Thursday, June 17, 2010

Olbermann Throws Temper Tantrum, Quits KOS


Vintage Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann announced Wednesday night that he will cease blogging for the liberal Daily Kos over a comment directed at the MSNBC host’s coverage.

Olbermann and some of his MSNBC colleagues surprised their left-leaning fans on Tuesday with eviscerating critiques of President Barack Obama’s Oval Office address on the oil spill spewing off the Gulf Coast.

“It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days,” Olbermann said of the president’s remarks, echoing similarly negative comments from fellow MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow.

One commenter on the Daily Kos, where Olbermann has frequently blogged over the years, speculated that the pattern of hosts generally sympathetic to the president bashing the administration was too consistent to be a coincidence.

“Can’t verify, of course,” the commenter began, “but a friend in the news biz tells me he got a damaging e-mail from one of his pals at NBC. Something to the effect that their anger was pre-planned because ‘beating up on the president has been good for ratings.’ I haven't checked, but I'm hearing that Olbermann slammed the speech on Twitter before it even started.”

Obviously, Olbermann is yet another TV personality not used to being criticized from both sides. But to be KO'd by a conspiracy theorist? Where has Olbermann been for the last decade? These nuts accused George W. Bush of orchestrating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Why should Olbermann be shocked that someone sees a conspiracy for ratings? Sounds to me like he was just looking for a reason to quit blogging.