Brooksville City Council's underwear rule rankles Keith Olbermann

BROOKSVILLE — Keith Olbermann's nightly "Worst Persons in the World" segment on his MSNBC show usually targets conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. On Monday night's broadcast of Countdown, the seat of dishonor belonged to the Brooksville City Council.

Olbermann took the council to task for passing a dress code for city employees that he felt went too far into personal space. As detailed Sunday in a St. Petersburg Times story, the new policy dictates that employees use deodorant, keep their tattoos and wounds covered, do not wear spandex or revealing clothing, and only wear piercings in their ears. Oh, and they must wear underwear.

The last part got under Olbermann's skin. Quoting the Times story's references to Mayor Joe Bernardini's questions about who will monitor compliance with the skivvies' rule, Olbermann compared the council to the character Woody Allen played in his 1971 movie Bananas. In it, Fielding Mellish, president of the fictional country of San Marcos, decrees that everyone must change their underwear every half-hour and so they must wear their underwear outside of their clothing.