the olbermann of history

the health care industry is spending $1.4 million per day on defeating health care reform, olbermann tells us in his inimitable style. it is the moment of crystalline message and if this fact does not in and of itself convince you of the need to get big business out of our health care you may not be one of the literally millions of people who have come to prefer olbermann's left-leaning imitation of rush limbaugh, (the difference being olbermann merely stands up for what is right and moral, whereas limbaugh, a man whose career was started by huge seed money from right wing think tanks and donors, who funded it through two years of loss, after which it turned in to the giant edifice of profitable propaganda it has become even if showing cracks today, plays down to virtually all lowest common denominators and bears comparison to smut,) to limbaugh himself.

when olbermann earnestly summons ire and bluster to condemn this industry that spends so freely, he says americans in any region overwhelmingly support health care reform and, "the essential, great levelling agent of a government funded alternative to the unchecked duopoly of profiteering, private insurance corporations." by this rhetoric olbermann has come to be the single most prominent mouthpiece of an entire movement.

no, this cheese and crackers and birkenstock and vino class of americans are devoid of a leader. to their credit, it may be a thoughtful choice on their part not to seek or become leaders who would blur the purity of their message. in any case, the americans of future history who elected obama, who let things get completely out of hand but then retaliated on an out of touch party decimating it in 2006 to near irrelevance, the americans who called for the closure of gitmo, the withdrawal from iraq, the investigations into so many crimes and misdemeanors, the americans who became energized by the bush administration and poured their protestations into the campaigns of obama and hillary clinton, who stemmed a tide of apathy, self regard and corruption, will be regarded by history as significant and course changing.

no martin luther king stood at the head of this movement. the time was not marked by colorful protests that hooked the media and counterbalanced another war, a previous story of (republican,) corruption. in fact, in as much as this movement began in the idleness of the time when bush came to power and half the nation voted for him twice, in as much as it matured by enduring 12 years of conservative, republican rule in congress, it can be defined by its shortcomings in large part and all that was involved in moving it. still, in the end credit can be assigned.

yes, there were the markos's and the arianna's, the naomi klein's and the michael moore's, the ron reagans, thom hartman's and noam chomskys, the krugmans and the marshalls, and so many other voices which guided and propelled this movement but one voice can be heard above all, that of keith olbermann.

olbermann is not the leader of the movement, rather he is just a reporter but as such he is the most listened to, most discussed, most referenced word from this movement. he is in certain ways the conscience of it.

he is difficult to ignore, too. he brought his show to msnbc, (an obscure network to begin with,) in march of 2003, and by maximizing a powerful format that allowed him to touch on five large stories nightly but then also provide an angle on as many more stories as warranted in the hour-long format, he arced from poor to respectable ratings and a four-year contract extension in 2007.

unlike the raging, screaming disseminaters of republican values such as o'reilly or hannity, olbermann's path was been carved for him by these wolves who would argue against things like health care reform. it works like this; beck, limbaugh, scarbrough and the others fly in the face of overwhelming support for this reform by picking out little areas they think they can make headway in order to sway americans away from supporting what they clearly want. in spite of how much we spend on health care per person in this country and how poorly that ranks compared to many countries that do not even have private systems, they use fear to pull away a segment of would be supporters by suggesting that health care will be rationed or that senior citizens will euthanized. on the face these arguments are bogus and baseless but they work. individuals and small groups are affected and the overwhelming support begins to erode.

big picture arguments that illustrate a broken system get lost for some who see only these terrible possibilities presented by what are essentially the tools of the corporatocracy and the republican think tanks. the unknown of change becomes less palatable than the devil known. while the republicans are good at strategy and have been exceedingly effective at cuckolding working class americans, their positions are so bad it can only work for so long.

enter olbermann. when olbermann arrived, (albeit for a second stint,) it could be said republicans were at their apex. bush was the war president who enjoyed broad support in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. there were voices in the din which could be heard even then declaiming the move to war in a land unrelated to the terrorist attacks or any number of backwards policies but with congress under republican control, everything looked rosy on the conservative front. things were anything but rosy however.

republicans were spending taxpayer's money at unprecedented rates, (and refusing to account for it.) they manufactured a war against a woefully inadequate enemy. they politicized the presidency. they tortured. they retaliated against political enemies. they covered up.

for their part, many americans recognized these things happening but lacked the power to do much about them. it can be a long time to wait two years just to try to vote someone out of office, (just ask the democrats of connecticut who tried to cut lieberman only to have him run as an independent and beat an outstanding candidate in ned lamont.)

as another example, i live in the district of david dreier, the elder statesman of house republicans. he presides over a gerrymandered district carved out of the foothills of the san gabriel mountains. never an odder shaped district did one see but in foothills can be found the houses of the wealthy and so, despite neighboring districts represented by the likes of the sanchez sisters and adam schieff, dreier has a leg-lock on his constituents. honestly, i don't even bother to call his office. health care reform? why waste my breath? dreier was so lock-step with bush he probably had one of those nicknames bush handed out so freely. (bandar bush comes to mind.)

in any case, keith olbermann came to prominence by widely expressing the outrage of these otherwise impotent feeling americans who were embarrassed by all america had become.

nightly even those who tune in regularly likely just think olbermann is a newscaster or a pundit, a guy doing a good job and a voice in his time, but they probably are not seeing the historical significance. in fact, olbermann is the thomas nast of his day and the bush administration to include the hangers-on who are boehner and gramm and others, is boss tweed. olbermann is in no way the leader of a movement but he is a chronicler and an agitator on some level and ultimately he will be seen in a favorable light, certainly far more favorable than him who he flatters by imitation nightly.