Olbermann awarded Coulter "Worst Person" "bronze" for "B. Hussein Obama" references, and said, "Then we put her on this network today so she could do it again"
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann awarded right-wing pundit Ann Coulter the "bronze" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for her repeated references to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as "B. Hussein Obama" and "President Hussein" during an appearance on Fox News' Your World. Referring to an earlier appearance on MSNBC, he also said: "Then we put her on this network today so she could do it again."
On the February 14 edition of MSBNC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann awarded right-wing pundit Ann Coulter the "bronze" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for her reference to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as "B. Hussein Obama" five separate times and as "President Hussein" during a February 13 appearance on Fox News' Your World, as Media Matters for America documented. Olbermann then stated, "Then we put her on this network today so she could do it again."
Olbermann named Laura Ingraham the "runner-up" for stating on the February 13 edition of her nationally syndicated radio show that President Bush "welcomed [Rev.] Al Sharpton to the White House. I hope they nailed down all the valuables." Olbermann added, referring to Ingraham: "I know you and Coulter think you're satirists, but you do realize that if you're really not racist, you are enabling racism there."
Olbermann named Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan, host of The Tom Sullivan Show, the "Worst Person" "winner" for playing a "side-by-side comparison" of an Adolf Hitler speech and an Obama speech on his February 11 broadcast.
From the February 14 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
OLBERMANN: Richard Lewis on Valentine's Day, and President Bush, sit well back from your TV, please. He's next, but first time for our No. 2 story tonight, Countdown's "Worst Persons in the World."
The bronze to Coultergeist -- went on Fixed News and called Senator Obama, quote, "B. Hussein Obama" five times. The host asked her why she was calling him that, and he mentioned it then a sixth time, then she referred to him as "President Hussein."
Then we put her on this network today so she could do it again. For the record, if you want to try her trick and call her by her first initial and her middle name, it's close. Her middle initial is "H," but she'd only be A. Hart Coulter.
Runner-up, Laura Ingraham. reporting on her radio show that the president had, quote, "welcomed Al Sharpton to the White House. I hope they nailed down all the valuables." And adding, quote, "I can't believe they let him in the front door there at Black History Month." I know you and Coulter think you're satirists, but you do realize that if you're really not racist, you are enabling racism there.
But our winner, Tom Sullivan, who apparently does a show for Fixed Radio. When a caller suggested that Senator Obama's speeches reminded him of the speeches of Adolf Hitler, Sullivan then alternated clips from a Hitler speech and an Obama speech, played them consecutively on national radio. When another caller said it was unacceptable to compare Obama to Hitler, Sullivan said he wasn't, he was just noting, quote, "Adolf Hitler was able to gather a country of people and get them excited about whatever it was that he is talking to them about. He was a very fiery, enigmatic. ... And I asked the guy, I said: 'Are you saying that Obama is like Hitler?' And he said, 'No, it's the speaking style, that's all.' And the speaking style is actually kind of similar."
So, you're not comparing Obama to Hitler, but you are comparing Obama's speaking style to Hitler's speaking style. So, you're insisting you're not comparing them in any way, except when you are comparing them in that way.
Tom Sullivan of Fox Noise Radio, today's "Worst Person in the World."
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"Then we put her on this network today so she could do it again"
he said it with clenched teeth, making it clear he wasn't happy with his network's decision to give her airtime.<b>Oscar</b>
Been away for <i>a while</i> and the preview does not seem to be <u>taking</u> html tages. So just testing here.
This couldn't possibly be the same Keith Olbermann that so affectionately refers to "Willard" Mitt Romney and Michael "Weiner" Savage... Could it? I guess Mr. Olbermann is himself a candidate for the Worst Person in the World. If you want to talk about him having the guts to take his own network to account (what a joke that is), maybe you could talk about his lack of guts for not taking himself to account.
Hi I am here, been busy today helping my niece and her beautiful baby.
Anyway I have no issue with this, actually applaud Olbermann for mentioning that his own network allowed hatemonger Coulter on it so she could spew more hate. Good for him!!
If this is all the Republicans have -- fear, bigotry, and war -- it's the Democrats in a cakewalk.
Gallagher started as a weatherman on a Dayton OH tv station. Then he sold his soul and was relentlessly promoted up the radio chain of command as long as he bowed down to the high lord of "conservatism".
Oh no...she was named Worst Person in the World by the Uberdouche..
...she's finished...:)
I don't know if it's so much nerve as rules he has to go by.I know it really bugs people here that Olbermann doesn't criticize his own station enough, but that seems pretty misdirected to me.
With all of the conservative (GOP) tv, and all of the conservative (cautiously inoffensive) tv, KO is one of only a couple of programs that doesn't seem to be run entirely by the White House.He has an hour, take out the commercials, tabloid stuff, straight news, and what's left? 10 minutes a day on mainstream tv that doesn't get its script from BushCo.?
Yeah, let's worry about that 10 minutes.
r olberman. He speaks so well and to the point, he only needs 10 minutes to tell what we need to know.
olberman's been doing this for a while now, his "worst person" awards. as near as i can tell, all it's resulted in is increased exposure, ratings and income for the "honorees". none have been relegated to the media dustbin as a result of mr. olberman's castigations. as long as the ad revenues keep pouring in, none will be.
aside from venting his spleen, and looking like a "good" guy, i begin to wonder what is the point?
The point is that bigotry, homophobia, and sexism must always be named for what it is. When you allow the Right Wing noise machine to churn out this bile unmolested, it inures the public and slows the progress America has made in shunning discriminatory thought as normative.
what is the point
I agree. Expressing an opinion for the enjoyment of others is just plain wrong!
"i begin to wonder what is the point?"
And I "begin to wonder what is the point" of cpinva's criticism of KO.
Perhaps cpinva can let me know if the following parsing adequately captures his/her logic.
1. The seeming positive elements in KO's WPITW skewerings of various and sundry bigots, war-mongers, faux news media people, and the like – including Ann Coulter and, by extension in the latest case, his own network MSNBC -- are outweighed in some sort of cosmic moral calculus which cpinva apparently has worked out (through his/her gut instinct or some sort of detailed research into the matter we are left to conjecture) by the following (so it seems) negatives:
2. The presumably morally shallow and possibly hypocritical "I wanna look like a good guy" ventings of KO's spleen;
3. The higher ratings, and hence increased ad income for MSNBC, as a result of such spleen ventings;
4. The net net ineffectiveness of such ventings measured according to a standard which seems to be of a form – though I am not precisely sure on this – that none of KO's media targets have been fired -- or even banned from NBC or anywhere else – yet. And they are not likely to be -- at least not owing to KO's efforts.
In short, cpinva is not sure that 1 – (2+3+4) adds up to a positive karmic, hedonic, or other appropriate number quantifying the redressing of the moral balance between the good and evil in the universe.
Nor am I. But the power to fire and ban is a truly high bar to set for any news media person. Why even I don't seem to have that power when I take out after someone here or on another blog – though if there truly were a God, is there anyone who would say that I should not have that power? Just a rhetorical question, folks.
Anyway, is there no slack in cpinva's somewhat Schopenhauerian universe for "small favors"? Should KO perhaps take time off from his anchor slot to picket in front of Ann Coulter's house – somewhere in Florida, I think – and/or 30 Rock? Should he hand in his resignation to Steve Capus, the President of NBC News, if Coulter is not banned from the network?
Why even sueeld was moved a bit further up in this thread to give KO two exclamation points for his efforts this time!!
BTW, though I am sure most regulars here have it filed away somewhere, here is another place MMA has noted where KO, and not all that diplomatically, criticized MS/NBC for continuing to host Coulter. Said Keith in his WPITW award to Coulter on Aug 4, 2007, as reported by MMA at:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200608070001?f=s_search&lid=60010&rid=3714248
"[W]hy she has not been banned from this network, I do not know."
As Jamison Foser puts it by extension in his letter this week, the person most responsible for Ann Coulter not being banned from NBC – she was actually previously fired by them, as we know – is Steve Capus. KO has been doing his job. Now, if he could only get a little help from top management.
This worst person schtick got old long ago. The guy's a clown who no one takes seriously. He's got about as much political savvy as that idiot Bill Maher.
Simpletons aplenty out there in tv land.
Apparently, Coulter made these comments on Chris Matthews' "Hardball" show. I'm wondering why Matthews didn't ask her why she felt the need to make these comments or why he didn't ask her to stop this obvious vitriol-laced invective. I have also wondered for some time now, what it is that happened to Coulter (and Ingraham for that matter) in her life that causes her to be so hateful.
Anyhow, I think Matthews and Coulter should walk hand-in-hand into the sunset together, start their own network somewhere, and spew their idiocy (and spittle [OMG! Matthews is so disgusting with his shiny, spitty lips!]) so that the rest of us can avoid them every chance we get.
I do watch Olbermann, and have since his ESPN days. (Dan Patrick was a college classmate of mine - how's that for dropping a name).
Partisan politics aside, Olbermann discusses the issues in a coherent manner, and his show has humor. Contrast that to O'Reilly and Hannity who are hateful people with tabloid-style shows - appealing to the bottom feeders of our society.
Foghorn, I guess that makes you a Flyer.
I used to enjoy listening to The Dan Patrick Show before Dan left ESPN radio last year. Most days, Keith Olbermann would join him as co-host for an hour, at the same time as my lunch hour.
Early on in Keith's appearances (ca. 2005), a caller or e-mailer brought up Keith's politics, and he replied that people would be surprised to know which one of the two was a liberal, implying that it was Dan. Keith also said he liked McCain in the 2000 campaign.
After a while, whenever Keith's portion of the day's show ended, Dan would needle him, saying Keith had to get back to his other job, "saving the democracy."
Hsty,
Sorry, but with your brown person quote the other day, not sure you have any credibility on anything.
Keith has brilliantly carved out a niche for himself - gradually pushing the envelope as he got more popular - making himself almost too valuable to dispose of.
I'm sure he is constantly aware that he can be disposed of at any time - there is a long history of top-rated shows being canceled by corporate suits. I refer to the Smothers Brothers, Shindig, Hullabaloo, That Was the Week That Was, from the old days. More recently, Phil Donahue.
He still has to walk the tightrope though - I am sure he has little say in his guest list - it's completely obvious.
I expect him to get fired at some point - if we succeed in bringing back the fairness doctrine, he will finally have a secure home.