Keith Olbermann, who was hardly reticent during the conventions to express his far-left opinions, told David Letterman on Wednesday that he's pleased about being relieved by MSNBC of anchor duties for upcoming debates and on election night since it will enable him “to be on more than I was previously and I can say what I think.” On Wednesday's Late Show, where he filled in at last-minute for his nemesis John McCain, Letterman asked about his removal from the anchor slot along with Chris Matthews. Olbermann expounded:
We're not the anchors any more. We're just going to be commentators...I'm actually going to be on more than I was previously and I can say what I think rather than sit there going “now here's more from such and such over there.”...Basically, I can just sit there between appearances and eat ice cream for 20 minutes at a time and then come back and go “that's the crappiest answer I've ever heard in a debate.”
Amongst things Olbermann said on MSNBC during the conventions when as a co-anchor he was, apparently, feeling refrained from revealing what he thought:
-- Enthralled by Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic convention (NB item with video):
For 42 minutes not a sour note and spellbinding throughout in way usually reserved for the creations of fiction. An extraordinary political statement. Almost a fully realized, tough, crisp, insistent speech in tone and in the sense of cutting through the clutter. Akin to the words that were given to the fictional title character in that Aaron Sorkin film, The American President, only this "cut the crap!" moment is not the stuff of fiction. This is the real thing out here. I'd love to find something to criticize about it. You got anything?
-- NB post, with video, from the last night of the GOP convention, likely the rant which cost Olbermann and Matthews their anchor slots:
MSNBC's Olbermann Has Angry Breakdown Over 9/11 Video Tribute
Just moments after MSNBC aired the Republican convention's 9/11 video tribute, shown at about 8:40pm EDT Thursday night, Keith Olbermann offered an angry rebuke of his own network for doing so (CNN and PBS also aired it) since it included aftermath video from September 11, 2001:If at this late date, any television network had of its own accord showed that much videotape, and that much graphic videotape of 9/11, and I speak as somebody who lost a few friends there, it, we, would be rightly eviscerated at all quarters, perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again. If you reacted to that videotape the way I did, I apologize. It is a subject of great pain for many of us still and was probably not appropriate to be shown.
