Mr Humility takes aim at Brit Hume. With only two quotes to offer, you'd think Olby could get maybe one of them right. With J$P Audio!

Sometimes there's a strange, compelling symmetry to the universe. We had occasion to post a round-up of some of Keith Olbermann's factually-challenged snipes at Fox News (illustrating the hysterical hypocrisy of the Fox haters), and no sooner did we hit the publish key, than Olby comes through for us again.

As part of tonight's "Worst Person in the World" segment (truly, only an arrogant egomaniac would dare to present such a feature--but this is Olby we're talking about), KO took off on Brit Hume, for daring to report the amount of coverage CNN gave to Pat Robertson's assasination suggestion. Here are Olby's words, as transcribed for NewsBusters:

Your runner-up: Brit Hume. Another reason that the phrase Fox News Channel is just a brand name, not a description. Hume criticized as 'excessive' the TV coverage of Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela because, he said, Robertson has 'no influence.' Probably why Fox has had Robertson on their network ten times in the last year. I'm now officially on the clock. I'm awaiting the traditional anonymous personal response from those at FNC so proud of their own work that they will not attach their own names to their comments.

But you can never take Olby's word for what aired on FNC--he will pick and choose items from blog reports and ideological hit-pages, but he won't run, say, the tape of what Hume actually said. That's too much like work. Says Olby:

Hume criticized as 'excessive' the TV coverage...

It will surprise no one who follows Olbermann that this claim is a phony. NewsBusters offers the text of what Hume said in his Grapevine item; he didn't call it "excessive":

Televangelist Pat Robertson's political influence may have been declining since he came in second in the Iowa Republican caucuses 17 years ago and he may have no clout with the Bush administration, but you wouldn't know that from watching CNN today. CNN covered his call for Hugo Chavez's assassination at length, undeterred by the fact that during the noon hour CNN's own analyst, Bill Schneider, said Robertson had little influence. At the top of the next hour, there it was again followed by a glowing report on the alliance between Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro. And it led CNN's three-hour Situation Room, followed minutes later by live coverage of reaction from the Venezuelan ambassador, and then nearly two hours after that an in-studio interview with the ambassador.

What's more, Mr Hume never said Robertson has "no influence". He did quote CNN's analyst ("little influence"), he did say Robertson's influence "may have been declining"--but "no influence"? Not there.

But wait, maybe he's referring to the text version of the report; the wording is sometimes slightly different. Um, no, that won't work.

Ah, but there's one last twig Olby can grab before his credibility takes another hit--Hume must have made these statements during the panel segment! J$P is pleased to present a montage of Mr Hume's comments [mp3 audio file]:





"No influence"? "Excessive"? It's amazing--Olby attributes two statements to Mr Hume, and Hume didn't say either one! The closest he gets is his joking description of CNN's "hog wild" (defined as "wildly enthusiastic") coverage, which just ain't the same thing as the judgmental term "excessive" ("exceeding a reasonable or proper limit"). If we were in a generous mood, we might give Olby half a point for that (meaning that he still got 75% of his alleged quotes wrong). But Keith has a pattern of ill-researched potshots, and he's the guy who once accused Brit Hume of "fraud"--for getting a quote wrong! Ah, the irony. So no points for Olby.

Once again Mr Humility has struck out.