Olbermann/Milbank: Coincidence?

Big Head D.C. has Dana Milbank saying that his leaving for CNN had nothing to do with the kerfuffle that erupted on Countdown which Keith Olbermann detailed yesterday…

Keith Olbermann is working overtime to have people believe that WaPo’s Dana Milbank, a longtime contributor to his MSNBC program, was forced off the network as a result of pressure from Olbermann over a piece Milbank wrote last week satirizing Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential presumptions.

Not so, says Milbank. “I started contract talks with CNN on July 7,” Milbank told Big Head DC this afternoon. “It has nothing to do with last week’s column. I like Keith, and I’m sorry he’s angry about my departure.”

Big Head D.C. also has an anonymous Cable News “honcho” weighing in. Gee I wonder which network that anonymouse works for?

That was a rhetorical question btw. Do the math. It’s rather self evident…

Update: Olbermann responds on TVNewser…

Dana appeared with us the night before his column appeared with the truncated Obama quote — and did so under the terms of his contract which both he and MSNBC obviously considered still in force. After the column, he contacted us, joking he was glad I hadn’t put him on the “Worst Persons” list, and then discussing with the producers coming on to clarify or explain what he wrote. Out of appreciation for his work for us, I had delayed a permanent decision on whether he should again appear on Countdown. Dana used this time to make another deal, which he told us about the day before he appeared on another network.