Olbermann’s “Best Of Limbaugh” Is Actually All About Keith Olbermann

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by Robert Quigley | 10:48 am, December 29th, 2009

» 9 comments

Like the rest of the news media, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann likes to spend the slow last week of the year reminiscing, and it’s only natural that his nemesis Rush Limbaugh should get special attention. But there was something slightly off about last night’s “Best of Rush Limbaugh 2009″ segment on Countdown: namely, that an awful lot of seemed to be about Keith Olbermann.

2009 has been host to plenty of flamboyant Rush Limbaugh moments: his bold statement at the beginning of the year that he hopes Obama fails, his (joking) calls for a military coup — heck, even his bid for the St. Louis Rams. Instead Olbermann reaired a long clip from a May 22 episode of Countdown, which was all about … Rush Limbaugh claiming that MSNBC couldn’t last a month without mocking and criticizing him. Meta?

Limbaugh: “Let’s see if you can run your little TV network for 30 days without doing a single story on me. And then, let’s take a look at your ratings during those 30 days, and see what happens.” Olbermann’s response: “Eff you!” (yes, he actually said “eff you.”) “This isn’t a bid for ratings. We believe you suck!”

As you’ll see below, it’s a weirdly self-referential clip, made weirder by the question of why, exactly, Olbermann and his producers thought it was the best showing for a man who has provided basketsful of incendiary quotes that Olbermann could have tossed like red meat to MSNBC’s core audience. Were they just happy to have gotten under Limbaugh’s skin? Or was Olbermann using the segment to congratulate himself on his own presumably witty insults and put-downs from the past?

Either way, he recognizes the relationship between the right-wing and the left-wing punditocracy, which Limbaugh, too is playing off of in the clip when he rants about the evils of MSNBC. As Olbermann says: “You spend more time talking about yourself than anybody else in broadcasting. You stop that, I’ll stop it too.”

Here’s the clip:

Best of Rush Limbaugh 2009, Countdown, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, keith olbermann, msnbc, Rush Limbaugh

personwhomakescomments

MSNBC:
The Place for Politics – No
The Place for News – Hell No

So what exactly IS MSNBC the place for………………?
Zakk

MSNBC: We have awesome Docs on the weekend!
http://www.swissarmyjew.com Keeva

MSNBC – The place for Keith’s ego.
ImNotBlue

…it’s only natural that his nemesis Rush Limbaugh should get special attention.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Rush is his nemesis. I think to be in that position, there would be mutual angst towards each other. But there isn’t. Rush despises Olbermann, but KO is just a small blip on the radar, that I’m not sure the “conflict” is substantial enough. Furthermore, is there anyone to the right of Rahm Emanuel that KO wouldn’t consider his “nemesis?” It’s just semantics… but I dunno… I’m not buying it.

Anyway… we really shouldn’t be shocked that KO spends a lot of time talking about himself. I mean, we’ve all watched the show before, right? This isn’t really anything new.

To him… this is Keith Olbermann’s world… and either you praise him, or you’re “the enemy.”

Sorry Keith… get over yourself.
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

“This isn’t a bid for ratings.”

Then why is it that the bulk of KO’s rantings involve Rush, O’Rielly, and Beck? Because they are all ratings winners and Keith tries to leech off some viewers by going after them. The irony here is that KO dares incite Limbaugh’s ego when he is actually so full of himself that he does not use a teleprompter but a mirror on set.
Zakk

KO fought with BO all through 2008…. and lost.
KO fights with Limbaugh all through 2009… and loses again.

He’s really pathetic. But I’m sure his tens upon tens of fans enjoyed his commentary. Question, other than media sites, who watches this moron?
Pat Doherty

Wait, wait, wait… are you Mediaite folks suggesting a man who never allows different opinions, delivers redundant “Special Comments” that he teases with “as promised” (as if the audience is about to receive a gift), and makes up things out of whole cloth to attack even ideologically-sympathetic people who criticize his show in the least (cf. Mediate’s own Rachel Sklar), has severe ego issues? Because if you are, you’re absolutely right.

P.S. I wonder what ’09 Olbermann highlights we’ll be talking in about in 2010:

5) Continued respectful treatment of women he disagrees with, exemplified by referring to Michelle Malkin as “a mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it” and a truly weird pathology concerning Carrie Prejean, devoting entire segments to discussing her breast implants and culminating in the 50-year-old “serious journalist” ending one national broadcast by giving the 22-year-old a “three-finger salute.”

4) Dogged pursuit of displaying the evils of waterboarding, to the point of being duped by a C-level shock jock.

3) Professionalism at all times, like in April when he threw a hissy fit and took three days off his show when Rachel Maddow refused to cede Ben Affleck to “Countdown,” or like in November when he didn’t want to report on the GOP gubernatorial victories and took off from his show after MSNBC had promised a live “Countdown.”

2) Somber understanding of what’s truly important, such as his retiring of the “O’Reilly caricature” in the wake of “the clear role Fox News had played in the murder of George Tiller.” Later of course, we find out it’s because Immelt told him to stop going after O’Reilly, and Keith, being Keith, torpedoes the deal once it becomes public knowledge.

1) Pushing back against the ever-growing, nefarious Twitter-verse. Unaware MSNBC had set up an account in his name, Olbermann accused Twitter of setting up a phony account, declared it “The Worst Person in the World,” and even implied that it was a plot by Fox News.
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

Oh Pat, that Twitter tale was so damned hilarious. Exploding about a move his own company was responsible for in the first place and never even bothering to mention it in-house before frothing at the mouth on air. And the omnisciently intelligent broadcaster who ridicules the intelligence of others said thus: “I’m not on Twitter. I tried to sign up for it last summer and then abandoned the project.”

Yea, that 90 second account set-up is a real stickler, but just wait until you see you have to limit a message to 140 character spaces. That will be vexing.
twolflauf

Olbermann has the biggest inferiority complex.