Salon: Olbermann's wasted moment

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/10/07/olbermann/index.html



Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009 18:44 EDT

Olbermann's wasted moment

WASHINGTON -- Keith Olbermann wants you to listen to him.

That was, essentially, the message of Wednesday night's "Countdown." The entire hour was dedicated to a "Special Comment" -- Olbermann-ese for an editorial -- about healthcare reform. But the point didn't seem to be to pass reform legislation; the point appeared to be to chastise everyone involved in it, on either side, and to declaim about the nature of the system. Where Olbermann could have explained what the legislation would do -- and taken on the myths against it -- instead he spent his time making solemn pronouncements. The very title of the show predicted it would all be a bit over the top: "Healthcare Reform: The Fight Against Death."

"I do not want to yell," Olbermann began. "I feel like screaming, but everybody is screaming." Fair enough, though the screaming appears to have tapered down significantly over the last six weeks. Never mind that. Looking more melodramatic than usual, Olbermann introduced the show by noting that since Aug. 23, when his elderly father fell out of bed overnight, he had "interacted daily with our American healthcare system." The experience was chilling: "I have experienced with growing amazement, and with multiplying anger, the true state of our hospitals, our insurance businesses, our hospitals, our pharmacies."

Of course, millions of Americans already experience that state; that's why polls show, notwithstanding the vehement opposition to reform over the summer, the public is still open to the idea. Trying to relate to viewers, Olbermann kept relating details about his father's illness -- potential kidney failure, dehydration, an agonizing 24 hours stuck by his bedside.

The story was sad. But Olbermann's sudden sense of wonder at a broken system seemed misplaced somehow. The problem isn't that people don't know how messed up things are; the problem is that a handful of lawmakers appear to be afraid to do anything about it. And for Olbermann to go on and on about his father's case -- which, by the way, seems to be going well, thanks to Olbermann's money and his father's insurance -- didn't seem to do much to help the cause of passing reform. There are plenty of people whose experiences with the healthcare system argue for reform, but the Olbermann family's mostly seemed to be a tale with a happy ending.

[G_j]

1. his comments made me flash on Sicko a number of times

mostly a critique of the dilemma. That's OK.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. I thought the comments about people smoking...

was a little weird and misplaced.

[Berry Cool]

11. Not really. He was trying to make a point about ironies and the ways people

shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to their own health care. (And as an ex-smoker, I think he's earned the right to illustrate it this way. He knows exactly how hard it is to quit smoking.) What he was doing was comparing the Republican stance on health care to being a health-care professional who smokes. Either way, you are shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to your own health care.

Of course, I guess Republicans who oppose reform won't suffer as much as smokers often do, because they are wealthy enough to finance their own care, but then again, some smokers live a long time and die of old age, too. It's just not the norm, is all.

[Beaverhausen]

33. Those comments inspired my fiance, who is a nurse, to quit smoking

He does private duty and his patient needs a ventilator to breath. Yet he smokes.

Keith's comment was a bit of a tipping point for him.

[jillan]

3. I totally disagree with the author of this review. It was Keith's personal

story that brought it all home, and for anyone who has ever spent anytime sitting by a loved one's bedside in a hospital room for days on end knows exactly what Keith was talking about.

[GoCubsGo]

19. Yep. The article should have been titled "Salon's wasted space"

If the author had bothered to pay attention to what Keith was saying, he/she would have noted that on Keith repeatedly pointed out that his dad is getting the best of care because Keith has the money to pay for it. That was part of his point. He didn't have to worry, as he's filthy rich. But, it was both parents' illnesses that opened his eyes to the plight of those of us who don't have his income--insured or not.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. Olbermann said what most of us already know

He didn't tell us what we don't know: what to do about it.


I think I understood his point about Churchill, though it didn't really need to be made. But I think his points about Dickens and 19th century London were halfway well made. Only halfway, because the comparison should have been to the countries -- like Britain, France, Norway, etc. -- that have moved beyond that. The US alone hasn't.

He's lucky. He's scared, yes, but not only does he have the resources to get his father the very best of medical care, but he has the pulpit from which to voice his fears. Most of us don't have either.

I'm not sure that funding a few free clinics in Little Rock and Butte -- although the capital of Montana is Helena, not Butte -- is the way to get the health care dilemma solved in this country. A few thousand people will be treated, many millions more won't, and we're still stuck with some version of a compromise of the four or five or six or eighty bills millimetering their way through the process. And the BEST of those bills will barely begin to fix the problems.

I'd prefer he can the impassioned oratory that makes him sound and look almost like a tent revival preacher, and instead just give us rational information. After all, WE are not the people he needs to be yelling at.


Tansy Gold

[saracat]

7. Amen ,Tansy Gold. Again, you are exactly right!

[tonysam]

20. The thing is, Olbermann can pay for his own health care

out of his pocket; almost everybody else cannot.

I tried to listen to his comments last night; the only good part was the part where he mentioned "dead peasant" insurance, which was a key portion of Michael Moore's new film. The rest of Olbermann's rant I tuned out.

I can hardly watch Olbermann anymore without thinking of Ben Affleck's sendup of him.

[Tansy_Gold]

21. Exactly.

And in that sense, I got the distinct impression of an "Oh my God, this could happen to ME!" tirade, rather than "Oh my God, this is happening to other people only worse and worst every day."

It's like all the criticism that's been leveled at the pukes and the blue dogs -- they don't care 'cause it don't affect them. Okay, fine. That's a valid criticism. But then why, when Keith Olbermann suddenly has a massive road to Damascus moment, is he above reproach? Does he think this hasn't been going on for months and years and decades?

The problem is, I fully expect him to be "back to normal" tonight. It's not like he's going to walk away from his fat-ass contract and get out there to push for universal health care and the abolition of the insurance giants. He's no socialist. No, he said his piece and now he feels better, so things can get back to normal . . .. for Keith Olbermann.


For the rest of us? Not so much.



Tansy Gold

[Jennicut]

5. It was not wasted at all. What really struck me was the way he compared the current health care

system to that of England in the 1800s. We are going so far backward it is maddening.
Also. K.O.'s audience is not really going to change their minds. This was more of a statement about the fight of people in this country to have a right to live. It was a statement on how some of us in 2009, in the United States, are struggling to live because of the health care industry and their nonsense.

[GodDamLiberal]

6. Typical salon

Too dumb to listen.
Too lazy to read.


He said what to do..

Just as "global warming" is really "bad climate change," "The Public Option" is in broad essence "Medicare For Everybody." Frame it that way, sell it that way, and suddenly it doesn't sound like a threat, turning the seemingly solid insurance which people have now, into something "optional" and turning anything "private" into everything "public."

Once you said "Medicare For Everybody," there would be just as much to explain. If you were under 65 you'd be paying for it. You wouldn't have to buy it. You wouldn't have to change from whatever you have now. There are just as many caveats.


Fools.

[saracat]

8. but the Public Option is NOT "Medicare for Everybody" and the

President never said it would be. If the PO were called that it would have not been framing . It would have been a lie.

[Tansy_Gold]

15. "There would be just as much to explain."

see, even Olbermann knows that calling it Medicare for everyone isn't accurate.

What he coulda done was take the "Medicare for all" proto-meme and explained it. Not as the child of an elderly and ill parent facing the ultimate loss of that parent, but as someone who is giving US, his viewers, the information that we can share with all the ignorant assholes we come in contact every day.

Explain how it would work and wouldn't work. How much it would cost. How much we'd have to pay into it. How it would affect the insurance companies.

He named the enemy, but he didn't go into enough detail about how to fight that enemy. He could have.

The problem with being a part-time muckraker is that you don't get to focus on the problem. You don't dig deeply enough into its causes, its effects, its strengths and weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

GE/MSNBC lets Olbermann get away with events like last night, so they know they have something to gain by it. If he is truly interested in breaking the backs of the insurance companies, then he needs to go after them. Instead of his Oddball spot and his 3 best spot, maybe he should set aside a 90 second segment on the latest outrage from the insurance companies. If not an executive's salary, then how about a claim that's been denied. Or, as he mentioned in last night's comment, the cost of prescription drugs. How is it that Walmart and Walgreen's and Fry's and most of the other chain pharmacies are able to fill some "generic" prescriptions for $4/month, but not others?

Or maybe, since Olbermann and Maddow are repeated each night, maybe they ought to EACH cover one aspect of this national atrocity, hammering it home the way Olbermann does the days since "mission accomplished."

I live in a state and district where I have no one representing me in DC. I've got McCain and Kyl and Flake. Like many other liberals/progressives/socialists, I have to rely on myself and my media spokespeople to get the message out.

So I had hoped Olbermann would do that -- less personal emotional consciousness-raising, and more hard-core information.

But maybe that will be forthcoming. I'll wait and see.


Tansy Gold

[Berry Cool]

9. Those son-of-a-bitch motherfuckers at Salon can't give him a bit of praise for anything.

Lately, as far as they are concerned, Keith Olbermann can do no right.

Fuck them all.

Edited to change this from saying their readers don't think he can do any right either. I was wrong--it's obvious from the comments so far that aside from a few blatant trolls, the readers disagree with this column. They "get it": What we need isn't more facts and figures about health care reform. What we need is more emotional appeals like Keith's that strip this clean for what it is: a matter of life and death.

[Tansy_Gold]

13. I am NOT a goddess-damned TROLL

I am so fucking sick of you people who automatically, ROBOTICALLY, label anyone who has the vertebrae to criticize one of your tin gods a "troll."

I have been on this message board since 2001. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I know it was before 9/11/01 because I got into a major battle with one of the then DU big names over an element of the 9/11 response. As a result of that battle, in which I was threatened with bodily harm, I changed my screen name sometime in 2002. I've been Tansy Gold ever since.

No, I don't spend every waking moment on DU, throwing out drive-by, one-line posts at the rate of 200 a day. No, I don't have 20,000 or 30,000 posts. I don't know how many I do have, but I know it ain't that many.

However, I still have the right, as does anyone else on this board, to express an opinion that might not be 110% praise hallowed be thy name worship of the latest idol.

I've noticed that when a post gets pulled after an alert -- and I will tell you all now that I am NEVER afraid to hit the alert button and tell the much-appreciated mods when someone has let loose with a personal attack -- the link from that post indicates the poster has been tombstoned. This is quite obviously not entirely true. Lots of posts get pulled, but their posters are still alive and well and spewing the same personal attacks undaunted.

I was very much moved by Olbermann's comment. I watched my husband die of cancer four years ago and worried through every second of it -- and after and still -- how I would pay the bills and how I would survive financially the loss of his income. Even when I knew it was hopeless, I had to keep my spirits up to keep his spirits up so HE wouldn't worry about the bills. I wrote out the checks for each and every co-pay for each and every radiation treatment and x-ray and everything else. When a doctor admitted to me that he had royally screwed up and wanted to know how he could make it up to me I said, without needing time to think and without hesitation, "Stop charging us $25 for every fuckin' visit." Like Keith, I ended up being lucky -- not because my husband died but because we ended up having the resources to keep me, the survivor, out of bankruptcy. At least so far.

I don't know what background any of the DUers here have (with one and only one exception). I don't know how many of them have gone into bankruptcy over the illness of a loved one (or themselves). I don't know how many are 15-year-olds who are having fun playing with the grown-ups. And I sure as fucking hell don't know how many of you are trolls. So since I don't have that secret knowledge, I don't go around accusing people of it.

Calling me one is not going to change my opinion of Olbermann's special comment. I've already said I found his comparison of the US "system" to 1840s London appropriate, and only wished he had carried the comparison further to show how the rest of the industrialized world responded to Dickens (and Upton Sinclair, by the way) and how the US hasn't. I still don't think sponsoring free health clinics in Butte and Baton Route, Las Vegas and Little Rock is going to result in the kind of outcome most of us here would like -- at the very least a robust public option, at the best a single payer system that dismantles the health insurance cartels as we know them today. But at least Olbermann is trying. I'll give him credit for that.


Tansy Gold

[DefenseLawyer]

10. Not enough snark for the cool kids at Salon.

Idiots.

[Bandit]

12. The Left is putting on a Full Court Press and this is the way Salon helps???

How nice they can help...

[mmonk]

14. Ridiculous. The nature of what passes is as important

as the issue itself. And this line I see as wrong: "The problem isn't that people don't know how messed up things are; the problem is that a handful of lawmakers appear to be afraid to do anything about it." There are millions of people that do not realize how deep the problem is due to their insurance being paid for by someone else and their relative lack of sickness or they could not be fooled so easily by the special interests and their paid for politicians.

[Tansy_Gold]

16. People DO know how messed up it is

That's why 65% support reform with a public option.

Olbermann was exactly correct on that.




TG

[bertman]

17. Usually Keith's righteous indignation is too much for me to take, BUT tonight he was

eloquent and persuasive without being too over-the-top.

I thought he nailed it.

Thank you, Keith.

[rvablue]

18. Another emag with waning readership trying to drum up some hits with controversy...

:boring:

[Overseas]

25. That's how it looks to me too. //nt

[AngryAmish]

22. It was really strange.

They had one of the tvs in the bar where I was getting drunk on msnbc during his show. The other tvs were on the baseball game, of course. I couldn't hear what he was yelling about but it was very strange to see him looking into the camera for that long yelling.

[xenussister]

27. He wasn't yelling.

Since you couldn't hear it, I thought I'd let you know. He didn't yell, not once. It was a thoughtful and often passionate (but not in an over-the-top way) special comment.

[B Calm]

29. When you are drunk, do you think everybody is yelling or just

KO and your wife?

[AngryAmish]

30. I don't think my wife is yelling when I am drunk, I know it.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

23. Hey Salon, it was a COMMENT............

like: "Hey, this is my take on the situation", not a college night class about the fundamentals of health-care politics. COM-MENT.

[AzDar]

24. Really? The part of his commentary regarding his childhood friend selling off his baseball card

collection because his daughter was in ICU made me burst into tears. :shrug:


I thought it was passionate, timely, and informative.

[AngryOldDem]

26. Salon totally missed the point.

KO's been on to this national disgrace of a broken health care system for more than a year. Now, it has hit home just how fucked up it is -- how he feels grateful that he can afford for his dad the basic medical care that all of us -- insured or not -- deserve, and that many of us will never have access to. KO now has a personal stake in this because he knows that there are millions of us who are not as fortunate as he, and do not have the voice nor the eloquence to put into words that something needs to be done. Now. Like today. Like this second.

At one time or another, all of us will be walking in his shoes, either with ourselves facing a health crisis, or one of our loved ones. We have to stop this pointless, cruel, and destructive politicization of this issue and come together AS A NATION to do what is right, just, and moral.

Salon, you are either a part of the solution or a part of the problem. So which is it?

[polichick]

31. "Salon, you are either a part of the solution or a part of the problem. So which is it?"

Really. I suddenly feel like cancelling the Salon subscription for my Kindle.

[question everything]

28. This is why it is called "special comments."

The writer is free to make his own comments.

[MrsBrady]

32. i liked Keith's work.

it was clearly well thought out.

"special comment" means a...special comment...you know, like an opinion/editorial piece. :eyes:

I don't see how difficult it is to understand that he is telling his story mixed with what is going on now.
That's all any of us can ever have...our experience shapes us.
You mean they can't see that?

I felt like screaming after MY mother was in the hospital, and yea...we have insurance. They make you want to scream with or without it.
Thanks, Keith.

Whatever, Salon.