Olbermann replacement gushes that Olby “invented” op-ed TV

Lawrence O’Donnell, host of MSDNC’s “Last Word”, has now been moved into KeithO’s old spot. While it’s no surprise that O’Donnell would heap praise on the man who was central to MSDNC’s “rise to liberal prominence”, what he said last night is a bit much (the video is at that same link):

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Consider what Keith [Olbermann] invented and taught us to do: Op-ed TV. The incomparable Maureen Dowd is a friend of mine. I know if I told her I want her to do five op-ed columns in a week, she would tell me that is impossible and ask me if I know how hard it is to do even one. I do know. I’ve done a few, very few.

That’s why I marveled, as any writer must, at what Keith was doing – five op-eds a week, each of them much, much longer than the standard 800 words. This is the only place in television where people are surprised if you leave after eight years. In the entertainment division of this company, if a show like, say, “The West Wing” wins every possible award and runs for seven years, everyone just applauds an extraordinary show for an extraordinary run. I saw — I saw exactly how exhausted the great Aaron Sorkin was after delivering 22 episodes a year of β€œThe West Wing.”

Well, Keith delivered 20 a month. 20 A month. Hundreds of episodes a year. Hundreds of op-eds a year. Year in and year out. For eight years. I have no idea how he did it. None of us do. No one in television history has ever done anything like it. No one knew it could be done before he did it.

Yeah, sorta like Al Gore invented the Internet.

Really. This is almost as bad as Russell Simmons’ laughable assertion late last year that, “Olbermann has given sanity to the madness.”

Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard puts things in perspective, and corrects a few things O’Donnell asserted about his former colleague:

As for O’Donnell’s awe concerning Olbermann having an eight-year run, does he know that “Meet the Press” is now in its 64th year? Or that there are 25 television shows that have run for forty years or more?

O’Donnell also seems to forget that the man largely responsible for creating this television genre, Larry King, ended his run on CNN last month after 25 years.

Yet O’Donnell went gaga over Olbermann’s almost eight?

Also preposterous was crediting the “Countdown” host with inventing the concept of op-ed television as history will certainly bestow this honor on David Brinkley whose nightly commentaries on the renowned “Huntley-Brinkley Report” were the thing of legend.

As for soloists in this genre, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly was doing op-ed TV more than five years before “Countdown” started and is now in his fifteenth season.

Shhhh. We mustn’t let facts get in the way of a good ol’ fashioned left wing establishment media slobberfest …

Olbermann and O'Donnell
Screencap of Olbermann and O'Donnell courtesy of TVSquad.com.

Flashback:

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