How Media Matters helped Keith Olbermann smear Bill O'Reilly. With J$P Video!

There are two ways to smear someone. You can be covert: publish facts, but not the whole truth; let careful wording lead readers to the desired conclusion. Or you can be overt: a full-on personal attack, drenched in hyperbole, preferably culminating in high-decibel name-calling. Media Matters and Keith Olbermann take different approaches, but they exemplify symbiosis. They feed off each other.

On his radio program Thursday, Bill O'Reilly was talking to Col Ralph Peters about VietNam. During the conversation, Mr O'Reilly recalled how, when Saddam's statue was brought down, he had criticized the Bush administration for not having a plan to deal with the rampant law breaking and looting in Iraq. Media Matters dutifully dug out the transcript for the day in question (April 9, 2003), and sure enough, O'Reilly had said nothing like any of this. Their phrasing ("O'Reilly falsely claimed... in fact O'Reilly made no mention of looting") left precisely the desired impression: O'Reilly was making it all up.

Enter Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown. He does not research the nightly hit pieces he directs at his perceived enemies. Rather, he uncritically lifts them from Media Matters, Think Progress, and other blue blogs. Then he gussies them up with extravagant ridicule and personal attacks, taking them to the next level. Invariably, Media Matters will post video of Mr Olbermann's over-the-top rants, allowing them to benefit from his philippics while claiming clean hands: Media Matters, after all, hasn't indulged in name-calling. Symbiosis.

In the case at hand, Mr Olbermann took their O'Reilly article and ran with it in his usual style: "This is a lulu... He didn't say anything like that", culminating in a coda of audacious name-calling [QuickTime video]:



When Olbermann delivered his broadside, we immediately went to Media Matters where, as expected, we found the source for his tirade. It struck us that O'Reilly was recalling off the top of his head a statement he made years ago, yet at the bottom of their piece Media Matters only cited the transcript for one day. Is it possible that O'Reilly did say what he claimed, only not on that particular show? We found what we were looking for on the very next O'Reilly Factor airing, a special Sunday edition. It began with his nightly "talking points" memo:

BILL O'REILLY: But in order to fully win the peace, discipline and order must quickly be imposed by the coalition. There should be martial law, and lawbreakers must be arrested by coalition forces. Chaos always leads to more chaos. If the USA really wants to help the Iraqi people, it must immediately establish a firm rule of law.

And continued thereafter:

BILL O'REILLY: As we told you in the "Talking Points" memo, law breakers in Iraq have embarrassed the coalition forces... does the U. S. Military have the capability to police a country as complicated as Iraq?... they quoted some Marine commanders and even some Army guys, and they said they didn't have enough people. Because there were actually Iraqi citizens saying, would you please stop it? They are breaking into my store, and they are taking my stuff. And the guy said, look, I don't have enough people....

COL DAVID HUNT: ...these are Iraqis, oh, by the way, looting their own country... We don't want soldiers in the middle of a fight to all of a sudden turn to a looter.... You don't want American Marines and Army guys in the middle of a firefight stopping someone taking a porcelain sink.

O'REILLY: Here's why I think you're wrong. This is like a contagious disease. If the 5 million residents of Baghdad see that the coalition forces are going to allow illegality, all right, they are going to allow chaos, then more of it will happen.... The U. S. comes in, they don't have control, they'll lose the peace.... the Ministry of Information, or some such, on fire. All right? Somebody set this fire. OK? And there are no firefighters to put it out.... I think the coalition has to quickly reorganize and protect all structures...

[Lexis/Nexis Transcript: The O'Reilly Factor, April 11 2003]

Media Matters was happy to print that Mr O'Reilly "falsely claimed" to have said these things, while not mentioning that he actually did so on the very next airing of The Factor. And Keith Olbermann, more interested in attacking his bete-noir than in fairness or accuracy, made it personal, bellowing: "Holy you-know what, Billo! You're a holy you-know-what liar!" Because, during an unscripted discussion about something he said on his program over three years ago, Mr O'Reilly was off by one as to which broadcast it was.