Gail Shister
TVNewser Columnist
Five years later, Keith “Take This Job and Shove It” Olbermann is still — dare we say it? — happy at MSNBC.
In fact, when Olbermann marks the milestone with a special Countdown on NBC Sunday, he will be just six months away from breaking his personal record of continuous employment in the same Zip code: 5 1/2 years at ESPN in the ’90s.
Given that he re-upped last year through 2011, those are good odds.
“I had the opportunity to go somewhere else and I stayed put. It’s the first time I had actually done that,” says Olbermann, 49, known for a short fuse and a long memory.
“I have found circumstances that please me on various levels. It used to be that when I arrived at work, my first thought was, ‘How in the hell do I get out of this?'”
Countdown’s 7pm ET/PT special is the show’s second shot on the mothership. Among the highlights: Olbermann will “reveal” the ‘Commander in chief threshold test’ to which Sen. Hillary Clinton has referred. (Sample question: “Have you ever hosted a failed show on this network?”)
Speaking of failures, Olbermann says he’s grieved, but not surprised, that he’s still signing off with the number of days since Bush’s declaration of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The count as of today is 1,792.
“I think it had become pretty evident, if not exactly five years ago, certainly four years, 11 months ago, that this was a big mistake,” he says. “As my dear history teacher from high school used to say, ‘The bigger the mistakes politicians make, the more likely they are to stick with them.’
“…This is a president intent on killing Americans, or seeing Americans killed. He’s too stubborn to do anything about it.”
Given Olbermann’s staunch views, critics argue that he — or any commentator — doesn’t have the necessary objectivity to moderate presidential debates, or anchor coverage of primaries. Olbermann has done both; he moderated the Democrats in August in Chicago.
“I think my questions were probably tougher and more pointed because I have a certain license with [the candidates.] They know I am not there to trip them up for the political purposes of the Republican party.
“Viewers are smart enough to know the difference between a commentator and a moderator.”
And Olbermann is smart enough to know he’s got a good thing going at MSNBC, the same network he quit a decade ago from Lewinsky overload.
“I like happiness in large, long-lasting doses. It’s much better than the alternative…I’ve stopped having volcanos.”