Olbermann's the new Juno; I don't even like him but you guys are going to make me defend him on the internetz.
Yes, he's a blowhard and his Special Comments feel really manufactured. He mostly preaches to the choir and runs outrage-of-the-day kind of stuff. He could very well turn off some people who'd potentially be on his side.
But we've got a big, noisy political discourse in this country. There's room for different styles and levels of sophistication and a successful political movement is going to have to engage on all of them. It'd be nice if we could sit down and nerd it up, but does anyone think we'd get even a teensy bit closer to that if Olbermann went off the air?
His outrage seems phony, but haven't most of his subjects been outrageous? Ridiculing people doesn't bring them together, but aren't his targets ridiculous? What good does it do us to accord them respect?
I don't think anything he's done touches the current Glenn Beck crazy-train, or O'Reilly's stalker antics or the War on Christmas stuff. Olbermann's an ass, but he's not on their level. For that matter, he does less harm to the nation than David Brooks or George Will, who have the veneer of dignity.
PS This is the post I should have written about Al Franken, except that I like Franken way more than Olbermann. RLIABFI's recurring theme was about truth and fact-checking. For his image as a far lefty, Franken's mostly been a voice for data over ideology. I think Willco was giving him a totally bum rap.
