While on a much-needed vacation, things for Keith Olbermann have gone from bad to worse.
News is coming out almost daily concerning members of his production staff jumping ship to work for Lawrence O'Donnell's new program.
On top of that, the Daily Caller has published e-mail messages of liberal JournoList members expressing their disgust for the "Countdown" host.
As lefties hating on Olbermann is guaranteed to brighten a conservative's day, let's start there:
"He's become O'Reilly on the left- completely predictable, unfunny, and arrogant," said Georgetown University Professor Michael Kazin in May 2009. "To my mind, what they do is no different form Hannity and O'Reilly," said the New America Foundation's Michael Cohen, "At least Hannity and O'Reilly engage with the other side (if mainly just to yell at them). Olbermann is just an echo chamber."
DC's Jonathan Strong explained that the Listers were chatting about a recent "Countdown" segment bashing former Miss California Carrie Prejean:
Following the segment, the subject on Journolist was "I hate Keith Olbermann again," and the members of the list let it rip.
The Nation's Katha Pollitt began the group's rant. "He and Michael Musto did this whole long riff about beauty contestant Carrie ‘opposite marriage' Prejean's breast implants, stupidity, breast implants, tacky clothes, earrings, breast implants. They went on and on about how she was ‘part plastic' and pathetic. You'd think they were celibate vegans who spent their lives zen meditating. It was just a whole TV humiliation of her, and it made me feel sorry for her, which wasn't easy," Pollitt said.
Michael O'Hare, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the segment was "about as funny as a rubber crutch. Odd when a reasonable person's internal alarm doesn't go off in a situation like that ...'I'm going to ridicule a girl who's obviously at her personal limits just trying to look conventionally pretty on national TV? What does that make me'?" [...]
Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and CNN contributor, said Olbermann's root problem is his misogyny. "I can't take him anytime. I think to write off his mysogyny (sic) as limited to Musto is just not accurate. That very much defined much of how he talked about Clinton as well as others."
The delicious hits just kept on coming:
The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman said a brutal parody of Olbermann reflected his true nature. "I hate both Ben Affleck and Saturday Night Live, but this should end all debate about the merits of Olbermann," he said, linking to the parody.
For those that have forgotten, Affleck absolutely skewered Olbermann with his November 1, 2008 parody:
But there's more:
Salon's Rebecca Traister agreed Olbermann regularly displayed his contempt for women. "Olbermann has a terrible record of going out of his way to talk about young, attractive women he believes to be stupid in grotesquely dismissive and oversexualized terms."
Wow. When a liberal like Olbermann loses the Nation AND Salon, that's something. Finally:
University of Chicago Professor Harold Pollack said at the end of a long hard day, the last thing he needs is an hour with someone like Olbermann."KO can be smart and funny, but I've basically had my fill. My life is full of shtiky and rude blowhards already. Why add another?" Pollack said.
Now that we're having fun at Olbermann's expense, let's turn up the volume with what TVNewser reported Thursday:
MSNBC just announced that Greg Kordick who had been Senior Producer on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" is moving with his boss, Izzy Povich, to Lawrence O'Donnell's new 10pmET program, set to launch in the fall.Kordick will EP the show. It was announced Monday that Povich would be Senior EP.
Makes you wonder if these folks were among the MSNBCers that Tucker Carlson said "despised" Olbermann.
Regardless, we sure hope Keith is having a wonderful vacation (photo courtesy NBer lumberjack):
