On Tuesday, the Wire covered Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe's "Tea Party Manifesto" in The Wall Street Journal. The leaders said the movement aimed for a "hostile takeover" of the Republican Party.

Tuesday night, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann followed up on their op-ed with a little biographical digging. Armey and Kibbe, he argued, are nowhere nearly as far removed from Washington politics and the GOP as they claim to be. In fact, they're insiders.

But the real highlight of the segment turned out to be when Olbermann got distracted by Kibbe's facial hair. "Former RNC staff member Kibbe left behind the shackles of the GOP," said Olbermann, "and its corporate interests to [as feed switches to showing Kibbe] grow those sideburns. [Pause] I mean--sorry--to head up the corporately-owned tea party organization Freedomworks. Mr. Kibbee--any other shot available at all?--Mr. Kibbe also a former Republican congressional aide..." he continued. He couldn't help kicking off his interview with Salon writer Alex Pareene by asking:

Olbermann: Okay, we've got to start with the obvious question: what's the deal with Kibbe's sideburns?

Pareene: You know, I'm actually really glad I did not show up with that exact same facial hair today:

Olbermann: Seriously.

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Heather Horn