Twitter turned on Keith Olbermann after he mocked a photo of Sen. Mitt Romney’s large extended family and suggested the clan use birth control.
The sports correspondent-turned-liberal political commentator posted a screenshot of Romney’s Christmas greeting Wednesday with the caption: “Somebody gift these people some vasectomies.”
The Mormon Republican senator from Utah and his wife, Anne, have five sons and dozens of grandchildren. His Christmas post featured the photo, a Bible verse and the greeting, “From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!”
The backlash was swift against the 62-year-old YouTuber. One person likened him to the cold-hearted, Christmas-hating Charles Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge.
“I think one of the saddest potential of a human is to grow old, but have no descendants,” Jack McGuire of Barstool Sports commented. “Keith Olbermann has no children. Just an empty penthouse near Central Park where he yells at people about vaccines all day like the Scrooge. I feel bad for him. It’s a sad life.”
Olbermann seemed to revel in the criticism, retweeting a scathing comment from National Conservative editor Austin Drake.
“Mitt Romney – 5 children and 52 years of marriage vs. Keith Olbermann – never married and no children. I think we know who the better man is,” Drake wrote.
“Thanks for the compliment!” Olbermann replied.
Some commenters agreed that something rubbed them the wrong way about the large family’s color-coordinated photo, with one person saying it seemed “cultish.”
“They are all dressed alike. The start on the right w/all the light-haired people and move left to dark-haired people. Scary,” another person wrote.
Others thought the photo sent a poor message when the government was promoting social distancing to protect against the surging COVID-19 Omicron variant.
“I don’t care how many are in the family, but that they stupidly got together in the same place during a pandemic,” one person tweeted. “I count 37 in the photo–there are 53 in my immediate family, but we didn’t all get together this year because we don’t want the next family gathering to be a wake.”
Still, many conservatives who engaged with the post saved their ire for Olbermann, who has never married or had children.
“Lonely childless Boomer has thoughts on vast loving family send Tweet,” Federalist publisher Ben Domenech tweeted.
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