My pal Aaron Barnhart, who's the TV critic for the Kansas City Star, writes about Keith Olbermann — who Olbermann's attacking and who's attacking Olbermann.
For myself: I generally like Olbermann and think it's great that he's covering so many stories that the mainstream media is ignoring or allowing the shortest of shrift. There are two things I don't like about Olbermann's show. One is how pre-programmed most of his interviews seem, with Keith feeding his guests questions that have obviously been worked out in advance to elicit predetermined responses. The other is that I think he goes over the top hammering on some issues…even issues where I tend to agree with him. I'd like to see Hillary Clinton drop out of the race and throw her whole-hearted support to Obama but I don't think she should be ordered out of it, like she broke a rule and Olbermann's the ump who gets to disqualify her and send her to the showers.
Olbermann is very successful. His ratings are strong with the key demographics and trending stronger. I think what upsets a lot of right-wingers about him is not that he's expressing a viewpoint — he's only one guy doing this in a sea of Conservative talk radio and cable news broadcasters — but that he may be augaring the coming trend. Mr. Limbaugh was the one who showed the world how to make money off right-wing anger…so we got a lot more of it. Mr. Olbermann may soon be spawning imitations and "me too" enterprises. As the money goes, so go the TV, radio and publishing industries.