MSNBC's Shuster Digs Pit for Rep. Blackburn; Falls Into It Himself

He who digs a pit for another falls into it himself.

MSNBC's David Shuster is the latest pit-digger to illustrate the familiar adage. 

In an interview with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on Tucker Carlson's show on Monday evening, ostensibly to discuss MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad, Shuster sandbagged Rep. Blackburn with a demand to know the name of the last soldier from her district who had died in Iraq.  When Blackburn said that she did not know, he stated the name of a fallen soldier and then needled Blackburn for not knowing the soldier's name.

One little problem.  The fallen soldier was not even from Rep. Blackburn's district.

From Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters:

SHUSTER: Let's talk about the public trust. You represent of course a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?

MARSHA BLACKBURN: The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq from my district? I do not know.

SHUSTER: OK, his name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the ninth, 2007. How come you didn't know the name?

Even after Blackburn expressed her appreciation for our soldiers' sacrifice, and detailed the extensive outreach she and her office does to military families in her district, Shuster continued to attack her for not knowing Private Bohannon's name.

SHUSTER: Well, you weren't appreciative enough to know the name of this young man . . . I still think it's a little bit surprising that you didn't know the name of this last soldier killed in Iraq who's only 18 years old yet you do know so much about the MoveOn.org ad and the tactics you didn't like.

It now turns out that Army Private Jeremy Bohannon had not, contrary to Shuster's claim, lived in Rep. Blackburn's congressional district. As blogger Conservative Belle brought to NB's attention, and as she has written about at her site, Private Bohannon lived in Bon Acqua, TN. Checking his nine-digit zip code reveals that he in fact lived in Tennessee District 8, represented by John Tanner, a Democrat.

The error was later confirmed by Finkelstein, who spoke with an aide in Rep. Blackburn's office. 

Once his error had been proven, Shuster made a terse on-air apology, which presumably was forced by MSNBC.  Video of the Shuster apology is here. As Mark Finkelstein puts it, Shuster's apology "had all the spontaneity of a hostage video."