Al Gore Clashes With MSNBC Over Olbermann

Liberal icon Al Gore is now in a dust-up with liberal network MSNBC over his apparent poaching of Keith Olbermann, the fractious host the network recently dumped, according to the Los Angeles Times. Olbermann will lead a new nightly program starting this spring for the low-rated, Gore-owned Current TV, which has about 60 million subscribers in the United States.

On Tuesday, announcing Olbermann’s hiring, the former vice president declared during a phone call with reporters that "We have more subscribers today than MSNBC had when Keith Olbermann began working for them" in 2003.

But the Times reports that MSNBC is crying foul, with a spokesman citing Nielsen Co. data that shows MSNBC had 78.4 million subscribers in 2003.

But then Olbermann, who has a knack for clashing with his bosses throughout his career, chimed in. An Olbermann rep fired back by pointing to "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network & Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present," a commonly used reference book, which says that only 74 percent of those subscribers were in the United States, which conceivably could give Current a slight edge.

"I don't know what he's talking about," the MSNBC spokesman told the Times.