My guess: entitled douchebag that people at MSNBC hate, even if he was their biggest star. It's not like they punished Scarborough or Buchanan for their donations.

Most of us would have been offended to learn that he hadn't given money to Dems.

He shouldn't have been fired, but he's still a dorkasaures.

Amy: He's a little pricey.

Not to mention his ratings suck. They're paying him a lot of $ per viewer to spew his bile every night. By any standard, he's overpriced.

NBC Universal, which owns MSNBC, is currently in transition from ownership by GE to ownership by Comcast. I wonder what impact this has had / will have on the political positions taken by this network?

I agree with everything that was written above, but he violated company policy. The next job that I get where I can break the rules will be the first. You don't need to like them, you just need to follow them. It's not like anyone was going to tell him it makes him look unfair or imbalanced. It's not like anyone was going to tell him no. Now they have the excuse they need to dump his non-performing ass.

Some people take a long time to learn the basics.

I understand that, Mark, but others violated it, too:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/scarborough-buchanan-also-made-political-contributions.php

MSNBC suspended host Keith Olbermann today, following revelations that he made campaign contributions to three Democrats in the elections -- a violation of MSNBC policy.

But a search of OpenSecrets.org reveals that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan have also made contributions to political campaigns. Here's what we found...

In March 2006, Scarborough, who hosts the show Morning Joe, gave $4200 to Derrick Kitts (R-OR). And, as the Daily Kos points out, a month later Kitts was a guest on Scarborough's show.

Olbermann apparently calls for transparency in political campaign contributions all the time, but if hypocrisy in broadcasting were a firing offense, in many cases, we'd all be looking at color bars instead of newscasters.

I think you hit it with the original post, Amy... MSNBC is looking for a way out from under Olbermann's contract, and they found one. Although, of all the crap KO has pulled since he's been there, this one doesn't really rate even if is a violation of company policy.

> By any standard, he's overpriced.

Says who?

I mean, like, how do you know? If he wasn't worth it, how did he get the contract signed to begin with? Do you specifically, know how much money cable talk show hosts, specifically, are supposed to be earning?

How about movie stars and sports stars?

KO is the ultimate scumbag .... couldn't cut it as a sports guy, so he moves on to take up the left wing flag. Who watches MSNBC anyway?

Keith could quite possibly be the biggest misogynist on TV. His numbers were low, I mean...low. I tried to watch him once, and aside from disagreeing with his politics - he was annoying and childish.

I've read that he was also not well liked by his fellow co-workers. Not sure if that made it easier to cut him loose but it probably didn't help.

I listened to him doing the football gig and(from a guy who didn't play the sport and probably wouldn't have been able to make waterboy) he was terribly insulting, critical, childish - and didn't know much about football. It was embarrassing to watch.

I could care less that he was fired because I DONT WATCH HIM. But there is some schadenfreude to be enjoyed here.

One of my fav's from Iowahawk:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/04/one-afternoon-in-a-secret-corner-of-the-internet.html

Not to mention his ratings suck.

According to the article, he's helped MSNBC to triple its night-time ratings.

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the president of NBC News or his designee.” [emphasis mine]

Perhaps Scarborough and Buchanan obtained prior approval.

Perhaps such behavior had been tolerated by the old bosses, but the new bosses, anxious to establish their own authority, put their foot down. As anyone who's gone through a merger or buy-out knows, new bosses come with new tolerances for casual rules infractions.

Voices from both the left and the right have questioned the decision. Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, came out with a blog post titled “Keep Keith!” that argued: “He’s not a reporter. It’s an opinion show. If Olbermann wants to put his money where his mouth is, more power to him.”

Only someone who's been living in a cave for these last many years could mistake Keith Olbermann for an "impartial journalist."

Olbermann already helped Democratic candidates with his on air diatribes against Republicans, as well as his liberal bias in his stories and guest selections designed to make Democrats look good and right-wingers look crazy. Contributions of $2,400 to three candidates were barely a drop in the bucket compared to that.

The call for opinion show hosts to pretend to be "impartial journalists" is silly. The "news" channels are already making it harder to distinguish between their newscasters and their opinion show hosts - especially when they use the opinion show hosts as anchors instead of guests on broadcasts about news events (a war, an election, etc.). Bob Scheiffer may have been the last journalist who could pull that off.

Olbermann is a left-wing partisan. O'Reilly and Beck are right-wing partisans. Revelations that they contributed to a candidate aren't going to cause viewers to be disillusioned because they though Keith Olbermann or Glenn Beck or Chris Matthews or Sean Hannity were "impartial journalists."

I am a Fox News fan who does not think KO should have been fired. I say that because I support the First Amendment. By the same token, I do not think Juan Williams should have been fired from NPR.

MSNBC and FOX are similar in that(1) both have journalists who "read the news" and thus appear unbiased and straight forward, and (2) both have journalists who are hired specifically to give opinion, such as O'Reilly at Fox and KO at MSNBC. So if you don't like the views at one, switch the channel. Having competing views on the airwaves is important to democracy.

Ol Keith the Slander merchant is guilty of many firing offenses, but his personal political donations are not one of them.

I just hope in his down time he gets the mental help he needs.

I do find it a little suspicious that just a few days after that absolute nut-job Grayson down in Florida lost his seat that Mr. Slander is fired. Me thinks the folks at MSNBC are just opening a slot for Grayson. But why wittle ol Kieth? I would dump that drunk fool Schultz. He almost makes Hannity come across as smart.

As for the Comcast ownership statement above and how it will possible change the political leanings at MSNBC. Trust me, the brass at Comcast are plenty Liberal and entrenched in the dirty Philly poly machine.