...and no, that figure (maybe) doesn't represent the number of female fans half his age that he's solicited for sex online that he can't spend the night with afterward because he's allergic to down pillows and he's got a dying relative and by the way honey you're picking up the tab for the hotel room and don't ever, ever contact me again (Yes, I know...ALLEGEDLY!) No, the creature that dwells in the cable news ratings basement, aka MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann (who also perhaps hits the Mystic Tan spray-on booth just a tad too hard, apparently) has been very, very busy with his other favorite pastime: hitting Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly in the hopes that some of O'Reilly's ratings will stick to him. The indefatigable Olbermann Watch has the exclusive:
When Keith Olbermann named Bill O'Reilly co-Winner of yesterday's Worst Person in the World - along with radio show host Laura Ingraham - it represented the 100th personal attack against O'Reilly since the show was launched in the first quarter of 2003. O'Reilly and Ingraham were honored for agreeing criticizing The New York Times.
For the past year, Johnny Dollar of Olbermann Watch has been marking the run up to the big 1-0-0 setting off a near frenzy among the OlbyLoons who worship all things Keith. Reached for comment at his bunker somewhere east of the Mississippi, J$ was glad to have put the Countdown countdown behind him once and for all.
"Some doubted whether he would reach this milestone before being cancelled," said Dollar, "but I was confident that given Keith's power of self-delusion he would keep pounding out the same hackneyed material even as ratings tumbled off their post-Winter Olympics peak. When it comes to flailing and failing KO rarely disappoints."
Recently, Fox News spokeswoman, Irina Brigante, recently commented on Olbermann's obsession with O'Reilly to the New York Times.
“Because of his personal demons, Keith has imploded everywhere he’s worked,” Ms. Briganti said. “From lashing out at co-workers to personally attacking Bill O’Reilly and all things Fox, it’s obvious Keith is a train wreck waiting to happen. And like all train wrecks, people might tune in out of morbid curiosity, but they eventually tune out, as evidenced by Keith’s recent ratings decline. In the meantime, we hope he enjoys his paranoid view from the bottom of the ratings ladder and wish him well on his inevitable trip to oblivion.”
It was a little over six months after Olbermann's trip to oblivion began - shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq - when MSNBC News Anchor Keith Olbermann made his first disparaging on-air comments about the top-rated Bill O'Reilly, amid a panoply of unchecked internet rumors and left-wing propaganda. The man whose ratings The New York Times recently called a "great growth story" has credited his supposedly booming numbers to a barrage of personal attacks aimed at the top-rated news opinion journalist. A recent study from Olbermann Watch Research demonstrates that up until three months ago, Olbermann's ratings were mushrooming at an astonishing rate of close to 7,000 viewers per month. Since then he has given up all those gains and remained firmly mired in fourth place in a three network race (he's also ranked behind Nancy Grace on Headline News).
Over the years, Olbermann has seen his ratings ebb and flow from miniscule to infinitesimal and back again but has convinced himself that unrelenting attacks on an actually successful cable news host may well be the path towards ratings glory.
He's been a sports anchor, radio reporter, and news anchor. And, as he celebrates his 100th attack on Bill O'Reilly, he remains the stuff of legend - in his own mind...
J$ and OW, you rule! Keep on keeping on.
