Olbermann named Coulter “Worst Person” for repeated calls for execution of New York Times staff

Written by Rob Morlino

Published

On MSNBC's Countdown, Keith Olbermann awarded Ann Coulter another “Worst Person in the World” award for her recent calls for the execution of New York Times staff members.

On the July 17 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann awarded right-wing pundit Ann Coulter another “Worst Person in the World” award for her recent calls for the execution of New York Times staff members. As Media Matters for America noted, while referring to the Times' decision to report on the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program and a Treasury Department program designed to track international financial transactions for terrorist activity, during a July 12 appearance on The Jon Caldara Show on Denver radio station KOA, Coulter declared that the Times had done “something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get the Rosenbergs executed." As Media Matters had earlier noted, in the July 12 edition of her nationally syndicated column, Coulter wrote that if Times executive editor Bill Keller were convicted of treason, “I prefer a firing squad, but I'm open to a debate on the method of execution.”

In crowning Coulter “Worst Person,” Olbermann pointed to a threatening letter discovered in the mail room of the Times on July 14 when an employee opened “a white, business-sized envelope with no return address and saw what he later described as white powder,” which turned out not to be hazardous. A copy of the Times' June 28 editorial “Patriotism and the Press” -- which defended the Times' coverage of the administration's surveillance programs -- was also included in the envelope with the letter 'X" written on it. Olbermann then advised Coulter that “one day, somebody at the Times, probably some guy in the mail room, is going to get hurt and it'll be on your conscience -- if you have one.”

From the July 17 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

OLBERMANN: Tonight's winner: Coultergeist! Again! For the same thing. She went on another radio show to suggest staffers of The New York Times be executed. Hey Annie, you do realize that there are chowderheads out there even stupider than you are, and they don't get that you're a screaming fraud, and that they read or hear what you say and then they send envelopes full of white powder to The Times like they did last week, and that one day somebody at The Times, probably some guy in the mail room, is going to get hurt and it'll be on your conscience -- if you have one. Ann Coulter: today's “Worst Person in the World.”