In yet another in a disgraceful series of indecent journalistic collaborations, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Hillary Clinton's Think Progress actually quoted al Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri to discredit Republican presidential candidate John McCain (video embedded right, use scrollbars to properly center).

I kid you not.

Our story begins on Thursday when Think Progress managing editor Amanda Terkel posted an article actually entitled "Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri Rebuts McCain: It’s ‘In The Interest’ Of Al Qaeda To See Iran Fail" (emphasis added):

Mark Hemingway at the Corner pointed at this one: As Hillary's Army publishes paperbacks complaining about the "Free Ride" John McCain is getting from the press, the Hillary brigade at Think Progress didn't give McCain a free ride, they gave him an inaccurate smearing. They claimed that Sen. McCain's conservative-indigestion-causing speech on foreign affairs plagiarized phrases from an Admiral Timothy Ziemer. Oops, they report today, we had it backwards:

UPDATE: It appears that Ziemer’s speech may have been plagiarized from McCain. According to the McCain campaign, the senator used these lines before Ziemer — in 1995. We regret the error.

NewsBusters Associate Editor Noel Sheppard appeared on the March 10 "Glenn Beck" program on CNN Headline News to discuss the left-wing Web's recent smear of the radio host. Beck was taken out of context for comments he made about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). [See Sheppard's related March 8 blog entry here.]

Video (4:18): Windows Media (15.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.94 MB).

Here's the transcript:

GLENN BECK, host: Noel Sheppard is the associate editor of newsbusters.org, a conservative watchdog of the liberal blogs. Noel, you apparently did a Google search on this story. How out there is my bigotry?

NOEL SHEPPARD, Associate Editor, NewsBusters.org: Well, I Googled "Glenn Beck," "Obama" and "Anti-Christ," and I got 744,000 hits. Now, that doesn't mean that there's been 744,000 articles already written about this. That`s a little bit nuts.

BECK: Yes.

NewsBusters has frequently reported the deplorable connection between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and the Clinton front-organizations Media Matters and Think Progress.

On Friday, conservative radio host Glenn Beck marvelously illustrated just how this liberal alliance works, and showed how a few sentences transcribed by Olbermann's minions and taken out of context can easily be used to completely misrepresent their meaning and what the speaker was actually saying.

After being named one of "Countdown's" Worst Persons in the World for comments he made on his CNN Headline News program Tuesday, Beck deliciously explained how Olbermann, Media Matters, and Think Progress worked together to intentionally distort his words (audio available here, liberal website alert!):

Not that this will come as any great surprise, but the folks at the Hillary Clinton front organization Think Progress are at it again bashing conservatives by employing the disgraceful art of cherry-picking.

For those unfamiliar with the term, this is when you take a sentence or two out of a report or article divining a meaning or intent clearly different than that the author or speaker was quite obviously conveying.

In this case, the target of TP's disaffection was me. More deliciously, research associate Matt Corley chose not only to cite just fifteen words out of a 41-word sentence inside of a 2500-word article of mine, but also totally ignored the relevant subsequent question posed in the piece in order to present to his readers a completely different conclusion than that offered by moi.

Of course, this is what TP and the other Clinton front organization Media Matters for America do all the time. This is just today's example of deceit and chicanery the couple from Arkansas and all associated with them are infamous for:

The alleged outraged readers plant themselves, but that doesn't stop the Courier-Journal in Kentucky from propping them up in their opposition to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in what will be one of the closest watched races in 2008 behind the Presidential campaign. The Politico is already following the race here. This is the second smear campaign started by the likes of Think Progress against McConnell to make its way into the media. Here's the first.

There would be no controversy if Think Progress hadn't lifted a McConnell quote out of context from what was actually a positive story for McConnell:

It's certainly safe to say that conservatives rarely agree with anything written by liberal bloggers.

However, on Saturday, not only was there a prominent posting at Daily Kos entitled "Clinton News Network = CNN," which received 631 comments in only seven hours, but the website's proprietor, the esteemed Markos Moulitsas, wrote an article of his own that was highly critical of Clintonista James Carville's role at the cable network.

In the end, the hypocrisy was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

But before we get there, the first piece voiced displeasure with the recent shenanigans by CNN during Thursday's Democrat Presidential debate:

On Thursday, NewsBuster Amy Ridenour reported the hysterical protestations of the liberal blog Think Progress concerning conservative websites like ours having the unmitigated audacity to share with readers the global warming skepticism of The Weather Channel founder John Coleman.

Our crime against humanity (emphasis added for your amusement):

The right wing should check Coleman's credentials before touting his "scientific" work. As Coleman admits, his "expertise" is in weather - not climate change science. In fact, he "has been a TV weatherman since he was a freshman in college in 1953."

Oh my goodness. You mean that someone who's been professionally reporting on the weather for over 50 years shouldn't be allowed to comment about the climate, but a political blog that's been in existence for less than three years should?

Adding insult to absurdity, take a look at the bio for the Think Progresser that wrote this ridiculous critique (emphasis again added for your amusement):

The Center for American Progress's Think Progress blog attacked a Noel Sheppard post on NewsBusters and a handful of other conservative blogs today. Their crime? Citing climate change comments uttered by a weatherman.

Think Progress said:

The conservative blogosphere is pushing Coleman's junk science today. Matt Drudge links to NewsBusters' "marvelous" take on Coleman this morning. Red State [sic], Qando [sic], Sister Toldjah, and the Free Republic also join in by approvingly linking to Coleman's piece.

The right wing should check Coleman's credentials before touting his "scientific" work. As Coleman admits, his "expertise" is in weather - not climate change science. In fact, he "has been a TV weatherman since he was a freshman in college in 1953."

Think Progress doesn't believe a mere "weatherman" should speak his mind on climate, but...

Update below (11:26): ThinkProgress responds.

(h/t Ace)

NonPartyPolitics has picked up on how the liberal ThinkProgress blog smells something fishy in presidential daughter Jenna Bush's engagement to beau Henry Hager. Basically the lefty blog suggests that first lady Laura Bush lied to the press -- in 2005.

That's right, there's got to be something sinister and mendacious in Laura Bush's 2005 prediction that Jenna and Henry were "not serious." I mean, it's not like true love can blossom in a courtship in two years. Not for someone that close to President Bush!