On the bright side, Keith Olbermann is probably getting more headlines in the past week than in his entire time at Current TV (and possibly some of his MSNBC time as well). On the downside, most of them haven’t been great headlines. Following The New York Times‘ reports that there were tensions between the anchor and his new home, Gawker has posted a blistering slam from someone purporting to be a former employee. Olbermann immediately accused Gawker of being “pwned by a fake source.”

The plot of the bewildering, apparently one-sided dispute between Countdown host Keith Olbermann and Current TV is thinning as it thickens. A source at the network tells Mediaite that, despite the ominous Hollywood Reporter story that “lawyers” are discussing the dustup over Current’s Iowa Caucus coverage, Olbermann’s attorneys have not been in touch with the network on that matter. The source also says that the network has invited Olbermann to anchor Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary coverage, but has not gotten a response.

On Monday night’s broadcast of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, host Keith Olbermann matched the show’s edgy new look with some choice language for Motor City Madman Ted Nugent. Flouting the obviously more=relaxed standard of his new home at Current TV, Olbermann gifted the Nuge with the coveted “Worst Person in the World” prize for calling Occupy protesters “dirty, stinky hippies,” and stuck a big profane bow on it, calling Nugent “Asshole!” as he finished the segment.

On last night’s edition of A News Tribute To Sinead O’Connor Videos, also known as Countdown with Keith Olbermann, host Keith Olbermann interviewed Branden Lane, the Wisconsin “Occupy” activist who ambushed Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly on his way to the White House, and got a face-full of O’Reilly umbrella for his trouble. Lane described his altercation with O’Reilly, while Olbermann pointed out the differences between O’Reilly’s account of the incident and the videotaped evidence.

Regular viewers of Current TV’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann may have noticed that the progressive newshour has gone dark this week. Early on in Monday’s show, technical problems beset the program, and since then, Olbermann has been hosting his show from what appears to be an endless black void. Mediaite has confirmed that Olbermann has not been confined to an interdimensional limbo, nor is he broadcasting from inside Rush Limbaugh‘s head.

Comedian Richard Lewis appeared on Current TV’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann Monday evening and said scandal-laden Republican candidate Herman Cain would be lucky to be a doorman.

On Wednesday’s Countdown, actress-comedienne Janeane Garofalo sat down with with Keith Olbermann to discuss Republican primary rising star Herman Cain. “Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican Party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same,” Garofalo surmised. Olbermann and [...]

Earlier tonight, now-former Countdown host Keith Olbermann sent his first tweet since his departure from MSNBC’s airwaves Friday. The subject? To announce that he would be sending his first post-Countdown tweet at 8pm Eastern time. The strange announcement is probably a humorous tweak at the speculation that ensued following an innocuous update to his Twitter profile on Saturday.

Find out what Olbermann had to say in his (technically second) post-Countdown tweet after the jump.

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, former MSNBC anchor and sometime Countdown fill-in David Shuster lent his own insight into Keith Olbermann‘s sudden exit from MSNBC, telling Howard Kurtz that the fan outpouring in the aftermath of his November suspension played a much bigger role than anything else. “Keith was mesmerized, and flattered beyond belief, by the 250,000 people who signed the petition” to get him back on the air, Shuster said.

Since joining Twitter early last year, now-former Countdown host Keith Olbermann has become one of the platform’s most loquacious users, tweeting more frequently than a meth-tweaked canary. All of that came to an abrupt end in the hour before his Friday announcement that he, and his show, were leaving MSNBC.

Saturday night, though, Olbermann-watchers saw the first sign of post-Countdown life from his Twitter feed: an update to his profile which read “WATCHTHISSPACE MLB.com Baseball Nerd blog returns 2/14.”

The sudden, shocking exit of Countdown host Keith Olbermann is still sinking in for many, but the true potential measure of the loss is illustrated by a weird coincidence: exactly one year ago today, Air America finished circling the drain, and announced it would cease live programming immediately. The troubled liberal radio network was also the farm system that spawned almost all of the liberals in MSNBC’s current lineup, and Olbermann’s exit is a pivotal moment for their toehold in the media landscape.

A week after Countdown host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Mooresparked a Twitter protest over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show in which he failed to address the protest directly, but made their imprint obvious in his transformed rhetoric on rape accusations. In a crowning irony, the man whose zeal for transparency-God Julian Assange started this protest finally made direct acknowledgement of it…in a private Twitter message to #MooreAndMe creator Sady Doyle.

A week after Countdown host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked a Twitter protest over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show that was much anticipated by those protesters. He did not apologize for his earlier assertion that Julian Assange was only accused of consensual sex with a broken condom, nor did he retract it.

After a self-imposed weekend suspension (an emerging MO), Countdown host Keith Olbermann returned to Twitter this morning to engage the controversy surrounding his dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Given the time to compose a calm, reasoned response, Olbermann elected to use a single random tweet to tar the #MooreAndMe protest as violent, accuse its members of financial coercion, attack #MooreAndMe creator Sady Doyle for smoking cigarettes, and finally, to ignore the central issues in this brouhaha.

Someone should gently suggest to Olbermann that when you’re already in a hole, stop digging.

While Keith Olbermann has been unwilling to respond to legitimate questions regarding dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, he has announced that he was quitting Twitter until the “frenzy” died down. If Sady Doyle, the woman who started the protest that forced him off Twitter, is any indication, he could be waiting a long time, and taking serious damage in the process.

On Tuesday’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked widespread outrage over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. While some of the segment is open to interpretation, Moore made a clear factual error when he said that Assange only stands accused of having his condom break during consensual sex.

Michael Moore is in hot water over comments he made during Tuesday night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. In discussing rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore appeared to dismiss the accusations as “hooey”, and repeated the false claim that Assange is only accused of having a condom break during consensual sex.

The website Tigerbeatdown.com has started a Twitter campaign to get Moore to set the record straight, and perhaps find a better way to spend his $20,000.

Divisive documentarian Michael Moore is in the news once again, this time for helping post bail for WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, as well as offering up his server space to allow the whistle-blower to continue operations. Moore explained why he’s doing this on his website earlier today, and tonight reiterated his reasoning to Keith Olbermann on Countdown.

Here’s a shocker for you: Keith Olbermann is taking issue with Bill O’Reilly‘s proclamation that Fox News “is the most powerful media agency in the world.” On Countdown tonight, the MSNBC host took a few minutes to dissect that claim—though his comments didn’t exactly have the effect he intended them to have.

Because Real Time is on hiatus until January 14, Bill Maher has some time to kill. Before setting off on a nationwide comedy tour—which is taking him to cities like Peoria and Tulsa in the next few weeks—he stopped by Countdown tonight to trade barbs about Conservatives with Keith Olbermann.

Though Keith Olbermann joked about his four-day suspension from MSNBC in his lighthearted cold open and several times throughout his show (“Just my luck: I get a four-day weekend after the World Series is over,” he cracked before one commercial break), it took fifty minutes before he directly addressed the elephant—or should we say donkey?—in the room.

A camera lingers on a darkened, seemingly empty set. There are a few long seconds of tense silence. Then, from off-screen, we hear a familiar voice: “Oh, hi! …So, what’s new?”

The news of Keith Olbermann‘s suspension at MSNBC has been met in varying company with visceral reactions anywhere between righteous indignation and uncontrollable glee. The conservative Twitter masses put up some strong competition to beat on the “glee” end of the spectrum, but the crew of Fox News’ Red Eye definitively take the award for most scathing report on the matter while defending Olbermann’s right to donate to political campaigns.

After the initial shock, the media has started to respond to Keith Olbermann‘s indefinite suspension. When asked by CNN whether the move was justified, The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz delivered this SEO-friendly response: “MSNBC absolutely had no choice but to suspend Keith Olbermann.” Then, unable to help himself, he added: “I’m tempted to ask whether he’s now ‘The Worst Person In the World.’” We’ll be hearing that joke for at least a few days.

As we’ve learned this year, there are JournoLists and then there are journalists. I’ve always viewed Keith Olbermann as a member of the former school—a liberal ideologue who gains excessive pleasure from berating conservatives. As someone who subscribes to a more right-leaning worldview, I’ve never been enamored by his antics, nor have I gone out of my way to watch his show.