I had not made the connection with the Comcast/MSNBC merger. That is food for thought. Perhaps you'd write some more about the significance.

My own reaction was to be glad to see him go. I share both your experience with and impression of him, but I have never had much use nor respect for talking heads and cults of personality--at least not in the context of his type of television program. I only wish that so many others with shows like his would also move on to different pursuits.

Aaron, Cheers, and congrats. on the BA.
I did not know about the Comcast connection until this morning and dipping into the blog pool pending the NY Times announcement. Many commenters  made the connection. And many as well destained the whole venue as perhaps you do. Oberman was censured before on the trifling grounds of contributing to political candidates, all moderate to liberal, including Giffords. He was reinstated then likely my means of rallying supporters. This time, this censure does not surprise me, and I don't look forward to his surfacing elsewhere as as NPR's Bob Edwards did on Cirrus radio and PRI.
As a follower of Noam Chomsky and others too many to mention I have developed a painfully profound respect for what many refer to as a corporate oligarchy, The Powers That Be, the Bilderberg mind set, etc. 

Oberman's dismissal is ominous in that it signals a silencing with callous aplomb, without  apology or even explanation. Mergers like that of MSNBC and Comcast take time of course. And of course we will not know what, if anything, Oberman had to do with it. Still the timing of his firing seems a clear indication of the repugnance he represented to the new owners. Enough?