Lefty blogs have been having a field day with a tweet that showed up on Glenn Beck's "favorites" list - a list of tweets bookmarked, in a sense, by the user - directing followers to a white supremacist message board.
Keith Olbermann picked up on the line of attack last night, crediting a website called "Stop Beck," which he says noticed the tweet. Stop Beck came as close to stating that Beck was endorsing white supremacy as it possibly could, without actually saying it ("Why is Glenn Beck associating himself with white nationalists and white supremacists?").
Since Olbermann is endorsing the notion that a Twitter "favorite" denotes a positive association, we at NewsBusters must thank him for extending that courtesy to our publisher, MRC President Brent Bozell.
This tweet, from @themick1962, showed up at the top of @KeithOlbermann's favorites (click the preview at top right for a larger image): "Brent Bozell's Open Letter to WaPo Ed. Re: JournoList http://bit.ly/cnWvL0 Mandatory reading for ALL media types @KeithOlbermann #p2 #tcot" (h/t Tommy Christopher).
We agree wholeheartedly that Bozell's open letter should be read by anyone with a vested interest in journalistic fairness and transparency. But we were a bit surprised to see that Olbermann feels the same way, given his usual disdain for NewsBusters, the MRC, and Brent Bozell. We're glad to see he's finally coming around.
We were also somewhat surprised to see a Twitter user with the following bio appear among Olbermann's favorites: "Unhyphenated American. Constitutional Originalism. Goldwater Con. Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."
But perhaps we've got this all wrong. Maybe Olbermann wishes to qualify the notion that a "favorite" tweet on Twitter represents any sort of endorsement of a political position.
