What's a sign that a liberal media outlet has made a disastrous hiring move? Having fellow liberal Keith Olbermann publicly lambaste you for doing so. The former MSNBC anchor, now on ESPN, assailed the Huffington Post for hiring a 9/11 conspiracy theorist to cover national security. An outraged Olbermann quoted the tweets of former football player Donte Stallworth, including this one: "No way 9/11 was carried out by dying bin Laden, Nineteen men who couldn't fly a damn kite. Still have no evidence Osama was connected, like Iraq."
Olbermann noted that, despite dismissing his remarks as something that he doesn't believe anymore and that occurred five years ago, Stallworth was tweeting 9/11 truther propaganda only nine months ago. The sports anchor mocked, "So, your supposed news website just hired to cover national security a still theoretically active NFL player with no journalism experience, who is a 9/11 truther, supposedly reformed about being a 9/11 truther, but lying about when he reformed." [MP3 audio here.]
Olbermann also pointed out that the ex-NFL player is someone "who pleaded guilty to killing a man with a car during a DUI five years ago."
The former Countdown anchor really attacked the liberal Huffington Post with this crack:
KEITH OLBERMANN: Stallworth is now wearing the uniform of The Huffington Post, hired as a, quote, "fellow." I don't know why they're using an academia think tank term at the Huffington Post. Still, it is more honest than calling people at the Huffington Post journalists.
A transcript of the September 4 segment is below:
11:41 pm ET
KEITH OLBERMANN : But by far the most interesting second job is this thing Donte Stallworth is doing, last seen on the Washington practice squad after changing teams seven times in seven seasons, Stallworth is now wearing the uniform of The Huffington Post, hired as a, quote, "fellow." I don't know why they're using an academia think tank term at the Huffington Post. Still, it is more honest than calling people at the Huffington Post journalists. Stallworth will be reporting on national security. What? A sports figure covering the news? Unpossible! This was announced in a statement by the website's Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim, caveat, he used to be a guest on my news show. Second caveat, I tried to find his complete statement, but I used Ryan Grimm, Donte Stallworth and literally got, quote, no results. Grim apparently said Stallworth, quote, "has a quick mind and an insatiable curiosity and a passion for politics, the necessary qualities of a great journalist" and he added to the Washington Post, "He's the real thing but that's the beauty of journalism, we can do it out in public. You can judge for yourself what you think of his work," adding, "his LGBT work brought him to our attention and impressed us."
One guess is that what that did not bring Stallworth to the site's attention were his tweets dismissing 9/11 as some kind of false flag operation and directing people to a, quote, "documentary series," unquote, that says the planes were replaced by drones and the passengers were missing, etc. Quoting him, "No way 9/11 was carried out by dying bin Laden, 19 men who couldn't fly a damn kite. Still have no evidence Osama was connected, like Iraq." To be fair, that tweet and similar ones came in 2009, when this and Huffington's publicly stated policy of refusing to promulgate conspiracy theories, especially about 9/11, came to his attention, Mr. Stallworth promptly tweeted again, "Just to be clear, I no longer feel the way I did in that tweet five years ago. After a lot of reading and researching on it, my views changed and that's okay."
And it would be okay, if it were true. Stallworth was still tweeting out 9/11 conspiracy stuff last October and November. Specifically, the story of the reporter who did the Dewey Defeats Truman bit and mistakenly said that a building in danger of collapse had already collapsed. "Oops, I sent that tweet a little too early, like the young lady from BBC News on the collapse of Building Seven on 9/11." Last November. So, your supposed news website just hired to cover national security a still theoretically active NFL player with no journalism experience, who is a 9/11 truther, supposedly reformed about being a 9/11 truther, but lying about when he reformed. And oh, by the way, who pleaded guilty to killing a man with a car during a DUI five years ago. Maybe Donte should have taken this in easier stages. Working at the Josh Gordon showroom or the Lance Briggs restaurant or carrying those barrels on his back.
