The Olbermann factor *Keith In Salon*

Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 06:52:00 AM PDT
Wonderful interview with Keith today in Salon.

Go read it. Makes a person proud to be a viewer.

Salon

The Olbermann factor

It, in many respects, is accomplishing -- as I said on the air the other night -- that which the terrorists are supposed to be looking to do, which is to divide us, make us fearful, change our way of life. I believe Mr. Bush said they hate us for our liberty, and the government seems to be intent on reducing many of those freedoms and liberties. It's been building; this is not the first time I've said anything about this, about the administration or about its conduct. Pretty much this has been constant since this newscast went on the air. As they have wandered further from reality and our history and what I think all of us -- liberals and conservatives and everybody else -- were taught as far as our way of life. The further they wander away, the harder you have to reach out to try and grab them and pull them back.

In reference to something many of us have wondered....

Is there anyone over in corporate headquarters who's seeing what happens as you take this approach and saying, "Keep doing this, it's helping you"?

Oh, yeah. If there has been any negative reaction to it, it has been kept from me. In other words, they have [approached it] the way you would want employers in this situation to approach it. They have been supportive.

Sound familiar? (re Faux)

I think that the news operations that were willing to address that, to approach it in any kind of analytical way, even by means of commentary, could benefit in a situation where people are looking for the truth. And an organization that is beholden to a political party and to a point of view -- entirely beholden to that -- is going to lose, as they have.

And on a relevant note

snip...

but the last week or so before the Lewinsky story took over, I can remember interviewing Dr. Richard Haass, who's just late of the Bush administration, and a fellow named Jim Dunnigan, a couple times each at least, about Middle Eastern-based terrorism and goals to bring that to the United States. That's what we should have been talking about in 1998, and instead, a political party decided to take trivia and turn it into the only issue of public discourse.

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