This is a week for short diaries and I must join the fray. Mea Culpa in advance.
No celebration of the dawn that is currently breaking in our world, our hearts and our minds, is complete without a heartfelt tip of the hat to Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC management and some of the MSNBC posse.
It was not too long ago, that the "traditional" broadcast media and press (aka "MSM") was a wasteland almost entirely devoid of those with the courage and insight to speak truth to power. Consequently, though gathering devoutly on blogs, I am sure I speak for others in stating that I felt alone, disempowered and possessed of the nagging suspicion that I had been delivered to the wrong planet at the wrong time.
Suddenly, Mr. Olbermann burst like a Supernova on the scene. At last, there was someone with the daring, the courage and the eloquence to voice...on the "news" (the...cough...news) what many of us were thinking, feeling and seeing. I forget the first "Special Comment" that I heard. (It may have actually been the first one that Keith gave.) I realized that this was no flash in the pan but a man with whose passion and insight could no longer be contained, no matter what the consequence. His outrage was our outrage. His words were our words. We were no longer alone in the wilderness. That he would then become a cherished Kossack is the delicious icing on an invaluable cake.
I have no great analysis. No great ideologies to seek to persuade you of. Just a simple and heartfelt thank you to a man, who through his words, became a giant and a prophet (generally without honor in his own country)...who managed to help midwife the tectonic movement of a continent and era.
Thanks, as well, to MSNBC who, at the least had the commercial sense to see that this message was valuable to the company and needed to be protected in its fledgling and lonely days. Thanks for bolstering Keith's message by giving us Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, David Shuster, and Eugene Robinson. (And big props for making Chris Matthews read the "memo" again.)
And thanks to Chris Matthews. Of late, Mr. Matthews has been on fire. Inspired and inspiring. Last night, I couldn't believe my ears but he was speaking in language as lofty and moving as those of the man he was lauding.
Finally, to the "jesters" who also saved the country, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Thank you for guarding our sanity, intelligence, and nation with wit, incisiveness, and supreme intellect. Both of you stepped out of your roles to take punches at the Monolith when few others were listening. Jon, your appearance on the Tucker Carlson show and Stephen your appearance at the press dinner (or whatever the hell it was) were landmark occasions that signaled lights in the darkness.
(On the press side...Rich, Krugman, Dowd (sometimes), Moyers, Dionne, and others...Thank you. May you be blessed by the tears of Molly Ivins and Ann Richards as they rain down from the celestial reaches.)