Chris Matthews, Bobby Jindal, and God
No, Chris Matthews was not comparing Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to God.
That would be noteworthy for the left-leaning MSNBC anchor. The exclamation was probably uttered with a rolling of eyes.
If you aren't up to speed on the story, here's a quick refresher:
Disembodied sound
Right before Jindal strode to the podium to deliver the Republican response to President Obama's remarks to a Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday, a mysterious voiced pierced the airwaves of MSNBC.
Well, maybe not pierced. It was barely audible. "Muttered" might be the better word.
But it was clear whoever the disembodied voice was, he said, "Oh God."
Who?
Speculation ran rampant. The Huffington Post even turned it into a game. Who said it?
The top two vote getters were Keith Olbermann (35 percent) and Chris Matthews (32 percent). A camera operator got 15 percent of the vote while an unknown producer received 12 percent.
Those who guessed Matthews were correct.
Oops
Was Matthews apologetic? Horrified? Ready to step down out of fear he could be seen as biased?
Nope. Ain't no thang.
He explained that he was taken aback by the "peculiar stagecraft of the opposition party, that seen in the Louisiana governor's mansion, Governor Bobby Jindal walking from somewhere in the back of this narrow hall, this winding staircase looming there, the odd antebellum look of the scene."
Olbermann
It was more of a thang for Keith Olbermann. Politico's Michael Calderone originally speculated it was Olbermann who uttered the phrase.
As a result, the MSNBC host honored Calderone as one of his "worst people in the world" for the night. He got the bronze medal.
"Mr. Calderon, you guessed. You guessed wrong," Olbermann said. "You pretended you got it right. You owe me an apology. And to Mr. Harris and Vandehei, who run Politico.com, if you let your columnists guess, you will become known as a website full of not experts, but guessers. In this case, bad guessers."
I'm sorry
Guilty as charged. Calderone didn't back down.
"I'll apologize to Olbermann for initially pointing the finger at him without having it confirmed. Even though I updated the original item within a few minutes to say it was unclear, it's never all right in journalism to assume," Calderone wrote.
