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Colleagues of attorney Floyd Abrams have sent a letter to MSNBC anchorman Keith Olbermann’s attorney requesting an apology based on his commentary on January 21.
From B&C
Some First Amendment attorneys are coming to the defense of one of their own.
The First Amendment Advisory Council of the Washington-based Media Institute, has called on MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann to apologize to their fellow Advisory Council member Floyd Abrams.
While they are not challenging Olbermann’s right to criticize Abrams over his stand on the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision, they took strong issue with what they said was Olbermann’s likening of Abrams, who is Jewish, to a Nazi collaborator during a Jan. 21 commentary on the decision, which allowed direct corporate and union funding of radio and TV campaign ads. Abrams simply represented “a client whose position you dislike in Citizens United,” they said.
Calling it an unwarranted personal attack, the attorneys made their request in an “open letter” circulated by the Media Institute Wednesday.
“Floyd Abrams is the foremost First Amendment advocate of our time. He also is Jewish. For any Jew to be compared to a Nazi collaborator is vile, but in the case of Floyd is simply beyond comprehension,” they wrote. “But your offhanded inclusion of this ugly epithet points to a deeper problem that has degraded public discourse – the breakdown of civility….
“Of course, you have the right to say what you did in your ‘special comment.’ None of us questions that, and each of us would be willing to defend against any attempt to suppress your speech. We do not doubt your rights – just your judgment. It does not endanger free expression to counsel self-control and civility.”
Signing the letter were Robert Corn-Revere; Lucy Dalglish; Adonis Hoffman; Tony Mauro; Robert M. O’Neil; Bruce W. Sanford; Rodney A. Smolla; Laurence H. Winer; and Kurt Wimmer.
The Institute is a media company-backed independent First Amendment think tank whose board of trustees (distinct from the First Amendment advisory council) includes a member from MSNBC-parent NBCU.
Media Institute President Patrick Maines pointed out that the letter and its language was the work of the council members, but said he was proud of them.
The letter was e-mailed Wednesday to Olbermann’s address at Countdown, according to a spokesman for the Institute.
Olbermann has no love lost for the Abrams family as he has been critical of Floyd’s son Dan who used to work at MSNBC and now runs the website Mediaite as well. Objective or vindictive? You be the judge.
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About the author
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
5 Comments for Olbermann Asked to Apologize to Abrams
Keith Olbermann’s career is interesting – he was taken off a full-time sports beat and placed in a corporate-subsidized anti-Rush Limbaugh role – as a political entertainer for the left.
Strictly speaking, though, he’s not a leftist mirror of Rush Limbaugh. No one has managed to be as self-supporting as Limbaugh’s Excellence In Media network from the precincts of the Left. Air America went broke trying. There is simply not the audience for leftist views in America that there is for centrist and right-wing views.
Keith Olbermann’s support base is essentially the boardroom at NBC Universal and whatever subsidies they receive for his show from Microsoft.
Who watches this ill-mannered curmudgeon? Actually, it’s probably a good idea to have this guy on the tube: it shows how little class the left-wingers have.
Will he apologise???…I don’t think so..Wil the rest of the media cover this story???…I don’t think so either….
Olbermann is a punk. Mr. Abrams should punch him in the mouth.
Any other journalist with comments made by Olbermann and they would have been out long before the continuation of Olbermann’s childish tirades.
It is another sign that NBC’s credibility as a news organization is dead. Now if their Sports division would be just as smart in taking Olbermann off Sunday night NFL pre-game, then that would help. At least the Sports division was smart enough not to have Olbermann up in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.