Dunlap: Olbermann Not A Person I'd Ever Want To Know
Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.
If you try to force a connection between the despicable terrors committed by Jerry Sandusky and some Penn State students raising money for pediatric cancer, you are nothing more than an ass going out of your way to look for trouble.
Guess what that makes Keith Olbermann?
You guessed it; an ass going out of his way to look for trouble.
You've probably heard the backstory by now about how the ESPN host took to Twitter to try to take apart THON, an initiative wherein Penn State students raised more than $13 million this past weekend to fight pediatric cancer.
It was Monday when a Penn State alumnus tweeted "We Are!" in reference to a story about THON, generating a "…Pitiful" response from Olbermann.
Olbermann went back and forth, jousted some more on Twitter and eventually got himself suspended from his ESPN show for the remainder of the week.
Oh yes, he issued a subsequent apology, too. The virtues of that apology can be debated and whether or not it was heartfelt or a corporate mandate if he wanted to keep his job.
What can't be debated is this: Don't screw with THON.
And more to the point, why would you?
What kind of indecent human picks THON to go after?
What kind of dreg or slimebucket finds it within them to spew one negative word, or have a singular undesirable thought, about an organization that has, in part, the following accomplishment and mission: Since 1977, THON has raised more than $114 million benefiting Four Diamonds at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital.
Four Diamonds picks up where insurance leaves off, enabling families to solely focus on care for their child.
Again, if you have a problem with THON, the problem is yours.
I don't know much about Keith Olbermann, but I do know that childhood cancers are the top disease killer of children in the United States.
I also know that anyone --- especially these THON students who spend tireless and countless hours raising funds --- deserve to be heavily praised and never, ever denigrated.
Conversely, ultra-miserable people like Keith Olbermann --- who has to find a negative even in a childhood cancer initiative --- are among the worst of the worst.
In fairness, I don't know Keith Olbermann; in truth I never want to.
Now, don't get me wrong, there has been no one in the local media who has been as tough on Penn State as I have through the scandal that stunned their football program. But it is something that has been measured and, from my view at least, directed at the right people.
Jerry Sandusky could do everyone a favor by going straight to hell, in my estimation.
Furthermore, from where I sit --- and as I've stated many, many times --- the blame far from ends with Sandusky.
Some say the late Joe Paterno should rest in peace --- not from this view.
A great football coach? Indeed.
A great man? I'm not so sure about that part.
There is some culpability --- the level of which can be debated --- that must fall on Paterno for the horrors that occurred at Penn State.
It doesn't end there, either.
The tentacles reach further out from a scandal that changed Penn State forever.
It is, however, a situation that had zero to do with a dance marathon this past weekend that generated millions upon millions for sick kids trying to cling to hope that a nightmarish disease will be eradicated.
If you tie the two things together, if you force an attachment between THON and the Jerry Sandusky situation, you are nothing more than a vile rabble-rouser.
That's what Olbermann is.
Conversely, those students who raised all that money at Penn State? They are heroes to a lot of sick little kids.
Keith Olbermann would do well to, perhaps, learn a thing or two from those students.