Does it matter? Of course it matters! Not on any penetrating level, of course, but on a national scale this is some political shit we can all finally relate to. You can’t expect Britney to turn off The Hills, put down her pink sequined Bible and start talking foreign policy with a clear head. Let’s be realistic about where and when we’re at. Attention spans barely hold through the commercial breaks, let alone some crazy space talk about immigration reform and economic infrastructures. But put a pair of garden shears in Revered Jackson’s hands and set him loose on live TV? That’s something you don’t need your meds to pay attention to!

See, Jackson’s not too happy with Obama for being excessively moralistic in his comments about black men. Obama wants fathers to be more responsible for their children! Let’s cut his balls off. Sounds reasonable to me.

Naturally, the good Reverend issued a lightning-fast apology, beating most of the media to the punch on the incident itself:

“For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama’s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.

“My appeal was for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males, but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy which would be a corrective action for the lack of good choices that often led to their irresponsibility.

“That was the context of my private conversation and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which we are involved or my pride in Senator Barack Obama, who is leading it, whom I have supported by crisscrossing this nation in every level of media and audience from the beginning in absolute terms.”

Fair enough. It’s alright, Rev. I don’t think Obama’s gonna care too much. He’s too deep in the rockstar to be offended now.

Last October, in celebration of the corporate scam capitalist holiday known as Skwerl’s birthday, the family went to Roscoe’s down on Pico for some glorious Carol C action. About halfway through our syrupy little trip through chicken & waffle heaven, who should sit down at the table right next to us but the Reverend Jesse Jackson himself, with a bunch of important-looking dinosaurs. We contemplated asking him when the next Million Man March is, or whether he preferred playing for the A’s or the Yankees. But we ultimately chickened out of the opportunity to be photographed with an American icon in such a comically ironic location due to Skwerl’s Big Business shirt, which bears a huge red pentagram on the front. Conflict of interest, since he’s, you know, a reverend and all.

They’ve got sharp knives at Roscoe’s. Thank Christ we didn’t insult the waitress within earshot. The fucker was right across from us.

soundman07 said:
“Agreed [Bill O'Reilly and Paul Wolfowitz are "Totally Full Of Shit"], but so is Olbermann, and you won’t see him crucified here.”

At this, I gasped. Well not really- that’d be totally gay- but I mean, I definitely don’t want people thinking that we’d ever turn a blind eye to someone being completely full of shit just because we agree with what they say most of the time.
So I immediately did two things. First, I welcomed soundman07 (and anyone out there) to supply us with any evidence of anyone being full of shit so we could give them a fair and equal crucifixion. Then, I started doing some research. Because I didn’t want to wait for someone else to do my detective work for me (in the spirit of true journalism), I set out to find examples of Olbermann lying.

I found a little bit right away.

In 2006, he painted an over-simplified and somewhat colored (even kinda sorta untrue) picture of the Bush administration’s lack of action on a daily briefing about Osama Bin Laden’s nefarious intentions before 9/11. And he didn’t jump to the point that the Clinton administration didn’t do anything when they were similarly alerted. Now, that’s not entirely true either- it wasn’t ignored by the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration- but it’s something that foes of Olbermann have pointed out as a clear example of bias.
Not exactly a clear cut case. And it’s far from current.

Then there was this time where Olbermann got caught “lying” when he said noone called him a liberal (god forbid) when he did 218 consecutive shows about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The truth is that his network did 218 shows about Lewinsky, and while Olbermann was involved in most of them, he did in fact, take some days off. Yes, he said to Craig Ferguson “I did 218 consecutive shows” which is technically untrue. But still, nothing worth crucifying him over; the point he was trying to make was still a completely valid one. He did an assload of shows talking shit about Bill & Monica, so it’s not very fair to say he’s only attacking conservatives.
Also, that was 2 years ago.

Then I discovered Olbermann Watch- a site dedicated to calling bullshit on Keith Olbermann. Wow, finally, the treasure trove I was looking for. I’m not being a smarmy sarcastic tree-hugger here, I really was on a serious hunt for bullshit. That’s what I do.

So I started crawling the site for clear-cut examples of Keith Olbermann lying. I’m assuming the burden of proof and I’ll give Olbermann Watch the benefit of the doubt- I’ll consider all of their allegations valid unless I can prove otherwise. Here goes:

#1) Olbermann claimed that Pastor Hagee is Mccain’s “spiritual advisor,” and Olbermann is implicating the media as the bad guys in Obama’s situation over Pastor Wright.

The first part is, in fact, not true. One might call it a lie. The second part… is kinda vague. Olbermann Watch seems to be speculating on Olbermann’s intentions, and who really knows.

#2) Olbermann claims that Bush “never met with Cindy Sheehan,” yet they met in 2004.

I hunted down the full transcript of the show in question, which Olbermann Watch did not provide. What Olbermann actually said was that “Gold Star mothers like Cindy Sheehan and others for whom where (ph) had met only tragedy and waste, having been denied any chance of making their request [to stop the war] of this president.”
The truth is, there was “minimal coverage” of a meeting between Bush and Sheehan. So she did have a chance of making such a request. It’s not clear whether or not Olbermann knew that truth, and was thusly lying, or if he just didn’t know the little-known facts. But Olbermann Watch is basically right on this one.

#3) On the same show, Olbermann called Brit Hume a “McCain supporter” (alleged lie) and also “doctored” up a quote by Hume regarding something McCain said, to better suit Olbermann’s own “propaganda.” Here’s the quote, with the parts Olbermann ommitted in italics: “I think it’s probably just a blip, but it was a bigger blip than he wanted or needed at the time. I think the overall impression of the trip was this is a man welcomed by, knowledgeable of and comfortable with foreign leaders across a big part of the globe. But the mistake, nonetheless, raises questions not about his knowledgability- we all kinda believe he has that- the question, perhaps, about his age, which is an issue. You know, the feeling was not that he’s a dope, didn’t know his way around, that he might have had a senior moment there, and that’s unfortunate for him.” Olbermann then jumped on the thought of a wartime President having a “senior moment.”

Umm.. No, I think Olbermann got it straight. Hume said McCain had a “senior moment.” That was the gist, any way you slice it.
So is Brit Hume a McCain supporter? Well, probably. Of course he’d never go on record with it, but I’m pretty sure he is. At the end of the day, since noone knows for sure, I’m not sure if it’s a lie so much as a presumption. But that’s just my own personal judgment.

Then I got to a post about the March 19th show. Olbermann Watch triumphantly claimed that Olbermann was “caught in so many lies tonight that it might well be a new Guiness World Record!” By this point, I had gone through so many posts trying my damnedest to find some smoking gun type shit, I decided that this would have to be it for today. If the “#1 Keith Olbermann blog in the world” claimed that this was the gold standard of Keith Olbermann bullshit to study, it would surely determine once and for all if Olbermann was indeed full of shit or not. So here goes:

#4) Clinton is pushing for a re-vote in Michigan, even though the issue is “moot”, and she’s blaming Obama. Olbermann claims that it’s “not in Obama’s power” to determine because the state Senate won’t consider it. This is a lie because Obama needs to give his OK- which he hasn’t done.

I thought we had him here. But actually, it isn’t really Obama holding things up. The responsibility is in the hands of The Michigan Senate, where “top Democrats indicated it lacked the two-thirds supermajority necessary to pass the bill.” Obama clearly voiced his resignations to details in the legislation in question, but with him completely out of the picture, the Senate would still not have this majority. Olbermann’s off the hook and so is Obama.

#5) Olbermann makes the false claim that Sean Hannity called Barack Obama an anti-semite.

Well, he totally did. Not a lie. And Olbermann actually didn’t say that Hannity flat-out called him an anti-semite. He kept the context of the original quote, even while totally trashing the guy.

#6) Olbermann claimed that Fox didn’t cover Iraq today (March 19th).

Here’s the quote, from the transcript, which Olbermann Watch once again failed to provide: “…Fox News coverage of the war, fifth anniversary or otherwise, equally minimal, largely tangential. A lengthy segment today with the banner, ‘Obama Slams Iraq War in Major Speech.’  Better to angle each story along the lines of the war’s critics than the war’s catastrophes.
Yet even with Fox Noise, the shame seems to lie somewhere under the surface.  Once President Bush’s speech this morning was over, it was pretty much ignored.
Fox did have time to squeeze in Senator McCain’s visit with Israeli leaders, as well as dozens of other stories having nothing to do with Iraq, all par for the course.”

So… Olbermann actually clearly acknowledged that Fox covered the Iraq war. All he said was that it was kinda light, and that they covered a lot of stuff that wasn’t related at all. Totally not a lie.

#7) Olbermann claimed that Bill O’Reilly featured a “culture quiz” segment tonight (March 19th).

There are no serious implications to this lie, it’s just something Keith Olbermann said which was not true. He didn’t fabricate an imaginary segment to smear Bill O’Reilly or anything. But anyway, who gives a shit? Besides Olbermann Watch I mean. By the time I got to this one (the fourth of a total of a “world record” setting four), it was obvious to me that while Keith Olbermann is definitely biased, he is not nearly as full of shit as Bill O’Reilly. He doesn’t double check every single fact- that’s asking a hell of a lot of a guy who talks so much- but he gets most of them right.
He’ll talk loud and say some outrageous things, which do pull in the ratings. And at the end of the day, like O’Reilly, he is a television personality and not a journalist. But if he’s a liar, his most dedicated enemies aren’t looking hard enough.

And either way, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Five years ago.

In a memo sent to Congress the very same day, Bush declared that his decision to invade Iraq was “to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

With roughly 170,000 coalition troops in Iraq at this very moment, and $341 million a day being spent on a massively unpopular war when experts and analysts are screaming about a devastating recession looming, there’s little question as to why Bush is being labeled “Worst President Ever” by more and more publications every day. Yet still we see that same cocky smirk, that same wave, the same assurances that everything is fine. When confronted with the fact that 70 percent of America doesn’t support this war, Dick Cheney laughs and says “So?” We’re then reminded once again that there’s a supernaturally dangerous, freedom-hating enemy out there, one that will surely chase us onto our own turf, into our very homes with their dynamite vests. That is, if we don’t kill them first.

That all makes a good bedtime story, but I’ve got a quick question. What the fuck happened to finding Bin Laden? Where’s that Mission Accomplished banner? Naturally, we don’t want to ask those kinds of complicated questions, because the answers far exceed the attention spans and carefully cultivated ignorance of fast food America. Bush and Cheney’s financial ties to Big Oil and Saudi royalty are none of our business, and who cares if all but four of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian? This is about freedom and evil, not facts and agendas.

There’s no denying that the Bush administration linked Saddam Hussein to 9/11 in order to sell a war of corporate interest in Iraq that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead, including 4,000 of our own troops. In five years’ time, Bush has offered zero evidence to support the accusations of Saddam’s involvement in or connection to 9/11. Yet still we march on, under blatantly false pretenses, amidst clear evidence of corruption, corporate pandering, lies and smokescreens surrounding virtually every facet of this presidential administration. Do we cut and run, or stick it out? The implications of consequence on either side are frightening.

In an impressive display of idiocy, yapping right-wing pathological liar and laughingstock of the rational world Bill O’Reilly marked today’s anniversary by making the fascinating claim that the United States never actually invaded Iraq. “We didn’t invade Iraq,” he declared on his show last night, contradicting statements he made in reference to the invasion during a January 28th broadcast. “I’ll submit that most folks still have no idea why the Bush administration invaded Iraq,” he said then.

Actually, Mr. No-Spin, we did invade Iraq. Our military forcefully entered the country in order to overthrow their leader. What else would you call it?

Furthermore, sir, you may remember this comment you made on March 6, 2006: “Iraq was invaded to create a friendly country between Iran and Syria, thereby pressuring those nations into a more sensible foreign policy.” Ring any bells?

Don’t be embarrassed, Billy. Bush agrees with at least one of the two stances you took on the “issue.” In a 2006 speech, he discussed the administration’s “two major invasions as a part of the war on terror.”

“We didn’t invade Iraq,” O’Reilly said. “It was a declaration of war. It was a declaration to enforce the first Gulf War Treaty.”

What O’Reilly calls a war treaty, the rest of us refer to as a cease-fire. In an interview with former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix in 2004, the following conversation transpired:

O’REILLY: Do you understand that when you have 17 violations of a treaty, a war treaty, that you basically have to take action?

BLIX: Well, you’re talking about a war treaty. It was a cease-fire. It was not a war treaty.

O’REILLY: Oh, come on. Now don’t play semantics here, sir.

BLIX: Second- all right. I’m trying to be precise. You are imprecise.

Only someone with the wealth of abstract, illogical reasoning of Bill O’Reilly could mix up the words “cease-fire” with “war treaty,” right? That’s about as crazy as saying that the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended four years ago.

Wait, what’s that?

“I’m afraid that the label ‘occupation’ sticks to us even to this day, although the occupation ended in June of 2004,” said Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz at the Hudson Institute Monday. Undoubtedly referring to the “official” transfer of power to the Iraqi government in June of 2004, but with roughly 170,000 U.S. troops in Iraq right now, what exactly would Wolfowitz call our presence there?

Known for being the Iraq invasion’s most passionate and compelling advocate, Wolfowitz also interestingly refrained from acknowledging the presence of some 170,000 troops still stationed in the oil-rich Middle Eastern country.

As Mr. Wolfowitz and O’Reilly have most recently shown us, the disinformation machine is very much alive and grinding. The only real mission this administration has accomplished was to convince the world that this country is nothing more than the ugly, spoiled cowboy who does what he wants ’cause he’s got the biggest guns.

Happy anniversary.