Remembering 9/11: Olbermann Style
During the concluding segment of his interview with Senator Barack Obama, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann focused on what he described as the Republican coopting of 9/11 “for political advantage.”
Olbermann was particularly incensed over the “9/11 Tribute Video” shown during the Republican convention, saying, “It was graphic and it used video that had long since been put on the shelf — out of bounds by news organizations, to the widespread approval of our viewers and mental health organizations.”
Most Americans spend the eleventh day of September by remembering and reflecting on a terrible and trying day for this country and it’s citizens — it was around this time seven years ago when terrorists, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, attacked this country. There were, of course, the two planes that directly struck the World Trade Center buildings, engulfing them in fire and eventually causing the collapse of both buildings. Scores died in New York City that day but the pain was felt elsewhere. At the Pentagon, in Arlingon, Virginia, another plane struck the building, killing everyone onboard and dozens in the building itself. Then, in a remote field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a few brave passengers made a move on the radical Islamists that had hijacked their flight. Whether truth or misnomer, the slogan ‘Let’s Roll’ will forever remind us of that last minute move to save their fellow passengers. The plane crashed minutes later, under pressure Al Qeada member Ziad Jarrah careened Flight 93 into the ground. In all, 2,998 people were dead.
We remember it as a somber day. A day to remind us just how off-guard we can be caught. A day to remind us of threats to our stability and a day to remind us of the common values and beliefs that brought us together after a terrible tragedy. Keith Olbermann remembers it differently…
In this childish, elementary ‘Special Comment’ from his MSNBC show ‘Countdown’, Olbermann is hyperventilating over a 9/11 tribute video that aired at the Republican National Convention.
The video above shows both the tribute video and ‘non-partisan election coverage anchor’ Keith Olbermann’s partisan reaction to it. The video doesn’t, as Olbermann suggests, show anyone jumping from Twin Towers. It does, however, show an emotional montage of video clips from that day — all of it real, relevant and shocking. But shocking does not mean tasteless. In fact, it’s more empathetic to the families who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001 to remember rather than to forget and toss this footage into the dustbins of history. Should we never again talk about this day? Should we never again watch shocking or harrowing footage from other memorable incidents? Should Pearl Harbor footage rest beside 9/11 video in that dustbin? This foolish talk of censorship and exploitation of a real and genuine event is, just that, foolish.
Even more disturbing is Keith Olbermann’s flippant line about how the cameras capturing the planes as they struck World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 were ‘ground-level, perfectly framed images of the fireball created when the second plane hit the second tower’. He’s clearly insinuating, or at the very least trying to prop of believers of, the whole ‘9/11 Was An Inside Job’ mantra. How exactly would a camera be perfectly framed on one of the largest, most-visited, world-renowned buildings on the planet? There are cameras everywhere, Keith, they catch everything and September 11, 2001 was no different. But it didn’t stop there, Olbermann ranted on about 9/11™, repeating the phrase ad nauseum so his most dedicated of followers could parrot it onward. It’s all so predictable, from the dramatic tones to the awkward camera switches to the most intellectually dishonest partisan rhetoric on the planet. But more than being predictable, it was embarrassing.
The fact that a man, who just days ago was anchoring convention and election coverage as a ‘non-partisan’ (Over Brian Williams or Tom Brokaw — two men with much more experience and, more importantly, respect) would insinuate on what was once an at least remotely respectable cable outlet that John McCain was aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden is a real sign of the times. Olbermann loves to end his ‘Special Comments’ with ‘good night and good luck’, a mantra coined by the man he idolizes, Edward R. Murrow. But if Murrow were alive and breathing on this, the seventh anniversary of the worst terror attacks on American soil, he would shun Keith Olbermann and call him out for what he is — nothing more than a political hack and an embarrassment to the industry. The tears aren’t fake, or crocodile, as Keith says.
The tears are real
Keith Olbermann doesn’t speak for the victims of 9/11 and neither do I. That aside, one thing’s for sure, there’s nothing ‘disrespectful’ about remembering this catastrophic event seven years ago.
Meanwhile, Olbermann’s own network, MSNBC will be replaying their coverage from September 11, 2001 in it’s entirety today. No word on whether or not Keith will apologize for this…
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The History Channel: 102 Minutes That Changed America…
Amazing.
Reply to Shawn WassonI agree with this post. I could hardly believe my eyes this morning! It was horrible enough to watch it the first time.
I immediately called the MSNBC viewer feedback line, at -212-664-4444, and left a voice mail message telling them what I thought of their atrocity being broadcast.
Whomever at NBC thought this was a good idea should be ashamed. They should also be held to account for their exceedingly poor decision.
Reply to TimWhy are people so offended when they see images of 9/11 these days?
Are you afraid of the jingoistic feelings is stirs up is some?
Are you just that weak-kneed and sensitive that you can’t take viewing the images even seven years later?
What is it exactly?
Frankly, I think the images should be shown EVERY DAY. The only downside I see to doing that would be that people would then get desensitized to seeing it. Now before you write me off as a BushitlerMcChimpiburton clone, I’m not advocating the daily broadcast of those images simply to get people all fired up to invade another country or to vote for the RNC but to simply remind Americans that there are people in this world that want to KILL US! Not reason with us or ask us for money or food or for us to leave the Middle east or anything else, but KILL US and eradicate our way of life. Yes, it is as simple as that.
Reply to Peeved GuyOne more thing …
I’m sorry to say that I didn’t read the entire post the first time out. I don’t agree with everything Shawn states, above - only about the poor decision by MSNBC to re-televise the 9/11 attack coverage.
Everything else Shawn has to say is, sadly, mistaken and misguided. Shawn misquotes Mr. Olberman; and then injects his own maladapted interpretation of Mr. Olberman’s intent. What, I think, Mr. Olberman stated and implied was that it was shameful for the RNC to use 9/11 footage for the purpose of scaring people into voting for Mr. McCain. This was not a “video tribute”; it was a snuff film. It was not empathetic. Just as it would not be empathetic to video tape a Texas prison execution; and then repackage and replay it as a tribute to the victims family.
Shawn appears to have been taking Shawn Hanity lessons.
Reply to TimHow can you make sense of Olbermann calling the tribute video, full of clips from the actual news broadcasts, ’snuff’ footage when MSNBC is airing it all — ’snuff included’?
It’s foolish to parse things like this… If Roosevelt had the technology in the 40’s to run a tribute film to what happened at Pearl Harbor, don’t you think he would have done it? This is silly. Were Obama to have done this at the convention Keith would have called it ‘an amazing, solemn and appropriate’ tribute… It’s all about partisan politics, Tim, don’t get caught up in the game.
Reply to Shawn WassonShawn,
The footage replay being aired today on MSNBC is as much snuff footage as what the RNC did - replaying it is all wrong. I don’t think that video tributes are a bad thing - it’s good and proper to remember. If we don’t remember, we are domed to repetition.
What the RNC did, and what MSNBC is did this morning (they’ve apparently stopped now) is simply wrong. I reject your opinion concerning what Olberman would do if the DNC had done what the RNC did - he would have called them tasteless, vile, and, to most thinking and reasoning people, transparent hacks.
I also reject your opinion as to how Pres. Roosevelt would craft a tribute - I believe he had more integrity, common sense, and respect for his fellow humans than what you imply.
You are correct in that it is silliness. It is silly to suppose, for one second, that use of 9/11 footage for political gain at the RNC is anything but criminal. It is almost as bad to replay such real life horror. It’s not a tribute - it’s emotional and mental terrorism.
I truly think you know better; and are simply looking to generate comment and content for your blog. If so, I think it would have sufficed to disagree with Mr. Olberman - that, I’m happy to discuss. Trying to defend use of the 9/11 footage by any one for political purposes makes you appear juvenile. I would guess that you are not that; thus, I would suggest that you simply admit that your foot is firmly wedge in your pie-hole, remove it, make amends, and continue civil discourse.
By the way, I do defend your right to voice your opinions; and have defended this country to protect those rights. I’m a vet; and come from a long line of vets stretching back past WWI.
Keep those softballs coming.
Regards,
Reply to TimTim
I’m not going to bother watching the clip. After about the 3rd or 4th Special Comment a couple of years ago, I tuned out. Olbermann is a disappointment. He started out being the only real vocal critic of the Bush Administration on Cable News, and rightly so. He went too far though. Now he just panders to the left rather than be objective at all. Just as bad as the idiots on Fox. Well, maybe not as bad as Sean Hannity.
Reply to jasonCertainly no one wants to believe their government would collude in an attack on their own country, especially one of this magnitude. The implications are too vast. The notion itself implies a long term plan to establish a world dictatorship, dating perhaps to before the establishment of this country. Who wants to spend the time to investigate a vast conspiracy they’d give anything to have proven to be a paranoid “theory”? I sure didn’t want to believe it, but did the reading anyway. It seems as though most of the world’s demolition and structural engineers consider the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC 7 to be expertly done controlled demolitions. These are the only steel framed buildings EVER to have collapsed as a result of fire. Quite a coincidence that they all went down on the same day, and were used as an excuse to establish a police state and dictatorship in America, revoke the Constitution, and begin an endless war of conquest in South Asia, by people whose internal documents like the PNAC and many others indicated that intention dating back many years. The Patriot Act itself was written in 2000. They said they needed “another Pearl Harbor” (also a false flag attack, btw) to pull it off.
For those who can face the facts, the best collection of them I’ve seen so far is at Dave McGowan’s website, Center for an Informed America.
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/index.html
The sooner people at large face up to this, the better chance we have of stopping it. Electronic voting, in any form, has eliminated the ballot box, the mainstream media has colluded with the illuminati bankers( There is no other kind.) for decades, and even political surveys have become suspect, revealing as they did the theft of our last two Presidential elections.
Oh yeah, and as if that’s not bad enough, there’s substantial evidence that the secret world government is a bunch of Satanists, with all the horrific implications of that, which I’ll spare you at present.(Nice clue as to the fate of the 200 Thousand people that go missing without a trace [half of them children] in the U.S. annually, where you need a social security number for employment, banking, housing, car rental and medical care.)
Call me crazy if it’s necessary to protect yourself from severe emotional trauma, but consider what I’ve written here, and the evidence provided by various sources you can find on the web (”Bloodlines of the Illuminati”, “Skull and Bones” by Sutton, free at lulu, are another couple of places to look.),slowly, over time. If this stuff were true, wouldn’t you rather know, especially if it keeps you from waking up in a forced labor camp, like within two years?
Reply to BuckleyHere’s a link that leads to an interview that gives an
overview of the conspiracy “theory”, that shows the
motivations that led to the false flag attack on 9/11/01.
http://www.rense.com/general77/fulf.htm
The cloak and dagger people are everywhere that affects
Reply to Buckleythe flow of power in the world. Run your car on water
electrolysis and they’ll be at your door.(Google Stan Meyer.)