It Is Over and Done With, But...

Like a drug junkie deprived of his drugs, I sat staring at a blank TV screen last night at 5:00 p.m. PST. I wanted to watch my daily dose of sanity -- Countdown with Keith Olbermann -- but alas, it is no more. Withdrawal is going to be tougher than I thought; the only solace that will help lessen the writhing throes is that I can visit Fallen from Grace each day!

The plaudits for what Olbermann accomplished in his 8 years on MSNBC have started to roll in. Take, for example, what Lawrence O'Donnell said last night as he took over Keith's time slot.

Consider what Keith invented and taught us to do: op-ed TV...I marveled, as any writer must, at what Keith was doing: five op-eds a week, each of them much, much longer than the standard 800 words...I saw exactly how exhausted the great Aaron Sorkin was after delivering 22 episodes a year of 'The West Wing.'Well, Keith delivered 20 a month. 20 A month. Hundreds of episodes a year. Hundreds of op-eds a year. Year in and year out. For eight years. I have no idea how he did it. None of us do. No one in television history has ever done anything like it. No one knew it could be done before he did it. And in doing it, he took MSNBC to new heights...

Or how about this comment from a fellow on The Huffington Post.

I like baseball analogies, and the departure of Olbermann leaves the rotation of MSNBC without their number one starter who throws hard, nasty stuff, the stopper, the one who sets the tone. Maddow is great, the change-up artist, like Greg Maddux. Lawrence O'Donnell is the guy who gets you innings, steady, but not spectacular. Chris Matthews is the brilliant and unpredictable one -- he can throw a perfect game one day and get shelled in the first inning the next. But if you wanted someone on Opening Day, the guy who charges up the crowd against the hated division (network) rival, it was Olbermann, pure and simple. The liberals of America have lost a singular voice, and at at time when the right-wing press machine will be gearing up to cheer on the Republicans in Congress and begin the attacks on the Obama re-elect, a voice when we need it most...

Will Bunch had this to say at Media Matters for America.

Olbermann's odyssey as a journalist has always been grossly misunderstood, not just by the right-wing haters but even by the media critics who are paid six-figure salaries to know more than they do. The naysayers have tried to portray him as a kind of "Manchurian candidate," a hard-core doctrinaire leftist who must have been some kind of community organizer in a past life if he didn't emerge directly from the Politburo. What balderdash! I can tell you certainly that in high school the only "left" that Olbermann cared about was who was in left field for his beloved Yankees. Which may explain why he so focused on his future career...in SPORTScasting! He was just not a particularly political guy.

Which also explains the true meaning of Keith Olbermann. He became a hero to so many TV viewers (and saved MSNBC, which was really in its proverbial "last throes") in the mid-2000s because his journey was not that of a liberal ideologue but simply an American citizen who was appalled at the lies coming from the Bush White House and increasingly looked for ways to use his platform as a national journalist to relate something he came to see as not just a news story...but a threat to the Republic...

Here's what Russell Simmons had to say.

Keith wasn't strong on opinion (ones I happen to share), he was strong on the FACTS. He corrected every mistake. This was a rarity on cable news. How MSNBC thinks it can just move on and remain credible is beyond my comprehension. Would Roger Ailes ever think of firing Bill O'Reilly? Advertisers boycott Glenn Beck, but no one touches him. Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich and their friends spin a "Mad Hatter" view of the Alice In Wonderland America they have created in their own minds. But who gets dumped? Keith. The honest, powerful advocate who created critical care clinics with donations from his viewers. Who helped Haiti, New Orleans, fought tirelessly against two unjust wars and who made the cause of humanity and honest truth, his cause. That's the guy who gets thrown overboard...

Finally, here's how the writer Mitchell Bard framed it.

Anyone charging that Olbermann's show was equivalent to Beck's clearly hasn't watched either of them. Olbermann wasn't objective, but he was honest about it, not disingenuously claiming to be "fair and balanced." But his shows were well-researched and relied on facts to make his progressive points.

To be sure, Olbermann used inflammatory language, and he wasn't always as respectful as some thought he should be. But when he railed about something, he relied on quotes, polls, statistics and history (unlike the concocted charges offered by Beck as facts) to make his points. One (of many) examples was his 2008 response to statements made by President George W. Bush about terrorism and Iraq (with its much-discussed concluding line that Bush should "shut the hell up"). Does Olbermann use harsh language? Yes. Was he blunt and combative? Yes. But in doing so, did he use real evidence (facts) to refute the Bush statements that were getting heavy play in the news at the time? Yes. Consistently (including producing a photo of Bush playing golf months after the date he claimed to have given up the game as a symbolic sacrifice to support the troops).

To me, that was what made Olbermann such an essentially important commentator, especially during the Bush administration. Much focus is directed at how Olbermann made his points (his combative tone, his aggressive language, etc.), but it was the fact-based content that really mattered and separated him from his right-wing counterparts. The reason the founders accorded the press the protections of the First Amendment was under the belief that the press was, as Jeffery Smith described it, "A lash for government and a prod for the people." Under this point of view, government was rendered more stable by a free press, since it exposed problems (and allowed for reform), preserving the liberties of the people. What Olbermann did on his show, day in and day out, was to carry out that function, shining a light on elected officials (of both parties).

That's the difference between Olbermann and his Fox News counterparts. When Beck claims that radicals in the Obama administration want to kill 10 percent of the American population and overthrow the U.S. government, or Sean Hannity uses bogus footage to exaggerate attendance at a Tea Party event, or Fox News hosts give credibility to those claiming that the health care reform law included "death panels" or that the president wasn't born in the United States, they are not shining a light on anything. Instead, they are using the cloak of "the press" to lie, exaggerate and use innuendo as a way of promoting an agenda...

For me, Keith publicly stated what many a progressive or left winger thought. He did it with flare. He did it with eloquence. He did it with passion. And he did it with courage. In a time in which the vast majority of "news" is slanted in one direction, he was the gale blowing against the grain.

Of course, life WILL go on without my nightly dose of Keith. I will learn to find other important things to do at 5:00 p.m. Still, it will take some time. I think it's quite okay to mourn what once was.