What do Charlie Sykes and William Hammesfahr have in common?

by folkbum

It's not just that both Sykes* and Hammesfahr went dipping into the private affairs of the Schiavo family a couple of years ago, though that was a good guess.

No, it's more like this:

Hammesfahr testified during an October 2002 court hearing on the Schiavo case that his claim to be a Nobel nominee is based on a letter written by Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-FL) recommending him for the prize. But Bilirakis is not qualified to make a valid nomination under the Nobel rules.

According to the process posted on the Nobel Prize website, the Nobel Assembly sends out invitations to approximately 3,000 people who are allowed to propose candidates. The 3,000 are "mainly members of the Nobel Assembly, previous prize winners, and a selection of professors at universities around the world." [. . .]

But the fact that Bilirakis is not qualified to nominate Nobel Prize winners did not stop Scarborough or Hannity from referring to Hammesfahr as a Nobel Prize nominee. Hannity did so a total of eight times during a single hour-long program; Scarborough made the reference four times. Additionally, Scarborough erroneously claimed that Hammesfahr has "treated" Schiavo; in fact, Hammesfahr has merely examined her as one of five doctors approved by a Florida court in 2001 to do so. He was one of two doctors selected by Schiavo's parents; two others were selected by Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, and the fifth was chosen by the court.

That was the first thing that came to mind when the Illusory Tenant wrote this morning:

Conservative talker Charlie Sykes has maintained for him the following tidbits of alleged information at his NewsRadio 620 WTMJ website:
Did You Know: Charlie was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. [. . .] A Pulitzer Prize nominee, Charlie has [blah blah blah] ...

Sounds impressive, don't it? It might be, I suppose, if there really was such as thing as a “Pulitzer Prize nominee.” But there isn't. What there are -- aside from winners, of course -- are “nominated finalists,” and Sykes has never been one of those. [. . .] So if you're not a Pulitzer Prize “winner” or a Pulitzer Prize “nominated finalist,” you're either an “entry” or a “submission.” And anybody with 50 bucks and a postage stamp can qualify for those.

At least Pat Robertson never went on FOX News to claim the Sykes had actually won the Pulitzer, unlike he did for Hammesfahr and the Nobel. We'll see how long TMJ leaves the Pulitzer thing in its bios of Sykes. I bet, oh, forever.

I apologize for the google-cache link, but the recent redesign of the WTMJ website made a muddle of the Sykes archive.