Former Obama Aide: Oh, I Just Figured Out Who's To Blame For Olbermann's Suspension. FoxNews.

One of the advantages of strawmen and Enemies' Lists is that they're so usefully adaptable. You can press these bogeymen into service to explain any of your own team's failures.

"What happens to MSNBC post-merger?" she wrote in a blog post last month. "Right now, it’s providing the only response to Fox News. Comcast won’t want to irritate Fox - you can’t be a pay-TV distributor without Fox News, in the same way that you can’t be a pay-TV distributor without ESPN. Fox News is a truck running downhill."

Meanwhile, people not part of the Community-Based Reality have a different culprit in Olbermann's downfall -- shockingly enough, it's Olbermann's ego.

Network sources tell Playbook that Keith Olbermann was suspended because he refused to deliver an on-camera mea culpa, which would have allowed him to continue anchoring “Countdown.”

Apparently his claim -- which he won't say publicly, either because it's a transparent lie or because it would make him look pretty stupid -- is that he didn't know he couldn't donate to candidates without disclosing it and/or clearing it with his superiors.

Wait, his superiors? Keith Olbermann has no superiors. I mean his bosses. (Wait, he doesn't have those either; he giggled at his own wit in the past saying "Phil Griffin thinks he's my boss.")

Olbermann is about to make a $7 million per year mistake.

MSNBC is apparently putting out the word (to Politico) that he isn't all that crucial to their lineup any longer, and I think this is only 75% a bluffing/negotiating position.

posted by Ace at 04:21 PM

| Access Comments