The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads

It wasn't long ago liberals hailed Keith Olbermann as a funnier and smarter Bill O'Reilly of their own. His "Special Comments" were legendary and instant YouTube hits, nine minutes of focused outrage often focused at someone in the Bush administration. Above all, he caught Bill O'Reilly using false arguments and that creepy flirting he does with female guests. Before Olbermann went off the deep end and Rachel Maddow started doing her best to fill in the gaps, he must have been a thorn in the side of Fox News and News Corp.

Now, as the New York Times is reporting, that run could be over. The two networks seem to have a handshake agreement where they will no longer take shots at each other while CNN sits idly by. Perhaps General Electric's chairman, Jeff Immelt, despite running one of the biggest companies in American history, was a little annoyed when O'Reilly told his millions of viewers, "If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt."

Olbermann, in surprisingly terse style, suggested he will not be censored on what he says, and I'm inclined to believe him. The rivalry with Bill O' has done wonders for Countdown's ratings. It's made Olbermann a villain of the right, something I'm sure the notoriously arrogant host loves. O'Reilly never mentions Olbermann by name (hardly unusual, he still calls Sen. Al Franken "Stuart Smalley" after his Saturday Night Live character 15 years ago), and will probably continue that too.

Assuming everything stays pretty much the same on Fox News' end, it'll be interesting to see how Olbermann works around this new obstacle. If he can't name O'Reilly the "Worst Person in the World," then his show will have a big hole to fill five nights a week.

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Rivalries normally bring out the best in everyone, and this one turned out something like that.

Ben Affleck's been pretty awful since co-writing Good Will Hunting, but this was pretty awesome.