Thursday, November 08, 2007

Waterboarding

3 comments:

Don J. said...

Do they really let him speak on NBC?

I am interested if this kind of punditry is common, or rather sparse satellite/cable fare in the wasteland of television journalism (ie FOX and the rest of the networks trying to follow suit.)

Mr. Alex said...

The length, political direction, and harshness of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment features on his daily Countdown show are absolutely unique in all of broadcast journalism in the contemporary USA (well, outside of The Daily Show which is meant to be comedy).

I think he gets away with it for four reasons: 1) He started doing them as an homage to Edward R. Murrow around the time "Good Night, and Good Luck" was winning awards. 2) Regardless of what we may all think of it as an organization, Microsoft doesn't have "big C" old-school conservative ideology like GE probably does (I mean GE's a "defense contractor" for God's sake), allowing Mr. Olbermann the wiggle room to say these kinds of things on the air. 3) His ratings are very good for a cable news program. 4) EVERYONE hates President Bush.

Mr. Alex said...

Also, with courage like this in the USA's top political class(s), who in the "other" elite classes is going to worry about what one man says on the TV? I mean, even if The People are angry, who do they have to vote for who will oppose "The Conventional Wisdom" (or "The Bipartisan Consensus" or whatever you'd like to call it)?