Boston College grad Luke Russert is learning all about the fun things that can happen on live television. He’s a “youth reporter” for MSNBC (following in the tradition of his father, Tim), and he made a report about the college vote in Virginia. He explains the situation, and his rather telling mistake:

Earlier this morning on the Today Show I misspoke and made what is without a doubt, quite simply a dumb comment.

Matt Lauer talked about UVA being a smart school and whether or not it could be considered a microcosm of Virginia at large. I said UVA had a lot of smart kids and so the school was leaning Obama.

I MEANT to say that many of the kids who go to UVA are from affluent, highly educated households who are leaning Obama and hence their kids lean Obama. Plenty of smart college kids will vote for John McCain from UVA, and plenty of smart kids go to Virginia Tech or George Mason and they, too, could end up being big Obama voters.

Today was one of my first lessons in the perils of live television...lesson learned.

Really the only problem with his original statement is that he said UVA has smart kids “so” they’re leaning Obama rather than “and” they’re leaning Obama. Interesting that one word can reveal your true thoughts about an issue. And it’s alright Luke, UVA kids are smarter than George Mason kids, we all know that.