Step aside, LD! We have the genius now:

The [New Yorker] article’s author, Ryan Lizza, would have expected to secure one of the 40 press places on Obama’s tour this week but was told no space was available.

Writing on the Huffington Post, media blogger Rachel Sklar said: “So it’s gonna be like that, is it? Retribution for unfavourable coverage is a chilling thing to contemplate.”

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and Hillary Clinton supporter, accused the Obama campaign of “engaging in a nasty little act of getting even”.

Journalist Ryan Tate, blogging on Gawker, said: “It’s hard to see the snub as anything other than payback. His people had to know what signal it would send to exclude the magazine so soon after the cover flap.”

We’ve written several more stories on the brouhaha over the New Yorker cover cartoon, including Larry Johnson’s “The New Yorker and the Hubris of Arrogance.”

 
We’re just guessing that it wasn’t just the cover that enraged the thin-skinned Obama, but also the first long, factual account ever to appear in the media on Obama’s ruthless ambition, lack of principle, association with unsavory types in Chicago politics, and his empty record, devoid of any leadership on any issue. Ryan Lizza, former Obamaton party-liner, is now receiving his punishment.

 
Next stop for the untraveled Obama: the Siegesaulle, the Victory Column built as a tribute to Prussian military might and discipline after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. In 1939, just before Hitler launched World War II, the Nazis added a gold layer to the monument and moved it to a long boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate. Initially, Obama demanded to speak before the Brandenburg Gate, an honor only extended to heads of state. The presumptive nominee crossed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Checkpoint Charlie, infuriating her with his presumption. With this incident the German chancellor got a little taste of how foreign policy would be conducted by an arrogant and inexperienced Obama.
 
After his absurd stumble, Obama picked another site for his photo-op in Berlin–the Siegesaulle. Clueless does not begin to describe Obama speaking at the monument to Prussian militarism. Not since Ronald Reagan blithered into the Bitburg cemetary, where he laid a wreath on the graves of SS soldiers, has an American figure so misunderstood and mangled German history.
 
The Berliners now, of course, use the Victory Column as a rallying point for the annual gay Love Parade. This is their way of satirizing their tragic heritage.
 
Obama’s message? He seems to have borrowed Sam Cooke’s lyrics: “Don’t know much about geography, don’t know much about history, I just know I love you.” Yeah, love you back, baby!
 
Except The New Yorker. Hate The New Yorker. Yes, The New Yorker.
 
Achtung, Obamatons! This fate is what awaits you if you so much as utter a critical word or attempt dreaded satire. Keep chanting slogans in unison! No thinking! Kein denken! Danger! Gefahr! Vorsicht!
 

For example, the overriding theme of the piece is Obama’s unbridled ambition. Early during his brief, three year tenure as a community organizer–whatever THAT job entailed—Obama openly discussed his long-term and very, very large political ambitions with even his newest acquaintances.

After connecting up with “king makers” like his employer, Allison Davis, and Annenberg Challenge associate, William Ayers, Obama found an opening when the Illinois state Senator from his neighborhood, Alice Palmer, decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Ironically, the seat Palmer sought was open due to recently disclosed past corruption on the part of the person that had previously held it and she was beaten in the Democratic primary to fill the seat by (of all people) Jesse Jackson’s son.

When Palmer subsequently sought to retain her Illinois state Senate seat, she was shutout by the Obama forces. A great deal of the funding for Obama’s run came from political bag men like Tony Rezko.

But once Obama was elected to the Illinois senate and began to serve in Springfield, he became bored. Two years later Obama challenged another black incumbent (the former Black Panther—Bobby Rush) for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Obama was soundly defeated in this race. But he immediately began to work to have his state Senate district redrawn so that the could represent elements of both Chicago’s Southside and areas that would connect him to big money contributors from the city’s Gold Coast further north. Even in defeat, Obama was planning his next big initiative—a run for a U.S. Senate seat.

But Obama wasn’t in the U.S. Senate for even two years before he announced his decision to run for president. America’s only hope if Obama wins the presidency is that the victory will launch a run on his part for the office of United Nations Secretary-General within just a few months of his taking the oath of office as president.

“Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct”

“Senator Obama, I knew Jack Kennedy, and you’re no Jack Kennedy”

(NEW YORK) (July 17, 2008) One of the great lines in American political history is Senator Lloyd’s Bentsen’s 1988 retort to Senator Dan Quayle, “Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy, and you’re no Jack Kenney.” Senator Barack Obama daydreams that he’s the “new Kennedy.” In your dreams.

The remnants of the Kennedy dynasty have pronounced Obama “the new Kennedy.” Defunct dynasties are like that. They still want to pretend the dynasty lives. But the entire Kennedy/Obama spectacle is farce and charade. Obama is a great actor and entertainer. Kennedy was neither. On the contrary, Kennedy had great personal charm and incredible grace. Obama is the spitting image of the fictional Sammy Glick, not the legendary John F. Kennedy.

I have learned a few lessons about grace along the way, and I vividly remember one lesson administered by Senator Charles Percy in 1978 on a snowy day at the Palmer House in Chicago. Senator Percy could not have been more gracious and more welcoming, and humorous, in introducing me to his audience.

As a talk radio host in Palm Beach, I often raised controversial topics. But callers always felt I was gracious and fair to even my harshest critics. I never screamed, never hung up the phone, never insulted anyone—all while raising the blood pressure of my audience with hot button topics. As so graciousness and gracefulness come with time and experience.

Let’s start with the obvious: The New Yorker cover was laughable. It was ridiculous. And it was funny. I know the East Side of New York well, and the West Side too; and in those neighborhoods where the New Yorker is targeted people would have laughed and moved on.

Obama made the story by bungling his response to the New Yorker.

I was in New York last Sunday and saw the new New Yorker issue at the newsstand where I buy the Washington Post. The newsstand editions a wrapper that obscured the full cover, so I missed a view of the outrageous NY cartoon.

Obama’s initial response to the cover cartoon was correct. He shrugged his shoulders. That’s what Kennedy would have done, and maybe tossed off a quip. End of story.

Obama’s handlers then issued a denunciation of the New Yorker cover, and the story exploded. Obama made the incident, not the New Yorker. Senator John McCain also chimed in, and he made the ruckus even louder. Good move, John; if that’s what you intended. Obama’s denunciation was all the talking heads on cable TV needed to create the gonsa megillah. As a result, Obama took what should have been a nothingburger and converted the cover cartoon into a media extravaganza.

Outrageous political cartoons have a long history in the United States. Thomas Nast’s cartoon attacks on corrupt New York City leaders a century and a half ago are part of American history. Richard Nixon endured biting attacks. Even President Franklin Roosevelt was targeted by conservative opponents. So the goofy New Yorker cover on Obama was nothing special.

Ironically, by reacting the way he did, Obama made something out of nothing. He showed that he lacked the grace and graciousness to “blow off” the New Yorker with a genuine Kennedyesque quip and maybe a roll of the eyes.

The bottom line: it’s not enough to daydream you are the “new Kennedy.” Dreamin’ ain’t bein’. I won’t take anything away from Barack Obama. He is intelligent, attractive and suave. He knows how to work the rope line. He is going to make mega millions after he leaves the senate.

But I knew Jack Kennedy. And Barry Obama is no Jack Kennedy.

Not now. Not ever. Not inshallah.

—————————————————————

Andy Martin is a legendary Chicago muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of Contrarian Commentary. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. His columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com. Andy is the author of Obama: The Man Behind The Mask, published in July 2008, via AndyMart20@aol.com.

Note about NoQuarter Radio’s interview of Andy Martin: An audio archive of the Friday interview of Andy Martin by Larry Johnson, which you can hear live at 11:00 a.m. ET via No Quarter Radio (NQR) will be available at NoQuarterUSA.net and at NQR immediately following the show.

With the collapse of IndyMac and Bear Stearns, mounting home foreclosures, a tanking economy and no end in sight in Iraq, we need someone far smarter and more knowledgeable than we are on matters of foreign and economic policy, national security, and our place in the global community. Someone who regards as sacrosanct the role of the President in upholding our Constitution. Someone who will stand up for what is right. FISA comes to mind. Senator Clinton kept her word and voted against giving telecommunications companies retroactive immunity while Senator Obama blithely reneged on his, throwing the 4th amendment under the bus.

As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Senator Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, has done his level best to make you fear – not voting for his candidate. If you don’t vote for Obama, we will consider you a racist. If you don’t vote for him, they will overturn Roe v. Wade, they will nominate conservative Justices, they will keep us in Iraq for 100 years.

Most worrisome to me, however, is that whenever I speak to an Obama supporter, they can give me nothing to rest their hopes for change on. Their number one statement is: “He’ll surround himself with really great people.” This strikes me as code for ‘We are electing a symbol. We know he’s too inexperienced, but the old ‘pols’ will protect and help him.’ So perhaps their faith in his scintillating judgment is not as strong as they pretend.

Congressional approval is at an all time low. Nancy Pelosi, once elected Speaker, turned from a tiger into a pussycat, and with her pasty smile, said “impeachment is off the table.” Democrats have taken nary a bite out of Bush since they took back Congress, making their integrity suspect. Are these really the people you want whispering in Obama’s ear?

Now, apparently, we are not even allowed to poke fun at Senator Obama – so thin is his skin. Oh, let me not mention the word skin, lest that be taken the wrong way. What are his supporters so afraid of?

Do they secretly realize with all his policy flips flops, gross inexperience, and 20 years of nefarious, crooked and divisive associations that he is hanging on by a thin thread as it is?

This week, we saw more evidence of the thin-skinned Obama campaign.

The New Yorker cover featuring Barack and Michelle has everyone up in arms over the possibility that we are either offending or besmirching the chosen one. Regardless of whether one thinks this cartoon is great satire or misses the mark, if Senator Obama’s skin is that thin, what is he doing running for the highest and toughest office in the world?

Even the LA Times, and the NY Times’ otherwise inexcusable Maureen Dowd, both long on the Obama bandwagon, were making fun of the humorless Obama campaign.

What if Hillary Clinton had behaved this way, taking issue with every negative, smarmy or unfair depiction of her? She would never have had a moment to campaign, being too preoccupied fighting shadows. Only once did she come out swinging: when David Shuster of MSNBC piggishly asked if the Clintons were “pimping out their daughter Chelsea.”

Doesn’t it make anyone uncomfortable that Barack Obama has enjoyed political cover the likes of which have never been seen before? Hillary enjoyed no such advantage. In fact, it was exactly the opposite.

I don’t want to play tit for tat here. Honestly. But as disgusting as the disrespect and misogyny leveled at her was, and no matter how much her political rivals, aka, the “boys” piled on, no matter the Democratic Party elites stabbing her in the back for their own selfish gain – didn’t it make you feel better knowing that she could handle it?

She actually got taller and stronger the longer the campaign wore on.

The White House pressure cooker is a non-stop stress machine. The President has it coming from all sides, foreign and domestic, and must stand ready to take a pounding like the heavy bag at the gym. The honeymoon is over 20 minutes after the Inauguration, I can assure you. In fact, if the past couple of weeks are any indication, it looks like the bloom is already off the rose.

Are we really saying that Senator Obama does not have the intestinal fortitude to laugh off this magazine cover? That is preposterous. Or was this outrage merely feigned? Another tactic from the brain of Axelrod – get preoccupied about a cartoon, so that the damaging and/or unfavorable contents of the article itself would go largely ignored.

On Larry King Live, Senator Obama just commented The New Yorker cover was an insult to members of the Muslim community. Really? It seems the Muslim community was far more offended when two Muslim women, in traditional dress, were removed from sitting behind him at a photo op. Again, his comments are a diversion, more tactics of fear in order to protect and advantage himself. The only upset is the upset he is fomenting as another distraction from the real issue: him.

Watching how Senator Obama’s fans protect him and the party elites run political interference for him (remember Bush’s remarks at the Knesset), almost makes me feel like I’m at an Al-Anon meeting. We are not here to enable this man. He has to be ‘able’ without our help.

Do you really want to buy four years of this? How will you feel when your student loans keep you in indentured servitude and he has no plan to help but instead continues to be enamored of Reaganomics?

How will you feel when he keeps capitulating on the Constitutional protections this country is built on? How will you feel when women’s rights are further whittled away on Roe v. Wade because late term abortions should not be permitted when, as he so insensitively and cluelessly put it, a woman is “feeling blue”?

The fact that Hillary Clinton, out of the race for the past five weeks, is still polling better than Obama against John McCain should telescope something very significant here.

What will you do in the somewhat unlikely event that Senator Obama is elected? I promise, you will quickly tire of making excuses for him.

“Oh, he’s just running to the center.” The center of what? All his supposed political principles have been thrown out the window. Gun control, women’s rights, Iraq, FISA, the death penalty, NAFTA, and more.

Senator Clinton, as the true progressive in the bunch, evidenced once again with her FISA vote, would need to make no such adjustments. Whether or not you agreed with her on every point – her policy positions were straightforward from the beginning and she would require no waffling or fence-straddling now.

This is no time for a trainee. Fortunately, though the DNC would have you believe otherwise, this situation is not irreversible. There is a very clear path to the stronger candidate and if responsible Super Delegates have any courage, they will take it at the Convention.

Otherwise, please ask yourselves, how long can you protect someone who has shown he has no interest in protecting you?

Why, if a big huge stink is NOT made about the cover, people might actually read the ARTICLE inside! And they might, just might, see that this Emperor, just like George Bush, is wearing no clothes.

So instead, let’s just ratchet up the furor because heaven knows, NO other politician has EVER had a satirical cartoon done about them in the history of politics - ever! That’s why this one is so shocking! And no doubt, RACIST! Because they are making fun of Obama!!!!! How COULD they?!?! Don’t they know that this is unprecedented?? Oh, wait - it’s not.

You can go to this website, Political Humor, and see cartoons about all KINDS of politicians. The difference there is that the cartoons are mocking the actual people pictured, not the nebulous blogoshpere and its potential for rumor-mongering. (There are far more sites than this one - I just found this one first, and quite easily.)

But that wasn’t the point. Well, it is kinda the point with Obama - to blow something completely out of proportion and twist the message behind it.

We saw that time and time again during the primaries, like with the Bill Clinton remarks in SC that they twisted in an attempt to paint him as a racist. But the point in this particular instance was to distract Obama’s lemmings, I mean, followers - no, uh - SUPPORTERS from reading the article inside. Now, the material in there is not a surprise to those of us who are thinking - uh, informed voters, but it might well be to those bandwagoners in the Obama camp. It paints a picture of Obama different from his carefully crafted image as an outsider, a new voice, the reincarnation of JFK and MLK (gag me). Unlike the articles we have sought out to get all of the pieces of this puzzle, this magazine, a national, respected, magazine, puts it all together in one place (and honestly, went fairly easy on him from other sources I have seen, particularly those in Chicago). We can’t have that, can we?? Not according to the Obama camp.

What this article, “Making It“, makes clear was the calculated ascendancy of King Obama, the meticulous way he cultivated relationships to move him further along his path to what he wanted all along - the presidency. This was no accident, no fluke - Obama has been planning, scheming, and working for this day. It recounts just how he got this far, who helped him, and how; upon who’s backs he has climbed, and on who’s throats he has stepped. What is also clear is his opinion of himself, and it is mighty high indeed. Oh, yes - he knew he was going to be King, I mean PRESIDENT:

Almost as soon as he got to Springfield, he was planning another move. He was bored there—once, he appeared to doze off during a caucus meeting—and frustrated by the Republicans’ total control over the legislature. He seemed to believe, according to colleagues at the time, that he was destined for better things than being trapped in one of America’s more notoriously corrupt state capitals.

And he did not always get along with his colleagues in the State Senate. In fact, he had quite the acrimonious relationship with State Senator Hendon, and the two almost came to blows (here’s a surprise - Obama started it) on the floor of the IL senate. I bet you haven’t heard that before, right? Oh, no, he is always the consummate professional, isn’t he? No. No, he isn’t. Raise your hand if you are surprised at that!!! Yeah, I didn’t think so.

How about that Community Organizing experience he touts so much? The platform upon which all of his subsequent experience rests? Well, he had this to say about it:

…And for the most part I would say I wasn’t wildly successful. The victories that we achieved were extraordinarily modest: you know, getting a job-training site set up or getting an after-school program for young people put in place.

Wow - you can see why that experience, all 2 -3 years of it, are so foundational for the rest of his political life, and certainly for the presidency. I would go so far as to say he has already demonstrated some of his “extraordinarily modest” legislation since he got into the U.S. Senate, all two pieces of it (post office naming and helping out in Congo). Oh, it just gives me shivers to think what modest things he can accomplish as president!! I am sure the list is endless of the mediocrity he can bring…

Another aspect the article exposes it just how Obama came to be at Trinity United Church of Christ. You know he isn’t a native of Chicago (though one of the Obamabot talking points is how offensive it is that Hillary Clinton isn’t from NY yet is a senator from NY), and that was an issue. Where else to obtain your bona fides but your church, right? Well, certainly for the young Obama:

Obama seems to have been meticulous about constructing a political identity for himself. He visited churches on the South Side, considered the politics and reputations of each one, and received advice from older pastors. Before deciding on Trinity United Church of Christ, he asked the Reverend Wright about critics who complained that the church was too “upwardly mobile,” a place for buppies. Though he admired Judson Miner, he was similarly cautious about joining his law firm. Miner once told me that it took “a series of lunches” and hours of discussion before Obama made his decision. At the time, Obama was working on “Dreams from My Father.”

Notice anything missing about how he choose his church home? How about FAITH?? Or THEOLOGY? Um, no. No it was all about which church was going to help him the most politically. Theology and faith seemed to have little to do with his decision.

Apparently, the same was true of where he worked - it was what the church, and the firm, could do for HIM, not what he could do for THEM. JFK is rolling over in his grave, no doubt…

So, yes, if I was Obama, I imagine I would want a big huge smokescreen, too. A well orchestrated, “Look Over THERE!” By completely twisting the point of the political cartoon, he has made the issue the cover, so the issues raised within the covers are discredited at best, and ignored at worst. He has made the point the cartoonist, not his own history and his claw and nail climb to the top. Now, even if any of his army actually read the article, they would be able to dismiss any fact that was the least bit critical (or true) because of that darn cover. The one about the rumors. The one making fun of us out here, not the Obamas. It is clever, I’ll give him that. And is certainly in keeping with how he has run his campaign, and his political life. But it is also dishonest, manipulative, and insulting. If you actually read the article, though, you will see that is just SOP for Barack Obama.

Oh, one last thing - I got the following the humorist, Andy Borowitz, and thought he summed it up nicely:

Obama Releases List of Approved Jokes About Himself
Bid to Help Late Night Comics

Saying he is “sympathetic to late night comedians’ struggle to find jokes to make about me,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) today issued a list of official campaign-approved Barack Obama jokes.

The five jokes, which Sen. Obama said he is making available to all comedians free of charge, are as follows:

Barack Obama and a kangaroo pull up to a gas station. The gas station attendant takes one look at the kangaroo and says, “You know, we don’t get many kangaroos here.” Barack Obama replies, “At these prices, I’m not surprised. That’s why we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, “I was expecting the farmer’s daughter.” Barack Obama replies, “She’s not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American Dream.”

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?” Barack Obama replies, “His jockey just lost his health insurance, which should be the right of all Americans.”

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
Barack Obama: The New Yorker magazine, which should be embarrassed after publishing such a tasteless and offensive cover, which I reject and denounce.

A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. Barack Obama says, “This joke isn’t going to work because there’s no Muslim in this boat.”

And there you have it. Jokes can still be made about Bill Clinton and Monica. Jokes can be made about McCain, including his time as a POW. We have seen the number of so-called jokes about Hillary Clinton. But Obama is off limits, people - except for these five jokes above. Got it, people??

The absolutely brilliant cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine has progressive Internet sites up in arms. (Check out Memeorandum.com’s tracking of the flood of blog posts.) For example, at dailykos.com over 1,400 comments have been made in less than two hours about the topic, “OMG and WTF, have you seen this?”

The cartoon shows Barack Obama giving a fist bump to Michelle Obama. He is dressed in Arab garb and she looks like Angela Davis with her ‘fro and an AK-47 strapped over her shoulder. Looking over the couple is a smiling portrait of Osama bin Laden. In the fireplace, an American flag is burning.

Shocking? Not really. In this cartoon the Obamas are standing in the oval office. This week’s issue of the New Yorker has a long, long article about Obama’s days in Chicago. The cartoon is an obvious caricature of the way Obama is seen by the ten percent of Americans who still think he is a Muslim.

But who are the low information voters now? Last night, at dailykos.com, it’s like the last day at Jonestown. The kool-aid has really gotten to these people.

But let’s destroy the New Yorker! You know, the people that employ Seymour Hersh and so forth.

For starters, he needs Bill Clinton to raise money. He also needs Bill Clinton to help calm the anger and resentment that Hillary supporters still harbor towards Barack.

But the apology road is rocky and painful. At a minimum Barack needs to walk backwards on the following charges.

He stood by silently while his backers accused the President of racism.

The Obama campaign’s “fairy tale” gambit was particularly transparent. Commenting on Obama’s explanation of why he is more against the war in Iraq than Hillary Clinton, and disturbed by the news media’s failure to report Obama’s actual voting record on Iraq in the Senate, the former president referred to what had become the conventional wisdom as a “fairy tale” concocted by Obama and his supporters. Time to play the race-baiter card! One of Obama’s most prominent backers, the mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, stretched Clinton’s remarks and implied that he had called Obama’s entire candidacy a fairy tale. (The mayor later coyly told a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she had not intended to criticize Clinton: “Surely you don’t mean he’s the only one who can use the phrase ‘fairy tale,’” Franklin said, in a tone that the reporter described as “mock indignation.”) Appearing on CNN, one of its pundits, Donna Brazile, hurled the wild charge that Clinton had likened Obama to a child. “And I will tell you,” she concluded, “as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing.” With those kinds of remarks–”as an African American”–the race card and the race-baiter card both came back into play. Although Brazile is formally not part of Obama’s campaign, her comments made their way to the South Carolina memo, offered as evidence that Clinton’s comment was racially insensitive.

And Barack trashed Bill Clinton’s legacy. Ryan Lizza, writing in The New Yorker, noted:

That is what offended Bill Clinton. “Hillary’s opponent, in his entire campaign, every two or three weeks has said for months and months and months, beginning in Nevada, that really there wasn’t much difference in how America did when I was President and how America’s done under President Bush,” he said in Lock Haven. “Now, if you believe that, you should probably vote for him, but you get a very bad grade in history.” In the closing days of the campaign, Obama gave at least three speeches criticizing the former President, who, ever vigilant of his legacy, defended himself at every stop. Few paid attention; Barack and Bill were like two boxers trying to have a fight but both getting pelted by a mysterious third force—the saturation gaffe coverage.

Well, guess what Barack? Bill Clinton has been elected twice as President. You are still a wannabee. And your boy, Jimmy Carter, could only win one term and hung the albatross of defeat on Democrats for the next 12 years. And whose ass are you kissing? Carter’s. Word to Barack–pucker up baby and get some chap stick. You have got some major Clinton ass to kiss. You should start by praising his legacy. Next you need to make it clear to your idiot followers, who persist in sullying the names of both Bill and Hillary with charges of racism, that both Clintons have been the best friends of the African Americans.

But despite the news reports that you are reaching out to Bill Clinton, you and I both know that is a crock. Your words are empty rhetoric. You remain a petulant, arrogant punk. You need to find the grace and humility to apologize for helping trash the legacy of Bill Clinton. You need to pick up the phone and do some groveling. I doubt you have it in you. But I am ready for you to prove me wrong. If you can repair the damage you did to Bill Clinton, you might have a chance to demonstrate you can do a better job of governing. But I don’t think you have what it takes. We will see.

The New Yorker this week profiles the not-so-special political commentator, Keith Olbermann. A few money quotes:

Olbermann, who is six feet three and a half, once bumped his head while leaping into a subway car; it permanently upset his equilibrium, which makes driving a trial. (He says he loses depth perception at speeds greater than fifteen miles per hour.)

I am sorry to hear that his equilibrium was upset by his own impetuous actions. But frankly, his perception is not any better sitting down and staying still. In fact, it may be worse. Equilibrium is not a word I have ever associated with Keith Olbermann. Slanted and off-balanced are. Now at least, we know why. As for trying, Olbermann tries our patience five nights a week and offends our sensibilities with every word he utters.

Olbermann’s tenure at ESPN was characteristically contentious. One of his co-anchors, Suzy Kolber, has said that Olbermann was sometimes so overbearing that she would lock herself in the bathroom and cry. Another colleague, Mike Soltys, has said that when Olbermann left the network, in 1997, “he didn’t burn bridges here—he napalmed them.”

Overbearing is apt and his misogyny is nothing new. If I were to cry, it would be over the fact that he is killing American journalism by pretending to be Edward R. Murrow, whom he is not. And in terms of the death of the US Democratic Party, Olbermann is simply Agent Orange, a defoliant that has stripped bare what was once a vibrant political party, now likely headed for death because of the toxicity of pundits like Mr. Olbermann.

Once again, Olbermann left a job unhappily, returning to sportscasting at Fox Sports. He was subsequently fired, and the remainder of his contract was paid off. (“I fired him,” Rupert Murdoch said recently. “He’s crazy.”)

It won’t be the last time he is fired. We are working on repeating on yet another pink slip for Mr. Olbermann.

The Olbermann-O’Reilly feud, which is wholly Olbermann’s creation, began with a wisecrack in 2003, the first year of “Countdown.” It evolved after Olbermann instituted a farcical segment called “The Worst Person in the World,” in which O’Reilly, depicted as a pompous buffoon, was regularly cited. O’Reilly, the biggest draw of the highest-rated cable-news network, could only lose by engaging with Olbermann, but he could not resist. Refusing to mention Olbermann by name, he sponsored a petition drive to have him replaced, and eventually began to aim on-air broadsides against NBC’s parent company, General Electric, and its chairman, Jeffrey Immelt. “If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt,” O’Reilly asserted in April, citing G.E.’s business relationship with Iran. (The company began phasing out its contracts there in 2005.) This only encouraged Olbermann, who subjected Bill-O (as Olbermann calls him) to near-daily barrages of acid caricature. Instead of using video clips of O’Reilly for his routines, Olbermann began voicing O’Reilly’s words himself, in a demonic mimicry of the Ted Baxter character on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Demonic is a good adjective to describe Mr. Olbermann. Asinine and pedantic are others.

Olbermann’s success, like O’Reilly’s, is evidence of viewer cocooning—the inclination to seek out programming that reinforces one’s own firmly held political views. “People want to identify,” Griffin says. “They want the shortcut. ‘Wow, that guy’s smart. I get him.’ In this crazy world of so much information, you look for places where you identify, or you see where you fit into the spectrum, because you get all this information all day long.”

In the end, all Keith Olbermann will have his DailyKos audience, hardly the most progressive element in the United States and inherently anti-democratic. Honestly, who encourages voters to disrupt the democratic process by encouraging Democrats to cross over and vote for Mitt Romney in the Michigan Republican Primary? Only the lunacy of the DailyKos. It is not a tactic I can ever support. It goes against the entire concept of democracy and strikes at one of the core values of Western Civilization, the rights of conscience inalienable.

Some might find Olbermann’s frequent invocation of Murrow, and, especially, his appropriation of Murrow’s sign-off, wildly presumptuous.

That and utterly delusional.

Asked about the prospect of an Olbermann reign at “CBS Evening News,” Sandy Socolow, Walter Cronkite’s final executive producer, responded emphatically. “Oh, no, no, no, he’s not a newsman,” Socolow said. “He’s not a reporter. I’ve never seen anything that he’s done that was original, in terms of the information. It’s all derivative. I like him, I agree with his perspective, and I think he’s very, very good on television. But he’s not a newsman.” Socolow added, “Ten years ago, if he had done at CBS what he does every day on the air at MSNBC, he would have been fired by the end of the day.”

Ditto.

As Russert put it to me shortly before his death, “Keith and I have each carved out our roles in this vast information spectrum.” He continued, “What cable emphasizes, more and more, is opinion, or even advocacy. Whether it’s Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann or Lou Dobbs, that’s what that particular platform or venue does. It’s not what I do. What I do is different. I try very, very hard not to come up and say to people, ‘This is what I believe,’ or ‘This is good,’ or ‘This is bad.’ But, rather, ‘This is what I’m learning in my reporting,’ or ‘This is what my analysis shows based on my reporting.’ And as long as I can do that I’m very, very comfortable. And nobody has asked me to do anything but that.”

Yes, it is opinion but it is being packaged as news and fact. That is not only disingenuous but immoral. And it has poisoned political discourse in the United States, radicalizing elements on both sides. As Fox News caters to the right, MSNBC caters to the left. Vice President Cheney requires that his hotel rooms have Fox on when he enters the room. How’s that for fair and balanced news sourcing? Look at the By The Fault blogroll, there are news sources from over 50 countries offering a wide perspective of news and events.

In cable news, the dominant personality puts an identifying stamp on the entire organization. The stamp at MSNBC is indisputably that of Keith Olbermann.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Olbermann says that he began the campaign season determined to remain neutral on the Democratic race, although he was plainly friendly with the Clintons. (During an interview with Bill Clinton in 2006, Olbermann handed the former President a personal donation to the Clinton Foundation.) Olbermann liked Obama, but he believed, at first, that he would not make a strong candidate. As the tide began to turn Obama’s way, Olbermann began to grow impatient with Clinton surrogates’ attacks on Obama, and, seemingly, with the persistence of the candidate herself. As Obama neared apparent assurance of the nomination, Olbermann began to raise questions about Clinton’s arithmetic on the popular vote, about her wanting to change the rules regarding the Florida and Michigan primaries, about why she didn’t just do the right thing and get out.

But attacks on Clinton, including overtly misogynistic comments on MSNBC, raised not but an eyebrow. Hypocrisy is hard to swallow.

Brokaw says he sometimes feels that he has been cast in the role of hall monitor at NBC News; if so, his charges have kept him busy. The day after the New Hampshire primary, Matthews asserted that Hillary Clinton owed her election as senator to public sympathy for her in light of her husband’s sexual peccadilloes. “It was completely out of line,” Brokaw says. “And Keith took it to another level” with his “shut the hell up” commentary.

If Brokaw is the hall monitor, then Olbermann is certainly the playground bully. But where’s the principal or at the very least an adult?

In March, after Geraldine Ferraro said that Obama would not be where he is if he were not a black man, Olbermann issued a Special Comment that was aimed expressly at Clinton’s advisers (and their countenancing of Ferraro’s “cheap, ignorant, vile racism”) but that struck Clinton nonetheless. “Voluntarily or inadvertently,” Olbermann said, addressing Clinton directly, “you are still awash in this filth.”

That moment would have marked the nadir of Olbermann’s career as a pundit but for the fact of what was still yet to come.

At MSNBC, Phil Griffin was worried, and with good reason. The average “Countdown” viewer is fifty-nine years old, and forty-five per cent of the viewers are women, presumably Democratic—a fair description of a Hillary Clinton supporter. Griffin believed that Olbermann was beginning to alienate his core audience, and asked him to ease up a bit on Clinton, and possibly even make some conciliatory gesture to the Clinton camp. Olbermann was offended by the suggestion. “I can’t do that!” he says, recalling that conversation. “Me doing a commentary against my own opinion is pandering. Black and white. And I’m not going to do it. Would I pull back a little bit, or think long and hard about whether or not I want to knowingly alienate part of the audience? Yeah. And I did. I mean, I held fire on Senator Clinton for quite a while after she began to really scare me, with some of these tactics.”

You are hardly believable any more. You are caricature, a parody of singular nothingness. An empty suit like your would be messiah.

For another not-so-complimentary view, check out

From my blog, By The Fault.