Eh. KO still beats Jamie Kirchick.

Is this stupid points night? While I'm not a fan of either Moore or Olbermann, there ideas are unrelated. Bush doesn't take terrorism seriously enough that he says that while teeing up. Bush thinks giving up his golf game is a serious sacrifice during a war which he doesn't mind watch being mismanaged.

This has nothing to do with liberals caring if Bush plays golf or not.

Bush was an unserious, callous asshole who just didn't get it when he flippantly said, "Now, watch this drive."

Bush was an insincere, unctuous fool who just didn't get it with the whole "gave up golf" thing. (In fact, it most likely was an optics decision based directly on "watch this drive.") Just like when he solemnly declared that he'd given up sweets in solidarity with the troops. (Which, as petty and insignificant as that was, turned out to be a lie anyway.)

Two different situations, two times he acted like a jerk. What's the problem, again? Is your point *really* that there are people who were mad at Bush for playing golf, and those same people should now be grateful that he's (allegedly) not playing golf now? Olbermann's right: It's not about the golf game.

I really don't understand all the crap occasionally aimed at Olbermann from those who aren't right-wingers. Is he occasionally self-important? Yes - and spank my hiney and call me Sally, because that certainly sets him apart from every other TV personality, doesn't it? Tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and their ilk, along with Mathews, say all manner of batshit crazy nonsense on a regular basis. Here's one guy who runs an opinion show from the opposite point of view, with three notable differences: 1) most importantly, he's not a habitual liar, and 2) he's often very funny, and 3) he's a pretty good interviewer. The TV punditocracy is utterly dominated by right-wingers - I was chagrined just the other day to discover that the odious Laura Ingraham now has her own show - and "balanced" discussion panels that typically include two conservatives and a right-leaning moderate. People get bent out of shape because Olbermann copped Murrow's tag line (which is an homage, by the way, not a delusion of grandeur that he is the new Murrow), but O'Reilly's spot-on Father Coughlin impression gets "Oh, that's O'Reilly being O'Reilly."

It's really quite odd.

I fail to see the contradiction here.  Both are equally ridiculous.  The first, where bush says something like "We must do all we can to find and defeat the terrorist killers... now watch this drive!" shows a bizarre juxtaposition of serious terrorist rhetoric and utter frivolity.  At the same time, President Bush saying "He's giving up golf because we're at war" also shows utter frivolity on the war on terror.  His idea of national sacrifice and Presidential symbolism n the war on terror is... giving up golf.  Though on the one instance he plays golf, and in the second he gives it up, it's hardly a contradiction in terms.  This post's logic is just plain superficial.

Nice post. Someone recognizing that the likes of Olbermann and Mikey are fundamentally no different from Limbaugh and O'Reilly: this is progress.

Isaac,

I hate to complicate an already complicated post, but it turns out Bush didn't give up golf.  He started playing again.  

Does ths mean the War on Terrorism is over?  Who won?

Dan

dbuck, right. Isaac, the point isn't whether or not W is playing golf. It is the apparent disconnect between Bush's recreational choices and the gravitas of the situation. Of course the 'watch this drive' moment is a cheap shot. No one believes the president should give up golf just because someone asks him a question. What is clear is the juxtaposition. Bush appears in that frame and ever since to consider anti terrorism activities like war and torture to be essentially equal in his mind to a good round of golf.

KO and MM are not really comparable in my book. For one, I think there's something to be said for KO's direct camera address. It's opinionated, and occasionally churlish, but it's someone expressing his opinion. And it's clearly marked out as such. Whereas MM selectively arranges film clips to give an air of truth while shading the truth. I enjoy watching Olbermann sometimes, while recognizing he's kind of a windbag, and that the only reason I enjoy him at all is because I agree with him. MM is reprehensible.

"This was of course supposed to prove that Bush does not take terrorism seriously, or is an idiot, or God knows what. But now Bush has sworn off golf, which apparently also proves that he is cruel and uncaring. And something tells me the same people who nodded vigorously at Moore's movie are now nodding vigorously at Olbermann's monologues. Terrific. "

The shot of him playing golf in Moore's film underscored his thesis: that the Bush administration and Bush himself cynically used the war and the soldiers who died in it for their own purposes, that they are essentially bad people who don't care about the horrors they caused. There's no "God knows what" about it; the motive for using the clip was transparent, and, whether the film was especially interesting or not, fit in clearly and simply and understandably. Anyone who was nodding his head was doing so because he agreed with the sentiments of the film. And don't fall into the "proof" trap; not every clip in Moore's documentary functions as "proof" so much as emotional reinforcement. It was an opinion piece, not reporting. There were a number of facts and statistics if I remember correctly that were emphasized by the less evidentiary clips, the golf game being a good example.

Olbermann's thesis is more general frustration with the Bush administration, who through blunders and immorality have perpetrated all sorts of things on the American public and the world. Cleverly, if you had watched the whole address, Olbermann uses the golf issue as a structure to put disparate elements together. His outrage about the golf comments comes as a sort of "final straw"; after endless amounts of pain and suffering and breached trust the president wants to show his commitment to the troops by ceasing to play golf. The president, in the interview, seems to expect us all to nod our heads then, to acknowledge how gravely he must feel to give up his precious golf. It's not wildly difficult to figure out why this my piss off someone who's spent a good deal of time thinking about the Bush administration, especially, as revealed in the interview, when it's a lie, and that the supposed symbol of redoubled seriousness has been compromised several times since it supposedly began. Watch the whole clip. I don't really care about it, and am ambivalent about Olbermann's addresses, but your characterization is just inaccurate and your post lazily dismisses the wrong aspects of whatever might be displeasing about both works.

Isaac, channeling his inner Kirchick.

great post woody.

epic, I only watch Michelle Malkin with the sound off. As to why I do that, well as you are a lady you don't want to know. But good lord, I could never be married to her.

Blackie - took the words right out of my mouth.

Tep: there is nothing wrong with Polemic, as long it is presented as that.  As a student of rhetoric, I find Olberman's comments well-structured, well-delivered and incredibly well-written.  Cicero he is not; but then Cicero was probably not Cicero either and has had two thousand years of editing to imrpove.  You're just allergic to polemic and to rhetoric, methinks - nothing wrong with that, but does not detract from the force of Olberman's comments.

O'Reilly is just an ignorant fool.  There is a difference between having strong opinions and being opinionated; there is nothing wrong with the former.

Isaac, people aren't annoyed by Bush because he gave up golf. People are annoyed because he (1) trumpeted his selflessness in giving up golf, asking for credit, and (2) he was lying about his motives -- he actually gave up golf several months later due to an injury, not as a self-effacing act of empathy for the troops.

If Bush had simply stopped golfing, nobody would criticize that choice. But he looks like a fool when he compares his sacrifice to the much greater sacrifices of the people he dispatched into harm's way. And he looks like a fool independently of his "now watch this drive" flippance in Fahrenheit 9/11.

icarus - witty polemic, all for it. Olbermann's wit was better expressed when he delivered canned on-liner puns on olf baseball chestnuts ("whether you're alone or scoring at home..."). Me, I don't find his Hyde Park diatribes interesting or witty or well-said.

But hey, O'Reilly-ism is a large and presumably profitable niche for money-losing, collapsing Old Media. Gotta keep up with the Dobbses.

Gotta agree with those who think this post is blitheringly off-target.  Frankly the attempt to find a contradiction in this anecdote reflects something sadly short of critical thinking.  

As for Olbermann, the only reason he has an audience is that he had the decency to be publicly and unrepentantly outraged at the horseshit perpetrated by the Bush administration at a time when nobody--not Democrats in Congress, not the Democratic Party generally, and sure as hell nobody at TNR--nobody with a large public forum in the US had the decency to be outraged.  It's probably too bad he's continued to dance with the girl what brung'em to quite such a degree, but it's hardly surprising,  And the idiocy about the Murrow quote; nobody's ever heard of homage around here?  Does every baseball player who wears number 44 think he's Hank Aaron?  Chill, people.

You wanna tear down Olbermann?  Last night he put up a rather complex argument that much of the blame for current high gas prices can be laid at the feet of McCain and his advisers, more specifically to polilcies which wer enacted and protected by said persons.  Right or wrong?  Discuss.

Tep: For wit I go to Oscar.  Or Winston.  I don't expect anything other than Vaudville from Cable News; and I am seduced by a well-structured sentence.  If you have my low standards and expectations, I guess it's easy to like Olberman from time to time :-).

Agree with cspencef.

Olbermann and his bosses at MSNBC stood up to the monolith of Bush + MSM. They took a chance. Millions of Americans exhaled and said, "Finally!" They've rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. I hope they've only just begun.

Tep, you say you don't find Olbermann witty? Is your calling Matt Yglesias an "asshole" yesterday your idea of wit? Would you find Olbermann more of a wit if he called, say, Bill O'Reilly an "asshole"?