Keith Olbermann is no longer on Current TV, effective immediately, which should disappoint the 700 or so people who were following his program. Lately, I had not been one of them. As often as not, I agree with the man politically and I think he often makes some very solid cases. Not only that but I think he generally does so with a much higher level of factual accuracy than most folks who work the pundit beat these days…which is not to say he doesn't occasionally distort or err once in a while. Still, I've lately found myself TiVoing the program and then not watching it…or sometimes watching just the opening and being reminded why I so often deleted it without viewing.
It's the same reason I don't think Liberal Talk Radio really works. Every time I tune in Randi Rhodes or Ed Schultz, I feel this constant pressure from them to ratchet up my anger and/or despair about certain matters over which I already have sufficient anger and/or despair, thank you. It's like I've found a comfortable, appropriate level for myself and these programs seek to raise it to something uncomfortable or inappropriate…for me. Note the "…for me" in there. I'm not saying they aren't dandy for some other folks or that maybe those people couldn't stand to have their levels raised. It's just not what I want for me, especially when I need to get my mind off politics for long stretches in order to write what I need to write professionally.
When I tune in Liberal Talk Radio, the message I usually hear is "We're screwed and doomsday is ahead." When I tune in Conservative Talk Radio, the message I usually hear is, "We're screwed but we'll win." Mr. Limbaugh, it seems to me, is very good at cheerleading. He gets his listeners angry about Obama or gays or minorities or whatever but he always reassures them that victory lies ahead. I happened to tune him in once when the Democrats had just won some major victory and what I heard was how for Republicans, this was the best thing that could have happened and how the Dems would soon regret that win. Somehow, if the vote had gone the other way, I don't think Rush would have been saying the opposite. It would still have been the best thing that could have happened to Republicans.
By contrast, Olbermann seemed to always be giving me the negative, getting me riled up about things I can't do a damn thing about but stew. Even when the news for his team was good, he scowled and told us how the other side would be trying to spoil it. I'm not saying he was accurate or inaccurate; just that I am not often in the mood to hear that stuff.
Where is he going now? Somewhere. And when he gets fired from that job, he'll go somewhere else. And somewhere else after that. I have this odd feeling that somewhere in this journey, he'll even have a show on Fox News for an hour and a half. I don't mean it will be a 90 minute show every night. I mean it'll be an hour show and he'll get fired halfway through the second one.