Olbermann checked his hair in the mirror just as a worried PR assistant materialized. But he wasn’t done. “Don’t tell me you can’t talk about your personal life and then, when they send you overseas and you do a report that consists of your voice-over and pictures of you in a custom-made, blue-to-match-your-eyes bulletproof vest, looking somberly at these scenes of human devastation—like a tourist—and that’s your report. Your shtick is your personal life.”

It was a vintage Olbermann screed, almost lyrical in its vicious eloquence. But at the same time, it felt off again—too big a gun for too small a target.

For a moment, it made me think that Olbermann will, in fact, be lost without Bush.

But not so fast. I asked him what would happen if peace were to break out in Iraq and, more improbable still, if O’Reilly were to follow Bush into a glorious retirement.

“If there’s nothing to complain about, I’m not going to fictionalize anger,” Olbermann said. “Then I become everything I despise.”

He grinned a gloomy grin as he contemplated a universe without Worst Persons in the World. Then he brightened. “But I think that is highly unlikely.”

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Stephen Rodrick
• Table of Contents: Apr 16, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!