Olbermann Rips 'Racist' Nugent for Speaking at Beck Rally He's NOT Going To

Keith Olbermann on Friday evening once again stuck his foot in his mouth on national television when he bashed Ted Nugent for appearing at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally next Saturday.

Problem is Nugent is booked at the Boise Knitting Factory Concert House that night, and won't be attending the Beck event.

But this actually wasn't the only fact Olbermann got wrong on MSNBC's "Countdown," for he also accused Nugent of making racist remarks while giving a concert in Dubuque, Iowa, a few weeks ago.

Turns out this was flatly contradicted by an eyewitness (video follows with transcript and commentary):

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: But our winner, Ted Nugent, former musician. He doesn`t have a call in phony advice show and he was never on anything as big as "Seinfeld," so it has taken nearly two weeks for this to get out. At the Mississippi Moon Bar in Dubuque, Iowa, August 5th, Mr. Nugent looked out over his audience and, according to the "Dubuque Telegraph Herald" said, quote, "there is a lot of white people in this crowd. I like that. This is a white town."

Witnesses say he then pointed to at least one member of the audience and questioned that man`s race. Why would overt racism from a prominent right wing nut job and gun freak take two weeks to get national attention? Because Ted Nugent hasn`t been famous since about 1977. But here`s the punch line: one of the speakers at the Beck-apocalypse August 28th, the anniversary of Martin Luther King`s "I Have a Dream Speech" near the Lincoln Memorial? Ted Nugent. I know. I know. You thought he was dead, today`s worst person in the world.

Well, Keith, according to the schedule at the Knitting Factory website, Nugent is performing there on August 28:

Nice job of research there, Keith!

Of course, as the perilously liberal Tommy Christopher pointed out shortly after Olbermann's faux pas, it appears the "Countdown" host once again blindly relied on the shills at Media Matters who wrongly wrote about this issue early Friday afternoon.

Making matters worse, a photographer that was in the crowd at the Mississippi Moon Bar in Dubuque on the evening in question has flatly contradicted what Olbermann, Media Matters, and the Telegraph Herald claimed:

Although the Telegraph Herald seemed to be reporting that Ted Nugent put on a racially biased show last night, what I head [sic] him say in his opening monologue was this: "Hey there sure are a lot of white people in this crowd. You need to do something about that."

He later said, heavy on the sarcasm, "Dubuque is a white town."

If anything, Nugent showed how much he honored and respected black performers of the past such as Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry and James Brown among others. He said at one point that all American soul came from these black performers who gave their blood, sweat and tears to the music. He even launched into an American Soul retrospective with songs such as Soul Man and Hey Baby.

So, it appears Olbermann and the shills he foolishly allows to do his research for him got this issue totally wrong.

General Electric and NBC must be so proud of their employees involved with this prime time MSNBC program! 

That said, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Olbermann to retract this nonsense next week for that requires character.