Olbermann named O'Reilly "Worst Person" for suggesting New Orleans homeless encampment does not exist

Summary: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Fox News' Bill O'Reilly the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for baselessly suggesting that a homeless encampment under an overpass in New Orleans that former Sen. John Edwards mentioned in a speech did not exist. Olbermann noted that the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer both published recent articles about the encampment.

During the February 1 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for, as Media Matters for America documented, baselessly suggesting that a homeless encampment under an overpass in New Orleans that former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) mentioned in a January 30 speech -- during which Edwards suspended his run for the Democratic presidential nomination -- did not exist. Olbermann stated: "But our winner tonight: Bill-O, who is absolutely hanging himself in public by continuing to insist everybody else in this country is making up stories about homeless people living under bridges." Olbermann continued: "When John Edwards withdrew and said he'd just come from talking to some of those homeless under a bridge in New Orleans, Bill-O blustered, 'Now we called the Edwards campaign and asked where exactly is that bridge so we could help those people. Apparently, they don't know or they wouldn't tell us. The Edwards campaign can't pinpoint the bridge. ... Just tell me where the bridge is. We will help those people.' " After quoting O'Reilly, Olbermann noted that the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a "big story" about "roughly 250 homeless people living under one of those viaducts that Interstate 10 runs on in New Orleans" at "Claiborne Avenue near Canal Street" and that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article about members of the Seattle Supersonics basketball "handing out food" to the homeless there.

Olbermann had previously named O'Reilly "Worst Person" on the January 7 edition of Countdown for criticizing Edwards' January 3 claim that "tonight, 200,000 men and women who wore our uniform proudly and served this country courageously as veterans will go to sleep under bridges and on grates."

From the February 1 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

OLBERMANN: But our winner tonight: Bill-O, who is absolutely hanging himself in public by continuing to insist everybody else in this country is making up stories about homeless people living under bridges. When John Edwards withdrew and said he'd just come from talking to some of those homeless under a bridge in New Orleans, Bill-O blustered, "Now we called the Edwards campaign and asked where exactly is that bridge so we could help those people. Apparently, they don't know or they wouldn't tell us. The Edwards campaign can't pinpoint the bridge. ... Just tell me where the bridge is. We will help those people."

Claiborne Avenue near Canal Street. You know how I know this? It's online. The New Orleans Times-Picayune did a big story on it on January 11th, about roughly 250 homeless people living under one of those viaducts that Interstate 10 runs on in New Orleans.

A week later, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper did another story about the Seattle Supersonics basketball team going there, handing out food.

Listen up, O'Reilly, you self-serving, self-inflating, uninformed buffoon. That same article suggests the current number of homeless just in New Orleans, men, women, and children, is at least 17,000. And you can find 250 of them right now under I-10. So get your sorry ass to Claiborne at Canal and put your money where your bottomless pit of a mouth is. We'll be waiting.

Bill O'Reilly, today's "Worst Person in the World."

—A.I.