Olbermann Caricatures Himself Again

One of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits is when Ben Affleck played Keith Olbermann. In this skit, Olbermann, played by Affleck, calls for no less than four people to quit or get fired. Those people include John McCain, Richard Wolfe, as well as his landlord. His landlord wouldn't allow Olbermann to keep his cat Ms. Precious Perfect. This "injustice" Olbermann compared to Pol Pot, slavery, and other historical injustices. Olbermann is bombastic, an ideologue, and he has a terrible habit of demanding that political opponents and others he disagrees with of being dismissed from their job. That's one of the many geniuses of the skit. In the span of just over seven minutes, Olbermann's character demands that no less than four people either quit or be fired.

It should surprise no one that Olbermann, much like his brethren at MSNBC, is blaming Fox News in part for the death of Dr. George Tiller. It should also surprise no one that he is also now demanding that Bill O'Reilly be taken off the air as a result.



It appears that Keith Olbermann is determined to live up to the now famous caricature of him done by Ben Affleck. He continues not to merely disagree with his political opponents but demands that they be removed as well.

The idea that some blame Fox News for the death of Dr. Tiller is bad enough. Now, Olbermann has just reinforced his own caricature by demanding that Fox News remove O'Reilly as a result. In this particular segment, he calls for a "soft boycott" of any establishment that runs Fox News. In other words, he wants his viewers to walk out of any establishment that carries the network and let the ownership know why. He also calls on his viewers to let those that watch Fox News that they are supporting domestic terrorist enablers. He does all this in the hope that one day soon Fox News will remove O'Reilly from the air.

His righteous indignation is only matched by his hubris to perpetuate the very caricature so perfectly flashed by Ben Affleck in that Saturday Night Live skit. Olbermann has been calling for the removal of Fox News and O'Reilly specifically from the air for years. In that time, both have increased their ratings.

The whole thing would be amusing if it wasn't being used to exploit the tragedy of a murder.