Keith Olbermann (born January 27, 1959) is a smirky American TV sports guy turned insufferable liberal news commentator, gigantic egomaniac, the reason why it’s hard for many people to take the left seriously even though they probably agree with it most of the time, and a dick.
The thing to remember about Keith Olbermann is that he’s no more qualified to hold forth on politics than Terry Bradshaw. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time when MSNBC was trying to fill dead air.
One gets the sense that he and Bill O'Reilly easily could have wound up being each other, if only, in 1996, MSNBC had advertised its job vacancy before Fox News did.
Olbermann is the kind of guy who shows up at your party, demands to smoke your weed, and then never passes it back to you, because he’s Keith Olbermann.
Contents [hide]
1 Personal life
2 Career
3 Political Positions
4 Cliché criticism of the Bush Administration
5 Cliché criticism of the Hillary Clinton Campaign
6 Cliché feud with Bill O’Reilly
7 Pipes and Cigars
[edit]Personal life
Keith Olbermann began undermining the cause of progressive thought by presenting it as a series of bad puns and stupid onscreen graphics from the moment of his birth, January 27, 1959, a birthday he shares with Samuel Gompers, Donna Reed, Dodi Al-Fayed’s father, the lead singer of Faith No More, and Li’l John.
Originally from New York City, Olbermann grew up in Westchester County, in a substantially wussier suburb. There, he attended Hackley, the kind of prep school where they shoot magazine ads for Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers.
Olbermann cut his dick teeth as a teenager, penning hard-hitting pieces for various baseball card-collecting newsletters. This is the kind of thing geeks did before the advent of blogging. Starting college at the advanced age of 16—a fact he undoubtedly never fails to mention “off-handedly” any time he’s talking about himself—Olbermann earned a BA in communications from Cornell University, alma mater of such celebrated dicks as Paul Wolfowitz, Ann Coulter, and the guy who founded Burger King. Oh yeah, if you’re so smart, Burger King guy, why did you have to discontinue the Whaler?
[edit]Career
After working several little piss ant sports reporter gigs, in 1992, Olbermann somehow wound up joining ESPN’s SportsCenter, a show that has done more to arrest the development of twenty-to-thirty-something men than Maxim. He and his SC co-host, Dan Patrick, perfected that super annoying ESPN style of two yahoos trading fast-paced nonsense back and forth for an hour. In 1995, Olbermann won a Cable ACE Award, a fact he also probably never fails to mention when he’s talking about himself.
It wasn’t long before Keith Olbermann mistook this country’s love of sports for a love of him, and thought he could make a go of it as a solo artist. In 1997, Olbermann left ESPN on such poor terms that while they eventually let him back on their radio network, they banned him from stepping foot at ESPN headquarters. For real.
After leaving ESPN, Olbermann went to work for Fox News. Yup, Fox News. For three years. Hosting a Geraldo-esquely titled show called The Keith Olbermann Evening News, whose format he blatantly stole from SportsCenter. He probably doesn’t mention any of that when he talks about himself.
Olberman spent the next several years dicking around on the radio, at CNN, and with rough female equivalent Hannah Storm — who’s actually probably a better than athlete than him — before beginning his tenure as host of the even more grandiose Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Countdown is known for Olbermann’s strong opinions and fast-paced style, filled with historical and pop culture references, interjections, and asides, which are all meant to be funny, but come off like a morning radio DJ’s idea of funny. Olbermann takes aim at extremely easy targets like the Bush Administration and The Fox News Channel, which he refers to by the super uncreative joke names “Fixed News” and “Fox Noise.” That’s about as good as that guy you knew in college who was always going to ”Taco Hell” for a “Queef Burrito.”
Nonetheless, Countdown is the highest-rated show on MSNBC, which is kind of like being the clean up hitter on a single A minor league baseball team. Such a high rolling news pimp is Keith Olbermann to MSNBC, that they not only gave him a four-year contract extension—which will most likely end well after people have stopped watching his ridiculous show—but a new program on the real NBC network. Olbermann has described this show as a collection of commentary segments he calls “essays.” Only a real serious dick would call what he does an “essay.”
[edit]Political Positions
While most people would characterize Keith Olbermann as a liberal, he’s really more of an opportunist, capable of dialing up or down the hyperbole according to ratings. Olbermann himself refuses to pin himself down, once going on record as saying “I’m not a liberal, I’m an American.” And by “American” he probably meant “dick.”
[edit]Cliché criticism of the Bush Administration
Like every single left-leaning pundit in existence, Olbermann has repeatedly and stereotypically demanded the resignation of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, called Bush a “fascist,” accused him of “war crimes,” and equated him to Hitler. He may as well have been wearing a pair of Birkenstocks, in Burlington, VT, holding a bowl of granola in one hand and a “Free Mumia” banner in the other.
[edit]Cliché criticism of the Hillary Clinton Campaign
Keith Olbermann also likes to criticize both Hillary Clinton and her 2008 presidential campaign. There is no way he didn’t at least attempt to use the joke “close, but no cigar” the day she dropped out of the race. Thankfully, in that one instance, good taste prevailed.
[edit]Cliché feud with Bill O’Reilly
Both out of jealousy and the Democrat handbook, Keith Olbermannn likes to make a big show of feuding with Bill O’Reilly, whose show, The O’Reilly Factor, airs at the same time as Countdown. Bill O’Reilly likes to return in kind. The truth is, neither of them would fight each other for fear of wrecking their respective manicures.
[edit]Pipes and Cigars
Keith Olbermann used Peter Jennings’ death to engender sympathy for himself by announcing on air that he had a benign tumor removed from his mouth. He attributed this to a 27-year habit of smoking pipes and cigars. This was in 2005. Want know just what kind of dick Keith Olbermann is? The kind who smokes pipes and cigars as a 19-year-old college sophomore
