I knew it was too good to last. Keith Olbermann has been busting Falafel O'Reilly's balls for a few years, humiliating him at every turn by exposing him as a lying, mentally deranged, racist douchecock. O'Reilly's response has been to send his semen-crusted little stalker creeps to hassle executives at MSNBC's parent company, General Electric. He has also accused GE of being responsible for dead American troops in Iraq. As fucktarded as that sounds, apparently it has worked:I read with great sadness about NBC's decision to have Keith Olbermann back off of his criticism of Bill O'Reilly. I'm trying to convince myself the New York Times' piece was satire but I did that with Judy Miller's Iraq reporting and that taught me I don't understand satire. Who is there left to keep FOX and O'Reilly accountable? Like a gifted musician pulling melodies out of the air for new songs, O'Reilly has long had a brilliant and unmatched facility for making up the nonsense he wants to be true. He assigns evil motives and anti-American sentiments to people with whom he disagrees and then he waits for the tally light to illuminate on his camera and steps boldly into his pathological world of political incongruity.
The problem is that the people who watch Bill O generally aren't smart enough to know that he confabulates and those who can tell the difference are loathe to listen to the boy. Into this breach have stepped Mr. Olbermann and MSNBC. They watch, they record, and Olbermann reports so that the rest of us don't have to factor the Factor into our lives. If it were just Olbermann doing a straight-forward nightly rundown of erroneous information from O'Reilly, few of us would watch the Countdown cut downs of O'Reilly . However, Olbermann and his producers and writers have a healthy amount of wit and wield sarcasm like a mighty swift sword and there is little more enjoyable of an evening than to watch as they eviscerate the great bloviator on FOX.
The NYT indicates that management of NBC and FOX decided there was a need for some civility between the two networks. I'm compelled to ask: why now? O'Reilly has treated Olbermann as "he who's name must not be spoken" while Olbermann has used "Bill O the Clown" to leaven the grimness of the day's news. If O'Reilly can't serve a purpose of informing people with accurate information then at least his broadcast ought to entertain, if even only as a subject of ridicule on another network. It is also entertaining that the network brass are calling for a higher standard of behavior while they both seek to produce more and more titillating reality shows to suck in viewers and ignore any cultural standards of decorum. How can Battle of the Bods be acceptable programming and Olbermann kicking around O'Reilly is somehow offensive and harmful?
I'm slightly reassured that Olbermann has said he is not "party to any deal" but there has been a noticeable slippage in the O'Reilly bashing on Countdown. This can't be good for America, MSNBC, Olbermann, or the future of our national political discourse. If people are allowed to listen to O'Reilly and think he knows what he's talking about then the terrorists have won. Or something like that. Who calls this guy out if it's not Olbermann? Hell, I think there is an entire show MSNBC can do every night that is about nothing more than offering corrections and clarifications on O'Reilly's sputum. Come on, Keith, get back to your guns. Just as in war, the first casualty on FOX is the truth and the first line of defense against damage caused by distortion and lying has to be someone who knows the difference between reality and the pathological fantasy that is mustering Bill O's army. That's you, Olbermann. It's your job. You are imminently qualified to fire at will.
And don't be afraid to make Glenn Beck collateral damage.
NYT
This is bad news, and not just because Billo won't get the ridicule he so richly deserves. Seven years ago, Phil Donahue had the highest-rated show on MSNBC. Then the bosses got spooked because the network was being attacked for allowing someone who was NOT a war whore to host a show. First, execs at MSNBC started tampering with the show, telling producer Jeff Cohen that if Donahue was going to book an anti-war guest he had to book two war whores for "balance". Since Donahue's ratings were in large part the result of his show being the only one that wasn't beating war drums, this meddling ruined the show and caused ratings to slip (though it was still the highest-rated show on MSNBC) and the show was canceled. This article by Cohen is pretty telling:August 1, 2009
Voices From Above Silence a Cable TV Feud
By BRIAN STELTER
It was a media cage fight, televised every weeknight at 8 p.m. But the match was halted when the blood started to spray executives in the high-priced seats.
For years Keith Olbermann of MSNBC had savaged his prime-time nemesis Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel and accused Fox of journalistic malpractice almost nightly. Mr. O’Reilly in turn criticized Mr. Olbermann’s bosses and led an exceptional campaign against General Electric, the parent company of MSNBC.
It was perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade and by this year, their bosses had had enough. But it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to help bring it to at least a temporary end.
At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in mid-May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.
Both moguls expressed regret over the venomous culture between the networks and the increasingly personal nature of the barbs. Days later, even though the feud had increased the audience of both programs, their lieutenants arranged a cease-fire, according to four people who work at the companies and have direct knowledge of the deal.
In early June, the combat stopped, and MSNBC and Fox, for the most part, found other targets for their verbal missiles (Hello, CNN).
“It was time to grow up,” a senior employee of one of the companies said.
The reconciliation — not acknowledged by the parties until now — showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations. A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April.
“We all recognize that a certain level of civility needed to be introduced into the public discussion,” Gary Sheffer, a spokesman for G.E., said this week. “We’re happy that has happened.”
The parent companies declined to comment directly on the details of the cease-fire, which was orchestrated in part by Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, and Gary Ginsberg, an executive vice president who oversees corporate affairs at the News Corporation.
Mr. Olbermann, who is on vacation, said by e-mail message, “I am party to no deal,” adding that he would not have been included in any conversations between G.E. and the News Corporation. Fox News said it would not comment.
Civility was not always the aim of Mr. Olbermann and Mr. O’Reilly, men who, in an industry of thin skins, are both famous for reacting to verbal pinpricks. Both host 8 p.m. programs on cable news in studios a few blocks apart in Midtown Manhattan.
The conservative-leaning Mr. O’Reilly has turned “The O’Reilly Factor” into a profit center for the News Corporation by blitzing his opponents and espousing his opinions unapologetically. He found his bête noire in the liberal-leaning Mr. Olbermann, the host of MSNBC’s “Countdown,” who saw in Mr. O’Reilly a regenerating target he nicknamed the “Bill-o the Clown.”
The 6-foot-4 Mr. Olbermann started sniping regularly at the also 6-foot-4 Mr. O’Reilly in late 2005, sometimes making him the subject of the “Countdown” segment, the “Worst Person in the World.” Mr. O’Reilly was also a stand-in for the perceived offenses of the top-rated Fox News.
By punching up at his higher-rated prey, Mr. Olbermann helped his own third-place cable news show. “Honestly, I should send him a check each week,” he remarked to a reporter three years ago. Fox noticed. Mr. Murdoch remarked to Esquire last year that “Keith Olbermann is trying to make a business out of destroying Bill O’Reilly.” Mr. O’Reilly refused to mention his critic by name on the “Factor,” deeming him a “vicious smear merchant,” but he regularly blamed Mr. Zucker for “ruining a once-great brand,” NBC.
In late 2007, Mr. O’Reilly had a young producer, Jesse Watters, ambush Mr. Immelt and ask about G.E.’s business in Iran, which is legal, and which includes sales of energy and medical technology. G.E. says it no longer does business in Iran.
Mr. O’Reilly continued to pour pressure on its corporate leaders, even saying on one program last year that “If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt.” The resulting e-mail to G.E. from Mr. O’Reilly’s viewers was scathing.
The messages hit nerves on both sides. Mr. Immelt remarked to MSNBC staff members last summer that he would “never forgive Rupert Murdoch” for Fox’s behavior, according to two people who were present. In private phone calls, the Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, told NBC officials to end the attacks.
In February, Mr. Zucker told Newsweek what he had told Mr. Olbermann privately: “I wish it weren’t so personal.” The previous year, Mr. Murdoch said that Mr. O’Reilly “shouldn’t be so sensitive” to the attacks lobbed by MSNBC.
Over time, G.E. and the News Corporation concluded that the fighting “wasn’t good for either parent,” said an NBC employee with direct knowledge of the situation. But the session hosted by Mr. Rose provided an opportunity for a reconciliation, sealed with a handshake between Mr. Immelt and Mr. Murdoch.
But like any title fight, the final round could not end without an attempted knockout. On June 1, the day after the abortion provider George Tiller was killed in Kansas, Mr. Olbermann took to the air to cite Mr. O’Reilly’s numerous references to “Tiller, the baby killer” and to announce that he would retire his caricature of Mr. O’Reilly.
“The goal here is to get this blindly irresponsible man and his ilk off the air,” he said.
The next day, Mr. O’Reilly made the extraordinary claim that “federal authorities have developed information about General Electric doing business with Iran, deadly business” and published Mr. Immelt’s e-mail address and mailing address, repeating it slowly for emphasis.
Then the attacks mostly stopped.
Shortly after, Phil Griffin, the MSNBC president, told producers that he wanted the channel’s other programs to follow Mr. Olbermann’s lead and restrain from criticizing Fox directly, according to two employees. At Fox News, some staff members were told to “be fair” to G.E.
The executives at both companies, it appears, were relieved. “For this war to stop, it meant fewer headaches on the corporate side,” one employee said.
Tensions still simmer between the two networks, however, and staff members have been unwilling or unable to stop the strife altogether. This week, for instance, the Fox host Glenn Beck called Mr. Obama a racist, prompting rebukes on a number of MSNBC shows. But for now, the daily back and forth has quieted.
“They’ve won their respective constituencies,” said a former member of MSNBC’s senior staff. “They don’t need to do this anymore, really.”
Some yellow-bellied dickheads never learn.The day after Donahue was terminated, an internal NBC memo leaked out; it said that Phil Donahue represents "a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." Why? Because he insisted on presenting administration critics. The memo worried that Donahue would become a "home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
NBC's solution then? Dump Phil, stifle dissent, brandish the flag.
NBC's solution now? So far, Olbermann appears to be on more solid footing - mostly because the political zeitgeist is much changed from four years ago.
But MSNBC is still owned by GE's conservative bosses, and managed by NBC's ever-timid executives. Olbermann knows this reality as well as anyone; six months ago on C-SPAN, while expressing confidence that good ratings would keep them at bay, he remarked: "There are people I know in the hierarchy of NBC, the company, and GE, the company, who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all."
