Wherever Keith Olbermann has arrived, left, and, in ESPN’s case, returned, he has suffered the same self-afflictions.
He’s an insult and put-down artist who can’t take as much as a nudge, let alone a jab — forget a punch! — in return.
Yep, one of those. In a news media stuffed with stuffed Olbermanns, those who portray themselves as royals, above the fray, always find themselves helpless to avoid spitting matches, high, low and chest-level.
Once, a Pittsburgh newspaper columnist took a brief, no-big-deal shot at Olbermann. Olbermann went keyboard bonkers, responding with a long, childish spew that included a list of all the awards he had won. And he likely figured he was the winner of this one, too.
In other words, his suspension from ESPN is his latest well-earned merit badge. Even if, as sports fans know, the ES, in ESPN, stands for “eventual suspension,” this one only a self-blinded big shot could flower.
Engaged in a Twitter war — seriously! — with Penn State football fans over the Jerry Sandusky pedophile case, Olbermann determined that a successful Penn State cancer charity fundraiser was worthy of his mocking. And for those who like their TV celebrities pre-cooked, goading the egomaniacal Olbermann into a war of nasty words is like taking candy from a big baby. A brat, at that.
That’s another of Olbermann’s self-afflictions: A good person, in his transparently center-of-the-universe world, is one who writes or broadcasts praise and admiration for Olbermann. A bad guy — even if he helps Boy Scouts across the street — is one who expresses public or private disregard for Olbermann. Such bad guys quickly skip the line to Olbermann’s “Worst Person In The World” dunking booth.
As for those inhabitants of Planet Keith who haven’t yet checked in on how they feel about him, well, proceed in peril of Olbermann’s wrath!
Olbermann spends so much time in reflection of his reflection that his crafted (shoved down your throat) multiple-TV-networks image as a thoroughly enlightened, liberal-minded man of all the people has become a comical con, as he’s known — here, there and everywhere he has worked — as a pain in the arse who treats the “peons” in his workplaces like soot.
It’s well worth noting that in his lost-count-of TV stops, the only one not invited to his countless farewell parties is Olbermann. Former co-workers don’t think of Olbermann in political terms, but in human terms. The good they take from their Keith Olbermann “Voice of the Downtrodden & Persecuted” is good riddance.
When Olbermann worked for Fox Sports — another gig that ended in Olbermann-enriched deep mutual regret — he was supposed to meet a newspaper sports columnist on one of Fox’s on-site, media-only trailers before a 2000 Yankees-Mets World Series game.
But when Olbermann entered that trailer and that sportswriter greeted him, Olbermann was livid; he blew past, seething, blinded by rage, as if someone had just stolen his wallet, Social Security number and parking spot. What was up?
He was looking for someone else, the guy who’d taken a mild shot at him, that day, in another paper’s sports column. Ugh.
Those Penn Staters who became the latest to expose Olbermann — for crying out loud, a fellow who would place his self-regard above a fundraiser to cure cancer? Don’t gloat. It was too easy.