He attacked the apparent sources of the story (Matt Lewis and Michael Goldfarb), and the 20 Senators who are now calling for an investigation. Who’s right, and who’s wrong? Plus Mediaite has exclusive reaction from Lewis and Goldfarb.

Here’s the Countdown segment:

Olbermann is correct to point out that the alleged base-closing couldn’t happen until 2013, but that doesn’t mean the threat wasn’t made. He also references a “partial retraction” by Goldfarb without ever explaining what it was. I asked Goldfarb for his reaction to the segment, and if he knew what retraction Keith referred to: (via email)

There was no retraction. I stand by the story and am confused as to where that came from. My only response to Olberman is that I was disappointed I didn’t make Worst Person in the World.

A source at MSNBC points to an interview Goldfarb gave to Glenn Beck.

I also reached out to Matt Lewis, whose response was amusingly similar: (via email)

A reliable source leaked this information to me, and until proven otherwise, I stand by my source. My only regret is that Olbermann has yet to name me his ‘Worst Person in the World’.

Keith, if you’re reading this, a fitting response might be to put them on your “Best Persons” list. Just a suggestion.

This comes down to “Who do you believe?” Lewis and Goldfarb each have an anonymous source (Mediaite has learned that they did not both use the same source) saying that a threat was issued. Nelson and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer both deny this. Me? I like to believe everyone.

It’s important to note that Matt Lewis didn’t write an article about it, he simply sent a tweet. The degree to which this insulates him from criticism is a new conversation. While I might not have done the same, even a moderately critical thinker could easily evaluate Matt’s tweet on the merits, and suss that it did not, and wasn’t intended to, carry the weight of a news report.

I would further note that I know Matt well enough to know that he’s certainly not making it up, nor is he the type to repeat the utterance of a suspect source. He definitely heard this from someone he believes. Even knowing nothing about Matt personally, just read him or watch his TV appearances. He’s the model of a moderate voice, he doesn’t try to push the ball.

Goldfarb, on the other hand, did write an article about it, and cited a (presumably Republican) Senate aide:

As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.” They are “threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?” asked the Senate staffer.

Although Goldfarb clarified this later, a careful reading of the quote reveals that his source never actually says the threat came from Rahm Emanuel. This is too cute by 3/4 if it’s being run by a news organization, but Michael Goldfarb is a political blogger. The sourcing is clearly labeled, and its value as news should be easy to evaluate. By blog standards, he’s well within the lines.

My best guess is that there is some kernel of truth here, some kind of exchange happened between someone from the White House and someone from Nelson’s, probably too far down the food chain to be on Nelson’s, Pfeiffer’s, or Emanuel’s radar.

The real problem here, and where Olbermann hits the nail on the head, is the 20 GOP Senators who are now calling for an investigation. In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, they call for a hearing based on “various media reports.”

These are grown men, members of the US Congress’ most deliberative body. They can’t tell the difference between a tweet/blog post and a credible news report? They really want to waste the time and expense of a hearing on what is a clearly-labeled rumor about a demonstrably empty threat?

As far as I can tell, everyone else here is just doing his respective job. These 20 Senators should stick to theirs.

As a liberal who is friends with all 3 of them, this would seem to put me in an awkward position. Far from it. I’m not going to tarnish the pride they must all be feeling by trying to mount some kind of defense. Ed Morrissey, in particular, really needed this to clear his name after he was named Olbermann’s Best Person in the World a few months ago.

Instead. let’s let them speak for themselves. First up is Redeye and Factor regular (“the condescending”) Mary Katherine Ham, who’s collecting her 3rd “Worsts” medal:

I’m glad to see MSNBC has at least moved beyond awarding them for typos, which I think was my last transgression. Ha. Perhaps the “Tweets I Read on Friday Night” segment will get better ratings than the “Check Out My Copy of Strunk & White” segment. Plenty of room to move up!

Zing! However, as our next contestant points out, Keith wasn’t actually the one sitting home on Friday night, forlornly scanning the Tweetdeck. The Washington Times’ Amanda Carpenter (“a modest woman with much to be modest about?”) says:

I just hope Olby gave Think Progress credit for ripping off their cheap shot post. We all acknowledged the “false positive” note from the White House. I asked Think Progress several times on Twitter to update their post, they didn’t and Countdown proceeded with a nothing story.

Amanda, you’ll be glad to know that Keith did credit Think Progress for gathering those Friday night Tweets.

Finally, there’s my good friend Ed Morrissey (“super genius”), whose conservative street cred just went back to 11:

While I’m honored that Keith Olbermann has now made me his Worst Person in the World just a few weeks after being his Best Person in the World, perhaps Keith might do better to simply get a sense of humor and lay off the hyperbole. Maybe the next time his boss Jeffrey Immelt goes to visit Barack Obama after four such visits already, he’ll give Keith a night off and bring him along for a beer and a little perspective.

I know I said I wasn’t going to do this, but I can’t help it. While Goldfarb referenced “Rev. Wright” in his ThinkProgress-snipped Tweet, none of the other 3 actually intimates more than the visitors’ names in their Tweets. While they admirably ‘fess up to being fooled, they technically did not tweet anything that was inaccurate. That makes them all better than me, since I would have definitely played it off as an object lesson to those who re-tweeted me.

At the risk of stealing back some of Ed’s cred, not only did he acknowledge the “false positives,” he even gave President Obama a hat tip for transparency. (Sorry, Ed)

While this trio has a point about the fact that they did correct the offending tweets, it should be noted that Keith is an avowed non-twitterer, so the blame for this omission rests mainly with Think Progress. They took the time to update their post with a link to a Daily Kos pile-on, but not to note the corrections.