Olbermannia

As I was waiting for the debut Sunday night of NBC's much-hyped series of the year -- what was it called again? Oh yes, "Sunday Night is Football Night in America" -- I couldn't help but wonder what a large segment of the audience made of the pre-game show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

How many football fans choked on their bratwurst sausage sandwich, being washed down with their tenth Bud Lite, listening to Olbermann's opening blast at Pres. Bush?

How many turned as blue as the label on an ice-cold Coors Lite bottle as they listened to this madman's continual bashing of the Bush administration?

How many thought they had fallen asleep and died from the brewskis they already had consumed as a warm up for the serious hoisting of a few once the actual game (an exhibition between the Steelers and Eagles) started. It had to be hell stewing in a full hour of a commercial network anchorman unexpectedly going negative on all the things football fans hold sacred, like Rush Limbaugh or celebrity bimbos who forget to wear the fronts of their dresses before they go out driving under the influence of whatever substance they are abusing, and it's surely not football.

There are only two things the average TV football viewer might not like about the Keith Olbermann show: his style and content.

Olbermann is a politically-active cable network news guy who was getting a tryout on the parent network (NBC) Sunday night. His show has been fairly well hidden always on MSNBC at 8 o'clock weeknights, normally buried by The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News.

Keith plays smashmouth commentary. No cow is too sacred for Olbermann to punch it between the eyes.

The average TV football fan's idea of a political cause is to join the Free the Indianapolis 500 movement.

Football on TV is normally a politics-free zone. Football fans are lucky to know all the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner." By that I mean, they are on top of the game if they know the last line is not "play ball."

When it comes to current events, it's our country right or wrong. With Olbermann on Sunday night, they are hearing a man who believes its may be our country wrong and wrong.

Now I happen to love Countdown with Keith Olbermann. It's political theatre on a much higher level than usually heard on cable TV and certainly not on commercial network TV.

But even I find his style a little too smarmy sometimes, supercilious, a know-it- all, self-important, self-righteous. I can appreciate why football fans wouldn't want to be stuck in an elevator with the guy.

Content wins me back. I somehow don't mind the anti- Bush rhetoric which has been the core of his shows for at least the last 1,759 days since the president announced mission accomplished in Iraq, a fact that he reminds viewers at the end of each show, before crumpling his script and throwing it at the camera, digitally shattering the lens

As I say, I couldn't stop feeling sorry for those who tuned in to the pre-game show, expecting the usual good old boy football nonsense talk and were subjected to an hour or fraction of Keith. They come to play football, but this is basketball or some other arcane sport.

I'm sure they are still staggering like they were on the third six pack after hearing some expert suggesting the election will be decided by the discovery of Obama in the basement of the White House a week before Election Day, 2008.

Not only does KO, as he is known to his friends, lampoon the current administration, but his targets include the celebratti, the divas, the Lindsay Lohans and others in the swill bucket of American culture.

I wish the National Institute of Mental Health would commission a study to find out what TV football fans thought of KO's reporting on an astounding discovery of a space out in outer space that did not contain galaxies, stars, black holes, absolutely nothing. "Like Paris Hilton's brains," Olbermann observed in one of his signature witty asides.

What do they make of Countdown's nightly newsreel, called "Oddball," a collection of videos clips where people behave like idiots? Even I was startled to see the cheesecake pictures of the man, who was ID'd by KO as "Vladimir Blowback Mountain Putin." With a little brown paint, the president of the Russian Federation would have fit right in with the crowd in the Dawg Pound at the Cleveland Browns stadium.

I guess I like Olbermann so much I would enjoy him on any night, not only on Sundays and weekdays.

No matter how sick he makes the traditional TV football fan, 60 Minutes should not rest on its laurels. Countdown could be the first serious threat to its dominance at 7 PM Sunday nights since it debuted 37 years ago.

Aside from its quality, it also achieved high ratings because football fans were often fast asleep after over-indulging somewhat in a festive day of eating and drinking during the afternoon CBS Sports NFL coverage. They didn't wake up until the house football widows -- their wives -- came in from the cold and changed the channel.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a news information program that, at least, is more colorful than the usual network news production.

I have one word of advice. If NBC dares give KO a second shot once the season actually begins Sept. 9, I would drop the two satirists segments. True, they weren't as bad, perhaps, as whole episodes of the expensive The Half-Hour News Hour on Fox, the political satire show that has just been shut down by Fox as an economy measure so Murdoch can help pay for The Wall Street Journal purchase.

Satire, Olbermann should remember, always dies on Sunday night.

Comments

[Liberalfrombirth]

While I agree with your premise, why is it so tempting to stereotype people? ALL football fans....blah, blah, blah. I have been a Redskins fan since my early twenties, I'm a woman, I think Olberman is wonderful, and I don't drink beer - or much of anything else alcoholic for that matter. I just think your piece would have been stronger if you had not implied that all football watchers are beer swilling Repuglicans. I have learned to never, ever say "all" or "none" when speaking of human beings. Let the Repugs do the stereotyping - it is killing them in the same manner the narrow, evil toward their own people, corrupt USSR government killed itself. I like to believe we progressives can be above that! And it just makes the arguement stronger. Still, I enjoyed your premise!

[CynAnne]

... Hope you all caught Keiths 'dramatic re-enactment' of Sen. Craigs arrest at the airport after his 'toilet stall tapdance', my friends! It was frickin' high-larious, replete with a uberscary 'fright wig' on the poor sap playing Craig! And watching Pat 'Crypt Keeper' Robertson (on "Live w/ Dan Abrams") is becoming EXTREMELY weird, as he's espousing myriad 'gay scenarios' for making Craig "..not a hypocrite.." (still ROFL)..! ;) ...

[CynAnne]

... Turns out it was Pat 'Crypt Keeper' Buchanan on "Live w/ Dan Abrams" last night, not Robertson, but come on, give me a break: Who can really tell these portly, psuedo-pious 'preacher men' one from the other..?! ;) ...

[smartstuart]

What dies on Sunday nights -and on Monday nights-are boring football games or blowouts!! Satire never dies!

[smartstuart]

Before giving your opinion, I doubt you asked one football fan what THEY thought about what Olbermann had to say ? We KNOW what you thought,and it's not much. Did you do your "due diligence" or-as I suspect-this is just you shooting from the lip???

[varpsonic]

a favorite TV sports moment, KO was working a Bulls championship game, Kenny G played the national anthem, KO paused and said " that was Kenny...........GUH
playing the national anthem."

[Tommymac]

"Football on TV is normally a politics-free zone. "

Well, I'm sure Al Micheals was not overly thrilled by KO...I seem to remember he is very conservative, and has brungs up RW-spun political comments fairly regularly over the years.

[GeorgiaBlue]

Female football fan #??? I happen to be 75 years old, too. The media makes too much of their demographic statistics. I also am a HUGE fan of KO and suffer withdrawal symptoms when he is not on. He is the Ed Murrow of today and setting aside his "silly portions", his is the best news show on TV..by the way, he beats Billo, the Blusterer more and more these days, but ratings don't guarantee quality which is daily proved by Fixed News! KO is intelligent, insightful and treats his guests with respect. Given the dumbing down of this country, it's no wonder so many people don't understand him, but he is a treasure and the rest of the media had better take a page out of his book and start telling the truth instead of pandering to the Texas Mafia squatting in OUR house.

[CynAnne]

... Very well said, GeorgiaBlue! It's just killing O'Lielly by degrees that Keith is the BEST commentator out there, and that as Olbermann rises, Billo slowly, sadly sinks into the suffocating swamp of his own making..! ;) ...

[collierthanthou]

As a huge fan of Mr. Olbermann's, I would like to see get the boost to network and outta MSNBC--what a bunch of crap that is. (Just whom are they targeting with Tucker and Predator? ) KO's a brilliant little petunia in a duh-dum patch.

[Soulman]

I like the celebrity segments on Countdown. Besides, it gives KO a chance to knock those wacky celebrities down a peg. He is scornful in his wit of the dumb things that Britney, Linsay and Nicole and Paris do that he knows exactly how we feel. I've no doubt that Amy Winehouse will be his next target.

Besides, he makes us feel better about the fact that we are not the only ones who don't give a damn about these self-obsorbed celebrities.

[elr50]

I read that MSNBC makes Olbermann include these segments, he never looks happy when he does them and has made several comments regarding it.

I will watch Olberman on NBC and turn off the network when the football game begins.

[Apples]

Long live Keith Olbermann. He should be on NBC nightly. America deserves it.

[Apples]

In order for the public to get a truly fair and balanced report on anything, all news outlets should be liberal in the truest sense of the word. There is no other way.

No one should make the mistake of thinking that a show like Keith Olbermann’s is merely a left equivalent of the right. The great thing about Keith Olbermann is he’ll expose the hypocrisy of the left as much as the right if the story warrants it. There is no such policy on shows like Fox or Limbaugh. Limbaugh’s admission last year that he suddenly felt liberated after the Democrats won congress because he no longer had to carry the water for Republican issues that he didn’t actually believe in is enough to tell us his just how much his show is propaganda. When Scooter Libby was found guilty on 4 of the 5 counts against him, Fox Cable headlined the story by stating that Libby was found innocent. Technically correct, but ignoring the fact that he was still guilty on the remaining 4 counts. Fox gave its audience what it wanted to hear, the real story be damned.

If Olbermann appears to attack the right, the answer is simple: for the past 6 years the scandals and hypocrisy on most political issues lean heavily to the right, and continues to do so. They’ve been the ones in power.

Long live Keith Olbermann. He should be on NBC nightly. America deserves it.

[Apples]

In order for the public to get a truly fair and balanced report on anything, all news outlets should be liberal in the truest sense of the word. There is no other way. Open mindedness and seeing any issue from several angles is the only way to get to the truth of the matter. Spinning an event to please an audience that likes to hear only what it wants to hear is not reporting the news.

By his own admission, when Rupert Murdoch saw the state of TV news he saw that there was no outlet for those who wanted the slant, uncluttered by facts, the same audience that flocked daily to the radio to hear Rush Limbaugh. The potential for profit was too much for Murdoch to ignore. It’s not that he saw Fox Cable as a genuine balance to the rest of the media, he saw what he perceived as an ignored audience ready to be exploited.

No one should make the mistake of thinking that a show like Keith Olbermann’s is merely a left equivalent of the right. The great thing about Olbermann is he’ll expose the hypocrisy of the left as much as the right if the story warrants it. There is no such policy on shows like Fox or Limbaugh. Limbaugh’s admission last year that he suddenly felt liberated after the Democrats won congress because he no longer had to carry the water for Republican issues that he didn’t actually believe in is enough to tell us his just how much his show is propaganda. When Scooter Libby was found guilty on 4 of the 5 counts against him, Fox Cable headlined the story by stating that Libby was found innocent. Technically correct, but ignoring the fact that he was still guilty on the remaining 4 counts. Fox gave its audience what it wanted to hear, the real story be damned.

Long live Keith Olbermann. He should be on NBC nightly. America deserves him.

[Thad]

"Satire [...] always dies on Sunday night."

Really? Somebody had better tell Fox; they've been running some damn cartoon show on Sundays for the last 13 years.

[Imzadi]

Love KO - always have! He would be a breath of fresh, honest air on the network and give 60 Minutes a run for its money. I agree about losing the satire - at least Musto who is Gawd-awful.

Unfortunately, pehaps because he knew this was a national broadcast, he did not come across as usual - perhaps trying too hard. In any event, we were slightly disappointed.