Here's the sad thing for me, I must confess that I really, really liked Keith Olbermann for a very long time.
He was half of perhaps the greatest Sports Center duo ever on ESPN! He and Dan Patrick comprised a dynamic duo that brought sports highlights to, well, new heights.
Today Keith Olbermann is the whole (as in A-hole) of perhaps the most disastrous political talk commentary show on TV.
From "Joumanji" to "Jou-OhMyGodit'satrainwreck" in about four years (3/31/03)? That's gotta be some kind of record.
Sure, he's taken his Countdown right from his old Sports Center day's top highlights and he's added his "Today's Worst Person in the World" segment...a segment so lame that it could be a really bad Daily Show skit, but it's not even crazy enough, or edgy enough to be that.
It's just heart-wrenchingly lame.
How lame is it?
Well, it's so lame that just based on that one segment alone, I'm making Keith Olbermann my "Douschebag Du Jour" (and I just came up with that on the spot and it's funnier and less bulky than Olberman's poor man's Jon Stewart impersonation) for the entire month of March 2007 (what can I say, I'm a lazy bastard....but at least I'm not mind-numbingly lame).
So, where did Keith Olbermann go wrong?
Well, he left Dan Patrick and Sports Center for one thing. What kind of a nitwit would leave a gold mine like that?
But even more disastrous, Keith Olbermann decided that he'd engage in a little thing we like to call "Liberal commentary."
Come on Keith!
Liberal commentary is a lot like red bell-bottoms.
Now go look in the mirror.
What do you see?
OK, look harder.......yeah, you're a white suburbanite punk, same as me.
You have to be either a woman or a black guy to pull off red bell-bottoms Keith and you're neither.
Think about it! Women (sorry ladies) can pull off just about anything fashion-wise (it's true) because, sad as it may seem, no one's paying any attention to the fat chicks and every guy is just imagining all the others naked.
See how that goes? Red bell-bottoms/burqua, it really doesn't mater, because we're all busy trying to picture you ladies naked.
Black guys, well that's another story altogether.
I don't know how they can pull off such fashion faux pas, I guess life's just innately unfair.
You've seen it a million times by now. Your in the 7/11 (stop, don't act as though you don't go there) and in walks....no saunters...a black kid wearing red bell-bottoms...and it's a GUY! They're also low riders, half way down his butt revealing his four pair of underwear....and your stunned...stunned that ANY guy could actually pull off that fashion atrocity, but low and behold, he's doing it. Going where very few straight men have ever gone before.
What's the first thing you ask yourself?
No, NOT, "What's he doing wearing four pair of underwear?" Although that's a fair question.
Right, "I wonder how I'd look in that get up?"
And suddenly, almost instinctively and certainly against your will, a vision as horrific as a fat guy in a speedo slams itself off the four walls of your brain, rattling around in there like the image of some horrific war wound, or Mike Dukakis sitting dorkily inside that tank wearing a helmet seventeen sizes too big...and you realize exactly what you'd look like wearing those low rider, red bell-bottoms - like a middle aged, white dork wearing a grossly obscene, ass-revealing costume guaranteed to drive others around you into fits of uncontrollable violence.
You shudder at the thought and come to your senses. Red bell-bottoms just aren't for the likes of you and me.
But as if to confirm this revelation, a young white kid struts into the same store in almost the exact same get up...and he grins and flashes you a bunch of what you presume to be gang signs, as he stands there looking as ridiculous as a chimpanzee in overalls.
Your first thought is "Should I get a gun, or just a bat to put this poor son-of -bitch out of his misery?" I mean you really feel sorry for this pathetic shitbird even more so because you realize, "There but for the grace of a few horrific images..."
You see Keith? Liberal commentary is the verbal equivalent of those red bell-bottoms. It's hard to look good, let alone manly wearing them, especially for white suburbanite punks like us.
You think I don't sympathize?!
You think I haven't heard that same siren's call?
Sure I have! How many times have I heard that call, "JMK, you're a funny guy and you can really turn a phrase...at least some of the time...and we could really use you over here on the Left......that's aisle NINE, under red bell-bottoms. Sure they don't look good on everyone, but we believe you could pull it off."
Yeah right!
The day I try and squeeze my fat, white-bread ass into a pair of low rider, red bell-bottoms, is the day I finish off that ensemble with what I like to call a twelve gauge necktie.
In short, come to your senses Kieth, just stop it. Give up the ghost and crawl back to Dan Patrick and ESPN....if they'll still have you, but give up on this ill-fated, ill-conceived political commentary show. It's pathetic....as pathetic as a pair of red bell-bottoms on a middle aged white suburbanite punk.
And drop your ridiculous one-sided "feud" with Bill O'Reilly. You're not coming off like a pit bull with a grip on O'Reilly's jugular, but as a bouncing, drooling puppy-dog humping his leg.
The fact of the matter is that O'Reilly has already "deliveranced" you...and by "deliveranced," I mean grabbed you by both ears and butt reamed you like a meth-crazed hillbilly, demanding that you squeal like a pig."
<
Sorry, but that's the butt-ugly reality of it all.
You're NOT Ned Beatty and quite frankly, you don't need that. ...and neither does the viewing public - which for you is your entire family and the eight other MSNBC regulars breathlessly waiting for Joe Scarborough.
Please Keith, PLEASE!!! Take off those red bell-bottoms, you look ridiculous.
11 comments:
Did you see Glenn Beck respond directly to the criticisms Obly lobs at him in the current Rolling Stone?
"Olby"
No, I missed that, though I did see a YouTube clip where Beck sort of mildly rebuked Olberman for claiming that guys like Beck will eventually "say something that destroys their on-air careers."
I feel bad that Olberman went down the road to political talk. He's really not cut out for it - too thin skinned and too much "feeling" without enough reason to back it up.
He was a great Sports Center anchor. He probably should've stayed put.
OK, look harder.......yeah, you're a white suburbanite punk, same as me.
(snorts)
I used to like him too in the Countdown days when he talked about all subjects and not develop this BDS. The coup de grace (sp) was his condemning W last 9/11. He could have held back a day or two. Instead he had to pull a Michael Moore.
I will not be surprised if Guiliani wins 2008.
Rachel, as you know there are a lot of good arguments against the way Iraq's been handled and consistent people (Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and many Libertarians) who've consistently opposed ALL our "foreign entanglements (Bosnia, Gulf War I, etc) can make some decent arguments against the war itself...and I have no problem with that.
I can express my disagreement and hash over the facts, even if we ultimately agree to disagree.
But Olberman has really fallen hard.
I mean he was part of a great Sports Center duo, though Sturat Scott and Rich Eisen weren't half bad either, but now he's humiliated himself with that childish and one-sided "feud" with O'Reilly and compounds the error with that "Worst Person in the World" bit and, as you say, continually spews that extreme BDS....I'm telling you, I kinda feel bad for the guy.
Don't feel bad, JMK, I too am sorry that Keith and ESPN parted company. He and dan were magic weren't they?
Ironically, he is back to doing a 1 hour stint on Dan's ESPN radio show between 2-3 which is still damned good (1050 in NYC)
Keith has a rather large ego which is what created his problems with ESPN in the first place and led to his departure.
His 'spat' with O'Reilly which is all one-sided, is his one claim to fame. Unfortunately, his employer MSNBC is the TV equivalent of Air America which means that the host is celebrated for his/her verbal skills measured in a vacuum of minimal ratings.
Unlike a more respected journalist on his station, Chris Matthews, Keith never allows anyone with a contrary viewpoint to visit his show. This is obviously indicative of a fear of having his clock cleaned by someone with more skills in politics than his - a rather small order.
Yeah, I really liked him and Dan Patrick on Sports Center.
As for political commentary, he's kind of a dork, which is surprising, given how smooth he can be, but like I said - Liberal commentary, it's like those red bell-bottoms.
I will agree to disagree (strongly) with your view of Olbermann, but the way you make your point -- the wonderful red bell-bottoms analogy -- is just genius. Kudos!
Don, I thank you for disagreeing without rancor.
You have every right to disagree and such things are generally pretty subjective - a matter of individual taste or preference.
Exactly when did Olberdork take his dive?
It seems I remember seeing his show a couple of years ago and the one or two I watched I thought were pretty funny. I didn't feel as though he was terribly leftist.
But, more recently I tried watching and only lasted a minute or two. Has he changed that much or did I just catch him doing some neutral topics those couple of years ago?
I liked Beck's way of dealing with him. He agreed that yes, someday he (Beck) WILL probably say something that will cost him his job. Lot's of TV/radio people do that, so what?
Whatever made anyone think that Kieth could do politics just because of his sports success? How does one relate to the other? Because both are just talking into a microphone? I don't think so.
The Rush and Dennis Miller stints in the football booth should have been a lesson for all on the crossover theory.
No matter, I have 50 or so other channels of crap to choose from and never have to watch him anyway.
You know Dan, I think NBC itself has lurched hard Left over the past year.
I agree, that Olberman wasn't nearly as shrill before that, BUT I still thought he was far better suited to Sports Center - him and Dan Patrick were just awesome together.
And you're right about Limbaugh and Miller - those were two disastrous stints. Limbaugh had to inject the political into everything and Miller's just too arcane for a football color-man.
I think the feud with O'Reilly got really childishly personal, somewhat on both their parts, but it seems like Olberman strated that by taking a statement O'Reilly said the wrong way - womething about Phil Donahue having had better ratings than Olberman was getting at the time.
If it weren't for Animal Planet where you can watch an Anaconda devour a Caiman, I don't know what I'd watch!
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