Saturday, November 06, 2010

The PR impairment of Democrats and their supporters is pervasive and debilitating as a mental form of influenza

There's something about members and supporters of the Democratic party in the United States that manifests itself like an intellectual disability.

PR impairment; something like media perception dyslexia.

TV commentator Keith Olbermann was recently suspended indefinitely from his show, Countdown, after it was learned by his bosses that he'd made cash donations to some Democratic candidates during the 2010 mid-term election.

Apparently, NBC -- Olbermann's boss -- has rules against this.

It never ceases to amaze me how tone deaf Democrats are. Bill and Hillary Clinton were two of the savviest political maneuverers of the modern age, and the number and stupidity of their PR missteps over the years -- Bill's chronic infidelity and baldfaced lying, Hillary's lies about being under fire in Bosnia, as just two examples that are top of mind -- have been staggering to observe.

President Platitude in the Oblong Office came to power amid a groundswell of support, only to gear into anti-climax as quickly as possible by appointing corrupt, tainted and compromised people to his administration like Rahm Emmanuel and Tim Geithner, among others.

The only "change" President Platitude brought to the Blanc House was the name-plates on office doors.

Friends and advocates of Keith Olbermann have been in overdrive pointing fingers at Fox News, which apparently does not have the same rules about campaign contributions made by its commentators.

There is no lamer defense than pointing at one's adversary and crying, "Well, they do it too!"

Yes, Fox News' Sean Hannity is a firstclass, soulless shyster.

Yes, he donated thousands of doors to Republican candidates, in much the same fashion as Olbermann. Yes, Hannity runs a cynical and crooked "charity" that claims to aid US war veterans, but in fact only enriches Hannity and his friends, family and cronies.

The technicality that allows Hannity to do such things -- aside from being a completely abhorrent human being with utterly no conscience -- is that he's not part of the "news" arm of Fox News. He's part of the "entertainment" arm.

No one considers Hannity to be a journalist, least of all his employer.

That aside, pointing at the locus of media corruption, false-reporting, fear-mongering and simple, venal greed, does not bolster Mr. Olbermann's case.

How could a man so seemingly intelligent and well-thought-out, as Mr. Olbermann, be so patently stupid, so PR impaired, and so gawddamned hypocritical as to donate cash to Democratic candidates, one of whom was on Countdown the very evening Olbermann gave money to the candidate's campaign?

So, Mr. Olbermann has been taken off the air indefinitely.

Shouting about Fox News' corruption and multifarious conflicts of interest does nothing to aid Mr. Olbermann's position.

Keith Olbermann was wrong. NBC had the rules on the books to make it official.

Being a hopeless parade of weak, inept, bland, vapid -- even the tired old "wishy washy" insult applies to these disciples of permanent disappointment -- Democrats will never grow balls, never develop a spine, never muster anything approaching character. They are the perfect foils to the Republicans' image as political wife-beaters, brutes, war-mongers and chicken hawks.

And thus, there is no point advising Democrats to try and do a better job of managing the continuous war of perception in the media.

No point, whatsoever.

Unless it can be proven that Olbermann didn't make those political contributions or that NBC made up the rule that took him off the air after they learned of those contributions, Keith Olbermann should retire to one of his homes and rethink his approach to being a public figure who makes his living pointing fingers in every direction except his own.

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