...back in his glory days on ESPN Sports Center. Now he's just a smug jag with a low rated show. Clearly, California is getting to me, because I was sitting in my hotel room tonight watching Olberman's show. In the rare instances that I watch Olberman, I anticipate that I will think he's an idiot, so he doesn't get me very riled. Tonight was different. Olberman was talking with someone from Time magazine about the Armstrong Williams issue when he began to ruminate on whether Williams was the only person on the payroll. It was then that Olberman wondered aloud how some of the better put together websites were able to stay afloat. Olberman's remark was anything but off hand. He was clearly taking a cowardly swipe at blogs, attempting to muck up a little mud from the Williams affair and then fling it at bloggers. I can agree that what Williams did was unethical, and that he deserves the fall out that has resulted, but to make an unfounded claim like Olberman did was just plain unprofessional.
I can almost feel sorry for Olberman. Here's a guy who thinks himself to be quite the Einstein. He's also a guy who was cutting edge and cool once upon a time-when he was teamed up with Dan Patrick on ESPN. Now here he is. The blogs are nipping at his heals. The blogs are cutting edge and cool, and he has a flailing talk show. I can understand where Olberman's bitterness comes from (especially if you add in the Kerry loss). That doesn't excuse him, though. I suspect that if I made an assertion that Olberman was on, say, Barbara Boxer's payroll, I could be open to a libel suit. Fortunately, Olberman's daily audience is about as big as Jiblog's, so that really shouldn't be an issue.
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