I admit, Keith got me through the Bush years. Without my nightly touchstone of sanity, I'm not sure how I would have made it. Keith was one of the first to call out the Bush administration lies – about the Iraq war, weapons of mass destruction, the smearing of Valerie Plame, all of it. Make  no mistake:  His disappearance from the cable TV portion of the national conversation, no matter what you think of it, is a huge, huge loss.

Somehow he got lumped in as being like Fox, Limbaugh, Beck, et al, probably because once the left got a voice that could hold its own against the right wing lies, all of a sudden they wanted…civility!  Well, in my view, Keith has always been civil.  He has simply told the truth and did it with gusto, sorry if it is hard to hear, but truth is the most taboo thing in our dysfunctional media culture. Just ask Howard Dean who said during the 2004 campaign that his first act as president would be to break up the media conglomerates.  He didn't last long after that little slip of the tongue. Truth-telling is the fastest way to marginalization. Put another way, it's simply not allowed.

Much has been written about Keith's disappearance, but I think this blogger makes a good point, albeit a little stronger than I'd have made it:

To say it had nothing to do with the Comcast/NBC merger is denial, pure and simple. Of course it did.

The right can yell and scream all they want about censorship when they feel their heroes are threatened, but it's the voices on the left, the few and far between, struggling to be heard amid the din of the right-wing noise machine, that are ultimately silenced. Not through government censorship, but through the corporate take-over of the national conversation – the mass media – TV (Comcast), radio (Clear Channel), newspapers (Gannett) and soon, the internet. These huge corporations benefit by the vast right wing media infrastructure. Democracy by and for people loses.

The right is celebrating because we lost the most effective voice for truth that we have in media, a voice that had to be reckoned with, that would make them pay double if they tried to pull a fast one, a voice known to millions, a voice that did not back down or apologize, but a voice of reason that sometimes even admitted mistakes.  

One thing I would like to add before leaving this topic.  

Contrary to the conservative frame that has been put forth, Keith Olbermann and the right-wing propaganda machine are NOT, I repeat, NOT opposite sides of the same coin.  If you are a progressive and you believe that they are, take that as evidence that the RWPM has infiltrated your psychic space (or it could simply mean that you don't watch much TV and just assume what you've heard about him is true – or maybe you just don't care for the guy that much – I'm fine with that).

But the reality is, they could not be more different and are not the same animal at all.  Here's why, and it's simple.  One side uses lies and fear to persuade people to believe things that are not true.  For example, it is not just a matter of disagreement where the President was born. This is a fact. There is nothing to argue about. But the right continues to pretend that they believe otherwise and the media continues to welcome this nontroversy into the national dialogue. The right wing propaganda machine also persuaded voters in the 2010 election that their taxes had been raised when 95% of them had lower taxes under Obama's policies. Death panels.  And on and on..  If you weren't following along 24-7 and every time you turned on the TV someone appeared to be arguing about where the president was born, and they ended the discussion by “agreeing to disagree” what would you be left thinking? You would be left thinking that it's uncertain where the president was born!  How absurd is this?

So when someone like Keith Olbermann calls them out on this preposterous behavior in a forceful way, that is appropriate, for crying out loud! It is not like there is nothing at stake (except of course truth, freedom and the American way)!  There is no polite way to say that someone is lying for a malevolent purpose. Keith simply exposed them, did not back down and was entertaining in the process.

No wonder the right hates him.  He does not suffer fools well.

Keith Olbermann is polar opposite of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and the rest.  There is a must read over at KOS,  Good-bye to Another Accidental Hero, that describes how the means of entry and therefore, the rules of the playing field are different for conservatives and liberals in the media. 

An anonymous blogger at Democratic Underground summed up my feelings best this weekend:  “Glenn Beck is on the air. Keith Olbermann is off the air. There is no god.” 

But when it comes time to talk about going back to civility, you can bet it is the left that will be focused on, and nothing will change on the right – the now even-more-conglomeratized corporate media will see to that.