Olbermann’s “Rovian” Ways?

The Huffintgon Post’s Jason Linkins calls Keith Olbermann out for his response to the “deal”…

This reality is borne out by Olbermann’s perplexing reaction to the controversy, which has been to blow hot snot all over New York Times reporter Brian Stelter’s reporting, while simultaneously “honoring” and praising the accuracy of Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald’s response, which was based entirely on Stelter’s reporting. One cannot decry one report, one minute, and then “honor” the same conclusions the next. On Monday’s broadcast he called Brian Stelter one of history’s greatest monsters for a day. But then he declared in a statement that Glenn Greenwald’s account, which deviated not one iota from the facts Stelter presented, contained “nothing materially factually inaccurate.” This is what is known as “total B.S.”

Long after the edict of June 1 went into effect, New York Times reporter Brian Stelter sussed out the agreement between the two networks and began reporting it out. When contacted by Stelter, Olbermann could have done one of the following:
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1. Tell Stelter the unalloyed truth.
2. Refuse to comment on the record.
3. Attempt some Rovian-style parsing of the truth.

Again, it’s clear that Olbermann chose that final option. What he told Stelter was this: “I am party to no deal.” But that statement has no practical meaning whatsoever. As Greenwald points out:

I certainly believe that Olbermann is telling the truth when he says he was never a party to any deal and that nobody at GE or MSNBC asked him to consent. That’s because GE executives didn’t care in the least if Olbermann consented and didn’t need his consent. They weren’t requesting that Olbermann agree to anything, and nobody — including the NYT’s Stelter — ever claimed that Olbermann had agreed to any deal. What actually happened is exactly what I wrote: GE exectives issued an order that Olbermann must refrain from criticizing O’Reilly, and Olbermann complied with that edict. That is why he stopped mentioning O’Reilly as of June 1.

Since then, Olbermann has been trying to have it both ways.

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