"Just walking around with a $10 million chandelier isn't going to do anybody a lot of good, and it's not going to do any good to the chandelier. And then it turned out we didn't have a lot to put the house on, to put the chandelier in, or a building permit, and I should have known that."
-- Keith Olbermann explaining his acrimonious departure from Current TV to David Letterman last night
In case you're not picking up on the analogy, Olbermann is the ten million dollar chandelier. And this kind of thing is exactly why anyone thinking of hiring him should probably spare him or herself the trouble and just swallow a pitcher full of broken safety glass now.
As a broadcaster, Keith Olbermann is excellent -- one of the best the business has ever offered up. As a human being, he's insufferable: arrogant, petty, bitter, hypercritical and thoroughly out of his fucking mind. You hire Keith and you sign on for all of his DSM-IV-level phobias and psychological ticks, the ones which constantly need to be catered to and salved in equal parts. There's certainly an argument to be made that brilliance comes at a price -- and it's absolutely no secret that there are a plurality of idiots working in television news -- but Olbermann has proven time and time again that he can't work with anyone. He's said before that he doesn't simply burn bridges -- he burns rivers. Well, it's entirely possible that after this debacle, no one with a news operation he or she would rather not see turned into a daily melodrama will extend either to Olbermann. He'll simply never be satisfied.
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