Quote:
Originally Posted by AtLastHome
Maddow makes the distinctions clear between MSNBC's and Faux News as far as Fox really pimping for the GOP as well as the employment rules. I wonder if management will trump this up as making a point and Olberman will be back next week?
I am also wondering about what Corkey and others bring up about Olberman just breaching his emplyment contract. This doesn't make sense after hearing in this video that he could have asked management about making the donations. It seems like permission was granted to other MSNBC employees to do so.
Some of this seems strange to me.
|
I have mixed feelings. I really don't think Olbermann has the same powers of logic and consistency that Maddow (for example) has. He makes great points, he has interviewed people - very interesting people with very interesting points of view - that nobody else has.
He interviewed Raul Grijalva (one of the people he donated to) after Grijalva's office received a package of white powder with swastikas on the outside packaging. He's the best source on youtube for finding out more about that guy whose house burnt down while the firemen watched because he hadn't paid his pay-as-you-go fireman fee.
But he is a very emotional, impassioned speaker and he also delivers a lot of low blows. Which to me puts him further into the Fox-News-Like arena whether or not he actually fundraises for the people he's interviewing.
A friend and I were talking about how Jon Stewart kinda attacked him at the rally for sanity thing - basically saying Olbermann was part of the problem. (Which kinda reminds me of that saying about when you have one finger pointed at somebody else, the other three are pointing back at you). We were wondering whether Jon Stewart's conflation of MSNBC and especially Olbermann has had more to do with why MSNBC has suspended him than anything else.
It doesn't make sense that he would have intentionally gone against his contract to donate toward 3 campaigns. His ability to keep his job was doing more for those candidates than whatever money he could have given them (which would have gone back into tv exposure anyway). Either he knew it was a matter of public record or he thought it was somehow secret. If he knew it was a matter of public record, it doesn't make sense that he would have done it if he knew it would get him in trouble at work or make him look bad on the national stage. If he somehow thought his donations would remain a secret, then that would make him look extremely bad because he's been attacking the US Chamber of Commerce for accepting secret and overseas donations and then running republican political ads. The guy who originally replaced him was then also found to have made political contributions, so if I had to make a guess it would be that there was the official policy which wasn't enforced, that there was a culture of violation of that policy or a culture of not caring if people violated that policy and that MSNBC suspended him because they are very concerned with not looking like the liberal equivalent to Fox (which Jon Stewart recently emphasized).
The thing with Fox is that there really does need to be an equally strong counterbalance. They don't have to be so crooked, but MSNBC's shying away from liberalism right now just stinks of fear and disloyalty that has been the sickness of many dems and other leberals since obama took office.