Politics

Keith Olbermann: More Like a Chandelier Than Even He Realized

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During a recent appearance on David Letterman's show, deposed Current TV host (late of ESPN, Fox, and MSNBC) Keith Olbermann likened himself to a "$10 million chandelier" while complaining that Al Gore's much-ballyhooed cable channel just didn't get its act together.

"It's my fault that it didn't succeed in the sense that I didn't think the whole thing through," Mr. Olbermann said on CBS' "Late Show," discussing his dismissal from the avowedly liberal cable network less than a year into a five-year, $50 million contract.

"I didn't say, 'You know, if you buy a $10 million chandelier, you should have a house to put it in. Just walking around with a $10 million chandelier isn't going to do anybody a lot of good, and it's not going to do any good to the chandelier."

"You're the chandelier?" Mr. Letterman asked.

Yes, Mr. Olbermann replied.

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Over at the Washington Times, Patrick Hruby tallies up the ways in which various observers agree that Olbermann is in fact like a chandelier:

The immodest, self-serving comparison prompted a series of snarky Twitterbon mots: "OLBERMANN CHANDELIER now available at Ikea," wrote television writer and Vanity Fair magazine contributor Nell Scovell. "Combine with POMPÜS DINING TABLE and SMÜGG CHAIRS."

"Keith Olbermann says he's a 10 million dollar chandelier," wrote Warren Holstein, a New York City-based standup comedian. "Mitt Romney offers to buy him, hang him and turn him off."

"Fragile?" wrote conservative commentator S.E. Cupp.

And there's these: chandeliers look down from above, are brittle, a pain to work with, mostly for show, and more.

Read the whole thing here.

Back in November 2010, Reason.tv compiled this minute-long memorial tribute to Olbermann after he was "indefinitely suspended" by MSNBC for running afoul of the network's rules on giving to political campaigns (the suspension didn't last very long). Whether he reappears on the small screen again, we'll always have this triple-distilled medley of his greatest hits: