Keith Olbermann

Orginally posted 3/29, updated 4/11

Hey if the New York Post can write great, if somewhat misleading headlines, why can’t I?

The equation that liberal Keith and conservative Bill were essentially separated at birth may not apply in all ways but in at least one they are equal: Both are blowhards who seem almost incapable of admitting mistakes.

(Each has one major exception to this: Olbermann famously wrote the “Mea Culpa” essay for Salon in 2002 about his experience at ESPN and O’Reilly admitted in 2004 he was wrong in believing President Bush’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq).

The latest incident involves a bizarre Olbermann attack on a supposedly fake Twitter account set up in his name that the acerbic host claimed was set up by one of his enemies at Fox News. A week and a half ago Olbermann did is usual over-the-top routine on Twitter and made it his “Worst Person in the World” for the alleged transgression. But it turns out almost no part of the story was true and Olbermann and MSNBC refuse to respond.

Red State summarizes all this here and a post on Daily Kos confirms a key part (that NBC set up the Twitter account for Olbermann and had staffers post to it — see item #5). It seems that Olbermann went on a rhetorical rampage without doing much, if any, checking to see if his claims were true.

Olbermann apparently got almost everything wrong:

• The Countdown Twitter account was not a fake  — and in fact there were two of them. Here’s Twitter founder Biz Stone’s Tweet on the matter:

Funny story about the @keitholbermann account—MSNBC was running it and Keith didn’t know when he called us the Worst in the World (D’oh!) 5:22 PM Mar 24th from web

• The man he accused of setting it up is not a Fox News stooge but a very critical former employee who sounds much more like somone Olbermann would quote instead of slime.
• It’s hard to set up a Twitter account (“I’m not on Twitter. I tried to sign up last summer but abandoned the project.”).
• And that the “junk email” Olbermann claims tipped him off was actually junk email. It was, apparently, a invite to follow someone on Twitter which would have been familiar to any Twitter user has Olbermann actually shown it to one.

One unremarked part of this story is how little coverage it has gotten from obvious Olbermann fans like the HuffPo. After an initial report showing video of Olbermann’s rant there has been no follow up. Can you imagine what the liberal netroots would say if the shoe were on O’Reilly’s foot?

The point is not that the liberal or conservative netroots and media are one-sided and sometimes right or wrong — that goes without saying — but that partisans who believe only they speak the truth are dangerously deluded and add nothing to helping people understand what’s really going on in the country and world.

Get Real is all about casting a skeptical eye on our nation of loudmouths. This is why.

UPDATE

Well it took some time but Keith finally admitted he was wrong. Sort of. It’s obviously incredibly painful for him. Like giving birth to a hippo. Watch and see for yourself. I’m thinking this doesn’t really deserve a Mea Ciulpa….

Note: this is video contains the Olbermann “response” and was produced by Caleb Howe of the ActiCons blog.