Bipartisanship: Keith Olbermann And Reince Priebus Both Agree That Eric Holder Should Resign Over Associated Press Scandal

Hey, remember when then-Senator Barack Obama and a legion of other Democrats demanded that Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for firing 8 U.S. attorneys? The liberal media sure doesn't. And yet, having miraculously survived the gross negligence and incompetency surrounding the “Fast and Furious” gun scandal, AG Eric Holder is once again making news for all the wrong reasons with the Associated Press-leak scandal and this time, even Obama stans can't defend him:

Who says there is no consensus anymore between hyper-partisan Democrats and Republicans? Well, just about everyone these days. But the usual Cassandras, often seen decrying the supposed lack of concord in Washington D.C., are unlikely to point to the developing consensus around the notion that Attorney General Eric Holder should resign as a welcome bit of political comity. Still, and in spite of the silence of the hollow, label-free political commentators who value unity for its own sake, anything that brings together former Current TV host Keith Olbermann and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has to be worth noting.


“The First Amendment doesn’t request the federal government to respect it; it demands it,” declared RNC Chairman Priebus in a written statement released on Tuesday. “Attorney General Eric Holder, in permitting the Justice Department to issue secret subpoenas to spy on Associated Press reporters, has trampled on the First Amendment and failed in his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”

Attorney General Holder has so egregiously violated the public trust, the president should ask for his immediate resignation. If President [Barack] Obama does not, the message will be unmistakable: The President of the United States believes his administration is above the Constitution and does not respect the role of a free press.

Priebus found some unlikely allies in his call for action from the White House regarding the DoJ’s decision to unilaterally obtain two months of telephone records from the Associated Press.

Making up Priebus’ coalition of the willing in his crusade to force President Obama to jettison his friend and close political ally are Olbermann and progressive radio and television host David Schuster:

“If Mr. Holder continues to support this rogue action, he should resign,” Olbermann declared on his Twitter account Tuesday. 

Given all this unity, it is a curiosity as to where the members of the perpetually chagrined third way crowd are hiding? Shouldn’t this be celebrated? Is this not a Kumbaya moment which merits shouting from the rooftops? Granted, Holder’s potential resignation is not so much a policy achievement as it is a long-overdue correction, but it is a place to start. 

Perhaps, in coming days, we will point to bipartisanship and say that this regularly lip serviced phenomenon actually accomplished something.

RELATED: Eric Holder blasts IRS scandal, defends seizure of Associated Press phone records

Politiks As Usual: 4/2/12

Top Obama Campaign Donor Accused Of Fraud

Obama Doubling Down On His Leftist Radicalism

Chris Christie: I'd Be Much More Ready in 2016

Liberals Prepare To Vilify The Supreme Court If They Don't Get Their Way

The Crusade Against Faith

Goal of Al Gore’s Current TV? ‘Compete with MSNBC from the Left’

ABC Not Sure Whether Death Threats In Trayvon Martin Aftermath 'Going Too Far'

Judge Tosses Blog Suit Against Huff Post

Mitt Romney Scores Endorsement From Paul Ryan

Keith Olbermann Complained To Current That Car Service Drivers ‘Smelled, Talked To Him’

Sarah Palin To Co-host 'Today' Show As Ratings Battle Heats Up

If The Health Law Falls, What's Next?

Why You Played Lottery Despite Odds

Current TV Dismisses Keith Olbermann

This trend of being fired from network after network gotten pretty laughable, talk about being your own worse enemy:

It began with some lighting problems in his Countdown digs, and ended, today, with Keith Olbermann‘s firing by Current TV for what sources close to the situation say is “serial, material breach of contract.”


Olbermann, for his part, says the claims against him by Current are “untrue,” and that he plans to sue. He’s currently engaged in a Twitter tirade against Current executives Joel Hyatt and former VP Al Gore.


Olbermann was fired via a written letter delivered Thursday morning to Nick Khan, agent for Mr. Olbermann, and the source says that the decision “reflected a unanimous agreement amongst the senior management” at Current TV, based on ”Mr. Olbermann’s serial, material breach of his contract, including the failure to show up at work (Unauthorized Absences); sabotaging the network (Failure To Promote); and attacking Current and its executives (Disparagement).”


Current executives fired Olbermann because “Mr. Olbermann did not respect the viewers of Current, as he was contractually obligated to do so; and did not support what Current is trying to do when it comes to being a progressive media platform at a time of major corporate consolidation of media properties per his contract,” the source says.


Olbermann released a statement disputing Current’s version of events, but note the parsing:(emphasis mine)


I’d like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV.


Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I’ve been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff. Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.


It goes almost without saying that the claims against me implied in Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently. To understand Mr. Hyatt’s “values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty,” I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employee’s name was Clarence B. Cain.


In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one. That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.


Olbermann may disagree with the way Current has characterized their philosophical differences (disrespecting viewers, for example), but their factual claims about him missing work are pretty tough to argue with. In January and February, he missed 19 out of 41 working days, including the nights of the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary. At around $50K per show, that’s almost $2 million worth of “bronchitis.”


At least two of those absences appear to have occurred with little or no notice, and according to this source, no authorization. On March 5, Current ran a two-hour version of The War Room with Jennifer Granholm from 8-10 pm, and on March 9, a two-hour episode of The Young Turks. Olbermann’s requests for time off came with insufficient notice to find a replacement.


According to our source, on February 27, after missing almost half of his scheduled shows at that point in 2012, Olbermann asked for a vacation day on March 5, the night before Super Tuesday – one of the most significant news evenings of the entire campaign. Olbermann was told it would be a breach if he took it – and, nonetheless, he took it.


Olbermann’s threat of legal action, especially given the above facts, figures to be posturing similar to previous threats to sue, among others, Tucker Carlson, which never came to fruition.


Since Olbermann’s troubles with the network began to surface late last year, I’ve been in touch with various sources at Current TV, who have all along expressed admiration for Olbermann’s talent, and a desire to accommodate him whenever possible. The attendance hiccups were treated sort as “Keith being Keith.”


As the network’s marquee talent, they seemed to have little choice but to put up with it, but it’s my sense that Olbermann’s growing rebellion, coupled with the network’s increased confidence in the rest of its slate, finally precipitated this action. While Olbermann’s ratings have been, by far, Current’s best, the show has generally not suffered steep declines under guest hosts, and the performance of The Young Turks has been impressive, actually delivering Olbermann a host of new, younger viewers at 8 o’clock. Olbermann’s departure (he’s being replaced by Eliot Spitzer) will certainly mean some major rethinking by the network.


In any case, a tentpole that’s never there can’t hold up much of anything.

RELATED: Breaking: Current TV “terminates relationship” with Olbermann, replaces him with … Eliot Spitzer; Update: Olby regrets joining Current, vows “legal actions” against it

Kirsten Powers on Rush and Sandra Fluke: Where’s The Outrage At Misogynistic Liberal Men?

HotAir.com:

If you missed her widely linked Daily Beast item this weekend, read it now. Then read Treacher’s long look back at Our Moral Superiors’ most morally superior moments. The most interesting bit here is when Megyn Kelly asks whether she thinks liberals are genuinely offended by Rush but debilitated by a blind spot about their own side or whether they’re affecting outrageous outrage to put points on the partisan scoreboard. KP thinks it’s the former; I think the truth is in between. They are genuinely offended — not by the rhetoric, though, but by conservative opposition to abortion and support for prioritizing religious conscience above contraception coverage. That’s what makes Rush “anti-woman”; the “slut” name-calling is, supposedly, a window onto that deeper animus. Because Maher and Olbermann and Taibbi are, ahem, “pro-woman” on policy, they can be as personally nasty as they want and it’s not a window onto anything. The quintessential example of this is of course Ted Kennedy, whose career stands for the proposition that you can allegedly assault women and even leave a woman to die and be reelected for eternity so long as you vote the right way.


That is to say, for all of the left’s bleeding-heart smugness about “good intentions,” they’re remarkably bottom-line on this: So long as you support abortion and the rest of their packet on social issues, your actual intent when calling a woman a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick” is irrelevant. It’s an irrebuttable presumption of feminism, a de facto “get out of misogyny free” card. As a thought experiment, imagine, say, Maher suddenly declaring himself pro-life (that’s a mighty tough experiment, I know) and then calling a woman a “c*nt.” Think there’d be a response from the left then? I wonder, in fact, to what extent KP’s sensitivity to this is shaped by the fact that she’s pro-life herself. Must get tiresome for her to be accused of being a “self-hating woman” or whatever while left-wing heroes go around accusing their female critics of looking like pre-op transsexuals.


Apropos of nothing, my favorite comment on the endless Rush/Fluke saga comes from the Political Math guy, who points to this petition at the White House website calling on Panetta to drop Rush from Armed Forces Radio and quips, “Liberals have ‘moral objection’ to Rush, don’t want tax money paying him #SelfAwarenessFail”. Exit question via Guy Benson: Since we’re now all about organizations distancing themselves from media types who use “slut” rhetoric, when does Obama’s Super PAC plan on forfeiting Bill Maher’s $1 million donation?

RELATED: Rush Limbaugh not the only culprit, left guilty of misogyny too

Kirsten Powers Takes On Male Liberal Misogynists In The Media

TheDailyBeast.com:

Did you know there is a war on women?


Yes, it’s true. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz have been waging it for years with their misogynist outbursts. There have been boycotts by people on the left who are outraged that these guys still have jobs. Oh, wait. Sorry, that never happened.


Boycotts are reserved for people on the right like Rush Limbaugh, who finally apologized Saturday for calling a 30-year-old Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, a “slut” after she testified before congress about contraception. Limbaugh’s apology was likely extracted to stop the departure of any more advertisers, who were rightly under pressure from liberal groups outraged by the comments.


Let it be shouted from the rooftops that Rush Limbaugh should not have called Ms. Fluke a slut or, as he added later, a “prostitute” who should post her sex tapes. It’s unlikely that his apology will assuage the people on a warpath for his scalp, and after all, why should it? He spent days attacking a woman as a slut and prostitute and refused to relent. Now because he doesn’t want to lose advertisers, he apologizes. What’s in order is something more like groveling—and of course a phone call to Ms. Fluke—if you ask me.


But if Limbaugh’s actions demand a boycott—and they do—then what about the army of swine on the left?


During the 2008 election Ed Schultz said on his radio show that Sarah Palin set off a “bimbo alert.” He called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” (He later apologized.) He once even took to his blog to call yours truly a “bimbo” for the offense of quoting him accurately in a New York Post column.


Keith Olbermann has said that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents, apparently because he finds her having opinions offensive. He called Michelle Malkin a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick.” He found it newsworthy to discuss Carrie Prejean’s breasts on his MSNBC show. His solution for dealing with Hillary Clinton, who he thought should drop out of the presidential race, was to find “somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.” Olbermann now works for über-leftist and former Democratic vice president Al Gore at Current TV.


Left-wing darling Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog in 2009, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.” In a Rolling Stone article about Secretary of State Clinton, he referred to her “flabby arms.” When feminist writer Erica Jong criticized him for it, he responded by referring to Jong as an “800-year old sex novelist.” (Jong is almost 70, which apparently makes her an irrelevant human being.) In Taibbi’s profile of Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann he labeled her “batshit crazy.” (Oh, those “crazy” women with their hormones and all.)


Chris Matthews’s sickening misogyny was made famous in 2008, when he obsessively tore down Hillary Clinton for standing between Barack Obama and the presidency, something that Matthews could not abide. Over the years he has referred to the former first lady, senator and presidential candidate and current secretary of state as a “she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” and “Madame Defarge.” Matthews has also called Clinton “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “uppity” and once claimed she won her Senate seat only because her “husband messed around.” He asked a guest if “being surrounded by women” makes “a case for commander in chief—or does it make a case against it?” At some point Matthews was shamed into sort of half apologizing to Clinton, but then just picked up again with his sexist ramblings.


Matthews has wondered aloud whether Sarah Palin is even “capable of thinking” and has called Bachmann a “balloon head” and said she was “lucky we still don’t have literacy tests out there.” Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, who is the former president of the Women’s Media Center, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in 2011 that Matthews
“is a bully, and his favorite target is women.” So why does he still have a show? What if his favorite target was Jews? Or African-Americans?


But the grand pooh-bah of media misogyny is without a doubt Bill Maher—who also happens to be a favorite of liberals—who has given $1 million to President Obama’s super PAC. Maher has called Palin a “dumb twat” and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaska governor. He called Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann “boobs” and “two bimbos.” He said of the former vice-presidential candidate, “She is not a mean girl. She is a crazy girl with mean ideas.” He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, “Don't show me your tits!” as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: “And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!”


Liberals—you know, the people who say they “fight for women”—comprise Maher’s audience, and a parade of high-profile liberals make up his guest list. Yet have any of them confronted him? Nope. That was left to Ann Coulter, who actually called Maher a misogynist to his face, an opportunity that feminist icon Gloria Steinem failed to take when she appeared on his show in 2011.


This is not to suggest that liberals—or feminists—never complain about misogyny. Many feminist blogs now document attacks on women on the left and the right, including Jezebel, Shakesville, and the Women’s Media Center (which was cofounded by Steinem). But when it comes to high-profile campaigns to hold these men accountable—such as that waged against Limbaugh—the real fury seems reserved only for conservatives, while the men on the left get a wink and a nod as long as they are carrying water for the liberal cause.

RELATED: Rush Limbaugh Apologizes For Calling Sandra Fluke A ‘Slut’

Hypocrite Keith Olbermann Trashes MSNBC Over Rev. Sharpton Hire, Suggests Quid Pro Quo

Mediaite.com:

While introducing his segment with departed MSNBC host Cenk Uygur Thursday night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann trashed MSNBC’s reported hiring of Rev. Al Sharpton to replace Uygur, and even suggested a quid pro quo between the network and Sharpton’s National Action Network. Olbermann noted that MSNBC hired Rev. Sharpton to replace Cenk Uygur “three months after Sharpton’s National Action Network gave an MSNBC executive a ‘Keepers of the Dream’ award.


Olbermann went on to quote criticism of the hiring by Richard Prince:


When rumors surfaced this week that Sharpton was under consideration for the MSNBC job, one NABJ member told colleagues without challenge, “This would still be just another non-journalist media ‘celebrity’ receiving a TV show based upon their name recognition, not their years of experience, training, ability and talent.”


Prince also noted that the hiring of Sharpton would serve to quell criticism of the news media’s lack of diversity.


Prince’s criticisms are valid, of course. The news media landscape is littered with hosts who have little or no background in journalism, and the fact that hosting slots for black newsmen are so scarce makes this doubly grating. There’s also a fair case to be made in Sharpton’s favor, at least from a business perspective. He certainly knows his way around a TV camera, and is a sharp debater who, as Prince notes, has managed to mellow his way back into the political mainstream.


Olbermann’s amplification of this critique, however, seems opportunistic, aimed more at settling a score with his old employer than pointing out an injustice. When he was still at MSNBC, Olbermann vigorously defended the network’s diversity, even lambasting Mediaite in a mini-Special Comment for daring to report on it. For him to exploit the issue now that he’s on the outs with MSNBC borders on the offensive.


The suggestion that MSNBC President Phil Griffin’s “Keepers of the Dream” award played a part in the decision to hire Sharpton is laughable enough that Olbermann fell short of connecting those dots with a bright line, but again, the idea seems to be that Sharpton is less than deserving, and that the award was given to Griffin to butter him up. As inducements go, that’s some pretty weak sauce, and it flies in the face of Olbermann’s previous defense of the network.

Keith Olbermann's Ratings Fall In Week 2

First, the lying hypocrite and misogynist lost his one-sided feud to Bill O'Reilly, now he can't even beat his old, pathetic network MSNBC:

Ratings for Current's new incarnation of Countdown With Keith Olbermann were bound to fall in the show's second week as the curiosity factor wore off and people began their July 4 vacations. Still, the numbers from last week are bracing: Olbermann attracted an average of 93,000 viewers in its target 25-54 demo, down 29% from the first week. The total audience, at 253,000, was down 28.5%. The numbers account for people who watched the 8 PM ET broadcast live, or the same evening on their DVRs.

S.E. Cupp Takes Down Keith Olbermann The Misogynist

Source

Politiks As Usual: In The News 4/18/11

Donald Trump Takes On Mitt Romney

Half Of Households Pay No Income Tax

FEC Investigators Digging Into Obama's 2008 Campaign

Obama: Republicans Will Make U.S. 'Third World' Nation

The New Health Law: Bad For Doctors, Awful For Patients

MSNBC's UnCivil War On The Right

Gallup: 62 Percent Of Americans Support 2011 Budget Deal

Pro-lifer: Blacks 'Exterminating' Themselves

Helen Thomas To Offer Keynote Speech Protesting Netanyahu, Accept Code Pink Award

Keith Olbermann Dishonestly Explains His S.E. Cupp Planned Parenthood Tweet

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Blames iPad For American Unemployment

Keith Olbermann to become “Chief News Officer” of Al Gore’s Cable Channel

Hey, does anyone really have a problem with a blowhard like the Goracle taking on that ego? If it doesn't work out (and ut won't) they can easily just blame it on global warming:

Less than a month after leaving MSNBC, liberal lightning rod Keith Olbermann said Tuesday he's headed to Current TV, the public affairs channel launched six years ago by former Vice President Al Gore.


Olbermann will start this spring with a prime-time talk show on Current. He was also named chief news officer at Current, which is available in 60 million homes in the U.S., a little more than half the nation's homes with television.

Financial terms were not divulged, although Current said Olbermann will get an equity stake in the company.
Olbermann's hiring was the biggest moment in the history of Current, which began as a network geared primarily toward young people featuring viewer-generated short videos and is now evolving into a more traditional network. Its showcase is the investigative documentary series "Vanguard."

"We now live in a world with fewer and fewer opportunities to hear truly unique, truly unfettered voices on television," Gore said. "Keith is one of those rare voices."

Olbermann's sudden departure from MSNBC, announced simultaneously by himself and the network on a Friday night, was never really explained. He'd been an occasional headache for his bosses, and was briefly suspended last year for making campaign contributions in violation of NBC News policy.

Jon Stewart: Can Ed Schultz Fill ‘Olbermann Shaped Hole’ In Our Nation’s Discourse?

Funny and so on point:

Its been two weeks since Keith Olbermann left the airwaves of MSNBC, creating a “Olbermann shaped hole in our nation’s discourse,” according to Jon Stewart, who used the opening segment in tonight’s episode of The Daily Show to assess MSNBC’s current lineup to fill said void. Rachel Maddow seems too civil and gentile, Lawrence O’Donnell seems too smart and Chris Matthews seemed, well, like a “balloonhead.” Leaving us with? Ed Schultz!


While some will see the segment as a paean to Olbermann’s strength of conviction, others are sure to see it as a mockery of Olbermann’s over reliance on hyperbole and merciless railing on anyone who disagrees with him. The later might be the real point of the segment, evidenced by the bizarre bit in which Stewart travels to “the Olberfarm” in which young “Olberclones” are seen yelling at each other. Stewart laughs diabolically, while somewhere, we imagine, crickets chirped. Hey, they can’t all be hits!

Bill O’Reilly & Bernie Goldberg Go After Keith Olbermann, Never Mention His Name

Mediaite.com:

Bill O’Reilly is up to date on the MSNBC news that matters: the fact that the network “is the 28th rated cable network.” On his weekly media segment, Bernie Goldberg tried to remind O’Reilly of the actual shocking MSNBC news of the week, but as much as he tried to point out the importance of a media personality he called “the tallest midget in the room,” O’Reilly stuck tight to his point that, no matter what happens at MSNBC, “it really doesn’t matter.”


As much as Goldberg insisted, O’Reilly refused to speak of now-former rival Keith Olbermann, who departed MSNBC at the end of last week. He did note that “they took one of their guys out” over at MSNBC “and they’re moving everyone else around,” but that was as far as he was willing to go.”After a bit of goading from Goldberg, he finally noted that “I really don’t want to get involved in any of that personal stuff,” but adamantly refused to name names. Instead, he played the ratings boasting game. “Spike TV kisses [sic] their butt. The Carrot Channel!” he joked. He also later noted that, if the Olbermann story was a “business” one, then the true point of the story is “Fox News’ dominance” in cable.


Yet Goldberg did take a few swipes at Olbermann from his position, reminiscing that “this is someone who told the President to ’shut the hell up,’” among other things, and wondering what would’ve been of O’Reilly’s career had he shown such incivility. He also mocked the only MSNBC personality to get mentioned by name in this entire segment, Rachel Maddow, for being reported to live in a country house in Massachusetts.

"the tallest midget in the room"...classic.

Glenn Beck Correctly Predicted Keith Olbermann's Firing Two Weeks Ago

Hillbuzz.org:

Glenn Beck correctly predicted Keith Olbermann’s firing two weeks ago, in the video clip above.


Here’s what else he had to say then:


* MSNBC is in incredible trouble, since Comcast does not see it as a loss-leader the way GE did.


* Comcast will run MSNBC as a business (not, as GE did, a tool to curry favor with the Obama administration by supplying the Left with a 24/7 propaganda network in exchange for whatever corporate subsidies, stimulus funds, and other corporate bribes GE wanted in this quid pro quo)


* If Comcast wants MSNBC to stay a Leftist station, it will still feature Leftist content…but it will have to strike a balance where it makes money (which it does not currently)


* Beck said, emphatically, that Comcast would not allow Keith Olbermann to stay on the air (and as of yesterday, 1/21/11, Beck was right)


* Keith Olbermann outlived his usefulness for radical and revolutionaries on the Left

Keith Olbermann Out At MSNBC

This must have something to do with Comcast merging with NBC the other day. Either way, good riddance:

Keith Olbermann is leaving MSNBC, the "Countdown" host announced on his show Friday night.


The liberal commentator told viewers he had been informed "this was going to be the last edition" of his show, but offered no further details.


NBC/Universal confirmed the news in a statement Friday night.


"MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast
of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" will be this evening. MSNBC thanks
Keith for his integral role in MSNBC's success and we wish him well in
his future endeavors."


Olbermann made the announcement in his typical deadpan style, evoking scenes from the film "Network" and thanking viewers for keeping him on the air for eight years.


"In the mundane world television goodbyes, reality is laughably uncooperative," Olbermann said before launching into a story about his exit from ESPN 13 years ago.


"As God as my witness, in the commercial break just before the emotional moment, the producer got into my earpiece and he said, 'um, can you cut it down to 15 seconds so we get in this tennis result from Stuttgart,'" he said, half-smiling, pausing for composure.


"So I'm grateful I have a little more time to sign off here. Regardless this is the last edition of 'Countdown.'"

Keith Olbermann's Ratings Continue To Drop

What happens when you keep screaming but no one hears you:

The bad news keeps coming for MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. The 2010 ratings data is starting to trickle in, and the news is not so great for the Countdown host. In a down year for cable news where all three networks registered a decline in viewers, Keith Olbermann lost 11% of his total audience, but what is most troubling is that among the coveted age 25-54 demographic Olbermann lost 25% of his audience.


In terms of total viewers all three of the cable networks suffered. Fox News declined 5% in 2010 from a Monday-Friday average of 2.568 million viewers in 2009 to 2.426 million in 2010. MSNBC was down 9% in 2010 from 953,000 viewers in 2009 to 870,000 viewers in 2010. CNN suffered a stunning 36% drop in total viewers from 1 million viewers in 2009 to 636,000 viewers in 2010. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News suffered only a 6% drop, because almost 70% + of the audience is older than 54. MSNBC declined by 18% in the demo, and CNN fell by a whopping 37%.


Keith Olbermann’s total drop in viewership was 2% higher than MSNBC’s network average, (11% vs 9%). In contrast, Rachel Maddow lost less of her audience than MSNBC as a whole. Maddow only declined by 6% compared to the network’s 11%. Maddow’s total loss was almost half of her lead in Olbermann, (6% compared to 11%). Olbermann also lost a higher than network percentage of those viewers age 25-54. MSNBC lost 18%. Olbermann lost 25%. Maddow only lost 14%.


Olberman is still MSNBC’s most watched host. Overall, he is the 11th most watched cable news program, but Rachel Maddow was right behind him at 13th, and Lawrence O’Donnell was 14th. The gap between Olbermann and his MSNBC primetime colleagues is shrinking, which is good for the network. The point is that Olbermann’s audience is getting older, and he is working on a network that is trying to target younger viewers. This isn’t to say that Olbermann is doomed at MSNBC, far from it actually, but that 2010 was not a good year for him.

Say It Ain’t So: Will Rape Allegation Furor Be Keith Olbermann’s ‘Shoeless Joe’ Moment?

Mediaite.com:

On Tuesday’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked widespread outrage over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. An online protest ensued, and as Michael Moore ignored pleas for a correction, Olbermann tried to fend off criticism on Twitter. When he was unwilling to respond to legitimate questions regarding his handling of the allegations, Olbermann announced that he was quitting Twitter until the “frenzy” died down. If Sady Doyle, the woman who started the protest that forced him off Twitter, is any indication, he could be waiting a long time, and taking serious damage in the process.


The primary reason that people like Glenn Beck are somewhat immune to protests like this is that they’re generally carried out by people who already aren’t watching. Beck may say things that enrage people, but he’s not enraging the people in his audience. Fox News Channel can assess the effect of advertiser boycotts through the prism of his enormous audience, and make the calculation that the benefit outweighs the cost.


In Olbermann’s case, though, he has picked a fight with people who would normally be watching him declare spreaders of misinformation “Worst Person in the World.” Sady Doyle, the woman who started the #MooreAndMe hashtag, describes her sense of betrayal at being blocked by Olbermann thusly:


Number of Beloved Progressive Journalists Who Had Blocked Me On Twitter Yesterday: None, as far as I know!


Number of Beloved Progressive Journalists Who Have Blocked Me On Twitter Now: One. And it’s Keith Olbermann.


There’s no way to put a number on it, but it stands to reason that a substantial number of the #MooreAndMe protesters are also Countdown viewers, or potential viewers. Just as handling this properly could have been a big win for Olbermann, botching it so badly could hurt in ways he never imagined.


In her piece for Salon today (which bears reading in full), Doyle brings another key difference between Olbermann and Beck into sharp relief. Speaking about some of the misguided reactions she has gotten on Twitter, Doyle says:


One of the chief objections, from fans of Moore and Olbermann, is that Assange isn’t being charged with rape. “He was accused ONLY of consense.sex w/o a condom,” wrote Twitter user MariahWestwind. “u r all fucking retarded, really fucking dumb……….it was consensual sex and his condom broke which is a crime in sweden u fucking retards,” wrote a commenter on my blog, “Ralph,” who was sadly deleted. This is demonstrably wrong. It’s untrue. But Ralph, Mariah, and all the others have reason to believe it. Because they got the information from the news. They got it from Michael Moore. And they got it from Keith Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann Outs Rape Victims, Protects Serial Rapist Julian Assange

When he's not smearing women in general, he's protecting rapists while outing rape victims all under the guise liberal fascism. It's who he is, too bad the George Soros-run MSNBC just doesn't seem to care:

On Tuesday’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked widespread outrage over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. While some of the segment is open to interpretation, Moore made a clear factual error when he said that Assange only stands accused of having his condom break during consensual sex.


First some background on the initial controversy as I reported it last night:


Filmmaker Michael Moore is in hot water over comments he made during Tuesday night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. In discussing rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore appeared to dismiss the accusations as “hooey” (although he was actually referring to what he views as the use of the allegations as a pretext to silence Assange), and repeated the false claim that Assange is only accused of having a condom break during consensual sex.


When I asked Olbermann to clarify via Twitter, he responded by attacking me personally, then offered the kind of non-apology that he would normally fricassee had it come from a conservative.


To be clear, there is a compelling case that Olbermann and Moore were engaging in despicable rape apologia, a case with which I agree. Tigerbeatdown.com, the website that started the Twitter campaign to shame Moore into apologizing, makes that case more eloquently than I ever could.


However, much of that case relies sufficiently on matters of interpretation and (completely fair) logical extensions to make it impractical to argue 140 characters at a time. As Olbermann’s Twitter feed attests, the format lends itself to deflection and selective response.


This is why I chose to focus simply on Moore’s assertion, unchallenged by Olbermann, that the allegations against Assange consist merely of consensual sex during which the condom broke. Guilt or innocence aside, the substance of the allegations are verifiable, and have been reported extensively. In fairness to Olbermann, though, I allowed that the “broken condom” lie has been so oft-repeated in the media that perhaps he was unaware it was false. Here’s how our Twitter exchange began:


chrisatyoursix I cant wait to watch @KeithOlbermann at 8 to see why @MMFlinthelped bail out an accused rapist. 14 Dec


KeithOlbermann @chrisatyoursix you might want to read in on those charges 14 Dec


tommyxtopher @KeithOlbermann @chrisatyoursix Are you saying that holding a woman down after she tells you to stop isn’t rape? (link) Or are u saying that you don’t think Assange has been accused of holding a woman down after she said “stop?” (link)


tommyxtopher Because that’s what he’s accused of: holding a woman down after she said “stop.”http://bit.ly/fMVA7m (link)


tommyxtopher I’m not asking to be a douche, just allowing that maybe you and @mmflint really don’t know what Assange is accused of. (link)


KeithOlbermann @tommyxtopher You’ve already crossed that threshold. Do not contact me again. (link)


He followed up by calling me a “hatchet man,” and when others tried to get him to answer the question, resorted to craven sophistry:


jsmooth995 @KeithOlbermann Your ad hominem jab, even if true, doesn’t negate the substance of his questions. And he’s hardly the only one asking. (link)


amaditalks @KeithOlbermann Well I’m no one’s hatchet man & I don’t work for any websites. So how about if you answer that question for me? (link)


KeithOlbermann @amaditalks Do you have a copy of the charges? Because until you do, the answer is, “none of us knows.” (link)


tommyxtopher @KeithOlbermann @amaditalks That’s sophistry. The “accusations” (not charges) have been reported extensively.http://bit.ly/fMVA7m(link)


suddenlyjen love @KeithOlbermann freaking the f**k out over someone asking a totally reasonable question. Congrats on being an adult, Keith! (link)


KeithOlbermann @suddenlyjen Next time you get a flock of people lying about what you said or did not say on tv, remember how you phrased that (link)


There may have been people in the #MooreAndMe thread who ascribed things to Olbermann that he didn’t actually say, but I was certainly not one of them. To be clear, I point this out not out of some sense of personal injury (my record speaks for itself), but to demonstrate the lengths to which Olbermann will go to avoid admitting he was wrong.


The fact that Olbermann engaged the issue at all is minimally to his credit, at least relative to Michael Moore’s complete silence on Twitter. However, his “apology” left much to be desired: (condensed from 5 separate tweets)


Rape has touched my family, directly and savagely, and if anybody thinks I have addressed it without full sensitivity, then that assessment is the one that counts, and I apologize. But these accusations that I “revealed” an accuser’s identity by retweeting Bianca Jagger’s link, or that I ’shamed’ an accuser by asking a question about the prosecution of a man governments are trying to bury, or that I do not ‘understand’ charges that have yet to be presented in their final form, reflect exactly the kind of rushing to judgment of which I’m accused, and merit the same kind of apology I have just given.


Olbermann did, indeed, retweet a link that contained the identities of Assange’s accusers, a fact of which I was previously unaware. Whether the info was already “out there” or not, this act (even if inadvertant) abetted the very tactic that keeps many women from reporting rapes at all. Olbermann may be technically innocent of “outing” the alleged victims, but he certainly played a part.


Leaving aside the “sorry you’re so sensitive” tone of the apology, which is (minimally) open to interpretation, it fails to address the substance of the complaints against him. Obviously, no decent person is immune to the horror of sexual abuse, at least anyone who knows six or more women. In the macro, Olbermann and Moore stand accused of allowing their zeal to defend Assange to override that empathy.

Robert Gibbs On Keith Olbermann’s Nazi Appeasement Tax Compromise Comparison: ‘Stop.’

Hey it's a leader of the "sanctimonious" Left Barry was talking about the other day, getting his ass handed to him by....Robert Gibbs!

During his patented Special Comment segment last week, Countdown host Keith Olbermann showed his displeasure with President Obama’s compromise on the Bush Tax Cuts by comparing it to Nazi appeasement. At Monday’s White House briefing, I asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if the White House had any reaction to the comparison. Gibbs responded that he doubted the President had heard Olbermann’s remarks, reiterated that the White House thinks the compromise is a good deal, and addressed the appeasement charge. See Gibbs’ response after the jump.


I was more interested in Gibbs’ thoughts on such heated opposition rhetoric coming from someone who’s so influential with the President’s base, but Gibbs opted to teach Keith Olbermann a quick mini-course on Godwin’s Law.


Transcript:


Robert Gibbs: Tommy…


Tommy Christopher: Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Les. I have three quick questions. First one, last week during his Special Comment, Keith Olbermann compared the President’s tax compromise to Nazi appeasement. I wanted to see if you guys had a reaction to that. Did the President hear that? Or, what do you think about that?


Robert Gibbs: I doubt the President heard that. I, obviously, have given a number of answers that would denote that we think it’s a good agreement.And…I would say this to Democrats or Republicans, whenever you compare anything to what the Nazis did, if you ever get to that point in your speech, stop. Because nothing does, and hopefully, God willing, nothing ever will.


The entire point of Godwin’s Law, of course, is that those who violate it make themselves irrelevant. In the case of Keith Olbermann, though, a little light Nazi rhetoric isn’t going to break the spell he has over much of the President’s base. While Bill Clinton’s Friday appearance at the White House may help to sway rank-and-file Democrats, the former President is no hero to the Kos nation over which Olbermann holds sway. Appeasing them may be a tricky thing.

Bristol Palin And John Ziegler Goof On Keith Olbermann

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Newt Gingrich Refuses To Participate In Any Debate With “Hostile” Chris Matthews And Keith Olbermann

Good for Newt. no sense bothering with leftwing ideologists posing as "journalists":

With speculation about Republican candidates for President running wild, likely candidate Newt Gingrich appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and declared that the Republican candidates for President should organize the terms of the debates and not the news media. Before one dismisses this as the usual conservative gripe against the “liberal media,” it does consistently seem odd that MSNBC attempts to put Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann in the position of hosting election night coverage or moderating candidate debates when each host clearly has a liberal perspective.


Newt’s verbal smackdown:


There’s no possibility that I would ever go to a debate and have Olbermann or Chris Matthews asking questions. I watched the debate a couple of years ago and it was an embarrassment because they were so relentlessly hostile and they were so left-wing that every question they asked of the Republicans was designed to embarrass and divide the Republicans. And every question they asked the Democrats was designed to make them look good. Well why would we participate in that?


What Newt suggests instead is a more serious and substantive debate, possibly even without a moderator, so that the candidates could have more of a conversation and not be limited to “absurd time limits” or have the media focus on gotcha questions. Well what fun would that be? Although Newt’s complaint is likely much ado about nothing since Meet the Press host David Gregory would probably now moderate any NBC debate, it still will be fun to see if Matthews or Olbermann have a “hostile” response.