OK - So we're all starting to sag from the weight of the outrages coming at us in an unending avalanche of disaster from Washington. Take a break, Kossaks, and spend a few minutes with a champion of sanity, a man many of us have come to admire, a man who has had the courage to speak truth to power.
Another day, another outrage, it wears an intelligent person down - so what a wonderfully unexpected treat it was to find Keith Olbermann in my mailbox the other day. One of the nice benefits of being married to a Cornellian is the opportunity to read the Cornell Alumni magazine, and this month the featured article is a delightful story about Cornell's greatest newsman, Keith Olbermann. Happily, Cornell has the article in its entirety on the interwebs. So, I though I'd share the link with you.
Smart Bomb, by David Dudley is a very nice short biography of Olbermann, and gives us a little insight as to what makes him the quirky, passionate broadcaster he is...this is a great read for Obermann fans - I highly reccommend that you follow the link and enjoy! It is a balm to an outrage-weary soul. The college-era photos alone will make you smile!
To get you started:
As a sportscaster for Ithaca's WVBR, the student-run FM radio station, a teenage Keith Olbermann '79 was prone to irreverence. On pleasant days he'd haul his microphone outside the station's Linden Avenue headquarters and broadcast in the sunshine. Once he did the sports in rhyme. He'd been reading a lot of Ring Lardner and was inspired to compose a two-and-a-half minute sportscast in verse, just as the legendary newspaperman had done as a beat reporter covering a Cubs-Giants rainout in 1910. After wrapping the bit, Olbermann walked into the control room, where he found the station engineer getting off the phone. "Somebody just called in," the engineer announced, "and asked me, ‘Is this guy a jackass, or what?'"
Olbermann chuckles at the memory. "It wasn't a rhetorical question," he says. "The guy was really trying to find out if I was thought of as a jackass, or if there was some other explanation."
There is, of course, some background on his days as a student broadcaster, but also, some insight on his "special comments" - what drives him to create them. They are not really planned - when we are outraged, we blog - when Olbermann is outraged - a "special comment" is created. They really are the voice of his passion. As he relates:
"I can tell you that when I did that [Rumsfeld commentary], I felt like I was going to get up out of the chair and grab the camera and go, ‘Are you listening to me?' "
So enjoy a brief respite with the voice of sanity that cries out in the wilderness of cable news - I thought the Olbermann fans around here would appreciate the link. I apologize in advance, for this will be one of the distained "hit and run" diaries - but alas, I must give my place at the computer to another family member...but I will leave you with his end-of-interview sign-off - "We're not liberal. We're right!"
Keith Olbermann, we salute you.