MSNBC's David Shuster continued the attack on Governor Sarah Palin for not allowing reporters in on meetings she attended at the United Nations. Fellow Newsbuster Ken Shepherd pointed out recently the media never complained over not having full access to Barack Obama's meetings with foreign leaders during his tour through the Middle East and later Europe.
However, Shuster's attack included a very edited down tape of Palin and Dr. Henry Kissinger, which attempted to make Palin look like she knew little of what was being discussed. Moreover, Shuster seemed to take delight in pointing out Palin's spokeswoman misspelled Kissinger's last name(my emphasis added throughout):
She even answered a reporter, 'great, great', when asked how it went. Perhaps Kissinger and the governor also discussed Glastnost, because later in the day the campaign issued the following mini manifesto:
We regret the mix-up and were happy that the pool had access to the Governor's meetings with President Uribe and Dr. Henry Kissenger[sic.]
Incidentally, we here at MSNBC did not misspell Dr. Kissinger's name. That version came from Palin's gang.
MSNBC should be the last network to be casting stones over typos. If the IQ litmus test for MSNBC is a misspelling in a press release, perhaps a trip to an MSNBC 2002 broadcast featuring conservative pundit Niger Innis as a guest is in order.
The lower third graphic identifying Innis misspelled his first name, so the broadcast ended up looking like Ku Klux Klan programming for a while. Check it out here.
A red-faced Gregg Jarrett, who later jumped over to FNC that year, made an on-air apology to Innis:
Let me offer a profuse apology from this network. We accidentally misspelled your name in the last hour, and we are terribly sorry.
MSNBC spokesman Mark O'Connor said this at the time of the incident:
We regret this unfortunate typographical error that was made to Mr. Innis' first name. We immediately corrected the error in the on-screen graphic and apologized to our guest on the air.
The individual in the control room responsible for the misspelling was never revealed, but the incident was solely blamed as a typographical error and not a racist plot against Innis.
Racist or stupid?...After such an incident, Shuster and MSNBC would do themselves well to remember Mr. Innis before they sneer at anymore typos coming from Palin pressers.
**edited at 2:44 am 9/24/08
