Comments on: Get you six mo’.

By: del

del — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:15:53 +0000

I love it that Keith said that the Rorschach blot looked like and inkblot. Maybe that’s being difficult or maybe that’s just stepping outside of the box and telling the truth — I think my Psych 101 text referred to that as an “Einstellung.” (Will check Wiki) Same goes for his withering exit interview; most lemmings diplomatically offer measured feedback with an eye toward future needs; not too many to tell the terrible truth to power. More power to him, I say. Though life is difficult for folks who don’t compromise their integrity. Also, Keith said in the article: “This is an old schoolyard thing I learned from being repeatedly beat up in the fourth grade.” I don’t agree with everything the guy says but I certainly do respect him.

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:13:14 +0000

Well, del, I guess reasonable people can disagree reasonably. This passage seems to be where I inferred “mad at everything since 5th grade” - which you do not see; and where you inferred that he “got beat up some”, which I don’t see.

(emphasis added)

He also had the reputation, even among those who admired his talents, of being somewhat difficult. Growing up in suburban Hastings-on-Hudson, in Westchester County, he was the sort of kid who, when his parents thought psychological testing was in order, responded to the Rorschach test by saying, “It looks like an inkblot.” Advised that Keith might be better served by a private education, his parents—Theodore, a commercial architect, and Marie, a preschool teacher—enrolled him at the Hackley School, in Tarrytown. It wasn’t an easy adjustment; Keith had skipped a grade and was younger than anyone else in his class, and he wasn’t a jock. But he was a good student, and the school’s radio station became his home. Olbermann worked as a sports stringer in college, at Cornell, and when he graduated, in 1979, he went directly to a sportscasting job at UPI radio in New York.

Other parts of the article point out how he got himself fired with some regularity, and how he burned bridges (or “napalmed” them, as an ESPN colleague said!) whenever he left one place to go to another; and indeed the piece ends with his current boss comparing him to a jerk of a boyfriend that the women in his audience have to live with, since they have “no place else to go”….which sounds wrong enough that one almost wonders if Kieth-O might have knocked a serious crack into his viewrship base.

But in any case, I find the guy more entertaining than not, and watch him at least a time or two each week….although to be honest, my pro-Obama bias made me very much happier with Kieth-O, in recent months. Nowadays I’ve turned the wick down on the day-to-day politics fix (we’ve got all summer and fall for this steady accumulation of crap, right? Wake me up at the end of September)

By: del

del — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:00:13 +0000

I just looked at the article again and, not to be too picky but I didn’t see anything in it about Olbermann being mad at everything since 5th grade — though he did skip a grade and was unathletic and got beat up some.

By: del

del — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:49:51 +0000

I saw her ungallant remarks about him (something about calling in a medical team for him) but what were his ungallant remarks about her?
On a related note, I’m always amazed at the hotness factor of some of the cable TV news women. (Not so much with the men.) CNN’s got this lovely conservative black female political pundit whose eyes are googly like she’s downed some belladonna . . . and then she opens her mouth and sounds like a Chi Omega sorority girl.
Reminds me of the portrait of Kramer on Seinfeld about which the art patron remarked, “It is repulsive . . . and yet . . . I cannot avert my gaze.”

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:40:28 +0000

Olbermann’s been justifiably mad as hell about a misleading president and a press corps comprised almost entirely of lemmings

True enough - but as the piece points out, he’s been mad as hell since the 5th grade!! - about EVERYTHING!!

It WAS a revelation to me that he almost got the CBS news gig. That sort of explains his hostility toward Couric. (and speaking of hot women on TV, it was also news to me that he dated Laura Ingraham back in the day…although his ungallant remarks about her were no surprise at all)

By: del

del — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:36:41 +0000

I read the New Yorker piece on Olbermann. You have to love anybody who got so sick of the Monica Lewinsky affair being highlighted every-day-for-months that he almost refused to go on air for the show “White House in Crisis” to deconstruct it. Anger can be a good thing too. Charles Dickens wrote about the virtue of having “a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires . . .”

By: del

del — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:00:29 +0000

Thanks for the link to the New Yorker article about Olbermann. Though there are similarities between O’Reilly and Olbermann it’s a mistake to equate the two. Olbermann’s been justifiably mad as hell about a misleading president and a press corps comprised almost entirely of lemmings; what’s O’Reilly ever been justifiably mad about? Immigrants? Gay marriage? “Happy Holidays?”

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:44:01 +0000

Sen. Cornyn — you need a bucket of irony mixed in with yer feed trough, ‘cuz you ain’t gettin’ enuf in yer diet.

Plus some roughage. Yer a bit backed up, too.

By: Terry WAlter

Terry WAlter — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:40:31 +0000

Here in the Fort,there is a Texas Roadhouse restaurant. When the waitress came around, I asked her if she had ever been to Texas. This was my lead-in to a diatribe about what the eff do those people think they’ve got to brag about. Her reply,” oh, I’m FROM Texas”. Well, not wanting to act like a Texan, this just led to some small talk about the old home. Nice girl, must be the better ones plan their escape.

By: Gasman

Gasman — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:35:29 +0000

Ah, the bullshit still runs wide and deep down in the heart of Texas. I did 14 years down in the Lone Star State, so I’m very familiar with the “you ain’t shit if you ain’t from Texas” attitude that was palpable.

They have an impressive tradition of idiot governors - “Good Hair” Perry and his predecessor Bush, come to mind - and it looks like they’re expanding it to include Senators. We had already fled the state by the time Cronyn was elected, so I had nothing to do with it.

How about that jacket in the video? He looks like he was auditioning for a part in the sequel to Brokeback Mountain. Texas is no place for ladies, queers, or liberals. Cronyn would probably say they’re all the same.

Drinking and driving was legal in Texas in the mid 80’s, but the blue laws said that you couldn’t buy a Bible on Sunday. That’s Texas style logic for ya’.

Remember the words of General Phil Sheridan: “If I owned Hell and Texas I would rent out Texas and live in Hell.”

He clearly recognized the true glory of Texas.