FACT CHECK: Brian Stelter Is Not an Egg
And Humpty Dumpty is not a potato
Friends, you know I only bring you the most important news of the day, rigorously fact-checked and presented without fear or favor. It’s with that commitment to journalistic excellence firmly in mind that I present the following:
The media’s janitor doesn’t know the difference between a potato and an egg.
Here’s Brian Stelter on a recent podcast from The Bulwark, a site for Republicans who are even more anti-Trump than I am:
(Video courtesy of Eric Abbenante)
“I once had a potato mailed to me. It came in a FedEx box. It was an actual potato. And I showed it to my kids. And of course, my kids are [???], they have no idea why someone’s mailing me a potato. It’s because that within the Fox universe, I used to be called ‘Humpty Dumpty.’ And from there, it became ‘Brian’s a potato.’ And so, when I get random tweets from people calling me ‘Spud,’ I know that, as you just said, they’re in that in-group. It is their way of communicating to each other that they are in on the… I guess in this case it’s a joke? But it’s also an insult, you know?”
“Yeah.”
Allow me to clarify any possible misunderstanding: Yes, calling Brian Stelter a potato is both a joke and an insult. You might be surprised how often an utterance can be both things, but probably not as surprised as Brian.
Although I really need to fact-check him on the provenance of the insult. He has conflated two separate things in his mind, which is perhaps understandable considering the limits of that mind.
Let’s be clear here: Humpty Dumpty was not a potato.
He was, in fact, an egg.
Not only was Humpty Dumpty an egg, but that’s the whole point of the nursery rhyme. It’s not:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Were like, “Okay, you’re slightly dented, walk it off”
That’s not how the rhyme goes, because Humpty’s not a potato. Even Brian’s kids could tell you that.
Plus, it doesn’t even rhyme.
Here’s where Brian got confused…