JOSSIP REPORTS — Um, Tom Brokaw? You're a liar. Yes, you're a well-respected newsman, who anchored NBC Nightly News for nearly two decades with aplomb, overseeing everything from the First Intifada in the Gaza Strip to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But you're also full of fibs.

When Jossip and others reported earlier this month that you were among the NBC News veterans voicing your concerns to the high ups that Keith Olbermann and Chris Mattthews' partisanship was making 30 Rock stink of liberalism instead of neutrality, you quickly denied the claim, saying you never voiced concerns to GE chief Jeff Immelt, NBC News head Steve Capus, nor MSNBC president Phil Griffin.

Except here we are, just a few weeks later, and — what's this? — you've changed your story.

When Felix Gillette's story in the Observer hit, claiming you were among NBC News types — a list that included names like Andrea Mitchell — you "set the record straight," insisting that never happened:

At no point, said Mr. Brokaw, has he ever complained about the broad editorial environment of MSNBC to General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, NBC Universal's president and CEO, Jeff Zucker, or NBC News' president, Steve Capus. Furthermore, Mr. Brokaw said he had in no way appointed himself as "the custodian of the Russert legend," as our source suggested.

Except as my colleague Drew Grant noted today, Brokaw today acknowledged he absolutely did voice his concerns:

In an interview here after Sunday’s broadcast, Mr. Brokaw said that over the summer he had “advocated” within the executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Their expressions of strong political opinions from the MSNBC anchor desk has run counter to the more traditional role Mr. Brokaw played on “NBC Nightly News” for more than two decades. NBC said earlier this month that the two hosts would mostly relinquish their anchor duties to Mr. Gregory, while being present as analysts.

“Keith is an articulate guy who writes well and doesn’t make his arguments in a ‘So’s your old mother’ kind of way,” Mr. Brokaw said. “The mistake was to think he could fill both roles. The other mistake was to think he wouldn’t be tempted to use the anchor position to engage in commentary. That’s who he is.”

Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate’s aides that — despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular — Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates — until his name was invoked.

“One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, ‘If it’s an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won’t go,’ ” Mr. Brokaw said. “My name came up, and they said, ‘Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it’s going to be Brokaw.’ ”

So, Brokaw: You either did tell NBC News brass that you thought Olbermann and Matthews were overstepping their bounds, or you didn't. You don't get to have it both ways.

But perhaps that's why Olbermann tried ousting you from the network.