I used to watch Countdown on MSNBC every night, but for a while now I have found myself not enjoying the show anymore and switching it off. A few months ago I was discussing Countdown with someone and she expressed her preference for just watching “The Rachael Maddow Show.” Keith was too mean to in her opinion. While she agreed with his overall politics, she didn’t like the way he conducted himself – Too mean and too negative.  I could not argue with her.

Again it appeared recently when Keith went after the newly elected Massachuettes Senator, Scott Brown:

“In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees. In any other time in our history, this man would have been laughed off the stage as an unqualified and a disaster in the making by the most conservative of conservatives. Instead, the commonwealth of Massachusetts is close to sending this bad joke to the Senate of the United States.”

The rant was so over-the-top that Jon Stewart spoofed Keith on The Daily Show last week, pointing out that while Keith accused Brown of supporting violence against women, he only a few months ago called conservative columnists Michelle Malkin a “mashed up bag of meat with lip stick on it.”

But that’s not the end. January 2010 has not been kind to the Countdown program, its ratings are down 44% from a year ago.  The website DailyFinance pointed out the low ratings and ran a story “Is America Getting Over Keith Olbermann?“  Keith did not like this story and attacked DailyFinance as a right-wing web site.  The author of the article replied on his site about Keith’s attack:

Keith, I don’t know what went into your decision to lie about us on your program. I don’t know whether you’ve ever actually read anything on DailyFinance, or whether one of your producers just prepped a script for you and you performed it. But stuff like this is why people like Jon Stewart and me increasingly have questions about your intellectual honesty and integrity. Knock it off already.