Olbermann: 'How dare you, Mr. President'
By David DeGraw
Posted on September 11, 2006, Printed on September 12, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/degraw/41501/

On the five-year anniversary of 9/11, Keith Olbermann gives another Murrow-esque soliloquy...

Check it out and pass it on.

Some highlights:

"Five years later there is no memorial to the dead. Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals. Five years later this country's wound is still open. Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked. Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op. It is beyond shameful....

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning. And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage....

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people. The President -- and those around him -- did that. They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists." They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication." The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."...

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11? Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero. So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you."

Full transcript courtesy of Bloggermann:

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you.

good stuff.

Write to MSNBC About Keith Dopermann's Liberal Tirade:


Letter to MSNBC Concerning Keith Olbermann’s 9/11/06 Attack on the President


As reported by NewsBuster Brad Wilmouth here, Keith Olbermann on Monday’s “Countdown” was in full attack mode on America’s president. Now, some might cynically say that he does this every evening, and they might have a point. However, yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and Olbermann’s behavior was disgraceful. Given the solemn nature of this occasion, Olbermann’s rant might be the worst performance by a supposed press representative in recent memory. In fact, this seemed as mean-spirited and unacceptable as the comments made by Bill Maher on ABC shortly after the 9/11 attacks that resulted in his termination.

With that in mind, I have sent the following message by e-mail to Dan Abrams, MSNBC’s new general manager. For those that are interested in sending Mr. Abrams their views on this subject, I included e-mail addresses at the end of this post that hopefully will maximize the likelihood of such messages reaching his desk:


September 12, 2006

Dan Abrams c/o MSNBC TV
One MSNBC Plaza
Secaucus, N.J. 07094


Dear Mr. Abrams:

I am writing you with deep concern regarding a nine-minute speech that your employee, Keith Olbermann, made at the end of the September 11, 2006, installment of “Countdown”. If you hadn’t seen it, I suggest you read the transcript or watch the video at his blog.

On the solemn occasion of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Olbermann chose to issue some attacks of his own. These, for the most part, were pointed directly at America’s president. Regardless of your view of George W. Bush, or Mr. Olbermann’s, yesterday was not the day for this kind of vitriol or animus from a media representative.

Like many Americans, I watched a lot of programs yesterday on different networks, and, in general, it appeared that press representatives on both sides of the aisle were toning down their rhetoric in honor of this day. In fact, the same was evident from America’s politicians, who clearly chose to take a holiday from attacks on their opponents even though we are now only eight weeks from Election Day.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of your employee. His attack last evening on the president was despicable and disgraceful even for him. For this, he owes his viewers and his fellow Americans an apology.

As the new general manager of MSNBC, it is your job to oversee the quality of the content provided by your network. Last night was not MSNBC’s finest hour, and you owe it to Americans to address this issue with your employee immediately. After all, although it appears America isn’t watching Mr. Olbermann given his paltry ratings, America is indeed watching you to see whether you can rescue MSNBC from its own well-publicized difficulties.

A good step would be to compel Mr. Olbermann to do the right thing, and apologize for his behavior on this solemn day.

Sincerely,

Noel Sheppard

http://newsbusters.org/node/7563

All complaints can be sent to these e-mail addresses:
dabrams@msnbc.com,
sidebar@msnbc.com,
viewerservices@msnbc.com

I don't think this is meant to be a form letter to copy and send, just to note.
I'd love to see the look on Dan Abrams' face when he opens his e-mail and sees the flood of complaints.

So I guess he had nothing to say about the truth or falsity of anything Olbermann said.

That is kind of what I thought too.

As the writer said in the beginning, Dopermann lashes out at the President practically every night. What he was taking issue with was the timing of Dopermann's vitriol.
If you looked in the dictionary for the definition of Liberal Smear Merchant, Dopermann's picture would be right there.

So I guess you would feel the president doesn't deserve to get lashed outat?

No, I'm not saying that. Again, the timing is the issue. In getting up on his anti-Bush soapbox to do yet another poor Edward R. Murrow impersonation while broadcasting at "Ground Zero," Dopermann showed very poor taste.

Lenin Flux, you do realize you are pretty much completely dillusional, right? IF Abrams receives these emails, I would imagine he will do what the rest of us all do when some pinhead sends us an annoying email: delete it, curse the stupidity of the person who sent it, and then go on with his day. Also, again, if its not too much to ask, could you please refrain from the corny-ass renaming of people, places, things, i.e. Keith Doperman. It makes you sound like a kid on a playground calling someone poopy pants. This is RM N&D; we're trying to run a classy joint here.

But it was good timing for Bush to go into the Pro-Iraq War talking points last night? I thought the Pres. was supposed to speak about the anniversary and those lost, not to continue making a feeble case as to why Hussien was a threat to us.

So is the one alright and the other not?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/12/ ... index.html

Bush's 9/11 speech sparks bitter partisan squabbles
•Democrats say President Bush used 9/11 address for political attacks
•White House says speech was not meant to be partisan
•House GOP leader questions Democrats' interest in fighting terrorism
•With elections near, both parties try to gain upper hand on terrorism issue
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Bitter partisan squabbles engulfed Capitol Hill on Tuesday sparked by President Bush's 9/11 speech Monday night that was not supposed to be political.

Eight weeks before elections that will determine control of the House and Senate, Democrats charged that the president was "playing election-year politics" with the memories of 9/11, and Republicans questioned whether Democrats are more interested in protecting terrorists than the country.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, on Tuesday accused President Bush of trying to tap into the emotions renewed by the 9/11 anniversary to boost flagging support for the war in Iraq. (Watch Reid criticize Bush for using a "bully pulpit" to attack those who disagree -- 5:08)

In his speech, Bush portrayed the war in Iraq as part of a "struggle for civilization" with terrorists -- one on par with the World War II struggle against fascism and the Nazis. Democrats strongly contest that idea, saying that the Iraq war is a distraction from the global drive to stop terrorism. ( Watch how Bush tried to recapture the glow he gained from the 9/11 tragedy -- 2:58)

"We learned that America must confront threats before they reach our shores, whether those threats come from terrorist networks or terrorist states," Bush said. "I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat." (Watch Bush's entire speech, as he describes what has happened since the U.S. "saw the face of evil" -- 16:19)

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Tuesday the president wasn't "picking fights" when he brought up the Iraq war, according to The Associated Press.

"This was not a speech that was designed to single out anybody for partisan reasons, but gave the president's honest reflections and reactions to what has happened since September 11, 2001," Snow said, according to the AP. "The president decided that yesterday wasn't a day for partisanship."

But the speech, Reid charged, was partisan, meant only for his administration. Bush did not speak for the nation, Reid said, unlike the time the president stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center five years ago and used a bullhorn to promise a quick response to the September 11 attacks.

"No bullhorn, only the bully pulpit of his office, which he used to defend an unpopular war in Iraq and to launch clumsily disguised barbs at those who disagree with his policies there," Reid said.

"By focusing on Iraq in the manner he did, the president engaged in an all-too-familiar administration tactic: conflate and blur the war in Iraq with the response to 9/11," he added.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, also denounced Bush's speech, citing a Senate Intelligence Committee report released last week that said that the CIA had dismissed ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

"In fact, the war in Iraq has made our effort to defeat terrorism and terrorists more difficult," Pelosi said in a written statement. "Last night's speech demonstrated that the president will go to any lengths to distract attention from his failures in Iraq, which have diverted focus from the war on terrorism."

Republicans question Democrats' motives

Sen. Reid's speech provoked quick and angry responses from Republicans.

When asked about the Democrat's response to the president's speech, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said "if you listen to the Democrats, [you] have to wonder if they're more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people. The fact is these people want to kill Americans -- they have -- and if we don't go after them they will continue to injure and kill Americans."

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, took the floor after Reid's comments and denounced them.

"The very people that planned the attacks are the people who are in Iraq -- al Qaeda in Iraq -- causing that sectarian violence," he said. "Should we ignore that, I ask the senator from Nevada?" (Watch Santorum chide the Democrats for putting "domestic politics ahead of security" -- 1:54)

The group al Qaeda in Iraq was actually formed after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and was headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike June 7 north of Baghdad.

Al-Zarqawi's group initially was called Unification and Jihad, but he changed the name to al Qaeda in Iraq in December 2004 and soon after received a blessing from bin Laden.

Santorum also disagreed with Reid's characterization of the president's speech.

"The president did not give a political speech last night," he said. "He spoke of the reality of the conflict that is before us. It is not popular to do so, I know. It is not popular to stand up and support a conflict that is difficult ... to deal with every day."

Explain why you think it's in poor taste and bad timing.

In terms of the subject matter and importance of the issue being discussed, and the viewpoint it's being discussed from, I can't think of a better time to speak up about it. If you think he's not being sympathetic to those who had personal losses on 9/11, then you dont get what he's saying.

Seriously, I have yet to see anything critical of Olbermann more than that they disagreed with his politics. Fucking whining is all I see.

If you are so concerned about this forum being a "classy joint," then perhaps you should visit the "kiss my ass, George" thread. Or pehaps the one that mocked the plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic. Yup, real classy.

But hey, if those are the rules, that's fine. I'll refrain from renaming anything in the future.

Bite me, poopy pants.

first i would like to say that i used to love Olberman on ESPN.... and he is the ONLY one to question the election results in 2004, so for that combo i have a respect for him... here is another attck on little bush from a few days ago regarding the labeling of dissenters as "nazi appeasers"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090606Z.shtml

"Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?"
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown

Tuesday 05 September 2006

It is to our deep national shame-and ultimately it will be to the President's deep personal regret - that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies - or even question their effectiveness or execution - to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 - without ever actually saying so - the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government."

Make no mistake here - the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the "media."

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:

The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word - "media" - the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.

Mr. Bush and his colleagues have led us before to such waters.

We will not drink again.

And the President's re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.

"In the 1920's a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews," President Bush said today, "the world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price."

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek - a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration's recent Nazi "kick" is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

is it possible kieth is lobbying for a writer or speaker job for the dems next election ?

I hope not for the simple reason WE need someone who is for the people only and NOT for any political party

personally, ampson, if youre going to say n&d is classy, maybe you shouldnt be acting like a tool by telling the guy he is delusional?

Gimme a break. Please. So now criticism is RUDE?