So, without warning or even leaked hints that it was coming, Keith Olbermann announced on his show last night that he’s parting ways with MSNBC. The new line-up features Cenk Uygur at 6, Chris Matthews at 7, Lawrence O’Donnell at 8, Rachel Maddow at 9 and Ed Schultz at 10.
Frankly, I won’t shed any tears over this. I think Keith Olbermann was far too full of himself, his show is about 80% bombastic blah-blah and 20% very awesome content. Contrasting that is The Rachel Maddow Show which is at least 80% awesome content. Lawrence O’Donnell, now that he has quit reminding everybody once every other sentence that he once was a staffer for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been pretty spectacular, too, and certainly has scored some phenomenal guests.
Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews both come in somewhere between, I’d say. When they’re on, they’re both quite good. When they’re not on, Ed is just a blowhard and Chris is Mr. Interrupter Guy.
Don’t get me started on Cenk Uygur, though. I have pretty much no use for that guy. I would far rather have seen them hire Chris Hayes or Sam Seder than Cenk Uygur. That’s a BIG mistake for MSNBC, in my opinion.
I’ve been downloading Keith and Rachel’s podcasts to listen to on my morning and evening commutes for a couple of years now. About 9 months ago, I switched from listening to Countdown first and Rachel’s show second to listening to Rachel first. My plan was to replace Keith’s podcast with Lawrence O’Donnell’s as soon as O’Donnell started offering one. Hopefully that will happen soon.
In the meantime, I feel pretty certain Olbermann will land on his feet just fine and maybe he’ll even bring a little liberal edge to one of the other networks. But his departure from MSNBC is no great loss and the fact that it allows Rachel the premier slot of the evening is probably the best news of all.
I’m just sayin’…
