Political & Elections

busdriver11 · Guru

RE: CNBC and Keith Olbermann

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

I never listen to Rush. Hannity. Ingram. Levin or Beck.

The vitriol they spew is insane.

How do you know they spew vitriol Pima if you don't listen?
Rush makes me laugh whenever I catch him, Hannity's callers make me laugh and Beck is more like an annoying history prof than anything. Can't watch him either.
Entertainers all, in my book.

Olberman's genius is palpable and beyond doubt. What a loss - such brilliance!

And that's all I have to say about that.

In my opinion, both men deal in spin. Both have made incredibly good livings on getting their audiences riled up. It's about ratings!

Spot on SLS! Some takes these overpaid windbags waaaaaaaay too serious. Spinmeisters and entertainers....except KO was, or is, unhinged mad.

Abyss · Senior Member

john doe wrote:

True in most cases except for Olbermann

I'm not sure how one could deduce brilliance in any real way off of a television broadcast. Especially if you have a staff that researches and gives information. Seems like it'd be quite easy to appear far more intelligent than reality due to massive information advantages and the all the planning required for a television broadcast.

john doe · Guru

True in most cases except for Olbermann

Abyss · Senior Member

I'm not sure there is a single television political commentator I'd call 'brilliant'.

That's putting the bar pretty damn low.

john doe · Guru

I agree with Cartera. Olberman's genius is palpable and beyond doubt. What a loss - such brilliance!

soccerguy315 · Guru

honestly I don't understand why people listen to any of these talking heads...

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

What a charming way of saying that the Beck fans are idiots. Or maybe just that they prefer to be talked to by an idiot?

I am not sure if it is accurate to portray an entire audience this way, but like most things, your mileage may vary.

Certainly your right to think that one is smart and one is dumb. Both have the ability to use their charisma to sell their opinions to their audiences; whether or not you believe in those facts or opinions is up to you.

In my opinion, both men deal in spin. Both have made incredibly good livings on getting their audiences riled up. It's about ratings! A hundred years ago, one or both could have easily been a lawyer, a politician, a member of the clergy or a snake oil salesman.

-- Edited by SamuraiLandshark on Sunday 23rd of January 2011 07:05:30 PM

Cartera · Guru

I see no comparison between Beck and Olbermann. Olbermann is very smart - brilliant at times. I have never witnessed a hint of intellect in Beck. Isn't that what his fans like about him?

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

Most politicians and pundits seem committed to the facts as they see them.

I actually quite enjoy this website:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

Nobody seems immune to a whopper of a lie. Sometimes there is a bit of truth there, but it's taken out of context to be almost unrecognizable or unverifiable as fact.

I don't really see Olbermann any differently than Beck. If you catch either one of their shows on a good day, you might say - "Yes! Exactly!" Another day, they talk like demogogues.

Cartera · Guru

I just didn't get the reference to free speech.

pima · Guru

I do not listen to Beck at all. He seems to have gone off the rails like Olberman, and I refuse to listen. My hopes are he either gets back on or he is dropped.

I loved Chris Matthews back in the early 2000's, but he did the same as Beck and went off the rails. The thrill up his leg is no better than Beck and his tears.

Cartera, that is my opinion.

You can't scream fire in a theater. He wound people up, several posters here have admitted how wound up they got over his opinions.

I may lean right, but I only listen left. I listen to Stephanie Miller, followed by Ed Schultz and than Randi Rhodes.

I never listen to Rush. Hannity. Ingram. Levin or Beck.

The vitriol they spew is insane.

Both sides are wrong.

Hayden, I put lamblast, but got the red curly line so I wrote land blast.

OBTW. I watch Mornig Joe, and Andrea Mitchell...I can't tell you the last time I watched Fox.

-- Edited by pima on Sunday 23rd of January 2011 02:38:43 PM

Cartera · Guru

Yes, this country has free speech, but in this case, Olberman had to go.

Huh?

hayden · Senior Member

pima, I totally agree about Stephanie Miller. She's just "unlistenable". (By the way, just curious - did I miss a new word, or by "land blast", did you mean "lambast"? If you mean land blast, I'm behind again in updating my lingo. I haven't ever figured out what "pwnd" is short for.)

I stll don't think you can equate Olbermann with Beck. Olbermann is bombastic and his rants were too, too. But at least he had some sort of interest in reality and facts. Beck has none.

pima · Guru

Olbermann bothered me for the same reason I will not listen to Rush, Hannity or Beck....they always say the other side is throwing stones and they aren't, but meanwhile when I look at both of their houses all I see is broken glass.

I use to listen to Stephanie Miller on XM, but even now she is just over the top. She land blasts Palin for her statement after the Tucson shooting, but then she spins everyone up by calling her names and the fool of the week!

This type of vitriol is the exact reason why people go over the edge.

Yrs ago on 60 Minutes they did an interview with a homicide bomber for the PLO that was in jail in Israel because it didn't work out quite the way they planned. The bomber stated, he was an outcast and that the vulnerability of wanting to be accepted allowed him to rationalize the reason he was strapping on a bomb because they accepted him and he warped it into the good of the cause.

Olbermann and his ilk are one of those types that take someone not all there and rile them up.

I honestly think one problem in the political world are pundits like this. Let's be real, anyone who has listened to Fox or MSNBC with a rational mind can see that they both go over the line.

Most of us were on CC...think about it, we read thing like FAUX News or MSLSD from posters. That and this is an anonymous site. Those labels came from people like Olbermann and Rush.

Yes, this country has free speech, but in this case, Olberman had to go. I suspect if I was Ed Schultz I would be worried right now, since his XM talk show he calls the right some nasty names. He is no better than Rush or Gibson. That might be grounds according to NBC to terminate his contract too...especially since they have Harold Ford, Donny Deutsch, and Mike Barnicle to step right in ~~ Lawrence O Donnel started on Morning Joe.

Tom1944 · Senior Member

I had the same reaction to Olbermann. I also stopped watching him.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

I mostly agreed with Olbermann, but his ranting annoyed me. Rachel Maddow, on the other hand, seems to be genuinely interested in finding out what is true (though, of course, she has a very obvious political point of view).

For example, Olbermann's first reaction to the shooting in Arizona was to rant about conservatives fomenting violence. Maddow's reaction was to list off all the other recent mass shootings, many of them not political, and wonder what we could do about the serious problem that Americans shoot each other a lot (relative to people in other countries).

busdriver11 · Guru

Exactly, Hindoo!! I totally agree!

Now if only I can convince my mother of that, as they are coming over for dinner tonight. Though I have found a ready glass of wine tends to mellow her immediately. As a mostly non-drinker, it only takes about a half a glass...

Hindoo · Senior Member

I stopped with Olbermann precisely because I so often agreed with him. His ranting would inevitably work me into a righteous rage, and ultimately, helped me develop a skewed "good guys vs. the enemies" view of the world. Some of the conservative talking heads do exactly the same thing with their own constituency. Enough, already!

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

I'm not a fan of Olbermann either. I love Rachel Maddow, though. She seems smarter than Olbermann, and she doesn't appear to have his enormous ego.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

I have explained the brackets several times to make a hyperlink turn blue.

The easiest explanation is in the Posting How to section, which appears at the bottom of every new reply to box.

Before the link, you have to put the word url in brackets [ ]

then the link

then the word /url in brackets, again. Similar to posting on CC.

pima · Guru

I think Comcast has a hand in this.

Olbermann's exit follows yesterday's departure of NBC primetime president Angela Bromstad in a housecleaning there.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/nbcu-statement-msnbc-and-keith-olberman-have-ended-their-contract-last-show-tonight/

The moves are simultaneous with new owner Comcast starting to show its hand over the broadcast network and cable NBCU after receiving FCC approval. "He's been very problematic," an NBCU source told Deadline about Comcast's attitude to Olbermann. Officially, the Comcast takeover is next week. But word has been circulating for months now that the new owners have wanted to "tinker" with MSNBC and had many changes in store, including a right turn for the left-wing cable channel so that it represents both political points of view more evenly. It is well known that both Comcast chief Brian Roberts and NBCU chief Steve Burke have donated heavily to the Republican party with Burke more recently donating money to a few Democrats as well as heavily to Republicans. Roberts was a co-chairman of the host committee at the 2000 Republican Convention while Burke raised at least $200,000 for George W Bush’s re-election campaign.

OBTW why can't I make link turn blue?

-- Edited by pima on Saturday 22nd of January 2011 02:36:12 PM

hayden · Senior Member

wellspring and I are on the same page! I have no idea why HGTV is so addictive, but I love a lot of their shows.

I was not much of an Olbermann fan. While we are on the same side, he was just too much for me. But like Beck? No way. Olbermann apologized for misstatements and factual errors several times. Beck wouldn't know a fact if it bit him. I love this "historian" he has on, who talks about what fundamental Christians the founding fathers were.

I watch Sabrina Soto and Holmes on Homes before I ever put on Countdown.

DonnaL · Senior Member

Someone joked somewhere that he should replace Regis Philbin, and call his new show "The Worst Breakfast in the World."

Wellspring · In exile

Keith was too intense for me to watch every day (and really who has time with all the shows on HGTV?) but I like to tune in every couple of weeks to get my liberal on.

Cartera · Guru

I watched once or twice a week, but watch Maddow more consistently. I now also watch Lawrence O'Donnell a couple of times a week. I guess Keith's rants never bothered me that much because I usually agreed with him. Of course, I could distinguish his rants from the Beck/Limbaugh stuff but it would be a waste of time to try.

Hindoo · Senior Member

I agree with Justamom. Over time, it became difficult to listen to Olbermann's rants, so I stopped tuning in. ... That said, now we can only hope that right-wing blow-hards like Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh will abruptly leave the airwaves. In the case of Limbaugh (who thankfully appears to be only on radio), his mean-spirited, slimy vitriol was worse than Olbermann's every day of the week.

-- Edited by Hindoo on Saturday 22nd of January 2011 07:20:53 AM

Razorsharp · Guru

I was envisioning his last day at work and hoping MSNBC employees lined up in the hallway and gave him the Nazi salute as he left. Just the same way the gave the Nazi salute to others.

Good riddance. I just hope he does not appear on any other channel anytime soon.

justamomof4 · Veteran Member

Glad to see it end.
In the beginning, I liked Olbermann. I thought he was witty and insightful. But as time went on....... he just got plain awful. I have not been able to stomach his constant biting vitriol for a while. MSNBC can do better.

geeps20 · Senior Member

wow..how many will watch MSNBC now..100 instead of 125?

poetgrl · Senior Member

It should be interesting to see what happens with all the NBC cable stuff now that comcast has been cleared to purchase 51%. Aren't they a much more conservative group?

Bullet · Senior Member

The guy actually had a good sense of humor. His issue was he despised and ridiculed those on the opposite side of the aisle for their level of venom and hatred in their actions and broadcasts, and returned that venom and hatred a thousand fold. Actually quite humorous that he didn't get the irony of his broadcast style. While attacking Glenn Beck and others like him, he became Glenn Beck.

You felt like you needed to take a shower after watching one of his broadcasts, the meanness was so thick. Glad to see him go; he brought the level of the national debate between the two parties to new and ugly lows.

-- Edited by Bullet on Saturday 22nd of January 2011 04:50:11 AM

busdriver11 · Guru

I actually never watched it, I would just see occasional clips on the news when something over the top happened. And he seemed like a crazed, hateful douchebag to me....in those few clips they showed. So I can't really comment on the writing.

Cartera · Guru

I thought the show had some of the best writing around.

busdriver11 · Guru

"I don't care WHO gave him the treatment, thank the Lord he is gone. What a blustering bag of nothing"

I guess I'll have to disagree with that. There was definitely something (I don't think I can say that particular word on this forum) in that blustering bag....

busdriver11 · Guru

"I'll miss him."

Yeah, me too. I'll miss him like I miss those hemorroids I had 17 years ago, the last time I was pregnant. aww

Poetsheart · Senior Member

Quote from Linked Article: A spokesman said Phil Griffin, MSNBC's president, would not comment on Olbermann's exit. Spokesman Jeremy Gaines would say only that [the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast, which received regulatory approval this week, had nothing to do with the decision]./Quote

Uh-huh..... evileye

CelticClan07 · Senior Member

I don't care WHO gave him the treatment, thank the Lord he is gone. What a blustering bag of nothing, the world will be a better place if his yapper is not broadcast. Please, please, please, nobody give him a voice in the sports world again either. He was just as bad, if not worse there. KO is his own worst SNL skit.......except he's real.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Comcast gave him the treatment.

Cartera · Guru

I'll miss him.

SamuraiLandshark · Guru

MSNBC just gave Keith Olbermann the NPR treatment.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tv_olbermann