Petition War: Olbermann Adds His Name

“Our third story on the Countdown: Bill O’Reilly has launched an on-air campaign, and an online petition, to get this newscast cancelled and replaced by Phil Donahue,” Keith Olbermann declared on MSNBC last night.

The chyron said “Fire Away, Falafel Boy” as tape of O’Reilly’s petition explanation rolled. Then Olbermann read the petition — “we, the undersigned, are becoming increasingly concerned about the well-being of MSNBC,” etc, etc — interrupting occassionally for comments like this:

“The median age of viewers of this program is 58.7. The median age of viewers of Mr. O’Reilly’s program is 68.6. So if you want to be concerned about ‘well-being,’ Bill, be concerned about the odds of your viewers living into next week.” Update: Sunday, 10:41pm: In January, O’Reilly had more viewers in the young 25-54 demo than Olbermann had in total viewers, an e-mailer noted.

Then Olbermann played a highlight reel of his O’Reilly barbs and added his name to the petition. The end of the segment is pretty funny, and Crooks & Liars has the video…

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