Mark Binelli in the latest Rolling Stone has very positive words for Keith Olbermann, although little in the article will be a revelation for most Countdown fans. I think his subhead is particularly perceptive: "Keith Olbermann is mad as hell -- and unlike Rush Limbaugh, he's not faking it." I’ve heard Keith say that if Limbaugh could get a real sportscasting gig, he’d drop the political act in a second.
The "mad as hell" part is obviously a reference to the Howard Beale character in Network, although Olbermann doesn’t fully embrace the comparison:
"That scene from Network where Howard Beale is walking down the street in his pajamas, mumbling to himself -- that's not me," Olbermann insists. "I'm not in a state of perpetual outrage. But I don't think I've ever taken a position on the air that I didn't feel strongly about. What I do is not some kind of performance designed to create an image for myself, or to create false anger in people. The difference between me and O'Reilly is, I will shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater if there's a fire. I think Bill would shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater to hear the sound of his own voice."
I was fortunate to witness Olbermann early in his career. By the time KO came to Los Angeles as a local television sports reporter, we already had the poet laureate of baseball, Vin Scully, and the great Chick Hearn, who came up with the phrase "slam dunk" among others. So we were spoiled. But I think Keith was was impressive because he was different than anything we’d ever seen; it was like he was sitting on the couch next to you, pointing out obscure but important details in a game that you would have otherwise missed. And although the word "smirk" has gotten a bad rep in the last six years, yes, Keith was usually smirking.
I bring up the general impression people have of Olbermann -- that he will say anything, that he does not give a fuck. "Yeah, but I've always gotten that," he says. "Twenty years ago, when I was doing four minutes of sports on local television in Los Angeles, someone wrote an article in which the premise was how at least fifty percent of what I did was a satire of television. Like, 'Look how ridiculous this is, me sitting here. And you sitting on the other end, watching me -- what are you doing that for?' I think that's always been my attitude."
And I hadn’t heard Jonathan Alter’s remark about one of Olbermann’s possible goals:
"I'm not declaring victory in that war," Olbermann tells me, "but I think the point that Jonathan Alter of Newsweek made on the air the other day was pretty solid -- that if my goal was to make O'Reilly go nuts, I have succeeded."
The Rolling Stone article also links to YouTubes of Keith’s "top five rants," although it leaves out the great one referenced in the article where he says, "The man who sees absolutes where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning is either a prophet or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet."
Keith Olbermann is also featured in a Q&A in the latest edition of TV Guide, obviously because of his new four year contract with MSNBC – and NBC. And it turns out that Olbermann almost walked out on the show in 2003 when they tried to pair him with Michael Savage:
Olbermann: Early in 2003, there was a moment where it almost crashed down. They tried to put in a commentary by [right-wing radio talk-show host] Michael Savage. We had agreed beforehand, when the announcement was made that they were putting him on the air, that I wouldn't have anything to do with him. They said, "Yes, we understand, we figured that going in." One night I walk in, and it's in the show rundown. I called my agent and said, "Look at what they've done," and she said, "You have to walk out." I had just two months [previous to that] signed a contract. It probably would have been the end of my career. But I couldn't appear with him because he's an insane fascist. I finally got a hold of [NBC News senior vice president] Phil Griffin and said no. He said, "Can you look at it and provide me with some sort of television reason that it can't run?" I said, "So, if I look at it and say it's wordy or repetitive or amateurishly shot, you won't force me to run it?" He said yes. So we worked our way out of that.... "
One last thing. Am I the last one to know about The News Hole, the Countdown blog? Up until now, I’ve been navigating to MSNBC>>MSNBC-TV>>Countdown. With the blog, it’s much easier to find the stories from each night’s broadcast. And I like their explanation of how the blog came about:
We heard about this whole "blogosphere" business from Tom DeLay, and came to the immediate realization that we too, "needed to become involved" in it.
