Now that an MSNBC news employee has been reprimanded after mistakenly flashing a picture of Osama bin Laden on a segment about Barack Obama during Chris Mathews’s Hardball program, news of the incident is sweeping the globe.

Here, for example, from Australia, Canada and India. I wonder whether the news has reached Afghanistan yet?

The mistake was made by someone in the network’s graphics department whom MSNBC would not identify.

It is not the first time the media have confused the Illinois senator with the al-Qaeda terror leader.

Earlier this month, Reuters also called Obama Osama during a piece on one of the primaries. The mistake was posted on various newspaper sites before being changed.

And last year CNN apologized for promoting a story on the search for bin Laden with the headline, “Where’s Obama?”

In a separate incident, a CNN reporter said “Barack Obama’s campaign has been dogged by false rumors, among them that Osama is a Muslim, Obama rather.”