Some of you have read the entirety of the Playboy interview while others have only seen a few quotes floating about. There are two quotes that are causing a bit of upset that I want to talk about. Let’s start with the lesser of the two:

There are chat rooms that get bawdy. One group of women will start analyzing the issues but soon it will devolve into talk about my tie and what they’d like to do about removing my tie. That’s a strange thing about TV, it’s like being on the wrong side of a one-way mirror. You don’t know if it’s a group of Jennifer Lopezes out there undressing with you with their eyes or a bunch of Leona Helmsleys.

Okay, so my first reaction to that is “Your girl may be cute, but she’s no JLo either, Tubby.” Then I turn back into a grownup. I have seen that kind of talk about him online, and it can’t be comfortable (it’s not even comfortable for me - which is one reason I try to keep it to a minimum here). And who hasn’t gotten skeeved by being leered at by someone you found particularly unattractive? So, dear fangirls, what exactly about that statement is offensive? I thought so. Moving on.

The Great Right Wing Echo Chamber landed up on this like flies on shit, and with good reason:

Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda — worse for our society. It’s as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.

Oh, Keith.
Say it ain’t so, KO.

If you read the full conversation, carefully and in context, you might think (as I did) that he’s using hyperbole to make a statement about how News Corp. and its neocon agenda has done real damage to the sociopolitical fabric of the country. The problem is, most people will only see that quote. It’s a whopper and it has legs. Change the name Rupert Murdoch to, oh, Keith Olbermann and you have a ridiculous statement tailor made for a Worst Person nom. How many of those asinine quotes we hear on WPItW are culled in just that same fashion - and none of us ever looks for the context? Are you, Mr. Olbermann, now a mirror image of Glenn Beck? John Gibson? BillO? Did you consider that your words might be taken out of context and used against you?

There are so few perfect senses of righteous indignation in the world .. it’d be a pity to spoil yours.

Tom Snyder 1936 - 2007

Any time I could get away with staying up that late, I was perched in front of Tomorrow. When Johnny was done petting monkeys and chatting up Jimmy Stewart, Tom showed me the likes of Charles Manson and Ken Kesey and Wendy O. Williams. Little did my teenage self know he was also inspiring some kid named Olbermann.

Rest in peace, sir.

As many of you have already heard, Keith will be moderating the AFL-CIO’s “Working Families Presidential Forum” on August 7. It will be broadcast live from Chicago on both MSNBC and XM radio.

I’m very excited to see KO make the next step in covering politics. I think we can all rest assured that he won’t make anyone raise their hands. We can also count on him being put under the microscope. There’s no question that Keith Olbermann is a polarizing figure, and the very idea that he is even capable of setting aside his personal views in a setting like this is laughable to a whole lot of people. I know I’d laugh loud and long if Rush Limbaugh were given a similar opportunity. Not that I’m equating them! But Keith is known for his opinions these days, and he’ll be walking a fine line.

It’ll be interesting to see what shakes out of this.

In the first comment to today’s open thread, James reminded me of something I’d planned to post today but had slipped my mind.

Fifty-three years ago, on March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow broadcast his famous report on Joseph McCarthy:

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

Read the entire transcript here.

I don’t buy in to the hype that keeps heralding Keith Olbermann as the “new” Murrow and making him the poster child of the Left. Don’t get me wrong - I’m very happy that KO is getting some long-overdue attention and has built a respectable audience. But every time I read another spate of comments about him in Left Blogsylvania it’s full of “I turn it off before Oddball” and “He could be so good if he didn’t do the silly stuff.” To borrow a phrase, they’re not happy to let Olbermann be Olbermann.

Just as Bruce Springsteen overcame being labeled as “the new Dylan,” becoming a great artist in his own right, KO will survive the hype. He’s made a habit of calling bullshit for a while now, and I don’t think he’ll be giving it up any time soon. May he always be like Murrow in that regard. However, I’m looking forward to the day when Keith is spoken of as the true original that he is. Maybe someday, 20 or 30 years hence, we’ll have a “new Olbermann.”

It was amusing to me to see news fans of my acquaintance begin to gnash their teeth and rend their garments over Anderson Cooper’s inclusion as Friday night’s silver medalist. “How could he do that?” they cried, “Anderson is one of the good guys!” I was a little confused since I found it pretty damn funny.

Let’s consider that by December, there were no evening anchor jobs open. AC could have been referring to a morning gig in that interview, but the specificity of “22 minutes” doesn’t fit the morning format. Might that statement have been a little bit of BS? Possibly so.

Let us also consider that since the man spent seemingly endless weeks wearing waders in the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina, CNN has been relentless with the marketing of the Cooper brand. Of course the network would do that just as any network wants to promote their demo draw. But it’s no secret that there have been times when that marketing has been over the top.

That leaves the charge of little content. For that I give you a statement right off of AC fan blog (and original inspiration for ERT) État de Coop, “So, we don’t mind when he says it should be a national holiday when 360 has 22 minutes of news a night. Because, we sort of know it’s true, although exaggerated.” Two hours is a lot of time to fill, and quite frankly I haven’t been able to sit all the way through an installment of the show since it went to the expanded format. That is all about the format and not about Mr. Cooper’s journalistic integrity or liability.

What I heard on Friday night was a little snarky, a bit tongue-in-cheek, and lacking the same type of disgusted delivery reserved for the likes of Foxers or comedian Rush Limbaugh. I did not hear the beginnings of some anti-Anderson jihad; I heard KO calling bullshit on a slow night.

Anyone who has been following KO for any length of time knows he’s not always a nice guy and that he is prone, on occasion, to stick his foot in his mouth. It’s possible that he did that on Friday night. It’s possible that I’m wrong and he really does have something against AC, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Now, let’s all untwist those knickers, okay?

In the blog at Huffington Post, E. A. Hanks is disappointed in Mr. Olbermann:

It may well be that people nowadays are so desperate to hear anyone speak in complete sentences, that when someone with intelligence, wit, and the barest whiff of gravitas comes along, we have the self control of a sorority girl offered a plastic bead necklace.
…When someone gets on television who actually does have these qualities, it’s not enough to just let them coast along; they must meet their own standards. Keith Olbermann is not meeting his own standards.

I’m sorry Ms. Hanks, I believe what you mean is that he’s not meeting your standards.

You admitted to not knowing him from Adam prior to seeing his Special Comment on the anniversary of 9/11, so you’ve been aware of him for how long now? Three, four months? And you, like so many other liberals desperate for a media messiah, don’t like it that he’s not All-Murrow-All-The-Time?

Get over it.

He’s not trying to be Jon Stewart, he’s not “coasting,” and he’s sure as hell not trying to put on News Hour. He is, as you say, “honest, eager, and real.” He is also what he’s always been, an emulator of radio comedians and an “eleven year old snot nose know-it-all.” He’s not always right and he’s not always funny and sometimes even I want to slap him upside the head, but he is always true to himself and true to his show. Those are the standards that count.

I’m truly sorry that you’ve found Keith Olbermann to have feet of clay. Might I suggest that you forgo Countdown, disappointment that it is, and stick to the YouTube replays of the Special Comments. And if you’re still looking for a messiah, I understand Tom Cruise is available.

So not only has Geraldo joined the fray (Please note, Mr. Rivera, that one thing you really can’t call KO is “midget”), but now we’ve got Jonathan Alter backing up Keith.

As seen on last night’s “Top Three Soundbites” segment, Bill-O was the topic of discussion on yesterday’s installment of Tucker:

Host Tucker Carlson had asked his guests what they thought “of the meltdown occurring in public of Bill O’Reilly,” saying that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, host of Countdown, “has set out to drive Bill O’Reilly crazy, and apparently he’s succeeded.”

More, as well as video of the segment, is at Media Matters.

So we have Bill-O and Geraldo on the Fox side, and Keith, Tucker, Scarborough and Alter on the MSNBC side. Hmmm. I suppose if they start wearing colored bandanas and swinging lead pipes on the air we’re in for a show!

• The name “Keith Olbermann” kept popping up on my mail alerts all during hiatus - the man is on more end-of-the-year lists than just about anyone. Details of several of them can be found at drinking with Keith Olbermann.
• No, I didn’t take down the count of days since “Mission Accomplished” from the sidebar; Blogger is just refusing to run the JavaScript any longer. I think we’re being held hostage until we move to the “new” Blogger platform.
• Don’t forget the Keith Olbermann Contract Pool! For those of you who have already entered, don’t forget to check the spreadsheet to see if your guess has already been taken. If it has, you may enter again.

News From ME is one of my daily non-news, non-political reads. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in classic television, comics and cartoons.

The daily video link for yesterday is a clip of Bob & Ray from Flip Wilson’s 1970’s variety show. I post it here not just because of their influence on a young Keith Olbermann, but because it’s an easily accessible, easily digestible intro to these comic masters for those of you who’ve never experienced them. Enjoy, and try not to be too shocked at the size of Flip’s bow tie.

On Friday, Chad Castagana — you know, the guy with “…a disturbing hero-worship of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin” — was indicted on 14 counts by a federal grand jury for sending those threatening letters to Mr. Olbermann and others. He’s sitting in jail in lieu of bail. Good place for him, don’t you think? [via LAT]

Daphne Eviatar talks Special Comments in The Nation:

Olbermann, who denies any partisan leanings and whose background doesn’t suggest any, insists his job is to report on what’s really going on–even if the public is loath to believe it. “We are still fundamentally raised in this country to be very confident in the preservation of our freedoms,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s very tough to get yourself around the idea that there could be a mechanism being used or abused to restrict and alter the society in which we live.”

Radar Online has a Q&A with KO (which opens with that unfortunate Nazi salute picture):

No, really, it’s an awfully tough tightrope to walk here, and you get people who are newscasters who can’t do any of the humor. And then there are people who are humorists who can’t do any of the news. This is a problem. I’ve never had a problem going from one to the other. For me it’s the skill that I’ve always brought to the table.

And finally, from the Los Angeles Daily News, a choice bit from Al Gore from last week’s GQ dinner:

“Leo’s as passionate and knowledgeable about the environment as I am,” Gore told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann as they discussed “An Inconvenient Truth” and the situation in Iraq with Leonardo DiCaprio. “You should have him on your show.”

Somehow I don’t see Leo becoming a pundit at this point in his career.