Keith Olbermann Caught Dissing Joe Scarborough on Open Mic

NewsBusters ^ | August 26, 2008 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Keith Olbermann seems to be suffering from a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease during the Democrat convention coverage. As noted earlier by NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein, Olbermann, after commenting ecstatically about Michelle Obama's speech declared that he was "beginning to sound borderline sycophantic." Also last night, an open mic caught Olbermann dissing fellow MSNBC team member, Joe Scarborough. You can hear the dissing on the Olbermann Watch YouTube audio from the John Gibson radio show below the fold but here is a partial transcript:

JOHN GIBSON: I've got to tell you, we have news here tonight! We have the first open mic catastropic debacle of the convention.

VOICE: Sure do, John.

GIBSON: It was over at MSNBC featuring first Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough and then the voice of bathtub boy, Keith Olbermann, pipes up and it's clear his microphone was supposed be off. This is not pretty. They are supposed to be colleagues. And everyone around NBC except Tom Brokaw is afraid of Olbermann because of the way he got Dan Abrams fired and then bragged about it. Listen to this.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Now the host of MSNBC's Morning Joe Show, Joe Scarborough who's down on the floor of the Pepsi Center, part of the Pepsi generation, and he's been talking to both campaigns...Joe.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Hey, thanks so much, Chris. I've got to tell you, there's such a contrast between what these campaigns are saying now and what they were telling me off the record two weeks ago perhaps because of Steve Schmidt's new leadership in the McCain campaign. The fact that the McCain campaign has been leaning forward with one message and their...

KEITH OLBERMANN (interrupting): Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?!

SCARBOROUGH: According to some McCain people...a a shovel?

[TNdandelion]

[popdonnelly]

Olbermann’s audience consists of the DU and the loonier members of dailyKOS.

[tips up]

Olbermann is an asshat...

[SE Mom]

WTH?? I missed that too- I read somwhere that Maddow was taking over Abrams’ spot at 9 but didn’t realize the rest of it...I wonder if this means Abrams is leaving MSNBC ?

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[tflabo]

Hey all the pic in post 18... is that really a head getting blowed up?

[Straight Vermonter]

I love how he says McCain is losing in the polls. He cites the USA today poll last month that was 5-14% off from all of the other polls.

[sofaman]

Olbermann and Maddow have so much in common ... they both like girls and don’t have the necessary equipment ...

[sofaman]

no ... apparently he’s staying. He’s going to be a daytime stuff and something else equally irrelevant.

[mockingbyrd]

I LOVE Sam the Eagle!!!!

[SE Mom]

Are there any MEN (other than Maddow) left at MSNBC who don’t drool over Barry..

[edzo4]

its from the movie scanners

[tflabo]

Thanks for explaining the head blowing up pic. it looks so real on the video and I never knew if it was real or fake.

[dead]

[JZelle]

[TheBattman]

Anyone ever stop and think that maybe MSNBC is engineering all of this (or at least encouraging it) to directly get folks to watch. Sort of like the mentality behind folks who watch Jerry Springer...

Folks don’t watch Springer for anything intellectual or socially hard-hitting. They watch Springer in hopes of seeing someone get smacked-down or some woman flashing her private parts for the world to see. They watch for the possibility of a cheap thrill.

I submit that maybe MSNBC is trying the same stunt - thinking that their prospective viewers will be enticed by such juvenile behavior from their “stars”.

[TheBattman]

Holy crap dude... that is awful.

[Former Dodger]

PLEASE! He sucked at Sports too.

He must have some good info on someone. Not great, though, or he’d be on the big boys network NBC.

Sometimes Olbermann makes me long for Rather, instead, I just change the channel, or skip over MSNBC completely.

[sofaman]

Maddow is a "she" ... supposedly the first openly gay TV host ... which doesn't make sense, because I thought that Anderson Cooper was/ is.

The jury is still out on Shep Smith, apparently.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Do you really think that was his foot?