Dan Abrams partially penned David Shuster’s apology?
FishbowlDC is reporting that MSNBC GM Dan Abrams personally wrote large sections of David Shuster’s on air apology…
FishbowlDC hears that MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams asked David Shuster to apologize for Wednesday’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn incident and even wrote the bulk of Shuster’s on-air apology.
We also hear that an on-air explanation of this episode is not expected today, with MSNBC hoping to pretend the entire episode never happened.
Blackburn’s office told Abrams that the congresswoman never received a death notice from the Army for Jeremy Bohannon (that is true). Shuster hoped to acknowledge on air the various complaints received and that MSNBC would look into it further. Shuster is slated to host “Tucker” on Monday and that would provide a proper venue for a follow-up.
Man, who is leaking this stuff to FishbowlDC?
Update: Another question. How did Abrams, Capus, Griffin, et al. feel about a substitute guest host sand-bagging a member of Congress with what amounted to a grandstanding cheap shot?
As I wrote the other day, Shuster’s apology was almost worse! It was more accusatory in nature than contrite. He spent the majority of the time justifying his question, and then the last 1% saying that “for that” (a very specific portion) he was sorry.
He is sorry, as in a sorry excuse for a journalist. He just reminds me of the kind of kid that would look forward to ratting out a fellow classmate in school to get extra points with the teacher.
Comment by Missy — September 28, 2007 @ 3:20 pm
And another thing - who on earth decided that Shuster is an appropriate sit-in for Tucker? Tucker is a libertarian/conservative and Shuster a rabid left-winger. I would guess that the majority of Tucker’s audience changes the channel the second we see this little snot appear.
Comment by Missy — September 28, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Oh, Missy, I laughed out loud when I read your comments.
You keep finding just the right words to describe Shuster.
“that little snot”! I love it. It is perfect.
That is exactly what I do - grab the remote when I see this weasel’s face!
I imagine Dan Abrams had to write this apology because Shuster doensn’t have the written language skills to do it.
Comment by Cella — September 28, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
Another apology may need to be forthcoming after the way MSNBC is putting forth the Rush Limbaugh story about him saying “soldiers who are against the war in Iraq are phonies.” They totally ignored the facts about this - He, Rush Limbaugh, was speaking of a particular named soldier who used false credentials, history, etc. to bash the military and operation in Iraq. That’s it, pure and simple and this afternoon MSNBC has on their resident military expert, Col. Something or other Jacobs, and he is bashing Rush Limbaugh right and left for saying soldiers who are against the war are phony. My God, what is wrong with these people? Today on the Rush show he said Rueters had called him during the program to get the real story on this so maybe some truth will come out about what he really said and another apology will be forthcoming. Ya think? Have these people no shame or do they just assume that most people, unlike the readers here, will believe anything they say?
Comment by sophia — September 28, 2007 @ 5:11 pm
Sophia:
MSNBCers must be sending private emails to MediaMaterrs to knock it off, because of the bad buzz they have been getting this week.
Comment by eddiebear — September 28, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
If Abrams had half a hair on his gonads he would have penned the jerk’s resignation.
Comment by PF — September 28, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
I know I’ll be in the minority on this one, but I’m not getting the outrage over this happening to a member of Congress. In my opinion, they all deserved it for wasting taxpayers time voting on whether to condemn a stupid ad. This goes to the nonsense both parties pull in Congress…as a whole it does have an 11% approval rating for a reason.
That aside, I agree that Shuster’s apology was weak…he made a person look bad with information was completely false. I don’t remember if he apologized directly to the Congresswoman (I think he just apologized for the factual inaccuracy), but if he didn’t she should have.
Also, Missy brought up a good point about what Tucker brings to the show (i.e. ideology) versus Shuster. I’ve seen Pat Buchanan, who is much closer to Tucker’s political beliefs, fill in, but he is not suited for that job.
Comment by FishOil — September 29, 2007 @ 12:04 am