Apparently Keith Olbermann has run out of places to fire him, so he is now doing some cheesy YouTube thing with GQ magazine where, in a basement backed by an ugly shower curtain, he sits at a desk, fingers a sheet of paper like a real newsman, and doesn’t stop freaking out until the spittle-flecked camera lens makes it impossible for us to see anything.
Olbermann’s show is called “The Resistance,” which I believe is a clever play on well-turned phrases, such as, Resistance to reality. Resistance to self-awareness. Resistance to bowing out gracefully.
Seriously, y’all got to check this out:
Before I get to my all time favorite part, watch it again and allow yourselves to bathe in the Murrow-esque-osity of the prose…
- We are the victims of a bloodless coup…
- A man who, to borrow a phrase from a December from long ago, will live in infamy…
- Trump, self-destructive to the last…
- We on the Left…
- The President not-elect…!
- The coup by an outside power nearly complete…
- Today! Is! The! Time! For! Him! To! Do! So!
- What Donald Trump knew and when he knew it!
- …Without delay and without redactions!
- We are already on the precipice of losing the freedom and independence of the nation!
- The nation and all of our freedoms hang by a thread!
- Russian scum!
- The end of the United States as an independent country!
- This is a reality that will become the only reality…!
- Democrats and Republicans are traitors to this country!
Seriously, wow. Someone’s been reading his Faulkner.
And don’t your loins just stir when Olbermann uses Trump’s full name, as in Donald John Trump, because it’s like when your mom used your middle name and you knew the shit was about to get fer realzies.
And that mini Nazi salute at the end?
Chills.
Now, my favorite part…
The height of Olbermann’s Olbyism came during the aughts, when the force of his personality and words and, yes, resistance, changed an entire cable news network forever. Starting right around 2003, Olbermann used his primetime MSNBC show, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” as a venue for his personal leftwing opinions. His regular “Special Comment,” which, if memory serves, would close the show, galvanized dispirited Democrats, primarily because he would mercilessly lace into then-President George W. Bush over “lying us into” the Iraq War.
After Bush’s 2004 re-election, these commentaries took on even more urgency with the Left, and his entire network quickly followed suit. MSNBC came out of the closet and turned itself into left-wing talk radio with pictures, and what followed was an increase in ratings, relevance, and Olbermann finding himself crowned The King of The Left.
Like he always has and always will, he eventually flamed out and got himself fired from MSNBC (and a few times since), but here is my overall point…
Olbermann rode to glorious heights based almost exclusively on his fury over bad CIA intelligence that got us into a costly war in Iraq.
And just look at this poor, pathetic creature now…
Using CIA intelligence — that is nowhere near conclusive, that looks wobblier by the day, that does not conclude the Russians backed Trump — Keith Olbermann is declaring war on Russia and shaming anyone who does not follow his lead.
Olbermann is so lost, he has himself become the very caricature he created of George W. Bush.
What a fall.
And we get to watch it all on YouTube.
Is this a great country, or what?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
