Ian Schwartz's blog

One of O'Reilly's staffers confronted Rosie O'Donnell during a book signing last Friday night. The person appeared to be Jesse Watters, longtime "Factor" producer who is known to track down celebrities and news makers who refuse to appear on O'Reilly's show. Watters wanted to know why Rosie would not respond to numerous requests for her to come on the "Factor." Rosie told Watters that if O'Reilly wants her on his show, he should personally call her.

When asked about her controversial views of 9/11, Rosie denied saying the terror attack was an "inside job." Rosie decided it was time to throw out Mr. Watters when he wanted to know her thoughts on WTC Building 7. Watters was removed from the book store at that point. Click here to view the video.

.Partial transcript:

Mapes on Couric: She is "...someone who looks like they've been kidnapped and drugged and are making a hostage tape. It has nothing to do with her being a male or female, it's just not comfortable to watch."

On the 4pm hour of Monday's The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer highlighted several political news stories, including Republican candidate for president, Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)'s use of the term "tar baby". To some, the term is a racial epithet, however the true meaning of the word is a "sticky situation," hence the term 'tar'.

CNN's Jack Cafferty joined the program Blitzer was finished reading the headlines with his 'Cafferty File' segment. Cafferty, who is known for his unscripted remarks, opined on the 'tar baby' situation and applied Romney meant the comment in a racist sense. However, Cafferty did not make the audience aware of his racist past (video link to follow):

Keith Olbermann, who did the Nazi salute with an O'Reilly mask covering his face, has responded to FOX News' Roger Ailes remark that the MSNBC host's action was over the line.

Unsurprisingly, Olbermann's response was made available to TVNewser:

"'Over the line?' Where was Roger when O'Reilly defended the Nazi SS stormtroopers from Malmedy in World War II? The SS shot 84 American POW's there in 1944, and three different times in the last year, Bill called has called those dead Americans war criminals.

Cafferty follows his distress of Rove's occupational status with the most illogical thought on leaks, even for Jack Cafferty. The CNN anchor complained the administration thinks leaking information about a terrorist surveillance program is a threat but leaking Plame's name is not. Jack, who seemed to want it the other way around, doesn't share the news outlets who release information about national security programs may be breaking the law. Go figure.

In the "Worst Person in the World" segment on Tuesday night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann poked fun at FOX News' spokeswoman Irena Briganti in an altered image that portrayed her as female version of host Bill O'Reilly. (Video link to Expose the Left to follow)

In a NY Times fluff piece on Olbermann, noted earlier on Newsbusters, Briganti called the MSNBC host a "train wreck waiting to happen" and commented on Countdown's declining ratings. It was clear Olbermann was furious at her remarks and decided to respond to her charge of Countdown's ratings by doing what he is best at, distorting the truth.

Johnny Dollar at Olbermann Watch, who painfully watches the show every night, notes Keith's lies and then replaces it with the truth:

He is either the leading man of MSNBC or its leading agent provocateur, but Keith Olbermann has no problem embracing either role.

“You can’t spell momentum without Olbermann — or something like that,” he said in a telephone interview, with a typical sprinkle of wry in his voice.

On the 7pm hour of CNN's The Situation Room on Tuesday afternoon, Jack Cafferty admitted President Bush "might have been on to something" when discussing the Axis of Evil in his 2002 State of the Union address (video link from Expose the Left to follow). The topic of the hour was North Korea's long-range missile "testing". North Korea is a country in Bush's Axis of Evil.

CAFFERTY: That was January 2002, the president referring, of course, to Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Fast forward four years. The U.S. has now been involved in the war in Iraq for well over three years with no end in site. Iran continues its efforts to enrich uranium, insisting it's just for peaceful purposes while many around the world fear they are actually embarking on a nuclear weapons program. And now we have North Korea going ahead today with test missile launches, including the failed launch of at least one long- range missile today. Looks like President Bush might have been on to something, doesn't it. Here's the question, which country from President Bush's axis of evil, Iraq, Iran, or North Korea poses the greatest threat to the United States. E-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@cnn.com or go to cnn.com/caffertyfile. John?

Keller attempted to play the sympathy card saying the public doesn't know when the NY Times DOES NOT publish sensitive information. If that wasn't disgusting enough, Keller continued his defense and summed up the leak as "one man's breach of security is another man's public relations."

JACK CAFFERTY: Hi, Wolf. Guess what Monday is? Monday is the day President Bush will speak about an issue near and dear to his heart and the hearts of many conservatives. It's also the day before the Senate votes on the very same thing. Is it the war? Deficits? Health insurance? Immigration? Iran? North Korea? Not even close. No, the president is going to talk about amending the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage.

This is something that absolutely, positively has no chance of happening, nada, zippo, none. But that doesn't matter. Mr. Bush will take time to make a speech. The Senate will take time to talk and vote on it, because it's something that matters to the Republican base. This is pure politics. If has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gay marriage. It's blatant posturing by Republicans, who are increasingly desperate as the midterm elections approach. There's not a lot else to get people interested in voting on them, based on their record of the last five years. But if you can appeal to the hatred, bigotry, or discrimination in some people, you might move them to the polls to vote against that big, bad gay married couple that one day might move in down the street. Here's the question: Is now the time for President Bush to be backing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? E-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@CNN.com or go to CNN.com/caffertyfile -- Wolf.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) appeared on CBS' The Early Show this morning, along with several others, to discuss winning the JFK "Profiles in Courage" award.

During the interview, Murtha went on an anti-War rant, to which The Early Show's co-anchor Julie Chen said nodded in agreement and said "absolutely":

MURTHA: And I said there's not only no progress, it's worse than it was pre-war. This thing has been mishandled so badly. The american people need to hear. We're spending $450 billion on this war by the end of the year, $9 billion a month, and so we need to change course.

JULIE CHEN, CBS: Absolutely…

Video Link - .WMV

CNN aired live footage of President Bush rehearsing for his address to the nation. The following video shows CNN political contributor Jeff Greenfield commenting before the feed cuts into Bush in the Oval Office. Bush abruptly stops and seems embarassed as he looks for advice from his media advisors. After over 15 seconds of showing Bush, CNN cut back in pre-speech coverage with an apology from Wolf Blitzer. CNN was the only network that "accidentally" cut into the Oval Office.

Video link

On the opening of last night's edition of Countdown, host Keith Olbermann said "now he can wizz all over himself instead of everybody else" on the subject of Rush Limbaugh's mandatory random drug test. Olbermann presented this as if it were "news," when instead Rush has had to do them for years.

Later in the broadcast, Olbermann ran a smear segment on Rush, as if there was any more news, saying "at least now when he wizzes all over himself, there is a good reason for it".

Olbermann ended his Limbaugh coverage with a jab at his weight saying, "and while no specifics about the random drug screenings were revealed, there is no truth to rumors that Limbaugh will also be tested for steroids and meatloaf."

Video link follows.

On Thursday's edition of CNN's The Situation Room, pundit commentator, Jack Cafferty called President Bush a hypocrite for "lecturing" Chinese President Hu about human rights. Cafferty blames President Bush for several human rights violations he has deemed, including the Patriot Act.

Video link.

Transcript follows.

When a show does a story like this, you have to question is this really a show that should be taken seriously and is the host a real journalist? After running this segment, Countdown and its host Keith Olbermann only beg viewers to answer no to both of those questions.

DOWNLOAD - .WMV DOWNLOAD - .MP4

This week marks the ninth anniversary of Hardball with Chris Matthews. To celebrate, Matthews has several political figures say something good about Hardball at the of end of almost every segment. On this segment, former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe praises Hardball while knocking FOX News and CNN. He says FOX has the "right-wing nutcase" [sic], while Hardball is the "number one" place to go to get "the facts straight" and "right":

MCAULIFFE: Happy Anniversary to Hardball, the greatest show on television. Beats FOX, they have right-wing nutcase and CNN. Hardball is number one, you want to get the facts straight, you want to get them right, watch Chris Matthews on Hardball.

Video link follows.

At today’s Pentagon press briefing, a reporter said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld didn’t dispute or address a claim from a book about the run-up to the War in Iraq. Rumsfeld interrupted him and made him look like a fool:

RUMSFELD: You think I'm going to stand around reading your books and disputing things in them or validating or not validating? I have a real daytime job. You would do nothing else but that if you did that. The fact that I haven't disputed something -- I mean, if I disputed all of the mythology that comes out of this group and the books of the world, I wouldn't have any time to do anything else.

On tonight's edition of Countdown, host Keith Olbermann took a brief moment to bash Laura Ingraham on account of her remark that reporters intentionally report only the negative news from Iraq:

OLBERMANN: A note about Laura Ingraham's comments: I've known her for a long time. I'll in fact give you the caveat that I've known her socially. But that hotel balcony crack was unforgivable. It was unforgivable to the memory of David Bloom, it was unforgivable in the consideration of Bob Woodruff and Doug Voigt, it was unforgivable in the light of what happened to Michael Kelly and what happened to Michael Weiskopf. It was unforgivable with Jill Carroll still a hostage in Iraq. It's not only unforgivable, it was desperate and it was stupid.

Keith Olbermann would know a lot about being desperate and stupid. His ongoing War on FOX on the O'Reilly front is absolutely disgusting and shows how desperate he is for ratings

However, the larger point here is the hypocrisy of challenging others. Olbermann's motto is "challenge everything Bush says", yet when it happens to his liberal media friends, he gets mad. It's now the game of the liberal elite to cry "the right is blaming the media" when anyone dares to question their reporting.

If anything is unforgivable, it's Olbermann's attack on Laura Ingraham.

Video link follows.

On the subject of blogging on this morning's edition of The Chris Matthews Show, panelist David Gregory says that he is a big fan of AndrewSullivan.com and called it "one of the best places on the web". Andrew Sullivan is a blogger who claims to be conservative, however shares many liberal viewpoints. He voted for George W. Bush in 2000, but voted for John Kerry in 2004.

DAVID GREGORY: It's the ability to take an issue and how to proliferate on the web and therefore get more traction than it would through other means. AndrewSullivan.com is one of the best places on the web and I'm sucking up to him because I love it and I am a big consumer of it.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Who's this guy again?

GREGORY: Because he is intellectually spontaneous, but he may devote attention to an issue that's not getting a lot of play otherwise, that's the power here.

You may say it is ironic that Gregory praises Sullivan for devoting "attention to an issue that is not getting a lot of play", because he himself is known for devoting a lot of attention to one issue and ignoring news that should be getting attention. A perfect example would be his obsession of the Cheney hunting incident.

Video link follows.

Video link follows.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well Mike Wallace announced his retirement today, and Mike Wallace who I thought never would retire. If he retires, maybe Cheney's gonna see the light. What do think? No? No takers on that? SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY: I'm not sure if Cheney would see it that way.

On tonight's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's "moonbat in chief", spent 10 minutes of his show pondering if President Bush used the news of a thwarted terror plot for political gain. Olbermann, who often refers to President Bush as "Mr. Bush", had "investigative reporter" Gerald Posner on as a guest tonight. Posner is just as liberal, if not more, as Olbermann and agreed with the host word for word as Keith played puppet master and controlled his strings. At one point during the interview, Posner charged that President Bush is "using terror as a political weapon" and constantly does this in a time when he needs to justify certain policies, such as, according to him, the Patriot Act. The ironic thing in all of this is Keith agrees with him and thinks that no one should play politics with terror. Olbermann should have taken his own advice when he ran a piece called "The Nexus of Politics & Terror" late last year that was an attack on Bush's timing of "calling" terror alerts as if they weren't serious. If you are into liberal conspiracies, that segment was for you.