I Used to Like Countdown--and Sometimes Still Do

Twenty years back, I watched Sports Center with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. They were funny, ironic, and hilariously enjoyable despite Olbermann's being a New York Mets fan and my agony over the 1986 World Series in which my Boston Red Sox lost to the Blue and Orange of Shea Stadium. Olbermann eventually left ESPN, went to NBC and, as far as I knew, dropped from the news radar screens. In more or less 2005, however, he re-appeared on a news show called "Countdown" over the MSNBC network. Once again, he was funny, ironic and this time, scathing in his denunciations of the now former Bush 43 administration. I thought most of what Olbermann said needed to be said and I especially appreciated his "Worst Person in the World" segments plus his periodic "Special Comments" along with nightly reminders of how many days it has been since "Mission Accomplished" was pronounced in Iraq.
Since the election of President Obama, however, I have grown tired of Olbermann. He has continued to rant, rave and denounce every hint of a policy that does not mesh with his view of what should or should not be done. His program does not even pretend to interview opposing perspectives, as if somehow left of center social, economic and foreign policies are beyond the scope of review, examination and question. I usually agree with the basic push of Olbermann's viewpoints, but I am weary of any form of absolutism, be it political, theological, journalistic or--more broadly still--moral. Olbermann's is not an exception and, I think, can become potentially more harmful to the causes he advocates. To my knowledge, he has never indicated the possibility of being wrong or at least incomplete in his analysis. After eight years of George Bush's never admitting that he might have been substantively rather than procedurally wrong, we as a country and, more importantly, as a people, simply do not need anyone in the public view expressing the same inflexible, apparently divinely-ordained mentality. Olbermann, along with several people I know on a personal basis, can't seem to release their--sometimes our--bitterness over Bush's Presidency long enough to allow President Obama the opportunity to govern in the direction of national healing. As much as I thought his inaugural speech was rhetorically disappointing, President Obama's invitation to healing and national health, I think, stood at the core of the entire ceremony, be it from the speeches, prayers and the glorious--if taped to preserve the instrument's tuning--music.
If Olbermann and my fellow left wingers want what they say they do--national accountability and a restoration of our international standing--they need to turn down their own rhetorical heat long enough for it to take place. These same sort of calls for vengeance howled from their left wing political ancestors 35 years ago when President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Even Ted Kennedy now admits that President Ford did the right thing for the long term interests of the country. President Ford's actions largely helped to cost him the 1976 election, but aside from some of my fellow left winger's assessments of his administration when he died, Ford's larger sense of the moral and correct have proven the most effacacious for the country.
I very much agree that we are not a banana republic. We believe in the rule of law and seek justice for all. We have survived as a country due to our insistence that those principles are more than just ideologically-driven words. They apply without exception. In these next few months and first two years of President Obama's administration, let's rise above our anger and frustration long enough to act like Americans again. We'll be more likely to survive Bush 43's legacy as we do.
Keith Olbermann needs to calm down: or at least become more ironic again.