Rather Clueless: Meltdown with Keith Olbermann Part 12

by David Forsmark  •  Nov 2, 2009 at 8:52 am
Cross-posted from NewsRealBlog.com

http://www.davidforsmark.com/2009/11/rather-clueless-meltdown-with-keith-olbermann

It may have been the most unintentionally funny Meltdown yet—and that is saying something!

As Paul Cooper noted last night, both Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews mocked Rush Limbaugh for reporting a (rather lame) satire website's posting about a supposed college thesis of Barack Obama—then reported Rush's satirical comments about the piece as though it were straight commentary.

In fact, to say these two propagandists for the Left were clueless, humorless, or just plain stupid is actually the most generous possible interpretation of the facts. It's pretty hard to avoid the evidence that this was deliberate deception by Olbermann and Matthews. It was such an out of context cut and paste job, that it was the equivalent of blaming Time Magazine for the content of a ransom note in which the words were razored from their text.

While the two propagandists and their producers only played the "But we know he thinks it…We know how he feels about distribution of wealth…so we stand by the fabricated quotebecause we know Obama thinks it anyway" quote, it is simply NOT possible that they missed the following jab at the media—or that they could have missed its meaning.

LIMBAUGH: "So we have to hold out the possibility that this is not accurate. However, I have had this happen to me recently. I have had quotes attributed to me that were made up, and when it was pointed out to the media that the quotes were made up, they said, "It doesn't matter! We know Limbaugh thinks it anyway." Sort of like Dan Rather said, "I don't care if these documents are forged. I know that Bush did what he did at the National Guard. I don't care if the documents are forged." I don't care if the Limbaugh quotes are made up. So, I can say, "I don't care if these quotes are made up. I know Obama thinks it."

Any sentient human being researching this issue could not miss Rush's direct jab at the media's willingness to believe trumped up and obviously phony charges aimed at conservatives.

What makes this especially delicious is the reference to the Dan Rather scandal. Ironically, Matthews featured Dan Rather on his weekend show the last 2 weeks, while not 5 minutes before Olberbmann's Worst Person in the Worrrrrrld rant, in his almost nightly conversation with Richard Wolffe, they positively referenced Dan Rather:

OLBERMANN: The Obama administration, according to Ms. Perino, is setting a bad example for emerging democracies by being critical of Fox.

What-when the Bush administration bought positive stories from Iraqi journalists for publication in Iraqi newspapers, what was that? A how-to course in how to start up a democracy?

WOLFFE: Well, the democracy thing is something I love the best. Self-reflection, recollection has not always been the strength of the Bush administration.I just want to remind Dana Perino and all the rest of them, that there was this exchange early in the second term between Bush and this guy in Russia called Vladimir Putin. Bush was trying to teach Putin a lesson about how to deal with the press. He said, you can't go around intimidating them-quite rightly-cannot go shutting down the free press.

Putin turned around back to Bush and said, "Well, how come you got rid of Dan Rather, then?"

(LAUGHTER)

And you know something? When it comes down to it, Putin, Chavez-all of those dictators or, let's say, autocratic leaders-are more than adept at reading the news, interpreting the news and maybe seeing things that they want. And the Bush administration was just as forceful, if not more so, than anything we're seeing out of this White House.

OLBERMANN: Amen. And Dan Rather is still on the air, and George Bush is doing $19 a ticket motivational speech ceremonies.

The fact that Richard Wolfe and Keith Olbermann would adopt a conspiratorial view of American government that matches that of a foreign dictator, while telling, is neither news, nor a topic for this discussion. However, it is hilarious that Dan Rather, who left CBS News in disgrace, is now a martyr for Keith Olbermann.

Keith spends time in every broadcast foaming at the mouth about "Fox Noise," and has joined the White House's totalitarian move against Fox News in saying they are not a news organization—something even the rest of the MSM has stood up to the White House on.

Keith pretends his objection to Fox News is journalistic—as though has higher standards. This is a perfect example that anyone who believes that, is more than just rather clueless.

One quick note: Another classic propaganda technique is that MSNBC (and a lot of the rest of the MSM) continuously uses this 100 pounds out of date picture of Limbaugh.

It's not as though it's hard to find a current picture. It takes a 5 second Google search, if they are too lazy to request a current one from Rush, himself. As a technique, it's cheap, crude and not effective. Kind of like everything on the sinking ship that is MSNBC.

receive the latest by email: subscribe to david forsmark's free mailing list