nymag.com
Glynnis MacNicol |
Posted Tuesday April 10, 2007 at 01:00 PM
Lately it feels like the only person getting more media-love than Keith Olbermann is Barack Obama. The MSNBC Countdown host, "newly minted, if unintentional, hero of the left", is the subject of a lengthy, and often juicy, profile by Stephen Rodrick in this week's New York Magazine.
While much of the profile covers familiar territory - for instance, Olbermanns's rise to prominence that began with a 10 minute on-air diatribe aimed at Donald Rumsfeld ("The man who sees absolutes where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning is either a prophet or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.") - much of the article was filling with surprising little tidbits about this somewhat unlikely hero of the left. We pulled a few of our favorites.
- Do we perhaps have James Gandolfini to thank for Olbermann's Rumsfeld-rant, tipping point? "I'd exhausted all conversations with James Gandolfini, who was on the flight. And I thought, 'Where is the outrage? Where are the constitutional- scholar conservatives coming out and going, "This guy is a danger to the democracy. Not to the Democrats or Republicans but to the democracy...Then I thought, 'Oh, yeah, I have a newscast, don't I? I have editorial latitude, don't I? Well, I guess it's my turn. Let me strap the jetpack on." Strap it on, indeed.
- Ah the beauty of frenemies: Sean Hannity and Olbermann can chat it up all friendly like on the steps of the ABC studio depsite Hannity being regularly featured as Olbermann's "Worst Person of the World" award.
- Olbermann has offended so many people at ESPN that he's only allowed to do Dan Patrick's show because Patrick has promised that Olbermann will never set foot on ESPN's Conn. campus again.
- Olbermann was beat up a lot by girls when he was a kid. "They literally posted a sign-up sheet and would take turns." Okay, that part didn't actually surprise us.
- Aaron Sorkin based the two main characters of his television show SportsNight around Olbermann and his ESPN SportsCenter co-host Dan Franklin. Actually, Olbermann has said both characters were based on him, but we're not going to play favorites by guessing.
- Shortly after having his show cancelled by Fox in 2001, Olbermann set about writing a novel based on a dream he had in which "JFK appeared before him on a bus, his head wound dressed with plaster of Paris. In the dream, JFK had just one question for Olbermann: "Why did you leave SportsCenter?"" It was not long after this that (and shortly after 9/11) that Olbermann penned his Salon Mea Culpa eventually leading Olbermann back to MSNBC and his current position.
And some final thoughts regarding the presidential candidates:
- Giuliani: "He had a great finish, but the rest of the time he was a schmuck."
- Hillary: If she doesn't Alex Rodriguez everything, she may get through."
- Obama: He's willing to say, 'You're not going to agree with everything I say.' The politician who can do that is the one who is going to cut through. I don't think that's going to be Giuliani. I don't think it's Mitt Romney or McCain."
Last but not least, Bill O'Reilly, of whom Olbermann had this to say (although no mention was made as to whether his tongue was in his cheek. We sorta of suspect it wasn't).
"It wasn't until I left MSNBC in December of '98 that Bill took second place. Seeing what he did with that and the perversions of television he's created, I felt bad about it. I might have been able to stop this. It must be like the way Gore or Kerry wake up in the middle of the night thinking, I could have stopped this. I carry that around with me."
