Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Remember
Speaker 1: when they blew up that dead whale, That's what Trump
Speaker 1: just did to the Epstein cover up. You've seen the
Speaker 1: video right. Forty five foot eight ton carcass of a
Speaker 1: dead sperm whale washes up on shore at Florence, Oregon,
Speaker 1: November nineteen seventy. They decide the easiest way to dispose
Speaker 1: of it is to blow it up with dynamite. That's
Speaker 1: what Trump has just done to the Epstein cover up.
Speaker 1: So the geniuses in Oregon in nineteen seventy figured some
Speaker 1: of it will wash away and the smaller parts will
Speaker 1: be eaten by scavenger animals. Only they had a highway
Speaker 1: engineer plan it out, and he used half a ton
Speaker 1: of dynamite instead of the twenty sticks that would have
Speaker 1: done the job. And the next thing you knew, the
Speaker 1: whale had become a thousand pieces of rock hard shrapnel.
Speaker 1: That's what Trump just did to the Epstein cover up.
Speaker 1: A piece of blubber, and whale blubber is hard. A
Speaker 1: piece of blubber the size of a coffee table hit
Speaker 1: a parked car and crushed it, and the driver later
Speaker 1: swore he had just bought that car from a lot
Speaker 1: that was then running a promotion called get a Whale
Speaker 1: of a Deal. That's what Trump just did to the
Speaker 1: Epstein cover up. I also want to know today why
Speaker 1: Trump renamed the Kennedy Center the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center.
Speaker 1: But let me plow through the trump Stein disaster first.
Speaker 1: It starts with Image four sixty eight. Image four to
Speaker 1: sixty eight, from the Epstein files, from which virtually all
Speaker 1: the Trump stuff had already been scrubbed, was not scrubbed.
Speaker 1: It was a photo of a bunch of framed photos
Speaker 1: in a drawer, all of which showed Trump and Epstein together. So,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours later, Image four to sixty eight, which
Speaker 1: hadn't been scrubbed, was instead deleted. And even in doing that,
Speaker 1: after they posted it and scrubbed it and deleted it,
Speaker 1: they left Image one three hundred and forty six, a
Speaker 1: larger shot of framed Epstein photos on a credenza, a
Speaker 1: couple dozen of them. And sure enough, zoom in on that,
Speaker 1: as the impeccable Lauren Windsor did, and there is a
Speaker 1: framed photo of Epstein and Trump and Malania. The three
Speaker 1: of them doesn't look like anybody's being introduced to anybody else.
Speaker 1: At least sixteen pages that were released on Friday had
Speaker 1: disappeared by yesterday. Some of the ones they did release
Speaker 1: had one hundred percent redactions five hundred and fifty of
Speaker 1: them five fifty pages fully redacted, just the black boxes,
Speaker 1: per Scott McFarlane and CBS News, and they are still counting.
Speaker 1: One Epstein victim says she was doxed that Trump released
Speaker 1: her identifying information and just to apply the chef's kiss,
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche, who believe it or not, is the Deputy
Speaker 1: Attorney General, gets on one of the Sunday shows and
Speaker 1: presents a self fulfilling prophecy or in this case, a
Speaker 1: self unfulfilling prophecy. Quote. If there's photographs that we have
Speaker 1: of President Trump or anybody else, they of course will
Speaker 1: be released, with the exception of any victims or survivors
Speaker 1: that we've identified unquote. In other words, any photos proving
Speaker 1: Trump was with verified Epstein victims or survivors, they will
Speaker 1: not be released because because because they would show Trump
Speaker 1: was with verified Epstein victims or survivors, we can't show
Speaker 1: you THEO that would prove it. Hey did just stuff
Speaker 1: the dynamite into the dead whale. Yet Cole let her rip,
Speaker 1: the penultimate flaw of this administration, has now once again
Speaker 1: moved center stage, even ahead of his own instability. That
Speaker 1: second ranked fatal flaw is these people are idiots. Dan
Speaker 1: Bongino didn't say this as he quit as deputy FBI director,
Speaker 1: but the suspicion is Cash Patel is too much of
Speaker 1: an idiot, even for Dan Bongino. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of idiot. And apart from Patel screwing up every
Speaker 1: investigation he's put his eye on, so to speak, the
Speaker 1: key Trumpest exposure on the brain drain issue is the
Speaker 1: Epstein files. First was Pam Bondi's empty Epstein loose leaf
Speaker 1: notebooks bought at a Staples in Georgetown or somewhere for
Speaker 1: all we know. Then it was her claim that there
Speaker 1: was a client list on her desk. Then it was
Speaker 1: Trump going from running on releasing the Epstein files to
Speaker 1: Trump calling the Epstein files a hoax, to Trump signing
Speaker 1: the humiliating House measure to force him to release the
Speaker 1: Epstein files. Then it was Susie Wiles saying Bondie quote
Speaker 1: completely whiffed on the Epstein files. Then it was not
Speaker 1: releasing documents that must by law be released, and it
Speaker 1: said releasing only some of them, then unreleasing others, and
Speaker 1: therefore blowing up the metaphorical whale while simply spreading the
Speaker 1: metaphorical whale over a square mile area, and by the way,
Speaker 1: still not complying with the law Trump signs, so people
Speaker 1: at the DOJ could technically go to jail now or
Speaker 1: more likely later. Twenty twenty nine comes to mind. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to make sure the Epstein story stays alive,
Speaker 1: you'd do any one of those things I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to make sure America is convinced Trump
Speaker 1: is again convicted of complicity with Epstein, I mean a
Speaker 1: second time after the release of the Trump signed drawing
Speaker 1: of the nude, do all of those things I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to escalate the Epstein scandal to
Speaker 1: indelibly market as the Trumpstein scandal, do what these idiots
Speaker 1: did and plant things in the files and release the
Speaker 1: planted things, and do it so clumsily and moronically that
Speaker 1: it gets community noted on Twitter. X Abigail Marone Jackson
Speaker 1: a deputy Press secretary. And remember if you're a deputy
Speaker 1: press secretary. When Caroline Levitt is the press secretary, you
Speaker 1: are necessarily dumber even than Caroline Levitt is. Abigail Morone
Speaker 1: Jackson wrote that per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ
Speaker 1: was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims
Speaker 1: and or miners. Here is a picture of Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: with his arm around Michael Jackson and redacted individuals might
Speaker 1: as well have had a picture of Abraham Lincoln. The
Speaker 1: picture of Clinton is of course available by googling his
Speaker 1: name and Michael Jackson and the redacted individuals in that
Speaker 1: picture are Michael Jackson's two sons and Evan Ross, the
Speaker 1: son of Diana Ross. And also Diana Ross is also
Speaker 1: in the picture. And apparently Abigail Moron Jackson doesn't know
Speaker 1: who she is. She's too inbubbled to know who Diana
Speaker 1: Ross is. And the picture is from a Democratic fundraiser
Speaker 1: from two thousand and three, and it don't have a
Speaker 1: damn thing to do with the Epstein Files. But Abigail
Speaker 1: Jackson decided to try to deceive the American public into
Speaker 1: believing it has something to do with them. In other words,
Speaker 1: they blew up the whale, and then they went back
Speaker 1: and assembled the pieces again and blew it up a
Speaker 1: second time. And that gives anybody an excuse to look
Speaker 1: at anything in the Epstein files and just assume that
Speaker 1: if it puts the finger on somebody else, Trump put
Speaker 1: it there. Nice work, Abigail Moron Jackson. This is Abigail's
Speaker 1: second job in life. The first one was as a
Speaker 1: press aid to Josh Hawley, the January sixth running Man.
Speaker 1: There are, in fact, at last check, at least eight
Speaker 1: Twitter ex community notes on posts by Jackson, by the
Speaker 1: deplorable Todd Blanche, by Pam Bondi herself Blondie, who simply
Speaker 1: cannot be long for her job. She just can't. New
Speaker 1: Year's Day would be a surprise if she's still in
Speaker 1: that job. Wasn't even posting about Trumpstein, and she still
Speaker 1: got community noted about trump Stein. She wrote about Trump
Speaker 1: setting all time great transparency standards for a presidency, and
Speaker 1: nobody is buying it community note quote contrary to the claim,
Speaker 1: Instead of transparency, the administration runs defense for pedophiles and rapists.
Speaker 1: And then there are links to four tweets, including two
Speaker 1: by Congressman Tom Massey. Keep up the good work, Madam
Speaker 1: Attorney Generic Trump. Not just covering up the Epstein files
Speaker 1: and breaking the law by not fulfilling the law passed
Speaker 1: by his own party. Not just doing that, but now
Speaker 1: faking things and putting them in the Epstein files and
Speaker 1: not even doing it very well, and faking something about
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton. The day Bill Clinton left the White House,
Speaker 1: the average American of today was fifteen years old. You
Speaker 1: might as well have faked something about Epstein and the
Speaker 1: y two K computer crisis, Abigail. This underscores why Trumpstein,
Speaker 1: no matter what happens next, will be self perpetuating in
Speaker 1: a way nobody dreamed of last Thursday. This is the
Speaker 1: true danger of conspiracy theories, as no one will find
Speaker 1: out more than Donald Trump will find out in the
Speaker 1: days and weeks to come. Twenty percent of Americans do
Speaker 1: not believe the reality of what happened on nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: The Kennedy assassination only became more desirable as conspiracy fodder
Speaker 1: after the Warren Commission reports. Jill McCay's eighteen forty one
Speaker 1: book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds has
Speaker 1: been surpassed since its publication in explaining mass stupidity, but
Speaker 1: it is still always a wonderful reminder that while it
Speaker 1: has now been weaponized by everybody from the Nazis to Trump,
Speaker 1: people have always been this gullible. It is hard to
Speaker 1: get away from conspiracy theories except by massive and even
Speaker 1: shocking straightforwardness and transparency, and that is impossible if a
Speaker 1: government consists of conspiracy theorists and stupid conspiracy theorists like
Speaker 1: har Meat Dylan. If you don't know her, she is
Speaker 1: actually an assistant Attorney General. Her previous job was Tulsey
Speaker 1: Gabbard's lawyer. She deliberately or otherwise turned the Brown University
Speaker 1: shooting into another fake conspiracy. Somebody tweeted that after the shooting,
Speaker 1: Brown was removing articles from its website about one of
Speaker 1: its students. She retweeted it with the musk like addition.
Speaker 1: Concerning Anna, Paulina Luna, the member of the House from
Speaker 1: Dipshit County, Florida, wrote she found it suspicious that things
Speaker 1: were altered on the Brown website. Luna also probably finds
Speaker 1: it suspicious that the amount of daylight changes every day. Well,
Speaker 1: Dylan retweeted her too, adding just sus turned out the
Speaker 1: deletions had nothing to do with the shooting, and the
Speaker 1: student had nothing to do with the shooting. As I
Speaker 1: recorded this, Dylan had not even deleted her misinformation sus
Speaker 1: this clown. One can argue that it is part of
Speaker 1: the trumpest playbook, that it is part of the authoritarian playbook,
Speaker 1: that the less people who believe in official accounts about anything,
Speaker 1: the more they will turn to one seemingly authoritative source.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, for many of these idiots, that's still Trump.
Speaker 1: I confess. I think that's giving them too much credit.
Speaker 1: It's like reading Senator Mike Lee, who is so deep
Speaker 1: down his let's see what's the amount one million Internet
Speaker 1: rabbit hole now that he would need to detox to
Speaker 1: find his way back to reality, and thinking that Mike
Speaker 1: Lee's borderline paranoia is some kind of re election strategy.
Speaker 1: It's not. He's just a moron. These people are all
Speaker 1: just morons. They blew up the Epstein whale. They have
Speaker 1: not processed that. Conspiracy theories are like giant fire hoses.
Speaker 1: They're effective and decisive unless you lose control of yours
Speaker 1: and you drop it and the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: the water has drowned you, or the blubber has the
Speaker 1: Trump Stein story would have forgive me exploded. If everything
Speaker 1: had come out Friday, just like a dead whale would
Speaker 1: eventually explode due to natural biological forces, then there would
Speaker 1: have been a significant, if probably inaccurate, sense that almost
Speaker 1: the whole thing was out in the open now, and
Speaker 1: however bad it might have been, there would have been
Speaker 1: a virtual end to it. But everything didn't come out Friday.
Speaker 1: All that did was just give you a reason to
Speaker 1: reread the nauseating New York Times story about Epstein giving
Speaker 1: Trump a twenty year old woman of Trump denying, denying,
Speaker 1: and denying, and nobody ever bothering to reread the Epstein
Speaker 1: evidence while playing Trump's words from the Access Hollywood tape
Speaker 1: and remembering that when Trump said that, it was after
Speaker 1: most of his sleaziness with Epstein had already occurred, so
Speaker 1: it didn't come out. Instead, you maniacs, you blew it up.
Speaker 1: Damn you, damn you Hotell. And now the blubber will
Speaker 1: just sit there everywhere. It will just sit there, symbolically,
Speaker 1: a whole, huge chunk of at the size of a
Speaker 1: coffee table in the crushed car next to Trump, forever,
Speaker 1: next to Trump as he dozes off for boasts about
Speaker 1: acing the cognitive test and being able to tell which
Speaker 1: one was the giraffe. Let's take another look at those
Speaker 1: trump Steen photos. Is the draft in there too? How
Speaker 1: about the dead blowed up whale, loaded up bloaded up,
Speaker 1: real good, loaded up, real good. Okay, So why did
Speaker 1: Trump name it the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. This
Speaker 1: is not the biggest problem with renaming the Kennedy Center
Speaker 1: illegally after himself, But didn't anybody else notice this? He
Speaker 1: changed the name of the Kennedy Center before anybody could
Speaker 1: file a suit to stop him, and he put up
Speaker 1: a new sign on it, reading the Donald J. Trump
Speaker 1: and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Speaker 1: I mean, could we be Is it possible that we're
Speaker 1: missing the real lead story here? The Donald J. Trump
Speaker 1: and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing
Speaker 1: Arts means well, it does include the idea that it's
Speaker 1: the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. The word memorial applies
Speaker 1: to everybody in the new name, It's Trump Memorial. Did
Speaker 1: I miss a bulletin or something? He's not dead yet, right,
Speaker 1: I mean officially, officially, not in terms of brain health
Speaker 1: or his own soul. The Donald J. Trump and the
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. You
Speaker 1: read that, and it doesn't mean that only Kennedy is
Speaker 1: memorialized here. It's it's that's the construction you use when
Speaker 1: you are memorializing two people in the title of a
Speaker 1: building or a book or anything else. Then don't tell me, Well,
Speaker 1: if you're going to slap your name on the Kennedy Center,
Speaker 1: that's the only way to do it. No, you take
Speaker 1: out the word memorial and you make it the Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. See,
Speaker 1: or if you're Trump and you really think there is
Speaker 1: something too disrespectful even for you to do, and you
Speaker 1: have to keep the word memorial in there for Kennedy's sake,
Speaker 1: you take a page from sports stadiums and you make
Speaker 1: it the Donald J. Trump Auditorium at the John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. That way, it's
Speaker 1: Kennedy memorial and Trump not memorial. Obviously, the whole thing
Speaker 1: is sacrilege. But there's sacrilege and then there's stupid sacrilege.
Speaker 1: And what a surprise, Trump chose the stupid sacrilege. This
Speaker 1: needs to be undone now by court act later just
Speaker 1: with pick axes, maybe on pay per view, or people
Speaker 1: buy a two dollars lottery ticket and the winners get
Speaker 1: to wield the pick axes. You'd raise eleven hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy four trillion dollars. But it's just so unsettling that anybody,
Speaker 1: even a guy as flat out crazy as Trump, would
Speaker 1: slap his name on an American cultural institution and make
Speaker 1: it read like it is now the Trump Memorial Center.
Speaker 1: Sir Memorial means dead sir. On the other hand, if
Speaker 1: this sticks, Trump will have the last laugh, because of course,
Speaker 1: sooner or later it will be it will be Trump Memorial.
Speaker 1: So with trump Stein, kaboom and here comes the blubber.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why Trump probably got scared out of
Speaker 1: announcing an attack on Venezuela last Wednesday. Do not get
Speaker 1: me wrong, I would be happy to see Maduro go,
Speaker 1: no matter the how, just like I'd like to see
Speaker 1: Putin go, no matter the how. These aren't socialist countries
Speaker 1: or democracies or whatever form of government Russia has convinced
Speaker 1: it's captive citizens they are in. These are dictatorships. But
Speaker 1: once again, if Trump has the right to try to
Speaker 1: force regime change in some place like Venezuela. Bunduro necessarily
Speaker 1: also has the right to try to force regime change
Speaker 1: in some place like oh here. Plus, Trump's relationship to
Speaker 1: Venezuela is he wants it to be his. Iraq, Bush
Speaker 1: managed to sell just enough Americans on the idea that
Speaker 1: the Iraqis had something to do with nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: And even if it wasn't much, sure, they didn't really
Speaker 1: us hanging him and destroying his country would be a
Speaker 1: lesson to somebody. In point of fact, it just amped
Speaker 1: up the terrorist threat, and that secured Bush his narrow
Speaker 1: reelection in two thousand and four. That obviously is why
Speaker 1: they have invented this nonsensical term narco terrorism. Might as
Speaker 1: well name it after Rubio and call it Marco terrorism.
Speaker 1: That makes just as little sense. The point is to
Speaker 1: repeat again and again and again and get the casual
Speaker 1: American to forge a connection between Venezuela and terrorism, and
Speaker 1: then use that to in a way repeat Bush's success.
Speaker 1: And yes, sorry, it pains me more than anybody else
Speaker 1: I think in media. Yes, Bush was successful in Iraq.
Speaker 1: Not for America, not for the world, certainly not for Iraq.
Speaker 1: Just for Bush. Where does that leave Venezuela. We'll find
Speaker 1: out after somebody has to tell Trump that the planted
Speaker 1: photo of Clinton did nothing and the deleting of photos
Speaker 1: of him was well, somebody has to go go in
Speaker 1: now and tell Trump about the exploding whale. Couple of headlines. No,
Speaker 1: it's Trump's economy, you gov. Polling for CBS concluded Friday,
Speaker 1: released yesterday. What's more responsible for the state of the
Speaker 1: US economy today? Trump's policies forty seven percent, Biden's twenty
Speaker 1: two percent, both equally twenty two percent. You put the
Speaker 1: key numbers together there, and sixty nine percent of the
Speaker 1: people think it's at least mostly or partly Trump's economy.
Speaker 1: Note to former UN ambassador, former New York state candidate
Speaker 1: for governor soon to be former Representative Elise Stefanic betrayed
Speaker 1: and abandoned by Trump because ettd the note is from
Speaker 1: the devil and it consists of two words, no refunds.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom brought it up again. Why do we pay
Speaker 1: federal taxes? Tweeted his press office in one of those
Speaker 1: Kitchie Trump all caps satire posts, and then the governor
Speaker 1: reposted it seriously again quote. If Trump cannot provide the
Speaker 1: bare minimum to Californians, perhaps it is time California with
Speaker 1: holds resources from the Feds. I'm telling you this is
Speaker 1: the way out. It'll be messy. It is virtually a
Speaker 1: declaration of war. It destabilizes the country. I mean it
Speaker 1: destabilizes the country almost as fast as Trump is destabilizing it.
Speaker 1: And lastly, Peter Arnett has died. Peter Arnett was not
Speaker 1: the first reporter to tell the truth about Vietnam, but
Speaker 1: he was the one who paved the way for all
Speaker 1: the others too, including the ones on TV, because he
Speaker 1: was reporting for the Associated Press when the Associated Press
Speaker 1: had a world duopoly on news services. He won the
Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize in nineteen sixty six from Vietnam. He worked
Speaker 1: so long and took such personal chances that he was
Speaker 1: in Vietnam as early as nineteen sixty two and as
Speaker 1: late as the day we withdrew in the chaos of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five. And he was covering the Soviet invasion
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan in nineteen seventy nine, And he covered the
Speaker 1: Gulf War from Iraq for CNN, and he covered the
Speaker 1: Bush War in Iraq in two thousand and three for NBC.
Speaker 1: But what made Peter Arnett a great reporter among great
Speaker 1: reporters is that in between when he was based at
Speaker 1: the CNN bureau in New York in CNN year one
Speaker 1: and year two, and that day they didn't need him
Speaker 1: at the un or he wasn't packing to go overseas,
Speaker 1: and instead they needed somebody to go interview commuters during
Speaker 1: a snowstorm, or to get a SoundBite about the latest
Speaker 1: I don't know, exploding whale. Peter Arnett was the first
Speaker 1: to volunteer. He liked reporting, or when the rookie sports
Speaker 1: reporter needed some advice on how to put together his
Speaker 1: rookie sports story, Peter Arnett not only gave it, he
Speaker 1: sat through nearly the entire editing session of the sports
Speaker 1: piece in question. When I was next on the same
Speaker 1: channel as him twenty one years later, he was live
Speaker 1: from Iraq and before we went on in the commercial break,
Speaker 1: he said over the satellite, Hey, in that New Zealand
Speaker 1: accent of his nice career, and I got to say, well,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of help from the real pros
Speaker 1: when I was just getting started. Peter Arnett was ninety
Speaker 1: one years old Thank you, Peter. Also of interest here,
Speaker 1: I'll mention this again later for your planning purposes. No
Speaker 1: podcast Thursday. It's a holiday. The holiday season, of course,
Speaker 1: does not stop the worst. Of course, memet Oz wants
Speaker 1: you to know that the price of penises is a
Speaker 1: going up. And in an unexpectedly possibly related topic, Lindsey
Speaker 1: Halligan misspelled Virginia. So it looks like maybe she wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to spell virginia. Maybe she was trying to spell
Speaker 1: That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 1: Oberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown. Hey it's Christmas.
Speaker 1: I haven't done any Thurber in a long time. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've noticed this, but the news Hole,
Speaker 1: as it is colloquially known locally known Broklaw, it's kind
Speaker 1: of small this week. So let's give you a little
Speaker 1: something to do if you want to laugh at and
Speaker 1: with everybody else. His most famous story, the story which
Speaker 1: began my relationship with the Thurber family and the Literary Trust,
Speaker 1: and my favorite Thurber story, A holiday three for ahead
Speaker 1: from James Thurber. But first, believe it or not, there's
Speaker 1: still more new idiots to talk about the roundup of
Speaker 1: the misgrants, morons, undunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's
Speaker 1: other worst persons in the world. Lebron's worst doctor Oz,
Speaker 1: you heard him while millions of Americans are about to
Speaker 1: fall off the economic cliff because he's part of the
Speaker 1: dictatorship determined to cut healthcare to save money for billionaires.
Speaker 1: He gave an address on how inflation is hitting transgender
Speaker 1: care quote the creation of a penis unquote all right.
Speaker 1: Pro tip if you are ever giving a speech and
Speaker 1: you see that phrase on the page in front of you,
Speaker 1: simply throw the script in the air, make some sort
Speaker 1: of diversion and run from the podium. In fact, run
Speaker 1: from the room as fast as you can. Memo and
Speaker 1: Oz chose not to do this. He continued, the creation
Speaker 1: of a penis costs on average in America one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars per child. Then he added a
Speaker 1: scrotleplasty where you add testicles. That's extra. Wait, you can
Speaker 1: add testicles? Has anybody told Mike Johnson The silver worser
Speaker 1: Riley Gaines, America's also ran Sweetheart. Her podcast will migrate
Speaker 1: from the Deplorable OutKick to the Home of the Devil Fox,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, it has already reached the podcast charts, where
Speaker 1: it's finished oh in eighty fifth place. Sources say in
Speaker 1: the first episode, Gains will confess she never really learned
Speaker 1: how to swim. But the winner the Worst Lindsey Halligan,
Speaker 1: Miss Uncongeniality and third runner up from the Colorado Miss
Speaker 1: USA pageant many many many years ago, and now the
Speaker 1: unqualified attorney Trump keeps trying to install as the US
Speaker 1: Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, even though she
Speaker 1: didn't know any of the rules, like you have to
Speaker 1: show the grand jury whatever it is you claim they
Speaker 1: voted on, and get approved by somebody for your office
Speaker 1: before you start indicting people as political vengeance for the
Speaker 1: guy who used to own the Miss USA pageant. El Trumpolini,
Speaker 1: she didn't know stuff like that, while she's done it again,
Speaker 1: only this one is way simpler and way funnier than
Speaker 1: the Star Chamber indictments in her name. She keeps having
Speaker 1: trouble with details, details, and trouble like Lionel Hutts from
Speaker 1: The Simpsons level trouble noted by someone I think on
Speaker 1: Blue Sky. Her self identification on one of the legal
Speaker 1: documents she filed reads Lindsay Halligan, United States Attorney, Eastern
Speaker 1: District of Virginia, Florida, bar number one on the nine
Speaker 1: four three of the tamis and amnue Alexandria Virginia two
Speaker 1: two three fo Wait, Wait what United States Attorney Eastern
Speaker 1: District of v I r gi na Virgina Virgina. She
Speaker 1: misspelled Virginia v i r g i na Virgina. Well,
Speaker 1: we're assuming she was trying to spell Virginia.
Speaker 2: Lindsay, what was the name of that old minstrel song
Speaker 2: from the nineteenth century? Carry me back to old Virgina Alligan,
Speaker 2: Today's other worst person in the world.
Speaker 1: As promised, Merry Christmas. Not just one Thurber story, since
Speaker 1: we haven't done any of them in a while, not two,
Speaker 1: but three, and all of them with special connotations. My favorite,
Speaker 1: his most famous, and the one that first connected me
Speaker 1: to the Thurber literary tradition. As I've mentioned many times,
Speaker 1: I read this story first aloud in a class in
Speaker 1: college in nineteen seventy nine, and a friend of mine
Speaker 1: came up to me and said, you should forget that
Speaker 1: sportscasting thing. You should read Thurber for a living, and
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, that'll ever happen. This is, for some
Speaker 1: reason salvation for me, Catharsis, and every other emotion that
Speaker 1: is appropriate after it has been a long week. A
Speaker 1: Box to Hide in by James Thurber. I waited till
Speaker 1: the large woman with the awful hat took up her
Speaker 1: sack of groceries and went out, peering at the tomatoes
Speaker 1: and the lettuce on her way. The clerk asked me
Speaker 1: what mine was. Have you got a box, I asked,
Speaker 1: A large box. I want a box to hide in.
Speaker 1: You want a box, he asked, I want a box
Speaker 1: to hide in. I said, what do you mean? He said,
Speaker 1: you mean a big box? I said, I meant a
Speaker 1: big box big enough to hold me. I haven't got
Speaker 1: any boxes, he said, only cottons that cans come in.
Speaker 1: I tried several other groceries and none of them had
Speaker 1: a box big enough for me to hide in. And
Speaker 1: there was nothing for it but to face life out.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel strong, and I'd had this overpowering desire
Speaker 1: to hide in a box for a long time. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you mean you want to hide in this box?
Speaker 1: One grocer asked me. It's a form of escape, I
Speaker 1: told him, hiding in a box, it circumscribes your worries
Speaker 1: in the range of your anguish. You don't see people either.
Speaker 1: The hell you eat when you're in this box, asked
Speaker 1: the grocer, I don't know. Hell do you get anything
Speaker 1: to eat? I said, I had never been in a
Speaker 1: box and didn't know, but that that would take care
Speaker 1: of itself. Well, he said, finally, I haven't got any boxes,
Speaker 1: only some pasteboard curtains that cans come in. It was
Speaker 1: the same every place. I gave up when it got
Speaker 1: dark and the groceries closed, and hid in my room again.
Speaker 1: I turned out the light and lay on the bed.
Speaker 1: You feel better when it gets dark. I could have
Speaker 1: hit in a closet, I suppose, but people are always
Speaker 1: opening doors. Somebody would find you in a closet. They
Speaker 1: would be startled, and you'd have to tell them why
Speaker 1: you're in the closet. Nobody pays attention to a big
Speaker 1: box lying on the floor. You could stay in it
Speaker 1: for days and nobody'd think to look in it, not
Speaker 1: even the cleaning woman. My cleaning woman came the next
Speaker 1: morning and woke me up, and I was still feeling bad.
Speaker 1: I asked her if she knew where I could get
Speaker 1: a large box. How big a box you want, she asked,
Speaker 1: I want a box big enough for me to get
Speaker 1: inside of, I said. She looked at me with big,
Speaker 1: dim eyes. There's something wrong with her glands. She's awful,
Speaker 1: but she has a big heart, which makes it worse.
Speaker 1: She's unbearable. Her husband is sick, and her children are sick,
Speaker 1: and she is sick too. I got to thinking how
Speaker 1: pleasant it would be if I were in a box
Speaker 1: now and didn't have to see her. I'd be in
Speaker 1: a box right there in the room, and she wouldn't know.
Speaker 1: I wondered, if you had a desire to bark or
Speaker 1: laugh when someone who doesn't know walks by the box
Speaker 1: you were in, maybe she would have a spell with
Speaker 1: her heart. If I did that would die right there.
Speaker 1: The officers and the elevator man and mister Graham would
Speaker 1: find us funny, dog Gune, thing happened at the building
Speaker 1: last night. The doorman would say to his wife, I
Speaker 1: led in this woman to clean up tenf and she
Speaker 1: never come out. See she's never in there more in
Speaker 1: an hour, but she never come out. See. So when
Speaker 1: it got time for me to go off duty. Wissays
Speaker 1: to Credit, who was on the elevator. I says, what
Speaker 1: the hell you suppose happened to that woman cleans tenf?
Speaker 1: He says he didn't know. He says he never seen
Speaker 1: her after he took her up. So I spoke to
Speaker 1: mister Drammage about it. I'm sorry to bother you, mister Grammage,
Speaker 1: I says, but there's something funny about that woman cleans
Speaker 1: ten f. So I told him so he said we
Speaker 1: better have a look, and we all three goes up
Speaker 1: and knots on the door and rings the bells sea
Speaker 1: and nobody answers. So he said we'd have to walk in.
Speaker 1: So Credit opened the door and we walked in, and
Speaker 1: here was this woman cleans the apartment, dead as a
Speaker 1: herring on the floor, and the gentleman that lives there
Speaker 1: was in a box. The cleaning woman kept looking at me.
Speaker 1: It was hard to realize she wasn't dead. It's a
Speaker 1: form of escape, I murmured, wat say. She asked, Dully,
Speaker 1: you don't know of any large packing boxes, do you?
Speaker 1: I asked, now, I don't. She said, I haven't found
Speaker 1: one yet, But I still have this overpowering urge to
Speaker 1: hide in a box. Maybe it will go away, Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll be all right, Maybe it will get worse. It's
Speaker 1: hard to say. A box to hide in by James Thurber.
Speaker 1: James Thurber's best known work, best loved work, and maybe
Speaker 1: just best work has been made into two different films,
Speaker 1: neither of which is really satisfactory, but which gives you
Speaker 1: just a glimpse of what your imagination is doing as
Speaker 1: you hear or read his words. It is a universal.
Speaker 1: It is the story of everybody who's ever lived, who
Speaker 1: has ever daydreamed. It is the secret life of Walter
Speaker 1: Mitty by James Thurber. We're going through. The Commander's voice
Speaker 1: was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full dress uniform,
Speaker 1: with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over
Speaker 1: one cold gray eye. We can't make it, sir. It's
Speaker 1: spoiling for a hurricane. If you ask me, I'm not
Speaker 1: asking you, Lieutenant Berg said the commander. Throw on the
Speaker 1: power lights, rever up to eighty five hundred. We're going through.
Speaker 1: The pounding of the cylinders increased to pocket to pocket,
Speaker 1: to pocket, to pocket to pocket. The commander stared at
Speaker 1: the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over
Speaker 1: and twisted a row of complicated dials. Sweat youah, number
Speaker 1: eight auxiliary, He shouted, switch on Mber eight auxiliary repeated.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Berg full strength and number three turret shouted the
Speaker 1: commander full strength and number three turret. The crew, bending
Speaker 1: to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight engined
Speaker 1: Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. The old
Speaker 1: man will get us through, they said to one another.
Speaker 1: The old man ain't afraid of hell, not the fast.
Speaker 1: You're driving too fast, said missus Middy. What are you
Speaker 1: driving so fast for? Hmmm, said Walter Middy. He looked
Speaker 1: at his wife in the seat beside him with shocked astonishment.
Speaker 1: She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had
Speaker 1: yelled at him in a crowd. You're up to fifty five,
Speaker 1: she said. You know I don't like to go more
Speaker 1: than forty. You're up to fifty five. Walter Middy drove
Speaker 1: on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the s
Speaker 1: N two two through the worst storm in twenty years
Speaker 1: of Navy flying, fading in the remote intimate airways of
Speaker 1: his mind. Your ten step again, said missus midty. It's
Speaker 1: one of your days. I wish you'd let doctor Renshaw
Speaker 1: look you over. Walter Mitty stopped the car in front
Speaker 1: of the building where his wife went to have her
Speaker 1: hair done. Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having
Speaker 1: the hair done, she said, I don't need overshoes, said Mitty.
Speaker 1: She put her mirror back into her bag. We've been
Speaker 1: all through that, she said, getting out of the car.
Speaker 1: You're not a young man any longer. He raced the
Speaker 1: engine a little. Why don't you wear your gloves? Have
Speaker 1: you lost your gloves? Walter Mitty reached in a pocket
Speaker 1: and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but
Speaker 1: after she had turned and gone into the building and
Speaker 1: he had driven onto a red light, he took them
Speaker 1: off again. Pick it up, brother snapped the cop as
Speaker 1: the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves
Speaker 1: and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for
Speaker 1: a time, and then he drove past the hospital on
Speaker 1: his way to the parking lot. It's the millionaire banker
Speaker 1: Wellington McMillan, said, the pretty nurse, Yes, said Walter Mitty,
Speaker 1: removing his gloves slowly. Who has the case? Doctor Renshawn,
Speaker 1: Doctor Renbow. But there are two specialists here, doctor Remington
Speaker 1: from New York and mister Prichard Mitford from London. He
Speaker 1: flew over the door, opened down a long cool carter,
Speaker 1: and doctor Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard.
Speaker 1: Hello Mitty, he said, we're having the devil's own time
Speaker 1: with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of
Speaker 1: Roosevelt obstriosis of the ductal tract tertiary. Wish you'd take
Speaker 1: a look at him. Glad to said Mitty. In the
Speaker 1: operating room, there were whispered introductions Doctor Remington, doctor Mitty,
Speaker 1: mister Richard Mitford, doctor Mitty. And I've read you bok
Speaker 1: Gunscript of thracosis, said Richard Mitford, shaking hands. A brilliant performance, sir,
Speaker 1: thank you, said Walter Mitty. Didn't know you're in the
Speaker 1: State's midty, grumbled Remington. Coles to Newcastle, bringing Midford to
Speaker 1: me up here for a tertiary. You are very kind,
Speaker 1: said Mittie. A huge complicated machine connected to the operating
Speaker 1: table with many tubes and wires began at this moment
Speaker 1: to go pocket, pocketa pocketa. The new anesthetizer is giving way,
Speaker 1: shouted an in turn. There is no one in the
Speaker 1: east who knows how to fix it. Quiet man, said
Speaker 1: Mitty in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine,
Speaker 1: which was now going pocket to pocket to creep, pocket
Speaker 1: to pocket to creep. He began fingering delicately a roll
Speaker 1: of glistening dials. Give me a fountain pen, he snapped.
Speaker 1: Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty
Speaker 1: piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in
Speaker 1: its place. That will hold for ten minutes, he said,
Speaker 1: Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and
Speaker 1: whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale.
Speaker 1: Coreopsis has set him, said Renshaw nervously. If you would
Speaker 1: take over, Middy. Mitty looked at him, and at the
Speaker 1: craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave
Speaker 1: uncertain faces of the two great specialists. If you wish,
Speaker 1: he said. They slipped a white gown on him. He
Speaker 1: adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves. Nurses handed
Speaker 1: him shiny back it up. Mac look out for that
Speaker 1: buick Walter. Mitty jammed on the brakes. Wrong lane, mack,
Speaker 1: said the parking lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. Gee yeah,
Speaker 1: muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the
Speaker 1: lane marked exit. Only leave us sit there, said the attendant.
Speaker 1: I'll put her away. Mitty got out of the car.
Speaker 1: Hey better leave the key, oh, said Mitty, handing the
Speaker 1: man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car,
Speaker 1: backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where
Speaker 1: it belonged. They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking
Speaker 1: along Main Street. They think they know everything. Once he
Speaker 1: had tried to take his chains off outside New Milford,
Speaker 1: and he got them wound around the axles. The man
Speaker 1: had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them,
Speaker 1: a young, grinning garage man. Since then, missus Mitty always
Speaker 1: made him drive to a garage to have the chains
Speaker 1: taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my
Speaker 1: right arm in a sling. They won't grin at me.
Speaker 1: Then I have my right arm in a sling, and
Speaker 1: they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself.
Speaker 1: He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. Overshoes he
Speaker 1: said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.
Speaker 1: When he came out into the street again with the
Speaker 1: overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began
Speaker 1: to wonder what the other thing was his wife had
Speaker 1: told him to get. She had told him twice before
Speaker 1: they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way,
Speaker 1: he hated these weekly trips to town. He was always
Speaker 1: getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thoughts, quibbs, razor blades, now, toothpaste,
Speaker 1: toothbrush by carbon at carborundum initiative referendum. He gave it up,
Speaker 1: but she would remember it. Where's the what's its name?
Speaker 1: She would ask? Don't tell me you forgot the what's
Speaker 1: its name? The newsboy went by, shouting something about the
Speaker 1: Waterbury trial. Perhaps this will refresh your memory. The district
Speaker 1: attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure
Speaker 1: on the witness stand. Have you ever seen this before?
Speaker 1: Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. This
Speaker 1: is my Webley Vicar's fifty point eight, oh, he said calmly.
Speaker 1: An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge rapped
Speaker 1: for order. You are a crack shot with any sort
Speaker 1: of firearms, I believe, said the district attorney, insinuatingly, objection,
Speaker 1: shouted Mitty's attorney. We have shown that the defendant could
Speaker 1: not have fired the shot. We have shown that he
Speaker 1: wore his right arm in a sling. On the night
Speaker 1: of the fourteenth of July. Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly,
Speaker 1: and the bickering attorneys were stilled with any known make
Speaker 1: of gun. He said evenly, I could have killed Gregory
Speaker 1: Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand. Pandemonium
Speaker 1: broke out in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above
Speaker 1: the bedlom, and suddenly a lovely, dark haired girl was
Speaker 1: in Walter Mitty's arms. The district attorney struck at her savagely.
Speaker 1: Without rising from his chair. Mitty let the man have
Speaker 1: it on the point of the chin. You miserable, cur
Speaker 1: puppy biscuit, said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking, and the
Speaker 1: buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom
Speaker 1: and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed.
Speaker 1: He said, puppy biscuit. She said to her companion that
Speaker 1: man said, puppy biscuit to himself. Walter Mitty hurried on.
Speaker 1: He went into an a and p not the first
Speaker 1: one he came to, but a smaller one farther up
Speaker 1: the street. I want some biscuit for small young dogs,
Speaker 1: he said to the clerk. Any special brand, Sir, the
Speaker 1: greatest pistol shot in the world, thought a moment. It
Speaker 1: says puppies bark for it on the box, said Walter Mitty.
Speaker 1: His wife would be through at the hairdressers in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Mitty saw in looking at his watch. Unless they had
Speaker 1: trouble drying it. Sometimes they had trouble drying it. She
Speaker 1: didn't like to get to the hotel first. She would
Speaker 1: want him to be there waiting for her as usual.
Speaker 1: He found a big leather chair in the lobby facing
Speaker 1: a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy
Speaker 1: biscuit on the floor. Beside it. He picked up an
Speaker 1: old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair.
Speaker 1: Can Germany conquer the world through the air? Walter Mitty
Speaker 1: looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.
Speaker 1: The Cannonaden has got the wind up in young Rawleigh, Sir, said,
Speaker 1: the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked at him through touzled hair.
Speaker 1: Get him to bed, he said, wearily. With the others,
Speaker 1: I'll fly alone. But you can't, sir, said the sergeant anxiously.
Speaker 1: It takes two men to handle that bomber, and the
Speaker 1: Archies are pounding l out of the air. Von Rickman's
Speaker 1: circus is between here and Solier. Somebody's got to get
Speaker 1: that ammunition dump, said Mitty. I'm going over spot of brandy.
Speaker 1: He poured a drink for the sergeant and won for himself. Wore,
Speaker 1: thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door.
Speaker 1: There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through
Speaker 1: the room. Bit of a near thing, said Captain Mitty carelessly.
Speaker 1: The box barrage is closing in, said the sergeant. We
Speaker 1: only live once, sergeant, said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile.
Speaker 1: Or do we? He poured another brandy and tossed it off.
Speaker 1: Never seen a man could hold his brandy. Lock you, sir,
Speaker 1: said the sergeant, begging you pardon, sir. Captain Mitty stood
Speaker 1: up and scrapped on his huge Webbley vicars automatic. It's
Speaker 1: forty kilometers through el, Sir, said the sergeant. Mitty finished
Speaker 1: one last brandy after all, he said, softly, What isn't
Speaker 1: The pounding of the cannon increased. There was the rat
Speaker 1: tat tatting of the machine guns, and from somewhere came
Speaker 1: the menacing Pucket to Pucket, to Pucket to Pucketer of
Speaker 1: the new flame throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door
Speaker 1: of the dugout, humming out Prey de ma blonde. He
Speaker 1: turned and waved to the sergeant cheerio. He said. Something
Speaker 1: struck his shoulder. I've been looking all over this hotel
Speaker 1: for you, said missus Mitty. Why do you have to
Speaker 1: hide in this old chair? How did you expect me
Speaker 1: to find you? Things? Close in? Said Walter Mitty, vaguely
Speaker 1: what Missus Mitty said? Did you get the wats it's
Speaker 1: name the poppy biscuit? What's in that box overshoes? Said Mitty?
Speaker 1: Couldn't you put them on on the star? I was thinking,
Speaker 1: said Walter Mitty. Does it ever occur to you that
Speaker 1: I am sometimes thinking? She looked at him. I'm going
Speaker 1: to take your temperature when I get you home, she said.
Speaker 1: They went out through the revolving doors that made a
Speaker 1: faintly derisive whistling sound when you push them. It was
Speaker 1: two blocks to the parking lot at the drug store
Speaker 1: on the corner. She said, wait here for me. I
Speaker 1: forgot something. I won't be a minute. She was more
Speaker 1: than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began
Speaker 1: to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up
Speaker 1: against the wall of the drug store smoking. He put
Speaker 1: his shoulders back and his heels together. Hell with the handkerchief,
Speaker 1: said Walter Mitty, scornfully. He took one last drag on
Speaker 1: his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint,
Speaker 1: fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad,
Speaker 1: erect and motionless, proud and disdainful. Walter Mitty, the Undefeated,
Speaker 1: inscrutable to the last. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Speaker 1: by James Thurber, The peace Like Mongoose is the starting
Speaker 1: point of my relationship with James Thurber's daughter Rosemary, and
Speaker 1: his granddaughter and his publishers. It was my dad, fatally
Speaker 1: sick in the hospital, to whom I would read Thurber
Speaker 1: every night, who suggested I should read Thurber on the
Speaker 1: TV news show. I thought he was crazy. I told
Speaker 1: him if I did that, I'd probably hear from his
Speaker 1: literary trust. But I did it anyway, and so I
Speaker 1: read the Peace like Mongoose, and I heard from his
Speaker 1: literary trust, because at the moment I read this story,
Speaker 1: Rosie Thurber was on the horns of the proverbial dilemma.
Speaker 1: A British publisher wanted to put the piece like Mongoose
Speaker 1: in an anthology for school kids. It is placements like
Speaker 1: that which keep an author alive. But that publisher wanted
Speaker 1: to remove one word from the story, and Rosie was
Speaker 1: now torn edit her father's work or don't publish her
Speaker 1: father's work. Unbeknownst to me, she and her daughter Sarah
Speaker 1: were both Countdown viewers and were watching as I read
Speaker 1: the piece like Mongoose. Sarah and then called her mother
Speaker 1: and said, I think you've got your answer right there.
Speaker 1: Not long after, the British publisher, probably a coincidence, changed
Speaker 1: its mind about excising the word amen. The word, by
Speaker 1: the way, is mongoose sexual, which is a perfect creation
Speaker 1: of the perfect James Thurber. And the complaint from NBC
Speaker 1: was about the moral to the story, which I will
Speaker 1: not read first and without any other pointless ado. The
Speaker 1: Piece Like Mongoose by James Thurber. In Cobra Country, a
Speaker 1: mongoose was born one day who didn't want to fight
Speaker 1: cobras or anything else. The word spread from mongoose to
Speaker 1: mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want to
Speaker 1: fight cobras. He didn't want to fight anything else. It
Speaker 1: was his own business. But it was the duty of
Speaker 1: every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras. Why,
Speaker 1: asked the peace like mongoose, And the word went around
Speaker 1: that the strange new mongoose was not only pro cobra
Speaker 1: and anti mongoose, but intellectually curious and against the ideals
Speaker 1: and traditions of mongoosi Ism. He's crazy, cried the young
Speaker 1: mongoose's father. He's sick, said his mother. He's a coward,
Speaker 1: shouted his brothers. He is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters.
Speaker 1: Strangers who had never laid eyes on the Piece like
Speaker 1: Mongoose remembered that they had seen him crawling on his stomach,
Speaker 1: or trying on cobra hoods, or plotting the violent overthrow
Speaker 1: of Mongoosia. I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said
Speaker 1: the strange new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason,
Speaker 1: said one of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses,
Speaker 1: said another. Finally, the rumors spread that the mongoose had
Speaker 1: venom in his sting like a cobra, and he was tried,
Speaker 1: convicted by a show of pause, and condemned to banishment.
Speaker 1: Moral ashes to ashes, and clay to clay. If the
Speaker 1: enemy doesn't get you your own folks, may a box
Speaker 1: to hide in. My favorite Walter Mitty, his most famous
Speaker 1: and that one that connected me to the eternal Thurber Tree,
Speaker 1: the piece like mongoos. Okay, I've done all the damage
Speaker 1: I can do here, Thank you for listening. Most of
Speaker 1: our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
Speaker 1: Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, our musical directors of Countdown,
Speaker 1: and was produced by Tko Brothers, mister Ray on guitars,
Speaker 1: bass and drums, and mister Shaneil handling the orchestration and keyboards.
Speaker 1: Our satirical and pithy musical comments by the best baseball
Speaker 1: stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Is
Speaker 1: the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the
Speaker 1: group No Horns Allowed. Today was my friend Larry David.
Speaker 1: The program was produced by Ted and everything else was
Speaker 1: as always my fault. That's countdown for today. Day three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven of America held hostage again, but
Speaker 1: just one twenty six days until the scheduled end of
Speaker 1: his lame duck and lame brained term. Unless he is
Speaker 1: removed sooner by MAGA, or by Jeffrey Epstein, or by affordability,
Speaker 1: or by Susie Wiles. There is no countdown Thursday, you know,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas. Bluntly, I'm still undecided about next week. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll do one from Monday, maybe not. I will advise
Speaker 1: on social media and via the conduit that is provided
Speaker 1: with your subscription if you have one. In any event,
Speaker 1: Happy holidays, and until the next one, I'm Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Speaker 1: Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.