Ed Schultz Gets The Facts Wrong In Keystone Flip Flop

MSNBC talking head Ed Schultz was for the Keystone pipeline, and then he apparently decided that opposing President Obama and the environmental left was bad for business in progressive media, so he flip-flopped and now opposes it.

But in making his case for his flip-flop, Schultz got the facts wrong. He cited a WatchDog.org story (full disclosure: I contribute to that organization) about Nebraska state legislators sending a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry in support of the pipeline and claimed just one Democrat signed the letter.

He was wrong, as reporter Deena Winter (who wrote the original story) points out:

During the opening to his show, about 9 1/2 minutes in, Schultz put on screen our May 2013 story about the $27.4 million lobbyists spent in Nebraska in 2011-2012. That figure includes $700,000 spent by TransCanada lobbying for the pipeline it wants to build across America. He then cuts to former Sen. Abbie Cornett, a Republican, saying there was heavy lobbying on both sides.

He then refers to a letter 29 Nebraska state senators sent this week to the U.S. State Department in support of Keystone XL – a number that grew to 34 by week’s end.

“Heavy lobbying on both sides, but on that letter that was sent to John Kerry from Nebraska, there was only one Democrat,” Schultz said on the show. “They’re all Republicans – only one Democrat.”

Schultz spends considerable time in the segment accusing others of lying or making up numbers. “Prove me wrong,” he says.

Big Ed got that flat-out wrong. If he’d scrolled over to our home page, he’d have seen that a number of Democrats signed the letter – nine Democrats, to be exact.

According to Winter’s story, just three Democrat signed a separate letter that opposed the pipeline.

But we shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Honest observers concluded long ago that Ed Schultz doesn’t say things out of conviction and principle. He’s a performer, playing to an audience.