strictly speaking, “news” anymore.

I don’t think it’ll end after the primaries, because then we’ll have the Rs to deal with, although maybe it’ll hurt less when it isn’t coming from *our own damned people*.

*sigh*

I don’t have a lot to add, as I think everyone else has pretty much nailed this one.

It blows my mind that some people have taken KO’s comment literally, when it should be obvious to anyone older than 5 with a functioning brain that it’s just a phrase. Everytime I think this country couldn’t get more stupid…

Becky, you and I have had many a disagreement over time, but in this one, I support you 100 percent. The amount of faux outrage currently being exhibited by pseudo-”feminist” supporters of Hillary Clinton over anything negative about the woman that happens to issue from Keith’s mouth has reached the point of utter ridiculousness.

This isn’t feminism–not second wave, third wave or any other kind of wave. It’s a pathetic tossed bucket of water, accompanied by cries of “Sexist!,” from women who wouldn’t know sexism if it denied them a job, deprived them of decent day care for their kids, or paid them less than a man. But when they hear “two people go into a room and only one comes out” from Keith, and one of those people just happens to be Hillary, WHAM! Sexism from the lips of Misogynist King Keith!

If you don’t mind my saying so, these tend to be the same kind of women who initially got their knickers in a knot with him for devoting so many of his #1 stories to ridiculing the latest Blond Celebutard of the Week. Keith said something that implied Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, etc., is stupid and slutty? OH NOES!!!! Time to grab the pots and pans and have a protest to defend this paragon of womanhood from the mudslinging of men!

Totally ignored is the fact that Keith is pretty much willing to ridicule ANY celebrity who strikes him as intellectually vacuous and relationally promiscuous…male or female. He slings it at Paris for being a slut who made a sex video. He slings it at Rush for being married a brazillion times and going to the Dominican Republic with a case of Viagra and no companion. He puts the laugh on brainless actors, musicians and ex-boy-band members with regularity. Yet…let him aim his snark at a blonde starlet or professional heiress and all of a sudden he’s a sexist pig creep.

Is Keith perfect? Nah. Has he probably still got a lot to learn about the world and life (despite the fact that he appears to regard himself now as the King of Having It All Together, fully qualified to counsel other poor sadsacks on how they can find true eternal happiness in work, love and life, “just like I finally have”)? Yeah, I think so. But his basic integrity I don’t doubt. And I am at the point in this presidential race that I am heartily sick of anyone and EVERYONE even peripherally involved having every word that comes out of their mouth analyzed as a possible “gotcha” career ender. That goes not only for Keith but for Obama, both the Clintons and everyone having anything to do with them (including Jeremiah Wright). Enough already! (Well, OK, I admit that as far as McCain’s concerned, I’d like to see someone do even a FRACTION of criticizing what he says that causes him the slightest hiccup of real attention and concern.)

If Hillary Clinton’s band of extremist so-called feminist supporters put half the effort into fighting for true feminist causes that they do into seeking offense at every turn of a phrase, we would all be getting equal pay for equal work, every man would be getting paternity leave and the “glass ceiling” would be shattered into more little pieces than James Frey’s reputation.

Go, Leona! Righteous Comment, that.
And, no, supporting Obama(via Edwards) doesn’t mean I find those fricking nutcrackers funny, or that I think Women in Power=ew.(I’d vote for Rachel Maddow in a hot minute…)
So, basically, what Orin said.

And, yeah, it came out a bit crude. But the guy apologized…I know *we* think he’s Superman, but he can’t *really* stop time and take it back.
(Without compromising his newscaster identity at least.)

To spread a little love: video of KO and Richard Lewis 4/27/08 at 92Y St:

http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/richard_lewis_and_keith_olbermann_word_in_edgewise/

I did note Keith’s use of the feminine pronoun when he said it and was only surprised that he would specify Hillary instead of leaving it up in the air, but I assumed that he meant her because she was continuing to push this boulder ala Sisyphus when the wheels had already come off her cart. I never thought of it as sexist or connoting violence.

Oh come on. We all know it was a metaphor, but we all also know that if Billo, Coultergiest, Beck or Comedian Rush Limbaugh had used the EXACT SAME metaphor, they’d have headlined WPITW that night.

If any of them had uttered that lame non-apology “I’m sorry you misunderstood me”. They’d have been right back up there again for another round.

Get over yourself, Becky. Why do you take this so personally anyway?

And the reason “no one” was talking about it until Rachel Sklar’s article on Huffpo showed up is because those people (like me, a one time Countdown fan) Don’t Watch Countdown (anymore). And it’s hypocritical comments and non-apologies like this even that caused me to stop watching Countdown.

Talk about needing to get over yourself; Keith, we’re looking at YOU!

“We all know it was a metaphor.” Oh? You’re able to recognize a metaphor, are you? This surprises me since you seem unable to recognize the hyperbole of my mock outrage, insisting instead that I’m taking this personally. Honestly. If I took every unkind word directed at Mr. Olbermann personally I’d be a withered husk of a woman, too bereft of self-esteem to run my little blog. (Especially since the man is far from perfect and seems intent on saying or doing something stupid and/or egotistical on a regular basis. I find this to be part of his charm.)

What I am genuinely outraged about is how this protracted primary season has caused normally rational individuals who agree to become hateful fools spewing petty invective at one another. I find it tiring to see Democrats eating their own when there is work to be done. If this is the point on which you believe I should get over myself, well “nobama,” that speaks more about you than it does me.

I suggest that if you don’t care for Mr. Olbermann or his program - or me, for that matter - then perhaps you might do well to seek other virtual pastures.

[…] Sklar, no KO fan she, cherry picks the one line about sexism missing the actual point Keith was making: Ms. […]

RSS feed for comments on this post.