By Don Irvine ——Bio and Archives--November 2, 2010
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MSNBC host Keith Olbermann says Jon Stewart jumped the shark during his rally over the weekend with his broad attacks on cable news. Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Olbermann wrote: “It wasn’t a big shark but Jon Stewart jumped one just now with the ‘everybody on Thr cable is the same’ naiveté.” Stewart frequently trashed the tone on cable news during the rally in Washington, and on the “Daily Show,” he consistently attacks both Fox News and MSNBC. “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing,” Stewart said. “The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we eventually get sicker.” In defense of cable, Olbermann wrote: “The America before today’s cable wasn’t reasonable discussion. It was the 1-sided lockstep of Fox and people afraid of Fox. That got us Iraq.” “I wish it were otherwise. But you can tone down all you want and the result will be: the right will only get LOUDER. Sorry, ” the host of “Countdown” continued. “Last comment and then I’ll drop this: Whatever the losses are Tuesday, will they be because liberals were too LOUD because they were too timid?”Normally when the phrase “jumped the shark” is used it refers to a television show or an otherwise successful business has reached its peak. Does that mean that Olbermann thinks it will be all downhill from here for Stewart and his Daily Show? Maybe Stewart overreached with his political non-political rally on Saturday but based on the turnout it would be hard to say that his show will be heading off to the television graveyard anytime soon. And what’s with Olbermann’s comments about the impending losses the Democrats will face tonight? The Democrats were neither too loud nor timid but rather they became convinced that they had a mandate after Obama captured the presidency in 2008 only to find out that they had badly miscalculated the public’s desire to have the government intrude even more into their lives and for increased taxes to fund their ambitious social agenda. Today voters will cast their ballots to once again support hope and change though it won’t be the kind that President Obama originally envisioned just two short years ago.
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Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media and its sister organization Accuracy in Academia. As the son of Reed Irvine, who launched AIM in 1969, he developed an understanding of media bias at an early age, and has been actively involved with AIM for over 30 years.