Honestly, there are times when I wonder if liberal media members are just addle-minded, or so obsessed with their political agenda that fabricating news seems acceptable to them.

Either must have been the case when the Associated Press, followed by the leftwing entourage of Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington, completely misrepresented a rather innocent statement by Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, and in so doing, cast doubt on their veracity as journalists.

In fact, and as difficult as it may seem, the three entities mistook the name "Assad" for "Osama."

Nice job of fact-checking, guys!

Sadly, this all began Monday with the following Associated Press article (emphasis added, h/t Hot Air):

"This is the world we live in. It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House," Giuliani said.

"Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball," he added.

This set off a Netroots firestorm culminating in Olbermann and Huffington having the audacity to call Giuliani a liar on Tuesday's "Countdown."

Unfortunately, there was only one flaw in their vitriol: Giuliani said "Assad" NOT "Osama," and, as such, was referring to the current President of Syria.

This inconvenient truth was deliciously uncovered by the American Spectator's Philip Klein Wednesday, whose post included the MSNBC video of Olbermann's segment with Huffington, where at roughly minute 1:15, Giuliani clearly says "Assad."

In fact, this seemed quite apparent to whoever transcribed the text for MSNBC, for here's the section in question directly from the network's website:

GIULIANI: It‘s not like this happy, romantic world in which, you know, we‘ll negotiate with this one and we‘ll negotiate with that one and there will be no pre-conditions and we‘ll invite Ahmadinejad to the White House and we‘ll invite Assad to the White House. I mean, Hillary and Obama are kind of debating you know whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball.

Yet, Olbermann and Huffington, clearly living in their own dream world, heard "Osama":

OLBERMANN: Let me first talk to you about technique there. He misrepresents the positions of Clinton and Edwards about Iran and he takes one leap away from engagement, suddenly-it‘s negotiation. And all of a sudden it‘s no longer negotiation, now he‘s leap over to inviting terrorists to the White House. The kind word for this rhetorical advice is hyperbole. The least kind one is Giuliani is lying. How does this continue to happen?

HUFFINGTON: Well, he‘s lying and also every day he reveals more and more of himself. And you can see that he really has the soul of a thug and the disposition of a tyrant. It really proves the famous saying by Jimmy Brazlen (ph) when he said that Giuliani is a small man with the search for a balcony. You can see that every day with what he says, there is no technique that implies some type of rationality. This is pure savageness (ph), pure testosterone again and again. And what is amazing to me, Keith, that there hasn‘t been any uproar. If that was a Democrat saying that they-there would have been demand every for an apology that there would have been an emergency session of Congress and resolution condemning such remarks. Remember, after all John McCain said that Moveon should leave the country, should be thrown out of the country because they called General Petraeus - "General betray us." And here is Giuliani daring to insult his Democratic opponents by saying that they would invite Osama bin Laden to the White House? That is really something which should not be accepted.

OLBERMANN: The Petraeus thing looks like a high T compared to what Giuliani said. But you can see through the haze on this and understand why Giuliani would think aligning himself with Bush about Iran or the so-called "War on Terror would help him in the campaign. But I‘m missing something here when we are at a stage in polling where more Americans say they believe in ghost than believe President Bush is doing a good job about Iraq. What is the upside of trying to marry himself to Bush about Iraq specifically?

HUFFINGTON: You know, Keith, I think that Giuliani has believed his own myth that somehow being tough means being tough with the Iraqis - means being tough everywhere. If as though he‘s writing that S on his chest and has the dust from the twin towers on his head and that‘s the myth is he portraying. And with the small minority of Americans, the Republican base, it‘s working. He‘s kind of channeling Rush Limbaugh, he‘s making the lunatic fringe mainstream. And I am, again, I‘m going to blame the media for not challenging that kind of approach.

OLBERMANN: I‘m doing what I can but apparently I‘m alone out here.

Listen, the "Washington Post" reported something that is of value in this sense that Mr. Giuliani is still working part time at a security consulting firm even though he had promised to leave it in April and that it continued to pay for his security until June. Is he in trouble with Federal Election laws?

HUFFINGTON: Well, he is in trouble with Federal Election laws but probably by the time they work their way through this sort of procedures of the Federal Election laws, who knows when it is going to catch up with him. The question is he should be in trouble with the voters. He should be in trouble, again, with the media because he lied. He said he was going to leave the company. He didn‘t leave the company. And, in fact, he is now trying to say that he forgot or to defend himself in some way when there is really no defense. He thinks he is above the law, above relations, really a law unto himself.

OLBERMANN: Just a quick thought on this. Has it reached a level yet where we should be considering examining whether or not this is compulsive lying that there is something endemic to him? Or this specific purpose driven lies?

HUFFINGTON: But that was driven I don‘t know, it‘s like if you look at what he said about his company. What he said in his latest ad about socialized medicine. And what he‘s saying about Iraq having the potential to have nuclear weapons, all these things, I mean, there is a pattern here which is really disturbing.

OLBERMANN: Arianna Huffington, the founder and editor of Huffington post.com. As always, great thanks you for coming in.

HUFFINGTON: Thank you.

In the end, at least the AP took the high road, and issued a correction:

In an Oct. 29 story about Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani criticizing Democrats on Middle Eastern policy, The Associated Press erroneously reported Giuliani's mention of Syrian President Bashar Assad as a reference to Osama bin Laden.

Yet, such a pathetic mistake brings with it consequences, for the Netroots - and, sadly, these days, Olbermann and Huffington are clearly included in this group - jumped all over this AP report, completely ignoring the actual videotape of Giuliani's speech, and disseminating lies about a well-respected American.

I guess that's par for the course, isn't it?

As a sidebar, does anybody believe Olbermann and/or Huffington will apologize for their erroneous defamation of Giuliani?

Yes, that was a rhetorical question.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.