News broke last Friday, after the shut down of the Warming Glow presses, that Keith Olbermann had been fired from his position at Current TV, a network that no one has ever watched. The official reason for the firing was “breach of contract,” because Olbermann missed too many days (he was absent for about half of his telecasts this year) and because he failed to promote his own show. The real reason, however, is because Keith Olbermann is a pain in the ass. He was a pain in the ass on MSNBC, he was a pain in the ass the first time he was on MSNBC, and he was a pain in the ass when he was on ESPN. He’s a news desk diva, and while it was refreshing for a hot minute to have a liberal version of Glenn Beck in the news world, at a certain point, his contribution to the marginalization and polarization of cable news was as egregious as his counterparts on Fox. It doesn’t hurt that Olbermann is also an insufferable twit.
As though to bolster his own image as an arrogant douche, Olbermann went on David Letterman last night to explain his ouster, taking full blame in the most back-handed way imaginable. “I screwed up,” he said. How, you ask?
“I thought we could do this. It’s my fault that it didn’t succeed in the sense that I didn’t think the whole thing through. I didn’t say, ‘you know, if you buy a $10 million chandelier, you should have a house to put it in. Just walking around with a $10 million chandelier isn’t going to do anybody a lot of good, and it’s not going to do any good to the chandelier.’ And then it turned out we didn’t have a lot to put the house on to put the chandelier in, or a building permit, and I, I should have known that. And it is, it is my fault at heart … Now, I’ve been in situations in my lifetime where the second I agreed to something, I got that sinking feeling in my stomach and I said to myself on those occasions, ‘Holy goodness, I’ve just made a huge mistake.’”
Basically what Olbermann is saying is that he’s awesome, and that Current TV couldn’t contain that much awesome.
To borrow a phrase from Olbermann, that analogy is deep and I don’t think it’s playable. The very fact that Olbermann sees himself as a $10 million chandelier is the problem: He needed to be the foundation for the network. The guts. The $10 million brick and mortar. He was hired to build the network, not to hang above the table uselessly and look pretty. Plus, how are you supposed to light a goddamn home when the chandelier is broken half the time? You can’t.
The good news, at least, is that with Beck and Olbermann out of television news for the moment, maybe we can head into the general election with a touch less divisiveness on both sides.
Here’s the clip from Letterman.
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I read this on another web site and thought it summed up Olbermann pretty good, “Two other ways Keith is like a chandelier: It’s fun to watch him crash, and most people manage just fine without him in their homes.”
nice
No chandelier in their homes? Heavens, I’m not even sure I’d call that living.
his contribution to the marginalization and polarization of cable news was as egregious as his counterparts on Fox
I don’t think this is true for the simple fact that no one watched Olbermann.
I’m having trouble thinking of more than two liberals in my life who watched him a lot. Its not like he’s Maddow…with those bedroom eyes and that come hither crew cut.
She got a haircut you can set your watch to.
She’s the Johnny Unitas of TV journalists.
He’s like every bad stereotype of the “liberal media elite” or whatever it is that people accuse the left of being.
Besides, I can’t see him without thinking of Ben Affleck ranting and raving about the co-op board’s refusal to accept his fluffy white cat.
Olbermann’s lack of self-awareness can be stunning at times.
I suppose this is some kind of victory for Republicans everywhere but honestly he’s such a douche and so few people like him that it feels less like a victory for our side and more like digging your pants into your pocket and finding five bucks. You’re happy you’ve got five bucks, but I mean, shit, what the fuck is that really gonna buy?
Plus, it put Olbermann and Gore back into the news for a few days, which is no victory for anyone.
Last night I randomly caught his replacement, Eliot Spitzer, who is actually about 300 times more intelligent and insightful (and rants way less) than Olbermann ever was. I think he’s great, and really it’s too bad about the hookers.
You’re not from NY are you? Spitzer fucked us over by leaving us David Patterson as governor.
I live here and yeah I know, I haven’t totally forgiven him for that disaster either.
David Paterson is another guy who would make a much (much, much, much) better talking tv person than a politician.
lol, Spitzer is a clown. The ultimate do as I say , not as I do type of person.
Tubesteak, totally agree. Especially since as AG he worked to track down and expose prostitution rings aimed at the big business and tourist trade.
No one ever talks about how the bank dimed him out. Your bank is legally required to report “suspicious transactions,” though it’s never explained exactly what makes a transaction suspicious. That was how Spitzer originally got caught. It’s funny that we have to make a big pretense about giving a shit that a politician fucks whores, when ultimately no one really cares.
I think the media does indeed skew slightly left – which suits me just fine as I’m quite the liberal – and they realize it, so they make an effort to try to play a tad fairer when covering conservatives and their issues. Fox News, on the other hand, has a deliberate agenda complete with disseminated talking points and topics they are forbidden to broach. Keith Olbermann is what you get on the far end of the spectrum when liberals become indignant and shitty. Glenn Beck is the polar opposite, when conservatives become indignant and uninformed. And shitty.
“Reality does have a known liberal bias.”
~Stephen Colbert
DW nails it.
Olbermann and Beck may well be similar in their levels of douchiness, but they come from completely different places. Olbermann wants to show you how erudite he is while Beck wants to explain to you that erudite is a word created by a secret cabal of Nazi communist gay Alinskyites and that if you pay him $68.99 for the Glenn Beck Decoder Ring, you’ll see that the letters in “erudite” can be rearranged to spell “true die,” and therefore it’s all a scheme of the Illuminati and the Zionists to steal our precious bodily fluids.
Both are socially awkward, but only one is mentally ill.
This notion that ‘the half of the ideological divide that doesn’t have me in it is uninformed’ seems like it could, maybe, lead to perhaps some possible narrowmindedness.
It’s pretty easy to go through life consuming nothing but liberal thought: Just avoid FOX or talk radio. That don’t seem healthy no how.
But I have to thank Otto for saving me some cash. I’ve been saving up for that decoder ring and now I can reallocate that capital towards some freedom food or something.
Other options for Keith Olbermann to household fixtures comparisons: off the top of my head I’m only coming up with spare toilet.
I miss that Illinois governor with the bad hair.
Tubesteak just described like every politician or political pundit, like ever.
Maybe Olbermann can get on the Oprah Winfrey Network? I hear it is also a network full of chickenhead vaginas that no one watches.
Hey! Who changed my username!?
Liberals. It’s always liberals.
I know, they love Richard Simmons.
“Now, I’ve been in situations in my lifetime where the second I agreed to something, I got that sinking feeling in my stomach and I said to myself on those occasions, ‘Holy goodness, I’ve just made a huge mistake.’”
i.e. when on the first night of the existence of ESPN 2, he opened with “I’m Keith Olberman, and welcome to the end of my career” Way to sell the show, asshole.
The truly definitive Olbermann story is when he thought Republicans were going to assassinate him. He ain’t worth the bullets.
Go back to Massachusetts, ya pinko!
The analogy wasn’t great, but the point remains – they wanted him to be the centerpiece of the network, then didn’t do little things like have functioning lights or pay the damn bills.
His contract included a car service. The car service stopped coming to get him because they hadn’t been paid.
Before you say “Oh, he’s too good to drive himself?” – he has issues with depth perception due to an injury from years ago. And what anchor for a legitimate network has to pay for a cab or take the subway?
“Legitimate network?”
Sorry, I was with you right up to there. And I used to enjoy O back when he acted like he might have a sense of humor — around ’96.
more like a 2 dollar dildo than than a ten million dollar chandelier if this is referring to Olberman