Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Highs and Lows of Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann has a lot of highs and a lot (like, a lot) of lows as well. These two are really just from last night's broadcast, because I was particularly struck by them as I drove into work this morning. First, Olbermann talks about the part contraceptives play in President Obama's budget:


The relevant part for me being:
And yes, all ye puritans among us, America will pay for contraceptives. Taxpayer dollars for evil condoms and horrible birth control pills. Contraceptives that states already have the option of providing for low-income fornicators. Fornication that would otherwise lead to untold, unwanted pregnancies, unwanted babies, unwanted abortions, unwanted drains on families, unwanted drains on, yes, the national economy. The congressional budget office estimates that $200 million saved in 5 years thanks to, yup, contraceptives and family planning.
I kind of feel like he should have been talking to Chris Matthews about how the government helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies (and diseases) is so completely different than a government working to "regulate the amount of kids people might be in the mood for".

And yet, on the top of this rather concise illustration for why contraceptives aren't completely out of place in a government concerned about budgetary issues and the quality of life for its citizens, Olbermann was just off the friggin' wall with this:
[Limbaugh] apologizes - or analogizes - the 'I want Obama to fail' to rooting for the Steelers in the Super Bowl, except - and you would think that a self-professed football expert would know - that the Steelers' coach and the Steelers' owner campaigned for Obama and they did so to such an extent that the second person the team owner, who was a Republican, thanked after they won the Super Bowl was Barack Obama. Does this suggest that this internecine battle is rattling Limbaugh to some degree?
This insane ramblings interrupt a segment of Chris Hayes:
This sort of eyerollingly ridiculous explanation of a pretty simplistic analogy is one of the things that makes Keith Olbermann seem unhinged. Instead of recognizing the analogy for what it is, rooting for the winner instead of the loser, Olbermann makes it about which football team supported which candidate.
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