Keith Olbermann and MSNBC

Photo by srqpix

I missed Olbermann's Friday show.  I wish I had not, but I seldom watch MSNBC on Fridays because the news and commentary programming ends before I have finished my evening chores.  MSNBC is not really a news network because its weekend broadcasts are simply docufillers, ways to keep something banal on the screen rather than a test pattern.

I am not a total Keith Olbermann fan.  He was too quick to poke fun and commentary at religious straw men without ever acknowledging the overlooked mainstream.  The extremes were much more fun to comment on. I could forgive even that when he read Thurber on the air (I did catch some Friday newscasts and podcasts.)

Keith Olbermann will be fine.  MSNBC is doomed to be a thrid-rate news source.  I refuse to watch Chuck Todd.

I was utterly appalled to hear that Lawrence O'Donnell will replace Olbermann. Someone billed him as a liberal Democrat.  Maybe he was at one time, but now he is just a sissy.  I have watched his show and observed his strained attempts to equate Republican and Democratic behavior.  He never admits that either side could be wrong, no he must draw false equivalencies or even insist on them in face of the facts.  MSNBC needs to teach its staff the meaning of right and wrong.  Oh, they can't because they don't know it either.

The final straw was to hear that Chris Matthews would profit from Olbernann's departure.  I don't know if I can even watch Rachel Maddow if Chris Matthews is a prominent figure on MSNBC.  I stopped watching MSNBC before because he is such a misogynist.  I remember too many of his interviews with women of intelligence and position where he did his best to denigrate them.  He especially hated it when a woman responded intelligently to his inane question.  He simply rolled over their answer with his.  His crowning achievement was the despicable way he spoke of and treated Hillary Clinton.  I believe he should have been fired.  MSNBC seems to prefer misogynists to liberals.  And Mathews is not a liberal.  Anyone who would allow Tom Delay to cast aspersions on the whole court system of a community, then agree with the Congressman known as "the Hammer" as if his statements were fact is not interested in truth.   No liberal would hold such a viewpoint.  He is a lapdog for Senators and Representatives who pet him by feeding him what he believes is "inside" information.  I will never watch him on television.

MSNBC along with NBC( don't get me going on David Gregory) are just corporate lackeys.  The firing of Keith Olbermann is just another symptom of big business' takeover.  Most Americans don't even realize that we have government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.  MSNBC wants to make sure it stays that way.

Keith Olbermann and Dan Savage

"I’m sure they don’t want to hear this from me because I’m an avowed atheist but my dad was a Roman Catholic deacon and my mom was a minister and I went to the seminary and I was confirmed in the Catholic church. I’ve read the Bible backwards and forwards and there’s a lot in there, a lot that Jesus had to say about taking care of the sick, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, visiting, not executing the prisoner and nothing about capital gains tax cuts, nothing about denying health care coverage to American families and American children and nothing about this sort of insane opposition to a democratically elected president.

They really have hi-jacked Christianity and are giving it a bad name. The reason we see spikes I think in more and more people who no longer associate themselves with any religious faith or belief is because now to say you’re Christian in America means you are saying I am in the same boat, the same bat crap crazy boat with Michelle Bachmann. And a lot of even nominal Christians don’t want to say that any more or cultural Christians don’t want to say that any more."

The above quote is from Countdown on MSNBC on September 1, 2009. The speaker is Dan Savage. I agreed with most of his statements that evening, but totally disagree with his statement that "to say you're a Christian in America means you are saying I am in the same boat, the same bat crap crazy boat with Michelle Bachman." I am a Christian. I have no problem saying that because I and the majority of Christians know that our faith is not the same as Michelle Bachman's.

I believe Mr. Savage and the media would like the statement to be true because it reinforces a stereotype of Christianity that the media perpetuates and that atheists prefer. The stereotype of the anti-intellectual, the Bible-is-literally-true Christian. A stereotype that is easy to ridicule.

Mr. Olbermann loves to ridicule the religious right and too many times all Christians. His views of Christians seems to always portray them as right wing loonies with equally strange religious beliefs. Of course, I admit there are plenty of examples to support his remarks, but these are not the majority of Christians. Mr. Olbermann seldom if ever offers a more sane view of Christians.

Mr. Olbermann is not entirely to blame for his one-sided view of Christians. Most of the media portrays Christians as far right zealots. Interview after interview is conducted with those Christians who will produce the most audience-grabbing sound bites, people on the fringes of the faith, not those in the solid core of the faith.

I have a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a scientist's view of the world. I believe in evolution and stem cell research. I am an left of center independent who supported Hilliary Clinton. I believe in Christ as the truest manifestation of God in our world, but not the exclusive manifestation. I am a Christian. I believe in God the "I am", the Creator, God as love, the Comforter , and God in action, Jesus Christ. Three in one: "I am love in action."

I would challenge Olbermann and other commentators to interview a mainstream Christian, not an atheist, to discuss what Christians think about issues of the day and the far right of our faith. No one can hi-jack Christianity. The media can portray only a sliver of what the truth is, but the great center continues. God does not need us, we need God.

Those of the left make a mistake when they ridicule Christianity as a whole. Rather the center of the faith should be allowed to speak, to reassure those who do not understand what it means to be a Christian. Christ made it very simple to understand: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. He did not say it would be easy to do.

Media Against Senator Clinton

I was channel hopping today and found MSNBC once more going after Senator Clinton. Tim Russert had two guests who really had their knives out for her. There was no one to present to voice opposition to the comments or to give Senator Clinton’s true views. This was one-sided journalism at its worst. Evidently, NBC has dropped all pretense of fairness. Senator Obama is their candidate and their goal is to get him elected by destroying Senator Clinton.

I did not start out as a fan of Senator Clinton, but after my favorite candidate withdrew I realized my choice was between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. I believed that Senator Clinton’s health plan was superior, so I decided to vote for her.

The media’s treatment of Senator Clinton has turned me into an ardent supporter. The male bias against Senator Clinton is mind-blowing. A good example is Keith Olbermann. One night in the last two weeks he went on a rant about someone in the Clinton camp saying that Fox news was fairer to Senator Clinton. How could that be he said, then listed every bad thing he claimed Fox had said about Senator Clinton. It was indeed a laundry list of negativity. Of course, what he neglected to point out was that Fox has been just as negative about Senator Obama, so the laundry list Olbermann could have given concerning Senator Obama was not mentioned. Conveniently, that left only a negative list about Senator Clinton in the minds of the viewers. I believe that was the whole point of his rant. Fox News is indeed fairer.

This morning Bob Schieffer went out of his way to state that Senator Clinton was telling superdelegates that Senator Obama could not be elected because of his race. Never has anyone come forward that has said that Senator Clinton even hinted that race was the disqualifier. Experience, Reverend Wright, but not race, may limit Senator Obama’s capabilities. Schieffer offered absolutely no corroboration for his statement, but now that thought has been planted in CBS viewers’ minds. The good, old boys are really at work.

The big networks may succeed in making Senator Obama the next Democratic Party candidate for President, but I, for one, will not forget their shabby treatment of Senator Clinton, nor, their equally ludicrous treatment of women in general. If the networks wish to reduce their market share, they have found the right approach. Instead of turning on a news channel or watching the national news at six, I turn to the internet. I expect this to continue as long as men control the networks, but I will not forget.