Last night, I had to do it. I wanted to catch Keith Olbermann's take on the Glenn Beck rally. He was apparently off Monday, so last night, to use an apt metaphor, I stuck the family jewels into the proverbial meat grinder and turned on "Countdown".
Boy did Keith "nail" old Beck. No, he didn't quote all the "racist, hateful" things he told the crowd Saturday. He didn't call the hundreds of thousands in the crowd a bunch of "slack-jawed tea-baggers". He didn't mention all the hateful, racist posters (because there were none). What Keith did was two things. First, he did a comedy routine referring Beck to a line of evangelists; ""Billy Sol Beck", St Beck of Assisi, "Jimmy Swagbeck, etc. Then he pointed out that Beck had made some historical error in describing the suspension of construction on the Washington Monument. Problem was Keith's description was so tortured, I couldn't even follow the goof (something about the "Know-Nothings"). At least he didn't point out that Beck actually misspoke once by referring to the Washington Memorial before correcting himself and calling it the Washington Monument.
Note to Olbermann; is that the best you can do? C'mon, Keith! I expected a 20 minute monologue about what an ugly event it was. I thought you were going to compare it to a KKK rally.
Of course, Olbermann said nothing about Al Sharpton's divisive "no justice, no peace speech" Saturday at Dunbar High School and his references to those at the Lincoln Memorial "wanting to turn the clock back" and not letting them "disgrace this day.". You would have had a ton of material there, Keith, but that just doesn't fit your agenda, does it?
But I do thank Olbermann for the history lesson. When it comes to "Know-Nothings", Keith Olbermann is an expert.
I haven't heard/read Beck's entire speech, but apparently he did make a whole lot of really ridiculous statements that showed he doesn't have a very good grasp of American history. (Or, he was willing to take advantage of his audience's ignorance.)
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I didn't read about this from some left-wing blog. It was from a Baptist minister who took issue with the things Beck said.
I have never watched Olbermann, and I don't know exactly where to find him, especially since I never got a converter box for the TV I picked up at a rummage sale in 2005, but the man is obviously not a comedian. I bet he laughs at his own jokes too.
ReplyDeleteI still don't know why he thinks Beck's self-admiration society was worth talking about in the first place.