Current TV countersues Keith Olbermann

The HuffPo reports: Current TV has fired back at Keith Olbermann's lawsuit, saying that his claims are untrue and that he is not entitled to any compensation.

Olbermann formally sued the network on Thursday, less than a week after Current fired him. Each side claims that the other is guilty of breach of contract.

Olbermann's complaint was full of vivid detail, and painted a picture of an experienced star battling against a series of incompetent, scheming executives.

On Friday, Politico published Current's complete legal response. In its countersuit, Current made clear that it denied "each and every allegation" Olbermann made. Calling the suit "riddled with falsehoods and distortions," the network wrote that it "had every right to terminate Mr. Olbermann's services, rather than continuing to pay a princely sum while receiving a pauper's performance in return."

The cross-complaint echoes the attacks leveled against Olbermann in the wake of his firing. Sources fanned out to various media outlets, saying that Olbermann had violated the terms of his agreement with Current by sabotaging the network and attacking it publicly.

"He has waged a campaign to breach, undermine, frustrate, and ultimately strip Current completely of the benefit of its bargain," the document reads.

One paragraph gives a flavor of Current's line of attack:

He arrogantly and falsely calls "cheap" the company that has paid him the highest compensation he had ever received in his career, provided him the largest staff of any program he had ever anchored, given him the largest studio and custom-designed set on which he had ever worked, and paid over $50,000 in an eight month period to eight different limousine companies because none of the previous seven were able to meet his Patrician standards for how to drive him around New York City.

Not surprisingly, Current is calling for Olbermann's lawsuit to be tossed out.