Ziegler Offers Olbermann $100K To Debate After ‘Crush on Palin’ Remark
During his interview with ACU Chairman David Keene, John Ziegler name-checked Countdown host Keith Olbermann several times. On last night’s edition of Countdown, Olbermann returned the favor. He and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis had themselves a good chuckle about the confrontation, with Kofinis calling the showdown a “good old conservative rat fight,” and Olbermann wondering if Ziegler was “defending his own crush.” In a Mediaite exclusive, Ziegler reacts by challenging Olbermann to a debate about the former Alaska Governor, and puts his money where his mouth is.
Check out the video, followed by Ziegler’s full reaction.
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I contacted John Ziegler for a reaction to the piece, and this is what he had to say:
Wow. That is even more bizarre than I thought it would be.
First, if Olbermann really had ANY interest in knowing what motivated this (which he asks his not even tangential guest about several times) why didn’t he just ask me about it? If he was afraid I would destroy him in a live interview (which of course I would) why not do one on tape? If he didn’t want to give me the face time, why not at least speak to me off the air?
The real answer is that this had nothing to do with the Republican Party per se but rather a call for authenticity in the leadership of the conservative movement (those are different things). At one point Olbermann claims that I am motivated (bizarrely, moments after substantiating some of my other inquires of Keene) by “defending a crush.” For the record, my passion for defending Sarah Palin has nothing to do with any of her womanly qualities.
This may shock people, but my defense of her is not even politically based. It is motivated purely by the level of unfairness of the coverage of her. I honestly believe that I would have reacted the same way if she were ugly and a Democrat (not that it would have ever happened to her if that was the case), but I can understand why Olbermann couldn’t possibly understand such principled consistency or being motivated by something other than one’s own self interest and/or what they feel in their pants.
I will make this offer to Olbermann. If he has me on the show to debate Palin-related issues, live, for a full hour, I will pay his favorite charity $100,000, which is more than any profit I am ever likely to make from my film “Media Malpractice.” This offer is 100% real.
We’ve forwarded John’s offer to MSNBC, and are awaiting a response.
21 comments
It makes sense that Olbermann would think Zeigler was defending Palin because he was crushing on her, since Olbermann is obviously in love with Obama. How else to explain his nightly worship?
m says: If Ziegler really had stuck to his self-declared principles of defending someone from “unfairness of the coverage”, then I guess he’d be all over defending Hillary Clinton – right? Oh wait…
Keith will not accept Ziegler’s offer. He will instead mock him further tonight in Worsts. Some guy he is.
reefdancer says: You keep touting these ratings but they are false. They are false because almost every cable provider in the South doesn’t even carry MSNBC. It’s like Kelloggs saying their cereal is the top seller, when competitors aren’t even on the store shelves.
reefdancer says: Just like Hannity would not accept Olbermann’s offer to be waterboarded for charity, Mike?
to m — There were some minor sexist jabs at Clinton, but nothing remotely in the same league with what was said about Palin.
Jim Treacher says: “If Ziegler really had stuck to his self-declared principles of defending someone from ‘unfairness of the coverage’, then I guess he’d be all over defending Hillary Clinton – right?”
I couldn’t believe the stories about how Hillary wasn’t really the mother of her own child.
Bonhomme says: reefdancer said:
“You keep touting these ratings but they are false. They are false because almost every cable provider in the South doesn’t even carry MSNBC. It’s like Kelloggs saying their cereal is the top seller, when competitors aren’t even on the store shelves.”
I just did a random check of Texas, Alabama and Tennesee. All carry MSNBC. Do you have some data to support your claims?
reefdancer
MSNBC is in 92.64 million homes, FNC is in 96.26 million homes per Nielsen estimates. For your argument to be valid, MSNBC would have to be within 96% of FNC numbers instead of the 35% that they seem to show with and be at par.
In order for Olbermann to meet Zieglers offer, Keith would need to find somebody to loan him some gonads as he has none of his own. Olbermann is not the kind of man (?) to look an adversary in the eyes while talking smack. Heck, my 12 year old grand daughter has more spine than Olbermann.
CaptainAmerica says: Thats the current line among liberals to try and act like poor MSNBC can’t compete. The reality is that MSNBC has lost around 3 million homes (a small %) of their homes because the channel has been moved up to higher tiers on some cable systems.
Granted, if MSNBC had any viewers, they wouldn’t have been dropped. But they don’t. They got better placement on some because NBC aired some Olympic Games on the network. WIth those gone, so did the low rated channel.
CaptainAmerica says: Poor Keith can’t even have a discussion on his show with someone who doesn’t hold his warped, scary DAILY KO’s view of the world. He certainly will wimp out on having a discussion with Ziegler.
GMoney2009 says: Ziegler is BIZARRE… his favorite word. Call ‘em like you see ‘em.
I’m sorry to hear Olbermann gave him any airtime. Might further John’s delusion that he is a “journalist”. Bizarre.
Jim Treacher says: “I’m sorry to hear Olbermann gave him any airtime.”
He didn’t.
noway says: Ziegler is a huge a**hole. And this is coming from a conservative who has met him. I hope to God or whatever else that this guy does not become a big name. That would be an incredibly sad day. I hope that people don’t actually start publicizing this more and help this guy’s profile grow.
Amos A Atol says: Just like Hannity would not accept Olbermann’s offer to be waterboarded for charity, Mike?
I’m always amazed at the people that ask “would you be water-boarded” . I’ll let any liberal water-board and taser me If they will then let me abort them. Do I have any takers?
RB2 says: I’m a conservative.
Ziegler = Gadfly, its of his own doing.
I’m sure Palin & her People wont have anything to do
with him anymore.
joy says: I’ve read some very insulting blogs and articles on the Internet that claim JZ is doing all of this only because of his interest in Sarah Palin as an attractive woman.
I suggest another reason and another woman:
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Yes, the Evil Cloud is on the horizon, and WHO will stop IT??
The Left attacks Palin BECAUSE she has something POWERFUL,
and the RIGHT needs **POWER** on our side!
The Conservative movement is weak, elitist and destroying
this nation as much as the Socialist Obama Wave that is
hitting our nation!
Thank you, John Ziegler for seeing the TRUE threat to
this nation!
The RIGHT must stay for Principle!
The RIGHT must expose lies and deceit on our side
as well as the other side.
The RIGHT *has to* BE Right to win this battle.
John Ziegler: Go Get ‘Em!!!!!
cc says: To M and Jim Treacher……………………you obviously don’t follow John Ziegler’s work. He spent well over the first half of his Media Malpractice video displaying how Hillary Clinton was mistreated in her early days of campaigning for president.
hey man says: Notice the Democrat labels the Tea bagger’s -Republican’s..Because the name Republican has been demonized so bad and Democrat’s don’t like the tea bagger’s.They label and use their voter’s hate of Republican’s constantly against anyone who goes against Democrat’s.Its a societal peer pressure tactic widely across the media.They should be called out every single time they categorize Americans who disagree with them.
hey man says: What the Republicans need to do is start pointing out the good things in Iraq,like for instance,no longer are 500,000 people starving to death.No longer are they being tortured under Saddam Hussein,the media ignore’s Iraq.If Fox really want’s to get even with Democrat’s who threaten them with communist media tendencies,Fox should publicize the positive aspect’s of Iraq,adamantly..I truly wish they would and hope they do…It’s a great injustice to the American public that they do not know the great things we have done in Iraq,the death tally of Saddam alone is 2 million while now the death tally of the invasion if 87,000.That’s right,they have bitched about 87,000 people dying over 2 million.Noone should have died but They are completely wrong on Iraq and it’s been their basis for gaining support against Republican’s and it can be the basis of losing their support for Democrat’s.
GMoney2009 says: Hey Man –
I think you might want to check your PR credentials. While your numbers appear to come from Iraq Body Count dot com, or the USA Today article that claimed 87K SINCE 2005,(we invaded in 2003) there is better analysis of those numbers available on the web with a search of Google for Iraqi Body Count.
For instance you can visit TinyURL dot com and follow that with /yhzlx6d and read about how those numbers were created. You can also read about the excess deaths that were not created or counted as 87K VIOLENT DEATHS … sort of like your Saddam starving claims. Oh, and let’s not forget, there is still a war going on there, just not so much OUR war any more. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Saddam was a saint. I just don’t think that our solution was really a solution.
If I had more time, I’d include the statistics about how many Iraqi’s were forced to flee their homes and or their country, so as to avoid DEATH. But alas, even if I did provide them, I would not be able to convince you that the Bush administration really wasn’t interested in helping the Iraqi people… if you remember, that was about the 2nd to 4th justification for us going into Iraq, after the other one’s were found to be mostly unbelievable. WMDs I believe was the first – if you remember.
As for Teabaggers, I kind of like the HOMO EROTIC imagery of people dangling their nut sacks in someone’s mouth, (the original gay -although my girlfriend likes doing it for me – sexual act) but you’re right, REPUBLICAN is worse than Tea Bagger.
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