I just want to wish one of the most wonderful newsmen alive a happy 48th birthday.
Yes, let us toast to Keith!!!
Send Keith a Happy Birthday email at countdown@msnbc.com.
Some facts about Keith:
He was born January 27, 1959. Early in life, he moved from New York City to Westchester County's Village of Hastings-on-Hudson. (Just one town over from me!) He graduated from the Hackley School, an exclusive private school in Tarrytown, N.Y., with a sprawling campus. I used to run on their track quite a bit.
But by the time I arrived in this world, Keith was in Ithaca, earning his bachelor's degree in communication at Cornell.
He started working at UPI and RKO Radio out of school (anybody remember RKO Radio? Not me.) and got a job with CNN when the network first started up (and still held some promise of being much more than a White House lapdog, garbage news regurgitating machine, and Fox News wannabe).
Keith's strong personality burned bridges at ESPN, where managers told him he had "too much backbone." Hey -- I'll take a newsman with too much backbone any day!!! (Keith actually does have "too much backbone" -- he has six lumbar vertebrae instead of the normal five.)
Of Keith's endless appearances on the small screen...this one here might be one of my favorites...
Keith's career has been full of ups and downs. He had a gig at MSNBC in 1997 but understandably cracked under the pressure to cover all Monica, all the time. He left, but thankfully the powers that be at MSNBC recognized his talent, acuity, and integrity and gave him another chance after September 11th. Keith now has the best show on the cable network (that's right Tweety), and the show on all the cable news channels with the most buzz. AND he's responsible for the figurative castration of Bill O'Reilly. He truly is a savior to all.
Keith is certainly the light of my evenings. It is rare I don't come home, relax, cook a nice meal, and settle down in front of the television at 8 p.m. to hear the truth. Yes, the truth. No spin. But with actual analysis. As in, the words he speaks are his own original thoughts, not from a press release hot off the fax machine.
Keith's not on the cocktail circuit. He's not trying to curry favor with any politician. He'll criticize any public official regardless of party, but he won't play that silly "evenhanded" he-said-she-said game just for the sake of appearing balanced. If ever there is a day as long as Keith lives that the Democratic Party is more corrupt, more oppressive, more fumbling, more devilish than the Republican Party, Keith will call them out on it, and our democracy will be better served for it.
So here's to you Keith. Thank you for all that you do for us!
Please send Keith some birthday wishes at countdown@msnbc.com.
***All images from Creative Commons***