“Countdown With Keith Olbermann” the highly rated cable news program, will be shown on network television on Sunday before a preseason NBC football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Since Mr. Olbermann, right, will have a regular role in NBC’s football coverage once the season begins — appearing as a co-host on the pregame show “Football Night in America” on Sundays — this weekend’s appearance of his cable show will give a wider audience a look at what he has been up for the last four years. “ ‘Countdown’ is rocketing right now over at MSNBC — its ratings are going through the roof,” said Phil Griffin, senior vice president of NBC News. (In July Mr. Olbermann’s show averaged 721,000 viewers, an increase of 88 percent over last July, according to MSNBC.) Mr. Griffin added, “The world has changed, and I think people have come in line with the smart, focused approach he has on the show.” No immediate plans for additional network appearances of “Countdown” have been made, but Mr. Griffen did not rule them out. “It may be the first of several times you see Olbermann on the network,” he said.
Tag Archive for 'keith-olbermann'
Finally the long national nightmare is over: Rita Cosby is without a job. MSNBC has wisely chosen not to renew her contract after having already canceled her awful show some time ago and replacing it with documentaries about jails (no, seriously). I have never liked Rita; I'm sure she's a very nice person, etc. but she's awful on TV and the shit she covered on her show was truly without value. I have no idea what the people at MSNBC were thinking when they hired her and I'm glad that Dan Abrams (or whomever makes these decisions) has righted the wrong and given her the boot.
I'll tell you though, it was amusing to watch Keith Olbermann have to go through that little thing where the one host chitchats with the other one about whats coming up in the next hour with Rita(Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert obviously do this the best). You could tell that Keith was gritting his teeth as he had to listen to Rita tell viewers how she was about to uncover the latest in the Michael Jackson trial or Natalie Holloway. Adios Ms. Cosby, you shan't be missed in the slightest.
Everyone in general, and pundits in Washington and on T.V. specifically, should read E.J. Dionne's op-ed in today's Washington Post. The piece is directed at those who continually call for bipartisanship (usually directed at those angry Democrats) yet ignore the "hyperpartisanship" of today's conservative movement and Republican Party.
Hand-wringing over extreme partisanship has become a popular cause among learned analysts. They operate from Olympian heights and strain for evenhandedness by issuing tut-tuts to all sides, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives.
But the evidence of recent days should settle the case: This administration has operated on the basis of a hyperpartisanship not seen in decades. Worse, the destroy-the-opposition, our-team-vs.-their-team approach has infected large parts of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. That's a shame, since there are plenty of good people in both. Still, the tendency to subordinate principles to win short-term victories and cover up for the administration is, alas, rampant on the right.
While I shan't presume, I imagine Mr. Dionne is directing his piece at people like David Broder and the people behind the ridiculously stupid Unity '08 thing. There are many, many things that infuriate me about the people who are supposed to represent intelligence in our media and high up on that list are the people like Mr. Broder who refuse to see the political reality for what it really is.
These people, and the tired conventional wisdom they bring with them, should be banished from the talking heads shows and the newspapers. Of course this would never happen and instead we are subjected to seeing and reading them daily on the Washington Post op-ed page (Mr. Dionne of course excepted) and on Tucker or Meet the Press (Keith Olbermann of course excepted).