So what was the big deal about the suspension of Keith Olbermann by MSNBC for donating money ($2,400 apiece) to three Democratic candidates? You’d think he was a journalist taking sides and hypocritically embarrassing himself and his employer.
But he’s not a journalist. He’s a politically partisan entertainer. One of many. He happens to be on the high-decibel left side of the ideological spectrum balancing out the usual suspects on the outrageous right.
Olbermann doesn’t even have to feign objectivity. Donating money to a candidate is an extension of donating his “Countdown” show, only much less obnoxious. If MSNBC needed a credible reason to suspend Olbermann from “Countdown,” its most popular show, it could have gone with, say, over-the-top arrogance and outlandish cheap shots. But that’s why they hired him.