Mustache on the attack.

Geraldo Rivera is sorry for an instance three years ago in which he gave away U.S. troop positions by drawing lines in the Iraqi sand in front of his Fox News audience.  But the correspondent blames Keith Olbermann for the negative publicity he received immediately after.  I mean, come on, it wasn't a big story at all (Rivera was just only the first news correspondent to get kicked out of Iraq by the U.S. military in the post-Saddam era -- no big deal.).

Geraldo appeared on a Florida radio station over the holidays, and called Olbermann a wimp and challenged him to a street fight:

Apparently Geraldo was visiting with 104.1 FM's Monsters just before Christmas, when they asked him about the time he made international headline for disclosing too much information about troops in Iraq. Geraldo claimed the incident was blown out of proportion, largely by NBC -- and specifically Olbermann. Geraldo then began mumbling semi-audible names, seemingly meant to describe Olbermann: "midget ... punk ... slimeball."

But then, with the Monsters helpful prodding, Geraldo went a step further, leaving no doubt about what he was saying. He called Olbermann a coward -- specifically a "[female part of the anatomy] who wouldn't walk across the street against the red light."

He then said he was ready to fight him, saying: "I would make a pizza out of him."

On last night's edition of Countdown, host Keith Olbermann offered a reply:

"I'm about 7 inches taller than he is." And after describing Geraldo's desire to fight him, he said: "Geraldo, you should not give me a hard time. I can still remember when you were a big deal ... back when I was a kid."

Maybe Geraldo Rivera figures that trying the Trump-O'Donnell strategy might help him regain some personal feeling of legitimacy.  It sure beats pretending to carry old women from their homes following hurricane Katrina.  But as of this week, it appears that the Trump strategy of starting a feud to create a surge of publicity can backfire.  Ratings were down considerably during Sunday's debut of Donald Trump's NBC show "The Apprentice".