Olbermann on Letterman: I'm Too Unique and Talented for Current TV

Former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann compared himself to a $10 million chandelier in talking about his recent ouster from Al Gore's Current TV. Mediate caught the appearance and summed it up this way:

On the heels of his firing from Current TV, formerCountdown host Keith Olbermann makes his mildly-ballyhooed first appearance on CBS’ The Late Show with David Letterman. In a preview clip, Olbermann rehashes his passive-aggressive “It was my fault for not knowing everybody but me sucks” apology, and compared himself to “a $10 million chandelier” that Current TV “should have a house to put it in.”[...]

It looks more like Olbermann never really gave the new gig a shot. He liked the idea of being a big fish in a little pond, until he saw just how little the pond was (in part because the pond broke the bank to land him). Then, when Cenk Uygur started beating his ass with younger viewers, it turned out he wasn’t even such a big fish. Although Uygur just started beating Olbermann in the 25-54 demo last Monday, he had been showing Olbermann up with younger viewers than that for months.

Although it was Current who pulled the plug, Olbermann’s set histrionics, scheduling shenanigans, and extensive absences make it pretty clear he had checked out, like an overpaid free agent who suddenly decides he doesn’t like playing for an expansion team, but can’t get out of his contract. Olbermann told Letterman “The nice judge will decide whether or not I get more of my money,” but it’s hard to see what kind of a case he’ll have.

The segment can be watched in full below. See what you think of Olbermann's "too good for this sinful earth" explanation:

MSNBC has also added a recap of the segment, and it doesn't paint Olbermann in much of a better light:

Olbermann continued: "I didn’t say, ‘You know, if you buy a $10 million chandelier, you should have a house to put it in. 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, I should have known that. And it is, it is my fault at heart.” [...]

"But I went home and just sort of had a conversation with myself and said, ‘Look, these – the two important groups that are more important than what I do about myself – the audience who went to struggle to find where the network was and join me, and, most importantly, the staff'," he said, adding later, "I’m so proud of [the staff] because the show editorially was never better, but I let them down because the thing didn’t continue.”[...]

Olbermann and Letterman also discussed the matter of Olbermann's unhappiness over car service issues.

"The story is that we changed car services a couple times. I got rid of them. Maybe there were like eight different car services," Olbermann told Letterman after the talk show host asked about a story that said he was upset about how the transportation was handled at his former employer. "The problem that's left out of that side of the story was that in at least one occasion, the car service stopped coming to get me because the bill hadn't been paid. And I know that makes me Attila the Hun because the bill wasn't paid."