Is Keith 'Chicken & Waffles' Olbermann a 'Passive-Aggressive' Racist?

September 27th, 2007 1:53 PM

Keith Olbermann this week has been happier than Ralphie Parker on Christmas morning over a left-wing group-generated controversy over Bill O'Reilly. But like the BB-gun-receiving protagonist of "A Christmas Story," lil' Keithie needs to know the dangers of (metaphorically) putting his eye out. After all, on September 9 on NBC's "Football Night in America," Olbermann made a cryptic crack that could be taken to be racially insensitive, if not racist.

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On Tuesday's "Countdown," Olbermann awarded O'Reilly both the "worser" and "worst" person in the world awards to his higher-rated competition at the Fox News Channel. O'Reilly, Olbermann thundered, is a 59-year old "passive-aggressive racist" for his recent remarks about his visit to a soul food restaurant.

Yet 16 days earlier, Olbermann narrated over a highlight reel of the September 9 Buffalo Bills/Denver Bronco game with an odd word-play involving a black wide receiver's first name:

With the Denver drive having stalled, Roscoe Parrish on the punt return. Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles at its finest. He could go the entire distance and does and it's seven-zip Bills.

Now, I'm not saying Olbermann is a "passive-aggressive racist," but a man who makes jokes about a soul food restaurant being the reason for a black athlete's success on the football field should be a bit more circumspect, especially since O'Reilly colleague and black journalist Juan Williams has defended O'Reilly, saying his remarks were grossly taken out of context.

Update 14:00 | Matthew Sheffield. The situations are so eerily similar it's almost enough to believe in karma. There's no possible scenario that O'Reilly can be considered a racist without Olbermann being considered one as well.

Keith Olbermann is a man living in a glass house. He really ought not to throw stones.

Reporters who are going ga-ga over O'Reilly's "racism" need to start looking into Olbermann's.