On March 30th, Current TV terminated its relationship with outspoken liberal anchor Keith Olbermann. The Daily Caller has exclusively obtained many of the emails between Olbermann and network founder Al Gore in the months leading up to the split. They are reprinted here for the first time, in their entirety, and without comment.
FROM: Keith Olbermann
TO: Al Gore
DATE: June 18, 2011
Dear Albert,
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
Those words come from Samuel Clemens, perhaps better known to you as literary colossus Mark Twain.
I need not tell you, Al, that I am that scarce man who refuses to remain silent when he sees injustice, that patriot who stands tall and strong and brave, even when hated and scorned. And I do see injustice �“ even here at Current TV.
I tried to remedy my current morass without coming to you, Al, but with no remedy forthcoming, I feel compelled to bring to your attention my roadblock, which you shall note is something far more severe than a mere speed bump.
In the new studio for my show, I find no golden scepter despite my explicit request to Joel Hyatt for one. This will be an indispensable part of my new show and I see no reason why I have to justify its expense.
Also, the Current proletariat seem to have no inhibitions about walking up to me and freely engaging me in conversation, as if I have time for their verbal meanderings. For all their faults, my employers at MSNBC made it explicitly clear that if someone wanted to communicate with me, they could do so — but only through letters written in calligraphy that were deposited in a receptacle outside my office between 2:30 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.
Why has this same policy not yet been communicated at Current?
In a letter written in his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama at a time of great tumult, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote prophetically: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Will you fix my injustices, Al?
Yours Truly,
Keith Theodore Olbermann
Cornell University, Class of 1979
p.s. We also have to replace stinky my car driver — pronto!!!
FROM: Al Gore
TO: Keith Olbermann
DATE: June 22, 2011
Hello Keith,
When do you think they will commodify the rain? Someday they will try and turn it to poison. You came onboard to this endeavor full of promise. Has that good tide soured?
You are a part of me. We are all one. My life force drives Current. I am its noble blood.
I intend to be the Defender of Nature. Will you join me? Gold from streams untapped is all the more sweet. Can you taste it on your tongue?
I am standing in an almond now. It stands inside me. My scepter is made from almond wood and laced with sage. It is powerful. Soon I will command the oceans. The fish listen already.
We are all one. Even Stinky.
Mahalo,
A.G.
FROM: Keith Olbermann
TO: Al Gore
DATE: December 12, 2011
Promote my show? Really, Al? Here’s a compromise. I’ll do it when you get me my f’ing golden scepter. Six months in and sill no f’ing scepter. What is this, Somalia TV?
Keith Theodore Olbermann
Cornell University, Class of 1979
p.s. “Car service” number 5 not cutting it. I don’t think it is too much to expect a sedan — and not a two-seater bicycle — to pick me up.
TO: Keith Olbermann
FROM: Al Gore
DATE: December 15, 2011
Hello Keith,
My dreams have begun to trouble me. Our language has not yet caught up with the artist. There is a moon we have visited but do not understand, and in our unwillingness to see clearly, we have tried to turn it into something menacing.
Put it this way: is it a man with a hat, or a hat with a man? If man were to evolve the capacity to grow hats, would we still call them hats? How would we view them? As equals? I hope so.
Are you able to understand what I’m telling you?
Mahalo,
A.G.
FROM: Keith Olbermann
TO: Al Gore
DATE: March 20th, 2012
Albert,
Let me put my cards on the table. I’m not happy about the car service fiascos. I’m not happy that my studio doesn’t have electricity. I’m not happy that you have a young Turkish fellow on before me. I’m not happy that you expect me to show up to work regularly and sober. I particularly loathe the daily showering rule you have mandated. And as you and the entire staff are abundantly aware by now, I’m especially unhappy about the golden scepter imbroglio.
But I must say that each and every time I reach out to you, you invariably write back with extremely lucid and helpful advice.
So it is in that spirit I come to you on my last leg, a leg that is not young, strong and fresh, but one that is wooden and rotting. I need four things from you immediately, Al, if I am to remain at Current to continue to fight against the one percenters and the corporate oligarchs that threaten this nation, and indeed this very world:
1) 345 days of vacation a year.
2) The public impaling of Joel Hyatt.
3) My f’ing golden scepter.
4) A ruby encrusted toilet seat in my private bathroom.
Yours in Truth,
Keith Theodore Olbermann
Cornell University, Class of 1979
FROM: Al Gore
TO: Keith Olbermann
DATE: March 22nd, 2012
Keith,
When we first shook hands I saw a moon dance. I saw a great river pounding the volcanos of Hawai’i. There are wires all around us that I thought you saw, theories and modes of being far removed from suburban connotations of ease and malfeasance.
It’s become clear over the last few months that you don’t understand the mission of Current. I don’t know if this is because you can’t understand Thomas Kuhn’s theories of scientific revolution, or Cartesian modes of thought, or the life-cycle of Thetans.
It’s not that the dew reflects a perfect world. You can understand that, can’t you? We all are one through technology, but I feel that revolution has left you cold somehow, your unwillingness to accept me as antediluvian. There is a shame to passion.
Mahalo,
A.G.
p.s. any chance you have Elliot Spitzer’s number?
Follow Jamie and follow Will on Twitter
Join the conversation on The Daily Caller
Read more stories from The Daily Caller
Keith Olbermann and Al Gore: the secret emails revealed
Study: Homophobes may secretly be gay themselves
Autopsy: Whitney Houston found scarred, high, scalded, missing teeth