http://nymag.com/news/features/30338/Limbaugh for Lefties
Keith Olbermann fumbled his way through sportscasting and talk-show gigs with varying degrees of success. Now he’s found his niche as a truth-telling, Bush-bashing accidental liberal hero.
* By Stephen Rodrick
It isn’t quite Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik, but on a Tuesday afternoon in the 2 Penn Plaza offices of ABC Radio, two titans of clashing ideologies come face to face. Fresh off his daily one-hour ESPN broadcast with former SportsCenter co-anchor and longtime pal Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann spies a familiar figure settling into Studio B for his afternoon shift. Olbermann, his anchor-issue trench coat tucked under an arm, opens the door and thrusts a hand toward Sean Hannity.
“Mr. Hannity, good to see you, sir,” says Olbermann.
Off-camera Olbermann, it turns out, is a lot like on-camera Olbermann. The gray pin-striped suit is perfectly crisp. The basso profundo booms. The outsize ego and acid tone ooze from him. It’s unclear whether the mannerisms are real or a bit of an ironic put-on that became Olbermann’s default setting after a time.
“Keith, how you been?” Hannity asks with a grin.
The congeniality is a bit startling. Olbermann is the ornery host of MSNBC’s Countdown and a newly minted, if unintentional, hero of the left. Five nights a week, he gives the president a beat-down so severe that it almost makes you feel sorry for the man (almost). Hannity, meanwhile, is a Fox News icon with a major Rudy Giuliani crush.
Nevertheless, the two men chitchat pleasantly until Hannity realizes a reporter is present and freaks. “This is off the record,” says Hannity, perhaps fearing a red-state backlash. “Well, you can say I think Keith is a great guy.”
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