Worst Pundit of the Year? O'Reilly, Olbermann, Hannity and Colmes

As David pointed out, TIME's Person of the Year was really not too shocking, nor was it much of a contest. In fact, it amounts to such a non-news event that Political Machine has decided to take it upon ourselves to explore some more interesting categories than the catch-all "person" of the year.

Who was the worst pundit this year? It was a heck of a year for bad punditry, but these four stand out to me as the obvious finalists.

Bill O'Reilly
Love him or hate him, he definitely can grab the spotlight with his on-air rantings. But this year, O'Reilly's most famous moment came from a widely circulated (and very NSFW) off-air rant at his producer. It may not be fair to award O'Reilly the prize for something he did decades ago, but I'm sure if you think really hard you can come up with another reason O'Reilly should be the worst pundit of the year.

Chris Matthews/Keith Olbermann
It definitely says something about a pundit when he is fired from his job for being TOO biased, but this is what happened to Chris and Keith at MSNBC this year. Ok, so they weren't exactly fired, but the overtly liberal MSNBC this year decided that the pair simply didn't have the integrity to anchor their coverage of the 2008 election.

Alan Colmes
Why anyone would walk away from a high-paying job in which your only task is to sit around and look defeated, I have no idea, but that's what Alan Colmes did this year. Assuming anyone misses him, or notices that he's gone, I'm nominating Alan for cutting and running from Sean Hannity, which brings me to my last nomination.

Sean Hannity
Whom I nominate for choosing not to leave the show when Colmes did.



SEE ALSO:
Worst Pundit of the Year
Worst Senate Subcommittee of the Year
Whiner of the Year
Who Time Didn't Consider