For the first time in ages I watched a broadcast channel's Sunday morning talk show. The only reason I watched is because Keith Olbermann was invited to be on the "Roundtable" segment.
First, a slight review of his performance.
I think, mostly, he did a good job, but he seemed a bit out of his element. Olbermann has been the center of his own cable TV program for nine years. He's used to asking the questions not answering them, and he usually shares the spotlight with one guest, not four guests and one host. He seemed, initially, like he was demurring to the veterans of the program a bit too much. He waited to be specifically addressed by George Stephanopolous before he would have his say, while the other guests felt pretty comfortable interjecting when they saw fit.
Olbermann had a weird moment when he was addressing how oil speculation affects gas prices where he seemed to make a rather weak case that gas prices were being driven up to specifically hurt Obama. I'm not sure that he meant it to sound that way, but that's how it came off. He probably could've made his case a bit better on his own show with charts and graphs, and en expert to discuss the topic. Again, though, he was a bit out of his element. He didn't, as one four guests, have the time to make his point clear. Because of that it came off as a weird moment.
I think if he's invited back a few times, he will catch on to how to make his point in a pithier package. There's a big transition from "the whole hour is mine" and making quick pithy points. I'll compare my experience in graduate school to what happened here. I wanted to write a guest column for my school paper. Well after spending a couple years writing twenty and thirty page papers, I found it difficult to write a four or five hundred word column and had to be walked through the process by a sophomore communications major.
This is no knock on Keith. I think he's a remarkable talent, and mostly I thought he did well, but this moment just points out how difficult the transition can be in going from show host to show guest. All in all, I enjoyed Keith's presence on the show and hope they bring him back a few times so that he can get used to the format.
More below the Great Orange Sqiggly...
The weirdest part of the show was not watching Olbermann, a novice to the format, trying to make too complex a point about oil speculators manipulating the market, but in watching what followed shortly thereafter when George Will, a veteran of the show and an expert at the format try to make a snarky point about how Obama doesn't understand the economy by demonstrating that he (Will) doesn't understand the economy. Will says in this segment that Obama doesn't understand the economy because Obama has made the point that automation has driven down the demand for labor.
Mr Will should know that ATMs (AUTOMATIC TELLER Machines) were created to reduce the need for tellers. When I was a kid, and would accompany my mother to the bank, each teller window was staffed with human tellers. Today, when I go to the bank, I find that only one are two teller windows are staffed with actual tellers. Why is that? Because ATMs reduce demand for actual tellers, thus structurally altering the labor market. But Mr Will seems to think that it is superfluous and silly for Obama to suggest that that fact is, well, fact.
Watch the video below to see George Will pretend to be an intellectual who really understands the economy by saying something that proves he doesn't understand the economy:
I couldn't get the video to embed but the video can be seen here courtesy of Raw Story
Anyway, it was great to see Keith back on the air. If he returns to This Week, I'll be watching more frequently.