Hackgate to Become Climategate? - Keith Olbermann

''But that would be like hiring Dick Turpin to see you safely down the road,'' my very first thought on reading the details in this Keith Olbermann ''expose.'' That thought, soon converting itself, with a little slight of hand, into the cartoon below.

Olbermann, if you're not familiar the fellow, could hardly be described as a Rupert luvvy, he and the Digger having a history that goes way back, and of that, more in a moment.

Firstly though, let us have a look at these few bold lines of Olbermann's article that give us, according to Olbermann, the nitty gritty. I say bold, because that is what they are, accusing Wallis of being Murdoch's Fifth Columnist inside the house of London's finest, the Met, better known globally as Scotland Yard. But then are these accusations really so bold, because there is one thing sure, there will have been an army of lawyers vetting every word of this article?

Wallis is unique in this scandal. He had been the Executive Editor of Murdoch's News Of The World when hacking was at its peak. Yet in 2009 he wound up being hired by the police as a public relations consultant while the police investigated the hacking scandal. And he wound up spying for Murdoch's people on what Scotland Yard was investigating.

Wallis was, as the New York Times put it, "reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case."

Moreover, while Wallis was keeping Murdoch's organization apprised of what and whom the police were investigating, the police were trying to convince other news organizations not to cover the story - a suppression of evidence that benefited both the police and Rupert Murdoch. As the British newspaper The Guardian reported last Friday: "Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis ..."

Surely not, shurely shome mishtake?

But it wasn't that information that attracted my attention, but rather this catastrophic piece of, I don't know which, catastrophic bad luck or catastrophic bad judgement, on behalf the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

Today, bobbing up to the surface through this vast ocean of ethical filth, comes Neil Wallis's role ... in "Climate-Gate."

On November 20th, 2009, somebody broke into a computer server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and stole thousands of emails and computer files. The documents were leaked to Climate Change Deniers, .....

.....As the corporations and lobbyists who sought to feed the myth that there is no man-made climate change disseminated, exploited and deliberately misinterpreted the stolen e-mails - and used Fox News and other Murdoch enterprises as their principle venues - the victims, the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, decided they'd better hire a public relations pro to help them fight back. They hired ... Neil Wallis.

Come into my parlour said the fly to the spider!



The story, plus video, starts proper here.

Murdoch Henchman Responsible for Climate-Gate?
By Keith Olbermann
July 21, 2011

"Current TV" -- The Murdoch Phone-Hacking Scandal may have just metastasized. The so-called "Climate-Gate" controversy - in which e-mails about global warming were stolen from researchers at Britain's University of East Anglia in November, 2009 - now turns out to bear the stamp of Neil Wallis, one of the key figures in Murdoch's hacking of the phones, voicemails, and other electronic communications of thousands of people.

Wallis is unique in this scandal. He had been the Executive Editor of Murdoch's News Of The World when hacking was at its peak. Yet in 2009 he wound up being hired by the police as a public relations consultant while the police investigated the hacking scandal. And he wound up spying for Murdoch's people on what Scotland Yard was investigating.

Wallis was, as the New York Times put it, "reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case." more

- - -

I'm posting this second article, or Olbermann wankfest if you will, as much for the video as for the article. It wasn't but a couple of weeks ago that Olbermann alluded to being blackmailed by Murdoch's Fox Sports.

Olbermann talks about this and his experiences as a Murdoch employee in the clip below. Although I would hardly describe Olbermann's revelation as earth shattering, I have posted it here as a matter of record.

I hope I don't give the wrong impression regarding my opinion of Keith Olbermann, it being as fare back as 2006 that I tipped Olbermann as the next potential ''Giant'' in American broadcasting. Whether my then accolade will ever become reality, I really cannot say, but at the time I did tip him for greatness, it wasn't a hard thing to do, he then seemingly being the only voice in the main stream media that was prepared to speak out illegalities and injustices of the neo-con administration of George W Bush.

And yes, as the article points out, he has become a better broadcaster for calming down a tad.

I shall post this now, but I shall have a wander around Youtube to see if I can find anything amusing relative to the long running Olbermann Billo/Fox News war of words.

The Liberated Keith Olbermann Is Making Powerful TV

Notice anything different about one of America's favorite progressive anchors lately? It's not just the station...
July 22, 2011


On Tuesday, Keith Olbermann anchored a special live broadcast of the News of the World hearings from Parliament. Interspersing Rupert Murdoch’s historic testimony with commentary and conversation from John Dean, the former Nixon counsel turned progressive commentator, the several-hour broadcast was Olbermann at his finest: calm, cool, collected.

The topic, of course, was as delicious for him as it was for the rest of us—watching the super-wealthy, super-conservative Fox News godheads squirm under the interrogation of government—and so he certainly cracked a few jokes here and there. (Referencing the widespread web meme that Rupert and James Murdoch are akin to the Simpsons’ Mr. Burns and Smithers, he playfully compared Rebekah Brooks to Sideshow Bob.) But it also underscored a point longtime fans of his political commentary have known: Keith Olbermann is excellent at times like this; a level, serious breaking-news reporter whose demeanor under duress belies the hot-headed persona his deriders like to trot out. Even clearer, his new slot on Current is letting him stretch out and break free. We’re almost exactly one month in to the new slot, and these days, Keith Olbermann is better than ever. more

Below: Billo, keith Olbermann's ''worst person in the world'' and strange though it may seem, clicking keith olbermann worst person in the world bill o'reilly reveals one or two more in the same vein.