Ken Berwitz

Speaking of liars, let's talk about keith olbermann and rachel maddow.

If you can find two more smug, self-righteous liars than this, point them out to me. 

Yesterday, on olbermann's show, "Countdown", the two did a Heckle and Jeckle routine against the Bush administration and John McCain -- no surprise there.  But this time it was based on the presumption that Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki had stated more than once that he wants a timetable for US troops to leave his country.  

That, folks, is an out and out lie. 

If olbermann and maddow had left it at the fact that Maliki said, in general terms, that he would like a timetable for our withdrawal, but he very heavily qualified his statements, maybe they would have been on solid ground.  But this is olbermann and maddow we're talking about.

Let me show you:

-maddow:  "It was just a few weeks ago that Maliki announced he wanted a definite timetable...."

Did he say that?  Well, what about this: 

Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie was quick to add that the call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal was "conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security," according to the Associated Press. In other words, Mr. Maliki is not endorsing the Barack Obama agenda of immediate U.S. withdrawal starting on January 20.

- olbermann:  "How did (the Bush administration) think they would get away with saying it was bad translation by the magazine when the translater didn't work for the magazine, he worked for Prime Minister Maliki..."?

Is that what happened?  Then what about this, from Reuters?:

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not back the plan of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and his comments to a German magazine on the issue were misunderstood, the government's spokesman said on Sunday.

Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Maliki's remarks to Der Spiegel were translated incorrectly.

Is Ali-al-Dabbagh working for President Maliki or President Bush?

The plain fact is that olbermann and maddow cherry-pick the parts that coincide with their agenda and pretend the rest doesn't exist.  Then they call OTHER people liars.

MSNBC disgraces itself by having these two on.  But it appears the network has decided that shameless dishonesty is ok, so maybe that doesn't matter anymore.

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P.S. - This is a little off topic, but I have to add it in.  At one point in their pro-Obama lovefest, rachel maddow actually commended Barack Obama for "humility" because he said that there is only one President and he is only going to Iraq as a Senator. 

That's HUMILITY?  Acknowledging that he doesn't supersede the President of the United States is HUMILITY?

You have to laugh...........