NBC Concedes Iraq 'Civil War' Description Could 'Erode' Support --11/28/2006

1. NBC Concedes Iraq 'Civil War' Description Could 'Erode' Support
Twelve hours after the Today show repeatedly announced how NBC News had decided to call the situation in Iraq a "civil war," as if that decision was major news itself, Monday's NBC Nightly News led with the term and conceded it could "erode" public support for the war. NBC's Brian Williams teased: "A critical week for the President and the civil war in Iraq. Is the way out through Iran and Syria?" Then, over a graphic of "IRAQ" with "CIVIL WAR" beneath, Williams led: "Tonight there are moving parts on several fronts, all related to the fighting in Iraq. This begins what may be a crucial week in determining future U.S. involvement in what has become a civil war in that country." Reporter Andrea Mitchell asserted: "While Washington looks for answers, the violence in Iraq is spiraling out of control. Today NBC News joined other major news organizations in calling it a civil war." Mitchell acknowledged the impact of using the term: "Today the administration objected strongly to news organizations calling it a civil war. Many experts say that the White House has a huge incentive to avoid that term because it could further erode public support for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq."

2. Olbermann: NBC's Iraq 'Civil War' a 'Walter Cronkite Moment'
On Monday's Countdown, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann contended that the decision by NBC News, to label violence in Iraq as a "civil war," was comparable to the 1968 decision by Walter Cronkite to declare the Vietnam War a "stalemate" as the former CBS News anchor lost confidence in America's ability to win that war. Olbermann yearned: "Is this the 'Walter Cronkite moment' of the Iraq War?" He led his show by quoting from Cronkite's 1968 statement, including the proclamation that "the only rational way out would be to negotiate," as the Countdown host contended that Cronkite had "truly matched his signoff 'And that's the way it is.'" Olbermann then concluded: "Wishing neither to make an undue analogy nor be too introspective, but on the advice of a panel of experts, NBC News and MSNBC have today decided to call it in Iraq, the way it is, 'civil war.'"

3. Logan Insists U.S. Defeated in Iraq, But Abizaid Rejects Notion
In the only non-repeat story on Sunday's holiday weekend 60 Minutes, CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan insisted to General John Abizaid, the top U.S. Commander in the Middle East, that the U.S has been defeated in Iraq. Though he disputed her contention, she was not swayed. Logan asserted: "We hear very little about victory in Iraq these days. We hear a lot about how to manage the defeat." Abizaid cut her off, demanding: "What defeat?" Logan quicky rephrased from "manage" to "minimize" the defeat: "How we minimize the defeat." Abizaid scolded: "That's your word. Defeat is your word, not my word." Undeterred, Logan returned to her refrain: "Increasingly in this country, people are talking about how to manage defeat in Iraq."

4. Williams: See My 'Serious, Reasoned' Newscast, Unlike Cable Goons
PBS talk show host Charlie Rose, who spent the 1980s at CBS doing the overnight interview show Nightwatch, is never a softer touch than when he has a network star on his show. Last Monday night's interview with NBC anchor Brian Williams gave the anchor a platform to present his newscast as a "reasoned, serious" oasis from cable-news shouters, a "half hour of peace and tranquility" with "smart people" like David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell telling you about the world. Their discussion of Katrina coverage had no hint of regret that NBC misled people with Ray Nagin's wild estimates of 10,000 dead. Williams reminisced, "you remember people saying, well, the media have found their footing again and its name is New Orleans. They were asleep during WMD. But they're awake now."

5. Olbermann in LA Times: I'm Not Making Facts Up Like Rush Limbaugh
Los Angeles Times media reporter Matea Gold is the latest journalist to push Keith Olbermann as a hot commodity now that he's boldly captured about one-fifth as many viewers as Bill O'Reilly. True, his left-wing howling at the moon may match the incoming Democratic committee leaders like John Conyers, but he's still denying he has an identifiable political agenda. The other unintentionally hilarious moment in the November 27 article came in his dismissal of Rush Limbaugh as a fabricator. To suggestion that Olbermann is as demagogic as his nemesis O'Reilly, Keith responded: "'I'm not trying to whip up a political frenzy,' he said. 'If I was out there every night beating people over the head with this, I would become a Rush Limbaugh. That's not my goal. I don't make the facts up to fit the political viewpoint that happens to parallel what it is I'm trying to express.'"

6. Cal Thomas Names Keith Olbermann His 'Turkey of the Year'
On FNC's Fox News Watch aired on Saturday, conservative columnist and FNC contributor Cal Thomas took to task MSNBC host Keith Olbermann for Olbermann's "inaccuracies" and "hot air" as the show's panelists got to voice their picks for the second annual "Turkey of the Year" award, which allowed each panelist to dishonor media figures for disreputable behavior. Olbermann, who often uses his Countdown show's regular "Worst Person in the World" segment to denigrate conservative public figures, was called out by Thomas as someone who "is the greatest contributor to global warming because he spews more hot air than any other cable television show host."

NBC Concedes Iraq 'Civil War' Description
Could 'Erode' Support

Twelve hours after the Today show repeatedly announced how NBC News had decided to call the situation in Iraq a "civil war," as if that decision was major news itself, Monday's NBC Nightly News led with the term and conceded it could "erode" public support for the war. Meanwhile, CBS and ABC, didn't go quite as far as CBS's Katie Couric referred to how Iraq "slips ever-closer to civil war" and ABC's Charles Gibson suggested "you can call it anarchy, you can call it chaos, you can call it civil war..."

NBC's Brian Williams teased: "A critical week for the President and the civil war in Iraq. Is the way out through Iran and Syria?" Then, over a graphic of "IRAQ" with "CIVIL WAR" beneath, Williams led: "Tonight there are moving parts on several fronts, all related to the fighting in Iraq. This begins what may be a crucial week in determining future U.S. involvement in what has become a civil war in that country." Reporter Andrea Mitchell asserted: "While Washington looks for answers, the violence in Iraq is spiraling out of control. Today NBC News joined other major news organizations in calling it a civil war." After a clip of presidential historian Michael Beschloss who contended,: "If you define a civil war as a country where a lot of groups are struggling for power, and that's primarily the struggle, Iraq is in a civil war," Mitchell acknowledged the impact of using the term: "Today the administration objected strongly to news organizations calling it a civil war. Many experts say that the White House has a huge incentive to avoid that term because it could further erode public support for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq."

[This item was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric teased her Monday newscast, "Tonight, man on a mission: President Bush embarks on a search for solutions to the violence in Iraq as that country slips ever-closer to civil war." She then opened: "The Bush administration is still not calling it a civil war, but National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley today gave the most ominous assessment yet of the violence in Iraq. He said it has clearly entered a 'new phase.'" David Martin soon highlighted how UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "publicly warned Iraq is on the brink of civil war."

Over on ABC's World News, anchor Charles Gibson put "civil war" into the mix: "You can call it anarchy, you can call it chaos, you can call it civil war. Whatever you call it, the events of recent days demonstrate that the situation in Iraq is at a critical juncture."

As recounted by the MRC's Geoff Dickens in a Monday NewsBusters posting, "In Clunky Newscasts, NBC News Decrees Iraq In 'Civil War,'" Matt Lauer announced at the top of the November 27 Today:
"For months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war and for the most part news organizations like NBC have hesitated to characterize it as such but after careful consideration NBC News has decided a change in terminology is warranted. That the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war. We're gonna have more on the situation on the ground in Iraq and on our decision coming up."

Later in the 7am half hour, Lauer elaborated on the policy with General Barry McCaffrey:
"We, we should mention we just didn't wake up on a Monday morning and say, 'Let's call this a civil war.' This took careful deliberation, we consulted with a lot of people."

And news reader Ann Curry made NBC News part of the news:
"Just days after returning from Asia, President Bush is on his way overseas again today. The President has a crucial meeting on Wednesday in Jordan with the prime minister of Iraq. They will discuss what NBC News has decided to now call a civil war in Iraq. Though the White House maintains while the situation in Iraq is serious it has not disintegrated into civil war. The President goes first to Estonia then to a NATO summit in Latvia."

For more on Monday's Today: newsbusters.org

Seeing civil war in Iraq is nothing new for the networks. A Friday, May 20, 2005 MRC CyberAlert item, "CBS Cites Dire Litany, Asks: Is Iraq 'Sliding Toward Civil War?'", recounted:
"It just keeps getting worse in Iraq," Bob Schieffer declared at the top of Thursday's CBS Evening News as he recited a litany of dire news which only CBS considered to be the lead story of the day: "The death toll is rising. Tension is growing between Shiites and Sunnis. Is the country sliding toward civil war?" >From Baghdad, Mark Strassmann backed up Schieffer's thesis: "Tit-for-tat terror seems to be pushing Iraq towards civil war. This man says, 'We are heading toward a catastrophe.'" A frustrated Schieffer recalled how U.S. military leaders recently predicted that "it might be possible to start drawing down the American force there early next year sometime. Now you just hear one bad report after another. I'm beginning to wonder, 'Does anybody know what's going on there?'"

For the entire CyberAlert article: www.mrc.org

Olbermann: NBC's Iraq 'Civil War' a 'Walter
Cronkite Moment'

On Monday's Countdown, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann contended that the decision by NBC News, to label violence in Iraq as a "civil war," was comparable to the 1968 decision by Walter Cronkite to declare the Vietnam War a "stalemate" as the former CBS News anchor lost confidence in America's ability to win that war. Olbermann yearned: "Is this the 'Walter Cronkite moment' of the Iraq War?" He led his show by quoting from Cronkite's 1968 statement, including the proclamation that "the only rational way out would be to negotiate," as the Countdown host contended that Cronkite had "truly matched his signoff 'And that's the way it is.'" Olbermann then concluded: "Wishing neither to make an undue analogy nor be too introspective, but on the advice of a panel of experts, NBC News and MSNBC have today decided to call it in Iraq, the way it is, 'civil war.'"

[This item is adopted from a Monday night posting by Brad Wilmouth on the MRC's NewsBusters blog: newsbusters.org ]

Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the November 27 Countdown:

Keith Olbermann, in opening teaser: "Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? It is civil war in Iraq. Not says the State Department. Not says the Iraqi government. But after long and painful consideration, it meets the technical standards for civil war, and we must call it that, says NBC News. Is this the 'Walter Cronkite moment' of the Iraq War? Retired Colonel Jack Jacobs on the why and how the sectarian violence in Iraq qualifies for this fearful phrase. Craig Crawford predicts the impact, its relative position on the Cronkite scale, and the backlash. Dana Milbank on the impact on the President on the latest leaks about the Baker commission report and Mr. Bush's impending summit meeting with Nouri al-Maliki. Mr. Bush thinks it is not civil war in Iraq, but it is too dangerous to meet Iraq's prime minister in Iraq."

Olbermann introduced the program: "Good evening from Los Angeles. 'We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds,' the observer began exactly 38 years and nine months ago tonight. 'To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists, who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we're on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.' And the observer's conclusion: 'It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out would be to negotiate -- not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.' Our fifth story on the Countdown, after years of erring on the side of caution about Vietnam, Walter Cronkite, on February 27, 1968, truly matched his signoff 'And that's the way it is,' and America never saw that war the same way. Wishing neither to make an undue analogy nor be too introspective, but on the advice of a panel of experts, NBC News and MSNBC have today decided to call it in Iraq, the way it is, 'civil war.'"

Logan Insists U.S. Defeated in Iraq,
But Abizaid Rejects Notion

In the only non-repeat story on Sunday's holiday weekend 60 Minutes, CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan insisted to General John Abizaid, the top U.S. Commander in the Middle East, that the U.S has been defeated in Iraq. Though he disputed her contention, she was not swayed. Logan asserted: "We hear very little about victory in Iraq these days. We hear a lot about how to manage the defeat." Abizaid cut her off, demanding: "What defeat?" Logan quicky rephrased from "manage" to "minimize" the defeat: "How we minimize the defeat." Abizaid scolded: "That's your word. Defeat is your word, not my word." Undeterred, Logan returned to her refrain: "Increasingly in this country, people are talking about how to manage defeat in Iraq."

The MRC's Michael Rule caught the lead story on the November 26 60 Minutes in which Logan interviewed Abizaid last week at Central Command's Tampa-area headquarters. From the end of the piece:

Lara Logan: "We hear very little about victory in Iraq these days. We hear a lot about how to manage the defeat. And a lot of Americans-"
John Abizaid: "What defeat?"
Logan: "How we minimize the defeat."
Abizaid: "That's your word. Defeat is your word, not my word. Can Iraq stabilize? Yes, Iraq could stabilize."
Logan: "Is that what we -- is that victory now? Is that what victory will look like in Iraq, just stability? That's what we're aiming for?"
Abizaid: "Victory in Iraq is a nation at peace with its neighbors, and Iraq hasn't been at peace with its neighbors in a long time. It is a country that respects the rights of its citizens. It's a country that can defend itself. It's a country that's not a safe haven for terrorists."
Logan: "Increasingly in this country, people are talking about how to manage defeat in Iraq. There's a loss of support for the war, very clearly showing in the present. Not a loss of support for the military or for the soldiers which still remains strong."
Abizaid: "Again, let me say I don't think people in the country are trying to figure out how to manage defeat in Iraq. I think people in the country are trying to figure out how to manage our involvement in Iraq so that Iraq can stabilize. You just can't walk away from these problems of the Middle East and hope that things are going to get better. Look, many people have said we're already at the beginning of World War III."
Lara Logan: "Are we?"
John Abizaid: "No. We're not, and our involvement in the region will prevent it."

Williams: See My 'Serious, Reasoned'
Newscast, Unlike Cable Goons

PBS talk show host Charlie Rose, who spent the 1980s at CBS doing the overnight interview show Nightwatch, is never a softer touch than when he has a network star on his show. Last Monday night's interview with NBC anchor Brian Williams gave the anchor a platform to present his newscast as a "reasoned, serious" oasis from cable-news shouters, a "half hour of peace and tranquility" with "smart people" like David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell telling you about the world. Their discussion of Katrina coverage had no hint of regret that NBC misled people with Ray Nagin's wild estimates of 10,000 dead (newsbusters.org Williams reminisced, "you remember people saying, well, the media have found their footing again and its name is New Orleans. They were asleep during WMD. But they're awake now."

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Thursday on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The November 20 interview began with syrupy talk about Williams filling in for Rose during his heart-surgery break. Williams said it was his pleasure, since he was interviewing that genius who is the Editor of Newsweek:
"They allowed me to interview Jon Meacham. We could have done three hours as you know. Jon's intellect will take you around the world."
Rose: "And you can touch on all the gods and all the Founding Fathers and the latest conversations with Billy Graham."
Williams: "And Franklin and Winston."
Rose: "Yes indeed. And the boy writes history as well."

Williams was drawn into praising his own show (and mocking the talk-show hosts on cable TV) when talking about how NBC still draws ten million viewers a night, up to 11 or 12 million around the elections: "I see us as still offering this reasoned, serious half hour every night. The more people shout on cable, the more I actually welcome that."
Rose: "Because it makes what you do more needed."
Williams: "Right. Sure. Give us this half hour of peace and tranquility and let me hear what David Gregory says it was like in the front row of the briefing that day. [Talk about a shouter!] Let me hear Andrea Mitchell describe Condi Rice on this trip to Jakarta. I want to know about that. I want to know it from smart people who do this for a living."

Then came the time to honor Williams for his "passion" during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
Rose: "You have had the opportunity because of that chair to be in New Orleans. It is the most important story identified with you. Did it change you."
Williams, beginning with a hushed tone: "Oh, I think so. What was different and you were around and you remember people saying, well, the media have found their footing again and its name is New Orleans. They were asleep during WMD. But they're awake now.
"The difference, as I need not tell you, is we got to New Orleans before that storm hit, and made it an intentional decision to lock ourselves in that dome. I rode out that storm in that leaky dome with all those people, not all of whom lived to see the next week. So I think it made me a witness. We saw palpable screw-ups by our government, and we saw our brothers and sister citizens, Americans -- I had just covered the tsunami, thinking all the while when I saw an open grave, well, we'll never have people, Americans, floating through streets of our cities. And of course we did. Of course we saw people floating through the streets of New Orleans. Obviously there was a storm. And no one can stop that. But, boy, the government response could have been different. I think everyone responsible has made their respective apologies. I was just there really as the viewers' advocate."

Being an "advocate" meant, on the first anniversary of Katrina, confronting President Bush with the idea that he was influenced by racism, that a majority-white city would have drawn a better, quicker government response.

Rose: "Tell me about your impression of him on that day, on that day."
Williams: "I got in so much trouble on that day in New Orleans. You'll see the body language. He plays you man to man. He likes to get in your grill. He likes it that way. And you can't give distance. I don't mean that in a Jets vs. Sharks way. I'm not an adversary. But I'm not an advocate for his position either. So you hold your ground as you would in conversation. He gets so close to you sometimes it's beyond -- I normally wear glasses when I'm off the air. It's beyond my ability to focus in on his face. But I found he appreciates the swordfight of a crackling good conversation. People said to me after this interview, you asked him what he was reading just to embarrass him. I said, no, I asked him what he was reading because we always talk about books. I know he's just finish a Teddy Roosevelt kick. I know as of the time I've seen him he read 53 books in this competition with Karl Rove they were having for nonfiction."
Rose: "Is this when he later said Karl Rove won because he may not have been working as hard?"
Williams: "Exactly, and the President admitted he was reading philosophers at the ranch in Texas. It was a revealing moment."
Rose: "Columnists had a field day with [Bush reading existentialist writer Albert] Camus."
Williams: "Yes, they did. With Camus, and 'three Shakespeares.' as the President said."
Rose: "But beyond that, that's a telling detail. He likes to be in your face...Other impressions that don't match what might have been conventional wisdom about him adding to the portrait?"
Williams: "Interesting. Having covered Bill Clinton as White House correspondent and now having been around this President, one of the real joys of my job, my hobby in life is presidential history. I live for each new book or detail to come out, is how equal they are as retail politicians. So many differences obviously between the two men. But they are equally at home in private settings and they need that tonic of personal contact. Both men have that wonderful gift. If you're standing in front of them, there is no one else in the world and having been in the company of both men I'm struck by that similarity."
Rose: "I don't know if Bush feels that way. Clinton has taken note of that saying he has great respect for him as a politician because he loves the game. He loves to walk down the rope line and shake hands and see people because he is a people person. His father, Bush's father, seems different about politics. Was much more...loved government. More so than politics."
Williams: "And noblesse oblige. More than the son perhaps. I don't know."
Rose: "I want to take a look at this interview with the President. Here it is. Roll tape."
[Video of Williams to Bush in earlier interview, in December: "Was there any social or class or race aspect to the response?"
Bush: "Somebody, I heard a couple of people said Bush didn't respond because because he's a racist or alleged that. That is absolutely wrong. I reject that. Frankly that's the kind of thing that you can call me anything you want but do not call me a racist."]
Rose: "What's interesting about that-- and I hadn't seen that bite -- it is that people don't appreciate the power of engagement, i.e., it's not the perfect question always. It is putting that person not by soft or hard, not by any other definition just engagement so they want to tell you. It's an engagement of a conversation."
Williams: "I had an idea on that flight on Air Force One, we were above Philadelphia. The truth is the taxpayers can now know the pilot had to do a rectangle while we were -- because the interview went longer than we thought because Bush was engaged. He didn't want to stop. I said to me, Mr. President, what just happened in New Orleans? What if that had been Nantucket or Chicago or Florida or New York or L.A.? That's what set him off. He sensed an implication in the question. And so that's what led to that second exchange."

He sensed an implication? Wasn't the implication crystal clear? "You don't care about black people."

For more on Williams' late August interview with Bush, check the August 30 CyberAlert, "Williams Hits Bush with Dyson's Charge He's Uncaring 'Patrician,'" online at: www.mrc.org

For the December 13 CyberAlert item, "Williams Hits Bush with Charge of Racism Behind Katrina Response," go to: www.mrc.org

Olbermann in LA Times: I'm Not Making
Facts Up Like Rush Limbaugh

Los Angeles Times media reporter Matea Gold is the latest journalist to push Keith Olbermann as a hot commodity now that he's boldly captured about one-fifth as many viewers as Bill O'Reilly. True, his left-wing howling at the moon may match the incoming Democratic committee leaders like John Conyers, but he's still denying he has an identifiable political agenda. The other unintentionally hilarious moment in the November 27 article came in his dismissal of Rush Limbaugh as a fabricator. When Robert Cox of Olbermann Watch suggested to the Times that Olbermann is as demagogic as his nemesis O'Reilly, Keith responded:
"'I'm not trying to whip up a political frenzy,' he said. 'If I was out there every night beating people over the head with this, I would become a Rush Limbaugh. That's not my goal. I don't make the facts up to fit the political viewpoint that happens to parallel what it is I'm trying to express.'"

[This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Monday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

Gold laid out Olbermann's improbably argument that he has no identifiable political agenda and has made no attempt to pander to the MoveOn/Daily Kosmonaut wing of the Democrats by describing Bush as the vilest of dictators and the Republican Party as the nation's leading terrorist group. (Of course, Gold doesn't actually offer the reader much of Olbermann's progressive patois.) The no-agenda-here claim unfolded like this:
"The longtime sportscaster, who doesn't vote and eschews any political identity -- "I may be a Whig, possibly a Free-Soiler," he quipped -- has nevertheless become an unexpected folk hero for the frustrated left. One woman approached him in a New York restaurant recently and burst into tears as she thanked him.
"'People just think, 'He speaks for me,' said Jane Hamsher, a Mill Valley, Calif., author who runs a liberal blog at firedoglake.com. 'There was no resonance within the media for their perspective, and suddenly Keith came on the scene and gave voice to these long-simmering feelings of disgust with the war.'

Olbermann said he never set out to court disaffected liberals.
"'But there's a time when what you're covering ceases to look like news and begins to look like history,' he said. 'And you say, well, it doesn't matter how people might brand me or respond to this -- I feel as if something very important is not being said.'"

MSNBC boss Dan Abrams suggested, on a positive note, that MSNBC is NBC's petulant younger sibling:
"Abrams said MSNBC is finally finding its identity, which he described as 'NBC News' younger brother or sister.'
"'It doesn't mean the older sibling is more intelligent or better at what they do,' he added. 'It just means they've been doing it longer. We may be a little brasher, a little more petulant, but we are one family.'"

For the November 27 LA Times article, "The gloves come off: Keith Olbermann's anti-Bush views have driven up the ratings of his MSNBC show," in full: www.latimes.com

Cal Thomas Names Keith Olbermann His
'Turkey of the Year'

On FNC's Fox News Watch aired on Saturday, conservative columnist and FNC contributor Cal Thomas took to task MSNBC host Keith Olbermann for Olbermann's "inaccuracies" and "hot air" as the show's panelists got to voice their picks for the second annual "Turkey of the Year" award, which allowed each panelist to dishonor media figures for disreputable behavior. Olbermann, who often uses his Countdown show's regular "Worst Person in the World" segment to denigrate conservative public figures, was called out by Thomas as someone who "is the greatest contributor to global warming because he spews more hot air than any other cable television show host."

[This item, by Brad Wilmouth, was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

After panelist Jane Hall had named Rush Limbaugh as her choice, host Eric Burns turned to Thomas, who started his response jokingly by complaining that Olbermann had incorrectly charged that Thomas dyes his hair. But Thomas also criticized Olbermann for "inaccuracies" in general. Below is a transcript of Thomas' comments on Olbermann from the November 25 Fox News Watch:

Cal Thomas: "Mine goes to Keith Olbermann of, what network is that, MSNBC I guess it is. Nobody's watching anyway. But he famously claimed that I dyed my hair once, and along with all of his other inaccuracies, that one is, too."
Eric Burns: "Cal can famously deny it because no-"
Thomas: "Nobody watches. That's right."
Burns, shaking his head: "No."
Thomas: "That's right. But I want to say also that Keith Olbermann is the greatest contributor to global warming because he spews more hot air than any other cable television show host. Now, if he only had a rating."

-- Brent Baker