Keith Olbermann's Cowardice Has Reached An All Time Low

Before you call me out for hypocrisy, in my RIP post, I was discussing how everyday people will remember Michael Jackson years down the road, not how a cable news network should go about with their tribute show. And last night, Keith Olbermann and Vanity Fair's Maureen Orth completely disgraced the legacy of the King of Pop.

Unfortunately and much to my chagrin, I can't find you any video, but here are some quotes from last night's clusterfuck of an interview courtesy of a transcript of provided by MSNBC.

Count the number of distortions and bashings of hte late-great Jackson as possibe in Orth's answer.

OLBERMANN: Did he? Did he ever find the life he wanted?

ORTH: I don‘t think so. Michael Jackson gave a lecture at Oxford in 2001, in which he said childhood was supposed to be the wondrous time in your life. I never had that childhood. He grew up on the stage. He was a superstar at a very young age. His family whipped him into being the money-maker for them. He resented it terribly.

He really did become very much addicted to fame. It became grotesque at a certain point. He was so extremely talented that nobody ever told him no. And he was surrounded by enablers. And the charges that I followed from 1994 until 2005, the allegations of pedophilia against him, I believe were very much probably more true than not.

And he had—he battled drugs. He had alcohol problems. He gave—it came out in the trial testimony that he called white wine Jesus Juice and red wine Jesus blood, and he gave it to teenagers. He really was a very, very sad person, who had been given great, great, extreme talent.

But in the end, the life he led was grotesque.

No objection ever came from Keith. And even if there was some veracity to those distortions, this is not the kind of things you say about a man 3 HOURS AFTER HE WAS PRONOUNCED DEAD!

We continue on and while I ended the blockquote with some commentary, we are resuming the interview right where I left off.

OLBERMANN: I‘ve often heard this used about athletes, about politicians, about anyone who has excelled in any field that requires a part of you to become permanently public. People say, if only they could have somehow separated out these bad parts of the personality, these compulsive or addictive or abusive parts of the personality that has eventually come up to end or dismantle part of the public career; is that possible? With your experience of people like Michael Jackson, not that there was crowds and crowds of them—but there are many people that who fall under this broad category of enormous talent and enormous mistakes, and enormous controversy, everything writ large. Is there any separating or are all these things so interweaved that you might not be able to say which is cause and which is affect, but it‘s all part of one bundle?

ORTH: What happens, I think, is at a certain point, you‘ve been told you‘re a genius so many time, and you are a genius musically, and you are not really allowed to grow up and mature in a normal way. Narcissism takes over. I remember one time in Neverland, there was a black velvet painting and Michael Jackson, I think he had commissioned it. And it was Michael Jackson, Mohamed Ali, Martin Luther King, and Jesus Christ. That‘s kind of how he viewed himself, in that pantheon.

So he was always surrounded by enablers, people who wanted to get close to him, close to his talent, close to his money. I don‘t think it is at all surprising that we‘re not hearing this statement come out. I‘m sure there is amazing behind the scenes craziness going on right now, because I think chaos followed Michael wherever he went. And I‘m sure that this is one of those chaotic moments.

What is going to happen to the children? Everybody, all the creditors are going to be in line for the money. I‘m sure this story is going to go on with a lot of craziness.

OLBERMANN: Yes, if there is money, or if it hasn‘t already disappeared—

ORTH: There is still—I think he still owned about 25 percent of his catalog. Sony was taking it little by little, piece by piece. But there is potential problems in the future because of his extraordinary music for many years to come. There‘s plenty to fight over.

She called the man a narcissist. 3 hours after he died she calls him a narcissist. And once again, no objection from Keith Olbermann. He is perfectly fine with everything Maureen has said. And just as an aside, Maureen is a known critic and basher of Jackson. Why is she even on this show anyway? Shouldn't this discussion be saved for later?

And the only thing I can say about this next question is tell me this did nut just happen.....

OLBERMANN: [...] What was this comeback tour all about? What do you think it meant to him?

ORTH: Well, the comeback tour first has to be about money, because he was always having terrible, terrible problems with money and debt. And he would attach himself to various sheikhs and billionaires in different parts of the world, where he still had a measure of a claim. He was very big in Poland, for example, or in parts of the Middle East. So he would find very rich people in these more out of the way places, and sort of live off of them for a while, until they got tired of it, or until the concerts didn‘t materialize or whatever. And then he would be thrown out and they would go on and there would be more lawsuits.

This is a person who lived in constant chaos, and probably kept a whole retinue of lawyers all the time working. So the amount of money that came in, the amount of money that came out was extraordinary.

Having said that, of course Michael wanted to be revered. He wanted to be considered a god. At one point, he had some man going around the world trying to find places where he could get lifetime achievement awards. That was one of his favorite things, was to appear in different parts of the world with a lifetime achievement award.

So he needed—he had an ego that need to be fed. But he really didn‘t like entertaining anymore. And, of course, his family for years—his brothers begged him, please, please come out with us. Do another concert tour with us. And they would constantly announce that this was about to happen, which, of course, it never happened. He didn‘t really want anything to do with his family.

I remember that his parents were very loyally sitting in the front row of the trial in 2005 most days. And different various relatives would come in and come out. As soon as that not guilty verdict came down, boy, he disappeared. He went in one direction. They went in another. And I don‘t think they could get him on the phone.

Unbelieveable.

I think that occult777 summed this whole thing up best in a Daily Kos entry:

On the day the world mourns the shocking, sudden death of Michael Jackson, Keith Olbermann decided to reflect on his memory by bringing Vanity Fair's Maureen Orth into the studio to trash Michael's image with lies and innuendos most of which were without merit.

I have always held Mr. Olbermann in high regard as a journalist. Common decency dictates that on the day a person dies, we all owe the deceased and their family a certain amount of respect. As the saying goes, if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all. For crying out loud, Keith! You had Maureen Orth sit there and spew hateful rhetoric and unsubstantiated stories as facts, while you sat there and egged her on to give you more dirt. How dare you?

This is a shocking occurrence and most of us are saddened by the tragic nature of such an untimely passing. The man may not have been an angel but give us all a break and allow us to mourn in peace. I would stand up for you in your memory if on the day of your passing, some hater and twisted buffoon made statements, however controversial about the life you lived. I hope when you get the opportunity to review tonight's segment with Maureen Orth, who by the way, has and always will be a hater and an innuendo pedlar, that sensationalizes for the sake of magazine sales, you will make a decent commentary and address the inappropriate nature of what transpired on your show tonight.

You heard it in Mr. Oxman's voice as he spoke between tears of losing a friend. Today, a fellow human being died. He was a brother, a son, a cousin and an uncle. More than just a pop icon who's dirty laundry was aired in public for all to see. You Keith, ought to be above the fray.

You have really disappointed a whole lot of your fans tonight.

Update!! - This is NOT about Keith bashing. I am a true fan of Olbermann's. I Have been since his sportscaster days. The man isn't perfect all the time, but most of the time. He should be called out, when he makes a mistake.

Suffice to say, Keith Olbermann has disappointed me greatly. There is only one fallacy in that quote and I'll get to that later. There is one thing that Keith Olbermann cannot and will never be able to overcome: The man is a coward!!!!! He is utterly afraid to disagree with any guest he ever has and I think I can count on one finger the number of times he has had more than one guest on his program. There is no debate, no interesting discussions. The studio is and always has been an echo-chamber. And Keith makes it that way. For he never, NEVER disagrees with anything his guests say. Case and point, take the Jeanine Garofalo incident from a couple months ago. Listen as she calls EVERY PERSON who joined in in the tea party protests (or as Keith Olbermann and others called them, "teabaggers") a racist and listen closer as KEITH ACTUALLY EXPRESSES AGREEMENT WITH THAT RIDICULOUS, ABSURD, OFFENSIVE, AND DOWNRIGHT FALSE STATEMENT!!!!!!!!



I'll admit that when I first started watching Countdown, I was blind as a bat. I had never seen O'Reilly before and I thought Olbermann was the greatest thing ever. But I can see now. My only disagreement with the aforementioned is that the poster called Keith Olbermann a journalist. That, he is not. He is a liberal commentator. And whether he'll ever admit it or not, that's exactly what he is. Just like Sean Hannity is a neo-conservative commentator, just like Glenn Beck is a liberterian commentator, and just like Bill O'Reilly is an independent commentator. I've been watching The O'Reilly Factor and he is not a far-right Republican has Keith Olbermann portrays him as. He just does not have a hard-on for Obama as Keith Olbermann frequently seems to do, especially on domestic issues (Olbermann's a little better at criticizing him on foreign policy). For those that believe Olbermann and consider O'Reilly right-wing, I challenge you to watch him for a week, whether it be live at 8 PM ET or the replay at 11 PM ET. And for those into ratings, not only is O'Reilly's overall numbers tripled that of Keith's, but more often than not, the Factor re-air has more viewers than the live 8 PM edition of Countdown!

This is not a far-right opinion that I am presenting here. It is the facts of the situation. For those that don't know and/or forget, I am a liberal democrat (especially on social issues) and I campaigned hard and voted for Obama. But you have to be able to criticize even those that you agree with it and even if their opinions are the same as yours, that does not make them perfect angel who do no harm.

Let's go back to O'Reilly for a second here and Keith's cowardice. I've been watching the O'Reilly Factor more and more as I have stated and I don't always agree with him, but there is always one common denominator, and that is that O'Reilly always has guests who disagree with him on his show and there is always a lively, fun to listen to discussion, whereas Keith NEVER challenges his guests to an argument, and most of the time they just agree with each other. And while Hannity can be a bit too much on the right for me to tolerate on a daily basis, he too has guests who disagree with him and a lively discussion. Again, everything in that paragraph is a fact. Tell me a time when Keith had a verbal disagreement with a guest. Go ahead.....find one. I dare you. You can't do it, now can you?

Now let's go back to what I started this post with: the Maureen Orth interview. All this was not a rant about Olbermann for nothing. The point of this whole post is to demonstrate to you that Keith Olbermann is too much of a high-horse riding coward to have anyone disagree with him. We can't let a verbal squabble bruise the ol' ego, now can we? The more I watch, the more I become disgusted with it. And forget the fact that Olbermann mocked Michael Jackson beyond belief during Jackson's 2005 trial, I think everyone at somepoint or another took their shots at Jackson for that whole saga, but when you are anchoring coverage that is more or less supposed to be a tribute and you are either sincere or just portraying someone sympathetic, and someone completely trashes and skewers him like Orth did, SAY SOMETHING, YOU GUTLESS COWARD!!!!!!!! STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!!!!! STAND UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN!!!!! GROW A SACK AND DEFEND YOURSELF AND THE LEGACY OF MICHAEL JACKSON!!!! DEFEND YOURSELF AND YOUR SHOW WHEN SOMEONE CALLS TENS-OF-THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS RACISTS JUST BECAUSE THEY DON'T AGREE WITH OBAMA'S TAX PLANS!!!!!!!!!

It's people who are too scared to stand up for themselves and have a disagreement that are the worst persons in the world. And Keith Olbermann falls into that category. It's easy to criticize others who say something stupid in the heat of a moment, when all you do is read from a teleprompter and have guests who agree with you. It's easy to just agree with everything your guests say and go about life and make an undeserving $8 million per year for it. This way, Keith's ego is perfectly intact and he does not have to worry about taking a few shots on the air. People like Keith don't deserve that kind of money. Say what you will about O'Reilly, but at least he is man enough to get in disagreements and arguments. He'll take his shots and move on, unlike Keith "I Avoid Arguments AT All Costs Because My Ego Can't Take Such A Low Blow" Olbermann.

I end with a statement that until I can get over this, I'm pretty much done with Countdown. Keith has crossed the line too many times for my liking. I just hope that one day Keith Olbermann will leave the political news business for good and stick to becoming a sportscaster full-time. At least there is something he is good at.