Olbermann named Dick Morris "Worst Person" for "re-rewriting history"

Summary: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Dick Morris the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for asserting on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes that Sen. Hillary Clinton "may well have been" a communist in the early 1970s, when she interned at the California-based law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, despite Morris' having previously written in his book, Rewriting History, that "Hillary was no Communist, nor should her work in the Treuhaft firm imply that she was."

On the April 17 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor Dick Morris the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for contradicting a statement he had previously made in his book, Rewriting History (ReganBooks, 2004), on the April 14th edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes. As Media Matters for America documented, while discussing Clinton's 1971 internship with the California-based law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, Morris asserted on Hannity & Colmes that Clinton was a "law student defending the Black Panther Party, and then she worked in a communist law firm." When co-host Alan Colmes asked Morris, "Does that make her a communist?" Morris replied: "No, at that time, at that point in her life, she may well have been." But Morris previously wrote in Rewriting History that "Hillary was no Communist, nor should her work in the Treuhaft firm imply that she was."

On Countdown, Olbermann stated: "Dick Morris' remarks, completely contradicted by a history of the Clintons, in which the author, claiming close exposure to them and great insight about them, wrote of her time working for that law firm in question, quote, 'Hillary was no communist, nor should her work in the firm imply that she was.' Which authority wrote that? Dick Morris." Olbermann added: "And before you accuse him of rewriting history, his own book, which he just contradicted, was, of course, called Rewriting History. So this, this would be re-rewriting history."

From the April 17 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

OLBERMANN: But our winner, Dick Morris, also on "Fox Noise," contradicting the historical record by asserting that Senator Clinton had worked as a, quote, "law student defending the Black Panther Party" and that "she worked in a communist law firm." Asked if that made her a communist, Morris replied, "[A]t that time, at that point in her life, she may well have been."

Dick Morris' remarks, completely contradicted by a history of the Clintons, in which the author, claiming close exposure to them and great insight about them, wrote of her time working for that law firm in question, quote, "Hillary was no communist, nor should her work in the firm imply that she was." Which authority wrote that? Dick Morris.

And before you accuse him of rewriting history, his own book, which he just contradicted, was, of course, called Rewriting History. So this, this would be re-rewriting history. Dick Morris: today's "Worst Person in the World."

—M.B.B.