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May 19 2008 11:52AM EDT

How Olbermann vs. O'Reilly Became GE vs. News Corp.

Great story in today's Washington Post about how the personal antipathy between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann has escalated into an all-out war between News Corp. and General Electric. Or at least an all-out war by Fox News on NBC Universal, since Olbermann seems to be the only one on his side hitting back.

Fox News boss Roger Ailes has always subscribed to "the Chicago way," as articulated by Sean Connery in The Untouchables -- "They pull a knife, you pull a gun" -- so it's no surprise that O'Reilly, instead of trading jabs with Olbermann, is training his fire on GE chief Jeffrey Immelt, whom he accuses of sponsoring American deaths in Iraq by doing business in Iran. (The culpability for those deaths of pro-war pundits like O'Reilly never seems to come up, somehow.)

For Olbermann, the spat has mostly been a boon, helping to put him on the map and elevate his stature to an O'Reilly-like plane despite his lower ratings. But one wonders how much interest Fox's jihad on GE holds for its viewers. Ailes seems to have his doubts about it because he called NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker last summer, according to the Post, in hopes of brokering a ceasefire. Only after Zucker declined to muzzle Olbermann did Fox News (and, allegedly, the New York Post) start pummeling Immelt and GE regularly.

One factor that's not explored in the Post's story but deserves to be mentioned is how the arrival of Fox Business on the scene has heaped fuel on the feud. The FBN-CNBC PR war is at least as vicious as Olbermann-O'Reilly.

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