Olbermann

[David]

Originally Posted by iamnotafraid

I do stand by my comments that Keith Olbermann is a very mean spirited man.
I invite anyone who can stomach it to watch him on MSNBC and see if you don't
come away feeling the same. Even if you agree with his Liberal ideas I don't see
how anyone couldn't see the hate.

What bugs me isn't "hatred" per se but personality. I can't stand that personality--that sophomoric snideness which passes for wit or acerbity among not-very-bright high schoolers. Moreover, he obviously believes he's amusing, too (hence his nightly shtick "Worst Person in the World" with stentorian voice), but I can't think of anyone who is actually less funny. (I'd have to sift through my memories of old MTV program hosts like Tom Green, & I don't want to do that.) This all goes double for Rachel What's-Er-Name, his exact gynic double.

Here's what I think happened: Talk radio (across the political spectrum) was popular throughout the '90s, when most cable news channels were feeling their way. To grab market, cable began transforming itself into visual talk radio, adopting its tone, its rhythm, its rhetorical ploys, its incoherencies in logic, its analytic vacuities, its crowd-pleasing jingoism (or anti-jingoism). The whole push to become talk radio on TV was hugely successful, obviously. It paid off in a big way for all these channels. All these annoyances -- Hannity, O'Reilly, Olbermann, Colmes, Maddow, Matthews, etc., PLUS all their daily "guests" (Morris, Coulter, Gingrich, Buchanan, Estrich et al.) -- are talk radio-style yappers on the boob tube. In fact, many of them actually have talk radio jobs, too.

As far as my MSNBC sinking ship statement, I can make two points there. MSNBC has consistently been losing the ratings war with FOX News and CNN.

Fox is constantly alerting us to the "fact" that MSNBC is a "sinking ship." It's been years since it started to sink, pal. Must be a damned big ship.

What as a Conservative Christian would you have me watch?

That depends on what you want. If you want more sophisticated political commentary or analysis, turn off cable news & read "The Economist."

All they do is talk over them. They make statements instead of asking
questions (that goes for all the networks).

It isn't long before one is able to catch on to their game, is it? "Interviews" consist of nothing but logical fallacies & rhetorical gamesmanship ("Isn't Obama's radicalism going to put us all in danger?"), all of it delivered in a mad, noisy rush intended to get rammed in to the slot before commercial break. (It's like trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle.) As I say, it's all nothing but talk radio on the tube.