In defense of Keith Olbermann

I am usually not the type of person to defend someone like Keith Olbermann. But this little incident warrants a comment from a Non-Partisan Blogger like me.

From what I have read, Keith Olbermann basically told the people at DailyKos to bite his happy-go-lucky, and left:

I was checking in tonight to see what was new, came across a diary trashing first me and my colleague Rachel, and scrolled through it shaking my head, sadly, until I got to one comment that leaped off the page.

can’t verify, of course… (2+ / 0-)
but a friend in the news biz tells me he got a damaging e-mail from one of his pals at NBC. something to the effect that their anger was pre-planned because “beating up on the President has been good for ratings.”

I haven’t checked but I’m hearing that Olbermann slammed the speech on Twitter before it even started.

“Can’t verify”… “haven’t checked”…It can’t be verified because it’s nonsense, and it wasn’t checked because nobody bothered. Unfortunately there’s been a lot of this here lately.

And what’s more, I didn’t “slam” the speech on Twitter before it even started. I got off the phone with my White House source at about 7:35, and then summarized his description of the speech thusly:

I gather this may not be the big picture broad canvas “never again” speech redefining our nation’s energy addiction that many are expecting

Wow. What a slam!

For years, from the Katrina days onward, whenever I stuck my neck out, I usually visited here as the cliched guy in the desert stopping by the oasis. I never got universal support, and never expected it, nor wanted it (who wants an automatic “Yes” machine?). But I used to read a lot about how people here would ‘always have my back’ and trust me this was of palpable value as I fought opponents external and internal who try to knock me and Rachel off the air, all the time, in ways you can imagine and others you can’t.

Now I get to read how we pre-planned our anger because ‘beating up on the President has been good for ratings’.

If I can understand people’s frustration with seeing a speech by a Democratic president criticized in a venue such as mine, why is it impossible for some people here to accept my frustration about the speech? You don’t agree with me, fine. You don’t want to watch because you don’t agree with me, fine. But to accuse me, after five years of risking what I have to present the truth as I see it, of staging something for effect, is deeply offensive to me and is an indication of what has happened here.

You want Cheerleaders? Hire the Buffalo Jills. You want diaries with conspiracy theories, go nuts. If you want this site the way it was even a year ago, let me know and I’ll be back.

Now, this is where I am going to run afoul of some Republicans. I hate to be the one to do it; and I doubt Keith Olbermann would want to hear it from my corner. But, I have to agree with the man. As someone who watched “Countdown” during the Bush years; after being fed up with CNN’s crusade on Christians. Also after getting involved with Politics in 2006, after hearing that Bush’s people were just utterly incompetent, when it came to a back up plan on Iraq. I did tune to Keith’s show and yes, I have read and have listened to Keith tell about his death threats, and the attempts to poison him. In fact, Keith wrote a book about it. You can order it by clicking here.

I realize that some of you might not like it, that I am defending Keith, but I have always felt, that no Presidential Administration is above criticism. To Keith’s credit, he did criticize Bush’s handling of many affairs, The Iraq War, Katrina and many other things. Olbermann also almost, on several occasions paid for those remarks with his life. In my opinion, he deserves to be commended for that. Keith should also be commended, not condemned, for having the guts to stand up and criticize this President as well.

The preservation of a Constitutionally Republic Nation depends on a Free Press, Free from any sort of political pressure. I commend Keith for sticking his neck out, as a independent — albeit liberal — voice in politics at the expense of some of his fans.

Keith also this:

This is easily the smartest political leader I have ever seen, as good a political public speaker as I’ve heard, + last October I was privileged along with 11 other newspeople to spend 2 hours with him as he showed extemporaneous mastery of every one of two dozen topics fired at him by us in random order. I left the room wondering if we had ever before actually elected a president who was one of the 1,000 smartest people in the country (or maybe 100, or 10) as we had now. I believe in him and in his presidency and he has frequently achieved success (in health care reform, particularly) by doing that for which I criticized him. I hope that is again the case now because the Gulf Speech was not up to his standards nor did it express his mastery of policy. And if you will stop watching because I said this, I’ll be very sorry, but you will have been watching for the wrong reason. I am not, have not been, and will not be, any politician’s, nor any president’s, spokesman.

Others: Weasel Zippers, Big Journalism, Hit & Run, Wake up America, NewsBusters.org, Riehl World View, Don Surber, The Other McCain, The Huffington Post, Dean’s World, JammieWearingFool, Commentary, TIME.com,