Beginning with Howard Kurtz’s feud report last week and ramping up after Friday’s over the top Special Comment, there’s been a bit of media backlash against Our Mr. Olbermann. I haven’t been able to write it all up for the front page as I have in the past, but you can find links and/or excerpts in the comments here at the mothership and at our auxiliary site Tumblelogging Olbermann.

And now a word from Rupert Murdoch, as seen on Silicon Alley Insider:

And for good measure, he defended the lack of a liberal counterpart to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News: He’d hire one if he could find a good one, he argued. What about MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, who’s now spending much of his time attacking O’Reilly and Fox? “No. I fired him 5 years ago,” when he was on FoxSports: “He was crazy.”

Update: Keith responds. “…he had to pay me $800,000 for the rest of 2001, and lord knows how many tens of millions I’ve helped MSNBC take out of his pocket ever since — so: who’s crazy?”