Has anyone noticed that all profiles of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, of late, tend to be the critical and intellectual equivalent of conversation over shots in Cancun on spring break?
They all go something like this: WOOOOOOOO! Keith Olbermann, man! He is WILD! He is EDGY! WOOOOOOOOO! He is such a WILD AND CRAZY dude! WOOOOOOO! Yeah, man, his ratings suck, but WHATEVER--WE ARE PARTYING! WOOOOOO!
Take the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz's take on The Wild One himself:
Night after night, President Bush is being kicked, punched, slapped, poked, stomped and otherwise disrespected in one small corner of the cable television world.
And Keith Olbermann doesn't deny it has been good for ratings....
Since the most prominent opinion-mongers in cable -- Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson -- are unabashed conservatives, Olbermann stands out as an acerbic administration critic. While his main guests are journalists, he sometimes interviews Democratic lawmakers but almost never brings on Republicans or conservatives, except for MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan. "There are not a lot of conservative guests who are happy to be on the show," Olbermann admits.
These days, he recently told C-SPAN, there are executives at NBC and parent company General Electric "who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all." But Olbermann says he's gotten no interference: "If my reading Marx every night got them great ratings, they'd be happy with that."
"Countdown" is still in third place among the cable news networks -- Fox's "O'Reilly Factor" dominated the first quarter, with 2.26 million viewers, followed by CNN's Paula Zahn with 632,000 and Olbermann with 404,000. But the MSNBC show boasts of a 41 percent jump over last year among viewers age 25 to 54, edging CNN in that category.
"Keith's show is the best show on television, period -- interesting, edgy and really well written," says MSNBC President Rick Kaplan. He says Olbermann is "incredibly aggressive" toward anyone in power: "In the same way that people who think the president needs to be supported more have turned to Fox, a lot of people who think the president needs to be taken on more have found a friendly voice in 'Countdown.' "
NBC News President Steve Capus says "there's no question he's stepped up his opinionated discussions, but the audience is smart enough to know what is straight news reporting and what is opinion-driven talk."
Olbermann, who moonlights on ESPN radio, also fills his program with skits like "Puppet Theater" and tabloidy "Oddball" items. Last week he interviewed Michael Schiavo, whose late wife's coma triggered a media frenzy.
Olbermann loves to pick fights. He has repeatedly baited O'Reilly, then gleefully replayed O'Reilly's responses. O'Reilly has put a petition on his Web site, urging NBC to fire Olbermann and replace him with Phil Donahue, who previously occupied the time slot. O'Reilly has also said, without naming him, that Olbermann "cheap shots Fox News on a regular basis" and that "something's very wrong at NBC."
Seizing on any excuse to keep the feud going, Olbermann even interviewed a man who mentioned his name on O'Reilly's radio show, prompting the host to say his phone number would be turned over to Fox security. MSNBC has been running ads about the spat.
"It's like winning the lottery," Olbermann says. "It's such an overreaction . . . He has made me look like a victim."
WOOOO! Wild man--and so macho! So unafraid to administer a beat-down to anyone who doesn't agree with him, from safely under his desk!
Oh, and one more thing. Kurtz says Tucker Carlson is one of the "most prominent opinion-mongers on cable"? In what universe? My dog gets better ratings than Carlson when I put a pair of sunglasses on him and walk him down the street.
