As NewsBusters reported Saturday, CNN's Piers Morgan and Soledad O'Brien accepted an "Obama bump" from singer Roberta Flack at Whitney Houston's funeral.
O'Brien took to Twitter shortly after the incident to defend herself:
O'Brien replied, "uh if miss flack wants to fist bump, one fist bumps!! And says yes miss flack."
The subject surfaced again Sunday with O'Brien saying, "actually i thought she said 'can i have a fist bump here' to which i said absolutely."
The video and transcript clearly show Flack saying, "Let's have an Obama bump here."
O'Brien continued her discussion with @PolitcalPAW writing, "i think calling the fist bump the obama bump is kinda inappropriate."
To say the least. That's why we wrote about it.
O'Brien then acknowledged, "but it IS what she said. I just pulled the transcript."
@PoliticalPAW followed, "Granting you the ignorance plea, if heard, would you then have declined the 'Obama bump' offer?"
O'Brien replied, "i would have said: the fist bump is bipartisan. Which it is!"
Yes it is, but not when someone decides to name it after a president.
Did O'Brien truly not hear Flack say "Obama bump?"
I guess we'll have to take her word for it, but this goes to the gotcha game that media members like O'Brien play all the time, especially with Republicans.
If one of the GOP candidates made a similar error on live television due to not hearing what someone actually said, would they be able to so easily brush it off?
Consider that at the same time O'Brien was making her little gaffe which she now claims was an auditory mistake, media members were cherry-picking a 41 minute speech Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum gave earlier that morning in order to dishonestly accuse him of impugning Barack Obama's religious faith.
Santorum spent much of his Sunday trying to get numerous press members to better understand the full context of what he said but hasn't been able to change many minds for this false narrative continued Monday.
So why are America's media allowed to say I'm sorry, I mis-heard my guest, but the politicians they cover - I mean the Republican politicians they cover! - are held to the impossible standard of not being able to get their words accurately reported even when videotape supports their position?
Maybe that's something O'Brien should consider the next time she plays gotcha with one of her conservative guests.
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