On Thursday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann mixed up the Media Research Center with the group Accuracy in Media, as he linked MRC Founder and President Brent Bozell to an article written by AIM's Roger Aronoff. In the article, titled "Olbermann's Fuzzy Math on Race," [1]Aronoff had responded to Olbermann's Monday "Special Comment" [2] in which he asserted that a scarcity of minorities at Tea Party events amounts to evidence of racism by Tea Party activists. The MSNBC host mistakenly referred to Aronoff and AIM editor Cliff Kincaid as "henchmen" of Bozell, and associated all three men with "racists in the right wing."
Olbermann:
The racists in the right wing are digging themselves in deeper by the moment by trying to answer the unanswerable, the commentary in which I noted the obvious: The Tea parties are overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, white. Defending the 9/12 rally in Washington, one of Brent Bozell's henchmen at the so-called Media Research Council cites another one of the henchmen.
After reading from Aronoff's article, Olbermann mocked the AIM analyst by using some of the same words Aronoff had used to point out the nearly all-white lineup of anchors at Olbermann's glass house known as MSNBC. The Countdown host concluded: "Why not just say it: Some of my best Tea Party friends are black?"
Olbermann notably ignored a recent NewsBusters posting which cites a CBS News/New York Times poll finding that 95 percent of Tea Party activists are white, suggesting that the remaining five percent are minorities.
Below is a transcript of the relevant "Quick Comment" segment from the Thursday, February 18, Countdown show on MSNBC, as read by Olbermann:
And now, tonight's first "Quick Comment." And, no, again, criticism of the President of the United States has absolutely nothing to do with his race. (WITH SARCASM)
The email has already flown around the world already like a good lie should: "Subject: Keep Your Feet Off the Furniture!
"Does this photo of President Obama in the Oval Office convey anything to you about his attitude?"
Yes, look at this: Feet up on the presidential desk.
"We should inundate the White House with emails demanding he keep his feet off our furniture. This arrogant, immature and self-centered man has no sense of honor or of simple decency. While this posture is disrespectful in any culture, it is absolutely never done in any executive setting."
If these people knew how stupid they look , some of this asinine madness might actually stop.
Hey, email writer, perhaps this will refresh your memory: Same desk, different shoes. If you don't recognize the guy, it's George W. Bush. Same desk, different century. That's President Ford.
And if that were not enough, the racists in the right wing are digging themselves in deeper by the moment by trying to answer the unanswerable, the commentary in which I noted the obvious: The Tea parties are overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, white. Defending the 9/12 rally in Washington, one of Brent Bozell's henchmen at the so-called Media Research Council cites another one of the henchmen: "How many blacks were in the audience? My colleague, Cliff Kincaid, who covered the protest and took pictures of it, saw some blacks in the crowd, although he didn't count them."
That's the crowd organizers claimed was more than a million. Why not just say it: Some of my best Tea Party friends are black?