MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday night teased his “Worst Person in the World” segment by plugging “comedian Rush Limbaugh with a strong entry tonight whining that nobody at MSNBC actually hears him on the air. I know this because I heard him on the air.” In the subsequent segment, Olbermann recounted how Limbaugh complained “that the liberal media, particularly MSNBC, never actually listens to him while he's on the air and thus gets things,” like what Olbermann impugned as “his racist Al Sharpton/Barack Obama song, second-hand and out of context.”

Olbermann boasted of how “I happen to know he said all this because today I was actually listening to him while he was on the air.” But far from contradicting Limbaugh's point about how members of the “drive-by media” don't listen to him, Olbermann confirmed it as he explained that he only heard Limbaugh's comments because he “was at ABC Radio in New York where I do the Dan Patrick Show from” and “listening from the perfect venue where they pipe in comedian's show and you can't turn it off -- the toilet!” Nonetheless, Olbermann named “comedian Rush Limbaugh” as “today's Worst Person in the World!”

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WABC radio in New York City carries Limbaugh live from 12-3pm EDT. ABC-owned ESPN Radio distributes the Dan Patrick Show from 1-4pm EDT and Olbermann co-hosts a portion of it.

Olbermann's May 22 Countdown item in full:

“Our winner: Comedian Rush Limbaugh complaining today that the liberal media, particularly MSNBC, never actually listens to him while he's on the air and thus gets things like his racist Al Sharpton/Barack Obama song second-hand and out of context. Of course, he admitted he didn't see any of the criticism on MSNBC, he just read the transcript. I happen to know he said all this because today I was actually listening to him while he was on the air. While I was at ABC Radio in New York where I do the Dan Patrick Show from. Listening from the perfect venue where they pipe in comedian's show and you can't turn it off -- the toilet. Comedian Rush Limbaugh, today's Worst Person in the World!”

Olbermann was apparently referring to these comments by Limbaugh on his May 22 show in reaction to a caller who raised a Scarborough Country segment which re-played a slanted Today show hit piece on Limbaugh about Limbaugh's two-month old “Barack the Magic Negro” parody song. Dan Abrams hosted Monday's Scarborough Country and John Fund was one of two guests after the taped piece aired:

Look, let me explain it. I didn't see it last night. I had enough people tell me about it that I went and got a transcript of it, and I appreciate your getting upset about this. Here's what is amazing to me about this. This is the thing to learn. Their report last night was actually a thing that was spawned by a Today Show report that aired yesterday, and the Today show report and what happened last night exposes the total dishonesty and lack of professionalism that is creeping into NBC News. When the Today show called us Friday afternoon and said they wanted to do this, we sent them reams, we gave them a special website link that they could go educate themselves on everything about this from beginning to end. We gave them the sound bites of Al Sharpton saying no big deal, Barack Obama saying it was dumb, we gave the original column from the Los Angeles Times where the term "magic negro" was thrown into the public domain. They ignored it all. They even went out, they talked to Michael Medved in Seattle to get one voice opposing their take on it, and they didn't use any of the interview that they conducted with him.

Now, here's what gets me about this. This whole thing came from this website called Media Matters for America. The Drive-By Media, NBC, Dan Abrams, the Today show people, everybody, CNN, they rely on this religiously to "find out" what happens on this program. They don't listen to this program. Dan Abrams didn't listen to this program. He doesn't know what happened here. His source is Media Matters for America and maybe a couple newspaper columns. Dan Abrams knows, and so does everybody else at NBC and CNN, that Media Matters is a Hillary, George Soros, DNC front group. They know it has no intellectual integrity. They know that it exists to smear people who question the Democrats, and yet they bring on one of its hacks to talk about a conservative with little or no exposition about the hack. The hack is presented as an expert. The Media Matters guy is an all-knowing expert. Nobody's ever heard of him. He's never accomplished anything. He's just a hack working for a front group for the Democrat Party and they know this, and yet they continue to do this. It underscores completely their dishonesty. They were not interested in our take on this. And our take is the take! I mean, we are the record on this. I am the record on the whole "Barack, the 'Magic Negro'" parody and why and how it came about. That's ignored. I am the record. They try to rewrite the record and make the record what Media Matters says, and they know that this has happened, and yet they do it. It underscores how completely in the back pocket of the Democrat Party that Dan Abrams and MSNBC, anybody who works there or at CNN is. They are totally in the back pocket of the Democrat Party.

There was nothing professional about this thing. It was kind of funny as I'm reading the transcript, John Fund was on there, and Dan Abrams said, "Why is Limbaugh getting away with this? Is he too big to bring down on something like this?" And Fund kept saying, "Well, where is the outrage? There's no story." This is two and a half months old. What's your peg? There's no story. There's no outrage....

A Tuesday MRC CyberAlert item, “NBC Impugns Limbaugh Over 'Barack the Magic Negro' Parody Song,” provided a full rundown of the Monday Today show story.

Limbaugh's Web site has collated everything he's said about the “Barack the Magic Negro” song parody and its origins. Limbaugh's humorous intro:

All you Drive-By journalists -- every one of you out there that thinks you have something here on "Barack the 'Magic Negro'" -- I'm going to try to help you and save you. You are going to be profoundly embarrassed if you keep going on this tune and going down this path with thinking there's something here that isn't. All you gotta do is visit www.RushLimbaugh.com. It's on the Internet. You just type that in, hit the ENTER key, and bam! My website comes up, and you can find my remarks the text of the speech or anything you want about this song, what I've said, and you would be fully informed before you start making idiots of yourselves on television.

—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center