The seeds of this little incident were planted in our report that Keith Olbermann now refuses to watch the channel that employed him for years: MSNBC. A small, newsy tidbit for cable news fans, and one that elicited this response from a commenter:

• I wonder if he ever watched his own show?

Our reply was similarly tongue-in-cheek:

• Probably not. He was too busy watching O'Reilly on the hidden monitor built into his desk (true story, by the way).

This was too much for the Olbylemmings, who apparently scour even comment threads for anyone who dares to criticize the Great and Powerful Olb. One of them actually ran to Keith on twitter to tattle that we had slandered their hero with ‘a bunch of lies’:

• againsborough: Lies: "Probably not. KO was too busy watching O'Reilly on the hidden monitor built into his desk (true story, by the way)."
• keitholbermann: @againsborough ?
• againsborough: I quoted this from the tabloid site Johnny Dollar. I think that was a bunch of lies though. Will your show be in the UK?
• keitholbermann: That's a Fox News site.As always, twisted truth: there was a computer embedded in the desk which included TV feeds (no sound)

So was it a ‘bunch of lies’? Um, no. Olby admits that he had a monitor embedded in the desk for the purpose of watching tv. What’s ‘twisted’ about that? His quarrel shouldn’t be with us, but rather with those reckless Olby-haters at...the New York Times!

While Mr. Olbermann watches Mr. O’Reilly’s show on a monitor embedded in his desk, Ms. Maddow insists that she has never watched either Mr. King’s program or the 9 p.m. program on Fox News, “Hannity & Colmes,”...

So, to recap: Watching O’Reilly? Check. Hidden monitor? Check. Built into his desk? Check. Twisted? Nope. A bunch of lies? Nope. Just cable news truth.

And then there’s Twittermann’s claim that this is a ‘Fox News site’: a big, honking, premeditated lie. Made up out of thin air, or perhaps from his own fevered fantasies. J$P is not written, funded, owned, or directed by any cable news channel, broadcaster, company, entity, or business. We are utterly and completely independent; we don’t even accept advertising. Of course this sort of paranoia is nothing new for Olbermann. It wasn’t that long ago when Olby insisted some shadowy ‘Fox News’ figure was behind a ‘fake’ Olbermann twitter account that was actually created by..MSNBC!

J$P was not today’s only victim of Olby fabrications. Here are two more tweets:

• keitholbermann: This is a RW'er complaining about incivility on the left: RT @laura_lrnzo Can we mark these people, somehow? Have they reproduced? Ugh.
• keitholbermann: actually I just read a tweet from a RWer asking if liberals could be marked somehow and worrying that they reproduced

The victim of this smear is someone who wasn’t even talking to Edward R Olbermann, but The Great Newsman targeted her anyhow. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that, once again, Keith was being mendacious:

• kirstenpowers10: Wow: GOP official allegedly sends email depicting Obama as an Ape. Caption:"Now you know why no birth certificate."
• laura_irnzo [to kirstenpowers10]: Can we mark these people, somehow? Have they reproduced? Ugh.

Keith Olbermann: still crazy--and still lying--after all these years.

Tags: olbermann