Coulter smacks down Olbermann

07 Mar, 2009 by Cassy Fiano

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If you ever watch Keith Olbermann, you know that he loves to bash people for what he apparently sees as an inferior education. And I guess he can, because he went to an Ivy League school.

Oh, wait, Ann Coulter busted that wide open:

Indeed, Keith is constantly lying about his nonexistent “Ivy League” education, boasting to Playboy magazine, for example: “My Ivy League education taught me how to cut corners, skim books and take an idea and write 15 pages on it, and also how to work all day at the Cornell radio station and never actually go to class.”

Except Keith didn’t go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).

Olbermann’s incessant lying about having an “Ivy League education” when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a “Yale man.”

Among the graduates of the Ivy League Cornell are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Wolfowitz, E.B. White, Sanford I. Weill, Floyd Abrams, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Ginsburg, Janet Reno, Henry Heimlich and Harold Bloom.

Graduates of the ag school include David LeNeveu of the Anaheim Ducks, Mitch Carefoot of the Phoenix RoadRunners, Darren Eliot, former professional hockey player, and Joe Nieuwendyk, multiple Stanley Cup winner.

… If you actually want to pursue a career related to agriculture, there is no better school than the Cornell ag school. I have nothing but admiration for the farmers and aspiring veterinarians at the ag school. They didn’t go there just to have “Cornell” on their resumes.

In addition to the farmers, there are some smart kids who go to the ag school — as there are at all state universities. But most people who majored in “communications” at an ag school don’t act like Marshall Scholars or go around mocking graduates of Regent University Law School.

Yes, Ann, most people don’t do that. But Keith Olbermann is not most people, is he?

This column, of course, sparked a feud between Olbermann and Coulter ending with Olbermann looking even more humiliated.

Here’s the thing about Keith Olbermann and his choice to attend Cornell’s ag school, supposedly because of the cost, although I wonder if Olbermann could have even gotten into the Ivy League school. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with it! Why is he so damn defensive? (Well, I know why he’s so defensive, but we’ll get to that in a second.) I’m sure plenty of people exercize the same options and save a lot of time and money by doing so. It’s a perfectly acceptable diploma.

It does not, however, qualify you as an Ivy-Leaguer. And this is what really burns Olbermann.

It’s not Ann Coulter thumbing her nose at Cornell’s ag school; it’s Keith Olbermann that is. The fact that he even feels the need to stretch the truth about his college degree to make it seem more prestigious says enough in and of itself. He obviously feels a degree of shame and insecurity about his degree.

His response to Coulter’s column was so sad and pathetic, too — especially when he felt the need to drag out his framed and matted diploma, proclaiming, “SEE! IT SAYS CORNELL! I’M A CORNELL GRAD! HAHAHAHAHA!” Yes, Keith, you are a Cornell grad. And good Lord, could you be more pompous about it?? You graduated from the ag school, not the Ivy League school. And meanwhile, you constantly mock people for their supposedly inferior education.

Nice.

And sure, he says he’s never heard of Cornell grads distinguishing between the different colleges. But trust me, like any other prestigious organization, they surely do. Like Ace says:

No offense, Keith. You thought that because you were at the weaker, less-selective school. And you didn’t hear it because people were just being nice.

Trust me, I heard a lot of this, and I didn’t even go to a great school. But yeah, the people at the more-selective college did get annoyed when those from the less-selective colleges would claim to have come from our college. Like deliberately misstating which college they actually attended in the yearbook.

Petty, yes, but people are petty.

Again, I’m sure you, at the state ag school, thought you were all equals. The kids at the pricey, tony, more-selective Ivy private college didn’t.

And that’s not just Coulter — that’s all of them.

If Keith Olbermann wants to run around dissing people for their choice in higher education, he has every right to do so. But next time, perhaps he’ll think twice. Maybe he’ll cease to put down one school while stretching the truth about his own choice in higher education.

But that’ll probably happen the same day that Olbermann stops impersonating Bert from Sesame Street.

Hat Tip: Olbermann Watch

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more commentary or follow her on Twitter!