He could have waited a couple weeks to make it less obvious...

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>> ^Pprt:

He could have waited a couple weeks to make it less obvious...
I'm not sure subtlety is valuable in this instance.

Potentially dangerous... Ugh, Olbermann, all this cheap ass chivalry is getting old.

I like it. He's making a point that the violent rhetoric is out of hand and he will be doing his part to stop it. But he still needs an audience, and part of the pride of being on the left is a sense of superiority. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that people on the left feel that standing up and doing the right thing in a public and visible manner feels good, and encourages others to do the same. And when you are a tv host that caters mostly to the left, making positive changes visibly helps bring back in the viewers. When seen in that context, this is a rather minor thing.

>> ^MaxWilder:

...part of the pride of being on the left is a sense of superiority. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that people on the left feel that standing up and doing the right thing in a public and visible manner feels good, and encourages others to do the same.

It's almost the opposite of pride and superiority. He's acting humbled, and deciding that he should try to file down the sharp edges, to make sure he isn't inadvertently sending the wrong message.

I will confess, the left is proud of our encouragement and admiration of that, and we do think it makes us better than the other side, who seem to like guns blazing denial of fault, and a doubling down as their go-to response to these sorts of things.

(See, we can't help it )

@NetRunner

After years of the Left refusing criticism of all but the most excessive of Olbermann's infantalisms, he finally grows up a little bit, years after he already became a joke, and the Left claim they were asking for that the whole time.

No need for self-reflection or admission that mistakes are mistakes, not victories.

Please tell us he hasn't stopped using Sesame Street voices to represent his nemeses!

@chilaxe okay, for one, "the left" has never been of a single opinion about Olbermann, and they're not of a single opinion about him now. I think the left has, and will continue to deny that he's equivalent to right-wing pundits in terms of factual accuracy and tone, but that's different from defending him from all criticism of any kind.

All I was saying is that in general, lefties like this kind of thing.

I didn't even really give my personal opinion of what Olbermann's doing here, mostly because I agree both with the idea that it's a worthwhile thing to applaud, but that it also seems like a cheap, token effort.

I think the motive behind it is genuine, I just don't know if what he's doing is really going to change much of anything. He's never going to have broad-based bipartisan approval, and I don't think he should ever try to. But he could stand to rely more on the kind of rhetoric we see in his Special Comments than on what he does with Worst Persons.

Oh, and thankfully yes, he stopped with the Sesame Street voices in Worst Persons (and for the record, that always bugged the hell out of me).