BREAKING NEWS!

MSNBC partisan hack David "Karl Rove will be indicted" Shuster once again been caught with his pants down:

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a Fox News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

My favorite part is how Eisenstad is supposedly a "a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy". The Harding Institute? That is hilarious.

While this certainly brings back memories from 2005 and 2006 of MSNBC's repeated fantasies about a Karl Rove indictment in the Plame Leak investigation, I harken further back to 2004 when Keith did a brilliant segment on a made-up story from Indiana's version of The Onion, The Hoosier Gazette:

On September 7th, Olbermann reported on an Indiana University study that found parents lose 12 to 20 IQ points after having children and quoted a Dr. Hosung Lee saying the report "explains why every parent thinks their child is the smartest kid in the class or the best athlete... even if that child is as dumb as a box of rocks or needs a calendar to time their 40-yard dash." And this was not just any story is was Countdown's "number one story of the day". Olbermann would have done well to trust the instincts of his next guest, Carl Reiner, who, when asked "Do you buy any of this?", replied "Not at all."

Countdown viewers may be forgiven for believing that Olbermann had read or even skimmed the study he was reporting on, or given Dr. Lee a jingle on the telephone, since he did not cite any source for his information. Despite presenting the news as original reporting, Olbermann had, in fact, pilfered the story from a single, unattributed source. For those of you who made it through high school this is sometimes referred to as "plagiarizing." And what was this single, unimpeachable source that formed the bedrock for Keith's MSNBC news report? The New York Times? The Associated Press? The New England Journal of Medicine? How about the online edition of The Hoosier Gazette?

3 Comments

By Mike C. on November 13, 2008 4:11 PM

Oops, he did it again. Or should I say "he pimped it out again"? No wonder we call him Slippery.

By KO-a-go-go on November 13, 2008 5:33 PM

I know you guys have this in your KO mini-blog, but it is really worth a viewing. Olbermann's rants boiled down to ONE MINUTE! Some of the comments from TVNewser are worth a read as well:

"It just goes to show, Olbermann doesn't so much write his special comments, as he plays outraged "mad libs" to his all too eager flock."

"It seems that Olby has really aged the past few years. And gained some weight."

"Anyone notice that since he was skewered on SNL he hasn't been quite so LOUD? Or ANGRY?"

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/watch_this_sir__100602.asp?c=rss

By Robert Cox on November 14, 2008 6:17 AM

Elevating items from the mini-blog to the comments section - and maybe even recommending them for their own post (as was the case with the Opie and Anthony video) is always welcome. This site works best as a collaborative effort.

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