On the February 2 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann again awarded Fox News host Bill O'Reilly third-place honors during his nightly “Worst Person in the World” segment, this time in recognition of O'Reilly's January 31 assertion -- documented by Media Matters for America here -- that CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour has a “rooting interest” in the Iraq war being a disaster.

Reading O'Reilly's quotes in an imitation of Ted Baxter, a pompous and knuckleheaded newscaster played by actor Ted Knight on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (MTM Productions, 1970-77), Olbermann stated:

OLBERMANN: Number three: it's Ted Baxter again, this time because CNN's Christiane Amanpour said: “Iraq has basically turned out to be a disaster.” O'Reilly says of Ms. Amanpour: “You can draw by that that she has a rooting interest in it being a disaster.” Well -- well, no, you can't, not if you use human logic. Besides which, he wouldn't really take a swipe at CNN after saying, quote, “CNN, for example, usually competes with class, not bitterness.”

As Media Matters noted, Olbermann previously criticized O'Reilly for claiming NBC took “cheap shots” at Fox News Network. Olbermann mocked O'Reilly's contention that the competition between Fox News and CNN plays out with “class, not bitterness,” noting that “Fox News compared CNN's Paula Zahn to an outhouse and a dead muskrat."