Still more Nazi salute stuff…
The Virginian-Pilot has an editorial on Keith Olbermann’s TCA stunt…
Woody Allen once said, “I can’t listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.”
Pretty funny guy, that Woody Allen. He’s one of the few comedians who could crack a Nazi joke and get a laugh, not a wince. Mel Brooks is another. (“Springtime for Hitler,” anyone?)
Keith Olbermann , take note.
Oh, these people are idiots. Their line of thinking:
“Here’s the rule of thumb: Whenever a political debate gets to the point where someone invokes Nazis or Hitler, it’s time to stop. There is no connection between Hitler and … well, pretty much anything or anyone else. Maybe Pol Pot. Maybe Serbia. Maybe Sudan. But that’s about it.
“But not Bill O’Reilly. Even Woody Allen wouldn’t go there.”
First of all, what makes them so sure Woody Allen wouldn’t go there? Second, what is it about Hitler that makes HIS form of nastiness unique and thus somehow “sacred” and un-jokeable about? Oh yeah, we can joke about all the other genocidal maniacs out there in history, but Hitler? You can’t touch this!
Please. The only problem whoever wrote this had with it is that it didn’t tickle their personal funny bone. Fine. But don’t tell Olbermann he can’t make the joke. Especially when he’s making it about a guy who defended WWII Nazis on three separate occasions.
Comment by tanne — July 29, 2006 @ 6:54 am
Very insightful except for one problem - Olbermann’s claim that O’Reilly “defended Nazis” is untrue. We have throughly debunked Olby’s claim over at Olbermann Watch where we routinely catch Olbermann lying in a similar manner. As this OlbyLie was provided as the justification for using Nazi imagery to promote a TV show it is the same as there being NO justification for it. Not for OlbyLoon Tanne’s benefit but for any fair-minded folks who care to know the facts, read on…
Olbermann Defends Nazi Salute with Lies and Slander
http://www.olbermannwatch.com/archives/2006/07/olbermann_defen.html
Comment by Robert Cox — July 29, 2006 @ 11:39 am
The only people defending Olbermann are clowns like Tanne and apologists like Brian Stelter. Olbermann’s Hitler salute was deplorable, ant-semitic, and wrong.
Comment by Randy — July 29, 2006 @ 12:57 pm
The notion that Olbermann’s Nazi salute mocking of O’Reilly was anti-Semitic holds about as much validity as the claim that O’Reilly defended Nazis…
Comment by Spud — July 29, 2006 @ 2:18 pm
Anyone, especially a person on a news network, putting his or her arm up in a nazi salute in front of a hundred reporters DURING a war in Israel needs to be taken off the air. Honestly, it sounds like a Michael Savage stunt.
Comment by Harvey — July 29, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
Robert Cox, your Web site is nothing but a cesspool of lies and slander about Keith Olbermann, and I would no sooner go there for the “truth” about anything he did than I would go to a Ku Klux Klan site for truth about blacks or a Nazi site for truth about Jews. You routinely label anyone who enjoys Olbermann as a “loon,” when YOU yourself are the loon utterly obsessed with him enough to have devoted time and energy to a site dedicated to hating him.
Randy, there was nothing “deplorable, anti-semitic and wrong” about Olbermann’s salute, and there are plenty of intelligent people defending it–including Brian Stelter and me.
Spud, sorry, but you’re wrong this time. I don’t know what you call defending Nazis, but when a man says on three separate occasions that Americans slaughtered Nazis when they didn’t–the Nazis slaughtered them–I call that “defending Nazis.”
Harvey, the very idea that this happened “during a war in Israel” has nothing to do with anything. Olbermann’s not anti-Semitic so it has zippo to do with Israel (not that a person’s stance on everything Israel has ever done is a fair assesment of his anti-Semitism either, because it’s not). And Olbermann detests Michael Savage and would never do anything like one of his stunts. No, Harvey, looks like you’re just desperately scrabbling for another excuse for Olbermann to be taken off the air so that nothing but conservative voices are left. Sorry–it won’t wash!
Comment by tanne — July 30, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Tanne - The fact that Keith Olbermann did this nazi stunt during a war in Israel makes it even more HORRIBLE than it was to begin with. The fact that you think Harvey is desperate just shows how desperate you are. You and Olbermann, if in fact you are not one in the same, deserve each other.
Comment by Staycee — July 30, 2006 @ 11:24 am
If I were a General Electric shareholder and if I were either a survivor of the Holocaust, or a relative of a Holocaust survivor, I’d be very upset.
Comment by Bob — July 30, 2006 @ 4:10 pm
The Nazi salute bombed, Keith. Please don’t do it again.
Comment by Goldfish — July 30, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
Spud, sorry, but you’re wrong this time. I don’t know what you call defending Nazis, but when a man says on three separate occasions that Americans slaughtered Nazis when they didn’t–the Nazis slaughtered them–I call that “defending Nazis.”
Then you must have a very…..interesting…way of coming to that conclusion because most reasonable people would disagree with you. All O’Reilly did was get his events confused. The events O’Reilly was describing were not the Malmedy Massacre but another event entirely. But the event still happened.
Comment by Spud — July 30, 2006 @ 5:58 pm
Anyone who cares to know anything about history knows that Americans shot surrending SS during the Ardennes offensive. This is rarely, if ever, disputed. Regardless of what you think of the SS (speaking to Tanne directly), some divisions of the SS were not participants of warcrimes. Furthermore, even if they were, that does not justify shooting them anymore than it justifies the SS shooting Americans at Malmedy. The use of jokes regarding Nazi Germany is debatable in and of itself; this is for the sole purpose of slandering someone. Also known as defamation.
Comment by Edward Schatz — July 31, 2006 @ 2:02 am
Staycee–The fact that Keith Olbermann did this nazi stunt during a war in Israel has NOTHING to do with ANYTHING. The fact that you are desperately trying to make it have something to do with anything just shows how desperate YOU are.
Bob, I don’t hear any General Electric shareholders who are survivors of the Holocaust, or relatives of a Holocaust survivor, being very upset–so what’s the point in speaking for them? I’m sure you’re disappointed that they’re not upset, because you figure that then Olbermann would be fired and MSNBC would be an all-conserrvative network again. Sorry–it’s not happening.
Goldfish–the Nazi salute bombed in YOUR eyes. Not the eyes of others. So don’t tell Olbermann what to do.
Spud, I don’t care if “most reasonable people would disagree with me.” I don’t think they would. “All O’Reilly did was get his events confused”? Doesn’t he know how to use Google, for heavens’ sake? He “got his events confused” on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS and never bothered to try to straighten them out? He shouted over General Wesley Clark to “correct” him and tell him he was wrong about what happened at Malmedy when it was actually O’Reilly who was wrong? Please!
You’re damn right that “The events O’Reilly was describing were not the Malmedy Massacre but another event entirely.” But he kept on insisting he was talking about Malmedy and then when he was caught in the lie and finally “explained” what he meant, acted as if it was his LISTENERS who misunderstood him, rather than he who got the facts wrong in the first place. “I wasn’t clear”? Oh, you were clear, all right–clear about being messed up! It was the classic “apology without an apology” that you dislike so much. And, you might ask yourself, why was it so important that he even bring up that Americans did some revenge killing of Nazis? Well, so he could morally equivocate what the Nazis and the Americans did in the war! In other words, all’s fair in love and war! Doesn’t matter if you’re an American or a Nazi, all the atrocities are the same!
Now, I ask you…who comes out of that scenario looking like a Nazi defender? The guy who thinks it’s just as bad for Americans to take revenge on a few Nazis as it is for Nazis to engage in mass slaughter of Americans, I say. Or just as bad for Americans to kill a few Nazis as it is for Nazis to engage in mass genocide.
And that would be Bill O’Reilly.
Comment by tanne — July 31, 2006 @ 6:54 am
Tanne,
Please chill. No one at FNC, CNN, or MSNBC believes genocide is a good thing. Just like Democrats and Republicans, certain cable news anchors mix things up, and someone spots the mix up and attacks. Then the person who attacked screws up the attack or forgot he/she said something long ago on a similar subject, and the war is on, and it just keeps going back and forth. And when someone tries to stay above the fray, his/her silence is taken as acknowledgement, and more attacks ensue.
This is all very boring to most of us. I know you want to defend your guy, so go ahead. But when you make your own accusations, and repeat past false ones, you are not serving Olbermann by defending him anymore. You are just bringing out the O’Reilly defenders to do the same thing.
You have acknowledged on many occasions that you’ve never seen O’Reilly’s show, and you wouldn’t if you had a gun to your head. How can you possibly know what he’s thinking? All of your info about him is conjecture and/or third or forth hand from Olbermann or someone else who hates him.
Please Tanne, just defend your guy. Just the facts. Stick to what you know; you know all about Olbermann! And if you leave out the attacks, your defense of him will be taken more seriously. He deserves a defender, not an echo.
Comment by erljr — August 1, 2006 @ 12:20 am
Gosh, erljr, you’re beginning to sound reasonable. I’d like to think no one at the cable news networks thinks genocide is a good thing, but if that’s so, how come Bill O’Reilly equates what Nazis do in war with what Americans do in war? And his silence is supposed to be interpreted as “staying above the fray” in this instance?
I’m sorry to be boring you, but this is how I feel about it. The more absurdly the Olbermann haters try to stretch the “Nazi salute” into an assertion of Olbermann’s anti-Semitism (which he doesn’t have), the more I am going to point out that it has nothing to do with Olbermann hating Jews and everything to do with O’Reilly defending Nazi war atrocities as being no worse than what Americans did.
As for me never having seen O’Reilly’s show, I watched the clips of it Olbermann showed, which were not edited so as to prove his point, but edited so that it was very clear what O’Reilly actually said and did. Maybe I can’t know what he’s thinking, but can I take an educated guess from what he says and does on the air? Most people do.
I think the conclusions I’ve drawn are as valid as anyone else’s. And I see no reason why I should not make them. Especially when other people here aren’t “sticking to what they know” and are instead making such absurd conjections about Olbermann.
Comment by tanne — August 1, 2006 @ 6:41 am
The Nazi salute was just a joke that worked with the crowd he was speaking too, but was fodder for certain people in the news media. He had to know certain people would go with it. In my opinion: a good move on his part. It got him on the Tonight Show, and lots of free advertising. It got people on this blog talking, and all publicity is good publicity as far as ratings go.
Olbermann doesn’t hate Jews; but O’Reilly didn’t defend Nazi atrocities either. His point was that there are always a few old maids in any jar of popcorn. Anyone who’s seen the segment can’t deny it unless they’re full of hate. And that’s exactly what you’re trying to tell all the Olbermann haters out there.
Comment by erljr — August 2, 2006 @ 12:26 am