Countdown: Wednesday January 28: Keith starts off Worst Person in the World with a totally wrong recap of the Jessica Alba-Bill O'Reilly "feud." KO says:

She now famously called him the hole word, and when Fixed News [Ding!] chased her for a response the network should 'Go Sweden about it.' By 'Go Sweden About it' she said she meant be neutral.

And KO adds that Bill fired back by saying she was "uninformed and a pinhead."

Seriously. Keith is actually going there?

Oh my, yes.

Then Keith reads from Alba's blog that "It's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during World War II was Switzerland." Then Keith brings up Billo's mistake about Malmedy again. "Now proves to know less about the second World War than does the star of the movie Sin City."

Holy crap, this is like the Holy Grail of KO f-ups.

Let's start with the easy one. Alba was not the "star" of Sin City. She wasn't even in it that much. Try saying the star of Honey or Into the Blue. So KO proves he doesn't know much about movies.

Now, let's take a look at what really happened between Alba and O'Reilly.

O'Reilly sent his producer Jesse Watters to interview celebrities who went to Washington DC for the inauguration. O'Reilly showed two clips on his show. One was of Jamie Foxx complimenting O'Reilly and speaking intelligently about George Bush and moving forward. (KO doesn't mention this part of it). To contrast this for fun, O'Reilly shows the Alba clip in which she sounds like the total dunce that she no doubt is, and refuses to give a shout-out to O'Reilly because "he's kind of an A-Hole."

KO doesn't mention that Watters then asked Alba to clarify that statement and say what's so objectionable about O'Reilly, to which she stumbles upon an answer before settling on "if I answer that I'm admitting I watch Fox News." So she doesn't even watch the damn show, but she wants to open her big mouth and insult the guy. Which just goes to show you how far a hot body and no talent gets you in Hollywood. Then she does a little mea culpa about Fox being good to her movie-wise. Cuz who else would cast her in two crappy Fantastic Four movies. I mean really.

So, what did KO say?

She now famously called him the hole word, and when Fixed News [Ding!] chased her for a response the network should 'Go Sweden about it.'

ERRRRRR. Wrong answer, douchebag. So sorry.

The Watters confrontation took place I believe at the red carpet entrance of the Jan. 18 Declare Yourself event.

Later, as Alba and her hubby were waiting for a cab to go home, a different reporter started to talk to Alba, who turned on her cell-phone camera and began interviewing the reporter about what he liked about Obama. When he tried to claim objectivity wouldn't let him answer, she told him "Be Neutral. Be Sweden about it."

KO would have you believe she was telling Jesse Watters to be Sweden. But no. A simple Internet search shows the "Be Sweden" was directed at Nicholas Ballasy of CNS News, which is not Fox News, but it's conservative leaning, so I guess in Olby's mind it's all the same, right?

Then it was TMZ.com that first called Alba a "ditz" about confusing Sweden and Switzerland. And O'Reilly later showed the clip as well, which led to him saying she was misinformed.

So here we have two different clips of Alba, and two different segments on O'Reilly, which Olby would have us believe is just one clip (just one day after blasting Bernie Goldberg for supposedly parsing a clip about Tom Brokaw).

And here's what Keith decided to leave out about the exchange between Alba and Bill. Before Alba responded in Blog form, someone challenged O'Reilly on the Sweden neutrality question. And O'Reilly responded that neutrality is written into Switzerland's constitution, and that Sweden takes it on a case by case basis--and in fact has troops in Afghanistan.

So, Jan. 27, Alba posts her blog with the "it's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland" comment. Even though in none of the clips of her saying "Be Sweden" is she saying "Be Sweden from World War II."

It's so obvious that Alba, who by all accounts is dumb as rocks, was embarrassed and in an attempt to save face went to the Sweden Wikipedia page, found an instance of their neutrality in the past, and made up this BS about herself referring to WWII. So ... blatantly ... utterly ... obvious.

But it gets better. In their blind lust to sign on to any slam of O'Reilly, the idiots at Media Matters decide to pick up the story and side with Alba, which is probably how it crossed KO's desk since he obviously doesn't watch the Factor. And they start slamming O'Reilly for not knowing that Sweden was neutral during World War II, even though Alba never mentioned WWII in the clip, and clearly doesn't know any better. So Media Matters' sole basis for the slam on O'Reilly is the single-sourced blog of a Hollywood actress, with that single source being the actress herself, relying on Wikipedia, another journalistic no-no.

Which means Keith Olbermann and Media Matters have staked their journalistic reputations on the feeble-minded (yet hot) star of Good Luck Chuck!

And where did Media Matters get the story? Holy jeez, Courtney Hazlett's The Scoop column at MSNBC.com! (mistyped as MSNCB in the Media Matters post at the time of this writing).

My god. So her defense is making up a response to an argument that was never made, and then accusing those who called her out of not knowing what she meant by a comment she never said, and these dolts can't see right through that? Or is that style of debate acceptable now? Retro-historical rebuttals? It doesn't matter if what you said doesn't fit the facts right now. If it fit another time's facts, yeah, it's fine. I guess that paves the way for KO and MSNBC to just freeze their ratings at the one time they may have approached O'Reilly in total viewers, right?

It's like if I advertised a car with 10,000 miles, and the guy shows up and it has 75,000 miles. And I actually try to sell him with "It had only 10,000 miles at one time. That's close enough. Most people wouldn't buy that used car, but I guess the idiots at MSNBC and Media Matters would!

KO also doesn't bother mentioning TMZ's classic response:

She is absolutely correct. Sweden was a neutral country ... 60 years ago. We apologize for not considering the political climate of the world in 1942 when we suggested she may have meant, 'Be Switzerland' -- a country that is currently neutral.

Seriously, KO. Try doing some actual research beyond your usual crappy sources, douche.

By the way, Oralmann says Sweden's well-known neutrality must be evident as it made the popular culture as recently as the film Catch-22. Is that the same Catch-22 movie that came out in 1970. Nearly 40 years ago? That recently?

Olby's display tonight is just flat out embarrassing, incompetent reporting. Hope it's worth the $4 million, NBC!

I mean damn. It's crap like this that really ticks me off about the injustices in the world. Really, really ticks me off.

Guest blogged by America47000.

9 Comments

By puck30 on January 29, 2009 11:07 AM

Olby?

Actual research?

Surely you jest!

And don't call me Shirley!

By Cecelia on January 29, 2009 12:16 PM

GREAT blog, A47!

By Mike C. on January 29, 2009 1:04 PM

I agree, Cece. Excellent job, A47.

By LucasCop on January 29, 2009 6:29 PM

Ditto. Bravo.

By ktt on January 29, 2009 8:30 PM

Excellent job, and filled with more facts and support than KO uses every night.

By meerkatpooh on January 29, 2009 9:07 PM

Good job and I'm glad that A47 brought light to the matter between Alba and Bill. Of course KO doesn't have a freakin clue about what's going on and how he pockets 4 Million from NBC is beyond me.

By The Factor on January 29, 2009 9:22 PM

Classic Olbermann. Like a true useful idiot he vomits what ever is typed on Media Matters and doesn't bother to do the hard investigation of actually watching the video for 5 seconds. Now not only has Olbermann made himself look like a bigger ass that Jessica Alba, but he has aslo pissed off TMZ. I hope Keith has cleaned out the skeletons in his closet. If he hasn't TMZ will find them.

By Lafinman on January 29, 2009 10:28 PM

I don't watch the Factor that much and knew she made the Sweden comment to a non-Fox reporter when I saw it. I guess if I wanted t rip on a show, I'd better watch it ( even though Coutndown is hard to watch these days with all the quality investigating that it contains )

But we'd all agree if Alba was caught on tape telling the paparatzi to go F themselves O'Reilly would defend her as he has been with other stars who are wrongly being stalked.

By Mike C. on January 31, 2009 2:03 AM

Via the MSNBC.com transcript:
Tease 1: "Worsts: Jessica Alba knows more about World War II than Bill O'Reilly."
Tease 2: "And in Worsts: Bill O'Reilly finds out he knows less about the Second World War than does actress Jessica Alba."
Tease 3: "Pining for the fjords? What kind of talk is that? If you hadn't nailed him to the toilet, he'd be pushing up the daisies! My apologies to John Cleese. And, when will Billo [Ding!] apologize to Jessica Alba, she makes an obscure historical reference about the Second World War, he claims, (likely with Ted Baxter voice): “She's a pinhead.” (normal): She proves she was right and he was, per usual, wrong. Worst Persons is ahead on COUNTDOWN."
Tease 4: "Do you know as much about the history of World War II as Jessica Alba does? Bill-O [Ding!] doesn't, as we will find out in Worsts."

And finally: "The bronze to Bill-O the clown [Ding!] who has gotten schooled again about World War II, again, by actress Jessica Alba. She now famously called Bill-O [Ding!] the hole word, and when Fixed News [Ding!] chased her for a response, she suggested the network should go Sweden about it. By go Sweden about it, she said she meant be neutral." As A47 pointed out, that was Another Olbermann Lie. "Bill-O [Ding!] fired back, saying she was uninformed. Labeled her a, quote [Ding!], (likely with Ted Baxter voice): pinhead. (normal): And decided she had clearly confused Sweden and the famously neutral nation of Switzerland.
Ms. Alba has now gotten the last word, writing on a blog that ... Sweden was not only famously, sometimes painfully neutral during the war, indeed during most of the 20th century. But that fact made its way into pop culture as recently as the movie “Catch-22.”
Bill-O [Ding!], who didn‘t know the Americans were the victims and not the war criminals at Malmady [Ding!] in that war, now proves to have know less about the Second World War than does the star of the movie “Sin City.”"

Dumb.

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