Tribute to Keith

Okay, I admit it. It's only been two days, and I'm already Jonesing for Keith. Big time. No knock on any of the rest of the MSNBC lineup, but there is simply no one like Keith, and there isn't going to be either. Whatever he winds up doing, he will not have another five-days a week show like "Countdown."
Of all people, a right wing pundit described the uniqueness of Keith perfectly by comparing "The Last Word" with "Countdown":
Lawrence O'Donnell can be every bit as acerbic as Keith, and their politics are pretty similar, but there is one major difference between the two shows: In addition to being informative and extremely cathartic, Keith's show was enormously entertaining and magnificently produced.
I absolutely loved "Worst Persons." But, more importantly, try as I might, I can't think of a single policy statement that Keith ever made with which I disagreed.
When he became emotional while describing some injustice (read: The Jan Brewer death panels), I became every bit as angry as he obviously was.
Which reminds me: With Keith gone, who is going to have guests like the Arizonans who will soon die because Brewer won't release readily available funds for lifesaving transplant surgeries? Or that child who was facing a very premature death because his parents' insurance company found a loophole to avoid paying for the medical care that he so desperately needed? Who will give families like these a voice now that Keith is gone?
And then, of course, there were Keith's "Special Comments." I remember thinking on more than one occasion that, if everyone shared Keith's beliefs and values, we would be living in damn close to a perfect world. I've read criticisms of Keith going "over the top" during some of those “Special Comments.” I never thought he did. If he eviscerated somebody, it was invariably an individual who richly deserved it.
Having lost one parent over a cruelly prolonged period of time, for the life of me, I cannot fathom how Keith handled the loss of both of his parents within such a short time of each other with such elegance and grace.
But he did a hell of a lot more than that. By broadcasting on some of his days off from the sidewalk outside the hospital where his Dad was living out his last weeks, and then days, Keith actually made us feel like we were part of his family. And his constant exposition about how he couldn't even imagine going through what he was experiencing with his Dad if he didn't have the financial resources to pay for the best health care available provided daily reminders of the inequities that so many American suffer because of the incomprehensible refusal of our government to heed the life and death necessity of providing universal health care to all Americans.
I know, Keith was supposed to be "difficult to work with." He also had a reputation for being arrogant and condescending, a reputation that he himself acknowledged and poked fun at during a bit in which he "interviewed" himself on adjoining screens.
But, for a guy who supposedly was so difficult to work with, you get the distinct impression that all of his colleagues on MSNBC loved him. (With the exception of Joe Scarborough, I imagine.)
I also know that Keith remains extremely close to Dan Patrick, with whom he shared the mike on Sports Center for years. So, you sort of get the impression that, while Keith might well have been difficult for his superiors to deal with (most probably when they tried to control and/or confine him), when it came to his colleagues, I never heard a single complaint or detected so much as a tinge of animosity toward him.
MSNBC is what it is today strictly because of Keith. He personally brought Rachel and Lawrence on board which turned the station into a liberal network and thereby paved the way for Ed and Cenk to join the party. And, having watched "Hardball" judiciously for ten years, I can say without equivocation that Chris has moved WAY to the left of where he was before Keith arrived on the scene.
Finally, without Keith, who in the world is going to police the Fox Propaganda Channel and their Republican minions? Every time one of Fox's "commentators" told one of their prodigious amount of bald faced lies, i.e. every day, Keith was there at the ready, video in hand, showing the world a clip of the right wing mendacity purveyor directly contradicting himself on camera a few months earlier.
I'm sure we'll see Keith once in awhile; he seems ready made for Hollywood at this stage of his career. But the entertainment we were guaranteed at 5:00 p.m. every day (Pacific Time) is gone forever. However, that's the least of our concerns.
What bothers me most is that, without Keith, who will give"ordinary" Americans a voice on the national stage when they are literally being killed by Republican/Corporate greed, selfishness, and disinterest? And where will our toughest cop be the next time Sean Hannity trots out his latest canard or Glenn Beck escapes from the asylum again?
Keith will be perfectly fine wherever he goes and whatever he does. But each of the rest of us will be somewhat diminished because of his absence. And this country as a whole will be even more mean spirited, unfair, and unkind than it otherwise has been since the election of Ronald Reagan.
Will MSNBC still be the voice of liberalism on basic cable? Of course it will, and the remaining hosts and hostess are all quality commentators with hearts of gold. But, without Keith ... well, let me put it like this:
The 1961 Yankees won an incredible number of baseball games (109). They had a terrific lineup from top to bottom. Players like Roger Maris, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Elston Howard, Yogi Berra, Moose Skowron, and many others.
But how would they have done without Mickey Mantle hitting cleanup? If you subtract Mantle from the equation, those Yankees would still have had a hell of a lineup and a hell of a team.
But would they have won 109 games or anywhere close to that number?
Not a chance.