Way to man up, Keith; you’ve done too much great work when much of the media was little more than a conveyor belt of Republican propaganda.

As opposed to the MO of the other side, we have the strength to recognize and own up to our mistakes.
Adopting the antics and tactics of the right is beneath the left, especially when so much data supports the efficacy of our causes, as well as the abject failure of conservatism to address any of the problems facing all but the rich in America.

wow, well good for him. he stepped away from the ledge. let’s hope he stays on grounded.

i guess it’s obvious the influence Stewart wields, whether people want to admit it or not. haha

Truly a milestone in American journalism.

Fake newsman gives half-ass apology to fellow fake newsman about his over the top delivery of non news story rant. Swell. The Republic is safe.

Looks like KO is going to go back on his meds. We have so few people with “balls” on the left. WE NEED YOU!!

Well played Timzank!

Seeing such a sincere apology…so personal, so gut wrenching, covering all of the over the top statements made this week…..makes me proud to be an American.

I dare say America wept last night.

May God…Muhammad, Buddha, Donald Trump and the Easter Bunny….bless us all.

So Olbermann makes an apology to save himself.Let’s face facts here,he was worried his maniac act,the real Olbermann,would get him in trouble so he back pedaled.He should go back to his only credit,sportscasting,so he can be as idiotically crazy as he wants.

Oh and if anybody thinks he is “needed”….wow you “need” help.TV journalism does not “need” what Olbermann,Maddow,Matthews OR any of their competition on Fox delivers.ALL of that absolute crap does NOTHING to help anyone.It just fosters polarization,hate and anger.It perpetuates the judgment of others over one small facet of their lives.It reinforces the single biggest reason why our government and our system is so dysfunctional and accomplishes nothing except to line the pockets and consolidate the power of our politicians.

dhg you could have directed your comment about “needed” directly to me. I have no problem taking responsibility for my statements on here or anywhere. Yes, I believe liberals are basically wimps and we do need a mouth out there that speaks out. I don’t watch Fox any longer because they are all smiles while they stick a knife in the back of anyone who does not go along with what they preach. There is plenty of hate to go around in today’s media but I will totally agree with your statement about reinforcing the single biggest reason why our government and our systems are so dysfunctional and accomplishes nothing except line the pockets and consolidate the power of our politicans. The entire media is guilty of doing that.

This kind of made me laugh: “harsh but reasoned critic of the right” — I have never seen Olbermann as “reasoned”. Too little too late imho; apologizing because Stewart went after him doesn’t cut it. And he wasn’t a little over the top — he was a LOT over the top.

Well good for Olby. By the shortness of it, seemed a little tough for him to do. But he did apologize which is important thing. In a way I thought was generic enough to cover everyone he was over the top with .Without him having to come to grips with making specific apologies.

But what does “point taken” mean? He got the point this time? Please Jon Stewart, TC, NYTimes tell mne in the future when I go over the top again.
NYT-Yipes. It was a Senate race

Or he “gets it” and learned what over the top is and sounds like so he knows how to manage himself to avoid going over the top again?

If likes like Rush can’t learn to do it, that’s not a reason for Olbermann not to be man/smart enough not to learn from it.

If KO was a conservative you Skousen groupies would say he has nothing to apologize for because after all, he was telling the truth or you’d praise him for owning his mistake and then suggest we all move on. These criticisms are laughable…but entertaining nonetheless.

“A little over the top” , LOL….how about… “I have been WAY over the top”. We will see how sincere the Dolbermann was in his apologies. Something tells me he will go back to his old ways after a period of time.

“Out of the abundance of the heart, comes the words” (from somewhere in the Bible). Time will tell if he had a change of heartor if his his apology was just a farce.

Was the apology sort of half-assed? Yeah. But, I give him credit. He realized he saw the criticisms, recognized he went too far, and apologized.

Can you even IMAGINE a Bill O’Reilly or a Rush Limbaugh putting their egos aside and doing that?

It’s interesting that MSNBC President Phil Griffin reportedly just sent out a memo instructing the employees not to publicly criticize each other. This was apparently in response to Scarborough’s criticism of Olbermann’s personal attacks on Scott Brown.

I wonder if Griffin didn’t ask Olbermann to tone things down as well? The two have a long relationship (Griffin is a former producer for “Countdown”).

In any event, Olbermann deserves some praise for this but no one I doubt think seriously believes he’ll tone down his rhetoric for long. He is what he is.

Does anybody here see the glaring problem that olby apologized to the viewers and to a comedy show host instead of to Brown?

Does anybody here see the glaring problem that olby apologized to the viewers and to a comedy show host instead of to Brown?

Yeah. He admitted he was “over the top” but apologized to Stewart even though Stewart hasn’t been the recipient of his “over the top” attacks.

For a supersized ego like Olbermann’s, this is the equivalent of committing seppuku.

Amazing what a little peer pressure will do, huh?…

Before we get carried away with ourselves, know that Keith was also the beneficiary of a tut-tutting piece by Gail Collins in a column in the New York Times.

http://tinyurl.com/y95grem

I’ve always said that Olbermann acts as he does, and gets away with having a rabid one-sided leftist-fest, because media watchdogs and media notables allow it.

No conservative news host could carry on like this without discrediting the network that aired their show, in the eyes of the same media luminaries who turn their heads when it comes to Keith Olbermann.

It’s amazing to me that one protester carrying a moronic placard of the president as a Nazi, at a Tea Party event, can have journalists in abject horror, impugning all and sundry Obama critics, but Keith Olbermann can go on tv and call Bush and any Republican a fascist, and do a “heil, Hitler” while donning an O’Reilly mask, and not a peep is made.

The fact that he’s done all this while increasing the ratings for his time slot at MSNBC, has been a source of utter joy to them. He’s the first out-of-closet hardcore lefty who has managed to do this. He’s their great Moai-head hope.

However, the timing of this ugly rampage from Keith has coincided with an election that has managed to whisper to these same media people that all is not well in the hinterlands… Perhaps the hayseed villagers don’t much appreciate their and the Democrats’ marvelous facility of thinking that they know what’s good for the little people better than these little people know themselves…

It’s been a tiny wake-up call…. maybe a mild hiccup in their sleep…for these folks…and in turn they’ve given a little shake to biggest dead-asleep dunderhead of them all.

Let’s hope things continue to play out in a way that makes them a lot less comfortable with events and most importantly less comfortable with themselves.

timzank says:
January 23, 2010 at 1:18 pm

Does anybody here see the glaring problem that olby apologized to the viewers and to a comedy show host instead of to Brown?

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Excellent point!

This does have the half-hearted sincerity of a compelled-by-the-boss delivery.

Under the pretense of an apology, credit Olbermann with being able to gleefully showcase the fact that Jon Stewart took notice of him. Olbermann once again laments that Stewart won’t invite him on the ‘Daily Show’.
Apology? If you think you saw one, you don’t know Keith Olbermann.

Is there an equivilant to Olbermann’s outragious behavior on the right? Sorry to dispell any notions to the contrary, but the answer is YES. Glenn Beck’s comment about ” a dead intern in his future” is as vile as anything Olbermann has said. Just ask the parents of Chandra Levy.

Beck apologized and discussed it at length.

Are you sure about that? I’m reading conservative sources that say he did not apologize for the dead intern comment, nor should he. That’s as of yesterday.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/22/audio-glenn-beck-apologizes-to-scott-brown-sort-of/

“Much of the media is a conveyor belt of Republican propaganda.” Just which outlet is doing that? ABC? NBC? CBS (Katie Couric or Dan Rather)? CNN? MSNBC? The New York Times? The L.A. Times? The Chicago Trib? Except for Fox, name the outlet that’s doing that. And don’t say Rush Limbaugh. His show is strictly opinion and he says so up front. He’s not a newscaster. Olbermann, like Beck, is paid to be outrageous, and in that regard he’s doing a good job. But anyone who thinks Olbermann is an unbiased journalist is crazy.

you are right, he didn’t apologize for telling a joke, but he apologized for mocking his comment about the daughers – which I think was not cool. Making it creepy involving his daughters was wrong. But I agree with him about the right to be able to tell jokes. I have heard worse on Late Night comedy shows and by standups, as far as jokes go about Politicians. Was it in bad taste? Quite possibly. Was it a joke? yes. Not all jokes are in good taste. Just ask David Letterman.

sarainitaly – Okay, I can agree with that.

There is a distinction to the be made between Beck and Olbermann here.

First of all Beck was obviously goofing around doing shtick. There’s the obvious distinction too that Scott Brown is not Beck’s ideological opponent, in the way that he’s Olbermann’s. Beck doesn’t have an ax to grind in the sense of making a political animus something hatefully personal as personal as Olbermann.

Were Beck’s jokes in bad taste? Yeah, they generally and they’re generally funny too and made less bitter because you know he’s just riffing on a guy he very likely agrees with in all other ways. The way Jon Stewart lampooning of Democrats seems less caustic than his treatment of Republicans.

I’m tired of Beck, O’Reilly, Limbaugh…whoever… being used as some sort of foil to excuse Keith Olbermann from being a guy who is rabid towards people who don’t hold his views. It’s not championing these other guys to argue that this is bunk.

Cecilia:

You just used Olbermann as a foil to let Beck and Limbaugh off the hook for somtimes bad jokes and/or behavior.

So what does the distinctions political animus and bad taste mean when you’re on TV (or radio). Are you claiming with your distinctions that Olbermann “worse” than Beck/Limbaugh?

and/or that Beck/Limbaugh bad, just “not as bad” as Olbermann

With your distinctions whats the standard for “shtick consumers” to tolerate, worse or not as bad?

Cecilia – No one is using the Beck – Limbaugh freak show to excuse KO, that doesn’t make logical sense. What we are pointing out is the hypocrisy as nicely demonstrated by you. You can easily excuse the BS that Beck, Limbaugh et al feed you daily but you show this faux outrage at something KO said that is no worse than the things said by these clowns. I’m sorry Ceclilia – people like you are called hypocrites. I understand you are tired of the comparisons, but what can I say except, tough shit.

Off topic, but I couldn’t help myself;
Are Glenn Beck’s historical arguments meant to infer that the current Democratic regime could commit atrocities on the level of Hitler or Stalin?
You be the judge.
History according to Glenn Beck:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31882.html

Ted and liberalontogeny,

YOU or I don’t have to make ANY distinctions when it comes to thinking that all these guys indulge in over-the-top rhetoric.

They DO.

What you do have to do is to make some commonsensical ones when it comes to the context of particular remarks. You do have to take who is saying what about whom and ask why. You do have to admit that it is not illogical to hold the Mike Malloy Show to a different standard than that of a national cable news show (again that’s how MSNBC describes Countdown).

If you had said that Beck calling the president a racist was on par with the charges that Olbermann made against Scott Brown, you’d certainly have had an accurate comparison as to what Olbermann did with Brown.

If you said that Beck routinely indulges in this sort of bomb throwing charge against all and sundry political opponents you’d be wrong ACCORDING to everything that is a blue-blog sites and this particular site.

These sites may have examples of errors or of partisan rhetoric, but they don’t have the sort relentless and systematic and higly personal bomb-throwing that is part and parcel with Countdown. They don’t have the sort of name calling that goes beyond “liberal bedwetter” “commie” or “wingnut” “rethugilican” stuff into personal charges of legal malfeasance or character flaws you’d attribute to Hannibal Lector.

Olbermann doesn’t just make fun of conservatives, he almost nightly makes charges against them that should be allowed a rebuttal by someone.

Again, I don’t watch Beck, but it’s not for nothing that Beck is considered to be an emotionally unstable goofball by his opponents, whereas Olbermann is criticized by both right and left as being someone who brings a machine gun to a spitball fight and who would rather be waterboarded than to even DISCUSS (let alone recognize) a counter viewpoint. I doubt you’ll ever see Glenn Beck or Limbaugh quitting a show rather than to discuss charges or events that they find less than legitimate about Republicans (re: Olbermann, The Big Show, Lewinsky).

Yeah, there are distinctions to be made and just because I’m a conservative and Olbermann is not, is not a logical rebuttal to the distinctions I cite.

You can compare Beck’s with “Big Ed” in far more ways than you can compare him to Olbermann.

You can’t compare Rachel Maddow or even the odious David Shuster with Olbermann. He’s in his own personal– personality disordered tricked up echo-chamber that’s uniquely narcissistic and hostile to dissent.

He’s not an “evil” man, but he’s certainly the most unfair, unkind, and bitter talking head to date.

Cecilia,

My point is making those distinctions as news consumers is settling for what political shtick standards should be. You’re making an argument that there are economies of scale on bad shtick.

The Olbermann’s and Limbaughs have liberals and conservatives either defending their favorite bomb thrower or making “distinctions’ for them to argue why their bomb thrower is better than the others. It’s negligible. They do harm, just not as much harm.

The country is politically polarized and the Olbermanns and Limbaughs have a part in making the country politically polarized. That’s their shtick.

It’s like saying someone is just a little pregnant.

Would O’Reilly ever have apologized? Or Hannity? Or Morning Joke? All of them have said things that were far worse than anything KO has uttered over the past few days, and none of them have ever made an apology. KO is a class act, far more so than his right-wing critics.

Maikeru Ronin says:
January 23, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Would O’Reilly ever have apologized? Or Hannity? Or Morning Joke? All of them have said things that were far worse than anything KO has uttered over the past few days, and none of them have ever made an apology.

O’reilly apologizes to CNN

Cold Day In Hell: Fox News’ Sean Hannity Apologizes To Jon Stewart

Joe Sco apologizes again.

Poor Keith Olbermann, the pressures of having lousy ratings are getting to the boy. He’s grasping at straws trying to do something “sensational,” and no one is listening.

Keith Olbermann’s recent transformation from a harsh but reasoned critic of the right…

That’s a joke, right Colby? “Reasoned” and “recent” ARE the joke… right?

Well, folks… at least we better understand who we’re dealing with here.

I guess Olbermann telling Bush a few years back to “Shut the hell up,” and stating it was because he couldn’t say “fuck” on the air, was part of his “reasonable” criticism.

Wow.

Jim R says:
January 23, 2010 at 9:50 am

Please see, and explain, how above statement from KO was different than those “antics” from the right you pretend to be offended by.

sarainitaly says:
January 23, 2010 at 10:26 am

It just goes to show… when it comes to the most influential lefty on television now… it ain’t Olbermann. It’s Stewart.

Ted says:
January 23, 2010 at 12:14 pm

Do you recognize the hypocrisy in your statement? Because KO is on the left, you say he was great… while complaining when someone on the right gets a fraction of that angry. Yet, you complain that “those on the right” might do, what you’re doing right now. Do you not see that… or do you not care?

timzank says:
January 23, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Does anybody here see the glaring problem that olby apologized to the viewers and to a comedy show host instead of to Brown?

timzank… you’re thinking too much, and that goes against the knee-jerk reaction to protect Olbermann. You think Colby would point that out? Come on… be serious.

Ted says:
January 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

I’m confused Ted… and I must have missed it… but where did you say what KO did was “wrong?” Perhaps I glossed over it, or didn’t read that thread… but I don’t remember you scolding KO. And so, aren’t you… again… arguing against yourself?

Maikeru Ronin says:
January 23, 2010 at 5:54 pm

1- O’Reilly has apologized and corrected the record a number of times.
2- Do you have any evidence or quotes of “worse things said” by O’Reilly, Hannity, or Scarborough? What are you talking about?

liberalontogeny,

Oh, my goodness, there’s is absolutely room for shtick in politically oriented television, no place more than in political talk/analysis shows. Radio even more so. Talk radio and political shtick go together like Sean Hannity and a dead horse.

And yes, there is “good” and there is “bad” shtick and determining that is not so subjective as to be completely relative.

In fact, you mention one criterion in determining bad shtick — polarization, and you imply another — demonization.

However, political shtick often involves lampooning and caricatures, “good” shtick does not derive its goodness upon the basis of being innocuous, insipid, ecumenical, or without insult.

As with the analogy of pornography, adults may not know how to define it, but reasonable adults know what it is when they see it.

Cecelia,

Now you’re spinning to defend you point. I did not imply demonization. I stated polarization. You pulled something that a Limbaugh or Olbermann would do.

Meaning their shtick is to polarize for their own benefit. If Olbermann defended conservatives and Limbaugh defended liberals routinely they would lose credibility and their audience. So they don’t and even if conservatives did policy well consistently then Olbermann would find, spin, think of, create, lie about it to make it bad/wrong. Or just ignore it, not tell their listeners/viewers about it.

Same with Limbaugh if liberals did policy well consistently. Most Presidents and Congress historically closer to center of politics than the fringe.

Polarization!

Cecelia, you in your post stated bad taste for a conservative and the use of ‘some sort of foil’ to excuse behavior. That’s what I brought up. Two bads don’t make it right and the hypocrisy when you used Olbermann as some sort of foil in the same posting you claimed where you tired of those that used that tactic.

For some purpose you brought in the opportunity to use Olbermann on an Olbermann post to defend the likes of Limbaugh. That’s what I called you out for.

For me both of these men go over the top too many times and have selfish intent by taking politics and even if policy good for most Americans will spin to make it bad. Because it goes against their objectives. To polarize.

If you disagree with all of this then you should then be acceptable to those that support Olbermann and just used your same “foil” post by drawing distinctions that Olbermann “not as bad”

assessment is with the beholder. Or don’t care. Or don’t watch Olbermann. Or don’t listen to Beck. You can decide for “yourself”.