Well, it turns out I CAN shed a little light on it. TVN actually got the quote wrong when he first put it up (O'Reilly's comment about Lester Holt was exaggerated to read that he was the "only" honest reporter at MSNBC). And TVN linked to a Hardball segment to reference what he thought Mr Bill was talking about, which it wasn't.

We did contact TVN and filled him in on the correct facts (which is why I got a hat-tip on). To his credit, TVN did immediately correct the errors. On the other hand, it might have been amusing to leave the inaccurate quote up and just wait for Keith to take the bait. After all, it's not like that hasn't happened before!

Johnny,

I just want you to know that I mistakenly defended your honor today.

When I linked to the mediabistro site I read about the O'Reilly charge of "slander" against Olbermann and then read the sentence attributing it to you-- "Johnny Dollar --genius" I though that was snark because you had backed O'Reilly and so I sent the site a bruising letter on your behalf:

Dear Mediabistro,

Concerning Bill O'Reilly's statement about the MSNBC "analyst" (Keith Olbermann): There is no doubt that O'Reilly can be as dense as a jam cake and is as arrogant as they come. But Olbermann's continuous attacks on Fox News and O'Reilly via Countdown are at a level of self-indulgence that I have never seen in a news show ANCHOR.

Olbermann's overt belligerence is astonishing and goes well beyond any justified criticism that Fox and O'Reilly garner. How could anyone fault even the grandiose Mr O'Reilly in his assumption that it's based on sour grapes.

Another quick point concerns your criticism of O'Reilly calling Olbermann an analyst and not an anchor. Considering the Olbermann quote you post, I'd think you'd have less trouble with O'Reilly's identification of Olbermann as an analyst and more with terming Olbermann's remarks as a "question". Sure sounded like analysis to me... all wrapped in one very leading...eh...question...

"To some degree, do you think CBS got caught in this here because they had otherwise played within the journalistic rules? I mean if you look at the swift boat ads last summer, full of distortions, some demonstrably untrue content in there. Yet they were run as gospel by many news outlets, even though they were by definition designed to influence the election. But you're not going to see Fox News appointing an independent investigation into its own journalistic ethics or lack there of over those ads."

I see from your posts that you weren't being snarked after all. Just know that any critic of Olbermann is a friend of mine... and I've got your back, Mister.

Cecelia, thank you so much. I'm glad you wrote the letter!