Irregardless

This morning on NBC's newscast, there was a story by Brian Mooar, who I assume is just some networ nut who did his national story and sent it out to affiliate stations. The story was about Democratic senators cracking down on internet pornography, but that's really not the point.

The point is that at the end of this story, Mooar said the following sentence:

"Senator Lincoln's office maintains that this is good legislation, irregardless of Third Way's involvement."

Does he not know that irregardless isn't an actual word? It is improper grammar and just annoying to hear someone say. Don't believe me? You don't have to.

I looked it up on www.dictionary.com to find out what one internet dictionary had listed for the word. The following paragraph returned from my search:

[Probably blend of irrespective, and regardless.]
Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.