After a too short two day suspension for making political donations MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann returned to the airwaves last night and showed that he wasn’t about to skip a beat.

From the Politico

Keith Olbermann offered apologies, explanations and, of course, a dig at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in his first appearance back on “Countdown” since being suspended for making undisclosed political donations to three Demorcrats.

He began the show with an aside to the critics who believed the whole dust-up had been some kind of exercise to prove, as Rachel Maddow argued on the air on Friday, how MSNBC was different from Fox News when it came to political involvement and raising money for candidates.

“I read in a couple of places that this had to have been a publicity stunt,” he said. “This is not a publicity stunt. If I had known this would happen, I would have done this years ago!”

Later in the show, after a few jokes about the situation (“Just my luck, I get a four-day weekend after the World Series is over.”), Olbermann thanked the more than 300,000 people who signed the petition calling for his return and described the media frenzy from the perspective of the eye of the storm.

After marveling at how he got interview requests from “Good Morning America,” was talked about on David Letterman, broke traffic records at Huffington Post and made “the front page of the New York Times without being dead or in jail or Charlie Sheen or something,” he said he was “stunned and grateful” for the outpouring. (He even hinted that the White House had called.)

Although he came bearing apologies, none were for MNSBC. He said that NBC’s rule barring political donations without permission was not in his contract, and questioned its legality.

He also clarified that, while the donations did appear on the day he interview Democratic candidate Raul Grijalva, they were made afterwards, which explains the lack of disclosure. However, he did name one of his recipients’ opponents the “Worst Person in the World” the following day, for which he apologized. (Rep.Gabrielle Giffords, to whom he donated, was running against tea party favorite Jesse Kelly in Arizona.)

The segment took a turn toward the dizzyingly self-referential when he rounded up the comedians’ take on whole thing – Jay Leno quipping that he should have just done like Eliot Spitzer and given money to prostitutes, and Jon Stewart coming to what seemed like Olbermann’s defense, followed by a dig at his one-time mustache. (Olbermann conceded this point to Stewart, saying “it looked like I was dressing up like Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon.”)

But when it came to Stewart’s take-home – that NBC’s rule against donations was “stupid” and poorly enforced – Olbermann took issue.

“It’s not a stupid rule, here or anywhere else,” he said. “It just needs [to be debated]. It needs to be adapted to the realities of 21st century journalism.”

In the outing of his donations by POLITICO’s Simmi Aujla, he said he was “where the political contribution system is working for transparency and democracy.”

And in a final, Olbermannesque dig at his political opponents, he said, “If I had given the money through the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, you would have never, ever known.”

The Obama-mainstream media manufactured Chamber of Commerce controversy is not only old news but as the midterm elections proved last week it didn’t work despite Obama’s repeated finger pointing during the last few weeks of the campaign. Talk about beating a dead horse.

By taking a swipe at the Chamber Olbermann sounded more like Jon Stewart and his faux news just without the laughter.

Share This

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author