I believe the term is “schadenfreude.”
The word comes from the German; it means “enjoyment derived from the troubles of others,” according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary’s Web site. I found myself coming down with a case of schadenfreude when I learned that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay.
Olbermann’s infraction was donating money to Democratic candidates. MSNBC went into what I call “National Public Radio mode,” issuing some self-righteous statement about Olbermann violating journalistic ethics and the network’s policies that forbid personnel from donating to political campaigns.
Now it’s not Olbermann’s personal problems that give me pleasure. As far as I’m concerned, he should be allowed to contribute to any candidate he wishes. Everybody knows his politics tend to be on the liberal side, and he’s more commentator than news analyst.
No, I’m enjoying what surely must be the discomfort liberals are having now that a liberal network has been exposed as being no more objective than the conservative, much-maligned (by liberals) Fox News Channel.
If I’ve heard it once, I must have heard it a couple hundred times: some bona fide lib with his or her nose out of joint harrumphing about how Fox News isn’t “fair and balanced” at all. Whatever else Fox News is or isn’t, you can rest assured of this: It’s every bit as fair and balanced, and perhaps more so, than television networks with liberal leanings. The same goes for newspapers and magazines as well.
Juan Williams, the former NPR news analyst who got the boot for letting slip a politically incorrect feeling about Muslims, was and is a regular commentator on Fox News. Contrary to what Williams-bashing liberals think, the man is also a liberal. (One of the things causing those disjointed deviated liberal septums is Williams’ 2006 book “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It”. In the book, Williams pulled the cover off black America’s race-hustling misleaders, nailed the reparations movement for being the useless gesture it was, and dared to suggest that a preponderance of single-parent homes in black America just might be a serious problem.)
When the liberal Williams pointed out some harsh truths in “Enough,” it was more than some liberals could take. They’ve been railing against him ever since, proving that nothing slams shut more quickly and resoundingly than a liberal mind confronted with unwelcome facts. Scratch a liberal, get a fascist, the saying goes.
Liberals tend to think they’ve cornered the market on being fair, balanced and open-minded. To them, Olbermann’s nightly rants were the quintessence of cogent political commentary. Comments by Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity on Fox News, on the other hand, were vivid proof that the network wasn’t “fair and balanced.”
Williams’ frequent appearances on Fox News prove that network’s commitment to at least attempting to appear fair and balanced. Is there a conservative voice — a George F. Will or a Pat Buchanan — that has appeared as frequently on MSNBC as Williams has appeared on Fox News? Is there a conservative with his or her own show on MSNBC? (And yes, I’m thinking Michelle Malkin or Ann Coulter here.)
MSNBC execs would have to take “To Catch a Predator” off the schedule for that to happen. And that show, oddly enough, has been criticized as an even more flagrant violation of journalistic ethics than the peccadillo that got Olbermann suspended.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
