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Mark Knoller, Fox Affiliate, and Keith Olbermann Among Many to Commit Obama/Osama Gaffe

16 comments

One of the instant memes to pop up around the killing of 9/11 murderer Osama bin Laden is the inevitable confusion between the dead terrorist’s first name, and the President’s last name. Popular on Twitter right now is this screenshot of a Fox affiliate’s chyron, announcing “Obama bin Laden Dead.”

They’re not the first to make the mistake, and weren’t the last, but in an amusing twist, former/future Countdown host Keith Olbermann called out Fox 40’s gaffe…right after he made the very same error (since corrected).


Lucky for Olbermann, his critique of Sacramento Fox affiliate KTXL’s gaffe was relatively gentle:

Lastly, you can’t stop them, you can only hope to contain them. This twitpic from ESPN Chicago correspondent Sarah Spain appears to have come from the Fox affiliate in Sacramento. Sigh.




Even the normally impeccable Mark Knoller of CBS Radio goofed in a tweet late Sunday night, saying “Surprised if Hollywood types not up late putting together deals for a movie on the ‘Raid on Obama,’” later noting the error by saying “Forgive the typo. ‘raid on Osama.’”

This gaffe is as inevitable as it is unfortunate, and it dates back to Barack Obama’s emergence onto the national stage. Although liberals are suspicious when a conservative commits the flub, no less a liberal giant than the late Sen. Ted Kennedy has also made the mistake. In other words, it happens to the best of us.

I can’t be certain, but I don’t think I’ve ever let one slip out, although I have had to correct many an “Obasma” or “Obsama” in my years as a political journalist. I can also confess to having actually rehearsed against such a gaffe before radio appearances. “Osama bin Laden. Barack Obama.”

Such are the perils of living in a country that admirably doesn’t hold the quirks of your name against you, giving hope to the “Agolf Hidlers” of the world that, if they do everything else right, they, too, can be elected president.

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16 comments

  • BeckFinallyDemoted BeckFinallyDemoted says:
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    A stupid game of gotcha.
    I almost made the same mistake myself.
    Another pointless thread.

  • Nacho Nacho says:
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    I autocomplete text app is to blame for some.

  • Nacho Nacho says:
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    I imagine…

  • Zandandido Zandandido says:
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    This usually (out of all of the time it happens) happens when new news is coming every few seconds and the names/words are closely spelled. I can see how it happens. It’s completely common. And speaking it at around 7:20pm PST/10:20pm EST to 8:30pm PST/11:30pm EST, was even more common-place because that’s about the time that rumors came out that Osama has been killed and that a late night speech by President Obama was supposed to happen 7pm PST/10pm EST (but didn’t until about 8:40pm PST/11:40pm EST, because information was just coming in every few seconds). So thinking of Obama’s upcoming speech, and reading that Osama is dead. I see how anyone could do it. News-people it’s more rare, because it’s best to do speech therapy if you get into news. It is gotcha, they didn’t mean to say Obama when they said Obama was killed, but were meaning Osama was killed. But I can see why it happened.

  • Zandandido Zandandido says:
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    But there is a slight difference between the Fox affiliate report and the Olbermann post. the FA said “Obama Bin Laden”, which Olbermann said “Obama”. Both were meaning OSAMA. It is just easier to know that you screwed up if you say “Obama Bin Laden” then by just saying “Obama” while meaning Osama.

  • TfT TfT says:
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    I agree with BFD – this is a stupid thread; and is full of falsehoods. Whoever claimed that Bush deprioritized the wanted dead or alive mission for OBL is full of crap, but oh so typical of a lberal loon.

    The only post that should be headlined here is: Congrats to ALL involved in this successful mission – from the Navy SEALs and other SOF who got him,, to the intelligence apperatus who found him, to the planners who planned the mission, and to the President who authorized the mission.

    The rest of the crap is nothing but liberal filler for some unknown reason.

  • mtjade4 mtjade4 says:
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    I made the mistake when I was posting and wrote Obama instead of Osama so I will cut the anchor some slack on that.

    But, why is Fox News spelling Osama Usama? Just curious because I’ve gone on several news sites and Fox is the only site to spell it this way.

  • Barack Must Go Barack Must Go says:
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    …….or was it?

  • AmeriCuda AmeriCuda says:
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    And yet somehow infamous Twitter Twit, Norah O’donnell, didn’t make it into your story, even with this doozy….
    http://dc-cdn.virtacore.com/2011/05/Screen-shot-2011-05-02-at-1.12.22-AM.png
    (not a site link, just a screen grab)

  • auzerais310 auzerais310 says:
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    Although Tommy Christopher believes that Ted Kennedy should be included among “the best of us”, a large portion of the US population rightly have an entirely different opinion of the former US Senator.

  • GATXER GATXER says:
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    mtjade4 said:
    I made the mistake when I was posting and wrote Obama instead of Osama so I will cut the anchor some slack on that.

    But, why is Fox News spelling Osama Usama? Just curious because I’ve gone on several news sites and Fox is the only site to spell it this way.

    My guess would be because both the FBI and CIS spell it Usama…..but thats just a guess.

  • tatboy tatboy says:
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    BeckFinallyDemoted said:
    A stupid game of gotcha.
    I almost made the same mistake myself.
    Another pointless thread.

    If it had JUST been the Fox station to screw up you would have been all over them. Olby did the same thing and I’ve read his tweets. When Fox did it he was incredulous. When HE did it, it was like “Hay I made a typo… no big deal.” F^cking tool… Olby, not BFD.

  • zaxxon1680 zaxxon1680 says:
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    “mtjade4 said:
    But, why is Fox News spelling Osama Usama? Just curious because I’ve gone on several news sites and Fox is the only site to spell it this way”

    maybe because that is how major gov’t agencies like the FBI spell it? or maybe because they have done so since 2003?

    think i saw MSNBC spell it the same last night too. i figured it was a tool to keep hosts from making the Osama/Obama mixup

  • Heywood Jablowme Heywood Jablowme says:
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    You know, it is not so terrible that people eff up the names. It is to be expected when we have a man in the White House named after a Kenyan goat herder.

    But when Keith Olbermann, that piece of excrement, calls people on it, and effs up the name as he is castigating others, it shows what a pitiful little thuggette he is.

    One day, I hope they catch Keithie in his pink panties raping a little boy. All they need is to get someone to film it as it is happening, and Olbernazi is FINISHED…except with his perverted leftist followers, most of whom rape little boys on a regular basis.

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