Public Eye
June 5, 2007 12:14 PM

Olbermann Overstates?

By
Matthew Felling
Topics
In The News
(AP)
Keith Olbermann has developed a reputation – he's earned media capital, if you will — by raising serious questions about the political climate in America. But last night, he squandered a bit of that account in a 16-minute segment in which he attempted to make the case that the JFK terror plot was little more than a cleverly-timed political ploy by the Bush administration.

The segment went through chapter and verse of how curious the timing has been of many Bush terror alert announcements and arrests – how they frequently seem to follow, and swallow, news that isn't friendly to the White House. There has been rampant discussion of the consistencies of these coincidences in the media over the years.

It's a concern. But Olbermann stretched that concern to a very thin and tenuous extent last night.

His point? That Saturday's press conference announcing the JFK terror plot occurred the day before the Democratic debate to take away from its impact. Also, that the arrests were announced by a Bush-appointed US Attorney amid the current scandal surrounding the apparently politically-motivated firings of US Attorneys. And – hold on to your seats – also present was the New York City Chief of Police … the father of a Fox News Correspondent!

He closed out the segment sternly:
If merely a reasonable case can be made that any of these juxtapositions of events are more than coincidences, if that case can be made on this, the very day that a military judge at Guantanamo Bay dismissed all terror charges that have kept Salim Hamdan jailed there for five years, it underscores the need for questions to be asked, and asked continually in this country – questions about what is prudence and what is just fear-mongering.
So his point is that if any of them are true – even if, ahem, last night's seemed a bit far-fetched — that we need to ask questions. Amen to that, Keith. But aren't we already asking questions? Aren't you? And if the Hamdan decision was of such import, why didn't you devote 16 minutes to the case of the legal environment at Guantanamo Bay?

Hammering away at things that aren't there – or barely there – is a surefire way to dilute your message. Though he likes to point out this political tendency whenever possible, Keith Olbermann is beginning to make the same mistake.

Add a Comment See all 17 Comments
by heels1785 June 7, 2007 7:49 PM EDT
This is chicken**** compared to some of the remarks that blathering idiot makes every single night on his worthless network.

Interestingly enough, he usually reserves a few seconds to take a shot at one of his fellow idiots, O'Reilly/Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh in an attempt to place himself above them. All Keith Olbermann can claim is that he's made a name for himself as an insult comic, and nothing more.
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by franklobo June 7, 2007 7:04 PM EDT
Keith Olbermann is a raving lunatic.
To him, the terrorists are not evil.
To him, Iran is not evil.
To him, ONLY the eeeeeeevil Bush administration is evil.

He's a partisan HACK. And his ratings show it. He sometimes comes in BEHIND CNBC re-runs of "Deal or No Deal".

Loser.
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by tvmaker June 7, 2007 3:32 PM EDT
Keith Olbermann's questioning of the viability of the alleged JFK airport plot and the appropriateness of its presentation to the public is being validated everyday by others of significance. FAA officials, law enforcement personnel familiar with the fuel system and even the republican mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, have all come out to denounce the announcement of this alleged plot as un-viable and overhyped. Keith Olbermann is doing what we and the media should have done long before we ever headed into Iraq under false and misleading pretences... He's actually asking questions and seeking the truth. Had reporters actually done this in the first place, instead of caving in to white house lies and fear mongering, there would be thousands of our young soldiers still alive today. So thank you Keith Olbermann.
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by bbrickle-2009 June 7, 2007 1:48 PM EDT
All right, you guys win. We give up.

I'm on a team that's monitoring a small group of Islamic extremists. The people we're after aren't well funded, but their plan is very simple and cheap. They intend to kill several dozens or hundreds of random people and escape so they can do it again, maybe many times.

When should we arrest them? We figure they'll try it during the Christmas season, but they may surprise us and go early. So when would you like us to take them? We're ready any time after the next 1-5 weeks, depending on what exactly happens. Should we avoid taking them down in July? Because July and Bush both have 4 letters, would that prove that it was all a conspiracy by the administration and the Muslims are just innocent men off the street?

What days of the week are off limits? Of course, we couldn't arrest them on Sunday (that would mean it's a Christian conspiracy against Muslims) or Saturday (The JOOOOOOS). Thursday is payday, so that would mean the bankers are behind it. Friday - people out getting drunk and having ***, that's offensive to Muslims, so we can't arrest them then.

It can't be before or after a Democrat or Republican debate, it can't be while there's an important and controversial bill in front of congress, it can't be when the Supreme Court is going to decide something, or when someone's on trial for terrorism.

How about we just let it happen. We'll take a few dozen dead, and then we'll let them get away. Would that work for you all?
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by bramweiser June 7, 2007 3:49 AM EDT
Is Mr. Felling serious?

Keith Olbermann taking 16 minutes to put this incredibly relevant, and incredibly complicated, story into context somehow diminishes himself in the process?

Mr. Felling needs to think long and hard about what it means to be a newsman, and what such a job is supposed to entail. He also needs to grow an attention span instead of continually watching all those sound bites so pervasive in America's electronic media today.
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by mattcat25 June 6, 2007 4:28 PM EDT
Did Bush outsmart the Congressional Democrats on his Iraq entitlement spending project for the Private Corporate Sector?

The puppet regime government installed by the Bush Administration has failed to approve a law allowing American and British Oil Companies to extract the Iraqi Oil. The entire endeavor has been funded (barrowed) by the Congress and the cost will be passed along to the people of the US in taxes and lives of our soldiers.

Coming up with diminutive talking points such %u201CDefeatocrats%u201D and %u201CSurrendercrats%u201D just distorts the actual facts of that a diplomatic course of action that is needed for Iraq and fair negotiated sharing of the Oil extraction contracts and Oil revenues between the powers that exist in Iraq and their neighbors.

The Republicans can continue to stir the hornet%u2019s nest all they want on this and other issues but, they never seem to resolve anything. $2 Billion Dollars a week are being stolen and mis-spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, the lack of production of Iraqis oil has driven the barrel price up. The oil for Iraq is currently being stolen and sold at a premium. The Republicans know that as long as they can sustain the status quo, would mean profits.

Bush, the Republican Party, and Halliburton are all pretty smart. The American People are the one%u2019s sitting in the corner with the dunce hat on.
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by shingles1 June 6, 2007 4:02 PM EDT
From today's Newsday:

When U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf described the alleged terror plot to blow up Kennedy Airport as "one of the most chilling plots imaginable," which might have caused "unthinkable" devastation, one law enforcement official said he cringed.

The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.

And now, with a portrait emerging of alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas as hapless and episodically homeless, and of co-conspirator Abdel Nur as a drug addict, Mauskopf's initial characterizations seem more questionable -- some go so far as to say hyped.
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by memekiller June 6, 2007 3:28 PM EDT
Is this to make up for the fact that someone here at Public Eye actually gave a sober-headed analysis of this terror-plot?

Does every brief instance of clarity have to be balanced with always wrong conventional wisdom?
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by shingles1 June 6, 2007 3:23 PM EDT
One_American, not sure how Bush really "outsmarted" them on the funding bill. If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes.

By the ways, have you ever made a single post that doesn't contain an attack on either Democrats or "liberals"? This kind of wierdly obsessive behavior might be an early warning sign of some serious mental defect. Maybe Bush Derangement Syndrome. I only mention this because I care.
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by one_american June 6, 2007 2:39 PM EDT
Mattcat25:

If President Bush were really "brain dead" as you say, how do you explain him out-smarting the white-flag-waving Democrats on the supplemental war spending bill?

Maybe you can't.

That's right. You can't.
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