And during a discussion with left-wing Family Guy producer Seth MacFarlane about a number of off-color comments made by several conservative public figures during the week, the two characterized Joe the Plumber's stage entrance at the MRC event as "gay," with MacFarlane cracking that "they're the people who are supposed to be opposed to homosexuality," and that "that‘s kind of an oddly gay entrance, wasn't it? 'God Bless the USA' and that welting, wistful tone." Olbermann played along, adding that "the guy looks like he just jumped off the Brawny towel thing."
MacFarlane notably has a history with MSNBC's Countdown show of allowing Olbermann to use a recording of MacFarlane's Stewie Griffin voice calling FNC's Bill O'Reilly "that bastard Bill O'Reilly" and asking O'Reilly to "allow me to soil myself on you" to introduce a recurring segment called "Factor Fiction," during which Olbermann claims to correct a "lie" told by the FNC host. Video of one such segment can be found here.
And last October, after O'Reilly criticized MacFarlane for depicting the Stewie character on the Family Guy wearing a Nazi uniform that had a McCain/Palin campaign button on it, MacFarlane retaliated by providing Olbermann with a never before broadcast clip from the Family Guy in which Stewie hit O'Reilly in the face with a large magnifying glass, with blood being visible on O'Reilly's face for a split second before he falls to the floor, after cracking that O'Reilly had an "ineffective dermatologist."
As for Olbermann's use of left-wing sources for his show, last fall the MSNBC host repeatedly claimed that Governor Palin had cut the budget for the Alaska Special Olympics, even though she had approved a 10 percent spending increase on the program, as Olbermann picked up on a misleading report by the liberal Think Progress. While the Countdown host claimed Palin had "gutted" the Alaska Special Olympics, he never informed viewers that she actually increased spending on the program. But in February, Olbermann found religion on the issue of budget cuts not really being actual spending cuts when he picked up on a Media Matters for America article criticizing FNC anchor Bret Baier for saying President Obama wants the Pentagon to cut its budget by 10 percent, as the MSNBC host followed the lead of Media Matters and defended Obama.
Other examples of Olbermann reciting distortions or misiformation, some of which can be traced back to Media Matters and other left-wing sources, can be found here.
At about 8:15 p.m., as he plugged the segment with MacFarlane, Olbermann cited Joe the Plumber's "I'm horny" joke from the MRC gala in which Wurzelbacher was joking about some of the quotes featured at the dinner, as the gala poked fun at journalists for sounding like they were feeling sexual arousal as they spoke of President Obama. Olbermann's MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews notably had claimed that listening to Obama speak caused him to "feel a thrill going up my leg." But Olbermann ignored the context of Wurzelbacher's joke: "And now the populist hope of the party, Joe the Plumber, the guy with the Mr. Clean chrome dome, has gotten up at a conservative dinner and said that the adulation and affection he has received and perceived from the politicians has left him sexually aroused."
At about 8:36 p.m., Olbermann introduced his segment with MacFarlane: "In a week that brought us a President on late-night TV, we also got a series of Republicans whose language and imagery seemed better suited for R-rated TV. Our third story, the week of soundbite gold, and in reviewing these oddities in my mind, it occurred to me that these soundbites felt just like the flashbacks in the singular Fox comedy Family Guy."
The Countdown host started by bringing up Joe the Plumber's appearance at the MRC gala: "The Media Research Council, which is a lunatic fringe Web site run by the perpetually angry Brent Bozell, hosted Joe the Plumber last night, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, and Joe the Plumber likes his snake."
A clip was shown of Wurzelbacher walking to the podium as Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" played, and Wurzelbacher quipped: "Hey, thank you guys. God, all this love in the room and everything, I'm horny."
MacFarlane starting joking about Wurzelbacher's entrance seeming "gay," and Olbermann played along:
SETH MACFARLANE, SPEAKING IN FAMILY GUY CHARACTER STEWIE GRIFFIN'S VOICE: They're the people who are supposed to be opposed to homosexuality.
[KEITH OLBERMANN LAUGHS]
KEITH OLBERMANN: Why is it, is that, that sort of vibe there?
MACFARLANE: That‘s kind of an oddly gay entrance, wasn't it?
OLBERMANN: Well-
MACFARLANE: God Bless the USA and that welting, wistful tone.
OLBERMANN: And the Brawny-
MACFARLANE: Yup.
OLBERMANN -the guy looks like he just jumped off the Brawny towel thing.
Before a commercial break at 8:44 p.m., Olbermann plugged his attack on Hume as he referred to the Media Research Center as the "Media Research Council": "And ‘Worst Persons,' that Media Research Council dinner that got Joe all excited, Brit Hume also spoke at it, and he admitted to turning right-wing talking points into Fixed News. That's next. This is Countdown."
During a commercial break at about 8:46 p.m., Olbermann again plugged: "Brit Hume admits that for years he's been reading daily talking points from a lunatic fringe, right-wing Web site on the news."
In the "Worst Person" segment, Hume was given the "Worser" distinction: "Our runner-up, Brit Hume of Fixed News. For most of its history, host of its purported straight newscasts and chief of its Washington bureau, made an admission at a dinner last night as startling as if he had confessed to making up the news out of whole cloth or reading it off a ouija board."
Hume had informed MRC Dishonors Awards dinner attendees that "I don't know what we would have done without them. It was a daily, sort of a buffet of material to work from."
After he finished reading Hume's words while trying to imitate the former FNC anchor's voice, Olbermann responded: "You don't know what you would have done without them, Brit? You might have done, [ADDS EMPHASIS] the news."
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Friday, March 20, Countdown show on MSNBC:
KEITH OLBERMANN, IN OPENING TEASER: Governor Palin only wants 69 percent of her stimulus package. She’s trying to refuse $280 million for Alaska, $170 million for education alone.
GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN (R-AK) CLIP #1: We can’t accept debate.
PALIN CLIP #2: Who needs a bribe – take these dollars, but you got to grow your government.
OLBERMANN: Can Alaskans impeach their governor for willful refusal to accept federal funds?
OLBERMANN: How could you ever refuse a week of Republican soundbites like this one:
REP. STEVE LATOURETTE (R-OH): It’s a tightening of sphincters-
SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA): -sucking the tit-
JOE WURZELBACHER (JOE THE PLUMBER) AT MRC GALA: I’m horny.
OLBERMANN, USING A REDNECK ACCENT: The next generation of your GOP leadership, everybody: Separating the bon meaux from the meaux justes with the master of the shockingly funny comedy bite, Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane.
OLBERMANN: Worsts: Brit Hume’s dumbfounding admission: He was fed a buffet of daily talking points by an ultraconservative media site, and, quote, [IMITATING HUME’S VOICE] "We certainly made tremendous use of it."
...
OLBERMANN, BEFORE COMMERCIAL BREAK AT 8:15 P.M.: There’s something else, something bizarre that the instability in the economy seems to have induced, and not just the first governor to follow through on the threat to cut off her nose to spite the stimulus face turning out to be Sarah Palin, though that did happen and we need to talk about it. No, I mean the fact that the instability in the economy seems to have induced instability in the mouth. In just one week, elected Republican officials have advocated suicide, analogized breast-feeding – only they didn’t call it that – and publicized the tightening of the sphincter. And now the populist hope of the party, Joe the Plumber, the guy with the Mr. Clean chrome dome, has gotten up at a conservative dinner and said that the adulation and affection he has received and perceived from the politicians has left him sexually aroused. Only he didn’t say it that way either. Remarks so crazy in isolation or in context, that they seem as if Seth MacFarlane had written them for a flashback scene in his show Family Guy. So Seth has come in to talk about Republican declarations about suicide, breast-feeding, tight sphincters and sexual arousal.
...
SETH MACFARLANE, PRODUCER OF THE FAMILY GUY: Hey, great pleasure finally to be here.
OLBERMANN: His new animated series, The Cleveland Show, debuts this fall on Fox, making it, what, you have, what, 50 percent of the Fox primetime lineup?
MACFARLANE: Oh, something like that, something like that. We’re just angling to buy Fox News and then maybe, you know, clean house around there.
OLBERMANN: Wow, I hope you have a lot of money for that. How much can I give you? All right, let’s go through these one at a time, shall we, because-
MACFARLANE: Sure, sure.
OLBERMANN: The Media Research Council, which is a lunatic fringe Web site run by the perpetually angry Brent Bozell, hosted Joe the Plumber last night, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, and Joe the Plumber likes his snake.
CLIP OF JOE WURZELBACHER IS SEEN WALKING TO THE PODIUM AS LEE GREENWOOD’S GOD BLESS THE USA IS PLAYING:
LEE GREENWOOD SINGING: -‘cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA
JOE WURZELBACHER: Hey, thank you guys. God, all this love in the room and everything, I’m horny.
OLBERMANN: Well, that-
MACFARLANE: Wow.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, that image sort of guarantees everybody in the country-
MACFARLANE: Yeah.
OLBERMANN -an extra week of psychotherapy, doesn’t it?
MACFARLANE, SPEAKING IN FAMILY GUY CHARACTER STEWIE GRIFFIN’S VOICE: They’re the people who are supposed to be opposed to homosexuality.
[OLBERMANN LAUGHS]
OLBERMANN: Why is it, is that, that sort of vibe there?
MACFARLANE: That‘s kind of an oddly gay entrance, wasn’t it?
OLBERMANN: Well-
MACFARLANE: God Bless the USA and that welting, wistful tone.
OLBERMANN: And the Brawny-
MACFARLANE: Yup.
OLBERMANN -the guy looks like he just jumped off the Brawny towel thing.
MACFARLANE: Yup, I’m thinking Vito and the Sopranos.
OLBERMANN: Well, all right, let’s, if you think that was good, now we have, there was a Congressman whose name is, in fact, LaTourette, Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio, who said this:
REP. STEVE LATOURETTE (R-OH): Ross Perot, when he ran for President in 1992, he talked about the giant sucking sound. Well, today there’s another giant sucking sound going on in Washington, D.C., and that’s the tightening of sphincters on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as people are having to explain who put into the stimulus bill this provision of law.
OLBERMANN: All right, now, if you saw a line in one of your scripts-
MACFARLANE: All I had was "put in," "sphincter" and "stimulus."
OLBERMANN: And don’t forget "sucking sounds" on Pennsylvania-
MACFARLANE: Yeah, yeah.
OLBERMANN: So, if you had a piece of script that was handed to you by one of the people who write with you, and it had all those things in there, you’d hesitate for a moment, wouldn’t you?
MACFARLANE: I would say, "Let me have a four-hour conversation with Fox Broadcast Standards, and then we’ll see if we can maybe get two of those words.
OLBERMANN: And, but this, unlike Joe the Plumber, who’s coming up and ad-libbing and thinking he’s saying something clever, this is a Congressman reading from a prepared speech.
MACFARLANE: I loved it that Joe the plumber, he didn’t even put on a tie, did he? Nobody said you might want to dress up for this thing.
OLBERMANN: No, no, no, no, no, that would ruin the whole image, wouldn’t it? He’s supposed to dress down.
[THE TWO GO ON TO DISCUSS SOME OFF-COLOR COMMENTS BY SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY AND THE LATEST ON MACFARLANE’S TELEVISION WORK]
...
OLBERMANN, BEFORE COMMERCIAL BREAK AT 8:44 P.M.: And "Worst Persons," that Media Research Council dinner that got Joe all excited, Brit Hume also spoke at it, and he admitted to turning right-wing talking points into Fixed News. That’s next. This is Countdown.
...
OLBERMANN, DURING COMMERCIAL BREAK AT 8:46 P.M.: Brit Hume admits that for years he’s been reading daily talking points from a lunatic fringe, right-wing Web site on the news.
...
OLBERMANN: Our runner-up, Brit Hume of Fixed News. For most of its history, host of its purported straight newscasts and chief of its Washington bureau, made an admission at a dinner last night as startling as if he had confessed to making up the news out of wholecloth or reading it off a ouija board.
OLBERMANN, IMITATING HUME’S VOICE: "I want to say a word, however, of thanks, to Brent Bozell and the team at the Media Research Center and all the contributors for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report. I don’t know what we would have done without them. It was a daily, sort of a buffet of material to work from, and we, we, we certainly made tremendous use of it."
OLBERMANN: You don’t know what you would have done without them, Brit? You might have done, [ADDS EMPHASIS] the news
