A great Olbermann interview, & his top 5

Earlier today, I read a pretty good interview of Keith Olbermann in Rolling Stone, "The Most Honest Man in News," by Mark Binelli. It's a pretty good insight into the man behind the anger. For the entire interview, click Here.

Keith Olbermann is my favorite broadcaster on television today. I don't have a short answer why that is, but there are a number of reasons:

• Even his detractors have to admit that the man has a pretty big set of cojones - he's not afraid to take on President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or, most bravely of all, Bill O'Reilly.

• He certainly seems real to me. I realize that we essentially only know about celebrities and broadcasters what they want us to know, as well as what we see and hear on the air, but there's just something about KO that resonates with me and rings true. And I'm not saying that just because of his politics.

• He's unafraid of feuds, and in fact he seems to welcome them, and it doesn't matter where his opponents come from - e-mail, other networks, etc. This includes Bill O'Reilly, and most recently, Geraldo Rivera. To wit, recently Rivera challenged him to a fight, to which Olbermann responded in the Rolling Stone interview, "Geraldo, you should not give me a hard time. I can still remember when you were a big deal . . . when I was a kid."

• Olbermann is utterly fearless about what he says and who he says it to. I read recently that he attributes this fearlessness to his résumé - "I can go back and do sports any time I want to," he said. He sure can, but with his ratings rising over 85% in one year, he will only have to if he wants to. Olbermann recently signed a four-year contract extension with NBC, so Countdown with Keith Olbermann isn't going away any time soon. Sorry, Bill-O (as Olbermann refers to his chief nemesis).

Although, to be fair, Olbermann has a long way to go before he catches up to the 2o million viewers who take in O'Reilly's pseudo-outrage every week. (Yes, it's truly amazing and frightening that this many people listen to blowhard Bill's screeds every week.)

Anyway, Rolling Stone came up with a top five of Olbermann's rants, so here they are (with descriptions from Rolling Stone). I'm not sure that I agree with the order the magazine puts them in, but the list is about right.

5. Think another speech attacking Republicans for compulsively lying about their Democratic opponents would be predictable and boring? Not from Olbermann. (10/5/06):

Part One



Part Two



4. After controversial comments from Colin Powell, Bush spat that it was “unacceptable to think” that there could be any similarities between the terrorists and America, Olbermann demanded that President Bush apologize to the American people. (After careful consideration, Bush decided not to.) (9/18/06):



3. The night before election day, Olbermann did his part to get out the vote by showing how Bush had hypocritically started using oil as a campaign tool (11/6/06):



2. Taking President Bush to task for soaking habeas corpus in gasoline and setting fire to it, Olbermann himself made the not-at-all-inflammatory statement that President Bush has done more to hurt America than the terrorists (10/18/06):



1. Was staging his Bush corrective in sight of the holy hole at Ground Zero gratuitous and heavy-handed? Sure. But perhaps no Olbermann comment was more powerful than this one, calling President Bush out for using September 11th as just another political gimmick (9/11/06):



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Anyway, if you haven't checked out Olbermann's show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, I urge you to check out a few episodes. It airs on MSNBC weeknights at 8 p.m. with a repeat at 12 a.m.

KO has come a long way since his days on CNN & ESPN. I still miss him on SportsCenter, but he's much better in his current profession. He really is the left's answer to Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and all the rest. He's got a way to go until he catches up with Bill-O, however; although Countdown's ratings were up 85% in Jan. '07 vs. Jan. '06, he's still millions of viewers away from O'Reilly's impressive 20 million viewers per week. Actually, scary is probably a better word for O'Reilly's audience - for the life of me, I can't believe that there are that many people per week who listen to O'Lielly's bluster, lies and distortion.

Probably the biggest difference between Olbermann and those who have failed (Hi, Phil Donohue) is that Olbermann isn't afraid to get down in the gutter and slug it out. Some probably say that "Olbermann shouldn't lower himself to the level of Limbaugh and O'Reilly." Nonsense. Democrats and liberals must lose their fear of being labeled as hateful or nasty - Republicans have been doing it for years. Olbermann (and Al Franken before him) isn't afraid to state his point of view in particularly harsh language if he feels that what it takes.

Some will also say that Olbermann is participating in petty, childish and sophomoric name calling. True, but again, Republicans have been doing it for years. Keith's merely fighting fire with fire.

Olbermann's gaining on O'Reilly, and it's great to see Billy feeling the heat. He's practically issued a fatwa against NBC, which lately I've been watching with great enjoyment (I'll blog more on that later).

With the 2008 election now on the horizon, we'll soon find out if Olbermann has appeal beyond liberals.

So far, his formula seems to be working.