On 9/11 at MetLife Stadium, fans went crazy as Aaron Rodgers, holding aloft the American flag, led the New York Jets onto the field. Four plays into the game, the 39-year-old Rodgers sustained a season-ending Achilles injury. Across the country, fans and players alike gave the quarterback some love, but former ESPN and MSNBC mouthpiece Keith Olbermann opted for a late hit.
“Another #SuddenLisfranc due to failure to vaccinate,” Olbermann wrote on X, tagging on six syringe emojis but not explaining the science. “Get your fifth booster, Keith,” replied Rodgers, a Super Bowl winner with the Green Bay Packers in 2011. For Olbermann, it’s an ongoing social media game.
Olbermann charged that Riley Gaines “sucked at swimming,” a “second team all-conference. Happily for nasty, stupid, unsuccessful transphobe. She has no reputation to ruin.” And so on, with “homophobe” for good measure.
Gaines recorded a video noting her presence on the All-SEC first-team, three SEC titles, her SEC female scholar-athlete of the year award, and her qualification for the U.S. trials. The University of Kentucky swimmer also recalled that ESPN fired Olbermann, so maybe he sucked at broadcasting.
Gaines could make a case that, on the men’s team at Penn, the six-foor-four Will Thomas did indeed suck at swimming. He only began to stand out when, with rudder still in place, he started calling himself “Lia Thomas” and began to compete against women. Apparently uncritical of Thomas, Keith Olbermann has been known to target writers.
David Horowitz is the author of Radical Son, Dark Agenda, Final Battle and other books. With the late Peter Collier, Horowitz wrote Destructive Generation and acclaimed biographies of the Kennedys, Rockefellers and Fords. Back in 2007, Olbermann called Horowitz a “right-wing lunatic fringer,” a “right-wing water carrier” and proclaimed him “the worst person in the world.”
Olbermann now ramps it up with attacks on Riley Gaines and Aaron Rodgers. Quarterbacks must do their job while swift 300-lb. rushers try to make them part of the turf. Maybe a Super Bowl-winning quarterback such as Tom Brady or Joe Montana could throw a flag on Olbermann. As his former employer verifies, injuries are common in the NFL.
It would be hard to blame any NFL player, past or present, from asking Olbermann’s former employers to set up a pay-per-view event. The NFL player could tell Olbermann something like “bring your chickenshit ass over there and we’ll settle it.” That could be a big draw, but there’s an alternative.
Keith Olbermann could buy a can of spray paint and express his thoughts on a retaining wall. The poltroon thus finds his proper place.
Footnote: One wonders whether the Babylon Bee satire site really is a modern-day prophet right from the pages of the Old Testament. The day after Rodgers’ injury, and before Olbermann’s outburst, the Bee offered the headline, “Experts Believe Aaron Rodgers’ Ankle Injury the Result of Being Unvaccinated.” The time between a Babylon Bee satire and reality is now down to about 24 hours.
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