From Keith Olbermann's blog on Daily Kos:
I don't know why I've got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.
OK, so that's Olbermann for you, running a political campaign out of his "news" job. But two additional points are interesting about Olbermann's post. First, is his barely concealed exasperation, bordering on contempt, for his viewers/readers:
No, sending me links to the last two Countdowns with my own de-constructions of his biblical vision quality Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Zimbalist art at Rockefeller Center (where, curiously, he works, Comrade) doesn't count. Nor does sending me links to specious inappropriate point-underscoring prove-you're-innocent made-up rumors.
In fairness to Olbermann, he is clearly dealing with a lot of loons in his inbox. I guess that's a lesson: If you lie down with loons, you will get loons.
And second, this additional passage from Olbermann's post, which requires some decrypting:
Tuesday we will expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enablers, Ailes (even though Ailes' power was desperately undercut when he failed to pull off his phony "truce" push).
Olbermann is weaving a disinformation campaign, here, over "the truce." The truce, it will be recalled, was the effort, initiated earlier this year, in May, between Jeff Immelt and Rupert Murdoch to tone things down a bit. Historians will have to sort out exactly what happened, and why, and how, but suffice it to say for now that the truce was always one-sided. That is, Obermann seems to have gone along with the truce, whereas Glenn Beck never did. Which is to say, there's plenty of evidence that MSNBC followed orders from Immelt, while there's no evidence that Murdoch or Roger Ailes ever told any of their people at Fox to cool their jets.
Which is to say, Olbermann and other MSNBCers seem to have been willing stooges for corporate control, but at Fox, no such corporate control was exerted. Of course, such servility toward corporate power on the part of Olbermann--copiously documented by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com--doesn't sit well with Kos-sacks. So Olbermann has to spin extra hard, making it sound like the truce was Ailes' idea, and that the failure of truce somehow hurts Ailes.
But in fact, Ailes is stronger than ever. Not only is Fox the big profit center at the News Corporation, but since Beck brought down Van Jones, Fox is hotter than ever.
One final point: Note that in Olbermann's post, he wants dirt on Beck, Ailes, and Stu Burguiere, Beck's radio producer. Who is left out of that wished-for hit list? Why, Rupert Murdoch! To be sure, Olbermann trashes Murdoch plenty on his show, but he seems to be shying away from really going after Murdoch. Why? Maybe Olbermann is still abiding by the truce, still hewing to at least some of Immelt's commands.
Imagine that: Olbermann is still a stooge for corporate power, still obeying the orders of the people who pay him $7 million a year.
