From Deadspin, we get news that Dan Patrick, during his weekly segment with former "tag team partner" Keith Olbermann, recently had football player/turned gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann on his ESPN radio show. To everyone's surprise, Keith decided to put his MSNBC hat on:
Around 2:20 p.m. ET last Friday, Patrick introduces Swann on the show. Patrick said (in a humorous tone) that, in light of the Swann’s prior work with ABC and Disney, he was going to have OIbermann ask Swann questions. Swann seemed to think that this was going to be lightweight question theater (he joked to Patrick that he didn’t know he’d changed to a news show). Olbermann’s first question was on the current dispute between McCain/Warner/Graham and the Bush administration on the administration appearing to disregard an act of Congress: What did Swann think about the split within the Republican party, and which side was he on? Swann spouted a non-answer and ended the answer with the statement that it wasn’t a state issue, so it didn’t really matter to the Swann campaign.It was about time some news came out of the Olbermann/Patrick re-teaming.Olbermann, in one of the sweetest comebacks I’ve heard in a long time, responded that if Swann wanted a state question, he had one: Senator Rick Santorum is talking smack about going after federal funding for New Jersey if they won’t agree to dredge the Delaware River. What does Swann think about that? Swann was silent for four beats, then said that he had been on a bus, and he hadn’t seen the papers (even though it’s been a contentious issue for close to a month), and he really didn’t know anything about the issue Olbermann was talking about. Olbermann, very quietly and with as much polite snark as he could possibly get away with, suggested that Swann may want to make a note of that one, and threw it back to Patrick with the question, “Are you glad you wanted to do that now?”
As sad as this is. But Olbermann is the only good thing on MSNBC prime-time. The rest is crap. Sensational crap, but still crap. Oh, except for that piece about Jolie being pregnant; that was hard-hitting journalism only seen on cable TV .
Posted by: Jeff S at January 13, 2006 09:16 PM