By the way, it doesn’t have to be as simple as “Comcast In, KO Out.” While we all harbor our suspicions and the feuding with his bosses had been ongoing and public, and the reporting structure in the organization was being changed with the new merger, and all that stuff (and I just proofed this sentence and it isn’t a sentence but I don’t care because I haven’t had my coffee yet).
But there is another element that I think is worth thinking about. In basically the last year, he lost his mom and his dad, and he really didn’t even take a break. He’s been doing this for eight years straight, and that kind of thing, in the poisonous work atmosphere that existed with his bosses, it just takes a toll on you. I’d wager that in the end, he just had enough and they agreed to part ways.
Sometimes you’ve just had enough of a situation, and you have to say to hell with it.
Maude
I think he didn’t want to do the show anymore.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is leave a situation behind.
Xboxershorts
Yeah, but we love a good conspiracy so, we’re gonna go beat that other horse, thank you very much.
Rosalita
well, maybe he knew they’d make changes to his show? who knows, but I’m cynical enough about Comcast and the idiots at NBC that I think they forced him out.
c u n d gulag
I feel like I’ve lost a close friend.
But if it’s best for him, I’m all for it.
Keith, and maha, later BJ (when JC finally saw reason) and other Liberal internes sites, were the only things that kept me sane during the mis-Reign of Little Boots and his War Criminals.
I haven’t watched Keith in a while. Not because I didn’t want to, but because Cablevision (spit 3 X’s, and 3 X’s more) took them off basic and left me with CNN and, of COURSE FOX (spit a million X’s, and repeat), and the TV in the room my PC is in doesn’t have a converter box. The TV in the livingroom has expanded basic, so my parents can watch a greater array of channels – usually tuned to Turner Classics. But if there’s nothing on there, or nothing else of interest, they’ll turn to MSNBC. My Mom loves Keith, but especially Rachel, and if they’re watching MSNBC I sometimes join them.
And this is what I find exasperating, but fascinating: that FOX and CNN are on everywhere, but people have to pay extra in many areas to get MSNBC or they don’t get it, and yet there’s no mention of that when they talk about how much higher FOX’s ratings are than MSNBC. Well, yeah – you’re comparing apples to oranges. In many respect it’s like comparing CBS’s ratings with HBO’s. Two different worlds.
Here we are working to maintain some sense of Net Neutrality, when we don’t even have TV Neutrality.I’ll miss Keith. I’d like thank him for what he’s done for the last 8 years. After they took Donohue off the air, it took guts for Keith to come on and do what he did. And the fact that Rachel (the best newsperson on the air, BY FAR!) and Ed have shows, is due to Keith. And I’m sure it’s because of those three (but really Keith and Rachel) that cable companies made people pay more for quality news and opinion than the imbecilic prattling, jabbering and howling on FOX, or the senile meanderings of Wolf and the ‘Worst Political Team on Television.’
Good luck, Keith.
We wish you nothing but the best.
‘Thanks for all the fish.’
PLEASE COME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bruuuuce
For the moment, I’m at “it would be irresponsible not to speculate” combined with “where and when will he pop up next?” I think it would be a really astute business move if Oprah gave him a show on her new network; it’d give the network a bump in people looking for it (and hence, maybe, a larger number of systems it’s on).
Villago Delenda Est
We can’t know all the facts surrounding this entire thing, but it’s painfully obvious that KO made some enemies amongst the suits, and it had to do with him not being one with the collective in a lot of ways.
Corporations are called “Borgs” for a reason.
Alex S.
I agree, maybe the Comcast deal was the final straw for him.
Violet
He really has had a rough year. Sometimes you’ve just had enough. I suspect that’s a big part of it, but the timing is too suspect to imagine the Comcrap takeover doesn’t have some bearing on his decision.
I hope he finds a job he likes. If that’s sports, then good for him. He has has a rough year and he’s earned a break.
stuckinred
Maybe he just bailed, no one out there has ever done that? I’ve walked away from shit that other people thought I was crazy to do.
Perfect Tommy
I lost respect for Olbermann when he revealed that he doesn’t vote. He has a half-assed notion that not voting somehow that makes him impartial.
SteveinSC
@c u n d gulag:
Same here. People tend to forget Olbermann (fuck tweety, by the way) was the only person speaking out to a broad audience about Frat Boy Caligula and all the vile claque cheering him on. I was visiting this site before and after the transmutation of Cole and then pretty much joined on. I noticed they said Ed Schultz is being relegated to the 10:00 spot. Not good. Get rid of that fucking spittle beflecked Matthews and expand Ed to two hours.
SiubhanDuinne
I was thinking about the fact that KO lost both parents in a short period of time. He was at his most passionate and eloquent when he wove their end-of-life experiences (and his own as a primary decision-maker) into the health care debate. He was very clear that it was because he made a ridiculously high income that his parents received the finest care available. I can forgive him an awful lot because of his powerful health care reform advocacy. I will miss him sorely, wish him only the best, and look forward to finding out where he bounces up next. He’s too valuable a voice to be silent for long.
Villago Delenda Est
Get rid of Tweety? Never will happen. Tweety is a posterboy for Village ‘tude.
Tweety will be gotten rid of when The Revolution comes and the Villagers are assembled for their final trip to the Duck Pit.
hells littlest angel
@SteveinSC:
I too am pissed about moving Ed to the 10:00 PM slot, where I won’t often be about to tune in. I don’t understand the lack of respect he gets from the left blogosphere. He’s not an intellectual, but he’s a damned good rabble-rouser — and we don’t have enough of those. And why-oh-why do they air Tweety twice? It’s like MSNBC has decided they want to lose.
El Cid
It might be the Comcast deal (maybe some sort of suggestion by MSNBC how to do something differently now), but he did mention his family losses, and it could be both. [Or neither. Or a mix of one of these or both and other stuff.]
Not to repeat that it’s been an intense 8 years, and I don’t know how much money he’s made but I’m assuming it’s a pretty nice sum.
Maybe he just felt like doing something else.
He was the only major TV figure to have loudly and clearly called out the Bush Jr. regime for its bullshit, and this on a weekday basis, so he’ll always remain a figure who was decent and, in the tepid context of media bravery, courageous when it was most needed.
Michael D.
I was thinking the same thing, John. But the number one host on the network just doesn’t get let out of a contract. I’m guessing that Comcast probably was happy to let him out of it.
On the other hand, Comcast is in the business of making money, so it just doesn’t make sense to let your number one draw go.
cathyx
According to his facebook page, he started a “Bring Keith Olbermann Back” page for people to join. So it sounds like they canned him.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Olbermann/172337827656
morzer
I am more glad than ever that I dumped Comcast for RCN.
Donut
Don’t have time to read above comments and so apologies if someone else has already made a similar remark – but no one in the media world, either on the talent or management side, walks away from a contract that big without it being well-planned and discussed ahead of time. All the factors John mentioned were in play and dude deserves a break from the grind of daily TV. It’s not an easy gig; and with Zucker out, and being a contentious personality, it really was time for him to go. Having some direct experience with entertainment biz (I used to be in it on the talent side), I’m telling you when the guy or gal who brought you to the dance goes, then as the talent, you often go, too – if you are on the bubble to begin with. It’s just the way works in media/entertainment companies – you lose your protector and benefactor and the new people in charge don’t like/want/need you around? You’re gone. Lucky for him he had time left on his deal and gets paid for sitting down.
HRA
I agree he got tired of the suits. I can relate to it as early as yesterday. There was a beginning of a change in his format, too. Someone was pushing him out.
It’s not good news about Ed being moved to 10 pm. They should have given him 7 pm. There is no need to repeat CM.
Ija
@cathyx:
He also said this:
Very soon? What about all the talk about the no compete clause?
JasonK
@John Cole:
obviously we wont know for awhile but I suspect your analysis is pretty close. i was a huge fan of Olbermann a couple of years ago but havent watched in awhile. as good as he was i dont think he came close to Maddow who seems to be the only one there with any journalistic integrity.
but Olbermann kept me sane during the Bush years and the last Presidential election. i hope we see him again once he’s had a chance to gather his wits. i suspect we will.
Baud
I second John’s sentiment, mostly because that where I am with my current job.
c u n d gulag
@SteveinSC:
I’m with you and Hells Littlest Angel.
The reason I think they put Chris on twice is in case you didn’t get spit on the first time.
And yeah, Ed’s a great rabble-rouser and we need more like him. He’s kind of like our Rush, but smarter and uses facts.
I wonder it this means wholesale change at MSNBC. Comcast makes my old company Time Warner look like flaming Liberals.
Watch for Rachel and Ed, and some others to be going soon. They may not be foreced out, but they may want to GET out after a few weeks of dealing with the new Conservative CEO and his ass-kissing legions.
JGabriel
cathyx:
I just checked it out — because I couldn’t believe Olbermann himself would start it so soon after signing the dotted line of whatever agreement he and MSNBC reached — and, yes, he did.
Looks like this may turn very ugly, very fast.
.
Mike in NC
KO probably negotiated the sort of ‘golden parachute’ the rest of us could only dream about. As a government contractor in the DC area from 1990 to 2007, I got laid off on more than one occasion with not so much as a thank you going out the door.
Ija
@JGabriel:
If they did fire him, they probably would have to pay out his contract, right? Maybe there’s a clause that said Olbermann can’t talk about being fired, or he won’t get the money. He hasn’t actually said right out that he was fired. I think he should just take the money. No point in saving those a-hole at MSNBC any money. We can all draw our own conclusions based on his hints anyway. I’m starting to think Cole is off-base here.
asiangrrlMN
This is getting bizarre. JGabriel is right–this is going to get ugly. By the by, I can’t stand Ed or Tweety. Now with Cenk being brought into the lineup, we have three loud-mouth blowhard asshats and one smart lady. Or I should say, I have that since it seems many people disagree with me on at least Ed.
Sigh.
JGabriel
@Mike in NC:
Very likely, but Olbermann has also started a “Bring Keith Olbermann Back” page to pressure MSNBC.
So, apparently he’s not satisfied or happy with the agreement.
I thought Cole’s analysis at top was pretty reasonable, but it’s beginning to look incorrect.
.
rikyrah
well, it can’t be because Keith didn’t make him money – his was the highest rated show on MSNBC. so, don’t say it’s because he didn’t do his job and got low ratings.
alwhite
MSNBC has a history of firing its most successful talent based on their politics & straight-shooting. Before Olbremann there was Phil Donahue, his show was far and away the most watched on a wretched network. He was fired because he refused to cheerlead in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. They did not have a show with as many viewers for several years after that – and that show was “Countdown”.
Stupid or incompetent? It may be hard to say but these bad decisions all fall one direction; to the ‘right’.
PaulW
There’s been some noise that this is still fallout from when he got caught giving campaign contributions (meager bits of money too when you compare to the billions! getting dumped into campaigns anymore) to Democrats. The network didn’t enjoy it much that Keith milked the martyrdom for all it was worth, and they didn’t like it much either when the hypocrisy of their other talking heads (Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough, if I recall) getting caught making contributions as well (although in Joe’s case, I think he did get permission but there was still a sense of “the conservative could get away with it where the liberal couldn’t.”).
It’s the suddenness, you see, the sense that it wasn’t until this very week that a decision had been made to kick Keith out. You would think that 1) if this was a long-term plan they would have set up a series of fare-thee-wells like Larry King, 2) Keith could have started promoting a replacement host, or highlighting O’Donnell’s eventual move to the coveted 8 pm slot.
And that’s where the conspiracy lies. Why so swift? Right on the heels of the network getting taken over by Comcast. Just as certain execs were stepping away from the company. Someone was coming in who didn’t like Keith, and wanted to make an example to the others.
That it looks like Olbermann is starting up a FB campaign to reclaim his job does look like the departure wasn’t amicable or mutual.
azlib
Much as a liked Keith’s style, Countdown was getting stale. Eight years is enough of a run. It served its purpose.
Lawnguylander
I’d be a lot more broken up if he’d quit in 2007 than I am now but I do think it might have been interesting to see how he reacted to the doings of the new Republican House over the next few years.
Personal reasons could explain his decision to quit but I doubt politics didn’t play a role. Not national politics but corporate, workplace politics. If his liberal views were the problem he would’ve been gone long ago. MSNBC has been owned by GE after all. Olbermann has a history of being a total douche towards everybody he works with and not just his bosses but assistants, interns, producers. Everybody. Having your bosses hate you is the best way to get fired but in any worplace being hated by almost everyone is going to make you want to quit eventually and I think that largely explains Olbermann’s history of bolting his jobs.
Paddy
Having gone thru the exact same thing with my folks and my brother, that was the first thing I thought also. You get to a point that the bullshit is just not worth it, and I’m sure Keith just said fuck it to the whole thing.
Chris Wolf
Keith has seen a myriad of athletes trying to hang on long after their skills have diminished.
He probably knows a thing or two about going out on top.
Ija
There’s an opposite conspiracy theory brewing among my right-leaning relatives that Olbermann deliberately timed his departure to coincide with the network takeover to make Comcast look like the tool of a vast right-wing conspiracy. That he has been planning to leave for a while, but waited for this moment so he can play the martyr. Of course, they probably all read it in some right wing blogs, since quite a few are telling me this “theory”.
cmorenc
@SteveinSC:
Tweety is the best political interviewer on cable television! That is, he is when he’s interviewing himself, which is about 90% of the time. Most of Tweety’s guests spend much of their time on his show functioning as props for his self-interviews.
Can anyone ever remember Tweety completing an interview with a guest, any guest where Tweety didn’t spend half or more of the interview time spouting soliloquies of his own opinions thinly disguised as extended attempts to set up questions for his prop, er guest? How often does Tweety allow a guest to complete more than three sentences without butting in over the top of them with Tweety’s own commentary? (I see the material for the tag line of a new Geico commercial in here somewhere; unfortunately, they already used the phrase “jackwagon” in another of their commercials).
drkrick
Cosign on the fact he’s had a brutal couple of years. But if you’ve been following KO’s career from the SportsCenter years to now, you know he never stays anywhere very long and he REALLY never leaves on good terms. It’s like he’s using baseball managers as his career model when he doesn’t have to.
He was a bit of a lifeline when he was the only one with a (semi) major media platform calling the Bush maladministration for what they were, but you always knew it would end like this sooner or later. I’m surprised it took this long.
Tom M
If Keith (and Rachel and Ed and the newly liberal Mathews) is what liberals have for news, it’s no wonder liberals lose. He (they) hasn’t a clue; they just throw meat to the rubes albeit different rubes than Fox.
Glad he’s gone.
But then, Countdown has almost surely become the most propagandized show in cable “news” history. Yes, you can still find pure crap in the mainstream press. But pure crap abounds now on Countdown.
….preening and wheeling to various cameras, Olbermann loudly why instructed dumb Obama he should keep McChrystal.
On and on.
13th Generation
@alwhite:
Ashley Banfield
David Shuster
Also, too.
Are there more I’m forgetting?
Svensker
KO has made it fairly obvious on his FB page that he did not want to leave.
Unless his starting a “Bring Olbermann Back” page is just a clever ruse to make the right wingers look bad, or something.
drkrick
So the tag line on the “Bring me back” page he created is “Mr. Olbermann is the voice for millions of Americans around this country with common sense values and ideas. He must be restored to the airwaves at once.”
Shouldn’t he set it up to at least pretend someone else posted a thing like that? I like the guy, but wow.
cmorenc
@Tom M:
Rachael Maddow could drink anyone else’s milkshake on any network you could name. If I had to pick someone to toss in the ring for a couple of hours, 1v1, with Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, or O’Reilly on live TV and be confident that person could maul any of these assholes into embarassingly silly bleeding pulps on the floor before the end of it, it would be Rachael.
The rest, I’m not quite so confident of. Ed Schultz could hold his own, but he’d simply come across to anyone who’s not already a firm progressive as simply a liberal version of O’Reilly or Hannity.
cathyx
@drkrick: Why should he? If he likes what he’s been doing, has millions of fans who like what he’s been doing and his employer fires him when his ratings are the highest on the network, why shouldn’t everyone know what the truth is? Do you think comcast should look good during this and have people think it was a mutually agreed upon deal?
arguingwithsignposts
Cenk Uyger? really? c’mon people. he’s barely ready for the internet.
Bob
I hope he socked away a ton of money, is getting a nice fat golden parachute, severance, and will live happily ever after.
me
@Svensker: Is that really his facebook page? There’s nothing about it on his definitely actual twitter page.
Pangloss
@13th Generation: Does the whole Conan O’Brien-Jay Leno thing count?
Capri
@Svensker:
I’m not so sure.
When you stop being a news show in order to read Thurber stories, you have pretty much signaled to the world that you are completely burned out and are begging somebody to fire you.
Allan
I was gnawing my own paw off to escape the wolf trap when I was finally, thankfully, given a severance package and sent on my way. The money was incredible, and the job wasn’t worth it.
Ija
@me:
Now that you’ve mentioned it, it does seem somewhat fakey. Like all the links to news stories about himself. I suppose he could just be that obsessed with himself, but still. But most of the comments seem to regard it as a real Olbermann page, addressing their comments to him. Except for one guy who said this:
Allan
KO has never, to my knowledge, used Facebook to communicate with his audience nor directed anyone to seek him there, and that appears to me to be a fan page that someone created to push KO-related news.
In other words, stop spreading bad information around on the internets. If that starts, we’re all screwed.
SteveinSC
I see the exquisite trolls have showed up. Don’t need an Ed Schultz when there is a rush limpballs? Keith Olbermann stale and rush not? Jesus the trolls have the third team in today. The right wing loud mouths genned up the near putsch from the right which is the current congress and we don’t need some rabble rousers? Oh yes, spotting trolls or fools is too easy today.
MTW
dkrick has a good point. Olbermann tends to walk away from every job. If he just wanted longevity and security, he’d still be at ESPN; he would’ve owned a share of the network by now.
And it all the calls for replacements, why can’t Sam Seder get a shot? He did an outstanding job filling in for KO.
Svensker
@me:
If someone started a FB page a long time ago and pretended to be KO, wouldn’t the real KO have done something about it? That page doesn’t seem particularly odd to me. But what do I know?
Allan
@Svensker: KO was dragged reluctantly onto Twitter, then became addicted to it. He talked about Twitter on his show, promoted his show via Twitter and interacted with fans and trolls alike on Twitter.
I suspect he didn’t care what someone was doing on Facebook as long as it wasn’t malicious.
NobodySpecial
@SteveinSC: What do you mean, ‘today’?
me
@Svensker: I don’t know one way or another except that facebook page is awfully narcissistic if it is his.
Dbaker
I mostly agree with John here, and think people need some reading comprehension. John is saying the grieving process is *part* of the reason.
The fact that KO was especially loathed by howard Kurtz and his good friend David Zurawik from Baltimore (who Mistah Kurtz would have onhis show to parrot his points) gave KO extra points in my books. A lot of the KO is a douche stories came from Kurtz’s and his GOP advisor wife’s shop. If you are truly a douche, you don’t survive for 8 years
w/o help from your staff; KO’s research was rarely, if ever off.
KO helped me survive the Commander Bunnypants years. There would have been no Rachel, Ed, etc without him, because he proved the liberal commentary does not get ratings meme 100 percent wrong.
So he wants to do something else – more power to him – he deserves it. Dan Patrick also quit Espn in the same manner and came back with more editorial control. KO might be trying to follow the same model.
Finally, part of his issue is that no one likes the smartest guy in the room. KO is just more confrontational about it.
Oh and Tom M. – you’re not bob somerby in disguise are you?
burnspbesq
@Bob:
He is reportedly owed $7 million for the remaining term of his contract.
The simplest explanation is that he’s difficult to work with, and simply wore out his welcome. That’s essentially what happened at ESPN.
I’ll tell you who I would love to see in Olbermann’s slot: Mike Lupica. He’s a great reporter and writer, he’s very good on “The Sports Reporters” on ESPN on Sunday mornings, and his occasional forays into political writing have been very impressive.
Pococurante
Nothing wrong with going out at the top of one’s game. And I doubt KO will retreat to his country villa to garden daisies. He’ll be back in the saddle by summer.
Jo
I just have a feeling Joe S. may have something to do with KO’s firing. He’s made offhanded remarks before, and seems like the type to suck up to management.
MTW
burnspbesq,
Oh please, not Lupica. His “this is why we observe the majesty of sport” crap is the worst sort of magical thinking. He’s talented, but really a sort of feast-or-famine thinker and talker. Although his non-sports mystery novels are pretty good.
Davis X. Machina
@Ija:
That makes a certain amount of something approximating sense.
I can top it on the left, though. To wit:
Everyone knows Obama did it. Obama ordered his sotto capo Immelt to bring him the scalp of his most prominent real progressive broadcast critic, in exchange for being named to head the jobs-commission-thingy.
SIA
__
__
One can get spiritual answers in the most unlikely places. Thank you.
Re Keith, I admit I stopped watching him in the last six months, partially because of the sanctimony and outrage, and partly because of the petty feuds with O’Reilly. I often watch Rachel because I always learn something. Ed’s raspy and breathless delivery sucks the life force out of my body, and though I once admired O’Donnell, after the health care debate I lost a lot of respect for him.
What I used to look for on cable TV & the morning shows (and rarely/never found), I get here and at places like Steve Benen, TBogg etc. But I appreciate all KO has done, and the courage it took when he was the lone voice. Hope he pops up somewhere.
Ija
@Davis X. Machina:
I think your conspiracy theory wins for reaching into the highest reaches of government. My relatives’ theory is just about Olbermann being a super duper evil genius with perfect timing. Bravo, sir.
Hunter Gathers
KO got out while the gettin’s good. If Comcast runs MSNBC anything like it runs it’s cable and internet services, it’s going to start to suck major balls very soon. Everything that Comcast touches turns to shit.
Davis X. Machina
@Ija: It’s from DU.
The Giant may have a posse, but the left has an id.
Elizabelle
@SIA:
You speak for me too with comment 65.
JMY
Because it was his Justice Department & FCC that allowed the merger to go through, I say it’s Obama’s fault. (I’m not being serious with that, but I just read that somewhere).
You Don't Say
What does this ‘Bring Back Keith’ Facebook page say?
Someone on Dkos said he’s going to be Versa’s big personality.
ruemara
I was once in such a toxic work situation it made me ill to go in to work. One Friday, my supervisor told me to ‘nigger’ up the logo anywhere in the upper left corner of the document I was working on. I’m kinda black in a blackityblack wimmen way. The next Monday was Valentine’s, and despite no job prospects or anything, my love gift to myself was to quit.
Sometimes, it’s time to take a long break.
Ija
@ruemara:
What does that even mean?
I’m sorry about your experience. Hope you are in a better workplace now :)
MTW
@Ija:
It means to slap it up there anywhere. Don’t pay attention to quality, just get it done. Kind of like “those people,” you know, the slap-dash slackers who created jazz.
dww44
@hells littlest angel:
I like Ed a lots too, and the move to 10’oclock is actually better for me. Really, I think it should be better for him and his viewership. He’s not competing, at least in the east, with local and national news on the broadcast networks.
gene108
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann
Yes, it’s Wikipedia, I’ve linked to above, but it’s consistent with what I’ve read about Olbermann. He tends to rub people the wrong way, like his feud with ESPN.
I’m not surprised he got pushed out of MSNBC. Think about this: how many toes do you have to step on to get your guest hosts their own T.V. shows?
Seriously, MSNBC’s prime time line-up was Keith, Rachel (formerly Keith’s guest host) and now Lawrence O’Donnell (another of Keith’s guest hosts). That’s something, when you’ve populated a networks prime time line-up with your guest hosts.
I don’t think being a quiet worker-bee behind the scenes allows that to happen and other executives, with their own ideas of what to do with different time slots probably weren’t too happy.
I don’t read a big plot by Comcast to crush MSNBC’s prime time programming. Rather, Keith Olbermann probably bruised a few too many egos and agreed to a big fat settlement, where he really doesn’t have to work again for the rest of his life, if he doesn’t want to.
On the other hand, he’s a very talented broadcaster and will land on his feet again.
I’d personally love to see him get back into baseball again, like maybe write for SI or something along those lines. The man’s encyclopedic knowledge of the sport is awesome.
ruemara
@Ija:
What MTW said. Heh, better people for sure. And, that was in the fine City by the Bay, San Fran, just in case anyone thought it was redneckville.
dww44
@Dbaker:
Thanks for making me feel better. And,yes, Howard Kurtz’s take on KO’s contribution issues last fall and his on the phone comments on AC360 last nite, along with his post on the Daily Beast today, all solidify in my mind that Kurtz is the source of the meme of Olbermann’s fractious relationships with his peers and his support staff. He does love to dwell on that. Methinks he’s long been quite jealous of KO’s ability with the written and spoken word.
Yeah, KO probably has long had an issue with his bosses, but that doesn’t make him a total asshole. Ego and arrogance he often displayed, but if that was a reason to be fired, why are O’Reilly and Hannity, et al. still on the air? Or, is this another example of how liberals can’t get away with even slight extremism in tone as their conservative counterparts are able to do? After all, Beck is still on cable and he’s crazy, on purpose or not.
SIA
@ruemara: Good for you, and thank you.
@Elizabelle: Funny how that works, huh? :)
__
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: I have enjoyed Mr. Lupica’s political writing.
I did not like him when he would appear on The Sports Reporters.
Paul in KY
@ruemara: Jesus! When was this, 1966?
I’m sure it wasn’t, but damn that’s a terrible thing to say.
cckids
@cmorenc:
Rachael could take on any 2 or 3 of them at the same time & still kick ass. Their combined IQ would almost equal hers.
Caz
It’s probably because Comcast is less interested in engaging in political propaganda than in making profits, and KO is a liability, not an asset. The ratings are way down for MSNBC because of the BS that KO spews on a regular basis. The American people aren’t interested in liberal propaganda pretending to be news, so they tune out. Comcast wants to make a profit, so getting rid of KO is a good business decision.
I think it’s as simple as that – a decision was made that is intended to increase profits.
Tom M
@Dbaker:
No, but he usually has better analysis of media personalities than Cole. See, he brings facts to show you when KO is good (not very often) and why he’s wrong (usually) but if it’s a show you can nod your head and say Yeah, you tell ’em, then KO is your ideal.
OTOH, if you’re after a story with facts and shit, then you should look elsewhere. KO is a personality and not a news person. He’s there as part of a marketing strategy and if you are a fan, go for it. If you’re looking for news, well msnbc is a slough of despond.
Marnie
I agree, Olbermann has had a very tough year.
Anyone who has had do deal with the problems of a dying, but not quite dying relative, knows it does all sorts of things to you that are deeply complex and upsettig.
I was suprised he took so little time off.
I’m sure there are lots of internet sites that would love to have him as a regular or occasional commenter, they just can’t pay anything like what he was making.
Best of luck Keith come and visit anytime.
Really, anytime.
slag
Been there. Done that. Strongly recommend it.
Hawes
Olbermann was always a bit of a strange dude. I bet he didn’t want the hassles rather then being shitcanned.