Our Modern Edward R. Murrow, Thrown Under the Bus(t) by White House

So last week White House Communications Director Dan Pfiefer wrote a post on the official White House Blog (assuming these people write their own posts at all) supposedly correcting Charles Krauthammer and others’ claim that the Obama administration returned a bust of Winston Churchill at the beginning of his presidency.  This included lines like this:

Lately, there’s been a rumor swirling around about the current location of the bust of Winston Churchill. Some have claimed that President Obama removed the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and sent it back to the British Embassy.

Now, normally we wouldn’t address a rumor that’s so patently false, but just this morning the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer repeated this ridiculous claim in his column.  He said President Obama “started his Presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.”

This is 100% false. The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room. 

Well, I first learned of that post, when I saw Keith Olbermann tweet this out:

Remember that bust of Churchill POTUS sent back to England? He didn't. He moved it nearer to his bedroom.http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/07/27/fact-check-bust-winston-churchill … #tcot

He then went on to taunt and insult other journalists on the right, writing this for example:

Friday Frivolity: The Current TV Values Edition (Update: Instalink and Pattericolanche!)

Update: Linked and quoted by Insty twice.  And linked by Patterico.  Newcomers might enjoy my multiple posts on the Obamacare arguments (here, here, here and here), and on the Martin/Zimmerman shooting (start here and work backwards).

So today we get word that Keith Olberman has been fired.  Again.  His viewer must be devastated.  One suspects that this might have something to do with the lawsuit involving James O’Keefe, but truthfully that is rank speculation.  I have no idea what brought this on, perhaps because I don’t have Current TV and wouldn’t be caught dead watching it if I did.

But via twitter, Olberman put out a statement today, 140 characters at a time.  And I will aggregate it into something easier to read:

I'll be putting out my statement in two ways: 140 characters at a time, and then in one fell swoop via Twitlonger.

I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV. Editorially, Countdown had never been better.  But for more than a year I have been imploring @AlGore and @JoelHyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I've been not publicizing my complaints, and keeping the show alive for the sake of its loyal viewers and even more loyal staff.  Nevertheless, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt, instead of abiding by their promises and obligations and investing in a quality news program, finally thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract. It goes almost without saying that the claims against me in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently.

To understand Mr. Hyatt’s “values of respect, openness, collegiality and loyalty,” I encourage you to read of a previous occasion Mr. Hyatt found himself in court for having unjustly fired an employee. That employee’s name was Clarence B. Cain: [link to this article.]

In due course, the truth of the ethics of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt will come out. For now, it is important only to again acknowledge that joining them was a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one.

That lack of judgment is mine and mine alone, and I apologize again for it.

Meanwhile, Current TV put out a statement that explained that “We are moving ahead by honoring Current's values.”  And how did they honor Current TV’s values?  By replacing Olbermann with a whoremonger:

We’re very excited to announce that beginning tonight, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will host “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer,” at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT.

Well, we have indeed learned a great deal about their values, haven’t we?

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The Jackie Robinson Theory of the Obama Presidency

Ever since Obama has become president there has been a hyperracialization of every issue of mere politics.  The climax came for me when I went to the Tea Party protest down at the Capital.  I’ll post more on it later, but when I got home I started hearing claims of some kind of racial incident.  You can recognize intellectually that politicians are liars, but to hear them lying about you is another matter, a real baptism.  And it made me try to understand where this was all coming from.

Now some of it is pure hucksterism.  There is no two ways about it.

But there is also an honest, albeit mistaken, belief that this is a racial issue.  And I think I figured out why so many liberals have been seeing it that way.  I call it the Jackie Robinson Theory of the Obama presidency.

The Fallacy of Assuming Everyone Thinks Like You (or “Fisking Keith Olbermann”)

Yeah, several posts ago I wondered if it was necessary to fisk Olbermann, but I am compelled to, here.

But first let me tell you a story.  Now I have said that I support affirmative action in a limited sort of way, based on the present reality of racism and other forms of bigotry.  And I remember saying that once in a Constitutional History class back when I was an undergraduate and a man vehemently disagreed with me that racism was a real problem.  He said something like this:

I don’t think racism is so bad.  At my fraternity, a black guy wanted to join.  And one guy said we shouldn’t let him join because he was black.  So I stood up and said that the fact he was black didn’t matter.  And we voted to let him in.

That’s a paraphrase, of course.  And this is what I said in response.

Really, is it Necessary to Fisk Keith Olberman?

Well, regardless, the Daily Caller has done an admirable job doing it.

For my money, the second clip, when he attacks these kids for joking about the Washington, D.C. blizzard is the most hilarious.  According to Olberman, you can’t make a joke about any bad weather in which anyone died.  Which means of course you can never joke about any bad weather, ever, in your whole life.

What a sour man.  But it makes the clip unintentionally hilarious.

Racial Coding at NBC?

Time to do some petard hoisting.  Apparently at NBC they decided to set up a menu to “In Honor of Black History Month.”  And what, pray tell, was on the menu?

Fried chicken, Collard Greens, white rice and black eyed pees.

Yes, really.

Olbermann in Trouble?

Not sure if he is, but Stuart Schwartz does a good job making the case that he is an angry, pompous, sexist pig.  So there is that.