You mean Keith Olbermann is still alive?

In the spirit of a blast from the past, we have Keith Olbermann.  He is the has-been Lawrence O’Donnell with the same strident brand of left-wing radicalism but an even more abrasive personality.

In my usual perusal of the daily media content, I ran across an article about Olbermann written by Carl Gibson for AlterNet – and equally obscure left-wing online news feed.  The article was based on a commentary Olbermann penned for Variety in which he gives his unsolicited advice for saving MSNBC from its ratings crash specifically –and the entire Democratic Party from its failure to stop President Trump and the MAGA movement.

Olbermann demonstrates his political tone deafness by suggesting that he and his pals on the left have to double down on the failed left-wing woke policies.  He writes that MSNBC – his one-time home — is having an identity crisis by becoming too wishy-washy after the Trump election. 

Olbermann takes special aim at the husband and wife team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski – who he refers to as “Mr. and Mrs. ScaredBro” – an allusion to the morning duo’s pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.

Olbermann says that the first step to reform the ultra-liberal propaganda platform would be to cancel the “Morning Joe” show.  He described their show as a “banal but largely benign political coffee klatch show.”  

When gone, “nobody will remember they were ever there,” Olbermann added.

If I ran MSNBC, I too would dump Joe and Mika—but for other reasons.  And the pink slips would not stop there.  But unlike Olbermann, I believe the only way for MSNBC to resurface as a credible news platform is to run – not walk – away from their distillate hard left-wing propaganda.  They need balance and journalistic integrity.

I would fire Joe and Mika because their show is boring, Scarborough is a blowhard who dominates conversations with his frequently repeated pre-programmed talking points. His wife and co-host Mika is more or less part of the set—a prop.  Joe not only surrenders very little airtime to Mika, but he also cuts her off and slaps her down (figurative, of course).I have always wondered why and how she can accept that boorish alpha male treatment.  It undermines her creds as a strong-willed feminist.

Despite her treatment by Joe, Mika is no great shakes as a public commentator in her own right.  I have often thought that when James Carville said that the Democratic Party has too many “preachy women,” he had Mika in mind.

It could be that Scarborough and Brzezinski are, indeed, the weak spot in the MSNBC lineup. Based on my opinion – and Olbermann’s opinion – they seem to lack fans on the right and the left.

One gets the sense that Olbermann’s message to MSNBC – and attack on “Morning Joe” — is influenced by jealousy.  After all, he once had a high perch at the network.  In his editorial offering, Olbermann bragged that he earned MSNBC more than $100 million with his acrid radical left messaging – and that he persuaded Rachel Maddow not to jump to CNN.  But that did not prevent Olbermann from being shown the door by MSNBC management.  And that is not the only place in which Olbermann’s acerbic personality led to a number of forced departures in his long reportorial history.

From 1992 to 1997, Olbermann co-hosted ESPN’s “SportsCenter.  For the next three years, he anchored “Fox Sports Net.”  He moved into politics in 2003 with “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC.  He took “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to the Current TV Network for one year in 2011.  From 2013 to 2015, Olbermann was back on ESPN with a show called “Olbermann.”  In 2016, he hosted a web show for Gentleman’s Quarterly (he does dress well) called “The Closer with Keith Olbermann,” focusing on the 2016 presidential election.  After Trump won the election, Olbermann changed the name of his podcast to “The Resistance with Keith Olbermann.”  In 2018, Olbermann returned to ESPN but was out in 2020.  In 2022, Olbermann launched his own podcast on HeartRadio.  He named that show … “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”  (How original.) This man has blown more jobs than Stormy Daniels.  And HE is now giving advice on how to build a media audience?  Go figure.

Olbermann believes that better ratings and more money are in the wings (the left wings, I assume) yearning to finance full-scale anti-Trump, anti-conservative, anti-Maga programming. 

He writes:

“They’re all still there waiting to spend their time and money at the only liberal candy store still open: yours. These other supposed bastions of journalism have left you a near monopoly. And MSNBC only exists today because the last time NBC was handed a near monopoly, your management ancestors said, ‘A hundred million in profits from Olbermann’s liberal show? I guess we’ll take it. If we have to’.”

Well, they took it until they didn’t.  And all the recent years of left-wing reporting on MSNBC attracted neither the audience nor the money Olbermann promises.

I am glad to see that Olbermann and I agree on one thing.  MSNBC has been a hardcore left-wing propaganda network. (Okay, he did not use the word “Propaganda” but … ???)

Olbermann takes credit for making Rachel Madow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Connell what they are today.  He believes that MSNBC’s future is better served by dumping most of the daytime folks (I agree) and replacing them with such left-wing bomb-throwers (figuratively speaking, of course) as Elie Mystal and Pablo Torre.  (I disagree).

The latter is the radial sportscaster who talks more in praise of left-wing politics than left field ball handling.  Perhaps Olbermann likes Torre because he mixes radical left-wing politics and sports like… Olbermann.  Ironically, Torre is a regular on “Morning Joe.”  In terms of Mystal, if he were any further to the left, he would not even be in the ballpark.   He is also a regular on MSNBC and one of the more outrageous and venomous of the network’s stable of outrageous and venomous contributors. 

Apparently, Olbermann thinks there is a market for folks as loony left as him.  If there is, he has not found it.  He should take a closer look at the election results.  The precipitous drop in ratings is not just “Morning Joe.”  The ratings for Olbermann’s favorites … Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell … are also cratering.  Conversely, FOX News is surging.

Not only is Olbermann wrong about the popularity of left-wing media, but he also seems to be ignorant of how well (or poorly) he has done peddling the radical left message. He should consider that the radical left-wing woke policies he endorses are what devastated MSNBC ratings … and what got Trump elected. So, there ‘tis.