On Tuesday night’s Countdown, fiery host Keith Olbermann delivered one of his trademark Special Comment™ segments on the roiling controversy surrounding the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity’s decision to de-fund, then maybe re-fund, Planned Parenthood‘s screening services. He compared the incident to McCarthy-era “witch hunts,” and said that Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker had “dishonored both her sister’s memory, and this essential cause.”

After a week off due to a bout with bronchitis, Countdown host Keith Olbermann returned to the air Monday night, to the center of the Current TV universe, and to the black backdrop that seems a fitting stand-in for the star’s reportedly tumultuous relationship with his employer. According to a new report by Newsweek, that relationship may be hanging by a thread, and with it, the future of Current’s plan to become the left’s answer to Fox News.

This week, viewers of Current TV’s Countdown have been treated to syndicated liberal radio powerhouse Bill Press filling the anchor chair for bronchitis-stricken Keith Olbermann. Contrary to this item at Huffington Post, Press will also host Countdown‘s Florida primary coverage Tuesday night, along with guest analyst Eliot Spitzer (Spitzer will then fill in as Countdown host Wednesday night). Olbermann’s absence may be providing viewers with a glimpse of Current’s future.

As several of America’s bravest recently found out, the Slingshot ride at Orlando’s Magical Midway is not for the faint at heart.

As it becomes ever more clear that Mitt Romney will likely be the Republican presidential nominee, the former Massachusetts Governor’s opponents will continue to mine the interweb for rich deposits of oppo ore. On Monday night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann reintroduced America to Clayton Holton, an 80-lb medical marijuana patient who had an encounter with Romney in 2007 that would make a tauntaun reach for a sweater (translation for non-dorks: it was mighty chilly).

CNN contributor and Editor-in-Chief of Big Journalism Dana Loesch took a lot of flak over the weekend for her declaration of solidarity with the four Marines who videotaped themselves urinating on the corpses of alleged Taliban fighters, in which she said “I’d drop trou and do it too.”

Countdown host Keith Olbermann and liberal watchdog Media Matters, among others, have called for CNN to fire Loesch over the remark, and according to Big Journalism, even Politico is in on the act.

The enigmatic feud between Countdown host Keith Olbermann and his network, Current TV, has ended, not with a bang, but with a Sunday announcement that the fiery liberal provocateur has agreed to anchor the network’s election coverage following Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary, which isn’t quite the network’s preferred outcome, but close enough. Still unresolved is the reason for this dust-up, which Olbermann has implied had at least something to do with technical difficulties on his news hour.

The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter has been at the tip of the spear in covering the mysterious rift between Countdown host Keith Olbermann and Current TV. Yesterday, the website WhatsTrending.com reported “Keith Olbermann And Brian Stelter Duke It Out On Twitter,” but what really happened was Olbermann pushed back at Stelter’s latest reporting, and Stelter ignored him. Among the charges leveled by Olbermann is that Stelter “threatened” him.

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.

The ascendance of former Sen. Rick Santorum to a near-victory in the Iowa caucuses has Santorum on everyone’s lips, wondering how long the candidate can be a factor in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. On Wednesday night’s Countdown, activist and columnist Dan Savage reminded Keith Olbermann that Santorum doesn’t just have an anti-gay agenda, “he has an anti-straight agenda, too.”

Is history repeating itself? Mere days after reports surfaced of a rift between Countdown host Keith Olbermann and Current TV, the host unexpectedly tweeted ominous news on Tuesday: “So as not to mislead: I am informed Countdown will not be on tonight. I must defer on all questions to @JoelHyatt @AlGore and@Current.”

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

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.

Appearing on Countdown Wednesday evening with guest host David Shuster, actress-comedienne Janeane Garofalo criticized the Republican’s 2012 political strategy of labeling President Obama as elitist — or “uppity” as Rush Limbaugh has on his program.”It always works on a certain segment of the population. If you are trying to appeal to the worst in us,” Garofalo observed. “They do love a black man like Herman Cain, and Michael Steele, and is it Ron Christie? Any of these pundits who pretend we’re in a post-racial society. They like that kind of black person.”

On Monday night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann gave Rep. Allen West (R-FL) top honors in his “Worst Persons” segment, ostensibly for “admitting” (and even “bragging”) that he was a member of a white supremacist motorcycle gang, after denying any connection to such a gang for the past year or so.

While West’s courtship of motorcycle clubs like The Outlaws is still worthy of scrutiny, the fact is that he made no such admission.

On Wednesday Night’s Countdown on Current, Keith Olbermann named Congressman Brad Drake as one of his “Worst Persons In The World” for sponsoring legislation to replace lethal injection as a execution method with electrocution or a firing squad. Drake had said if it was up to him, he would “throw them off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and be done with it.” Olbermann responded, “You first, asshole!”

During his “worst Persons” segment Tuesday night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann addressed Paul Krugman‘s brief, controversial 9/11 column with the kind of full-throated agreement that would make Dizzy Gillespie envious. Olbermann concluded the segment by saying that, “between 2002 and 2009, the leading terrorist groups in this country were the Republican Party, and the presidential administration of George W. Bush.”

In his patented “Worst Persons” segment Monday night, Countdown‘s Keith Olbermann reserved the top spot for ex-Fox News superstar Glenn Beck, whose GBTV show debuted last night with 230,000 subscribers. Rather than jump on anything crazy that Beck said,though (there must have been something), Olbermann went after Beck over the size of his audience, which, on day one, far exceeds the audience that Olbermann has taken months to build at CurrentTV.

In a possible preview of tonight’s “Worst Persons” segment, Countdown host Keith Olbermann took to his Baseball Nerd blog to blast Major League Baseball over its decision not to allow the New York Mets to wear caps honoring NYPD, FDNY, and other first responders on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This is probably a rare instance in which even the polarizing pundit’s fiercest detractors will have difficulty disagreeing with him, although I’m not sure New York icon Joe Torre deserves a total pass for delivering the bad news.

Countdown host Keith Olbermann weighed in on the controversy surrounding the Tea Party Zombies video game during his “Worst Persons” segment, specifically denouncing the game’s anti-Fox News content, and even urged a boycott of the game’s distributor, Starving Eyes Advergaming. He did take a good-natured swipe at his cable news nemeses, but even Olbermann’s detractors ought to credit him for such a full-throated denunciation of the game, even if it is so far over the line that the line needs extra postage to send the game a letter.

As far as President Obama’s popularity has fallen, it is mostly a given that there are strong Democratic elements that would never abandon him. While this likely remains true based on the candidates running in 2012 alone, last night Keith Olbermann echoed the views of some on the left who feel abandoned by the President. For Olbermann, the last straw was a push to not implement EPA corporate smog regulations until 2013. In an extensive rant against the President, Olbermann reduced the reasons to support him to “What are you going to do, vote for Rick Perry?”

CNN host Piers Morgan and Countdown’s Keith Olbermann, each well-known for their propensity to feud, squared off on Twitter last week when Olbermann used the occasion of Christine O’Donnell’s walk-off to take a shot at Morgan. In response, Morgan mocked the size of Olbermann’s audience, called him a “coward,” and issued a challenge for the liberal firebreather to debate him on Piers Morgan Tonight. So far, Olbermann has ducked the gauntlet by claiming that Morgan banned him “for life.”

While introducing his segment with departed MSNBC host Cenk Uygur Thursday night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann trashed MSNBC’s reported hiring of Rev. Al Sharpton to replace Uygur, and even suggested a quid pro quo between MSNBC and Sharpton’s National Action Network.