On Monday's Hardball, Chris Matthews played host to an over-the-shoulder graphic of Osama bin Laden. Problem being: He was talking about Barack Obama.

As your extensive research may have concluded, these two men are A) not related; B) have never met nor spoken; C) likely have only one thing in common, which is "take down Hillary."

The backlash over the mix-up was quite audible, as perhaps it should have been. Confusing the two is nothing new for MSNBC, nor the cable industry as a whole.

But if there's always such uproar about these mixups, why aren't cable networks taking more precautions to ensure they don't have to field angry emails from campaign press operatives? Why do they keep giving Media Matters a reason to call them out?

Blame the graphics department.

Actually, as MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines says, they already did.

"The mistake was made by someone in the network's graphics department whom MSNBC would not identify," reports the Associated Press' TV scribe David Bauder. "The network did not explain exactly how the mistake was made nor detail the punishment for the employee. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor noted the apology and said the campaign had no other comment."

Almost certainly, the incident was unintentional; an honest, but foolish, mistake. But why is MSNBC so keen on keeping the offender's identity a secret?

Among the obvious reasons: It makes good business, and PR, sense. Fingering a low-level staffer who's not in the public eye will do little good. If anyone (like the Obama camp) wanted someone fired, they'd aim higher. MSNBC is smart not to give anyone ammunition.

But also, consider this: Much of what you see on screen, from graphics to lower-third Chyrons, are inserted by mildly trained permalancers, or even … interns. And that's not unique to MSNBC, though it's not exactly policy either.

Are we suggesting an intern is responsible? Not exactly, and the mostly Chatty Cathys at MSNBC are being unusually tight-lipped about this incident.

But it's no secret a rotating crew of production assistants and interns are "trained" to fulfill the gigs veteran staffers want nothing to do with, such as posting the name of an on-air guest or queuing up the graphics cache (or at least naming some of the image files) for a segment block.

That B-roll footage of a Barack victory speech playing during Keith Oblermann's primary coverage? Hopefully the PA who started two weeks ago wrote down "Obama" and not "Osama" on the side of the tape.

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