Keith Olbermann is notorious for filching stories from the blue blogs, particularly ones that attack the eeevil Bill O'Reilly. But now his sloppy, unprofessional practices have come back to bite him. He aired an out-and-out falsehood tonight as fact, ripping and reading from the most unreliable source in existence.

On "Countdown" tonight Olbermann assailed O'Reilly over his segment on Rep. Robert Wexler. After some crack about altering the color of Wexler's lips (a confirming clue as will be seen), he then turned the indignation up to '11' and ridiculed Bill for not knowing that Florida doesn't have a state income tax:

OLBERMANN: The Frank Burns of News then speculated that Wexler was somehow trying to cheat Florida out of income tax. Fund had to inform him that Florida doesn't have an income tax. "No income tax? This is where my argument falls to the ground!"

Don't believe me? Watch the video past the jump:

...but not by name.

Keith Olbermann’s tired hour-long rehashing of liberal talking points on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” are legion and often unremarkable in and of themselves. Same noise, different night. But it is noteworthy when a fellow MSNBC host has had enough and calls out Olbermann. That is exactly what happened when “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough rebuked the “Countdown” host for a misplaced attack on Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the opening of Olbermann’s July 22 “Countdown.”

Olbermann began his show by ridiculing McCain for claiming that the surge was responsible for the success of the Anbar Awakening. Olbermann opined:

On Friday's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann used a sloppily worded statement by an 83-year-old decorated veteran, Bud Day, who volunteered for both World War II and the Vietnam War, and who ended up spending 30 months as a POW, a man whom Olbermann called "dangerously deluded" and derided as a "slob" and a "clown," to paint John McCain as agreeing with what the MSNBC host referred to as Day's "racism and religious hatred." After quoting part of a recent statement by Day in which he referred generically to "the Muslims," instead of "Muslim extremists," as wanting either to "kill us" or to force Americans to "kneel," Olbermann suggested that McCain "agrees" that Muslims in general are the enemy. As he tagged Day as "Worst Person in the World," Olbermann slammed McCain: "And you heard him [Day]: John agrees with him. As of tonight, John's campaign has refused to repudiate Day's racism and religious hatred. Maybe John needs to get rid of this clown but fast. Bud ‘The Muslims are Going to Kill Us' Day, today's ‘Worst Person in the World.'" (Transcript follows)

Once again MSNBC president Phil Griffin is claiming that his cable outlet is not liberal on purpose. (I know what you're saying, if you believe that he has a bridge to sell you) In an interview with a TV reviewer for the Kansas City Star, Griffin once again made the claim that the extreme leftward tilt that MSNBC has taken over the last few years was a complete accident and that they aren't "tied to ideology" like Fox News is. Griffin also attacked Fox News saying that, "you can't trust a word they say."

It all started when Aaron Barnhart of the Star asked Griffin for his reaction to statements made by Fox News executive John Moody who said that MSNBC only gained their current market share because of the "messianic ranting" of its anchors, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. This set Griffin off at the outset of the interview.

Greta Van Susteren is quickly becoming one of Fox News's most ardent defenders against attacks from the ultra-left.

Writing about Netroots Nation -- the gathering in Austin, Texas, of the most liberal people in America -- Greta bashed her former network CNN as well as MSNBC, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and all those in attendance.

Fasten those seatbelts tightly, for Greta, in a blog posting Friday morning, wasn't taking prisoners (emphasis added, h/t TVNewser, photo courtesy FNC):

On Wednesday's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on MSNBC, Chris Wallace of Fox News was designated as one of Olbermann's "Worst Persons."

OLBERMANN: Our runner up tonight, Chris Wallace of Fixed News, explaining to the TV critics of America, who were gathered tonight in solemn assembly in Los Angeles, insisting that during the primaries Fox had the straight news reporters anchoring the election coverage, and not someone like Keith Olbermann, who was delivering ten-minute screeds against President Bush, telling him to shut the hell up, telling Hillary Clinton to get out of the campaign.

Chris, I never told Senator Clinton to get out of the campaign.  I never even suggested it.

Really? On his April 23, 2008 program, Olbermann talked with MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman.  He brought up possible retribution against Clinton if she didn't drop out of the campaign:

On Wednesday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann attacked Jesse Helms as a "homophobe," and suggested naming a "gay-bashing organization" after the recently deceased former Republican Senator, as the MSNBC host attacked Senator Elizabeth Dole for her effort to name an AIDS funding bill in honor of Helms. Olbermann, addressing Dole as he made her a nominee for "Worst Person in the World": "Senator, you do realize that Helms opposed AIDS treatment, AIDS research, AIDS prevention. He opposed everything about AIDS except blaming the victims. And not just back in the blind panic days. As late as 2002, he blamed the disease on homosexuality. They should not name an AIDS bill after Jesse Helms. They should name a gay-bashing organization after him."

Olbermann teased his "Worst Person" segment during the show's opening: "‘Worsts' is back. Elizabeth Dole wants to name an AIDS funding bill in memory of Jesse Helms, who believed gay people deserved the disease."

During a plug before a commercial break at 8:45 p.m., the MSNBC host called Helms a "homophobe": "And in ‘Worsts,' the Senator who thinks an AIDS bill should be named after homophobe Jesse Helms."

According to Variety, Chris Wallace, anchor of "Fox News Sunday," differentiated Fox News's coverage of the '08 election and MSNBC's while speaking to reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour. From the article:

"I think MSNBC's coverage went so far over the line that it lost all credibility," Wallace told reporters Monday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.

Wallace accused MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann of inappropriately mixing anchor and opinion-making duties, and said Fox News drew a distinction between its reporters and opinion-minded hosts.

"There's a reason why Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity won't be anchoring the election night or the conventions," he said during the sesh at the BevHilton hotel.

Thursday’s "Today Show" gave yet another demonstration that the mainstream media can’t get over the success of Rush Limbaugh. NBC correspondent Michael Okwu, reporting on Limbaugh’s new contract, which the New York Times has indicated is worth $400 million, "reminded" viewers of three past "controversies" involving the talk radio host: his 2003 resignation from ESPN after remarking on the sport media’s coverage of NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb; how Limbaugh mocked Michael J. Fox, "accusing the actor of exaggerating symptoms of Parkinson's Disease;" and the legal trouble he faced in Florida related to his addiction to prescription painkillers.

On this "doctor shopping" issue, Okwu remarked, "In 2003, Florida authorities charged Limbaugh with illegally-deceiving multiple doctors, in order to get overlapping painkiller prescriptions. He pled not guilty and the charges were later dismissed, though Limbaugh admitted he was an addict."

An extraordinary thing happened on Friday's "Countdown": host Keith Olbermann actually included a Democrat Congressman in his "Worst Person in the World" segment.

Of course, it would have been even more extraordinary if the MSNBC host had informed his viewers that the Congressman in question was indeed a Democrat.

Sadly, that didn't happen, and instead the million foolish people that actually watch this tripe were left in the dark concerning Bill Delahunt's (D-Mass.) party affiliation (video embedded right):

Just two weeks after getting into a brouhaha with Huffington Post editor Rachel Sklar, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has found himself in a tussle with one of the chairmen of the Netroots, Salon's Glenn Greenwald.

At the heart of this dogfight between two shameless liberal pols was Barack Obama's recent flip-flop on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and how Olbermann altered his own views on this subject in order to shelter the Democrat presidential nominee from criticism.

Grab some popcorn, folks, and let's get ready to rumble (h/t TVNewser):

Peter Boyer's profile of Keith Olbermann in the June 23 New Yorker magazine, “One Angry Man,” contained a bunch of noteworthy revelations, such as:

♦ Olbermann wanted to be more vulgar in his “shut the hell up” insult of President Bush than TV allows. Boyer on Olbermann's May 14 “Special Comment” rant: “Phil Griffin, the senior vice-president in charge of MSNBC raised the matter of tone. Why did Olbermann need to end his commentary by telling the President of the United States to 'shut the hell up'?” Answer: "Because I can't say, 'Shut the f**k up.'”

♦ A focus group for CNN found “audiences didn't like him.” Shortly after Olbermann returned to CNN in 2003, “Griffin ran into an old colleague at CNN, who told him that that network had considered hiring Olbermann, but focus-group tests showed that audiences didn't like him.” (In fact, Olbermann did fill-in work for CNN in late 2001 through 2002. See screen shot from January 24, 2002.)

♦ After Olbermann delivered his first Special Comment in August of 2006 denigrating Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a “quack” pushing “fascism,” Boyer learned: “His bosses loved it. 'I think we're onto something,' the President of NBC News, Steve Capus, told me. 'That's what we keep hearing from the audience, more and more, is that they appreciate that we have people who are actually speaking truth to power...'” Olbermann wrote his diatribe after “downing 'a couple of screwdrivers'” while waiting for a plane at LAX.

Although MSNBC and NBC officials are flatly denying the allegations, the New York Post on Friday reported that Keith Olbermann is threatening to quit if he's not promoted to host "Meet the Press."

The Post also claimed that Chris Matthews was actually heard lobbying for the job during Wednesday's memorial service for Tim Russert.

As reported at the Post's "Page Six" column (h/t TVNewser):

In 1992, reporters like Joe Klein and Sidney Blumenthal were mocked as Clinton Conformity Cops, telling other journalists that the goal of electing Bill Clinton was too important to create any obstacle of objectivity that might get in the Democrat's way. This came to mind when watching MSNBC on Thursday night, but Keith Olbermann took it a step further. He attacked ABC’s Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos for having "bigger IQs" than to make the apparently simple-minded statement that Barack Obama reversed himself on accepting public financing for his campaign.

His guest, Newsweek political reporter Howard Fineman, also played Obama Conformity Cop by completely agreeing with and hailing Obama’s lame line that taking millions of small private contributions really is "public financing." He claimed Obama wasn’t really flip-flopping: "I don't think of it as an 180-degree reversal. I think of it as a recognition of reality, and one he's been signaling for a long time. This guy cares about changing the system, paradoxically in his mind and I think to some extent, he's right. This is what he has to do to try to change the system."

Doesn't this sound like they're desperately spinning that Obama has to burn the McCain-Feingold village in order to save it?

Almost two years ago, NewsBusters wondered when media would begin reporting Enron's ties to higher oil and gas prices.

Recently, we've gotten our answer: when it could be blamed on the Republican presidential nominee.

Such was certainly the case Wednesday evening when Obama advocate Keith Olbermann did a segment on "Countdown" pointing fingers at John McCain for having not done more to repeal the so-called "Enron Loophole" created by the enactment of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

Though predictable, Olbermann conveniently ignored how the first version of this bill passed in the House with almost unanimous bipartisan support, cleared final approval in the Senate by a voice vote without any objection, and was signed into law by Bill Clinton who had also been a strong advocate (video embedded upper-right, use scrollbars to center):

When Georgia Republicans ran an ad against former Senator Max Cleland, which included a photograph of Osama bin Laden, attacking the Democratic Senator's numerous votes to apply labor union rules to the Homeland Security Department, liberals were outraged as they claimed the ad was an attack on the "patriotism" of war hero Cleland. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann expressed outrage by mentioning the attack on Cleland several times in the last few years as he claimed that Cleland was "cut down," "sandbagged," "blindsided," "cheap shotted," "mugged," "hamstrung," and subjected to a "hatchet job," in part because of the inclusion of the bin Laden photograph.

But Olbermann himself recently employed a photograph of Osama bin Laden as he teased a story contending that "John McCain's top guy [Phil Gramm] on the economy made it easier for bin Laden," and charging that Gramm was "on the side of the terrorists' bankers before and after 9/11." The MSNBC host has also accused McCain of "betraying" U.S. troops, and has suggested that McCain does not "understand [the] risk and sacrifice" of U.S. troops serving in Iraq, and that he has "abandoned" them. He even went so far as to suggest that McCain has ulterior motives for supporting an extended U.S. presence in Iraq because he supports "war-profiteering" by U.S. firms who would benefit. And Olbermann once mocked McCain as "awol" during as Senate vote because he was at a fund-raiser "supporting himself instead of the troops." (Transcripts follow)