People are understandably outraged and disturbed over his abrupt and ill-defined departure from MSNBC…so how, in the face of all this, can I justify my “Meh” reaction?
Well, I already explained the first reason.
The second reason is simple: Keith Olbermann is not dead. He was not beamed to Neptune, never to be seen or heard from again.
Write it down, carve it in stone, make a note, and bet the farm:
Olbermann will be back.
...
Giants do not fall easily. Count on it.
OK then!
Update:
From a good piece on KO by Will Bunch:
[...] ...the inevitable discussion panel yesterday on that network's "Reliable Sources" with Howard Kurtz occasionally touched on a "talking point" certain to drive progressives crazy -- which is that Olbermann has been the perfect left side of a mirror image with angry conservative Fox hosts like Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck.
Well, they all can be loud and take strong points of view, but otherwise the comparison is more than a tad ridiculous. Olbermann's list of worst transgressions would be headlined by an over-the-top rant about Sen. Scott Brown -- which he quickly apologized for! -- and violating a policy he said he didn't know existed by giving money to three Democratc candidates. Compare that to the unapologized-for sins of Beck -- telling viewers last summer of progressives to "shoot them in the head" or claiming that President Obama has "a deep-seated hatred of white people" -- or O'Reilly's frequent harangues against "Dr. Tiller the baby killer," who was later murdered by a right-wing zealot.
Beck's words have not only inspired death threats against an elderly female professor but actual gunmen like Pittsburgh's Richard Poplawski, who bought into the host's conspiracy theories before killing three cops. I challenge anyone to find an act of Olbermann-inspired violence or threats (and while you're searching, check out his record as host of "Countdown" in supporting charitable causes).
The irony here -- and it's a big one -- is that one of Olbermann's best contributions to our political dialogue was going after the bogus idea of false equivalency, that people on the left and the right are always equally bad in equal proportions while only centrists are the possessors of beauty and light and truth. Ironic because no one has been a bigger victim of false equivalency than Keith Olbermann himself.
It's like comparing me with Valentino Rossi as the best rider with the fastest motorcycle.
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