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Saturday, November 6, 2010

Do We Really Have to Defend Keith Olbermann?




Keith Olbermann made three fatal mistakes:

1.  He broke an established company policy.

2.  He did it when his ratings sucked.

3.  My God is he an asshole.

I know I should probably be making pious noises about the First Amendment and 'everybody's entitled to their own opinion' and all that righteous stuff, but you know what?  Keith Olbermann is one of those morons I would change stools in a bar to avoid hearing.  Like Howard Stern, Don Imus, Truthers,  the 'Reverend' Phelps, Alan Grayson, any given member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Paulies, Nancy Pelosi, LaRouchies, Robert Gibbs and that double-talking mountebank in the White House, we've done them the wholly underserved courtesy of defending their right to speak and the entire national dialogue has been debased and corrupted in the process.   Even men and women of the best intentions and good will have to start any honest dialogue by clearing away the piled tumbleweeds of ignorance these and too many like them have heaped up between us.

So maybe we should go back to an older, more honest rule.  You have a right to be an asshole and I have the right to punch you in the nose for it.  Really, do we do free speech any favors — we certainly show it no respect — by letting the likes of Olbermann and Phelps roam free when any decent regard for the value of ideas would require them to be caned barking through the streets in front of laughing crowds?

2 comments:

RebeccaH said...

I'm not the least sorry Olbermann got canned, but I don't believe the excuse they used to fire him. The midterm election was a wakeup call not only for Obama and Congress, but for all their water carriers too, including MSNBC. The country has made it clear we want to get back to civic discourse that is actually civil, so nasty polarizers like Olbermann are now a liability.

richard mcenroe said...

That's gonna be a looooooong walk back for a lot of people.


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