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UNASHAMED SOCIALIST LAWRENCE O’DONNELL TAKES OVER FOR OLBERMANN

01/24/11-by L.S. Carbonell
Lawrence O’Donnell had me at three words. Daniel. Patrick. Moynihan.

You need to be close to my age to have those three words conjure up a mental image of the lions of Washington – Lyndon Johnson, Everett Dirksen, Tip O’Neil, Jacob Javits, Barbara Jordan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan – politicians who filled a room with the sheer power of their personalities and sucked all the oxygen out. Teddy Kennedy eventually grew into that status. Robert Byrd, despite his longevity, was too genteel. Lawrence O’Donnell cut his political incisors in the service of New York’s Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Wow.

Tonight, Lawrence tackles the thankless task of taking over Keith Olbermann’s time slot on MSNBC. He is more than up to the job. The right, who are dancing jigs over Olbermann’s departure, will soon learn that Lawrence makes Keith look downight moderate, gracious and polite by comparison. In a Newsmaker interview from November 2005, Lawrence characterized himself as a “practical European socialist.” Last November, on the Morning Joe show, he explained that “…unlike you, I am not a progressive. I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the exteme left of you mere liberals…..” Deal with it, Tea Party! He’s already ruffled more than a few Republicans with his blunt assessments of Arnold Schwaizenegger, Michael Steele and Sarah Palin.

[With all due apologies, Lawrence, I know you Bostonians don’t learn as much about the Roosevelts as New Yorkers do, but the word “progressive” is not a cop-out. The first place “progressive” Teddy used his big stick was on the rampant political corruption of New York’ police department, and we know what Franklin gave this country and what he died too soon to do for us.]

Okay, someone please tell me that I heard correctly and in the ads for The Last Word, the security guard calls him “Larry” because “Lawrence” is just too Masterpiece Theatre for sustained use. And we need a new name for the show since Lawrence will no longer be occupying the last prime time slot.

Lawrence will be 60 in November, was born in Boston, and has been married for the past 16 years to the beautiful actress Kathryn Harrold. They have one child. If Kathryn Harrold’s name doesn’t ring bells, her most recent television role was as Mrs. Chambers on Greek. She is a working actress with a varied and full filmography, moving between television, feature films and the stage.

If the journalism/Hollywood connection seems a little strange, you should know that Lawrence O’Donnell began his career (after graduating from Harvard) as a writer. His 1983 book Deadly Force was an inside examination of a case of wrongful death and police brutality in which his own father had been the attorney for the plaintiff. Tate Donovan played Lawrence in the film version, A Case of Deadly Force. Yes, graduated from Harvard. Say it loud, say it proud, MSNBC is the home of elitist intellectuals with “fancy book learning” who don’t pretend that they need to Google the word “czar” to cover up a Sanford honors degree.

From 1989 to 1995, Lawrence was an aide to New York’s Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan’s career was far greater than just his four terms in the Senate, 1976 to 2000. He was our Ambassador to the United Nations and to India, a key policy maker in the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty, was a member of the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations. Though the Democrats and Republicans have been rivals since Jefferson and Hamilton, the vicious partisanship that we are witnessing today is not how the relationship has always been. Moynihan exemplified the principle that party differences should never take precedence over governance in the best interests of all Americans. That’s how he could work with Presidents of both parties. He left us in 2003 with a legacy for our times, two quotes as important today as they were when he said them:

“Secrecy is for losers, for people who do not know how important the information really is.”
“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success
of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

From 1989 to 1991, Lawrence served as senior advisor to Moynihan. Then in 1992 and 1993, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which was chaired by Senator Moynihan. 1993, ‘4 and ‘5, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, under Senator Moynihan’s chairmanship, the Senate’s tax-writing committee during the consideration of President Bill Clinton’s first budget, which Congress enacted in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

In 1999, Lawrence changed career directions again, returning to Hollywood as a writer for The West Wing, becoming their executive story editor, then co-producer, producer, consulting producer and eventually executive producer of 22 episodes. He won the 2001 Emmy for his work on the series and was nominated in 2006 in the same Outstanding Drama Series category. He simultaneously worked as a supervising producer and writer for the drama First Monday in 2002 and created the drama Mister Sterling in 2003. Lawrence has also done some acting, most notably as attorney Lee Hatcher on Big Love, President Bartlet’s father on The West Wing and as Judge Lawrence Barr on my personal favorite, Monk.

He returned to politics as a commentator, contributor to various news programs and analyst when he named Karl Rove as the primary source for the exposure of Valerie Plame. In 2009, he became a regular on Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough until he got a bit too aggressive in his debating style and Joe Scarborough dropped him. Appearances as a substitute host for Keith Olbermann, especially during Keith’s long absence as his father was dying, led to the creation of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, an event that caused Keith to quip that the entire prime time line-up on MSNBC was his creation. Rachel Maddow had been a frequent sub for Keith before starting her own show.

Well, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time, Lawrence steps into Keith’s time slot permanently. I’m hoping that we can see a bit more Irish charm than he has demonstrated up to now. Passion, commitment and conviction can be presented in a disarming manner. It confuses the hell out of one’s opponents in a debate. We saw some of that during the discussion of Sarah Palin’s post-“blood libel” interview with Sean Hannity – that smile on Lawrence’s face while he presented his “disclaimer” of his opinion of her, a full multi-syllable paragraph to call her a money-grubbing parasite.

I would also like to explain that we are not being disrespectful here in Vermont when we call our socialist Senator “Bernie” or our oh-so-senior Senator “Pat”. We are being affectionate. They’re part of the family. We prove that with the margins with which we put them and keep them in the Senate. So, it is with familiarity and appreciation that I say…

Good luck, Larry. Give ‘em hell. We’ll be watching.