Because It's Been A While Since I Poked Fun At Keith Olbermann

Check out his beginning of the season prediction for the Philadelphia Philies:

Philadelphia: If everybody had been healthy, they still would’ve been overrated. Win all the divisions you want – eventually an unreliable closer will cost you too much to survive it. Now he’s hurt, and his heir presumptive is so incapable of stepping up that his manager and general manager have publicly expressed their doubts about him. There’s the outfield, already a problem spot before Domonic Brown was hurt (Raul Ibanez is its power – he hit 16 homers last year). And most disastrous of all, deranging everything from the infield defense to the entire batting order, is the combination injury/enigma of Chase Utley. I’ll repeat what I wrote here in my Fantasy Notes last week: everything I heard from everybody I know connected to the Phillies says that Utley’s options are season-ending knee surgery, or virtually-season-ending rehab. Either way, offensively the Phillies are reduced to Ryan Howard with very little line-up protection, the hustle and skill of Shane Victorino, and lord-knows-what from Jimmy Rollins. The Phillies are not contenders. Oh yeah – nice rotation. Unfortunately it’s like living in a mansion with no furniture.

As of the games played on July 23, 2011, the Phillies are five games ahead of the Braves for 1st place in the NL East, 10 games ahead of Arizona for a playoff spot, and are on pace to end the season with over 100 wins.

The Phillies offense may not be the world-beating offense it was in 2007, but baseball is as much about preventing runs as it is scoring runs. The Phillies have been excellent at preventing runs, and are not completely terrible at scoring them. Thus, you have the best team in baseball through July 23.

I wonder if Keith Olbermann believes the Phillies are contenders now.......

(h/t to Tug Haines on Twitter)

Keith Olbermann Signs Off MSNBC For The Last Time

Despite there being no lead up to it, tonight was the last episode in the history of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and he signed off MSNBC for the last time.



David Shuster went on Anderson Cooper 360 this evening and stated that due to a clause in Olbermann's contract, Olbermann will not be back on TV for awhile. Once he is back, my guess is he will wind up on MLB Network doing random stuff for them. Outside of possibly Turner, he has burnt bridges at every other relevant organization.

Call me totally nutty, but I do not think it is a coincidence that this is coming three days after the Comcast and NBC merger was approved by the federal government. It's been long thought that Comcast wants a different direction with MSNBC. Now whether or not he was fired, stepping down on his own terms, or being forced to step down is a matter of which is not yet known.

Olbermann may be out at MSNBC, but he will land on his feet at somewhere doing something, I'm sure. He likely is not yet done in TV. For Olbermann fans who need to get their Olbermann fixture, you can follow him on Twitter @KeithOlbermann and he will be returning to his MLBlog The Baseball Nerd on February 14.

And for those wondering, maybe it is the ridiculous cold weather, but I am not as joyous and giddy as I thought I would be when this news eventually broke. It's true I have not watched his show in over a year, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or maybe I'm just numb to everything about him. Or maybe I miss watching his show a bit. Or maybe it's just cold and I'm incapable of feeling anything right now because my skin gets numb real fast when it's exposed to this bitter cold for more than a few minutes. Yeah, let's go with that.

Keith Olbermann Suspended Indefinitley

To start the NFL season, Keith Olbermann was kicked off Football Night In America to focus on his political show on MSNBC. Now, he might be finding himself struggling for work. Per sources at Politico.com, Keith Olbermann committed a huge MSNBC sin this election season.........donating money to 3 political candidates, something that is a no-no at the company, even if the political candidates are Democrats. From MSNBC.com

Msnbc TV host Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely on Friday for making campaign donations to three Democratic congressional candidates, apparently in violation of NBC News ethics policy.

The announcement came in a one-sentence statement from msnbc TV President Phil Griffin: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

The donations were first reported by the Politico website earlier in the day.

Olbermann acknowledged the donations in a statement to Politico, saying he gave the maximum legal donation of $2,400 to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, who waged an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against Tea Party standard-bearer Rand Paul.

Like most news organizations, NBC News, parent of msnbc TV, prohibits political contributions by its journalists without prior approval of the president. (Msnbc.com, a joint venture of NBC News and Microsoft, also has a policy against its journalists contributing to political campaigns.)

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest,” it reads. “Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the president of NBC News or his designee."

Oy ve. The stupidity of some people. I mean seriously, did he actually think he could get away with violating company policy in such blatant, obvious form? While not a technical firing, per se, I can only imagine that Olbermann will be out for a long time and this will do even further harm to his already damaged image. He may return to MSNBC, but if this suspension turns into a firing or a "leave on peaceful terms and go on separate ways" type deal, then one really has to wonder where he would end up next. He would have burnt bridges with all 3 cable news stations, NBC as a whole (and now by default Comcast), and not to mention that ESPN never wants to associate with him ever again. Now as mentioned, Keith could be back on MSNBC in a month and everything could be dandy, but if not, what is he going to be reduced to? A full-time baseball blogger?

Update: Inside sources at TVNewser say Olbermann will not be returning to MSNBC, although the fill-in host for Countdown tonight, Thomas Roberts, seemed a little more optimistic that Olbermann will return.

Keith Olbermann Dropped From Football Night In America

I guess we should be renaming today the day of sports media demotions? First, the announcement came that Pam Ward will be relegated to working with Danny Kanell on the afternoon ESPNU game. And now the announcement that Football Night In America kitchen has lost one of its way too many cooks. Per this report from Sports by Brooks, you can say goodbye to Keith Olbermann on FNIA!

Multiple media and network television sources confirmed to me Thursday that Keith Olbermann will not appear on NBC’s Football Night In America Sunday evening NFL broadcasts this season.

Some members of the FNIA cast and crew were made aware of the news Tuesday at a preseason production meeting in New York City. Afterwards, the cast and crew adjourned to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees-Blue Jays game.

I’m told that NBC News officials requested the move, citing Olbermann’s weekday commitment to MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. During the 2009 NFL season, Olbermann periodically did not appear on Friday editions of Countdown.

Network television sources confirmed to me that Olbermann’s departure from FNIA was not due to any conflict with cast or production crew members. I was also given no indication that Olbermann’s politics had anything to do with the move.

All in all, this is a good move for NBC. There is no doubt that Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick were wildly popular and successful hosting SportsCenter together, and to an extent, NBC tried to re-create that past magic. There was just one problem with that line of thinking: Today's not the past, and we don't need to relive it. Repeating the same jokes over and over they coined a decade ago does not make for good television. Olbermann drew nothing but criticism, and when NBC brought in Dan Patrick to complement Olbermann on highlights only to tone down the highlights like they did last year, Olbermann became expendable for FNIA. It looks like NBC is finally taking steps to getting the too many cooks out of the kitchen. And that, my friends, is a good thing.

Let's Play The Feud: Keith Olbermann Vs. Bill Simmons

For a man who by his won accord wants to be with his ill father, Keith Olbermann sure has been busy with other things this past week. First he made an appearance on The Daily Show as part of Jon Stewart's piece on the new social media sensation (and disturbed the crap out of me by suggesting that he or Jon Stewart needed to pull their pants down), Chatroulette, and now he has engaged in an online feud with Bill Simmons.

I will post the back and forth in an unedited stream for the sake of easiness and flow. Keith Olbermann's jabs come from his MLBlog, The Baseball Nerd while Bill Simmons' responses come from his Twitter account, sportsguy33

Olbermann started the fight in a post mainly about Johnny Orsino's Hall of Fame Candidacy

KO:

"I promised no politics here and I stick to it. But I never said anything about never mentioning other sports, although I think I'll start that rule about a paragraph from now. If you'd like to read the most poorly-informed conclusion I've come across in sports media this year, you have your link. Proceed with caution. In short, it is the contention that the comeback of Tiger Woods will be more difficult than the one Muhammad Ali faced in the 1960's. If the writer can let me know when Woods is punitively drafted by the military even though he is about eight years older than almost all the other draftees, I'll begin to take him seriously. In the interim I am again left to marvel how somebody can rise to a fairly prominent media position with no discernible insight or talent, save for an apparent ability to mix up a vast bowl of word salad very quickly."

BS: "I'm furious that my Tiger column distracted America from a detailed and only mildly creepy case for Johnny Orsino's Hall of Fame candidacy."

BS: "KO, please know the feeling is mutual. You're my worst case scenario for my career in 12 yrs: a pious, unlikable blowhard who lives alone."

BS: "I feel bad about saying Olbermann lives alone. I forgot about his cats."

KO:

"I'd also like to welcome new reader Bill Simmons, who has been kind enough to tweet about my note here last week already ceding him the dumbest sportswriting award of 2010 for his laugh-out-loud funny argument that the comeback of Tiger Woods (caught having repeated trouble with his putts) will be more difficult than that of Muhammad Ali (persecuted by the federal government for the color of his skin, his stance against the war, and his religious conversion, and effectively banned from his sport for two years).

(KO quotes 1st Simmons tweet)

This is pretty standard stuff for Mr. Simmons. Make a fool of yourself comparing Tiger Woods (loss of advertisers) to Muhammad Ali (loss of income, threatened loss of freedom), so change the topic - to an admittedly trivial column about a trivial moment from a marginal catcher named John Orsino.

Mr. Simmons resumes:

(KO quotes 2nd Simmons tweet)

This assumes that Mr. Simmons' career now is where mine was twelve years ago (anchoring SportsCenter, then my own MSNBC political show, anchoring NBC Weekend Nightly News, writing a best-selling sports book, etc). In fact, this assumes that this is Mr. Simmons' career, which is remarkable. Also, anybody who could write as many words without saying anything of consequence really should throw around the word "blowhard" as frequently as he would a street sewer cover.

Also, I don't think "pious" necessarily means what he thinks it does.

Having made his point 50% of his words ago, Mr. Simmons still continues. As usual:

(KO quotes Simmons 3rd tweet)


Mr. Simmons apparently uses, for factual research, old parody sketches from "Saturday Night Live." I'm not surprised. That was Ben Affleck. Thanks for playing.

I am surprised, however, to be able to shed some light on something that has been a prominent topic of late around the internet: the prospect that Mr. Simmons is leaving ESPN. Admittedly I am something of an authority on this process. Nonetheless, I was stunned to receive several emails from some of Mr. Simmons' bosses there, thanking me for pointing out the absurdity of, and the embarrassment to ESPN provided by, the Woods/Ali comparison.

About five years ago, I guess, somebody said Tony Kornheiser was the most uncontrollable, unmanageable talent in the history of ESPN. I was, of course, crushed (although I believe I got honorable mention). When ESPN bosses are writing me for helping them about somebody they claim has now lapped Tony and myself, I am left to conclude only that if Mr. Simmons does leave ESPN, it may not be entirely of his own choosing.

And we now encourage Mr. Simmons to again falme [sic] the comments section under various identities, to his heart's content. This is a managed site, and they can take 'em down. But enjoy yourself.

BS: "I've said enough. This was not why I got into writing. RT @rgspiegel: Anxiously awaiting ur response to Olbermann...this should be good."

Thus ends another online feud involving Keith Olbermann!

My thoughts on this:

1). Bill Simmons working with ESPN has absolutely nothing to do with any of this at all, right? RIGHT? Yeah, that's about as true as saying the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to win the Stanley Cup this year.

2). Simmons' article is no doubt controversial, and if Olbermann wants to take the time to criticize it, that's fine by me. I mean, the timing is a little suspect seeing as he is supposed to be with his father and not humiliating himself in a feud with one of the most popular sports writers in this country, but he has a right to his opinions to Simmons' piece.

3). Olbermann clearly does not understand or comprehend the amount of people that hate his guts and the amount of people that love Simmons. He is accusing all of the nasty comments he got in the comments section of the first blog post to be Simmons using different aliases. Sadly for him, he is mistaken. For starters, I read a post from someone at OlbermannWatch who said they went there and left a comment (they then copy and pasted the comment they left at The Baseball Nerd into the OlbermannWatch comments section), and that guy is not Bill Simmons, and secondly, does he really feel as if Simmons has no fans that will defend him to the death, regardless of what Simmons writes? Sheesh. Talk about delusional.

4). Lastly, am I the only one that sees Simmons being hypocritical here? First of all, his responses were not the great and read like he was the exact same thing he was accusing Olbermann of being, a pious blowhard? And secondly, if Simmons claims he is better than getting into an online fight, then why did he respond to Olbermann in the first place? Surely he was not dumb enough to think that Olbermann would not respond to his insults, right? Fitting how only after Olbermann responds with some accusations of him (albeit, seemingly crazy ones) does he then decide to be above all of this and declare himself better than getting into such a petty argument. Sheesh. Talk about a thin-skinned hypocrite.

Is Keith Olbermann's Time At MSNBC Coming To An End?

I really should be reading Olbermann Watch more often as this is about a week late, but alas, last week might have brought up the beginning of the end of Keith Olbermann's time at MSNBC.

Frankly, I was hoping his end would be a lot more funnier than this is, but I guess it is only fitting that reports of MSNBC's dissatisfaction with Olbermann come after he did something that crossed the line and offended people.

But before you criticize me for criticizing Olbermann's ill father, let me just say that my thoughts and hope are with him and the entire Olbermann family. All the best to Ted Olbermann. That being said, though, was there really a reason for this on February 24?



And then after not appearing for the show for the few days afterward, Olbermann went on the air on Monday on top of a building in New York in a piece what is simply bizarre, even for Olbermann.



Again, all the best to Keith, Ted, and the entire family in dealing with this, but it really must be said. Why?

What was the point of that 14-minute speech and 9 and a half minute postscrpit? Why couldn't he just take a quiet leave of absence to deal with his father and leave it at that? Why did he have to go on national TV on his own cable news program and deliver way too much information about his father's condition? But the biggest question of all here is did he really just use his sick father to try and score a political point on healthcare?

Of course, I am not the first person to bring it up. Glenn Beck even went as far as to suggest that Olbermann's dad would be dead by now if he were being treated under Obama's healthcare plan. It's not that I necessarily condone, agree with, or even know for sure the validity of Beck's assessment, but the point is I am not the first one to bring it up.

Most shocking of all, it is being speculated that even NBC brass have had enough of Olbermann. 2 reports from JedEckert.com (here and here) that cite anonymous, unlinked sources have are saying that folks at NBC are getting fed up with him. Here are some notable quotes from the reports.

Ratings picture is bleak:

* Looking at January 2009 compared to January 2010, Keith is down 27% whereas his hated enemy, O’Reilly is up 22%.
* In the much vaunted demo (ages 25-52) Keith is down a whopping 47%, O’Reilly is up 53%."

As we noted earlier this week, Keith has a propensity to blame absences on dead or dying parents especially when he doesn’t get his way, and his bosses have long suspected that he was playing the bereaved son card. They could even tolerate the sick father excuse to a point (apparently even when that said father was not be seen at the many Yankee games Keith was attending - one notable game was the October 9 play-off against the Twins!) But now things have really gotten creepy. In his special comment on Wednesday, in what can only be a cry for help or sign of impending mental breakdown, Keith talked about killing his father.

Word is that the folks at NBC are now looking for a way out. Very informed sources tell us that they realize all his relationships with employers end badly. It is just a matter of degree. Add to that - his embarrassingly dismal ratings no longer appear to warrant his inflated salary.

Sources within NBC News have confirmed that things are more dire than we originally thought. Veteran correspondents are cringing and are openly embarrassed by Olbermann’s self-absorbed theatrics.

Now before you completely dismiss the anonymous reports of a fairly unheard of guy, consider the following:

We just saw two and a half weeks of Olympics on MSNBC. And thus with the Olympics, MSNBC took the time to run ads for Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, Ed Shultz, and Chris Matthews. But let me ask you this: how many times did you watch MSNBC during Olympics and see a Keith Olbermann commercial? I can barely remember one.

Surely MSNBC would want to advertise their main guy whose ratings seem to be plummeting. I'm not an expert, but you would want to get your most-watched cable TV host more facetime than freakin' Ed Schultz to the people who may be turning on MSNBC for the first time ever, no? After all, they had several hockey games on your channel, one of them being the 1st epic USA-Canada game, what better way to try and toss a sinking ship a lifeline? I mean, really? What harm would advertising have done? MSNBC gave Rachel Maddow, Chuck Tood, Ed Schultz, and Chris Matthews nonstop ads, yet the highest rated host on the network gets nadda? Why?

Obviously these reports are to be taken with a grain of salt, but consider them with the abysmal and getting worse ratings and the lack of Countdown commercials, and maybe, just maybe, there is something to be said here about Olbermann and his lack of time remaining on MSNBC. I mean, the only reason I can think of for not advertising him to death like everyone else would be because they think that they and Comcast might let him go. Do you have any other explanations for it?

Bold Prediction: Come the end of 2010, Keith Olbermann will be out of a job at MSNBC.

NBC's "Boss Button" Fail And General Commentary On Their Horrendous Vancouver Performance Thus Far

It is well documented how awesome CBS incorporates the "Boss Button" when it comes to their NCAA March Madness coverage. The pie charts are exceptional and while I don't know how it looks to your boss if you are not supposed to be looking at a pie chart or your job does not involve pie charts or how your boss will follow up on you once they see the pie chart, it still beats the heck out of what NBC is legitimately giving you with their boss button for their Winter Olympics coverage.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, NBC's attempt to deceive your boss!

Ugh.........wow.

Let's dissect this now. It's a screenshot on Windows 7 of a blank Excel spreadsheet that is only covering a 3rd of the screen. Can you count the number of things wrong in that last statement?

First of all, how many offices have Windows 7? Secondly, doesn't a BLANK spreadsheet sort of defeat the purpose of the intention of the boss button, which is to, oh, you know, make you look like you are doing something productive! And lastly, the spreadsheet taking up a 3rd of the screen does a great job in highlighting the Windows 7 that your boss and company may or may not have. Sure if you are really savvy enough you can pass it off as Vista, but how many people even use Vista? It sucked monkey testicles so much that people in Vista's heyday, people were paying extra money to downgrade to Windows XP!

Alas, that NBC would throw up such a half-assed boss button is hardly describing. If I were to describe NBC's coverage in only one word.............DreadfullyPainstakinglyUnprofessionallyAwful.

From showing the death of Nodar Kumaritišvili over and over again in slow-mo in primetime the day that he died to spoiling its own events on Twitter before they are aired (even on the east coast) to the all-around awful announcers they hired to somehow thinking that we care about the words and reports of Cris Collinsworth on the Winter Olympics to only streaming hockey and curling on NBCOlympics.com while CTV is trying to stream every single and minute event to the complete debacle of their schedule (more on that in a bit), it has just been a complete disaster. An indefensible disaster.

Take last night for example. At 7:30 PM ET, the Canada-Norway hockey game was supposed to start on CNBC, however, a close women's curling match between the United States and Japan was going on. Now I understand not wanting to cut away from a close curling match featuring the United States and I am not going to complain about that. Too bad that was the only thing NBC did right in handling the situation.

I forget what USA was running at the time, but on MSNBC at the time of Canada's faceoff with Norway was a women's hockey game between the USA and Russia. Now, again, normally I would say don't cutaway from a U.S. hockey game, but when it is in the 2nd half of the 3rd period and the score is 13-0 USA, I think it is a safe assumption to make that a very small portion of the population will be pissed off if you cutaway from that blowout to show the men's Team Canada hockey team in action for the first time in the 2010 Olympics. You know, the same Team Canada team that was mentioned more during the U.S.-Switzerland game than the U.S. and Switzerland were combined.

Okay, so no TV channels available for them at faceoff. Even though it would be an inconvenience to some, NBC can just go directly to streaming the game online at NBCOlympics.com until the games on MSNBC or CNBC concludes, right? Well either they had technical difficulties with the system or the feed, the technology itself is bad (and I find that highly doubtful with Microsoft Silverlight), or the people at NBC are just incompetent morons, but whatever the answer is, NBC did not have a stream up until at least 5 minutes after the puck was dropped.

Now the U.S. women's ice hockey blowout is over and MSNBC does temporarily flip to the Canada-Norway game. At 7:58 PM ET, Mike Emrick announces that the game can now be seen on its originally schedules channel, CNBC. Thus the first thought that pops into my mind is that curling is over and CNBC is now showing the game.

Wrong. Some studio guy was still talking about the curling on CNBC followed by an extended 5-minute commercial break.

Does MSNBC stick with the hockey game until CNBC is finished with their required advertising (despite the fact that the time after a curling match and before you JIP a hockey match is never a good time for an extended commercial)? Of course not! This is NBC we are talking about people and you know what 8:00 on MSNBC means, don't you? It's Countdown with Keith Olbermann's Overblown Ego! Whoopee!

Whose decision this was, I have no idea. Is it possible that Keith Olbermann's ego got in the way and asked that his show not be preempted for 5 minutes so that MSNBC can satisfy a greater audience by airing a Team Canada men's ice hockey game? Absolutely, it is possible. Is it possible that it is somehow in his contract that his show is more important than the Olympics? Just as possible. Could it have just been awful communicating between the sister stations, MSNBC and CNBC? Probably the most likely of events, yes, but regardless, NBC morons made sure that it's television audience missed another 5 minutes of hockey in addition to the beginning of the game that was cutoff just in case the Russian women make one of those ever common 13-goal comebacks that you read about everyday in the papers.

Eventually with 2 minutes left in the 1st period, CNBC started airing Canada vs. Norway.

Again, I am not going to fault CNBC for sticking with a close curling match involving the USA, but something does need to be done about this. For the summer Olympics they had separate channels dedicated to just soccer and baseball, why not do the same here? Why not dedicate a channel just to hockey or a channel just to curling? That way you avoid compressing too much into too small a time frame and thus you risk having to join-in-progress pretty much every sporting event on cable which is what NBC-U did last night. It was just bad. And they even cutoff the first 2 minutes of the Russia-Latvia game for the conclusion of Finland-China women's ice hockey game. Get another channel, have the IOC space out games more, change something because this is the kind of Olympics coverage I would expect with a bunch of high schoolers running the show, not a major American broadcast network, even if it is NBC. This has been pathetic even for them.

What's my overall point in this post? Basically that NBC is a disgrace and should, by law, never be allowed to cover the Olympics again.

Keith Olbermann Apologizes.......Sort Of.

When I first went over this story kt1000, pointed out that if only I did this for others in the media as well. But if I focused on everyone and posting stuff on every mistake made by the cable news media, I would not have time in my life to pee, let alone go to class, do my work, write for this, write my memoir (Part I coming up tomorrow morning, stay tuned!), and have a life. Therefore, yes, I do pick and choose what I put on here, yes, I do tend to focus on Keith Olbermann more. With Olbermann criticisms you get meat and potatoes (most of the time at least), with Fox News criticisms, half of the stuff out there is twisted garbage taken out of context. Yes sometimes Olbermann is taken out of context as well, but not near as much as Fox News so it is easier to focus on. Plus I used to be a fan of his so I get angrier and angrier at him when he does something stupid than I do with Fox News people.

That being said, if I can't be 100% fair in who I choose, then I need to be 100% fair on how I cover the stories that I choose. Keith Olbermann did address Jon Stewart's parody of him on here and yes, he did apologize at the end of it. Well, sort of. I'll admit that I was confused and speechless for 5 minutes after I watched this.

"You want some baseless name calling? You are a.....No. You know, what? You're right. I have been a little over the top lately. Point taken. Sorry." - Keith Olbermann

I honestly had no idea what to make of that. What exactly was he apologizing for and who was he apologizing too? Jon Stewart? Scott Brown? His audience? Republicans? Was he apologizing for his word choice? His generalizations, a lot of which were based on incidents 8 or more years ago? The complete falsity of the accusation that Scott Brown never denounced the crazy at his rally who yelled that he should shove a curling iron up Martha Coakley's backside? Check out this little doozy from Politico on January 18.

Democrats are circulating a video of Brown smiling after his supporter's "curling iron" line, a reference to a controversial sex abuse case Coakley handled.

"We can do it," Brown said with a smile after the shout.

"The 'we can do it' statement was in response to the growing energy of the crowd," said the spokeswoman, Tarah Donoghue.

UPDATE: Brown told reporters this morning that he didn't hear the remark, that it was "inappropriate" and that he would have "said something" had he heard it.

There's that proof that Olbermann was looking for! If only he bothered to go outside of Media Matters, The Huffington Post, and The Daily Kos for his Countdown news stories, oh what a wonderful world of news it would be!

That being said, never in a million years did I think that he would have the gumption to air that Stewart segment in it's entirety (I can assure you that the part where it appears to jump is only jumping a filler sentence from Stewart that had no substance or jokes at all), especially the part at the end where Stewart really hit him by saying that his attack on Michelle Malkin was "more like violence against women than anything Scott Brown ever said". Stunning.

So for airing that and actually allowing a dissenting view of him on his program, Olbermann gets a job well done.

Jon Stewart Has A Special Comment For Keith Olbermann (UPDATED)

I know I said on Twitter last night that I was not going to post the video, but rather just watch and laugh at my own pleasure, however I saw the video this morning, and am in the process of giving into my funny bone. I will spare you though another rant on my part, and just post this video of Jon Stewart doing a parody of Keith Olbermann from The Daily Show last night and be done with it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Very well done, sir. Very well done.

UPDATE: Like I said, I won't make this about a rant, but I will point out intelligent conversations of the accuracy of Olbermann on his assertions. If you don't feel like reading a political article, I will let you in that the best and most generous scorecard out there for Olbermann has him at 50% accuracy, also known to us college students as a failing grade. The not so generous one has Olbermann correct on only one point out of 8.

Here are the links and you can judge for yourself which is right.

Olbermann scores 4 out of 8, 50%

Olbermann scores 1 out of 8, 12.5%

Having read through both scorecards, and thought about it myself, I will score Olbermann a whopping 1.5. Scott Brown was in-fact an ex-nude model and he gets half a point for "tea-bagger". Scott Brown did have a fundraiser for the Tea Party Movement, what is the intended allusion, however, taking things at exact face value, there is no proof that Scott Brown actually tea-bagged someone. In fact, he is straight, so the literal tea-bagging is highly unlikely. Regardless, the intended allusion is right, so half a point is scored to Olbermann, bringing my score for him up to 1.5 out of 8. Fail.

Could Somebody Please Give Keith Olbermann A Fucking Clue In This World???

It's no secret that Keith Olbermann is a blasted imbecile not worthy of covering politics in Lost Springs, Wyoming (population: 3), but the stunt he pulled tonight is taking that to a whole different level and then some.

To use the quotes of Olbermann himself, it's not a left and right issue. It's a matter of "professional journalism" and "professional integrity" of which Keith Olbermann has completely none of. Fuck, he has less than none.

Last night, Olbermann chimed in his 2 cents on the election with this "Quick Comment", which in it's own right is quite despicable.



Yes, he just did say that to the man that one of the most liberal states in the country voted for as Senator, but regardless, he can have his opinions, however misguided and misplaced that they are.

But, the stunt that he pulled today irks me to no end. Either out of request from many others or to try and prop up ratings so people can watch him eat crow, Olbermann advertised an apology to that Quick Comment.



Basically what Olbermann wants is proof that Scott Brown is not a homophobe and a racist and he is claiming that you can't do that.

WELL NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!

Of course you can't do that. You absolutely cannot disprove that accusation.

And do you want to know why. Because things are NEVER what they are not. You cannot define something or someone by what they are not. You can only define it by what it is, so when Olbermann makes the wild, sad, and pathetic accusations that Scott Brown is a "homophobic racist" and then asks you to show him that he's not, basically he is asking people to do exactly what you can't do. Define someone by showing us what he isn't. What Scott Brown isn't: Someone from Mars, born in Jamaica, grew up with 253 dogs. Do you get my point? There are an infinite number of things that something is not so it is not a valid argument to make accusations about someone and then as proof of your argument say that "oh, it must be true, because there is just no evidence to say that is not true". You can't tell us who they are by saying what they are not.

And what is he going to do to disprove such accusations? Go out and hug a gay black man? But then Olbermann will counter that it was fake and contrived and that it is not actual proof that Scott Brown is not a homophobic racist. And wait, he added sexist. Is Scott Brown supposed to go out and hug a gay black lady? Again, it will look contrived and Olbermann would call Brown out on that. Either that or somehow he will spin it into a case of statutory rape. He's already done the same type of thing to Scott Brown once, why not try to do it again?

My bottom line is this: It does not matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative, a far-left extremist or a far-right extremist, Keith Olbermann is the fucking scum of this earth and if you watch his show and think everytime Olbermann slams him you go in your mind "Fuck yeah, Olbermann rocks, he just slammed yet another douche bag Republican. He was such a great SportsCenter guy and now he is such a great Political Mastermind OMFG!!!!!!" then you are just as bad and are just as much scum of the earth as Olbermann is. No, I'm not being sarcastic and I am not exaggerating this. I am dead fucking serious. If you agree with this bastard and if you think it is okay to go on a national cable TV network and say the kind of shit that he spews then you are politically the worst of the worst of this country and if you never open your mouth again about politics, then this world will be better for it. If you want an intelligent liberal political show, go watch Rachel Maddow at 9 PM, on right after Olbermann's infamous Countdown.

Normally I would end this post with another call to Fire Keith Olbermann Now!, but seeing as NBC-Universal is run by a bunch of incompetent morons, that call would fall on deaf ears upon any NBC-exec that happened to stumble upon the ramblings of a 20-year old college student of no particular interest. Instead I'll just state that I am embarrassed that I share the title of American with this douche bag piece of shit and his staunch supporters.

Embarrassed.

Fixing Football Night In America

Another season of FNIA is over and once again they fail to remotely touch upon the greatness that NFL Primetime had.

However, while nothing will ever be better than the original NFL Primetime with Chris Berman and Tom Jackson, there are ways that I think NBC can fix it so that it can at least be worthy pf being mentioned in the same sentence.

First things, first, NFL Primetime worked because it was simple, it was not over the top, and the stars were allowed to shine. It had just 2 people, Berman and Jackson doing highlights and analysis without any gimmicks such as Bob Costas freezing his tush off in the Meadowlands (would less people watch if they had the poor guy in a heated studio or booth?) Berman was very enthusiastic and his gimmick and nicknames and what not worked on this show. His schtick doesn't work for much else, but it worked on Primetime, and Tom Jackson was terrific complement to Boomer. People like to talk about the chemistry between Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick (more on them later) and granted they do have it, but nowhere to the level that Berman and Jackson had it.

Enough of the gold standard of highlight shows and more on something that would be lucky to win plastic an award show for highlight shows. Football Night in America does not work for multiple reasons, but the biggest one is there are way too many cooks in the kitchen. Now I understand how you may want more people for a Super Bowl broadcast, but do you really need 9 people appearing regularly on a 1-hour and 20 minute highlight/pre-game show? How many people do you need to preview the Sunday Night game while doing highlights and breaking down the games of the afternoon? NFL Primetime did it with 2, at the sacrifice of talking about the Sunday Night game during the hour (who cares about that, though, isn't that what pre-game intros are for?). So who should NFL Primetime get rid of?

1. Why on earth do you have 3 anchors? Football Night in America essentially has 3 hosts in Bob Costas (now on-site), Keith Olbermann, and Dan Patrick. And the fact of the matter is that you can get rid of 2. Who on earth cares if Bob Costas is even on site of the game period? What on earth does that add? Why can't Al and Cris just talk about the game in the booth, if they must talk about the game during that hour and 20 minutes. Back to Costas, though, what on earth does he add to the show, period? Costas is not a football guy, he's a baseball guy, so why on earth is he on a football show that he does not need to be on? He does not add anything and as he proved to us the first 2 years of the show, he sucks at doing highlights. Get rid of Costas on that show and you are down to two.

NFL Primetime succeeded in only 1 person doing highlights, so why does FNIA need 2? But who to get rid of? Olbermann or Patrick? If you know me, then you know what I am going to say, but just read my reasons as I am not going to make this about his horridness and constant lying as a political host.

When Olbermann first broke into the business, he was a sports guy and a highlight reader. He got on ESPN with Dan Patrick and they both became famous. For sports. Olbermann had a falling-out at ESPN, went to Fox Sports, had a falling out there, and eventually decided to get in the political TV business. Back then he was a sports guy doing politics. Now, enough time has passed where America no longer views him as that witty SportsCenter anchor, but rather as that left-wing political humorist on MSNBC. In other words, on Football Night in America, he is a politics guy doing sports. Would Katie Couric ever host the NFL Today? Then why on earth is Olbermann on FNIA? Well the only reason NBC ever brought him in the first place was to help promote his MSNBC political show Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Back then, his show was on the ratings rise and with his constant speaking out against the unpopular Bush Administartion, was gaining in popularity. They decided to bring him, and as a direct promotion for the show, they have him name every week "The Worst Person In The NFL" which may have been the least subtle, most horribly conceived, unfunny promotion that anyone has ever thought of for Countdown. I have not seen the numbers on this but I would be shocked if it had worked.

NBC had enough sense after 8 weeks to ditch it for good but Olbermann still remained on the show, spouting off the same tired old jokes every Sunday, and making obscure references that only people who watch his show would get and using words that only .1% of the population knows. And all he does is read highlights! He does not engage anyone in any discussions and I am not so sure he truly knows what he is talking about when it comes to football.

Let's face it, Olbermann does not speak to the average football fan. The obnoxious way which he said during last Sunday's FNIA that if he knew the schedule that he would tell us, was so obnoxious that obnoxious does not begin to describe how obnoxious it is. He thinks he is better and smarter than everyone when in fact everyone out there watching him sees him as either a horribly misguided political host or a pathological political liar. You see the common theme here? He is no longer a sports guy and is no longer considered as such. He's all politics all the time, going as far as to make Sarah Palin-Alaska jokes and making statements that at it's most literal, say the person is literally crushed in a bag. So why on earth is he on a sports show? His ratings are so far down that there is little hope for recovery for them and putting him on a sports show in an effort to help the ratings is only taking up a lot of space and time.

Now on to Dan Patrick. Dan Patrick does engage in conversations with the analysts on the show, he is charismatic enough like Berman to host a show and read highlights without being overly obnoxious like Olbermann is. Sure he is not perfect nor is he as good as Boomer, but he is the only one there that can carry a highlights show without putting everyone to sleep (Costas) or alienating his entire viewers with obnoxiousness (Olbermann).

2. Get rid of Peter King. What does he tell us that is not available on Pro Football Talk?

3. Get rid of Tiki Barber. His 30-second reports from New York or Dallas are about the most useless thing to hit sports since Fox's Glow Puck.

4. Fixing the analysts. You need someone who is both knowledgeable about football and has a personality to serve as a single analyst to the highlights. That's the best way this kind of thing works. Sadly for NBC, Tom Jackon has both and is the best at it. Sadder for NBC, no one else on their roster has that kind of combination. I'd say Cris Collinsworth, but NBC clearly sees him as the next John Madden or at the very least as a game-analyst, and not a studio analyst. I will assume that Cris chooses to remain in that position and will not go back to the studio, otherwise I would advocate for him to take the spot of Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tony Dungy and he knows the sport better than anyone, but he does not have the personality needed to be a single analyst on a highlights show. And Rodney Harrison, while a little more opinionated and has more personality and charisma than Tony Dungy, is nowhere near knowledgeable enough to be like Tom Jackson. Get rid of Harrison and Dungy and find someone out there, anyone. Steal Tom Jackson or someone else from ESPN if you have to, just get someone you think can fill the roles of a Tom Jackson on Football Night in America.

5. Another thing they can do is get rid of the end of show recap of the games, once called The Little Big Show, now I could not tell you what they call it, but regardless, it's useless filler and needs to go.

Now I know what you are thinking, JFein, this is exactly like NFL Primetime! Football Night in America should be different! But, my counter to that is, Primetime sure as heck worked and what is Football Night in America now but the newer version of NFL Primetime seeing as ESPN no longer has access to the exclusive extended highlight package. They lost that to NBC when they lost Sunday Night Football to NBC.

Dan Patrick and a knowledgeable charismatic analyst like Tom Jackson. Alone. Doing highlights and analysis of a game. Now there is a show capable of surpassing NFL Primetime.

Countdown with JFein

I've teased this on Twitter and I teased this earlier today, and now, you will finally see it. This may be one of the greatest things that I have ever done in my sports blogging career, even though it does not have much to do with sports. It's my first podcast ever and I will use it to parody Keith Olbermann and Countdown! You guys don't know how long I've wanted to do this for.

Regardless, whether you are an Olbermann fan or not a fan, I am hopeful that you will find this funny. It is a parody that's not meant to be taken too seriously nor is it in any way shape or form, a representation of my personal political views. The fact that I bring up an issue in someway in this satirical piece of Keith Olbermann, does in no way representat my actual stance on the issue, whether I be for what I am saying or against what I am saying.

Countdown with JFein

Justin Feinberg's Podcast

I rehearsed this a bunch and pretty much know it inside and out, but everytime I play back the Musto part, I can't help but crack up. Not that all the inside jokes and jabs and sarcastic ironies are not funny, but Musto gets me everytime. And yes, that whole 11 minutes and 30 seconds was my voice and only my voice.

And I don't know about you, but personally I think my Keith Olbermann doing Tad Baxter as Bill O'Reilly was spot on if you ask me.

What Exactly Are You Trying To Tell Us About Kris Brown, Keith Olbermann?

Could somebody please put Olbermann out of his misery and just fire him for goodness sakes?

This story is more bizarre than anything and while he claims that he does not combine Countdown with FNIA, he indirectly did that here and then some.

Listen to this clip from the October 13 episode of Countdown where Olbermann blurts out one of the most random, bizarre, and inane insults in the history of cable news.

"[Sharice Carnie Nunez] received death threats and hate filled voicemails, all thanks to the total mindless, morally bankrupt, knee jerk fascistic hatred, without which Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it."

As crude, bizarre, odd, disturbing, and laughably inane as that insult is, generally Olbermann has to go way over the edge in order for me to comment on him on this blog. Well, even though that was a month ago, last Sunday, during Football Night in America, Olbermann did just that and the above clip as everything to do with it. I am disheartened that I have been unable to find this video, but this transcript provided by Newsbusters will have to work.

KEITH OLBERMANN: And then the Texans with a final drive, looking to set it on the shoulder and the feet of that guy, Kris Brown, [Matt] Schaub, Andre Johnson, seven yards, 14 seconds left, Schaub, Jacoby Jones eight yards down to the 24, and since Brown made it from 56, this should be a piece of cake. Kris Brown from 42 for the tie after the spike. They set it up for Brown to tie this game up in the waning second and he messes. Looks like a big bag full of mashed-up Kris Brown, and Indianapolis prevails by 20-17.

Can somebody please make sense of what a big bag full of mashed-up Kris Brown is? As disturbing as the Malkin was, the snide Brown remark, while probably intended to either poke fun at himself or plug his show by throwing out an allusion to an odd insult that made headlines over a month ago, is all the more disturbing. A big bag full of mashed up Kris Brown....is that suggesting that someone physically tore him apart and mashed him up and put the remains in a bag? Is he alluding that Kris Brown laying on the on the turf upset that he just lost the game for his team is any equivalent to him being dead, in other words?

At first I thought he should just stop doing politics and stick to football and other sports, now it's become quite clear that he should not even be doing that.

Keith Olbermann is complete trash and the day that MSNBC/NBC/NBC-Universal finally has the balls to fire him will be one heck of a glorious day. Not only is he a mean, angry, spiteful, cowardly TV personality, his ratings are completely in the tank. In the summer of last year, he was competitive and even beat Bill O'Reilly in the key 25-54 demo once or twice. Now, Bill O'Reilly's key 25-54 demo has more viewers than Olbermann's total viewers!

Let me tell you what, if it was not for Officer Robert Powell, Keith Olbermann would win the FARNie for douchebag of the year easily. Yes, I would even vote for him over Jerry Jones and Colin Cowherd, and I've made no bones about how I feel about those two individuals.

Keith Olbermann, ladies and gentlemen, always the classy one!



There really are only so many ways to illustrate how despicable this man is. Please get him off the air now.

Great moments in broadcast journalism #426 (Olbermann Watch)

How Did I Miss This??????????

Remember that picture I showed earlier, the picture that Olbermann took of Rudy Giuliani. At least the person I thought was Rudy Giuliani. Yeah, I fucked up. Big time.

I can't believe nobody caught this either! Not me, not kt, not JC, no one. I only caught it because I was reading the comments in that post and read the person that 5 or so others identified the person to be (and now that I do know who it is, I do see it and it is right, especially seeing as other sites have picked up on this and they identify the person who I am about to reveal as the real right answer). As you obviously now know, this is not Rudy Giuliani, but can anyone identify this mystery person without actually knowing it? I'll give you a hint, if you really did think it was Giuliani like me and as soon as you find out, you'll be thinking to yourself how did I miss this. Here's the pic again. Look at it and think to yourself......who is this person?

Anyone? Anyone?

First of all, at least tell me it looks like Giuliani and I am not completely nuts. Keith never identified him in the post (or at least I did not think so, then again I did not read the tags the first time around), it does sort of look like Giuliani, and I have never heard of this person who Keith openly criticizes on Countdown going to Yankees games before, so can you really blame me?

Anyway, for the answer, please scroll down......








Keep on scrolling.......











Go on.......









I'm 100% serious. It is not Giuliani in the picture.










Almost there........











IT'S SEAN HANNITY!!!!!!!!

Here it is again if you don't feel like scrolling up again.

First off, I can't believe I missed the glaring tag on the post that specially read "Sean Hannity", secondly, and perhaps even funnier, someone in the comments section originally identified him as Rudy Giuliani as well before correcting himself below in the comments section. That's too funny.

While I was taken aback when I thought it was Keith and Giuliani, this one is actually hardly surprising as the friendship that Keith Olbermann has with Sean Hannity has been documented before.

I'm still stunned that I did not pick this up before seeing as I would be pretty quick to recognize Hannity but regardless, my apologies to everyone for misrepresenting Keith (and for that matter, Rudy Giuliani) like this.

America's biggest small town (The Baseball Nerd)

Keith Olbermann Has Been Making Quite A Bit Of Headlines

Seeing as my last big Keith Olbermann post got linked big, I guess I should preface this by telling new visitors to this site that I am a liberal and a democrat and voted for Obama in the 2008 election (and every other Democrat that ran for office in my area).

I should have been getting most of this stuff up earlier, but my workload and a little thing called the World Series prevented this. I have 3 (count 'em, 3!!!) Keith Olbermann head scratchers for you.

Now I'm about the farthest thing possible from a religious person, but if Bob Griese is suspended for a game for making a bad joke about about Montoya and a taco, then surely Keith Olbermann would be suspended for telling Glenn Beck to go to hell, right?

First of all, nice job Keith of putting everything Glenn Beck into a nice beautiful context so that all could understand. That's sarcasm by the way. For the full monologue instead of a quote that was beautifully cut and picked apart and spliced together, here is what Glenn said, and while I don't agree in principle with his point about healthcare, it is not the worst point in the world to make and there was no exploitation as Olbermann made you believe.



How on earth this guy still has a show is utterly beyond me. Not only did he tell Glenn Beck to "go to hell" but he insinuated that the average Americans that support Beck's 9/12 Project can go to hell as well. And frankly, there are a bunch of crazy radical groups out there. The 9/12 Project is not one of those.

It also does not help him that since his boy Obama got elected, MSNBC's ratings are going down down down. So much so that on multiple occasions, Olbermann has made up non-existent calbe news demographics to make himself look better. It's pathetic, really.

And to think we're just a third of the way through this post.

Those of us familiar with the real Olbermann know that he is a pathological liar. This does even more to confirm that theory.

Here's the PbP of Olbermann's whereabouts on Tuesday night courtesy of OlbermannWatch.

MSNBC boasted that on election night they would present a "special live edition of Countdown" at 10:00 pm. But with bad news for the Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a funny thing happened on the way to the bonus [Countdown}. Keith wasn't there! After a live update (not from Olby but from Lawrence O'Donnell) [MSNBC] ("the place for politics") proceeded to rerun the 8:00 pm showing.

Update: Steve Krakauer hears one possible explanation of Olby's whereabouts:

"Around 10:15pmET, there was a commercial break, and the repeat 8pmET Countdown kicked in. It aired the rest of the hour. We hear Olbermann was visiting his dad in the hospital, which accounted for his absence. But that doesn't answer why O'Donnell or Matthews didn't fill in during the prime results hour. In the MSNBC release Monday, it was listed as a live edition of Countdown."

Update update: Does anyone really believe what is almost certainly an MSNBC leak, that he was visiting his sick Dad? Especially when nobody is willing to go on the record to say it's true? Keith announced at 8:59 pm that he and Larry O'Donnell would be back at 10:00. So what happened between 9:00 and 10:00 pm that might have sent Olby to the bathtub? Could it have been Corzine losing? Ya think? Will [Olbermann] show up tonight? Or will he end up at Yankee Stadium? That would be peculiar, if his dad's illness prevented Olby from staying at work past ten o'clock, but allows him to spend all night at a ball game.

Update Update Update: Well Keith is just where we thought he'd be: Yankee Stadium, merrily posting one blog entry after another at tonight's game. So either his Dad made a miraculous recovery from just 24 hours ago, or MSNBC's PR line explaining away Keith's sudden disappearance on election night is even shadier than we suspected. Discuss and resolve.

First a comment about the elections. I'm not going to use this post to tell you "I told you so", but after Obama won and the Democrats won even more seats in both the House and the Senate, I stated in no uncertain terms that slowly but surely the Republicans would start getting some power back in this country and that in 2010 they would get some more seats. While it's obviously not 2010 yet, the fact that the GOP got governors victories in New Jersey and Virginia of all places, certainly tells me that they are on their way to fulfilling my prediction. Like I said, the phrase "I told you so" did not appear in that analysis. But JFein, you said above you were a liberal democrat, how could you predict such things? Are you a hypocrit? No, new reader, like I said in the Phillies live blog last night, I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. And while sports and politics have hardly anything in common, go to that live blog last night and read through it and see the number of times my "Debbie Downer pessimistic" predictions came true. It's startling.

(Am I the only one that has problems seeing names when I click on the 2nd and 3rd parts at the bottom? Oh well, my crowning call is in the first part anyway.

Secondly, I seriously challenge anyone to defend this douche and this douchebaggery. And by defend, I don't mean to say state that Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and "Fixed Noise" (as you Olby fans love to say) are worse. Like actually defend this guy has an honest, fair, and balanced journalist who will be remembered as the next Edward R. Murrow. Give me reasons that Olbermann is good, not a random tangent that Fox News is worse. As much hell as Fox got for being a shill for the Republican Party and Bush and read Bush talking points do-da do-da, through it all, they all allowed guests with opposing views to come on and generate discussions. The last time Keith Olbermann did that was....uh....never. And sarcasm aside, he did not do it all last month. OlbermannWatch has the proof.

Lastly is a little more light-hearted matter, but nonetheless, one that is sure to drive fans of Keith Olbermann completely nuts and searching for answers and desparate explanations of pure hilarity. This pitcure was taken by Keith Olbermann and actually put online for the entire blogosphere to see on his blog, The Baseball Nerd

You're eyes are not deceiving you and I have not lied to you about the origins of the picture. This really is Keith Olbermann taking a picture of a smiling Rudi Giuliani who is in return taking a picture of Keith Olbermann.

To quote perhaps the most famous quote in World Series history, I don't believe what I've just seen....

Who Is This Dennis Werth Fellow That You Speak So Fondly Of, Keith Olbermann?

You would think that a self-professed baseball historian and someone who is currently writing a blog for MLB.com would be very familiar with the names of the key players for the teams in the World Series, especially if said Phillie was the key player in Game 5 of the NLCS and an all-star this year. Even if their step-father was a former major leaguer in the late 70s and early 80s, partly with the New York Yankees. Easy to tell apart, right? Not for Keith Olbermann, who somehow managed to confuse the two in a blog entry for MLB.com, not once but twice. Here's the screenshot. (click for larger)

Sheer idiocy.

And it hardly seems likely that he just accidentally typed "Dennis" instead of "Jayson" because he was identifying his father, look down at the tags. He tagged "Dennis Werth" instead of "Jayson Werth". What a moron.

It truly is amazing at how someone can fuck up something that's as basic as the name of one of the star players in the World Series, and confusing him with his father WHO ONLY PLAYED FOR 4 YEARS, THE LAST OF THOSE BEING IN THE EARLY '80S!!! But it's Keith Olbermann, the master of the on-air fuck ups, so I guess I really should not be as surprised as I am.

Although kudos to him, as I'm pretty sure he is the only person alive that remembers the playing days of Dennis Werth. Then again, there's a good chance that someone from Media Matters handed Keith that info ahead of time.....

Big Mac, big mistake (The Baseball Nerd)
Keith Olbermann thinks the key to a Phillies upset is Dennis Werth (The Fightins)

Fire Keith Olbermann Now!

Due to popular demand, I have re-posted this Keith Olbermann rant over here, a blog for which I am admin. for. The reason for the deletion of the post was because the admin. for The O Files is a Keith Olbermann fan and was not happy. That admin. deleted it, not me. The rant is now here to stay for good.

I'll cut right to the chase. Watch this segment and tell me if you hear anything completely and utterly abnormal, wrong, and downright insulting and embarrassing.

Did you catch it? I'll even zero in on it even more in case you missed one of the most embarrassing, unnecesary, and hurtful things that Olbermann has ever said.

"In his nightly round of self-applause last night, designed to drown out the echo of daddy hitting him…" - Keith Olbermann about Bill O'Reilly

What the fuck Olbermann, you fat, arrogant, snide, obnoxious, Bill O'Reilly-Fox News obsessed douche bag? At what point is enough enough? It's not the criticizing of another TV personality or company that's the problem, like it or not it is part of the business and I'm fine with it, it's the lengths that he goes to do it. First of all, is it really necessary to correct O'Reilly for saying "Double-A" instead of "Triple-A". For all we know, he could have meant to say "Triple-A" and "Double-A" inadvertently came out instead. But when you start it out by joking about a matter that is so serious (child abuse), you crossed the line with me and I have absolutely had it with him. It's wrong, it's DAMN WRONG! You don't make that kind of reference, no matter how much you can't stand someone. And the sad part is, there is not a damn person at MSNBC willing to do something about it. If MSNBC wants to go liberal, that's fine, but bring in a credible liberal to host the 8 PM show. There's Rachel Maddow, who is a much better alternative to those that a fan of Fox News. She has people on her show that she disagrees with (something Olbermann never does), is actually funny (Keith Olbermann's schtick has gotten so old with me that I just can't laugh at anything he says), and is an all-round better program for a liberal like me to enjoy.

I have morals and values that I am proud of and I feel as if I can no longer keep them by being affiliated, even in the smallest way possible with this phony Edward R. Murrow wanna-be and The O Files blog that is filled with Bush Administration comparisons to the Nazi Administration that are downright wrong, not funny, insulting, and unwarranted. I don't believe that Bush was a great president at all (I strongly disliked him), but that comparison is wrong. I know you probably think that I have zero credibility, JC, because I bash Olbermann so much nowadays and strongly disagree with your views on Vick, but you have to believe me when I say that by comparing Bush to the Hitler and the Nazis, you only make yourself look like a fool. Even when I was an Olbermann fanboy when you first started this thing, I did not think those were warranted and not once did I laugh at them. And if my future employers ever find out about any affiliation I have with them, I may not get a job.

Oh, and as far as that mysterious under 35 demo (a demo only brought up by Olbermann), it turns out that Keith Olbermann completely lied about it. He even loses to FNC in that demo! From Mediaite

Well besides the fact that “35 and younger” isn’t exactly a usual demographic, according to Nielsen, this doesn’t appear to be accurate. The lowest age level would be the 18-34 demo, which O’Reilly still beat Olbermann in during July (140,000 to 124,000). The FNC host is winning by that same percentage in August so far.

The sad part is that that lie is about as unsurprising as a Washington Nationals loss and/or a New York Mets injury this year.

Fire Keith Olbermann Now!

Everything Old is New Again in Jersey

(Guest posted by James Craven of The O Files)

Jacques Lemaire was hired to coach the New Jersey Devils. Again. The 1990's live. Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick are doing highlights on SportsCenter on ESPN, the Devils are playing at Brendan Byrne Continental Airlines Arena, the left wing lock (or as it is better known, the neutral zone trap) is legal, and I'm living in the backwater town of Emporia, Virginia, where the most excitng thing there is watcing the delivery truck back into the Winn-Dixie. It's like he never left.

Well, things change. Olbermann and Patrick now do highlights on Football Night in America, the Devils now play a couple blocks away from Newark Penn Station at Prudential Center, the trap play is now illegal in the NHL, I came back to Philadelphia (my birthplace) and Winn-Dixie closed in Emporia when the company went bankrupt, but Lemaire left Jersey a few years ago for the Minnesota Wild. And it's not the first time that a coach has returned to a team he led to past glory.

The most prime example is Billy Martin, who led the New York Yankees four times while Fat George Steinbrenner fired managers on a semiannual basis until Joe Torre settled him down in 1996. And George Halas not only owned the Chicago Bears, but four times coached "Da Bears" ten years at a time. So if the Devils win Lord Stanley's mug next season, don't say that I warned you. In the words of two-time Yankees manager Yogi Berra, it wopuld be deja vu all over again.

My Last Keith Olbermann Post For A While

If you did not get what I was talking about with Keith Olbermann's hypocrisy in my rant a week and a half-ago, watch this and all will become more crystal clear than it ever has been before. And of all things, it has to do with the Garofalo video I put up in my rant. Just for easy comparison's sake, here is that interview again.



And now today's Worst Person In The World segment (wait for it, the hypocrisy comes with the "Worst" portion, although I must say, Keith calling out Manny Ramirez as "Worse" is great)



Don't worry, I'm not going to rant again. I did that before here and I let loose again at The O Files where I just so happened to be filling-in as JC is at the Phils game today (coincidence that I get to live blog the Ultimate Hypocrisy episode).

And my apologies for the Olbermann overload the past couple of weeks. But when there is not a whole heck of a lot going on in the sports world (i.e. summer time), sometimes things that would normally take a back seat in my mind and on this blog come to the forefront. Training camp can't start soon enough....

Keith Olbermann Vs. Dan Steinberg: The Online Flame War!

I have been very serious in my criticizing and condemnation of Fox for doing a split-screen for Manny Ramirez's at-bats in his 2nd game back from steroid suspension during the Muts-Phillies game on Saturday. And one of my main and favorite articles to read and site on this blog was Keith Olbermann's post on his MLBlog, The Baseball Nerd. Well, Dan Steinberg of The Sporting Blog responded and guess what folks, we have an epic flame war of hilarity!

If you've been around the block at all for the past few days, I am sure you have seen this post by now, but if not, here is the link to my post quoting Olbermann's blog on his indignation and outrage over Man-Ram. Just for the sake of space and redundancy, I won't bring up the block quote for a 3rd time (besides, most of what he says shows up in Steinberg's blockquote. Apparently Dan Steinberg read and got a hold of it and if you've ever watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann, after reading this quote, you'll understand what I mean when I say he Keith Olbermann'd Keith Olbermann. Here's Steinberg's response via his post on The Sporting Blog.

And so I ask, please, someone, anyone, give us a little outrage. What's that, Keith Olbermann? You have something to say?

"Let's take you out to San Diego where Manny Ramirez is just back from a 50-game suspension. For cheating. For cutting corners. For breaking rules. For lying. For deception. For letting down his teammates. For contributing to suspicions against every honest player. For raising a giant middle finger to sportsmanship. For abusing the fans. For risking that for which Lou Gehrig would've given anything -- his own health."

For sneaking boogers into ballpark pizza cheese. For publicly admitting he likes Tiramisu better than Apple Pie. For feeding rat poison to toddlers. For ruining America.

"Ramirez, of course, homered today in his first at bat. And some people cheered. As if he were just back from an injury, or a death in the family. As if he were a hero. As if he were an honest man. As if he were somehow worthy of sharing the meaningfulness of this day with Lou Gehrig."

As if he were worthy of being alive, Keith; of sharing the status of "human being" with Lou Gehrig. Manny Ramirez should have declined all offers of oxygen, on this day, and on every other day that is an anniversary of a day on which Lou Gehrig was alive.

"This is Lou Gehrig's day. The rest of the juicers may come back and play tomorrow and there will not be boycotts. The Dodgers will probably go to the World Series, carried in part by a great flaming fraud like Ramirez. And judging by the brainless response of fans who would cheer anybody if they hit the ball 425 feet for their team, and boo anybody if they hit the ball 425 feet for their opponents, there will not even be significant repercussions."

For shame, for shame, baseball fans. You should all be standing in line to forfeit your mindless baseball entertainment, on account of there having been rule-breaking in that industry, which is devoted primarily to occupying the minds of 30-something lawyers with expense accounts, middle-aged journalists and college kids making fictional "trades" at 3 in the morning while eating week-old pizza slices they found in their closets. Why, oh why, don't you brainless masses boycott this farce in favor of a more wholesome, ethical and Gehrig-approved entertainment option? Like, go check out MSNBC's "Oddball" video page. Current options include "Pig Parade Held in Philippines," "Monkey Pee Monkey Do," and "Woman Puts Squirrel in Tank Top." I know for a fact that Gehrig could not get enough of the squirrel inside the tank top bit. In fact, he used to regularly stuff ferrets into his underwear.

"Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez and the others of the PED era did not belong in baseball today, and that they did not show the requisite awareness of their own shame, only makes it worse. Lord, send us a 'roider who has the presence of mind to say: "On this day I do my penance; I don't yet belong on the field even with just the memory of this man, I hope you'll forgive me and I can again earn your trust."

Because, you know, the world would never have a cross word to say about a 'roider who completely upstaged Lou Gehrig Day with a self-centered stunt involving a self-righteous self-benching. No, that'd be just swell.

Anyhow, I would argue further: that no one not named Gehrig should ever again be allowed to play baseball, even Strat-O-Matic. And that Manny Ramirez should be tasered every night for a year. And that the fans who have cheered for him should be tasered, too. And that Manny Ramirez is, pretty much, the Worst Person in the World. And that anyone who so much as cashes one check paid for with dirty baseball money from immoral cheering fans should be banished from civilized society.

Wait, Keith, why is there an MLB logo on your blog? Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

I agree with what Keith Olbermann says on the matter, and yet, this criticism from Steinberg is cleverly written and brillantly hilarious. He uses pretty much every tool in the book that Keith Olbermann utilizes in his Special Comments and uses them against him in a sarcastic way that is pure hilarity!

But wait! This flame war gets even better! KEITH OLBERMANN ACTUALLY RESPONDED!!!! Via Keith Olbermann's MLBlog, The Baseball Nerd.

I hadn't heard previously of Dan Steinberg and his blogs at The Washington Post and The Sporting News, but he goes a long way to defend Manny Ramirez and skewer me for what I wrote here Saturday (I think that's what he's doing - it's not exactly clear; it seems to be snark, a medium in which I've worked for 35 years, and whatever it is, I think he's doing it wrong). I criticized the juxtaposition of Fox's celebration of Ramirez's return and the MLB-wide official tributes to Lou Gehrig on the 70th Anniversary of his "day" at Yankee Stadium in 1939.

"As if he were worth of being alive, Keith; of sharing the status of "human being" with Lou Gehrig. Manny Ramirez should have declined all offers of oxygen, on this day, and on every other day that is an anniversary of a day on which Lou Gehrig was alive."

I confess to being mightily impressed at the head of steam he builds up on the long trek he makes towards his great climactic accusation of hypocrisy on my part.

"For shame, for shame, baseball fans. You should all be standing in line to forfeit your mindless baseball entertainment, on account of there having been rule-breaking in that industry, which is devoted primarily to occupying the minds of 30-something lawyers with expense accounts, middle-aged journalists and college kids making fictional "trades" at 3 in the morning while eating week-old pizza slices they found in their closets. Why, oh why, don't you brainless masses boycott this farce in favor of a more wholesome, ethical and Gehrig-approved entertainment option?"

I also confess to becoming afraid for him as he accelerates, the way we all used to become afraid for the Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons, since we could see the edge of the mesa coming and he couldn't.

"I would argue further: that no one not named Gehrig should ever again be allowed to play baseball, even Strat-O-Matic. And that Manny Ramirez should be tasered every night for a year. And that the fans who have cheered for him should be tasered, too. And that Manny Ramirez is, pretty much, the Worst Person in the World. And that anyone who so much as cashes one check paid for with dirty baseball money from immoral cheering fans should be banished from civilized society.

Wait, Keith, why is there an MLB logo on your blog?

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Umm... as anybody who reads the MLBlogs knows, baseball has no say over what is written here, by me, or anybody else. And, yes, this particular blog, MLB pays for. Only I don't get checks to cash. The money gets split three ways: to St. Jude's Hospital, to the Baseball Assistance Team, and to the education fund for the grandchildren of the former big leaguer and MLB.TV host John Marzano.

That was a long way to run to wind up going off a cliff like that. At least Mr. Steinberg was good enough to provide his own sound effect at the end.

But wait! There's even more to this hilarity! If you click on the above link and look closely, Steinberg actually responded to Olbermann in the comments section!

Well, the final line was added after I had already finished, and I guess I'll agree that it gives the wrong impression. Although I didn't really think you got paid for doing this. The point was more that you are associated with the official apparatus of MLB, which has clearly been pretty well filled with cheaters of various degrees for a long, long time. Seems to me either you give up on an entire generation of baseball fans, or you just accept the fact that cheaters were everywhere and you move on with your life. When so many were cheating, to me, it's a systemic problem and not a sign of individual moral failing.

As for the rest of the slop quoted above, apologies for not just writing what I thought. Here's what I think: there are so very many problems in the world that deserve outrage, many of which you highlight on TV. Manny Ramirez sullying the image of a man who's been dead for decades by trying to hit a ball with a piece of wood on a day his employer told him he was eligible just doesn't strike me as one of them.

And if you want to say that being outraged about Manny is also a topic unworthy of outrage, I will concede the point.

As for never having heard of me, I was the fella who turned up Miles Rawls, the Wizards fan who taunted Prez Obama this spring. You quoted from my piece extensively, on the air! And I thought that made us bff!

If you're not laughing right now at either what Steinberg and/or Olbermann said or just at the fact that 2 grown men (one of them being a multi-million dollar TV star) are having an online flame war about something like this, then there's gotta be something wrong with you because this is great! Good times.....gooooooooooood times.

For a great discussion on this, listen to today's episode of On The DL.