Has Keith Olbermann Sold Out?

I think the tragedy here is that Keith O was not allowed to contribute small amounts of money to a few candidates, while the personalities at fox gave and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for right wingers.  Where is the fair and balanced in that?  The slap on the wrist by MSNBC seems totally uncalled for, since every citizen or giant corportation or foreign government can now secretly give billions of dollars to buy an election, according to our Supreme Court.

This Is Your Issue:

"his integrity is not as strong as I had believed it was..."

Perhaps this is to say that Keith Olbermann is more human than you believed. I suspect that all of us are flawed more than any of us might care to admit. Who knows? Keith himself might be the first to admit this.

That said, I believe that he is a man of conscience. Flawed conscience, but conscience none-the-less. Conscience is a curious thing. Through its leaders, our nation practiced systematic torture, a state that many deem unconscionable.

Did he err? Yes.

Is there anything inherently wrong with Keith's donations? No. The issue is that he perjured himself. Others err in things that, to my mind, are inherently wrong, such as torture -- a practice which we [rather] stupidly denied and justified at the same time. I understand the network's concern to avoid partizan relationships. And yet Keith's commentary is hardly non-partizan.

In the end, Keith, and all of us, remain human -- questionable in integrity, fallible in judgements. And our institutions, government, media, corporations, institutions and all societies and groups of people, remain a reflection of what we are. Could it be that integrity lies in attaining to perfection less than it does in seeing our imperfection?

Stop listening to Keith if you wish; but who can we find that is not bound by this human condition?

Betcha he never demanded an apology to begin with. I just did a little hunt and we got pretty much the same story, repeated almost without deviation from blog to blog to blog. Each using each others blog as source. With the same picture even. LMAO

At least Megan McCain wrote her own. :)

Keith did this just to show how Fox News deals with their people vs the way he was treated. I personally think that it was a setup to show how MSNBC is tough. He actually took one for the team. Rachel Maddow told us in a certain way that it was a setup. Keith and Rachel know the polices of MSNBC. Do you people really think that Keith didn't know what he was doing. Please okay. Get a clue

Now, Now, Polka-dot…

Forgiveness is never a matter of fairness. If mistakes accrue from lack of judgment, from what does injudiciousness itself accrue? Saying ‘perjury,’ I state the issue accurately and non-prejudicially, without excusing or rationalizing the behavior. Why seek an apology -- poor judgment, perhaps?

The problem in your line of inquiry is not the assertion that Mr. Olbermann is flawed, but the unstated supposition (witting or not) that some might not be. Mr. Olbermann’s disease is universal to the human condition. Circumstances, occasion for testing, etc., are all that separate him from others. This is not justification. But it is a call for humility arising from recognition that we may all need forgiveness someday– not because it is fair, but because it is needed.

As an aside, did you know that Chris Hedges was interviewed yesterday on his work, ‘The Death of the Liberal Class?’ Some read, I'd guess!

I see nothing wrong in what KO did.

As long as he reports the news fairly there is nothing wrong with him contributing to people who represent his personal views.

Same with Fox News, if they reported the news fairly(FAT CHANCE) it would be all right that they contributed to people who represent their views. The difference is that Fox News will do anything including lying to make the news fit their view.

I will continue to watch Countdown.

No I do not think Olbermann is a sell out. We all know where he stands politically. I think this may have been a planned exercise that was designed to highlight how MSNBC is a responsible network and requires a nuetral stance as compared to how corrupt FOX News is. Everyone at FOX either campaigns or gives money to the repubs. Heck, Beck and his lame speech at the Lincoln Memorial, did nothing but give Palin a huge platform in which she attempted to politic about something nuetral in our country and the only thing she could talk about was the military and our beloved heroes. She has to drag all of the worn torn vets into her speeches and basque in their greatness because she lacks any greatness of her own. The repubs own FOX News, so I do not care if MSNBC publicly comes out and fights for the dems. We need to stand up to FOX News. They are complete hypocrites. Several months ago many at FOX were screaming for Sherrod's head, but when people started screaming for the heads of Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly they cried unfair. FOX is brainwashing many people and they appeal to the hate and anger genes that are in abundance throughout the country. Beck is not fit to report any news at all, even news for a JR. High school. O'Reilly is all about hate and stoking the hate fire. They confuse their idiotic audience with phrases such as "distribution of wealth" which is is equivalent to better paychecks for hardworking labor people, but FOX calls distribution of wealth "socialism" FOX news also calls social justice which is equal to freeing innocent people who have been wrongly locked up in prison as another "socialistic phrase"

The FOX audience is to stupid to realize that redistribution of wealth= bigger paychecks for working people and that social justice= justice in society and a battle against police, prison, prosecutor, and abuse that leads to the imprisonment of many innocent people in order to promote foul careers and grab power. I am all for a bigger paycheck(distribution of wealth) and freeing innocents who have been locked up(social justice) but FOX news reports these concepts as "socialism" when in fact the lacking of such concepts helps promote facism.

I watch Olbermann. I used to like him more. He's become too much like the people he ought to serve as a counter to. Now he has violated journalistic standards.

Either there are journalistic standards, or there are not. Granted, those who would gladly pervert journalism and democracy have a temporary edge in the marketplace of opinion, but abandoning standards to keep "down" with them is wrong. "Fox does it too, and does worse" is hollow.

I appreciate your sentiment, and truly do believe that it's valid, to a point.

But this is what's known as "concern trolling."

With neo-con Fox doing what they've been doing, that is 'buying' the election and causing all this turmoil, what is a liberal progressive to do? Sometimes, the only way to fight corruption is with some corruption. Note that this what Keith did was very mild in comparison to the other side. What I am trying to say here is, if Fox and those unknown donors did not do what they did, I am quite certain that Keith would not have made those 'petty' donations. It should also be noted that Keith was discovered, he disclosed what he had done. Do he do an impulsive mistake? Perhaps. But we as progressives need his voice. The survival of our Democracy depends on it. The neo-cons are afraid of him, and in this volatile polical environment, that's a good thing so long as Keith opinionates off of verifiable facts and NOT conjectures. Polka, stay with him. Hope my comment helps.

Being that it is a given that Keith Olberman is educated it must be assumed that he full well knew what he was doing, in this I have to believe that there is more to the story than the eye meets. If he followed his heart or if he made an educated manuever neither leads me to be able to believe that he is a sell out. One of the problems with allowing Fox News to operate the way they do in their underhanded unethical ways is that at some point it will become contagious, it has and is just a normal evolution of the situation. What needs to be done is for a fair playing field to be created and the Right is not going to allow that with having the upper hand, so now it leads us to an " anything goes" atmosphere just as the past political campaign had become. We the sheeple are responsible for all of this by not setting higher standards, by listening to people of no character and I don't see where any of us have earned the right to point fingers. If both sides won't meet in the middle to make things right then we who are stuck in the middle need to realize that there are going to be far worse consequences to worry about other than what Keith Olberman is doing .

When we find ourselves amidst an economic melt down and the best we can get for a response from half of those in leadership is to concentrate on the destruction of the Presidency, the rest is small potatoes. What don't we get about this? It's besides insane suicidal and we are walking along quietly following as if we are all blind, worrying about things that have no place in what is needed to be done to right the ship; for as usual we are allowing ourselves to become distracted from what the real problems are. Perhaps Keith Olberman is just fed up, and I don't blame him one bit..............

This issue is very simple.

You watch MSNBC, and Olbermann, because you are a liberal. I watch the Great Fox News, because I am a Conservative.

You have been living under the naive opinion that YOUR side is somehow BETTER than the other side (more integrity, more neutrality, etc.). You have just been proven wrong. So, change your opinion. Very simple.