Tools & Fools 2008

Just because Chickaboomer's retooling for 2009 doesn't mean I'm not going to rise to the occasion to crank out the annual "Tools & Fools" list.

Number One With A Bullet: Jon Klein
Let me count the ways. The CNN president claimed in an interview with the NYO's Felix Gillette that the flush-with-cash network was going to hire more people. "When you know that you have the resources, it liberates the creative side. We’ve been smart about deploying the vast resources that we have at our disposal. But knowing that we have the profits to plow back into the coverage gives us an immense advantage. We can afford more people on our air and off our air. So, goddamn it, we’re going to have more people.”

So what did CNN do? Fire more people. On-air veterans like Jamie McIntyre, Rusty Dornin, Linda Stouffer, Miles O'Brien and other high-paid talent to stock the stable with green and cheap "All-Platform Journalists." This after the network spent millions on technical wizardry to one-up the other cable news networks: Skycams, holograms, Magic Walls.

Klein's spewing of Linda Blair "The Exorcist" untrue green goo is truly head-spinning. From "we're not going to trim our sails" to "expansion" with "all-platform journalists" that was Klein Kode for cutting news bureau staffs. The Excised Eight at "American Morning" spun as an "editorially driven action." Miles O'Brien and the entire science, space, and technology unit Lost In Space.

Klein just celebrated his fourth year at the helm. In traditional wedding anniversary lingo it's the linen/silk year. In modern jargon, home appliances. My gift to Klein is a clothes washer terminally set on the spin cycle with a load of unbalanced crap.

Phil Griffin
The MSNBC boss has no balls. The cable network management has a murky history of hiding under their desks. Recall the Imus debacle. Why can't Griffin be like Pig Vomit in Howard Stern's 1997 movie "Private Parts?" "It's WNnnnnn BC." His rhetoric defending partisan blowhards Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann (Pig Vomit would call him the Anti-Christ) "I want honest, authentic people on our air. I don't want phonies. So if the price of that is every once in a while one of these bubbles up, I'm not concerned."

"One of these" was an unprofessional on-air anchor war starring Matthews and Olbermann during the Repub political convention. Co-starring Joe Scarborough and David Shuster. Even the venerable old hand Tom Brokaw was drawn into the fray: "I think Keith has gone too far. I think Chris has gone too far."

At the time I opined MSNBC head Phil Griffin and NBC News president Steve Capus should have known that the "bold experiment" pitting two pathological egomaniacs against each other on TV was doomed to failure. The buck stops with them. NBC president Jeff Zucker should seriously consider firing Griffin for refusing to reign in Olbermann. Since Olbermann started throwing his weight around with impunity, MSNBC has collapsed into chaos. The internal bickering has been leaked to other media - much to the embarrassment of both networks. Olbermann terrorized and chastised other MSNBC talent on the air during the Democratic convention coverage. He was whisked back to HQ by suits claiming he had to cover Hurricane Gustav. Olbermann re-emerged anchoring the Republican convention coverage from New York. Lofty NBC News is now overcome by the stench emanating from the farm club. Dumping the warring unprofessional pair will not banish the smell. I suspect the defining moment for NBC's head Zucker was at the Republican convention when the jeering crowd started chanting "NBC! NBC! NBC!" during Sarah Palin's acceptance speech "News Flash" condemning media bias that was seen by 40 million TV viewers - a tsunami compared with MSNBC's highest-rated program - Olbermann's "Countdown." The last thing Zucker wants is NBC tainted with a liberal brush. The internecine battles at MSNBC that ended up on the air are threatening the reputation of NBC Universal brand and parent company General Electric (one of the top U.S. defense contractors). It's reported Zucker was close to flying to St. Paul to quell the on-air antics of Olbermann and Matthews. Zucker cannot afford the perception of his brand as liberal and in chaos. It's all about money. And advertisers. And stockholders. And pressure from the aforementioned. Zucker's own reputation as a manager is at stake with GE corporate CEO Jeffrey Immelt. It should've never gotten to that point. Surely Phil Griffin and Steve Capus know that Olbermann doesn't know the difference between news and commentary. Although the NYT's Brian Stelter writes today: "MSNBC insisted that Mr. Olbermann knew the difference between news and commentary." The minute Olbermann went off the news reservation and into the tumbleweeds of commentary, Griffin should've called him on the carpet. Instead they fed his paranoid obsessions and venal attacks, repeatedly denying there's a left-wing tilt at MSNBC and spinning Olbermann's bizarre on-air antics as "passion." Olbermann continually violates the line between news and commentary. Griffin to Brian Stelter: “I think ideology means we think one way, and we don’t." Rather than label MSNBC’s prime time as left-leaning, he says it has passion and point of view.Five years of "Countdown" airchecks render the above invalid and absurd. The "point of view" appears to be coming from one person who appears to have hijacked MSNBC and is holding not only employees but Phil Griffin hostage. Neither opinionated Matthews nor Olbermann possess the serious journo cred required to anchor political coverage. Matthews is a former Democratic congressional staffer who springboarded to TV by shooting off his mouth. Olbermann comes from sports with a checkered resume. Matthews got his big TV start with a show on CNBC. Olbermann had a previous short-lived stint at MSNBC anchoring a prime-time show in the late 1990s. But he quit over the wall-to-wall Bill Clinton Lewinsky scandal. He was hired back in 2003 to fill the 8p slot. MSNBC ignored the internal and external hue and cry and soldiered on in its lust for ratings. Somebody's head has to roll over this. The genie's out of the bottle. It won't be Olbermann's head. Like Dr. Jekyll MSNBC created the monster. Now they have to kill him.

2009 Prediction: MSNBC's equivalent to Howard Beale in the 1976 movie "Network" will either self-destruct or Griffin & Co. will hire a band of terrorists to plug him live on air.

Chris Matthews
As for journalistically unfettered Matthews, I am still amazed that Griffin didn't ram a sock down his throat for pimping his Senate aspirations on-air. It got to the point last summer that Joe Scarborough's on-air wife Mika Brzezinski was calling Matthews "Senator" when he appeared on "Morning Joe." Matthews was sneaking around meeting with Dem highrollers while he was on the air schmoozing with Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell and other PA Dem big shots.

It's an Unsolved Mystery why Matthews didn't suffer the same suspension as David "Chelsea Pimped Out" Shuster after incurring Hillary's wrath- or worse - for his clearly misogynistic and biased sexism against Hillary Clinton. Management ignored the angry clarion call from women's groups to fire his anti-female ass.

Worse yet, Matthews got away with unabashed on-air Obama orgasms. The only Chris Matthews quotes that will ever end up in Bartlett's? "Thrill up my leg." "I am partial to Barack Obama."

MSNBC phonily "downgraded" Matthews and Olbermann to election"commentators" after the Eureka! We're fucked! moment when the pair's obvious bias sent NBC into public relations septic shock - but it was like stuffing the bullet back into the gun barrel after firing it.

The immune Griffin puppetmaster Olbermann appears to have finally vanquished rival Matthews with a hefty new contract that sent a chill up Matthews's leg.

Keith Olbermann
What can I say about Keith Olbermann that hasn't been sliced and diced in the OlbermannWatch and NewsBusters Veg-O-Matic? This classic narcissist preaches non-partisanship to us in flag-waving MSNBC promos but at 8 p.m. blows biased bombast out his back end. Olbermann colors outside the lines of journalistic integrity, but then again, he's no journalist. Olbermann's spent most of his TV career ogling naked jocks in locker rooms.

Jeff Bercovici Portfolio"Olbermann knows frighteningly little about his chosen profession... The divide between news and editorial is one of the fundamentals of journalism. Some people are able to move back and forth across that divide, taking care not to allow their personal views to color their news reportage. Olbermann is evidently not one of those people... No way is Olbermann still at MSNBC in five years. This is a guy who loves to leave jobs in a mushroom cloud of righteous indignation."

Olbermann is clearly possessed by serious clinical personality disorders. His penchant for revenge? Symptomatic abandonment issues found in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Paranoia. A delusional Olbermann feared someone was going to take a shot at him as he bloviated from the outdoor set at the Dem convention.

He imagines himself as a latter-day Edward R. Murrow rooting out all the corrupt zealous Joe McCarthys. Put a mirror up to Olbermann's face and staring back is the ultimate avatar of what he so loftily and righteously professes to hate.

And what's with his bizarre obsession with ratings king Fox News rival Bill O'Reilly?

Lou Dobbs
If you liked Ted Baxter in "The Mary Tyler Moore" show, then Lou's for you. The CNN host blows big and bold in his bloviating bluster against illegal immigration. But the egomanical Dobblehead making noises about running for president in 2012 isn't above bending the law if it benefits him.

Runners-up:
CNBC's Jim "Buy Wachovia" Cramer for giving bad advice from God's lips - CEO of Wachovia and Cramer's former boss - to his ears. And then to viewers.

Fox's Bill O'Reilly for not giving new hire Glenn Beck a hale and hearty Fox News welcome.

CNN's Campbell "No Bias, No Bull" Brown for swathing her "Free Sarah Palin" on air McCain attack in phony sexism in a sly and self-pimping expression of "outrage" at McCain's media muzzling of Sarah Palin.