MSNBC host Keith Olbermann is profiled in this month’s issue of Rolling Stone. In the piece, Olbermann shares his thoughts on right-wing CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck:
A wolf in sheep’s clothing. The very dangerously bigoted guy who is selling himself as a pragmatic philosopher. I don’t think he sees his own bigotry. There’s something about him that suggests that, one night, he’ll say something that will cost him his career in television.
Glenn Beck responded tonight, calling Olbermann an “intolerant ideologue” whose ideas “smack of the same McCarthyism [Edward R.] Murrow fought so valiantly against.” Beck added, “Hey, Keith, you’re not saving the world’s democracy; you’re killing it, my friend, by trying to limit the marketplace of ideas to only those that reflect your own.”
Watch it:
Beck said tonight that his numerous inflammatory comments aren’t due to his right-wing point of view, but are merely a sign that he is “not perfect” and “struggl[ing] to find the answers to the issues that we face — on my own.” Some lowlights from Beck’s “struggle”:
The anti-gay slur “faggot” is nothing more than “a naughty name.” [1/23/07]
“What happened to the Duke lacrosse team was practically a lynching without the rope. And for the first time in my life, Mr. Oreo Cookie without the chocolate on the outside can understand why people celebrated when O.J. Simpson was acquitted.” [1/15/07, using a racial slur for African-Americans that refers to "being black on the outside and white on the inside"]
“[W]hat I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’” [11/14/06, on what he would like to say to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first elected Muslim member of Congress]
“I wonder if I’m alone in this — you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families? Took me about a year.” [9/9/05]
“And that’s all we’re hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we’re seeing on television are the scumbags.” [9/9/05]
Chris Achorn has more.
