MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement Friday: “I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."
Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election.
Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 — the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.
I’m really having trouble drumming up the ability to care about this story much. MSNBC is just posturing and trying to keep alive the meme that they are unbiased. The fact that Keith is liberal and would donate to Democrats should not come as a shock to anyone that has watched Countdown for more than two minutes. His bias is more than obvious. He doesn’t even really try to hide it, either.
Personally, I don’t think that he should be suspended or fired for this anymore than Juan Williams should have been fired from NPR over his comment about being nervous around Muslims on airplanes, and it’ll, more than likely, pass, and he’ll come back to MSNBC soon, especially considering all of the negative backlash that they are getting from the left AND the right over this issue.
However, there is a hypocrisy angle to this story. This should be brought up to Keith by any guest that comes on his show anytime that he chastises Rupert Murdoch or anyone else on Fox for donating a penny to any GOP candidate
Update:
TV "Insiders" are saying that Olbermann won't be back:
Insiders we’ve talked to say Olbermann won’t be back. The question is whether he’ll leave or MSNBC keeps him off the air.
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