Keith Olbermann: "I'm not qualified" to replace Tim Russert

As I gear up for my first full week back in town after the TV Critics press tour and the UNITY convention, I figured I'd share a conversation I had with MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann about the topic on everyone's lips when NBC News came to speak with TV writers in Los Angeles:

Who is going to replace Meet The Press host Tim Russert?

"I’m not qualified to do it," said Olbermann, speaking at a swanky party held by NBC at the Beverly Hilton hotel, days before senior vice president Mark Whitaker would be named to take over part of Russert's job; leading the Washington D.C. bureau.

"Understand what it is: If we’re really going to replace him, we have to come up with the broadcasting equivalent of a baseball player/manager who happens to be the most valuable player and the manager of the year," he said. "And how are we going to do that? I’m not qualified to do that – I said that when the first stories came out that I was seeking the job."

Despite defending the decision to allow him and fellow TV opinionator Chris Matthews to anchor MSNBC's primary coverage ("If you’re any good at this, you know when to express your opinions and when not to," he told me), Olbermann allowed that his stands on the issues hosting Countdown would make him a tough pick to take over for the famously even-handed Russert on NBC's flagship political show.

"I’m very realistic about where I stand and the perceptions of what I do based on things like special comments – sort of being out front in a very anti-establishment way. If they said to me, 'listen, we need you to do this' I’d do it. Despite a reputation sometimes deserved in the past, I’m very much a team player for these guys... (But) I knew when I went off in my direction, that going back would be almost impossible. I believe truly, if for some reason they thought it was a good idea, I think I could do it and I could do it fairly, and I think people would be stunned by it. …(But) it’s one of those TV things about perception being reality. I’ve done a lot of things people said I could never do. I’m coming up on the 25th anniversary of the first general manager of a TV station, he told me I would never work in this business. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve overcome. But I don’t think people would buy into it, no matter how well I did it.”

There's more -- click below to read the rest of our conversation:

Me: Fox News anchor Chris Wallace has criticized MSNBC for allowing pundits like yourself and Chris Matthews to anchor their primary coverage, saying "journalists should cover the news." What do you think?

Olbermann: “That was where Chris didn’t know who had anchored his own primary coverage? (Sean)Hannity and (Alan) Colmes and (Bill) O’Reilly did an hour couple of times (during primary coverage) and Laura Ingraham filled in for O'Reilly. As usual for them, it’s just a smokescreen to justify what they have already done... If you’re any good at this, you know when to express your opinions and when not to.”

(UPDATE: A Fox News spokesman corrects Olbermann, saying that opinionators such as Hannity and O'Reilly never "anchored" coverage, instead appearing as analysts. I saw some of segments Hannity and Colmes appeared in, and I think the notion that Fox News is isolating its opinionmakers from primary coverage in a way that is better than its rivals is an open question. Technically, Fox News pundits may not have anchored coverage, but whether that produced more evenhanded coverage hasn't yet been proven to me)

Some critics are suggesting that your Special Comments segments are losing their impact because you do too many and because they are so emotional -- particularly the one urging Hillary Clinton to quit the presidential race. Do you agree?

“The one right after the Hillary one was one that was almost done in a whisper to John McCain....(And)what I thought was most interesting was (critics saying) they had become so frequent now. But I’m doing them less frequently now than I have at any time in the past. So that’s a perception – it’s the same thing that dovetails on the idea that there’s more criticism of what I’m doing on air. More people are watching them. More people are seeing the show. We’re in a position most nights of second or third in the demo in cable news, (so) people will see all of them...It’s the George Carlin joke – somewhere in the world there has to be the world’s worst doctor. So yeah, I admit it, one of the Special Comments -- one of the 130 or so that I’ve done -– is the worst special comment, ever."

Which types of Special Comments work best?

"Generally I’ve succeeded on these when I’ve relied on my instinct. But I do listen to other people. I always prefer to do ones where I’ve waited a day and literally slept on it. I keep saying I’m going to write a short one, eventually. But by the time I get done, they’re always 10 minutes. As long as it holds together through the length of it, it shouldn’t make that much difference...I’m probably just replacing a Britney Spears story with it. To some degree, I’m a little defensive about the idea that they’re too long. Because what is it that we should put on instead? They are isolated, separate segments They’re designed to be distinct from the rest of the network, and even distinct from the rest of what I do.”

What's your next book about?

“The next book I’m going to work on is entirely recreational for me – it’s a baseball card book; just something to take my mind off this.”

It's always seemed to me that MSNBC was strongest when it married the cable channel with NBC News' reporting resources. Why did it take until this presidential election for the channel to do this so aggressively?

“We’ve tried – dating back to before my hiring. The show I took over in 1997, was called Internight…(way) before that, it was a series of pre-taped shows with a rotating group of eight NBC hosts. Costas, Bill Moyers, Brokaw, Jane Pauley...That didn’t work. The network-style newscast, Brian (Williams) sort of warm up for Nightly, that didn’t work. We really fell into it in the spring. It wasn’t intensional in the slightest. The idea that it sort of set a template for what we can do politically is a good one, but I don’t know when it’s going to happen again (past the presidential election)."

Comments

[Oscar]

The saving grace for Olbermann is that he knows he can be a blowhard and is well aware of his reputation. O'Reilly, Hannity, and the others seem to think that they are speaking for all of America, or God, or somebody else and that makes them look foolish.

BTW the Paris ad was odd, but I doubt it was trying to be funny. At least Colbert and Stewart know they are making jokes.

Candidly, if his supporters don't think Barack Obama can handle some in your face ads (which are humorous but don't really say much important) then they must be really concerned about the serious viability of their candidate. I mean, come on.

If Obama truly has the substance we would like him to have, and if he really is "the one" as he says he is, then he will overcome this.

If not, then he can try again in four years...like Hillary.

Whether it is Jon Stewart making fun of conservatives and Bush or McCain in an ad making fun of Obama, it doesn't matter. You can take it for what it's worth.

Democrats and liberals have for years been using Internet and other media to create funny videos and audio clips about Bush and conservatives...and some have been great.

But how did that work out for them in 2000 and especially in 2004?

If liberals and Democrats put the same energy into winning the election that they do producing the "make fun of" ads and videos and screaming the word "lies" every three minutes, we'd have been spared at least the second Bush term. (which I wish had happened).

As poor a job as Bush and his cronies have done, their approval rating is roughly 4 TIMES that of the Democratic-controlled Congress (36% for Bush, 9% for Congress).

This country does not need a black President. It just needs a competent one.

If that is Barack Obama, then good for the USA. I don't happen to think McCain is it. But I also am certain that guys who go around proclaiming "I am the one" definitely are NOT either.

By the way...Keith Olbermann has never been a journalist in his life. He is pretty much the same as Eric Deggans described himself to me once in another thread:

"a columnist offering opinion. He is not paid to be objective."

That alone means he could never even SHINE Tim Russert's shoes, much less FILL his shoes on "Meet the Press".

[Mike]

Guess the difference between the Britney/Paris "joke" and Stewart and Colbert are... Stewart and Colbert are actually funny. Fox News tried to launch a competing right-wing version of a mock news hour. Not sure if it's still on. I think McCain has been on The Daily Show at least a dozen times though. He has the right idea but maybe should hire some new writers.

[Lin]

To Observer Dan: There's a big difference between the content of political ads run by the Republicans during an election campaign and the content of television shows. If the Democrats were running political ads that were like the TV shows, then you would have an apples to apples comparison to argue. However, the Colbert Report and Daily Show can be compared to the Rush Limbaugh Show - and Rush has really been dishing it out for years.

[Observer Dan]

Why do left cry foul when Brittney and Paris show up in ads mocking their candidate? They can dish it out but they can't take it. The Daily Show, Colbert Report etc have been ripping the Republicans to shreds for years, very successfully. This is a case of the Left snark and cynicism come home to roost in a big way. Suck it up, pilgrims.

[Disable Female Veteran]

Will you please get this out, i have submitted to every MSM outlet...We have to keep turning the LIES inside out...

McCain Mocked Idea of Obama on U.S. Currency...in JUNE 27th 2008 AD called "Seal"

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/08/setting-the-rec.html

Andrew Sullivan, Chris Bodenner, and Eli Sanders all note that the McCain campaign's strategy on race is to (a) play the race card and then (b) accuse Obama of having played the race card.

The issue here, of course, is that John McCain claimed great umbrage at Barack Obama's lighthearted comment that Bush and McCain would emphasize that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

But if John McCain thinks that comment was playing the race card, then why did he play it first? One month ago -- in late June -- a McCain ad superimposed Obama's visage on a one hundred dollar bill as part of an effort to mock his supposed 'presumptuousness.'

Side note: As you can see, the video's still image is of Obama on currency. Note that the image doesn't occur until about three-quarters of the way through the video. The way YouTube works, the default image occurs at the midpoint. In other words, McCain's campaign affirmatively choose this image.)

So let's just be clear: John McCain is injecting race into this the campaign, and he's doing so to serve his own political ambitions. As Chuck Todd says: "Anytime race is THE topic du jour in the campaign, it's a bad day for Obama. Period." And Josh Marshall adds, it's McCain's "only chance."

John McCain understands this is the only way he can win, and that's why he's playing this card, from allegations of reverse racism to transparent attempts to make Barack Obama seem "foreign."

They are not out for us but for alot of my older neighbors who don't have computers or watch only prime time news and are in the bed by the time Countdown comes on...But one thing that get me is when MSM gets the facts (sorry) like Joe and Mika Pat, Howard Blitzer, ect the next day they just rewind to the begining, and never submit the truth when it come in Why
is that? Anyone? And that on all issues Look at what going on in the Surge That Worked Iraq today...Iraqis Fail to Agree on Provincial Elections
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Damail]

Olbermann lied (so what else is new?). O'Reilly, Hannity, Colmes - they have never anchored the actual news desk. Chris Wallace has more journalistic integrity accrued over the past 20 years than Olbermeister will ever, ever have in his entire life.