In an interesting little profile in New York Magazine, Stephen Rodrick gives us some insight into the man both loved and loathed by many.

Like, for example, “the former SportsCenter anchor has even been credited with helping to effect the Democratic takeover of Congress this past November.� Okay, some points are more logical than others.

But on to reality:

It seems like Olbermann doesn’t get along that well with fellow MSNBC-er Chris Matthews.

It’s a couple hours before his nightly broadcast, and Olbermann is looking through boxes of mail in his Secaucus office. “Maybe this one contains Chris Matthews’s eyebrows…You see them last night? Did he borrow them from Joe Pesci?�

Later, a PR flack tells the writer, Olbermann will snort on air—an imitation of Matthews.

Also, Keith doesn’t like to share. That’s why you’ll never see anyone else on the Countdown stage with him. He’ll only ever speak to them through feeds (even if they happen to be in the same building).

You can thank Tony Soprano (sort of) for turning Keith into the liberal pit bull he’s become.

I was sitting on the tarmac in L.A. … I’d exhausted all the conversations with James Gandolfini, who was on the flight. And I thought, ‘Where is the outrage? Where are the constitutional-scholar conservatives coming out and going, “This guy is a danger to democracy. Not to the Democrats or Republicans but to the democracy.� Where is that person?’…Then I thought, ‘Oh yea, I have a newscast, don’t I? I have an editorial latitude, don’t I? Well, I guess it’s my turn. Let me strap the jetpack on.’

Ted Danson likes him. Recently, in New York, the actor approached him in a restaurant.

Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing every night. Thank you and keep it up.

Keith Olbermann got beat up a lot when he was a kid…even by girls.

And here are some of his thoughts on his competitors.

On O’Reilly:

It wasn’t until I left MSNBC in December of ’98 that Bill took second place. Seeing what he did with that and the perversions of television he’s created, I felt bad about it. I might have been able to stop this. It must be like the way Gore or Kerry wake up in the middle of the night thinking, I could have stopped this. I carry that around with me.

His most blistering attack is saved for—of all people—CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who despite rumors that he’s gay, refuses to openly discuss his personal life.

Don’t tell me you don’t want to talk about [your] personal life when you wrote a book about your father’s death and your brother’s death. You can’t move this big mass of personal stuff out for public display, then people ask questions and you say, ‘Oh, no, I didn’t say there was going to be any questions.’ It’s the same thing as the Bush administration saying, ‘We’re going to war, but you really aren’t allowed to know why.’ … 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.