Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but it is time for him to go. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: must withdraw his name for nomination for reelection as President
Speaker 1: of the United States. He should release his delegates with
Speaker 1: instructions that they should vote for Kamala Harris for president.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to treat this more lightly than it
Speaker 1: seemingly deserves. I do not make a comparison between their conditions,
Speaker 1: but truly to have said those words makes me feel
Speaker 1: like I felt the day I had to make the
Speaker 1: decision to stop the medical treatments that were keeping my
Speaker 1: father alive. But there is a time for emotion and
Speaker 1: a time for being emotionless, and this is the latter.
Speaker 1: We can, I hope, spend the next twenty years embracing
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and the greatest sacrifice made by any American
Speaker 1: politician in our lifetimes, while we also celebrate Trump being
Speaker 1: turned down by the pardon board for the twentieth consecutive
Speaker 1: year later, we need now to make those things happen.
Speaker 1: The essence of the problem boils down. I think to
Speaker 1: five points. First, democracy lives or dies on the outcome
Speaker 1: of this election. Also the climate and thus continuing life
Speaker 1: of all kinds on this planet. Second, the long awaited
Speaker 1: fob push in private is complete. Friends of Biden O
Speaker 1: be noon yesterday was I think the final semi private
Speaker 1: warning before they all go public. There appeared at that
Speaker 1: hour in the Washington Post News that President Obama had
Speaker 1: told allies in recent days that the Biden path to
Speaker 1: victory had greatly diminished and that his vice president needs
Speaker 1: to seriously rethink the viability of his candidacy. The Post
Speaker 1: reports Nancy Pelosi called Obama. We know from CNN that
Speaker 1: Pelosi got on the phone with Biden about how bad
Speaker 1: the polls are and how the bleeding had spread to
Speaker 1: the House races, and CNN reports he got defensive. The
Speaker 1: Clintons may have done what Obama is doing, let something
Speaker 1: leak publicly. First, we knew Wednesday that Chuck Schumer had
Speaker 1: told Biden privately last Saturday that he should drop out
Speaker 1: a Keen Jeffries in private, we know Adam Schiff was
Speaker 1: the first big name to go off the public diving
Speaker 1: board into the pool of unknown depth and call for
Speaker 1: him to withdraw. CNN and The Times and Axios all
Speaker 1: said the President was more receptive now to outside input.
Speaker 1: Even like that. Axios also said he was more dug
Speaker 1: in than ever before. Axios also said he is also
Speaker 1: resigned to the pressure and the polls and could drop
Speaker 1: out as soon as this weekend. And that's how to
Speaker 1: cover politics. Three possible outcomes, predict all three of them
Speaker 1: will happen. Be Steven A. Smith. I will again report
Speaker 1: what I reported yesterday and just referenced. If the President
Speaker 1: does not bow out presently, maybe my Monday, the fobs,
Speaker 1: some combination of Obama, the Clintons, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffrees, maybe
Speaker 1: others will gently and with that same sense of bereavement,
Speaker 1: I feel, go public and force President Biden to get out,
Speaker 1: merely to repair the damage that such an unprecedented vote
Speaker 1: of no confidence would represent. It would be manipulative on
Speaker 1: the part of the Fobs, but powerful. Third point, as
Speaker 1: I said previously, America will always choose the old man
Speaker 1: yelling at the cloud, especially instead of the old man
Speaker 1: whispering intelligently but inaudibly. This nation elected Reagan twice and
Speaker 1: George W. Bush twice. And even if you don't think
Speaker 1: w was an old man, you will agree he was
Speaker 1: an old man in spirit. In fact, I believe you
Speaker 1: could look at every presidential election since the invention of
Speaker 1: recorded sound and not find one in which a candidate
Speaker 1: who was often literally unintelligible defeated one who was not.
Speaker 1: Trump may be saying crazier and crazier things, but those
Speaker 1: persuadable voters are having trouble understanding what President Biden is saying. Fourth,
Speaker 1: as he has voiced in every public appearance since the debate, interviews,
Speaker 1: news conferences, speeches, the debate itself, the President believes he
Speaker 1: will be re elected because he's done such a good job,
Speaker 1: and I refer you to the noted political analyst Mae
Speaker 1: West and her observation that goodness has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with it. He has done such a good job, a
Speaker 1: great job. This, however, is not how you beat a
Speaker 1: liar promising the gullible that he will bring them eternal life.
Speaker 1: They didn't beat Jim Jones that way, and Biden did
Speaker 1: not beat Trump that way four years ago. It is
Speaker 1: both a crisis and a tragedy that American politics has
Speaker 1: devolved into what it is now, But it would be
Speaker 1: more of a tragedy if Joe and the holdout Democratic
Speaker 1: leaders denied that it has so devolved, and fifth, the
Speaker 1: polls are cratering forty seven of them the last forty
Speaker 1: seven polls, Trump leads them all. I'm beginning to spot
Speaker 1: a pattern. The polls underscore a simple reality that the
Speaker 1: situation the Democratic and Democracy campaigns are now in is
Speaker 1: not about Joe Biden somehow maintaining the status quo, nor
Speaker 1: even making up the ground lost since the debate. Before
Speaker 1: the debate he needed to improve down the stretch. How
Speaker 1: even if they found him the proverbial fountain of youth,
Speaker 1: how would they still stop the parsing of every utterance
Speaker 1: for a slip. How could we stop what is now
Speaker 1: the ingrained default position, not just of today's incomparably unqualified
Speaker 1: political reporters, but of today's incomparably uninformed political voters. We
Speaker 1: all look for failure, not success. We all remember the
Speaker 1: wrong name said, not the right one. Even the people
Speaker 1: who will make more mistakes in the next hour then
Speaker 1: Joe Biden will in the rest of his life, will
Speaker 1: do so because pointing at his mistakes also allows them
Speaker 1: to ignore their own mistakes and don't blame someone else.
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming someone else. What do you and I
Speaker 1: remember from the speeches of Trump that he's crazy and
Speaker 1: he's evil, and far more easily that he gets all
Speaker 1: the goddamn names and words wrong. We are living in
Speaker 1: snark America, and snark feeds on mistakes. In the new poles, however,
Speaker 1: there is both the nettle that must be grasped and
Speaker 1: in that the pained relief that, no, we are not
Speaker 1: throwing away a victory of some kind by changing horses
Speaker 1: so well past midstream, but in other new poles by
Speaker 1: the same company at the same time that didn't get
Speaker 1: one thousandth of the coverage. The prospect for redemption that
Speaker 1: a new candidate will bring is glimpsed polling by Emerson
Speaker 1: College Monday and Tuesday, widely reported yesterday, widely accepted nationally.
Speaker 1: It was Trump by two earlier in the month. In
Speaker 1: this poll, it is now Trump by four. In this poll,
Speaker 1: Biden is now losing in all seven original swing states,
Speaker 1: by three in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, by five in Georgia,
Speaker 1: by six in Pennsylvania, by nine in North Carolina, by
Speaker 1: ten in Arizona. Since March, in the Emerson poll, President
Speaker 1: Biden has lost an average of two points in each
Speaker 1: of the seven swing states. Those numbers are cataclysmic, yet
Speaker 1: they are only half the numbers. Emerson is not considered
Speaker 1: the gold standard in polling, but honest to God, how
Speaker 1: close do they have to be if Trump is beating
Speaker 1: Biden by ten in Arizona and six in Pennsylvania. Adding
Speaker 1: to the uncertainty about the exactitude of this data is
Speaker 1: the sponsor of this Emerson poll, the Bill Harris super
Speaker 1: Pack Democrats for the Next Generation, which has not only
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere to push hard for Biden to
Speaker 1: drop out, but propose this nonsensical mini primary and pledged
Speaker 1: to underwrite it. So just to climb further out onto
Speaker 1: this particular Harris limb on Democrats for the Next Generation's behested.
Speaker 1: Emerson also asked another question of the voters in those
Speaker 1: swing states where Biden is losing on average now by
Speaker 1: five and a half points. The question is really self fulfilling.
Speaker 1: It's almost on the level of for people who like
Speaker 1: this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing
Speaker 1: they like, but the results are so large, they're so
Speaker 1: startling that it's worth listening to them as some kind
Speaker 1: of guide post. In imagine, the pollsters asked always a
Speaker 1: bad start to a poll question. Imagine you have to
Speaker 1: choose between two people for president, Donald Trump or another candidate.
Speaker 1: The other candidate is a younger Democrat who is qualified
Speaker 1: for the job. How would you decide who to pick?
Speaker 1: Should have also asked them how many things were wrong
Speaker 1: with that question? Imagine? Also, what does younger mean define
Speaker 1: qualified for the job? Please? What if the voter thinks
Speaker 1: you're asking them about Taylor Swift? What do pass poles
Speaker 1: tell us about how much better nameless imaginary candidates do
Speaker 1: than real life ones. Still, these are the results in
Speaker 1: North Carolina, the imaginary younger Democrat beats Trump by two.
Speaker 1: In Arizona and Pennsylvania, he or she beats Trump by
Speaker 1: six in Nevada and Wisconsin. The Democrat beats Trump by
Speaker 1: eight in Georgia and Michigan. It is your invisible little
Speaker 1: Democratic friend by ten. So that's over here. Biden losing
Speaker 1: to Trump in the seven Swing states by five and
Speaker 1: a half in each state. Or the generic imaginary qualified
Speaker 1: younger Democrat, let's call her for the sake of argument,
Speaker 1: t Swizzle beating Trump in the seven Swing states by
Speaker 1: more than seven points in each state. That would be better.
Speaker 1: That would be better by just under let's see the
Speaker 1: swing is just under thirteen points. Again, I'm assuming there
Speaker 1: is a lot wrong with the pole company, with the pole,
Speaker 1: with the sponsor, with the question, with the built in
Speaker 1: imaginary stuff, with the self fulfilling prophecy element. But how
Speaker 1: much wrong does it have to be before it stops
Speaker 1: giving a clear indication that, yes, even now, a different
Speaker 1: Democrat will do better on November fifth than will President Biden.
Speaker 1: That is ultimately the only question, and there is some,
Speaker 1: i think infallible intuitive logic behind this. The nation, even
Speaker 1: if one hundred percent of those intending to vote for
Speaker 1: Biden would still vote for him, will still vote for him,
Speaker 1: no matter what is crying out for a younger, less
Speaker 1: viscerally flawed candidate. There are drawbacks and prejudices and uncharted territory.
Speaker 1: And every American who is worried about America's willingness to
Speaker 1: elect a woman of color as president on sixteen weeks
Speaker 1: notice should worry, but should also remember that America has
Speaker 1: elected a man of color twice and given more popular
Speaker 1: votes to a woman in the only three elections in
Speaker 1: which representatives of either group have stood for the office,
Speaker 1: and those three elections have happened in the last four elections.
Speaker 1: One note about process here. I have remained, as I
Speaker 1: keep using this term, agnostic about this because to me,
Speaker 1: until and unless President Biden was ready to step away
Speaker 1: or ready to be convinced to step away, and there
Speaker 1: were clear indications and some reports yesterday and late Wednesday
Speaker 1: that he was at least willing to have the meetings,
Speaker 1: if not take the action. Until that point, I wanted
Speaker 1: to tamp down the discussion and leave it behind the
Speaker 1: scenes where it belonged, because the moment it went public
Speaker 1: there would be only two remaining options. He quits, where
Speaker 1: he goes right through until midnight strikes on November fourth
Speaker 1: and fifth, being told he still needs to quit. And
Speaker 1: that is where we are now. We got there on
Speaker 1: the night of the debate. Not your fault, not my fault,
Speaker 1: the president's fault, and there is only one way out
Speaker 1: of this place. I have had my doubts for the
Speaker 1: most practical reason, which I outlined earlier, for at least
Speaker 1: a year. And that practical reason, when was the last
Speaker 1: time a presidential candidate down by two or three or
Speaker 1: four nationally and at least that much in all the
Speaker 1: swing states roared back in the final one hundred days,
Speaker 1: when he no longer had the ability to literally roar.
Speaker 1: But things seemed to have stabilized, and obviously, given whatever
Speaker 1: has been inhibiting President Biden, that State of the Union
Speaker 1: address was the speech of his lifetime and one of
Speaker 1: the greatest speeches in American political history. And you may
Speaker 1: recall that the dump him movement went silent that night,
Speaker 1: and it stayed silent until the debate. It was buckle
Speaker 1: up and hope for the best, and we did not
Speaker 1: get the best. We may have gotten the best possible,
Speaker 1: but it is clear now it is not enough. And no,
Speaker 1: this may not work either, but I think, having thought
Speaker 1: about little else for the last year, this has a
Speaker 1: better chance of working than staying with Joe Biden does.
Speaker 1: I will add two more things. I am not surprised
Speaker 1: things like this never work out in real life, but
Speaker 1: I am sorry they could not have arranged for the
Speaker 1: President to step aside during Trump's acceptance speech last night
Speaker 1: and watch the networks cutaway. Don't make that face. This
Speaker 1: always works when you can do it. Eleven years ago,
Speaker 1: ESPN and I were talking about me going back there
Speaker 1: after fifteen years of pretty much NonStop nuclear war. They
Speaker 1: liked the idea. We had a good plan for a show,
Speaker 1: but there was no compelling reason to actually do it.
Speaker 1: And then Fox announced it was launching two new all
Speaker 1: sports cable networks, and it vowed to take ESPN's business
Speaker 1: away from it. And that's when the plot was hatched.
Speaker 1: Fox scheduled and made a lot of noise about a
Speaker 1: launch party for its new networks, a launch party on
Speaker 1: July seventeenth, twenty thirteen, at their movie studio, a lot
Speaker 1: on Pico Boulevard in La and they spent money. They
Speaker 1: flew in writers from local newspapers around the country, and
Speaker 1: on July seventeenth, we let them have about an hour
Speaker 1: or so of fun and booze and food. And then
Speaker 1: ESPN put out a press release announcing that after fifteen
Speaker 1: years of nuclear war, Keith Alberman is returning to ESPN.
Speaker 1: There is literally video of those writers streaming out of
Speaker 1: the party to go write stories not about Fox but
Speaker 1: about me and ESPN sports writers who left free food.
Speaker 1: The trick works every time, and I'll add it could
Speaker 1: still work if President Biden were to use it today.
Speaker 1: And yes, the last note here, I am trying to
Speaker 1: make myself laugh, so I don't cry. As I alluded
Speaker 1: to earlier, this is as striking a moment to me
Speaker 1: as was the day I had to tell them to
Speaker 1: disconnect my father's life support. It was the right decision,
Speaker 1: even from his own unconscious body language as it happened,
Speaker 1: I think he knew it, and he too knew it
Speaker 1: was the right decision. And thirteen years and four months later,
Speaker 1: I have had only one regret, only one. And maybe
Speaker 1: it's useful here, and maybe it's not. Maybe it's just
Speaker 1: about me. I don't know. You be the judge. But
Speaker 1: my one regret after all this time is this, I
Speaker 1: waited about two weeks too long, because for those two
Speaker 1: weeks I just couldn't do it. Also, the Republican Convention
Speaker 1: is over, the Festival of Whites is at an end.
Speaker 1: Asshole con twenty four is complete, and the headline you
Speaker 1: did not hear. There is now even more evidence today
Speaker 1: that Trump is lying about having actually been hit by
Speaker 1: a bullet. The investigative unit at w Television in Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: reports that four police officers from that city assigned Trump's
Speaker 1: motorcade Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, were standing just feet from
Speaker 1: Trump when the shots rang out, and they too were wounded.
Speaker 1: The policemen were hit by quote either plastic or metal
Speaker 1: fragments when the bullets struck objects nearby. The four officers
Speaker 1: suffered minor injuries from flying debris caused by the bullets,
Speaker 1: but Trump, standing next to them, and not next to
Speaker 1: any of the gunshot victims, he was hit by a bullet,
Speaker 1: not a piece of plastic or metal, even though Secret
Speaker 1: Service sources confirmed before Trump was out of the Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: hospital that he had not been shot with a bullet,
Speaker 1: but had suffered a minor ear injury due to being
Speaker 1: hit by flying debris, probably glass, possibly from a teleprompter screen.
Speaker 1: Even though there has been no Secret Service report indicating
Speaker 1: Trump was shot, no police report indicating Trump was shot,
Speaker 1: no hospital reports that his injuries were consistent with those
Speaker 1: produced by a bullet, no investigation indicating that a bullet
Speaker 1: hit him or anywhere near him. And of course Trump
Speaker 1: would never lie about something like this, and he and
Speaker 1: his handlers would never trot out the gear of the fireman,
Speaker 1: the bystander who was actually killed Saturday, as if the
Speaker 1: pieces of his equipment were religious relics. Certainly they wouldn't
Speaker 1: do that, and misspell the man's name. His name was misspelled.
Speaker 1: That Trump survived an assassination attempt is not in doubt
Speaker 1: here that it was a close call. Is in doubt
Speaker 1: that it looks more and more like he exaggerated the
Speaker 1: gravity of his injuries and especially what caused them. And
Speaker 1: he seemingly has put some kind of restriction on anybody
Speaker 1: saying either yes he was shot or no, he wasn't shot.
Speaker 1: It was a piece of plastic like maybe he had
Speaker 1: invoked Hippa regulations. That is essential to understanding this the
Speaker 1: latest in his endless series of cons and also the
Speaker 1: new religious overtones to Trump's hold on the unwashed and
Speaker 1: the unloved who have been so mercilessly exploited by Trump's
Speaker 1: new Republican fascist party, and the latest reason that idiots
Speaker 1: like Politico's Natalie Allison would publish a preview of Trump's
Speaker 1: acceptance speech just five hours before he gave it, in
Speaker 1: which she claimed quote, there appears to be a new
Speaker 1: softness to Trump, with people who've talked to him describing
Speaker 1: him with words like existential, serene, emotional, and even spiritual.
Speaker 1: Hey you left out misspelled? Yeah? And which does this
Speaker 1: sound like? Is this the existential part, or the serene,
Speaker 1: or the emotional or the spiritual. Was this the pivot
Speaker 1: or maybe this was just the same goddamned selfish thing
Speaker 1: he posted literally hours after that deadly piece of plastic
Speaker 1: just missed him and cut his ear. A Republican maga
Speaker 1: shot at me, So all criminal charges against me must
Speaker 1: be dropped. Because unity, we.
Speaker 2: Must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement, which is
Speaker 2: what's been happening in our country lately at a level
Speaker 2: that nobody has ever seen before. In that spirit, the
Speaker 2: Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system and
Speaker 2: labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy, especially
Speaker 2: since that is not true. In fact, I am the
Speaker 2: one saving democracy for the people of our contract.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the new ooh Trump. After his record breaking
Speaker 1: nine hundred and forty third pivot since the year twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: he has changed just as you would have had you
Speaker 1: survived by just inches the assassin shard of glass, bullet, bullet,
Speaker 1: assassin's bullet. Of course, he was hit by a bullet.
Speaker 1: What are you crazy? Just because people standing next to
Speaker 1: him were hit by glass. He's Trump. He got a
Speaker 1: bullet of course, he got a bullet, a deluxe bullet.
Speaker 1: Two other notes. First, my seemingly weakly offer to get
Speaker 1: a conservative a free CT scan because just on a
Speaker 1: human level, I'm concerned about their brain. Goes out today
Speaker 1: to Marjorie Taylor Green, Neanderthal woman appeared on bright Bart
Speaker 1: News from asshole con and I swear the interviewer had
Speaker 1: one of those foreheads that juts forward like australopithecus, and
Speaker 1: she Neanderthal woman claimed Trump was saved from assassination by
Speaker 1: an angel flag. It seems like God's hand is on
Speaker 1: his shoulder.
Speaker 3: You thought, I believe it. I believe we all witnessed
Speaker 3: a miracle literally from you know, before it happened. The
Speaker 3: flag above got blown in the wind and it got
Speaker 3: tied into literally what looked like an angel.
Speaker 1: Did you see that video? Oh my gosh, you guys.
Speaker 3: Have to find that. It was truly, it was like
Speaker 3: an angel coming down. It was the American flag tied.
Speaker 3: They had to bring it down and all the people
Speaker 3: in the sands helped unravel it, and it was literally
Speaker 3: before he came out on the stage.
Speaker 1: The only thing unraveling here is Marge. One of the
Speaker 1: real giveaways that even they don't believe Marge when she
Speaker 1: goes into one of her ecstatic religious trances like that
Speaker 1: is this bright Bart put a whole story out about
Speaker 1: this angel flag interview with her on its website, and
Speaker 1: it used the clip, including the weird interviewer guy, and
Speaker 1: it did not post the video of the flag that
Speaker 1: supposedly wrapped itself into the shape of an angel, not
Speaker 1: even a still photo. You know why not because the
Speaker 1: flag didn't look a flipping thing like an angel. Google
Speaker 1: it Google Trump angel flag and you'll see what it
Speaker 1: looked like. I vowed to say to you the first
Speaker 1: thing it made me think of the moment I saw it,
Speaker 1: And the first thing it made me think of was
Speaker 1: a sickle as in Grim Reaper. The flag looked like
Speaker 1: that curved sharp blade the sickle at the top of
Speaker 1: the sickle, and there was even part of the handle too.
Speaker 1: And no, the flag didn't turn into a sickle either.
Speaker 1: So Marge, it's my offer, free cat scan. And lastly,
Speaker 1: lou Dobbs died. He was once a respected business anchor
Speaker 1: on CNN, and then a not so respected business anchor
Speaker 1: on CNN, and then an original Berther and incredibly he
Speaker 1: was still host of his own CNN show until they
Speaker 1: finally fired him in two thousand and nine. He went
Speaker 1: to Fox Business and got increasingly fascist and crazy, and
Speaker 1: naturally he connected with Trump, and by twenty twenty he
Speaker 1: was pushing the election bullshit, and especially the hallucination that
Speaker 1: January sixth was Antifa or George Soros or Soros Tifa
Speaker 1: or whatever, and that the election was rigged by socialist
Speaker 1: zombie extraterrestrials from the planet Skyron and the Galaxy of
Speaker 1: Andromeda using Smartmatic machines. And when Smartmatic sued Fox for
Speaker 1: two billion, seven hundred million dollars, Lou Dobbs was one
Speaker 1: of only three Fox anchors actually named in the suit.
Speaker 1: Fox fired him on February fifth, twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 1: his show wound up streaming on Mike Lindell's Pillow website.
Speaker 1: I have previously mentioned my extraordinary personal connection to b
Speaker 1: Lou Dobbs. He was a CNN original based with the
Speaker 1: rest of CNN's old nightly business show in the New
Speaker 1: York Bureau. I had interviewed with CNN Sports for a
Speaker 1: job twice in its first year on the air, when
Speaker 1: I was still in radio and they were interested, and
Speaker 1: I was interested. And then one Thursday I got a
Speaker 1: call asking if I could fill in for two weeks
Speaker 1: as the sports reporter in the New York Bureau, and
Speaker 1: I said sure, and they said Monday. Only after I
Speaker 1: had been there a few days did I ask what
Speaker 1: had happened to their regular sports reporter, a woman I
Speaker 1: had met several times on stories named Debbie Sigura. I
Speaker 1: was told by our producer that Debbie Sigura and her
Speaker 1: boyfriend Lou Dobbs had suddenly gone on vacation. Then one
Speaker 1: of the cameramen, once the producer was out of the way,
Speaker 1: said the boyfriend right. He relayed that Dobbs had suddenly
Speaker 1: been found out by Missus Dobbs, and by Dobbs's mistress,
Speaker 1: and by the executive in the New York Bureau he
Speaker 1: was supposedly gallivanting around with as well. All at once
Speaker 1: they found out. So Lou had to get out of
Speaker 1: town fast, but I mean really fast. Ultimately, Dobbs and
Speaker 1: Debbie moved to Atlanta and got married, and I got
Speaker 1: Debbie's job in New York. And when I left that
Speaker 1: job to go into local TV, CNN sent up an
Speaker 1: anchor they had in Atlanta to replace me as the
Speaker 1: New York sports reporter. His name was Dan Patrick. So
Speaker 1: Lou Dobbs inadvertently invented SportsCenter Lewis Carl Dobbs CNN original
Speaker 1: is dead and you know how old he was. He
Speaker 1: was two hundred and six. Also of interest, here, I
Speaker 1: can count on the fingers of one hand the number
Speaker 1: of times the same guy, one worst person two shows
Speaker 1: in a row. I think Dobbs did it. It has
Speaker 1: happened again. The guy went on CNN and announced, quote,
Speaker 1: a bullet couldn't stop Trump, A virus just stopped Biden.
Speaker 1: And the guy is an idiot. Those are your clues
Speaker 1: the malefactor's identity. Next, this is countdown. This is countdown
Speaker 1: with Keith Olberman, my crazy friend, still ahead of us
Speaker 1: on this editiative countdown. In the wake of the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: which started with Lincoln, all right, he was there. What
Speaker 1: third presidential nominee after John Fremont and somebody else started
Speaker 1: with Lincoln moved on to Teddy Roosevelt even offered this
Speaker 1: nation the useful boredom of Dwight E. Eisenhower. In the fifties,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party nominated a convicted felon and the plotter
Speaker 1: of an attempt to violently overthrow the government of the
Speaker 1: United States, and a psychopath. In the wake of that,
Speaker 1: there is only one story for me to read to you.
Speaker 1: In our weekly visits with the Master, the greatest man
Speaker 1: in the world. On Fridays with Thurber, I had first
Speaker 1: still more idiots to talk about the daily roundup of
Speaker 1: the worst persons in the world. We cover the world
Speaker 1: here the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning
Speaker 1: Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in
Speaker 1: the world. Lebron's worse, says our Condey, chairman of NBC News.
Speaker 1: I've told you before about him, back when I concluded
Speaker 1: ten years of listening to MSNBC about going back there.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they started the conversation. Sometimes I started the conversation,
Speaker 1: says Our Condey. Had assistant asked me if I was
Speaker 1: available for breakfast on fairly short notice to talk about
Speaker 1: a new version of Countdown. I said, of course. She
Speaker 1: selected a restaurant, I said, of course. Minutes later she
Speaker 1: emailed back to say, oh, sorry, he's going to be
Speaker 1: away in the rest of this week. We'll have to postpone.
Speaker 1: Little did I know that that was the pinnacle of
Speaker 1: Saesar Condey's NBC news career, Puck News, and I believe
Speaker 1: they changed that from the original name, which was something
Speaker 1: like puck Puck News reports that he not the head
Speaker 1: of MSNBC, not even the president of NBC News. He
Speaker 1: Sayesar Conde was the idiot who decided that they should
Speaker 1: take their morning political gossip show off the air Monday,
Speaker 1: even though its entire two hundred and forty three member
Speaker 1: cast was already in the studios the day the Republican
Speaker 1: Convention began in Milwaukee. CNN reported that Condy decided this
Speaker 1: was the right call out of fear that somebody would
Speaker 1: say something that would piss off the Trump Nazis. As
Speaker 1: I noted, this was exactly the MSNBC NBC reaction in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, when the Republicans leaned on Tom
Speaker 1: Brokaw and Brokaw blackmailed NBC management into removing me and
Speaker 1: Matthews from covering the rest of the convention and the
Speaker 1: debates that year. Puck News, however, which employs a media
Speaker 1: writer with a one hundred percent score from the Committee
Speaker 1: to defend corporate news management, at all costs. He says, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't censorship, it was condy thinking that quote, he
Speaker 1: would preempt all of MSNBC's perspective programming with the rolling
Speaker 1: news coverage from the NBC broadcast feed. In other words,
Speaker 1: no Scarborough, no Mado Hayes, O'Donnell, No what's your name
Speaker 1: at night? Know the other? What's your name at night?
Speaker 1: Know the on the weekend? What's their names? All of
Speaker 1: them off the air. As Puck wrote, quote, Conday had
Speaker 1: been peaked, peaked at by Puck the idea of mobilizing
Speaker 1: his news platforms to cover a major news event, just
Speaker 1: as CNN might, only to be reminded that the network's
Speaker 1: real value proposition was the perspective itself. So wait this moron.
Speaker 1: Conde had started that morning at NBC. Oh no, he's
Speaker 1: been chairman of NBC News since May twenty twenty. He's
Speaker 1: been on the job for four freaking years and two months,
Speaker 1: and just Monday he realized that you can't just replace
Speaker 1: the opinion programs on MSNBC with generic news coverage. And
Speaker 1: I hate Scarborough like I hate few people in life.
Speaker 1: He truly is the scum of the earth. But they
Speaker 1: replaced him and missus Joey Scars with Savannah Sellers and
Speaker 1: Joe Fryar of NBC News Now. And I've never heard
Speaker 1: of Savannah Sellers and Joe Fryar, And in fact, if
Speaker 1: you asked me, I would have said they sounded like
Speaker 1: never seen offstage minor characters from the TV series The
Speaker 1: Morning Show, and the chairman of the News division somehow
Speaker 1: thought that Savannah Sellers and Joe Fryer would do better
Speaker 1: in the ratings. For twenty eight years now, executives at
Speaker 1: NBC have never accepted the reality that they can't just
Speaker 1: use MSNBC or CNBC or any of the other channels
Speaker 1: they own for that matter, as a spillover channel for
Speaker 1: when there's really news and just fill it the rest
Speaker 1: of the time with you know, other crap. Just put
Speaker 1: on that Rachelle woman or whatever her name is, Meadows,
Speaker 1: Just put on that Meadows woman. This dynamic, let's establish
Speaker 1: a news based network with appointment viewing and its own
Speaker 1: stars that makes money hand over fist. This has fought
Speaker 1: with this other cynical dream of we can put on
Speaker 1: all the stuff we can't fit into the Today Show
Speaker 1: and we can train people on a cable, and when
Speaker 1: they get good enough, we promote them to real NBC.
Speaker 1: This has gone on, off and on, waxing and waning
Speaker 1: since nineteen freaking ninety six. Generation after generation of producers
Speaker 1: and executives and broadcasters have lived and died as first
Speaker 1: one boss said make it its own network, and then
Speaker 1: the next one said, no, America loves NBC News. MSNBC
Speaker 1: must be NBC News Junior, MNBC News Triple A, and
Speaker 1: then back to the first guy again. When we finally
Speaker 1: got MSNBC profitable two thousand and five or two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, instead of losing tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: a year for the entirety of its first decade, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it started making hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars because I yelled at George Bush. Since the day
Speaker 1: I started doing special comments, MSNBC has earned its owners
Speaker 1: ge and now Comcast, several billion dollars. But management's response became, well,
Speaker 1: that's nice. We liked the billions of dollars, but we
Speaker 1: wanted to make that money without any controversy and without
Speaker 1: us having to stay past five PM to deal with
Speaker 1: the controversy. And they're still doing it, or this guy
Speaker 1: Conde is just a fool or both. The solution, by
Speaker 1: the way, which I presented to them in a long
Speaker 1: memo in two thousand and three, which I'll read here
Speaker 1: one day soon, is actually simple. Stop calling MSNBC, MSNBC
Speaker 1: caught anything else. Call it the American News Channel, caught,
Speaker 1: the Politics Channel, caught, ethel the Frog, anything, anything that
Speaker 1: doesn't have NBC in it, and you'll be fine. Silver
Speaker 1: worser Matt Gates, Florida congressman and botox enthusiast, after his
Speaker 1: speech to the Republican National Fascist Convention, in which he
Speaker 1: looked like something in the way of a living iPhone filter.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for Gates to do a commercial in which
Speaker 1: he says, aha uh sal kunfabo docs a side side cutta. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll be able to move my mouth again. But there's
Speaker 1: a larger issue here. The guy looked like he had
Speaker 1: left his face home and had gotten one drawn on
Speaker 1: for him. He looked like late stage Bruce Jenner CNNMSNBC, Fox,
Speaker 1: BBC News, ethel Lefrog News. Dozens of small outlets covered
Speaker 1: the convention wall to wall, and did anybody say, you know,
Speaker 1: Gates looks like somebody just laminated him. I mean, the
Speaker 1: concept of covering political conventions had died in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: Nobody watched them, nothing happened. The original idea was that's
Speaker 1: where they nominated the presidential candidates. That's why you were
Speaker 1: there to see who the presidential candidate would be. That
Speaker 1: stopped years ago. Nothing happens now maybe this year. But
Speaker 1: they're cheap filler for cable news networks even if nothing happens,
Speaker 1: and they are easily understood by the morons who work
Speaker 1: for the cable news networks, but at least brings some
Speaker 1: actual reporting to them just thirty seconds out of every
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Gates looks like he melted Trump last
Speaker 1: night was preceded by corrupt, racist wrestlers. You people at
Speaker 1: CNN and the others you over there at ethel the
Speaker 1: Frog News. You will go to your graves having never
Speaker 1: actually contributed anything to people's understanding of the world around you.
Speaker 1: You will be satisfied, Dana Bash, during your last twenty
Speaker 1: breaths on this earth, that you managed to get in
Speaker 1: the entire promo copy before the stage manager finished counting
Speaker 1: down from ten. That's it. That's your legacy. That's your legacy,
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper, that's your mark on this world. I mean,
Speaker 1: not even saying Matt Gates, unlike we've ever heard him
Speaker 1: before or seen Dana not even that, just once, maybe
Speaker 1: just once. Of course, saying something, especially on CNN, brings
Speaker 1: its own risks, as evidenced by the fact that we
Speaker 1: have a repeat winner consecutive days. The worst Van Jones
Speaker 1: I have mentioned before his extraordinary ability to be so
Speaker 1: impressed by fascists that he thinks you're supposed to praise them.
Speaker 1: This is when Donald Trump became president, and particularly that
Speaker 1: you're supposed to forget all about the rest of what
Speaker 1: they've done in their lives, as malefactor is in society.
Speaker 1: Wednesday night, Van Jones, former Obama Special advisor for Green Jobs,
Speaker 1: went on CNN and mocked the illness of the President
Speaker 1: of the United States, who was the vice president of
Speaker 1: the United States when he Van Jones had a job
Speaker 1: with the government. Quote, a bullet couldn't stop Trump, A
Speaker 1: virus just stopped Biden. You've got the nominees of this
Speaker 1: party getting their butts kissed. Biden's getting his butt kicked
Speaker 1: by his own party. The Democrats are coming apart, the
Speaker 1: Republicans are coming together, and then of course he injured himself,
Speaker 1: patting himself on the back. What was Van Jones's motive there?
Speaker 1: As often with political pundits at all ends of the
Speaker 1: left right spectrum, the desire to sound cool on TV
Speaker 1: erases all other goals. If you can spontaneously produce parallel
Speaker 1: sentence structure, you keep going seemingly never realizing you're creating
Speaker 1: comparisons that are not valid and are not even replacement
Speaker 1: level intelligent. A bullet couldn't stop Trump. A virus just
Speaker 1: stopped Biden. The virus stopped Biden because Biden chose to
Speaker 1: isolate to protect other human beings. The bullet didn't stop
Speaker 1: Trump because A it may not have been a bullet
Speaker 1: that hit him, but certainly b He couldn't see the
Speaker 1: statistics on a screen next to him that was the
Speaker 1: size of a railroad box car, so he had to
Speaker 1: turn his head. Utter luck, no skill, no quality, no
Speaker 1: action to protect others. One day, I'd like to hear somebody,
Speaker 1: maybe somebody like Van Jones or whoever replaces him, ask
Speaker 1: why Trump hid below the podium, emerged unscathed, maybe grazed
Speaker 1: by a bullet, maybe grazed by a bottle cap, and
Speaker 1: the only thing he did was to scream and rage
Speaker 1: rather than urge the crowd to get down, Get down,
Speaker 1: just for one second in his whole life, to think
Speaker 1: about somebody else. Nobody asked why he didn't do that. Well,
Speaker 1: we know why he didn't do that. He's not actually
Speaker 1: a human being. He didn't care if you get shot
Speaker 1: one day. I'd like to hear somebody, maybe somebody like
Speaker 1: Van Jones or whoever replaces him, ask if now, after
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt, if now is finally the time we
Speaker 1: can talk about gun laws, given that the fascist candidate
Speaker 1: for president almost had his effing head blown off by
Speaker 1: another gun nut from his own political gun nut party.
Speaker 1: But no, Van Jones couldn't do any of that because
Speaker 1: he saw staring him in the face. Parallel sentence construction.
Speaker 1: A bullet couldn't stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden.
Speaker 1: I'm some great, Oh, I hurt my shoulder patting myself
Speaker 1: on the back. Common decency couldn't stop Biden. Common sense
Speaker 1: just stopped Van Jones. You see how this works, Van CNN.
Speaker 1: You must fire him the nation and you're remaining eight
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven viewers will accept no less Jones
Speaker 1: for the second consecutive day, two days. Worse person and
Speaker 1: the world I've thought. I've seen this story playing out
Speaker 1: in real time in this country almost every day for
Speaker 1: about seven years. Sit back and relax, if relax is
Speaker 1: the right word for it. For the Greatest Man in
Speaker 1: the World by James Thurber. Looking back on it now
Speaker 1: from the vantage point of nineteen forty one can only
Speaker 1: marvel that it had not happened long before it did.
Speaker 1: The United States of America had been ever since Kitty
Speaker 1: Hawk blindly constructing the elaborate petard by which, sooner or
Speaker 1: later it must be hoist will. It was inevitable that
Speaker 1: someday there would come, roaring out of the skies a
Speaker 1: national hero of insufficient intelligence, background, and character, successfully to
Speaker 1: endure the mounting orgies of glory prepared for aviators who
Speaker 1: stayed up for a long time or flew a great distance.
Speaker 1: Both Lindbergh and Byrd, fortunately for national decorum and international amity,
Speaker 1: had been gentlemen, So had our other famous aviators. They
Speaker 1: wore their laurels, gracefully, withstood the awful weather of publicity,
Speaker 1: married excellent women, usually fine family and quietly retired to
Speaker 1: private life and the enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No
Speaker 1: untoward incidents on a worldwide scale marred the perfection of
Speaker 1: their conduct on the perilous heights of fame. The exception
Speaker 1: to the rule was, however, bound to occur, and it
Speaker 1: did in July nineteen thirty seven, when Jack Pal Smirch
Speaker 1: erstwhile mechanics helper in a small garage in Westfield, Iowa,
Speaker 1: flew a second hand, single motored Breasthabn Dragonfly three monoplane
Speaker 1: all the way around the world without stopping. Never before
Speaker 1: in the history of aviation had such a flight as
Speaker 1: Smirches even been dreamed of. No one had even taken
Speaker 1: seriously the weird floating auxiliary gas tanks invention of the
Speaker 1: mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy, doctor Charles Lewis, Gresham,
Speaker 1: upon which Smirch placed full reliance. When the garage worker,
Speaker 1: a slightly built, surly unprepossessing young man of twenty two,
Speaker 1: appeared at Roosevelt Field early in July nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: slowly chewing a great quid of scrap, tobacco and announced,
Speaker 1: nobody ain't seen no flying yet. The newspapers touched briefly
Speaker 1: and satirically upon his projected twenty five thousand mile flight.
Speaker 1: Aeronautical and automotive experts dismissed the idea, curtly, implying that
Speaker 1: it was a hoax, the publicity stunt. The rusty, battered
Speaker 1: second hand plane wouldn't go, The Gresham auxiliary tanks wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: It was simply a cheap joke. Smirch. However, after calling
Speaker 1: on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap
Speaker 1: folding department of a large paper box factory, a girl
Speaker 1: whom he later described as his sweet Petuti climbed nonchalantly
Speaker 1: into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable seventh of
Speaker 1: July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of tobacco juice
Speaker 1: into the still air, and took off, carrying with him
Speaker 1: only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds of salami.
Speaker 1: When the garage boy thundered out over the ocean, the
Speaker 1: papers were forced to record in all seriousness that a mad,
Speaker 1: unknown young man his name was variously misspelled, had actually
Speaker 1: set out upon a preposterous attempt to span the world
Speaker 1: in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting to the long
Speaker 1: distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster. When nine days later,
Speaker 1: without having stopped once, the tiny plane appeared above San
Speaker 1: Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering and choking, to
Speaker 1: be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously aloft the headlines,
Speaker 1: which long since had crowded everything else off the front page.
Speaker 1: Even the shooting of the governor of Illinois by the
Speaker 1: Valetti Gang swelled to unprecedented size, and the news stories
Speaker 1: began to run to twenty five and thirty columns. It
Speaker 1: was noticeable, however, that the accounts of the epoch making
Speaker 1: flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself. This was
Speaker 1: not because the facts about the hero as a man
Speaker 1: were too meager, but because they were too complete. Reporters
Speaker 1: who had been rushed out to Iowa when Smirch's plane
Speaker 1: was first sighted over the little French coast town of
Speaker 1: ser Lee Lemaire to dig up the story of the
Speaker 1: great man's life had promptly discovered that the story of
Speaker 1: his life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen
Speaker 1: short order cook and a shack restaurant on the edge
Speaker 1: of a tourist's camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries
Speaker 1: as to her son, with an angry and the hell
Speaker 1: with him a help, he drowns. His father appeared to
Speaker 1: be in jail somewhere for stealing spotlights and lap robes
Speaker 1: from tourists automobiles. His young brother, a weak minded lad,
Speaker 1: had but recently escaped from the Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and
Speaker 1: was already wanted in several Western towns for the theft
Speaker 1: of money order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries
Speaker 1: were still piling up at the very time that pal Smirch,
Speaker 1: the greatest hero of the twentieth century, dead for sleep,
Speaker 1: half starved, was piloting his crazy junk heap high above
Speaker 1: the region in which the lamentable story of his private
Speaker 1: life was being unearthed, headed for New York and a
Speaker 1: greater glory than any man of his time had ever known.
Speaker 1: The necessity for printing some account in the papers of
Speaker 1: the young man's career and personality had led to a
Speaker 1: remarkable predicament. It was, of course, impossible to reveal the
Speaker 1: facts for a tremendous popular feeling in favor of the
Speaker 1: young hero had sprung up like a grass fire when
Speaker 1: he was halfway across Europe on his flight around the globe.
Speaker 1: He was therefore described as a modest, chap taciturn blonde,
Speaker 1: popular with his friends, popular with girls. The only available
Speaker 1: snapshot of Smirch, taken at the wheel of a phony
Speaker 1: automobile in a cheap photo studio at an amusement park,
Speaker 1: was touched up so that the little vulgarian looked quite handsome.
Speaker 1: Twisted leer was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth
Speaker 1: was in this way kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots.
Speaker 1: They did not dream that the Smirch family was despised
Speaker 1: and feared by its neighbors in the obscure Iowa town,
Speaker 1: nor that the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits,
Speaker 1: had come to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance
Speaker 1: and a menace. Pal's Smirch had, the reporters discovered, once
Speaker 1: knife the principle of his high school, not mortally, to
Speaker 1: be sure, but he had knifed him, and on another occasion,
Speaker 1: surprised in the act of an stealing altar cloth from
Speaker 1: a church, he had bashed the sexton over the head
Speaker 1: with a pot of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses,
Speaker 1: he had served a sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities,
Speaker 1: both in New York and in Washington, prayed that an
Speaker 1: understanding providence might, however awful, such a thing seemed, bring
Speaker 1: disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot,
Speaker 1: whose unheard of flight had aroused the civilized world to
Speaker 1: hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the
Speaker 1: character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight
Speaker 1: of adulation was bound to reveal him to all the
Speaker 1: world as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to
Speaker 1: cope with his own prodigious fame. I trust, said the
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, at one of the many secret cabinet
Speaker 1: meetings called to consider the national dilemma. I trust that
Speaker 1: his mother's prayer will be answered, by which he referred
Speaker 1: to missus Emma's smirch's wish that her son might be drowned.
Speaker 1: It was, however, too late for that Spurch had leaped
Speaker 1: the Atlantic and then the Pacific as if they were
Speaker 1: mill ponds. At three minutes after two o'clock on the
Speaker 1: afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven, j Boy brought
Speaker 1: his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect three
Speaker 1: point landing. It had, of course been out of the
Speaker 1: question to arrange a modest little reception for the greatest
Speaker 1: flier in the history of the world. He was received
Speaker 1: at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies as
Speaker 1: rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the warren and spent hero
Speaker 1: promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily from his plane,
Speaker 1: and was spirited from the field without having opened his
Speaker 1: mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity of
Speaker 1: his first reception, a reception illumined by the presence of
Speaker 1: the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor Michael J.
Speaker 1: Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada, Governors Fanamine Groves,
Speaker 1: mcpheey and Critchfield, and a brilliant array of European diplomats.
Speaker 1: Smirch did not, in fact come too in time to
Speaker 1: take part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at City Hall
Speaker 1: for the next day he was rushed to a secluded
Speaker 1: nursing home and confined in bed. It was nine days
Speaker 1: before he was able to get up, or, to be
Speaker 1: more exact, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the greatest minds in the country, in solemn assembly, had
Speaker 1: arranged a secret conference of city, state and government officials,
Speaker 1: which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being
Speaker 1: instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the
Speaker 1: day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get
Speaker 1: up in dress and for the first time in two weeks,
Speaker 1: took a great chew of tomacco, he was permitted to receive.
Speaker 1: The newspaper men this by way of testing him out.
Speaker 1: Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said,
Speaker 1: and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell the
Speaker 1: cock eyed world that I put it over on Lindberg.
Speaker 1: See yeah, man, an assaid, I'm two frogs. The two
Speaker 1: frogs was a reference to a pair of gallant French flyers, who,
Speaker 1: in attempting to flight only halfway round the world, had
Speaker 1: two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea. The Times
Speaker 1: Man was bold enough at this point to sketch out
Speaker 1: for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in cases of
Speaker 1: this kind. He explained that there should be no arrogant
Speaker 1: statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly heroes of
Speaker 1: foreign nations. A the hell with that, said Smirch, I
Speaker 1: did it. See I did it, and I'm talking about it,
Speaker 1: and he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary
Speaker 1: interview was, of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers,
Speaker 1: already under the disciplined direction of a secret directorate created
Speaker 1: for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors, gave
Speaker 1: out to a panting and restless world that Jackie, as
Speaker 1: he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only
Speaker 1: that he was very happy, and that anyone could have
Speaker 1: done what he did. My achievement has been I fear
Speaker 1: slightly exaggerated. The times Man's article had him protest with
Speaker 1: a modest smile. These newspaper stories were kept from the hero,
Speaker 1: a restriction which did not serve to abate the rising
Speaker 1: malevolence of his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave
Speaker 1: for Palell' Smirch was, as he kept insisting, raring to go.
Speaker 1: He could not much longer be kept from a nation
Speaker 1: clamorous to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis
Speaker 1: the United States of America had faced since the sinking
Speaker 1: of Belusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh of July,
Speaker 1: Smirch was spirited away to a conference room in which
Speaker 1: were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists, and editors.
Speaker 1: He gave them each a limp moist paw, and a brief,
Speaker 1: unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch was seated, the
Speaker 1: Mayor of New York arose, and, with obvious pessimism, attempted
Speaker 1: to explain what he must say and how he must
Speaker 1: act when presented to the world, ending his talk with
Speaker 1: a high tribute to the hero's courage and integrity. The
Speaker 1: Mayor was followed by Governor Fannerman of New York, who,
Speaker 1: after a touching declaration of faith, introduced Cameron Spottiswood, second
Speaker 1: Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris, the gentleman selected
Speaker 1: to coach Smirch in the amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting
Speaker 1: in a chair with a soiled yellow tie in his
Speaker 1: hand and his shirt open at the throat unshaved, smoking
Speaker 1: a rolled cigarette. Jack Smirch listened with a leer on
Speaker 1: his lips. I get you, I get you, he cut
Speaker 1: in nastily. You want me to act like a softie. Huh?
Speaker 1: You want me to act like that bemny memty baby
Speaker 1: face lind big huh, Well nuts to that. See. Everyone
Speaker 1: took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh and
Speaker 1: a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began a United States Senator purple
Speaker 1: with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring his
Speaker 1: nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh,
Speaker 1: for God's sake, that big somebody shut off the blasphemies
Speaker 1: with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word
Speaker 1: the room. Everyone stood up, except Smirch, who was still
Speaker 1: busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up.
Speaker 1: Mister Smirch, said someone sternly. The President of the United States.
Speaker 1: It had been thought that the presence of the Chief
Speaker 1: Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero,
Speaker 1: and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation
Speaker 1: of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room
Speaker 1: a great, painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a
Speaker 1: hand at the president, he asked, and began rolling a
Speaker 1: fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed in a strained way.
Speaker 1: Jesuits hot, ain't it, said Smirch. He loosened two more
Speaker 1: shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest and the tattooed word
Speaker 1: sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart. The great and important
Speaker 1: men in the room, faced by the most serious crisis
Speaker 1: in American history, exchanged worried frowns. Nobody seemed to know
Speaker 1: how to proceed. Come on, come on, said Smirch. Let's
Speaker 1: get the hell out of here. When do I start
Speaker 1: cutting in on the podies? Huh? And when is there
Speaker 1: gonna be this in it? He rubbed a thumb and
Speaker 1: forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a state senator, shocked pale, Yeah, money,
Speaker 1: said pal, flipping his cigarette out of the window. And
Speaker 1: big money. He began rolling a fresh cigarette. Big money,
Speaker 1: he repeated, Frowning over the rice paper. He tilted back
Speaker 1: in his chair and leered at each gentleman separately. The
Speaker 1: leer of an animal that knows its power, the leer
Speaker 1: of a leopard loose in a bird and dog shop. Ah,
Speaker 1: for God's sake, let's get someplace where it's cool, he said.
Speaker 1: I've been cooped up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood
Speaker 1: up and walked over to an open window, where he
Speaker 1: stood staring down into the street nine floors below. The
Speaker 1: faint shouting of newsboys floated up to him. He made
Speaker 1: out his name, hot Dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He
Speaker 1: leaned out over the sill. You tell um babies, he
Speaker 1: shouted down, Hot Diggity Dog. In the tense little knot
Speaker 1: of men standing behind him, a quick, mad impulse flared up.
Speaker 1: An unspoken word of appeal of command seemed to ring
Speaker 1: through the room, yet it was deadly silent. Charles K.
Speaker 1: L Brand, secretary to the Mayor of New York City,
Speaker 1: happened to be standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at
Speaker 1: the President of the United States. The President, pale grim,
Speaker 1: nodded shortly. Brand, a tall, powerfully built man wants to
Speaker 1: tackle at Rutgers University, stepped forward, seized the greatest man
Speaker 1: in the world by his left shoulder and the seat
Speaker 1: of his pants, and pushed him out the window. My god,
Speaker 1: he's fallen out the window, cried a quick witted editor.
Speaker 1: Get me out of here, cried the president. Several men
Speaker 1: sprang to his side, and he was hurriedly escorted out
Speaker 1: of a door toward a side entrance to the building.
Speaker 1: The editor of the Associated Press took charge, Being used
Speaker 1: to such things crisply, he ordered certain men to leave,
Speaker 1: others to stay quickly. He outlined a story which all
Speaker 1: the papers were to agree on, sent two men to
Speaker 1: the street to handle that end of the track, commanded
Speaker 1: a senator to sob and two congressmen to go to
Speaker 1: pieces nervously. In a word, he skillfully set the stage
Speaker 1: for the gigantic task that was to follow, the task
Speaker 1: of breaking to a grief stricken world the sad story
Speaker 1: of the untimely accidental death of its most illustrious and
Speaker 1: spectacular figure. The funeral was, as you know, the most elaborate,
Speaker 1: the finest, the solemnest, and the saddest ever held in
Speaker 1: the United States of America. The monument in Arlington Cemetery,
Speaker 1: with its clean white shaft of marble and the simple
Speaker 1: device of a tiny plane carved on its base, is
Speaker 1: a place for pilgrims in deep reverence to visit. The
Speaker 1: nations of the world paid lofty tributes to little Jackie Smirch,
Speaker 1: America's greatest hero give an hour. There were two minutes
Speaker 1: of silence throughout the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small,
Speaker 1: bewildered town of Westfield, Iowa, observed this touching ceremony. Agents
Speaker 1: of the Department of Justice sough to that one of
Speaker 1: them was especially assigned to stand grimly in the doorway
Speaker 1: of a little shack restaurant on the edge of the
Speaker 1: tourist's camping ground just outside the town. There, under his
Speaker 1: stern scrutiny, missus Emma Smirch bowed her head over two
Speaker 1: Hamburger steaks sizzling on her grill, bowed her head and
Speaker 1: turned away so that the secret serviceman could not see
Speaker 1: the twisted, strangely familiar leer on her lips. The Greatest
Speaker 1: Man in the World by James Thurber. Can't imagine who
Speaker 1: that story could have been about. Never ceases to amaze me.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty one. I've done all the damage I can
Speaker 1: do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian
Speaker 1: Ray and John Phillip, Shaneil arranged, produced, and performed most
Speaker 1: of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass,
Speaker 1: and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. It
Speaker 1: was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of
Speaker 1: the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No
Speaker 1: Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our
Speaker 1: satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
Speaker 1: best baseball stadium organist ever. The Thurber was by Thurber.
Speaker 1: My announcer today is my crazy friend Tony Kornheiser, and
Speaker 1: everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this,
Speaker 1: the one and tenth day until the twenty twenty fourth
Speaker 1: presidential election and the two and eighty ninth day since
Speaker 1: convicted felon Crazy J. Trump's first attempt at coup against
Speaker 1: the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
Speaker 1: September eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system. You've
Speaker 1: got it. President Biden used presidential immunity to stop him
Speaker 1: from doing it again. While we still can, while you
Speaker 1: still can, mister President and Republicans please stop shooting at Trump.
Speaker 1: The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as the news requires.
Speaker 1: Why do I think there's going to be a bulletin
Speaker 1: till then? I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
Speaker 1: and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.