One of the reasons I find myself watching less television these days is that the quality of political analysis and discourse rarely rises above the level of mental masturbation. While we as a nation may be "blessed" with a surfeit of pundits, we do seem to be suffering from a lack of original (and honest) evaluation and analysis. When Fox News Channel can claim to be "fair and balanced" and no one seems to gag on their Chablis...well, if that doesn't provide a clue, I don't know what will.
Seemingly the only person on television with a modicum of intellectual honesty and a functional set of cojones these days is MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. I've long been a fan of Olbermann, going back to his days on ESPN's SportsCenter with Dan Patrick. In his current incarnation, though, Olbermann has truly become a voice for sanity, decency, and the righteous anger that so many intelligent, thoughtful Americans feel these days.
We live in a day and age when more than 4,000 young Americans are shipped home from war in flag-draped boxes, sacrificed in a criminal war purchased with lies, propaganda, and fudged intelligence. Yet Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © has announced that he's suffering as well. As a recognition of the depth and breadth of his suffering, he's announced that he's stopped playing golf...because it allegedly sends the wrong message. Nice, eh? A Marine loses half his skull. A mother loses her son. A wife loses her husband and the father of her children. The Worst President EVER ©? He loses his (&^%$#@ golf game.
Oh, the humanity of it all....
We also live in a day and age where lies, propaganda, and the sort of criminal mischief that once upon a time would have gotten a President hanged on the Mall goes by virtually unnoticed. We're so wrapped up in our $4/gallon gas that we no longer care, if we ever even noticed, the criminality and thuggery being committed in our name.
Keith Olbermann has noticed, and in last night's "Special Comment" he ripped The Decider © a new one...and deservedly so. In his barely-contained rage, Olbermann gave voice to the anger and disillusionment I've been feeling for so long now. Would that more of the Media had the intellectual and moral honesty (and simple human decency) to stand up and scream to the heavens that the emperor has no clothes.
Mr. President, have you no shame? Have you no functional sense of decency?? As if the answers to those rhetorical questions hasn't long-since been self-evident....
And to Keith Olbermann I would simply offer a heartfelt "thank you" for having the honesty and integrity to use his bully pulpit to speak truth to power. The revolution has to begin somewhere....
