IN BOSS TWEED'S FEVERED DREAMS

... a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Keith Oberhman is off the air.

Last night he ended his Friday night show, by, well ending his show, finite.

I found him to be more then competent on ESPN, and a miserable excuse for a political commentator. How many retractions? How many awful dialogues based on blogger rumors? And how many times can Sarah Palin be "the worst person in the world?" Quite honestly I could think of at least a half dozen ear penetrating, deafening, skin crawling noises I'd prefer to subject myself to rather then his voice. And the fact that he'll be remembered more for my description rather then Jambo's, is no one's fault but his own.

More interesting to me, truth be told, is the recent developments with his former boss. The current, not former, but sitting CEO of GE (NBC's parent company) is now President Obama's most senior economic advisor and replaced Paul Volker as head of the "Economic Recovery Commission." Is this man not a walking conflict of interest in his wearing of both hats? He kept Oberhman on all these years, getting his brains beaten in by O'Reilly in the ratings, even losing to CNN. Most cases the network changes line ups when they lose, night after night, year after year, but not MSNBC. And now that the CEO has achieved the ultimate "contact" in the business world, Keith is tossed aside not more then 48 hours later. Perhaps he served his purpose?

I can tell you this. This creeps me out a bit. Foreshadowing of the Chinese model of "State Capitalism." GE is was the largest single corporate contributor to the Obama 2008 campaign. They have a 24 hour Left wing PR firm in MSNBC. And now the most senior advisor to the PoTUS is the sitting CEO of the whole shebang. A "shebang" which included a multi-million dollar turbine deal to India that the president himself brokered for GE on that trip. No worries though. I'm sure if Ol' Dubya had named Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News parent company News Corp) to a similar position, or say the sitting CEO of Haliburton, MSNBC would have been fine with it.

I'm curious which direction the influence peddling will advance in more. Will GE continue to get sweetheart deals given they now have the ultimate celebrity agent hawking their wares, or will White House Chief of Staff Dailey be consulting on NBC news division's programming and content? It seems to me that these are precisely the types of relationships that end on live TV with the words, "I have no recollection of that senator."