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27 January 2011 By Stephen
Lendman Make no mistake. He didn't quit.
He was pushed, the final straw perhaps being the
January 18 FCC-approved Comcast-NBC Merger. Its
chairman/CEO Brian Roberts co-chaired the 2000
Republican Convention host committee, and COO Stephen
Burke/now NBC Universal CEO tilts heavily to
Republicans. According to Public Citizen and Think
Progress, he raised at least $200,000 for Bush's 2004
campaign, served on his Council on Science and
Technology, and may wish to make MSNBC another Fox,
despite pledging no "interference with NBC Universal's
news operations." Think Progress asked: "Why would
Comcast be interested in silencing progressive
voices?" Because it opposes issues they support,
including Net Neutrality, stiffer media regulation,
and restraints on being able to buy telecommunications
and media companies freely. Despite having MSNBC's highest
ratings, Olbermann's gone like (once top-rated) Phil
Donahue ahead of Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the time,
a leaked network February 25, 2003 memo to All Your
TV.com, said he presented a: "difficult public face for NBC in
a time of war....He seems to delight in presenting
guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of
the administration's motives." It outlined a nightmare
scenario of his show becoming "a home for the liberal
antiwar agenda at the same time our competitors are
waving the flag at every opportunity," promoting war,
not diplomacy and peace. For those on the far right,
Olbermann, like Donahue, became too hot to handle,
personality issues mattering less than staunchly right
wing politics. Expect MSNBC to feature more of it,
shifting more to the right like Fox and CNN, racing to
the bottom to see who's more pro-business, pro-war,
and anti-left of center ideologically. MSNBC's
remaining prime time hosts take note. On January 23, Washington Post
writer Paul Farhi headlined, "Olbermann-MSNBC split
had been brewing for a while," saying: He "often clashed with his
employers, condemning - sometimes quite publicly -
directives with which he has disagreed. His departure
fit a pattern (of) frequent run-ins (often) result(ing)
in (him) leaving a job....His sudden exit prompted
widespread suspicion of interference by Comcast." According to one MSNBC insider,
"there were strong indications that the timing wasn't
coincidental. (It was) right," but not for the first
time. After leaving ESPN in 1997, a network official
said "He didn't burn the bridges here; he napalmed
them." This time, ideology, not contentiousness, made
the difference, but neither side is saying. Earlier articles criticized his
less than pure progressive credentials, accessed
through the following links: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/liberal-media-rest-in-peace.html http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/iraq-pullout-mission-accomplished-or.html At issue was unabashedly
supporting Obama/Democrat policies, including: -- imperial wars without end; -- anti-labor opposition to the
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), and agenda to
destroy, not create, jobs when they're most needed; -- a "Race to the Top" scheme to
destroy public education; -- stiff-arming budget-strapped
states, and freezing out millions trapped by poverty,
homelessness, hunger and despair; -- militarizing Haiti, opposing
democracy, and backing the Honduran coup, ousting a
democratically elected leader; -- supporting banker bailouts and
bogus financial reform for Wall Street, not main
street; -- endorsing preventive
detention, police state surveillance, and plans to
assassinate US citizens named terrorists, with or
without proof; and -- bogus health care reform, for
many weeks the top Countdown story; Olbermann
shamlessly promoting Obamacare - a destructive scheme
to ration care and enrich corporate providers, making
a dysfunctional system worse. For months he was staunchly
one-sided, revealing flawed progressive credentials
for a pro-business agenda when not jousting with Fox
News or his nightly buffoonery, acting more like Bozo
the Clown than a newsman. It's why critic David
Forsmark called his program "Meltdown," nightly
"public ravings," not real news and information. Too
often, it was evident by topics chosen, preferred
guests, and discussions, supporting Democrat party
politics, not good governance and public needs. Georgetown history Professor
Michael Kazin called him "O'Reilly on the left -
completely predictable, unfunny, and arrogant."
University of Chicago Professor Harold Pollack said he
"can be smart and funny, but I've basically had my
fill. My life is full of shticky and rude blowhards
already. Why add another?" Harper's editor Luke
Mitchell described him as "irritating and his obvious
sexism is reprehensible," despite some positive
attributes, putting him head and shoulders above his
Fox and CNN counterparts. On June 23, 2008, New Yorker
writer Peter Boyer called him "One Angry Man,"
saying: At home one night, he penned "the
first draft of a lacerating indictment of Bush, a
twelve-minute-long j'accuse, addressed personally to"
(him). The denunciation hit the high notes of the most
fevered antiwar rhetoric, accusing Bush....his alleged
puppet master (Dick Cheney and those around them) of
perpetrating a 'panoramic and murderous deceit' on
America and the world, (saying) 'you yoked this nation
and your place in history to the wrong war, in the
wrong place, against the wrong people.' " However, he rarely "j'accused"
Obama's wars or other policies the same way. In
reports or commentaries, he largely exempted Democrats
from jeremiads, reserved mainly for Republicans and
Teabaggers, bashed separately in nightly Tea Time
segments. Perhaps he should have stuck with
sportscasting, the right venue for fun and games,
pranks, horseplay, and tomfoolery. Consumers of real
news and information didn't find much on Countdown.
Overall of course daily, the entire corporate media
delivers a diet of managed news, junk food news and
infotainment, supporting pro-business, pro-imperial,
and pro-anti-progressive policies. Occasionally, however, Olbermann
stood tall, earlier as a fierce Bush/Cheney critic,
and what a recent article explained, accessed through
the following link: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/12/corporate-medias-version-of-economic.html Despite turning his program into
a commercial for Democrats, his December 8 special
comment accused Obama of turning his back on his base,
saying: "In exchange for selling out a
principle campaign pledge, and the people to whom and
for whom it was made, in exchange for betraying the
truth that the idle and corporate rich....have gotten
unprecedented and wholly indefensible tax cuts for a
decade (besides unmentioned earlier ones under Reagan
and generous favors from Clinton), in exchange for
giving the idle and corporate rich....two more years
to accumulate still more and more vast piles of
personal wealth with which they can buy and sell
everybody else." "In exchange for extending what
he spent the weeks before the midterms calling tax
cuts for millionaires and billionaires" money they'll
keep, not spend. "In exchange for injecting new vigor
into the infantile, moronic, disproved-for-a-decade
three-card Monte game of an economic theory (what
Michael Hudson calls junk economics) purveyed by these
treacherous and ultimately traitorous Republicans,
that tax cuts for the rich will somehow lead to job
creation," a shameless lie. "In exchange for giving tax cuts
for the rich which the nation cannot afford," and they
don't deserve. "In exchange for this searing and
transcendent capitulation, the President got just 13
months of extended benefits for those unemployed less
than 100 weeks. And he got nothing, absolutely nothing
for" the millions unemployed longer, "the 99ers." Yet Obama is "celebrating....Mr.
President, for these meager crumbs, you have given up
costly, insulting, divisive tax cuts for the rich, and
you have given in to Republican blackmail, which will
be followed by more Republican blackmail....This is
only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the
first sip of a bitter cup (without) a supreme recovery
of moral health and political vigor (to) rise....and
take our stand for what is right." It was a rare Olbermann moment,
bashing Obama like Bush, but apparently his new bosses
thought sometimes was too much, tolerating little to
the left of Fox. Not according to New York Times
writers Bill Carter and Brian Stelter, however,
headlining their January 23 article, "Olbermann Split
Came After Years of Tension," saying: No matter his "track record of
attacking his superiors and making early exits, (news)
of his abrupt departure (came) as a shock to his many
fans, some of whom accused Comcast" of sacking him. TV insiders, however, "are
astonished that (MSNBC's) highest-rated host....would
be ushered out the door with no fanfare, no promoted
farewell show, and only a perfunctory thanks for his
efforts." Calling the decision "not a termination but
a 'negotiated separation,' (it followed) years of
behind-the-scenes tension, conflicts and near
terminations," besides being unabashedly
pro-Democrat. Now he's gone, leaving
left-of-center hosts Rachael Maddow, Ed Schultz and
Lawrence O'Donnell, filling his vacated time slot.
Key, however, is NBC's power shift right, likely
portending two choices for remaining hosts - softened
rhetoric or new employment, but expect new corporate
bosses to offer little, if any. Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
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http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/. |
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