Soledad O'Brien -- object of a hilariously clumsy (but nonetheless vicious) wingnut smear

Geez, who in wingnutlandia did Soledad O'Brien piss off?

Consider this outlandish NewsMax headline and story:

CNN'er: Katrina Victims Better Off Beheaded

CNN's "American Morning" host Soledad O'Brien said Tuesday that Hurricane Katrina evacuees housed at the Superdome were worse off than beheading victims in Baghdad.

Wow -- what an amazingly off-the-wall comment to make, right? Except, of course, that O'Brien never made it.

The normally mild-mannered newswoman offered the overwrought observation while speaking at Redbook Magazine's "Movers and Shakers" awards luncheon in New York.

Minor point: it was the "Mothers and Shakers" awards luncheon.

Oh, and the observation, whether overwrought or not, wasn't O'Brien's.

According to the New York Daily News, O'Brien blurted out……

Let me again just briefly interrupt here. It was according to the Daily News' "Lowdown" gossip columnist, Lloyd Grove. Now, where were we.

"According to the New York Daily News, O'Brien blurted out, "It is a sad thing to watch military veterans cry as they tell you the beheadings in Baghdad were less horrific than what they saw as 30,000 people marched from the Superdome through a shopping mall and onto buses to who knows where."

Ah! So the observation is that of military veterans, who compare their emotional reactions to what they witnessed in Iraq with what they've witnessed in NOLA.

Oh dear. Now NewsMax has typed itself into a corner. It's picked up the quote (or part of it, anyway) from the Daily News, but has exposed its own lie: O'Brien is relating the observations and sentiments of America's brave men and women in uniform.

What to do. What to do.

No problem. Just strongly imply that O'Brien's veterans are fabricated (that gets America's brave men and women in uniform off the hook) and then repeat the original lie. Voila!

Ms. O'Brien didn't identify the veterans who told her that Katrina victims would have been better off being beheaded.

For the record, here's the remainder of the Daily News quote, which NewsMax omitted:

"It is impossible to fathom the desolation of a girl old enough to know, but far too young to understand, why her mother dropped her at a shelter and didn't come back."

So why are the wingnuts gunning for O'Brien? Probably because she was a rather persistent questioner of the then current but soon to be ex-FEMA director Mike Brown during the Katrina disaster.

These guys bruise easily.