Looks like Crain’s New York Business reporter Matthew Flamm royally screwed up with a doozie of a “report” today, which indicated Bill O’Reilly might be “anchoring” FNC’s Ohio and Texas primary coverage Tuesday night. This guy doesn’t just have egg on his face – he has an entire omelet. As soon as we saw this story, alarm bells went off. Anyone who covers FOX knows that Brit Hume would never be dethroned from anchoring the network’s political coverage.

As one wag us, “Just the fact that the notion of O’Reilly anchoring election coverage even passed Flamm’s smell test is off the charts. This guy should run fleeing from the media beat immediately before he suffers any further embarrassment.”

Big Head DC looked at some of Flamm’s previous “reporting” on Fox News and that turned out to be wrong as well. In September of 2006, he asserted that “FNC suffering from popular disaffection with Republican policies and the declining ratings could pose problems for cable subscription fees.”

It’s widely known that FNC made millions off the renewal deals charging nearly $1.00 per sub in the Fall of 2006 — in fact, News Corp is still referring to the profits made off these deals in their earnings reports nearly two years later.

Not to mention, is Flamm kidding in the way he referred to the ratings? Yeah, CNN and MSNBC have had big numbers with the Hillary-Obama debates – any network would – you could put them on the Weather Channel and get seven million viewers, too. Still, both networks have been unable to sustain the viewership.

In light of all this, we hear Flamm is being referred to as “Matthew Flailing” in some media circles today. The bigger question remains: how did such a woefully inaccurate story make it to print? Some insiders are even wondering whether Flamm will even have a job come Monday.

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Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who has accused Sen. Barack Obama of illicit drug use and of having a sexual encounter with him in 1999, has been deceitful, according to results of a polygraph released on Sunday.

The polygraph was performed by Ed Gelb, a world-renowned expert in this arena, and is being examined by a second polygraph expert. Sinclair has already passed a drug test that proves he was not using any substances that could have affected the outcome of the polygraph.

“There were two polygraph tests administered by Dr. Gelb on Friday, the first polygraph asked Mr. Sinclair on his sex claims,” according to WhiteHouse.com, the site that paid for the test and oversaw its administration. “The second polygraph test asked Mr. Sinclair on the drug use claims. There was deception indicated in both tests.”

With such high stakes riding on the outcome, some have questioned whether polygraph results can be trusted. Many respected polygraph experts, however, say that lie detector tests are up to 95 percent accurate and polygraph results are admissible in several states. Polygraphs are also used by the U.S. government in carrying out certain security clearance procedures, as well as in determining parole for some criminals.

Others have questioned the motives of WhiteHouse.com, suggesting that the site’s owner may have sinister political goals. Dan Parisi, the owner, has adamantly maintained in statements on the site and in private conversations that this investigation has not been politically motivated.

WhiteHouse.com originally offered $100,000 to Sinclair if he took the test and the results were positive. Sinclair later agreed to a $10,000 payment and is in the process of donating the money to charities. Sinclair claims he did not come forward with the story for financial gain.

The mainstream media to date has been slow to cover the Sinclair allegations, although several respected journalists from newspapers including The New York Times are believed to be investigating. FOX News personality Bill O’Reilly, without mentioning Sinclair’s name, has hinted about possibly covering the story at a later date, and the Globe tabloid has already featured an interview with Sinclair.

Sinclair’s story first came to national attention via a video he posted on YouTube in January, but he has been making the claims in private for several months — and, possibly, for several years. Sinclair recently said in an online interview that he hadn’t revealed the story in a wide-scale manner previously because Obama had not been Sinclair’s own state or national senator. Now that Obama has the opportunity to be president of the United States, Sinclair says he believes that all American citizens should know about the alleged encounter as they make their voting decisions.

On February 11, Sinclair filed a lawsuit in a Minnesota U.S. District Court claiming that Obama, as well as his campaign adviser David Axelrod and others in the Democratic National Committee have been working behind the scenes to defame Sinclair’s reputation. A blogger posting on the official Obama campaign Web site and other Obama supporters have claimed that Sinclair is mentally ill.

Other Obama supporters have maintained that Sen. Hillary Clinton is somehow behind Sinclair’s accusations. Sinclair adamantly denies this claim, and supporters close to the Clinton camp have told Big Head DC that the campaign is in no way affiliated with Sinclair and that he has made these claims on his own.

Obama has not denied the accusations to date, nor has the campaign responded to Sinclair’s lawsuit.

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Barack Obama supporter Paul Tarlow, owner of a kiln-formed glass studio in Austin, Texas, has purchased and registered the domain name larrysinclair.com in an attempt to diffuse allegations of the brewing drug use and sexual encounter controversy that has erupted on YouTube and been briefly alluded to on air by Bill O’Reilly.

The site claims that Larry Sinclair is using his newly-found fame to harm the Obama campaign and benefit financially.

Tarlow told Big Head DC that he “picked up the domain to keep it out of general circulation –- a small contribution to the Obama campaign.” He added that he has no plans to sell the domain name.

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What Democratic presidential candidate scandal was Bill O’Reilly referring to in this clip:

Referring to the New York Times‘ John McCain story, O’Reilly said he could “just as easily” expose a “longstanding rumor” about an unnamed “powerful Democratic person in this country.” “I could do it tomorrow,” he said.

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…but O’Reilly says he doesn’t belong to a gym:

Whom to trust? The notoriously imaginative New York Daily News gossip duo? Or Bill O? We just don’t know!

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Earlier: Obama Staffer Hypes O’Reilly Secret Service Confrontation

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Lynne Sweet is reporting that Bill O’Reilly was in New Hampshire this morning at a Barack Obama rally, and he ended up “screaming at Obama National Trip Director Marvin Nicholson” and being confronted by the Secret Service.

However, we hear that Nicholson is working overtime trying to blow things out of proportion. Our people on the ground tell Big Head DC that O’Reilly was in the ropeline and someone tried to block his shot, so that why there was a confrontation. We also hear that at no point did Secret Service try to restrain or forcibly remove O’Reilly.

After the incident, Sen. Obama spoke personally with O’Reilly and said that he would be a guest on the Factor at some point — the exchange, we hear, was cordial. Weekend Live is planning to run the interview this afternoon in the 3 p.m. hour, according to FOX News, and O’Reilly is expected to comment on the situation on his program as well.

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Last night on The Simpsons, Marge dreamt that Keith Olbermann, guest-voicing as himself, labeled her “the worst person in the world” for fast-forwarding through television commercials. Unlike Bill O’Reilly, who regularly receives that dishonor on Olbermann’s program, Marge tried her best to make restitution by watching hours of advertisements.

We can only guess this development means that MSNBC does have some sway over at FOX.

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When MSNBC attempted a few years back to be a liberal alternative to FOX News, putting Phil Donahue on the air, along with several other liberal pundits, bosses at the network were nervous. President Bush’s approval ratings were high, 9/11 was still fresh on everyone’s mind, and conservative TV talk, led by Bill O’Reilly, seemed to be the key to ratings gold.

Not surprisingly, the experiment fizzled after a short time; Donahue was dumped, and MSNBC went on to try to re-brand itself once again.

But now, as the country’s overall attitude has seemingly shifted, so, too, have the attitudes of a new set of bosses. Keith Olbermann, with his nightly commentaries belittling the sins of the White House, has gotten tons of attention. Ditto on Chris Matthews, whose biggest ratings as of late came after he belittled Dick Cheney during a recent book party. The network has swung so far to the left that the cable’s logo has literally turned green, as various hosts promote a “Green Is Universal” theme through the week via special reports on climate change and environmental issues.

“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, tells the NY Times. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

And, now, comes word that Rosie O’Donnell may join MSNBC. If she can come to terms on a deal with the net, she will likely host the 9 p.m. slot each weeknight, which will put her up against CNN’s Larry King and FOX’s Sean Hannity.

Oh, what fun it would be to see Rosie’s antics every night with Olbermann as a lead-in. The duo couldn’t be more different than O’Reilly and Hannity. And, with Olbermann already pushing O’Reilly’s buttons on a nightly basis, the ensuing cable wars would surely heat up even more. And you thought Rosie versus Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View was a scorcher!

But maybe we’re a little biased ourselves here. After all, we love a good fight.

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“Bill O’Reilly sent his producer, Jesse Waters, to ambush Rosie O’Donnell at a book signing in Huntington, New York to ask her a loaded and distorted question, which he then tried to use against her on The Factor,” News Hounds reports. “In fact, O’Reilly concluded that Rosie O’Donnell and ‘her ilk’ are responsible for an increase in ‘left loon’ incidents which he claims are dangerous and will eventually lead to violence. The fact that O’Donnell is no longer a visible media influence doesn’t seem to matter to BOR. He thought it was just fine to disrupt her book signing and then verbally attack her during three segments of tonight’s show.”

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