Don't Cry for Olbermann

So that’s it. Keith Olbermann is out at MSNBC.

Well, don’t cry for Olbermann. His tacky little adolescent temper tantrums, euphemistically called Countdown, may be reincarnated somewhere else. It’s hard to keep a trash-mouthed misogynist down, you know. Wherever a regressive-progressive audience can be found, there is certain to be a market — however diminished — for Olbermann’s brand of shock-jock, trash-talking “political commentary.”

The word on the street is that the Comcast moguls have a gag on Olbie, which requires his silence on the details of his leaving.  His half-dozen fans from HuffPo have somehow managed to get more than 200,000 signatures on a petition to have him reinstated. It’s doubtful, however, that this will work. Olbermann was the undisputed MSNBC prime-time ratings anchor, but his declining numbers spell doom even for a guy with a dedicated band of cult-like followers. He’s done there.

And what was the cause of this celebrated breakup? Apparently, it was money, honey. As much as the liberal literati love to hate capitalism, their stars revel in the bread-buttering cashola that buys the mansions, stocks the bars, and pays for the promiscuity.  Hypocrite is too mild a word, when one considers the inglorious rants against “greedy” corporations for which Olbermann was widely known.

But honestly, the thing that has always perplexed me to no end is how anyone over there at MSNBC ever thought a lightweight ex-sportscaster with a potty mouth was ever going to be able to outdo Bill O’Reilly. Olbermann, for his part, was constantly trying to turn his time slot into a raging feud with O’Reilly, but really, the dueling duo never was any contest at all.

It takes but a scant little jog over to Wikipedia to note the grave disparity between the bona fides of Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann.

O’Reilly may not be one’s favorite guy, but he earned his prime-time slot the old fashioned way, putting decades into actual journalistic reporting.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Bill O’Reilly was working as a broadcast and behind-the-scenes actual journalist. From Scranton to Dallas to Denver to Portland to Hartford to Boston and to New York, Bill O’Reilly was working as a news correspondent after earning a master’s degree from Boston University in broadcast journalism.

O’Reilly was racking up Press Club awards and Emmies for actual news reporting. He finally made the jump from local channels to ABC in 1986 and by 1991, O’Reilly took over Inside Edition from the acclaimed David Frost. Evidently not content with more than two decades of honest-to-goodness investigative journalism under his belt, O’Reilly left broadcasting in 1995 to garner another degree. This time, he chose the John F. Kennedy School of Government. That’s at H-a-a-a-vard, don’t you know. With a new master’s degree in public administration from the liberal-esteemed university of first choice, O’Reilly reentered the field and steadily climbed the all-American ladder of success. No matter who one is or where one stands upon the issues of our day, there is no one who can deny that Bill O’Reilly has earned every dollar in his bank account.

And before Bill O’Reilly ever stepped foot in a newsroom, he played semi-pro baseball and taught high school students English.  O’Reilly has had a real life of real work and real ladder-climbing since his youth.

So, what of Olbermann’s bona fides? Sorry to be so indelicate, but honestly, this man couldn’t hold a candle to Bill O’Reilly, whether on TV, in a fist fight, on a baseball diamond, or even just on paper.

While Bill O’Reilly was earning his way into the genuine field of investigative broadcast journalism, Keith Olbermann was getting lots of laughs and attention doing nothing more than talking about sports. Now, talking about sports has a nice place in American life. Sports are great. I’ve always believed that participation in organized sports has kept many a would-be delinquent off the streets and out of jail and prevented many a war between testosterone-addled males. But really, all Keith Olbermann ever did before ginning up his political cult followers was talk about sports. He never even actually played sports; he just talked about others who played sports.

Even when he was in high school, Keith Olbermann was never on a baseball diamond. Instead, he was obsessively collecting baseball cards. And talking and writing about collecting baseball cards. He even went on his high school and Cornell cow college radio stations talking about baseball cards and the real sports heroes who adorned the little cardboard rectangles. From the cow college to the network sports scene, all Keith Olbermann ever did was talk about other people playing sports.

That’s it, folks. Keith Olbermann is — and always has been — nothing but a loud-mouthed, adolescent wannabe. In short, it’s not hard to see why Comcast balked at paying little Keith more money. What is difficult to imagine is why they ever put him up against an accomplished journalist like Bill O’Reilly in the first place.

As hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never really been able to hate Keith Olbermann. He clearly has various and quite intricate female “issues.” He has never been married. His love of fame and money and loose morals have left him with nothing more substantial than his own potty mouth for comfort. And he is getting old fast.

So, maybe I will cry a bit for Olbermann and leave you, dear readers, with this one admonishment:

Whatever you do, Mommas and Daddies, don’t let your sons grow up to be Olbies.

Nothing whatsoever good could ever come of following this reprobate off the cliff into a life of nothing whatsoever worthwhile or in the least bit desirable or admirable.

And that’s all I have to say about Keith Olbermann. I’m just so glad I’m not his mother.