George Gurley, Steno Sue of New York

George Gurley, the N.Y. Observer profile writer who was so offended by Eric Alterman's table manners that he sought out people to bash Alterman anonymously, now takes dictation from non-murderous, right-wing family man and basic cable's next failed spittlemonger, Joe Scarborough. In a puff piece involving zero -- actually, minus-zero -- reporting, Gurley quotes the object of his affections:

"Have you seen I�m a murderer?" he said. "Do a Yahoo search, and this will tell you why I don�t want to get back into politics. The second and third sites will say that I got a staff member pregnant and killed her�that I was cheating on my first wife, got her pregnant and I killed her. That�s why I was getting out of Congress. Comparing me to Gary Condit. And I�m a big boy, but after reading that you�re a Nazi for five years while you�re eating cereal, you learn to go, �O.K., well, I wonder if the Braves won.� And all that came from the 2000 election. I think I was up there probably in some of the ugliest years."

First, Scarborough's Yahoo search claim is, of course, not true.

Second, contrary to Scarborough's suggestion, there is no evidence that Gary Condit killed anyone.

Third, Scarborough did not, as Gurley claims, "pack his bags" and leave the House in May 2001; he did not resign until September 2001.

More importantly, though, Gurley is so incompetent that he didn't question Scarborough on the death of Lori Klausuits. Nor does Gurley point out that at least some of the sites addressing Klausuits' death did not accuse Scarborough of killing her, but simply wanted information about the facts of her death and the alleged mishandling of the investigation by the Medical Examiner. Instead, Gurley simply prints Scarborough's strawman argument/non-denial denial as a fact, and without even explaining what it means.

Also of note: Scarborough says that MSNBC staffers call him "Little O'Reilly." Must be in the Little Elvis sense.