On the July 24 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host Sean Hannity the “silver” in his nightly “Worst Person in the World” segment for previewing a discussion of July 17 comments by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) regarding age-appropriate sex education during the July 20 edition of Hannity & Colmes by asking "[W]hat is it that Barack Obama was thinking when he said he supported sex ed for kindergartners?" while Fox News aired video of a woman applying a condom to a cucumber. As Media Matters for America documented, the Obama campaign has made clear what the candidate “was thinking”: “He said we needed to teach even kindergartners what kind of touching is OK, and what kind is not.”
Fox News received third place in the same segment for, as Media Matters also noted, misidentifying Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) in on-screen text as a Democrat while showing footage of Specter telling Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Senate Judiciary Committee would be reviewing his testimony about a May 2004 confrontation over the Bush administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program to “see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.” At no time during the accompanying report by Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle was Specter identified as a Republican. As Olbermann noted, this is not the first time Fox News has identified a congressional Republican as a Democrat: “They did it again. Remember when they identified Congressman Mark Foley as a Democrat last fall at the height of the sex scandal? Today Republican Sen. Arlen Specter fricassees Attorney General Gonzales, and they identified Specter as a Democrat on Brit Hume's show. You know, the show Rupert Murdoch identifies as his neutral newscast of record?”
As Media Matters has noted (here, here, here, and here), Olbermann has frequently named Hannity in his “Worst Person” segment. For instance, on July 19, Olbermann gave Hannity the “runner-up” for comments Hannity made during the “Clinton Chapters” segment of the July 15 edition of Fox News' Hannity's America, in which Hannity asserted that “there are still many chapters remaining open from [Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY)] time at the Rose Law Firm. Take Whitewater and the death of Vince Foster.” Olbermann responded: “No, there aren't. That's what the last of three special prosecutors concluded after six years and $60 million spent investigating her.”
From the July 24 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann
OLBERMANN: But first, time for Countdown's nominees for “Worst Person in the World.” The bronze: This just in to Fox Noise. They did it again. Remember when they identified Congressman Mark Foley as a Democrat last fall at the height of his sex scandal? Today, Republican Senator Arlen Specter fricassees Attorney General Gonzales, and they identified Specter as a Democrat on Brit Hume's show. You know, the show Rupert Murdoch identifies as his neutral newscast of record?
The silver, Sean Hannity. You name a Democrat, he's lied about him or her. “Later,” he teased, as video rolled of a woman applying a condom to a cucumber, “what was it that Barack Obama was thinking when he said he supporeted sex ed for kindergartners?” He said we needed to teach even kindergartners what kind of touching is OK, and what kind is not. If the distinction is not clear to Fixed Noise, it should have been obvious when the network let Bill O [Fox News host Bill O'Reilly] go on the air and repeatedly defend the monster who abused the Missouri teenager, Sean Hornbeck.