ESPN Suspends Keith Olbermann For Weird Tweets About Pediatric Cancer and Penn State

Keith Olbermann fans, wherever you are, whoever you are, despair: ESPN announced on Tuesday that it will suspend the anchor for the rest of the week following a bout of weirdly confrontational, painfully tone-deaf Twitter bullying. Deadspin has the ESPN announcement in full:

We are aware of the exchange Keith Olbermann had on Twitter last night regarding Penn State. It was completely inappropriate and does not reflect the views of ESPN. We have discussed it with Keith, who recognizes he was wrong. ESPN and Keith have agreed that he will not host his show for the remainder of this week and will return on Monday. The annual tradition of THON and the efforts of the students of Penn State to fight pediatric cancer should be applauded.

If you find the details of the Twitter brawl bewildering, you may be even more confused by a clarification. It seems Olbermann inteded to describe Penn State students as “pitiful,” but wound up inadvertently maligning THON, an annual student body fundraiser for pediatric cancer research. At that point, he simply dug in his heels, leading to a series of increasingly angry and misguided tweets.

Olbermann has since apologized and will be back on air next Monday.