Olbermann doesn't always get it right

Lots to get to this morning, but before I do, it's worth taking a minute to mention one of Keith Olbermann's Special Comments last week. It's no secret that I feel Olbermann is one of the best liberal commentators on television, but that doesn't mean I always agree with him. For instance, last week, in light of Hillary Clinton's RFK gaffe, Olbermann took some pretty harsh liberties with Clinton, and by saying that, I'm being kind. My personal lowlight from his 10-minute tirade (transcript Here):

And certainly to invoke [RFK's assassination], three days after the awful diagnosis, and heart-breaking prognosis, for Senator Ted Kennedy, is just as insensitive, and just as heartless. And both actions, open a door wide into the soul of somebody who seeks the highest office in this country, and through that door shows something not merely troubling, but frightening. And politically inexplicable.

Sweet Jesus. I've vehemently and sometimes obnoxiously defended Olbermann countless times over the last 3-4 years against the charge that he's becoming the left's Bill O'Reilly. While I'm certainly not on that train yet, a few more Special Comments like these, and I may just get in line for a ticket. Olbermann has done so much good, and has been such a powerful, refreshing voice in the wilderness during Bush's second term, he does himself and his listeners a tremendous disservice by slamming Clinton over her RFK gaffe. To say that her comment "opened the door wide into her soul..." is simply absurd.

Evidently, I'm not alone. In this week's Time, James Poniewozik gives KO a gangsta slap for his Hillary Special Comment. A lengthy excerpt (and trust me, it's worth the read):

...Olbermann is edging ever-closer to self-parody, or, worse, predictability. (As soon as the Clinton gaffe broke, blog commenters were wondering how ballistic he would go, and he obliged, and how.) Even if we concede his argument—that Clinton was at best callously and at worst intentionally suggesting she should stay in the race because Obama might be killed—every time he turns up the volume to 11 like this lately, he sounds like just another of the cable gasbags he used to be a corrective to.

But mostly his outburst reminds me of how the long Democratic primary has divided the left-of-center media (or at least, the media outlets with a left-of-center audience) into camps, like a bad divorce. Personalities and institutions that were once universally beloved by people who were sick of the Bush administration have either taken sides, or have been perceived to, splintering what used to be a unified and largely uncritical amen chorus.

Most of the perceived side-takers have been on the Obama side, as we've seen—it's not just Olbermann, Daily Kos and the Huffington Post, but even some viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (as sanctified as any center of anti-Bush comedy can be) have gotten alienated by the shows' attacks on Hillary Clinton. (I haven't sat down with a stopwatch to see if they mock her more than Obama, but they certainly mock her better.) There are fewer pro-Clinton equivalents, but Saturday Night Live, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and my old employer Salon.com have all taken criticism for carrying water for Hillary, from the same sorts of people who loved them when they were knocking Bush and Cheney.

[...]

It's probably asking too much, but maybe the experience of being annoyed by someone you used to constantly agree with could teach political audiences something about how they have appeared all along to their adversaries. Think about it: if you've found yourself suddenly irritated by any of the people or outlets I mentioned above this election, is it really they who've changed? Or are they simply less charming when they're not confirming your comfortable beliefs?

Sometimes, maybe, the only way to really understand how your idols sound from the other side is to actually find yourself on the other side of them.

I'm not ashamed to say that Poniewozik's piece this week is as poignant and spot on as any of Olbermann's Special Comments I'd heard in 2008.

Olbermann really does need to ratchet down the rhetoric and save those "volume 11" rants, as Poniewozik calls them, for the true outrages of the Bush administration.

Countdown is still a can't-miss show, and most nights (or the next morning) I watch it, but the last thing the left needs is a blowhard like Bill O'Reilly, making every little indiscretion or gaffe sound like it's the worst political miscalculation ever. What's more, there are plenty of outrages out there being committed by this administration he should be focusing his attention on.