Howard Wolfson Responds to MSNBC Hit Job

Original Link: http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/27/howard-wolfson-responds-to-msnbc-hit-job/

By SusanUnPC

Below, you can read what the disreputable “journalists” at MSNBC (with the exception of Joe Scarborough, as DCMediaGirl has pointed out) have been saying. The once-reputable, once-esteemed Talking Points Memo has provided us with a story that, after watching the above video - well, you just have to WONDER, don’t you, what in the heck Greg Sargent, the TPM reporter, saw in Wolfson’s calm, deliberative response to Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews’ vicious attacks:

Howard Wolfson Goes To War With MSNBC, Hammers Chris Matthews And Keith Olbermann
By Greg Sargent - August 27, 2008, 2:13PM

On Fox News just now, Howard Wolfson unleashed a broad attack on MSNBC and its top on-air personalities, slamming the network’s coverage of Bill and Hillary, hitting back at Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann for using his work for Fox to question his Democratic credentials, and blasting MSNBC as having been “taken over” by “antics.”

Goes to war? Hammers? A broad attack? I found Howard Wolfson’s response exceptionally reserved and rational, considering the treatment that Hillary Clinton and her campaign endured night after night on MSNBC.

The broadside from Wolfson, who has until now mostly refrained from publicly critiquing MSNBC despite months of deep unhappiness within Hillaryland about the network’s coverage of her, is a declaration of open war against MSNBC and two of its most visible political commentators that likely will only escalate from here. …

Here again, Sargent “hypes” Wolfson’s remarks far beyond the reality of his tone, his demeanor, and his words.

Compare Wolfson’s response to the original comments, via Newsbusters.org, made by Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews — and you tell me who is REALLY “going to war” and who is REALLY “blasting” the other person and who is REALLY indulging in a “broad attack.”

KEITH OLBERMANN: Irony upon irony, instead of the commercials designed to destroy Hillary Clinton, [the Republicans] are using Hillary Clinton in commercials designed to destroy the Democratic nominee.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Those are crocodile tears. And you wonder whether an objective person, either rational or post-rational, would be able to appreciate the fact that that’s clear politics–nothing wrong with it. But Republicans have no heart in Hillary Clinton’s claim to the White House. They villainized her for years. Their commercials, their attitudes are–you go to a Republican hangout, it’s all anti-Hillary. That’s their point of view. To now hold her up as some victim of some sort of foul play, of unfair politics, is a joke. But the funny thing about it is, they’re enjoying it. Fox News, for example, seems to enjoy it. It’s no accident, for example, that they hired Howard Wolfson. They use him as some sort of, oh, little toy soldier waiting on the shelf.

OLBERMANN: Tokyo Rose was the thought that came to my mind.

Newsbusters.org has the video, is you can stomach it.

It is notable that Newsbusters.org also has a far more rational report on Wolfon’s remarks than does TPM: “Wolfson Slaps Back at Matthews, Olbermann.”