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!):
GLENN BECK, HOST: You know what I am? You know what I am?
DAN ANDROS, PRODUCER: He doesn't deserve this.
GLENN: I am a multiwinner, multitime winner of worst person in the world. That's what I am, okay?
STU BURGUIERE, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: That's true.
GLENN: And I think that's something to be proud of. I have just been crowned yet again worst person in the world by Keith Olbermann.
STU: And something -- I mean, you need to take this seriously. He is a smart man.
GLENN: He's a journalist, you know.
STU: Yeah, he's a journalist.
GLENN: He's a journalist. Media Matters I believe types stuff right directly into his TelePrompTer.
STU: No, no, I think this he have to copy and paste it.
GLENN: Do they really?
STU: If the connection is down, they do have to copy and paste it.
GLENN: Here's where -- watch this connection. This is a three-part miniseries that you're going to so enjoy. Here is Keith Olbermann dubbing me the worst person in the world. Go ahead.
KEITH: The bronze to Glenn Beck asking his guest, John McCain's pro apocalypse Hagee say, you've got to wake up, Barack Obama's making people cry and faint and everything else. There are people, and they say this about Bill Clinton who believe that he might even be the antichrist. Odds that Barack Obama is the antichrist? Why do you ask, Glenn? Worried about somebody giving you competition?
GLENN: Stop. Okay.
STU: (Laughing).
GLENN: That's funny.
STU: Oh, my God. How did he come up with doing the same joke you did? Oh, God, whew.
GLENN: Hang on, hang on. First of all, let's just notice that he was reading it. He didn't play audio from it. Now, why wouldn't he play audio? He had to read it. "And they say, Glenn, you've got to wake up. Don't you know that Barack Obama's making people pass out? So tell me, Pastor Hagee, is he the -- what are the odds that he is the antichrist?" Notice? And notice he also doesn't say Pastor Hagee's response. And notice also that he says that Pastor Hagee is pro Armageddon. I think we all are, aren't we? I mean, bring on the end of the world! Yeah!
All right. So why didn't he play the audio? Maybe because, listen to the audio and tell me if this sounds like a serious question to Pastor Hagee.
GLENN: Let me ask you -- because I get so much e-mail on this and I think a lot of people do and I've only got a couple of seconds. They say, Glenn, you in the media, you've got to wake up. Barack Obama's making people faint and cry and everything else and he's drawing people in and there are people, and they said this about Bill Clinton, that actually believe he might be the antichrist. Odds that Barack Obama is the antichrist.
PASTOR HAGEE: No chance. He has a lot of charisma. There's a media love affair with him right now. He is a very forgivable political person.
Do you see what Olbermann did here? He completely ignored the set-up to Beck's question. Take a close look at what was conveniently missing from Olbermann's transcript of Beck's statements:
Let me ask you -- because I get so much e-mail on this and I think a lot of people do and I've only got a couple of seconds. They say, Glenn, you in the media...
As such, Beck was posing a question raised by others, and, as can plainly be seen from the video below, doing it in a humorous fashion which gave no credence whatsoever to the notion that Obama is the anti-Christ. In fact, he was clearly belittling it as you can see here:
Not what Olbermann represented on Wednesday, was it? Now, let's look at how Think Progress transcribed Beck's words in its posting on Tuesday (emphasis theirs):
Beck: ‘Is Obama the Antichrist?’
Today on his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck asked Pastor John Hagee whether Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is the embodiment of evil:
There are people — they say this about Bill Clinton — he might be the anti-Christ. Odds that Barack Obama is the Antichrist?
Here's how Media Matters reported it Wednesday:
As the blog Think Progress noted, Beck wrapped up his interview with Hagee by asking him if Sen. Barack Obama might be the Antichrist: "There are people -- and they said this about Bill Clinton -- that actually believe he might be the Antichrist. Odds that Barack Obama is the Antichrist?" Hagee responded: "No chance." Beck has previously said of Sen. Hillary Clinton, "I think we may have found our Antichrist and our next president."
Interesting, yes? All three entities ignored Beck's set-up:
Let me ask you -- because I get so much e-mail on this and I think a lot of people do and I've only got a couple of seconds. They say, Glenn, you in the media...
Why do you think ALL THREE entities did that? Well, Beck had the answer:
GLENN: Okay, notice that I'm laughing all the way through it, if you could even see the audio, which, if he played the audio he would have to play the video. If you could actually see the video, you could see that I'm laughing as I say it, as I ask the question. Well, here's the best part, because what picked this up originally was, I don't even know, Think Progress. Think Progress, yes. Let's Think Progress. Do you know Progressive has "Progress" in it? It must be good. Think Progress is the first that picked this up on the blog. They're like, Glenn Beck thinks that maybe Media Matters then picked up the story and put a Glenn Beck think maybe and then they cut and pasted and put it in the TelePrompTer for Keith Olbermann: Glenn Beck thinks maybe he's the worst person in the world! Then Media Matters reported that Keith Olbermann reported the story that Media Matters reported that Keith Olbermann should report. So if they could just now get Media Matters to alert Think Progress and so Think Progress could report that Media Matters reported that Keith Olbermann reported what Media Matters reported that Think Progress reported originally, it would be a feedback loop that would never end and everything would be perfect in the world.
The reason, the reason this is so unbelievably entertaining is because obviously the truth doesn't matter, but even more is it is so very predictable. In fact, it's so predictable, on what date, Stu?
STU: February 20th, Glenn.
GLENN: On February 20th, on this program I predicted this very thing to happen. Listen to the audio.
Archive: By the way, this is all going to be transcribed by Media Matters today as a completely dead serious conversation.
GRAY: I know, I know.
GLENN: There are going to be media alerts: Glenn Beck announces Obama is the antichrist. You watch, it's going to be everywhere.
And it was. Well, it was on three really credible sources. Think Progress, Media Matters, and Keith Olbermann, which is weird because I say it's three sources when actually it's really only one.
That's correct Glenn: one source directly tied to the Clintons. And nobody in the mainstream media -- especially not the good folks at MSNBC -- seems to care.
