GOOD for KEITH!

[elleng]

[Towlie]

1. Yup! I'll buy that. You buy that?

[CatWoman]

4. the question is

did you buy the Sasquatch guy? :rofl:

[malaise]

15. Freaking priceless

:rofl:

Go KO!

[Rosco T.]

2. He has a right to his opinion, and he stated it as such. n/m

[Captain Hilts]

3. What about those of us without cable?

[Cant trust em]

5. Eat cake. nt

[lizziegrace]

7. Thanks much...

Can you give those of us who cannot get or afford cable a hint??

[Cant trust em]

8. I didn't see it. I'm not the OPer. nt

[babylonsister]

6. He repeated this:

About 15 minutes ago, Keith Olbermann issued a series of tweets about Obama that I thought was very telling. I've woven them together in textual order here:

...this is easily the smartest political leader I have ever seen, as good a political public speaker as I've heard, + last October I was privileged along with 11 other newspeople to spend 2 hours with him as he showed extemporaneous mastery of every one of two dozen topics fired at him by us in random order. I left the room wondering if we had ever before actually elected a president who was one of the 1,000 smartest people in the country (or maybe 100, or 10) as we had now. I believe in him and in his presidency and he has frequently achieved success (in health care reform, particularly) by doing that for which I criticized him. I hope that is again the case now because the Gulf Speech was not up to his standards nor did it express his mastery of policy. And if you will stop watching because I said this, I'll be very sorry, but you will have been watching for the wrong reason. I am not, have not been, and will not be, any politician's, nor any president's, spokesman.

[lizziegrace]

9. Thank you for posting

No idea it was a Twitter thing. The OP didn't give us much to go on.

[Captain Hilts]

10. Thanks for this, I didn't see last night or tonight and don't tweet. nt

[elleng]

24. This?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/?ns=msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann

[Taverner]

11. I fully support Obama AND KO

The job of a citizenry and an independent journalist it to hold the elected officials' feet to the fire

On the other hand last night's speech, and the subseqent $20B fund from BP are examples of his sucesses.

[branders seine]

21. the $20 B, yes

the speech, not so much.

[Taverner]

27. My take is that he was supposed to announce that last night - as the highlight

But BP wouldn't agree until after the speech, as kind of an 'FU'

[branders seine]

34. probably true

even so, the speech should have articulated a visionary approach to energy, not just an incremental approach to somewhat minimizing the financial costs (for some) of part of the problem in the Gulf.

I guess we shouldn't expect that Obama would suddenly become a visionary though; he never has been. He's more of a detail-oriented, small-picture incrementalist.

[Taverner]

35. He's a policy wonk, and policy moves slowly

Visionaries? Last thing we need now is a visionary.

That would mean millions of broken promises

[branders seine]

36. No vision, no change.

No change, apocalypse.

[mmonk]

12. Yes, his response was aptly put to the any criticism of Obama

is wrong and bad and bashing crowd.

[HughMoran]

16. That would be a rotten awful flamfest inducing way to interpret it

I though it was funny, you made it into a stinking pile of shit.

[mmonk]

17. Lighten up.

[HughMoran]

19. Be nice.

[mmonk]

23. I was unaware it was so rude I suppose.

I was just remembering all the slams KO and Rachel and MSNBC took just because they didn't gush praise on Obama's BP speech. Maybe people here can teach me the proper etiquette.

[MineralMan]

13. Thank you so much for providing zero information about what

you're talking about. I do so love mystery threads. It's so much fun to try to guess what Keith said.

[elleng]

18. So sorry;

he was speaking quickly. Knew others here would hear him, and will see/hear later. His show reruns.

Read babylonsis.

[MineralMan]

20. Not everyone watches MSNBC nonstop.

Do have a care for those of us who have other things to do.

[elleng]

22. Thanks SO MUCH.

So what do you care? Go do your other things, then, and don't trouble yourself.

And PLEASE don't watch Rachel tonight, either.

[HughMoran]

14. Keith addressed posts at DU directly

saying they wouldn't watch him any more :rofl:

[Tarheel_Dem]

25. I "de"-TIVO'd Keith last nite. I have to admit I'm a little curious, but

I'm sticking to my guns. I'm done with KO.

[emulatorloo]

26. What the hell was that whole Robert Reich Self-Justification Fest

Paraphrasing:

"I said yesterday he had no specifics

Today he did something specific

But he did not express outrage, and he should have done the specific thing before the speech.

So I am still right, even though I am really wrong"

and I am "guys, it frigging doesn't matter. Just admit that you embarrassed yourselves."

[dembat]

33. Exactly

Robert Reich needs to shut the hell up, I will be writing to him. Let the President govern, these are not real democrats, they are fake democrats who thinks they are living in the White House. Why they did not run for office.

[Kind of Blue]

28. I think he missed the point.

Just as in KO's opinion, the speech did not meet the president's standard, I felt the same about KO's analysis - it did not meet his usual standard of normally insightful criticism. My disappointment in KO's vitriol had nothing to do with him being the president's spokesman or not. I just didn't expect him to channel Fox News weirdness and run with it.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. Keith was pretty fair actually. The speech was stinky.

It was poorly written, over hyped, and not delivered well. The standard of the writing in his public speeches has been interesting. He and the staff have a pretty good hold on the live event. The televised and especially direct address, they seem lost. Self aware, gawky. Unpracticed. They don't know how to do what they can do in events up close, and apparently they have no idea who to ask, or they are not aware of the problem. Barack Obama should have had words of power last night. His heart and mind is in the right place, all of the bs about him being under emotional and such, that all comes from the shitty support he is given when he gets the text, or when he writes it, or whatever. It kills me. It could be so easy. They are so close. He's sooooo good at it. He needs help from writers who are worthy of his skills, for each and every form of media he does. There is no way he can write it all for himself.
I blame the writers involved, and whoever is not teaching them how the camera in your face is different from the bleachers filled with butts.
There I said it. They are failing in the portion of the job that must by time and truth be the making of a media construct. He can not 'be himself' because of that camera thing. He has to be a form of himself that fits the form. Opera on camera looks foolish. Obama fears the camera because he knows he is a lousy actor. Trust me, he knows this. But acting is not what he needs to do, what he needs is to understand the size of the room, the acoustics of the space that is a televised presence. And come to that space with words befitting the fucking office he holds. Anyone who writes for him should be bleeding from the fingers until they have made genius for him. Anything less is a failing to the People first, for this is a message to the people, and to the President, for he is the messenger, and it is he who will be judged by those precious syllables. It is a poetic, dynamic sort of work. And they are not doing the work.
That's the end of my ranting. If they like the static thing, the afterthought feeling in moments of great duress, then they can run with that. I am beginning not to care anymore.

[Kind of Blue]

30. I do understand your points.

It's just bizarre and sad to me that so many are absolutely in love with Obama's ability to give a great speech and are driven into madness when he supposedly does not. The president laid this impossible situation straight and plain, and started backing up what "little" he said today.

But I'm specifically referring to Olbermann's defense of not being the president's spokesperson. Who said he was? Who asked him to be? I mean, really needless to say, KO is known for criticism. I think he skirted around addressing his Fox News behavior by using a strawman defense. As I said previously, I hold KO to the same standards he holds the president, knowing he could do so much better. But instead his shots were cheap and premature.

[Berry Cool]

31. What bullshit. Criticizing the president is now "Fox News behavior"?

I am amazed at the low level of cognitive skills of some people on DU.

For you, politics is nothing but a dualistic game played by guys in blue shirts vs. guys in red shirts--and the job of everyone on TV is to either cheer for the team wearing the blue shirts, or you hate 'em forever and ever because if they criticized a guy in a blue shirt, well, that must mean they LOVE the guys in the red shirts, just like all the people at Fox who love the guys in the red shirts.

People who think at this level are the ultimate users of straw-man arguments, not KO. He has indeed been regarded by many DU'ers, ever since he began speaking in a decidedly progressive voice, as someone who should, merely because of that, agree with everything they believe in, including supporting their political candidates of choice...which is sheer nonsense.

DU has swarmed with two different brands of idiot: the idiots who abandoned him in 2008 because they thought he "hated" or had "betrayed" Hillary in favor of Obama, and now a new brand of idiot who is abandoning him because he dared to criticize the All-Holy Obama. Both people are equal kinds of idiots.

Now, before someone attacks me for being an idiot who can't bear to see anyone criticize the All-Holy Olbermann, let it be known: I do it myself. I've disagreed with him, strongly sometimes, and I've said so. But I'm not going to just fly into a high dudgeon and swear off him because of it. And note what he said: he wasn't criticizing anyone for criticizing him. He was just saying, if you're going to quit watching me because of it, I'm sorry, but either you have misunderstood me, or (and maybe he should've said this) maybe you're just too fucking immature to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with your every opinion and in that case, everyone's eventually going to lose you anyway, so?

Mature people realize they don't have to agree with every damn thing a person says or does in order to find that person worthwhile--whether it's Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Keith Olbermann. I just wish I saw more of that understanding on DU. But what I see, more often than not, is that public figures are either worshiped or demonized here--nothing in between. Do some of you still have worthwhile things to say? Sure. But damn, when it comes to public figures, some people just haven't outgrown the need to have black-and-white heroes and villains to cheer and boo.

[Kind of Blue]

32. Wow! You surely do read A LOT into

my criticism of Olberman's defense. Hillary? Hate him forever? Not worthwhile? Abandon him? Swear him off? Where did those assumptions come from? Oh, then again since you do rate cognitive skills, yours are indeed incredible - reading into what was never stated or part of the argument! :rofl: I love it!

No, you don't say? YOU'VE disagreed with him? Of course you're not flying off the handle in conniptions because I disagree with Olberman. That's not what you're doing here. No way. :rofl: You're fully demonstrating the understanding you so wish to see.

Sorry too disappoint you but I like KO too and have agreed and disagreed with him as well. But I strongly disagree with his defense on this one. IMO, he was Fox News-like.