Well, I’m kinda on a political roll… What can I tell you? At least I’m posting, right?
I’ve never said anything about Keith Olbermann and his program Countdown. I was a fan of his old program The Big Show and found him to be a witty and erudite host. So I enjoyed Countdown and found it to be a clever form of a news program and vastly preferable to most of the talking heads chat-fests on cable news.
But as time went by, Keith Olbermann got more and more political, becoming more vocal about his feelings about the Bush administration. Let’s make this clear: As much as critics might like to charge Olbermann as being liberal, he’s really not. He is very vocal in his opposition to conservatives, but his guests always always represent mainstream Washington and journalism. Having Howard Fineman on night after night ain’t liberal.
Even as a fan, I find it pretty tiresome when he gets on his high horse, even if I agree with him. And let’s take a look at a recent example to see what I mean.
Recently the McCain campaign has been using these talking points about real Americans and those who are un-American. I found those remarks to be offensive. So did Keith Oblbermann. So, he did one of his Special Comments.
“High dudgeon,” I believe, is the phrase. The problem is that Olbermann has delivered dozens of these Special Comments. Are we to judge his anger as genuine or contrived? When righteousness becomes a schtick, you turn from Edward R. Murrow to Howard Beale.
Jon Stewart and The Daily Show are also frequently accused of being liberal. Their defense — Stewart’s, specifically — is that they’re a comedy show and their job is to make us laugh. But now and again, you get a real flash of anger. Here’s Jon Stewart, from the same night as Olbermann’s Special Comment and reacting to the same issue. Particularly note the bit that starts about 2:30.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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So, Stewart’s point is that to say that American small towns are real, while suggesting that those big cities that were attacked on 9/11 for their symbolic importance aren’t real, is terribly insulting. But he does it through irony and sarcasm.
The bit continues in this section; the episode also included interview footage of an Alaskan stating that 9/11 impacted people like him more than residents of New York City.
I prefer this approach to bombast. I suppose one could argue that ironic detachment is a crutch and dishonest. I guess that’s true. But raw naked emotion is a special elixir and one can’t go to that well very often without appearing an ass.
Tags: Kieth Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Sarah Palin, John McCain, The Daily Show, un-American