The Anti-Bush Anchor

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 3, 2006 10:45 AM

Night after night, President Bush is being kicked, punched, slapped, poked, stomped and otherwise disrespected in one small corner of the cable television world.

And Keith Olbermann doesn't deny it has been good for ratings.

"I find myself currently aligned, not in the sense of having membership, but being in the same part of the ballpark as a lot of liberals," says the host of MSNBC's "Countdown."

Is Olbermann catering to the anti-Bush crowd? Since Hurricane Katrina, he says, a growing number of people have "had their eyes opened" to the administration's failings and do not see their points of view reflected in television news. "We have to be responsive to an audience's perception of the world or they will ignore us."

The former sportscaster denies that he's pushing an ideological agenda, noting that he relentlessly covered the uproar over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in his first incarnation as an MSNBC anchor in 1998. Of course, he was so sickened by the spectacle that he quit, complaining about the media's role in the tawdry process, though he now gives every indication of enjoying his anti-Bush program.

Since the most prominent opinion-mongers in cable -- Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson -- are unabashed conservatives, Olbermann stands out as an acerbic administration critic. While his main guests are journalists, he sometimes interviews Democratic lawmakers but almost never brings on Republicans or conservatives, except for MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan. "There are not a lot of conservative guests who are happy to be on the show," Olbermann admits.

In recent weeks he has begun the program this way:

"Black-bag jobs and the Bush administration. In the past, previous jobs have been run against the likes of Martin Luther King, and Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and the Democratic Party."

"Wheeling, West Virginia, where Joe McCarthy started his string of the most memorable speeches, today's stop on the George W. Bush I-Am-Nothing-If-Not-Deeply-Misunderstood Express."

"President versus media, again. Any credibility left, anyone?"

"Any similarity to President Lyndon Johnson, circa 1967, is purely coincidental."

"Pollster says, which one word best describes President Bush? . . . The correct answer starts with 'in -- ,' has 'compe -- ' in the middle and ' -- tent' at the end."

And that's not counting his "Worst Person in the World" award to former first lady Barbara Bush for making a Katrina donation earmarked for software programs sold to Houston schools by her son, Neil.

In 2003, when Olbermann questioned whether the Pentagon had hyped the Jessica Lynch rescue, "management was flooded with complaints to the point that I had to put on a clarification the next day," he says. "Three years ago you had to apologize for being at all critical of anything."

These days, he recently told C-SPAN, there are executives at NBC and parent company General Electric "who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all." But Olbermann says he's gotten no interference: "If my reading Marx every night got them great ratings, they'd be happy with that."

"Countdown" is still in third place among the cable news networks -- Fox's "O'Reilly Factor" dominated the first quarter, with 2.26 million viewers, followed by CNN's Paula Zahn with 632,000 and Olbermann with 404,000. But the MSNBC show boasts of a 41 percent jump over last year among viewers age 25 to 54, edging CNN in that category.

"Keith's show is the best show on television, period -- interesting, edgy and really well written," says MSNBC President Rick Kaplan. He says Olbermann is "incredibly aggressive" toward anyone in power: "In the same way that people who think the president needs to be supported more have turned to Fox, a lot of people who think the president needs to be taken on more have found a friendly voice in 'Countdown.' "

NBC News President Steve Capus says "there's no question he's stepped up his opinionated discussions, but the audience is smart enough to know what is straight news reporting and what is opinion-driven talk."

Olbermann, who moonlights on ESPN radio, also fills his program with skits like "Puppet Theater" and tabloidy "Oddball" items. Last week he interviewed Michael Schiavo, whose late wife's coma triggered a media frenzy.

Olbermann loves to pick fights. He has repeatedly baited O'Reilly, then gleefully replayed O'Reilly's responses. O'Reilly has put a petition on his Web site, urging NBC to fire Olbermann and replace him with Phil Donahue, who previously occupied the time slot. O'Reilly has also said, without naming him, that Olbermann "cheap shots Fox News on a regular basis" and that "something's very wrong at NBC."

Seizing on any excuse to keep the feud going, Olbermann even interviewed a man who mentioned his name on O'Reilly's radio show, prompting the host to say his phone number would be turned over to Fox security. MSNBC has been running ads about the spat.

"It's like winning the lottery," Olbermann says. "It's such an overreaction . . . He has made me look like a victim."

Liberal bloggers have been praising Olbermann, but one online critic, Robert Cox, recently launched a new site, Olbermann Watch, where a contributor said: "Hello! Earth to Krazy Keith! When was the last time anybody who disagreed with your spin was permitted to sit for an interview with your almightyness?"

Olbermann seems to thrive on controversy. But just in case, he has an exit strategy: "If it gets too hot and I have to get out of the kitchen, I'll go do sports."

Mystery Dismissal

Vermont's governor is ticked off. So is the state's congressional delegation. And so are the leaders of the state's top newspapers.

The object of their ire is the Associated Press for firing the chief of its Vermont office, Chris Graff, a 27-year veteran, with no public explanation.

"Chris Graff is undoubtedly the most respected journalist in the state of Vermont," says Emerson Lynn, publisher of the St. Albans Messenger, who says he is considering dropping the AP over the dismissal.

Graff was canned because, as part of the industry's Sunshine Week -- in which the AP was a partner -- he put on the wire a package of stories that included a column by Sen. Patrick Leahy. The column was removed within an hour -- no readers saw it -- on grounds that the AP should not provide a forum for a politician. Graff had moved a similar Leahy column a year earlier without protest, and the Rutland Herald has called the rationale a "sorry excuse."

In their letter, Sens. Leahy (D) and Jim Jeffords (I), Rep. Bernie Sanders (I) and Gov. Jim Douglas (R) say they are "stunned, outraged and saddened" by the dismissal of a journalist they call "fair, objective, public-spirited [and] courageous."

In response, AP President Thomas Curley wrote that he cannot discuss "confidential personnel decisions," but that the politicians' suggestion "that AP might be bowing to political pressure" was "just nuts." (Fox's Bill O'Reilly recently criticized Graff's coverage of a Vermont judge who gave a child rapist a 60-day sentence.)

In a small state, Graff, who also hosts the public television show "Vermont This Week," provides the daily coverage that many papers cannot afford. The irony of the AP marking Sunshine Week by refusing to discuss his firing has been rather obvious. "I understand our inability to talk about it has made some people angry, but that doesn't change the facts," says AP spokeswoman Kathleen Carroll.

Graff, who cannot discuss the case because of a nondisclosure agreement, says he was "absolutely shocked" by the firing but "overwhelmed" by the show of support. "If I can bring together a Republican, Democrat, independent and socialist, it's for the good," he says.

Furthermore

Jill Carroll is now back in Boston. (Here's the Christian Science Monitor piece on her return.) Since I was among a number of journalists expressing puzzlement about her videotaped interview in an Islamic party office in Baghdad after her release, I was glad to see the statement she released over the weekend. I just wish it had been in front of a camera, since it's hard for a written statement to catch up with a piece of video that's been endlessly replayed.

"Carroll says Iraqi Islamic Party officials promised that the tape would not be broadcast 'and broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear, I said I wasn't threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times.'

" 'Also, at least two false statements about me have been widely aired: one -- that I refused to travel and cooperate with the U.S. military, and two -- that I refused to discuss my captivity with U.S. officials. Again, neither statement is true.' "

Carroll also declared: "I want to be judged as a journalist, not as a hostage."

In this NYT look at how the Net is transforming politics, Adam Nagourney breaks a bit of news in the body of the piece:

"Democrats have set up decoy Web sites to post documents with damaging information about Republicans. They described this means of distribution as far more efficient than the more traditional slip of a document to a newspaper reporter.

"A senior party official, who was granted anonymity in exchange for describing a clandestine effort, said the party created a now-defunct site called D.C. Inside Scoop to, among other things, distribute a document written by Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, discussing the political benefits of the Terri Schiavo case. A second such site, http://capitolbuzz.blogspot.com, spread more mischievous information: the purported sighting of Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, parking in a spot reserved for the handicapped."

So you can't believe everything you read online. Who'd have thunk it?

In case you were enjoying the sunshine this weekend, here is my report on ABC News suspending a producer over a pair of leaked e-mails that contained very harsh comments about George Bush and Madeleine Albright. Both the producer and the news division have apologized.

Dan Smythe isn't buying ABC's apology, noting that the suspension came after the second e-mail about Albright: "How interesting that it took him slamming a liberal for his liberal bosses to take action.

Is the Bush administration out of gas? This post by National Review Editor Rich Lowry suggests the needle is moving toward Empty:

"It's not physical exhaustion that is hampering the White House so much as the intellectual kind. And that's not so easily cured by the widely anticipated staff 'shake-up' that is now under way with White House Chief of Staff Andy Card's replacement by Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten.

"Ask GOP strategists what the party needs, and they invariably say something like, 'It would help to get a lucky break in Iraq.' Indeed, it would, but the standard for what constitutes such a break has been ever-sinking. At this point, it might be avoiding a full-fledged civil war and seeing the Iraqis form a government, any government. Neither can be expected to be a political boon to the president.

"President Bush swept into his second term determined not to be overcome by the political lassitude that traditionally drags down second-term presidencies. He had an ambitious reform agenda, and initially the debate among his supporters was over what should come first: Social Security reform or tax reform? Bush went for Social Security reform, and it sank without a trace, with tax reform quickly going the same way.

"Thus, Bush lost the fight for the Big Ideas of his second term and has instead been thrown back to trying desperately to keep alive the Big Idea from his first term: democratizing Iraq. Other policy arrows in his quiver have been shot, since the budget deficit makes more tax cuts politically unsalable, and more big-spending measures are out for the same reason. To the extent that Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' was ever a coherent approach to governing, it is now spent, and it's not clear that the White House -- nor the broader conservative community -- has any bright, plausible ideas about what should fill the void."

On the very same day--trend, anyone?--the Wall Street Journal editorial page takes on the GOP:

"Do Republicans want to continue in the Reagan tradition of American optimism and faith in assimilation that sends a message of inclusiveness to all races? Or will they take another one of their historical detours into a cramped, exclusionary policy that tells millions of new immigrants, and especially Hispanics, that they belong somewhere else?

"Admittedly that paints with a broad brush, but politics is often about broad symbolism, and this is roughly the Republican choice presented by President Bush's approach on the one hand, and that of Tom Tancredo and his platoon of talk-show hosts and Tory columnists on the other.

"Let us quickly say that not every American concerned about immigration is part of the latter group. The breadth of new immigration, legal and illegal, in recent years has literally changed the face of America. Our own view is that this has been mostly for the better--in revitalized inner cities, a younger workforce to fuel a dynamic economy, and in general helping America avoid the senescent future of other industrial nations...

"This is not Ronald Reagan's view of America as a 'shining city on a hill.' It is the chauvinist conservatism usually associated with the European right."

And Newt is pessimistic as well:

"A dozen years after he engineered his party's takeover of Congress, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is warning that his fellow Republicans could be swept out of power themselves," says the Boston Globe .

"'They are seen by the country as being in charge of a government that can't function,' he said in an interview last week. ''We could lose control this fall.'"

Maybe he's just trying to rile up the base.

While the Journal likes the Bush immigration plan, Josh Marshall most assuredly does not:

"I can see the merits of an immigration policy that lets in lots of immigrants and I can see the merits of one that lets in much fewer immigrants. But a guest worker program -- especially one that envisages large numbers of immigrants here to work on a semi-permanent basis with no prospect or ready access to a path to citizenship -- is wrong. We're not Kuwait and we're not Germany. It's bad for America to have a permanent class of residents who are here for their labor but who are permanently barred from becoming citizens. It's bad for our society. It's bad for the immigrants. And it's bad for citizens who have to compete for jobs against an inherently exploitable class of whatever amounts to 21st century coolie labor.

"No surprise President Bush is big in favor of such a bad idea. Bad economics, bad civics, bad social policy."

In the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum uses the fox-and-henhouse analogy:

"Hey, guess who President Bush has nominated to head up the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division? That's right: the guy who represented Wal-Mart in trying to prevent a class of 1.5 million women from suing the company for discrimination in pay and promotions! He also appears to oppose pretty much every regulation related to wages and hours ever passed.

"What a perfect nominee. If he didn't exist, the Republican Party would have to have invented him."

The man who CBS radio had billed as the next Howard Stern sounds like he's on his way out. Jeff Jarvis is on the case:

"Well, David Lee Roth is back on the air, but it's not the David Lee Roth who was taken off the air a few days ago. He announced this morning all the things he's not allowed to be -- which was all the things he was. No music. His cohorts are gone. He has to talk about the news and sports. He has to change subjects every X minutes. They will hire him a Robin. They even hired extra security for the floor but I don't know what they'll do: keep his sister out? He got a four-page letter from his bosses detailing all these things or there will be 'disciplinary action.' He even hints of insipid racism in the orders: 'no more black guy, no more black music' is one of the orders, he says.

"Even though I thought he was a disaster on the air, I sympathize with Roth -- as Stern has. CBS is turning the post-Stern disaster on their air into Roth's fault. But it's not."

Chicago Trib columnist Rick Morrissey throws a high hard one at his parent company:

"Go, Cubs. No, I mean it: Go, get out of here.

"By 'here,' I mean Tribune Tower. Please. The Wall Street Journal is the latest publication to wonder in print whether an ailing stock price and a struggling newspaper industry will prompt Tribune Co. to sell the Cubs. Tribune Co. has said the club isn't for sale. Say it ain't so.

"A newspaper has no business owning a baseball team, in the same way a newspaper would have no business owning a cell-phone company, an insurance company or any other company it might have to cover as a news story."

Finally, some couples who met online and then married are now getting divorced:

"Some divorce cases, for example, highlight false claims made in the online profiles that led to the initial attraction," says the Wall Street Journal . "In addition, of course, there are the natural perils that can come with getting to know a person virtually instead of the old-fashioned way."

People lie on their profiles ? Wow! Don't they think they'll get caught?