"Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them," William Shakespeare.
We have four times witnessed greatness in broadcast journalism commentary in a little more than five weeks weeks. The four recent moments of broadcast greatness are remarkable because they happed on cable TV, where the past two decades of cable news ennui would lead one to speculate that greatness in that medium might happen about once a millennium.
Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and now Keith Olbermann (with his quadruple shot) are the men who have produced the Six Greatest Moments. None of the men were born great (I do not believe that possible in a democracy), but Murrow and Cronkite had achieved greatness by the time their broadcast moments came.
The greatest moments in broadcast journalism are below the fold:
Greatness was thrust upon them. What makes the commentaries of these men great is that when no one else in TV news had the courage, they stood up to and delivered devastating commentaries on the evil, insane zeitgeist of their times.
This is an easy diary to write - it's a cut and paste of one I did last month after Keith's stirring 9/11 commentary when there were five great commentaries.
Tonight Keith Olbermann added a sixth commentary to journalistic history. Remarkably Keith has delivered four courageous commentaries in less than five weeks. I thought the 9/11 Commentary was the greatest, but tonight's Oct. 5 commentary on The President's Lies was perhaps as great if it was not the greatest. Video link of tonight's commentary is up for you to judge if you have not yet seen it.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/...
What I wrote last month about what made for greatness:
With Murrow it was standing up to the fascist threat of McCarthyism. With Cronkite it was standing up to the insanity of the Viet Nam War. Keith Olbermann's commentaries on Rumsfeld, Bush, on the true meaning of 9/11, and tonight's calling Bush a liar are incredibly brave commentaries standing up to both an internal fascist threat far greater than the one Murrow spoke of and a war far more insane that the one Cronkite spoke of.
Murrow and Cronkite commanded and spoke from great media platforms - the greatest of their times. They took on great issues that involved great risks, but they were at the pinnacle of their news organizations and somewhat protected by their status (though there were consequences for Murrow). Unfortunately, today there are no other `Great Men' like Murrow and Cronkite in broadcast journalism taking on the Bush Administration.
Olbermann speaks from a far more vulnerable platform, which makes his commentary even more remarkable. Olbermann's criticism of Bush was the most direct criticism of a President EVER delivered on TV by a broadcaster. Because Keith Olbermann made these commentaries he has achieved greatness, and he has also achieved journalistic immortality as long as there is a free United States of America. Not that Keith had any choice. The criminal activities of Bush and his thugs thrust greatness upon him.
In times of national crisis Murrow, Cronkite, Olbermann stood up to the threats imperiling the nation. The words of all three men are inspiring.
From March 9, 1954 Edward R. Murrow's broadside of Joe McCarthy:
This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
Good night and good luck.
They are words that still ring true today, as we are now fighting even greater internal fascist threats. Today the threat is far more dangerous then the one Murrow spoke of because the fascism we face is located at the center of this Presidency.
The relevance of these words today must be why Olbermann chose to use them in his Rumsfeld commentary.
From Walter Cronkite's Feb. 27, 1968 commentary on Viet Nam:
We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.......
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.
This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.
This was a remarkable commentary coming from `the most trusted man in America'. Again, Cronkite's words of 1968 could be used to describe Bush's Iraq Quagmire of today.
And now this era has Keith Olbermann. From his Rumsfeld commentary of August 30, 2006:
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we -- as its citizens-- must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart -- that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism."
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
We all stood up and cheered. Finally, a TV Broadcaster took on this administration with nothing more than the truth.
The Bush commentary was even more remarkable for me because it was a direct challenge to Bush. That took courage. From the first words of his commentary of Sept. 5, 2006, Olbermann is critical of Bush:
It is to our deep national shame--and ultimately it will be to the President's deep personal regret--that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies......
Then he blasts Bush for his cynical attack on the press:
.....the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government."
Make no mistake here--the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the "media."
The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.
Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:
The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word--"media"--the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.
That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.
I cannot recall any Broadcaster ever condemning a President's actions as un-American because of a President's relentless and cynical attacks on the freedoms of the First Amendment. As bold as those words were, it is even more remarkable that Olbermann described the President's actions as scurrilous.
And the President's re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.
Once again, Olbermann concludes his commentary by shrewdly attaching the actions of Bush to the fascist threat presented by McCarthyism. There are no better words that draw attention to the issues before us then what Keith used to describe Bush:
"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
For a Broadcaster to rhetorically ask this about a sitting President is something I have never witnessed before, but I am thankful that Keith Olbermann did it.
Early in his Sept. 11, 2006 Commentary Keith compared Bush to a leader at the other end Presidential greatness scale:
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.
Keith launched into how the Bush administration went on to squander the support of a united America:
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
He then boldly and accurately described what the consequences of Bush's actions should be:
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense.".......
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?
And then on the night of 9/11 the conclusion of that commentary laid the foundation of what was in tonight's tour de force:
When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.
And Oct. 5, 2006 Keith Olbermann concludes by the by delivering a devastating criticism of Bush:
Mr. President, these new lies go to the heart of what it is that you truly wish to preserve.
It is not our freedom, nor our country--your actions against the Constitution give irrefutable proof of that.
You want to preserve a political party's power. And obviously you'll sell this country out, to do it.
These are lies about the Democrats -- piled atop lies about Iraq -- which were piled atop lies about your preparations for al Qaeda.
To you, perhaps, they feel like the weight of a million centuries -- as crushing, as immovable.
They are not.
If you add more lies to them, you cannot free yourself, and us, from them.
But if you stop -- if you stop fabricating quotes, and building straw-men, and inspiring those around you to do the same -- you may yet liberate yourself and this nation.
Please, sir, do not throw this country's principles away because your lies have made it such that you can no longer differentiate between the terrorists and the critics.
What was truly great about tonight's commentary is that while the rest of broadcast TV dutifully repeats (not reports) Bush's lies, Keith Olbermann is the only newscaster that clearly says they are lies.
Keith Olbermann achieved initial `fame' as a sportscaster. Countdown has always been half whimsy. But the times called for someone to stand up to this government and Keith Olbermann did it. Greatness has been thrust upon him, and he is up to the task.
Olbermann is opposite our President on the greatness scale. Bush has never been up to much of anything. For Bush I will not borrow from Shakespeare, but paraphrase Joseph Heller's description of Major Major:
(George Bush) had been born too late and too mediocre. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With (George Bush) it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and
people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.
Keith Olbermann is impressive and incredibly courageous. We witnessed four great commentaries by Keith Olbermann (along with a couple of others) in a little more than a month. His words will be forever remembered by all freedom loving Americans. Thank you Keith Olbermann for defending the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our liberties against the criminal actions of this administration. I am thankful I've been a witness to the journalistic history you've made.
I expect we will have the pleasure of watching at least one more great commentary by Keith Olbermann before the election. I can't wait. In the meantime I suggest that Countdown build a Hall of Fame for Great Broadcast Journalists with a special Keith Olbermann wing.