The Many Moods of Keith Olbermann: Rupert Murdoch Worse than the Klan; Immigrants Should Speaka Da English; Joe Biden's Hidden Passion
In its October issue Playboy interviews MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who seems to be channeling Ron Burgundy. Really, at times the whole Q&A reads like an elaborate, subtle parody of a fictional douchebag host, the Cap'n Queeg of basic cable. Jiminy Glick meets Larry King meets Wally George.
Some snippets, which make it even less likely that I'll ever watch his show. Or vote for Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.). And that's despite lingering affection for Olbermann's role at ESPN, a channel that has made not just sports coverage but all news stuff better.
Question for Countdown viewers: Is he is as big a tool on air as he comes across below?
"After two or three years of bilingual education, you say, 'You want to live here? School is gonna be in English.'"
"If you brought in all of Ohio's voters [from 2004 presidential race] today, they'd look around at one another an say, 'I didn't vote for [Bush]. It must have been a fix!'"
"The [Supreme] Court is on the edge of becoming a clean-shaven version of the religious courts of Iran."
"We will see a draft if the Republicans win in 2008, because they've got a plan to invade every country except Lichtenstein but not enough soldiers to do it."
"Al Qaeda really hurt us but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda--worse for our society. It's as dangerous an organization as the Ku Klux Klan ever was….Half the people there ought to be in an insane asylum….[Fox shows] Family Guy and The Simpsons are marvelously subversive, state-of-the-comic-art. It's just a coincidence that I guest-starred on Family Guy last season and I'll be on The Simpsons this year."
"[My girlfriend Katy and I] were eight minutes into Being Julia when I said, 'For God's sake, it's a cheap knockoff of All About Eve.'"
"I have six lower vertebrae, not the usual five, which may make my spine more rigid than most. Make of that what you will."
"The Democrats have a lot of good speakers. I think Joe Biden scores highest on the three keys: passion, detail and eloquence."
The whole thing is not online, alas, but if you're so inclined, pay to read it here.
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