Olbermann to Limbaugh: ‘Eff you!’

click on title for link

From Raw Story


By David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: May 21, 2009

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has been needling right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh for a long time, but on Wednesday he was able to pride himself for having finally gotten under Limbaugh’s skin.

“This network’s coverage of him has not only gotten to him but gotten to him to a point perhaps never reached before by any other megalomaniac,” Olbermann said of Limbaugh. “Suddenly the impact of being accurately called out day after day, hour after hour as a faux populist, press release-regurgitating lackey of repressive and regressive political flunkies — that has hit bone.”

Limbaugh recently complained on his radio show that MSNBC “cannot go any appreciable length of time without showing video of me … or having a bunch of hack guests on to discuss me. So my challenge is this to MSNBC: Let’s see if you can run your little TV network for thirty days … without doing a single story on me. And then let’s take a look at your ratings.”

“Eff you!” exclaimed Olbermann in response. “You’re not in charge of this! You put your bile out on the public airwaves for three hours a day and you get to decide how people react to it? The hell you do! … Either man up and live through the bad press or get out!”

“Stand on your own two feet,” Limbaugh had urged MSNBC. “Stand on what you believe.”

“This is, in part, what we believe,” Olbermann replied. “This isn’t a bid for ratings. We believe you suck. We believe you have contributed to the coarsening and deadening of the political dialogue in this nation — and I’m saying that as a guy who just said ‘eff you.’”

Limbaugh had complained in particular about MSNBC using video of him cheerleading the crowd as last winter’s CPAC, so Olbermann singled out one clip of Limbaugh flabbily bouncing up and down and put it on a repeating loop in one corner of the screen. “This is our new logo,” he announced with a fiendish grin.

Olbermann’s final proposal to Limbaugh was, “I will go thirty days on this program without referencing what has been done or said or boasted about by Rush Limbaugh, provided you go thirty days on your program without mentioning what has been done or said or boasted about by — Rush Limbaugh.”

“Hannity would last longer on the waterboard,” smirked Olbermann in conclusion.

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast May 20, 2009.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy