The amazing thing about this speech from Olbermann is that his level of anger and the depth of his utter indignance are both perfectly reasonable and rational in light of the facts – yet no one else sounds like this. That is, the amazing thing is that most Americans' response to the news this week was to see it as business as usual. Every analyst noted the brilliant tactics of Bush in the first debates in 2000: he lowered expectations to such a depth, that even though he looked like a moron compared to Gore, people thought he'd done well. He seems now to have reworked that chapter of the playbook: he has normalised the subversion of the rule of law to such an extent that nothing he does is surprising. I think the normalisation is more frightening than the basic facts themselves.
Here's to Olbermann for maintaining his indignation.
1 comment:
The sad thing is that it's not even, exactly, rule of law. It's that, any time you can get talking/shouting heads on both sides of an issue, then it gets covered "straight"--even if one talking/shouting head is a complete maroon. The shamelessness of the GOoPers is . . . indignation-inducing.
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