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Olbermann's
back. Whoop-de-doo
by Gene Lyons
For the record, I don't buy Keith
Olbermann's alibi that he didn't realize NBC News had a rule against
reporters making political donations. As his frequent invocations of
legendary figures going back to
Edward R. Murrow make clear, Olbermann's virtually a scholar of TV
broadcasting. He knew.
Historically speaking, avoiding entangling alliances with politicians
was as basic to journalism as, oh,
not sleeping with sources or filing stories datelined "Moscow" from
Connecticut. Even on the rustic
campus of Unsolicited Opinions Inc., the six-dog, one-man think tank
where this column originates,
we have an ironclad policy forbidding political contributions. It only
encourages them...
If Fox celebrities remained oddly quiet about Olbermann's predicament,
that's because they not only
donate to GOP candidates but make heavily promoted appearances at Tea
Party rallies. As Maddow
also pointed out, "There are multiple people being paid by Fox News now
essentially to run as
presidential candidates. (Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich,
etc.). If you count not just
their hosts but their contributors, you are looking at a significant
portion of the whole lineup of
Republican presidential contenders for 2012."
Meanwhile, feckless Democrats continue to act as if they're waiting for
the so-called mainstream media
to save them: the same worthies that gave us eight years of bogus
Clinton scandals, sold Saddam's
imaginary WMD like breakfast cereal, championed invading Iraq as if it
were the world's biggest
Boy Scout Jamboree, then reacted with horror last year when the Obama
White House suggested
that Fox News might not be a proper news organization.
Why is it wrong to give a candidate $2500? Isn't it a lot worse to have a war criminal on your show
and ask him one puffball question after another and then accept as the gospel truth every lie he tells you?
It's my understanding that after Tim Russert spends an eternity burning in hell,
he has to spend a second eternity just for punitive damages.
