Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. My
Speaker 1: friend Donald Sutherland died yesterday and I have a lot
Speaker 1: to tell you about him, and I will do that.
Speaker 1: But as someone who began his professional life as a
Speaker 1: radio news reporter as a teenager, he would have been
Speaker 1: appalled if I led with him, and not with my
Speaker 1: suspicion that somebody is setting up Trump's concierge, Judge Eileen Cannon,
Speaker 1: for removal from his case and maybe removal from the bench,
Speaker 1: and amen to both. The New York Times quotes two
Speaker 1: sources briefed on the conversations who say that the Chief
Speaker 1: Judge of the Southern District of Florida and another experienced
Speaker 1: judge both called Judge Cannon a year ago this month
Speaker 1: to urge her to recuse herself from the Trump case,
Speaker 1: to decline handling it, to send it to a different judge,
Speaker 1: not just because of the terrible optics, but because she
Speaker 1: was so inexperienced behind the bench, let alone behind the
Speaker 1: bench in such a high profile and complicated case. The
Speaker 1: obvious peril is that Trump appointed Judge Cannon, and this
Speaker 1: was emphasized to her by Chief Judge Cecilia Altlanaga, who
Speaker 1: herself was appointed to the Circuit Court by Governor Jeb
Speaker 1: Bush and then appointed to the Federal Court by President
Speaker 1: George W. Bush. So one would think Judge Altonaga's opinion
Speaker 1: on bad appointment optics would be taken seriously by Eileen Cannon.
Speaker 1: But it's Aileen goddamned Canon. And as I always feel
Speaker 1: compelled to mention to you, she is the former yoga
Speaker 1: and flamenco correspondent for the Miami Nuevo Herald newspaper. Then
Speaker 1: I wish I were making that up, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: And she is a nit wit, and her handling of
Speaker 1: the last year has been, at its best and most
Speaker 1: noble moments, an utter disgrace, and at its worst so corrupt,
Speaker 1: so slow, so inadequate, that not only was she chastised
Speaker 1: by a conservative appeals court panel, but all of her
Speaker 1: behavior would embarrass Clarence Thomas. Needless to say, the Times
Speaker 1: reports Judge Canon refused to follow Judge Altonaga's suggestion or
Speaker 1: the suggestion by the other senior Florida judge, whose identity
Speaker 1: the Times sources did not reveal, although it does explain
Speaker 1: that the unidentified judge called first and when Canon did
Speaker 1: not take that hint, only then did the chief judge
Speaker 1: follow up. There is a reason I suggest that this
Speaker 1: story and the leak or leaks or planted leaks behind
Speaker 1: it pressage a bid to get Canon off the case
Speaker 1: beyond the obvious one that you just don't hear stories
Speaker 1: of judges criticizing other judges, especially judges who would seemingly
Speaker 1: share the same political origins and leafs as Altonaga and Canon.
Speaker 1: The Times story contains details of what Canon has done
Speaker 1: wrong and what the chief judge warned her she could
Speaker 1: do wrong, And they look like somebody is trying to
Speaker 1: warn Judge Cannon that if even at this laid date
Speaker 1: she does not bow out, they are going to take
Speaker 1: the limited steps available to them to get the Eleventh
Speaker 1: Circuit Court to throw her out. But the details, the
Speaker 1: choice of details, is what makes me think this is
Speaker 1: the start of a get rid of Canon move. The
Speaker 1: details are not the ones, the obvious ones, the fact
Speaker 1: that she's in the tank for Trump. The details are
Speaker 1: instead about how she did not follow accepted practice for
Speaker 1: federal judges to farm out the pre trial motions to
Speaker 1: a magistrate judge, how she indefinitely postponed the trial. How
Speaker 1: even after the prosecution and the defense had both said
Speaker 1: they were ready to go, she still declined to set
Speaker 1: a start date. The details are about how she failed
Speaker 1: to recognize that the case required a secure facility, a
Speaker 1: skiff suitable to handle the classified materials that are at
Speaker 1: the heart of the trial, and instead of handing the
Speaker 1: trial off to a judge operating in the federal courthouse
Speaker 1: in Miami, which is where Trump was indicted and which
Speaker 1: already has such a secure skiff facility, she kept the
Speaker 1: case in Fort freaking Pierce, two hours away. And because
Speaker 1: she did that, that has required the wasting of taxpayer
Speaker 1: money to build a whole new secure facility just for
Speaker 1: this trial. That all, apparently was the argument from the
Speaker 1: first judge. Chief Judge Altonaga reiterated those logistics in her call,
Speaker 1: and then, according to The Times, brought up the optics
Speaker 1: and Cannon's missteps when she got some of the Trump
Speaker 1: nuisance motions about the search at Mary Lago. The Times
Speaker 1: obviously does not identify its sources in this story about
Speaker 1: the internal effort to get Canon off the Trump trial,
Speaker 1: but it does say of those sources quote each had
Speaker 1: been told about it by different federal judges in the
Speaker 1: Southern District of Florida, including Judge Altonaga. They are setting
Speaker 1: Cannon up, setting her up for forced removal, and telling
Speaker 1: her publicly that they're going to do it, but first
Speaker 1: that they're giving her a way out. Whether or not
Speaker 1: she listens, whether or not she can hear any of
Speaker 1: it over the sound of the flamenco music of years
Speaker 1: gone by, that is a separate question, as is whether
Speaker 1: or not there is some involvement here by the Office
Speaker 1: of the Special Council, which would have to instigate or
Speaker 1: at least accelerate the rare attempt to remove a judge who,
Speaker 1: if she is not removed, will still be there ready
Speaker 1: to rule off or more likely rule against their case. Okay,
Speaker 1: time for Bob Kennedy Junior to drop out of the
Speaker 1: presidential race. Time for him and vice presidential candidate Ditsy
Speaker 1: mcmoney bags or whatever the hell her name is, to
Speaker 1: bow out, and for their party, the Asshole Party or
Speaker 1: whatever its name is, to stop burning through millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in Trump's stalking horse money, because under Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy Junior's name, his campaign has just threatened to put
Speaker 1: Danna Bash and Jake Tapper and all the executives from
Speaker 1: in prison because they will not let Kennedy participate in
Speaker 1: next week's debate prison Quoting the Kennedy campaign official statement,
Speaker 1: serious jail time. Kennedy just threatened not merely to imprison
Speaker 1: news reporters, but to imprison specific news reporters. This makes
Speaker 1: Trump look good enough. I knew this man before. Whatever
Speaker 1: it was he used to inject between his toes completely
Speaker 1: destroyed his mind. And he was only and already and
Speaker 1: given what happened to his father and to his uncle,
Speaker 1: understandably tending towards conspiracy theories. This press release, this is
Speaker 1: not a conspiracy theory. This is disqualifying. This is get
Speaker 1: everybody to the famous Kennedy compound in Hyanna's Port and
Speaker 1: take a vote and forcibly institutionalize Bobby Junior. That level
Speaker 1: of disqualifying. The press release begins quote CNN today announced
Speaker 1: the June twenty seven debate in Atlanta will be a
Speaker 1: head to head with Presidents Biden and Trump, excluding Kennedy
Speaker 1: from the stage. This decision is a clear violation of
Speaker 1: federal law. Then we get the disqualifying quote from the
Speaker 1: candidate himself. Presidents Biden and Trump do not want me
Speaker 1: on the debate stage, and CNN illegally agreed to their demand. Unquote. Again,
Speaker 1: the campaign says that because it is excluding Kennedy because
Speaker 1: he has not been nominated by a major party nor
Speaker 1: officially qualified for enough states for enough electoral votes to
Speaker 1: get elected, but that Biden and Trump have been accepted
Speaker 1: for the debate even though technically they have not been
Speaker 1: nominated yet either quote. This means CNN and every member
Speaker 1: of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding
Speaker 1: this debate is at risk of prosecut has happened to
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is
Speaker 1: now acute given that any further violation would be knowing
Speaker 1: and willful and thus could carry with it serious jail time.
Speaker 1: It's serious insanity. It's literally insanity if the debate goes
Speaker 1: forward without mister Kennedy. The Kennedy campaign intends to pursue
Speaker 1: this issue for as long as it takes to obtain
Speaker 1: justice against these illegal acts, if for no other reason
Speaker 1: than to ensure this type of undemocratic and un American
Speaker 1: conduct does not occur again in the future. This is
Speaker 1: after Kennedy suggested that the news organizations are run by
Speaker 1: the CIA. He needs to be institutionalized, and Bunny mcs
Speaker 1: self funding or whatever her name is, she needs to
Speaker 1: take one of those Trump style cognitive tests. But fast
Speaker 1: called doctor Johnson, doctor Jackson, doctor Johnson, doctor Jackson, not
Speaker 1: my sister, my daughter, doctor Johnson. To be fair, I
Speaker 1: will say the debate does inspire many conspiracy theories. I
Speaker 1: even have one. I keep thinking the Supreme Court has
Speaker 1: been deliberately holding up announcing a ruling on the fascist
Speaker 1: fantasy of presidential immunity, holding it up maybe until a
Speaker 1: week from today, just so it won't be a topic
Speaker 1: in the debate, because on a practical level, if they
Speaker 1: rule that, of course it's nonsense, Trump will spend the
Speaker 1: debate whining and self martyring about it and threatening the
Speaker 1: justices about it. On the other hand, if they rule
Speaker 1: there is presidential immunity, Biden can stop the debate at
Speaker 1: any point he wants and have Trump arrested, and there's
Speaker 1: fall anybody can do about it. And if the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court tries to stop it, he can have the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court arrested. Two. Of course, they may have ruled on
Speaker 1: it by the time you're hearing this one last debate note.
Speaker 1: Biden won the coin toss and was thus given first
Speaker 1: choice of two logistical questions, which podium do you want?
Speaker 1: And do you want to give the first closing statement
Speaker 1: or the second closing statement? You get the first choice
Speaker 1: of one of those two questions. The Biden team decided
Speaker 1: the optics are more important. They want him on the
Speaker 1: right side of the television screen. I imagine there's research or something.
Speaker 1: All I know is I have some experience of being
Speaker 1: on television with somebody else for an hour or two
Speaker 1: at a time, or seven or eight, with me on
Speaker 1: one side of the screen and the other person on
Speaker 1: the other side. And at SportsCenter management told me they
Speaker 1: wanted me on the left side of the screen, that
Speaker 1: that ind priority of the two anchors. And then at
Speaker 1: MSNBC management told me they wanted me on the right
Speaker 1: side of the screen because that indicated priority. For all
Speaker 1: I know, they told my broadcast partners that the right
Speaker 1: side at Sports Center indicated priority and the left side
Speaker 1: at MSNBC indicated priority. This decision left the Trump crew
Speaker 1: to decide which closing address to give. They decided Biden
Speaker 1: should give the first one, and Trump will give the
Speaker 1: rebuttal the second one, the last thing viewers see. This,
Speaker 1: in turn allows me to propose the following, especially if
Speaker 1: Bob Kennedy goes through with his threats and the CNN
Speaker 1: people need bail money, I will pay CNN executives the
Speaker 1: equivalent of one year's CNN TV network profits. That's right,
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. I will pay them five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: American unmarked. I will pay them five thousand dollars if
Speaker 1: as soon as Trump starts his closing statement, they cut
Speaker 1: off the mics and turn off the studio lights. As
Speaker 1: I said earlier, Donald Sutherland died yesterday, and he was
Speaker 1: my friend. I came to know him only about fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, after one of those free health clinics we
Speaker 1: used to co sponsor on the Countdown TV series. He
Speaker 1: loved that and was appalled by the necessity of it,
Speaker 1: as was I. He feared for this country in the
Speaker 1: way that I have found only those who were alive
Speaker 1: during the Second World War could fear for it. All
Speaker 1: of the death, the upheaval, the terror, the uncertainty. They
Speaker 1: lived through that without the assurance we have when we
Speaker 1: think about that time. We know how it turned out.
Speaker 1: We know how Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese military
Speaker 1: dictatorship were defeated. We knew how evil lost. They knew
Speaker 1: that time. They know it still. Donald knew it as
Speaker 1: a tangible thing, an uncertainty and evil that could have
Speaker 1: destroyed the world in nineteen forty four and can easily
Speaker 1: destroy it in twenty twenty four, twenty ten, two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine. He saw a Trump coming, He saw freedom
Speaker 1: here being taken for granted. Hell, he even warned me
Speaker 1: that just from watching all of us, several people on
Speaker 1: MSNBC who I thought were friends were nothing of the kind.
Speaker 1: And sadly he was completely right, and I was completely wrong.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that I've ever known anybody who
Speaker 1: cared more deeply about more import things than did Donald Sutherland.
Speaker 1: And by the way, he might have been the best
Speaker 1: and most prolific and most versatile actor you and I
Speaker 1: will ever see. There are so many characters in film
Speaker 1: and television who I would have wanted to know in
Speaker 1: real life, and I think at least half of them
Speaker 1: were performed by him. And that was before I knew him.
Speaker 1: His greatness as an actor I think was believing in
Speaker 1: people and sympathizing and empathizing with them, and summoning that
Speaker 1: as he portrayed them. He was in so many films,
Speaker 1: so many TV series, in so many commercial voiceovers for
Speaker 1: so many decades that I'm sure it's hard to believe
Speaker 1: that there might be things everybody did not already know
Speaker 1: about him. But here is one. He was the best
Speaker 1: correspondent I have ever known, and I mean correspondent in
Speaker 1: the old sense of the word. He wrote to me
Speaker 1: a lot emails, stream of consciousness, meandering, surprising, often initially inscrutable,
Speaker 1: emails that turned out to be nothing less than poetry
Speaker 1: about his career, about my career, about my dad's coma,
Speaker 1: about his coma from nineteen sixty nine, about filming mash
Speaker 1: about Baseball, about Jane Fonda, more about Jane Fonda. I
Speaker 1: cannot read you any of the emails about Jane Fonda.
Speaker 1: Trust me. It's really tempting, really really really tempting, but
Speaker 1: it is beyond the pale. I did suggest to mister
Speaker 1: Sutherland once that he was such a good writer and
Speaker 1: had so many extraordinary stories that he had to put
Speaker 1: them in a book. He asked if I had suddenly
Speaker 1: gone crazy and had suddenly become incapable of realizing how
Speaker 1: many people would respond to such a book by trying
Speaker 1: to kill him. But what a writer, And I think
Speaker 1: I'm within ethical bounds to read one of his briefer emails,
Speaker 1: an email about baseball. He had described to me before
Speaker 1: his lonely upbringing as a sickly child in New Brunswick
Speaker 1: and then Nova Scotia in Canada in the forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: and his first taste of the outside world the radio
Speaker 1: broadcasts of Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games by the legendary Red
Speaker 1: Barber that somehow you could hear in Nova Scotia. He
Speaker 1: used to keep score of the baseball games at home
Speaker 1: by himself, feeling like that phrase by himself meant by
Speaker 1: himself in the world, never dreaming he'd actually get to
Speaker 1: go to a baseball game, so he kept scoring every
Speaker 1: game he ever went to, first as a Brooklyn Dodger fan,
Speaker 1: and then as a crazy I can't go to the
Speaker 1: bathroom now we're winning fan of the late lamented Montreal Expos.
Speaker 1: He kept score of baseball games for sixty years, and
Speaker 1: he kept the score books and Red Barber's broadcasts, he wrote,
Speaker 1: had inspired him to pursue his original career radio news.
Speaker 1: He was a radio news correspondent too as a teenager
Speaker 1: with that voice. And then he said, the drama of
Speaker 1: the games translated into the drama of acting in an off.
Speaker 1: He went in that direction, so I knew what to do.
Speaker 1: I sent him a CD, and on the CD was
Speaker 1: the complete recording of Red Barber's broadcast of the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Dodgers New York Giants game at Ebbittsfield in Brooklyn, New York,
Speaker 1: on Saturday, the twenty second of April nineteen fifty. This
Speaker 1: was the email he sent in reply, it's one paragraph.
Speaker 1: It's one paragraph, and try to imagine this Red in
Speaker 1: Donald Sutherland's voice, my car up. Heears old ten years old,
Speaker 1: and the CD player skips, so I hear a bit
Speaker 1: and then it stalls like an old seventy eight and
Speaker 1: I push buttons to get past it. I think there's
Speaker 1: a CD in the kitchen, one of those Sony kitchen
Speaker 1: televisions with the CD that front Gate used to sell.
Speaker 1: What a delight this recording. I'm transfixed. Time has stopped.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get people out to the park a doubleheader,
Speaker 1: see the end of this one and all the next one,
Speaker 1: and eat a good breakfast. One of the requisite items
Speaker 1: was bread and butter. Duke Snyder gave me my score
Speaker 1: books a big blue binder each year in the eighties.
Speaker 1: He did color for the Expos broadcasts. I still have them,
Speaker 1: Peter you. Eustonoff told a story about getting on a
Speaker 1: train for London in Manchester. He had a repertory theater
Speaker 1: there and I worked for him. Once he got on
Speaker 1: the train and into one of those two benched, sliding
Speaker 1: doored six cedar cabins in first class and lounged languidly
Speaker 1: in the corner. He's Russian. Eustonof was a chap with
Speaker 1: a furled umbrella and a black briefcase, a bowler hat
Speaker 1: and a black three piece suit. A La Savile row
Speaker 1: came in and sat kitty corner to him by the window.
Speaker 1: Eustonov said he looked down his nose at the chap
Speaker 1: and watched him bring sheet music out of his briefcase.
Speaker 1: Being Russian, Eustonof fancied he had music in his DNA,
Speaker 1: kind of like Ali. When someone asked him if he
Speaker 1: played the piano, and he said he didn't know if
Speaker 1: he did or not, because he'd never sat down at one.
Speaker 1: Eustinov watched the guy turn the pages one, two, three, four,
Speaker 1: and then halfway down the fifth page, the fellow reading
Speaker 1: the music quietly started to laugh to himself. Eustonoff said
Speaker 1: he then knew that he Eustonoff, knew nothing about music.
Speaker 1: Years ago, my brilliant accountant, who'd run as a child
Speaker 1: from one of the camps through Switzerland and Spain to
Speaker 1: Ellis Island, told me that he loved reading year end spreadsheets.
Speaker 1: They were novels to him, an entire year's life presented
Speaker 1: itself to him in exquisite detail. He was transported. Sorry
Speaker 1: this has been so long. The point of it was
Speaker 1: that looking at those old score books, the line drives
Speaker 1: and the pop ups, the bullpen, the pitfalls of that
Speaker 1: awful stadium became in themselves such a saga. And so
Speaker 1: does this CD. I'm fifteen again now though out of
Speaker 1: the car, I'm seventy five, and I'm in the garden.
Speaker 1: The car stopped by my wife. I left at the
Speaker 1: top of the seventh but Red Barber's just come back.
Speaker 1: Post Toasties two to one Pirates, Philly's losing six to
Speaker 1: two in Chicago. I hope the CD player in the
Speaker 1: kitchen works because it's going to rain. Thank you for this.
Speaker 1: I will miss my friend. He was one of our
Speaker 1: greatest humanists. He was one of our greatest actors. You
Speaker 1: could watch one great performance from him every week and
Speaker 1: it would be twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven
Speaker 1: or so before you'd even have to think about starting
Speaker 1: from the beginning again. And I somehow got a little
Speaker 1: bit more to remember him with. I have those emails,
Speaker 1: baseball emails, MSNBC emails, emails about individual commentaries I did
Speaker 1: on the show, emails after emails, after emails, and now
Speaker 1: while we take a break before I return with Worst
Speaker 1: Persons and Thurber, you can think about what one of
Speaker 1: those emails from Donald Sutherland would have sounded like when
Speaker 1: it was about Jane. This is Countdown with Keith Alboman
Speaker 1: still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown Fridays
Speaker 1: with Thurber. I have to admit I will always be
Speaker 1: very proud that my late friend mister Sutherland thought I
Speaker 1: read these well. It goes without saying there was no
Speaker 1: better narrator reader none. Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones
Speaker 1: are more resonant, but their work is consistent. Donald Sutherland
Speaker 1: had about forty different styles of reading aloud. The field
Speaker 1: was his, at least since Orson Wells died. Anyway, on
Speaker 1: that list, I'm somewhere around at number ten thousand, I'll
Speaker 1: do my best with Thurber. Thurber proving this week he
Speaker 1: could turn anything as if on a Dare from the
Speaker 1: universe into just another story of just another squabble between
Speaker 1: a married couple. As she tells him he is murdering
Speaker 1: her all wrong In mister Prebble gets rid of his wife.
Speaker 1: But first there are still more new idiots to talk about.
Speaker 1: The daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger
Speaker 1: effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
Speaker 1: The Bronze Worst. Tucker Carlson. Remember Tucker Carlson. He's on tour.
Speaker 1: Pay money to see Tucker Carlson live when you could
Speaker 1: see him talk endlessly on TV or Twitter for hours
Speaker 1: on end for free. It's not a good business model. Actually,
Speaker 1: it turns out to not be any kind of business model.
Speaker 1: He opens in Tuesday in Sydney, Australia and as the
Speaker 1: broadcasters say, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of good seats available. Mister Sutherland mentioned it
Speaker 1: in his email. Well there are plenty of good seats
Speaker 1: available and bad seats too, Tucker down Under, you should
Speaker 1: excuse The expression was announced in April by the chairman
Speaker 1: of the United Australia Party, which is apparently for Auzzie
Speaker 1: nut jobs. You think Rupert Murdoch is too liberal. His
Speaker 1: name is Clive Palmer. His strip mining company sponsored the
Speaker 1: tour at as a bonus. When you pay two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars Australian, you know, get just Tucker Carlson. You also
Speaker 1: get to hear Clive speak as well. Ah but two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. Those two hundred dollars seats are now available
Speaker 1: for your cost fifty dollars. The Australian newspaper, cleverly called
Speaker 1: The Australian says it cannot calculate how many tickets have
Speaker 1: not sold like hotcakes, but that there are hundreds still
Speaker 1: available for the opening night in Sydney. And one of
Speaker 1: the events in Sydney is at the ICC Sydney Theater,
Speaker 1: which seats nine thousand people, so hundreds of seats are
Speaker 1: still available is not good news. And the price cut
Speaker 1: from one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars a seat
Speaker 1: down to fifty that's also not good news. In Brisbane
Speaker 1: it's down to eighty dollars a ticket, Adelaide, Melbourne and
Speaker 1: Perth down to one hundred and ten. But there at
Speaker 1: the end of the time, so look out below, further
Speaker 1: deep discounts may be applied. Why has Tucker Live failed? Well,
Speaker 1: For one thing, he started as a manipulative, dishonest fascist.
Speaker 1: That was when I worked with him twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: But he's gone bad since then and he's now approaching
Speaker 1: full on psychosis. The other thing, I forgot to mention
Speaker 1: the special guest on the tour Detucker, Denesh Desuza, will
Speaker 1: be there. Come on, give it up for Denesh Desuza.
Speaker 1: Come on out, Denesh and lie to the people. Come
Speaker 1: on the runner up. Jeff Bezos still owner of the
Speaker 1: Washington Post and still apparently not even close to steering
Speaker 1: out of the skid that could yet destroy the paper.
Speaker 1: He is still committed, apparently to this British publisher Will Lewis,
Speaker 1: even after my friend David Marinus, who has worked at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post since I was a sophomore in college,
Speaker 1: publicly called for new leadership there and a new editor
Speaker 1: and a new publisher. And David said of Bezos that
Speaker 1: he quote owns the Post, but he is not of
Speaker 1: and for the Post, or he would understand everywhere this
Speaker 1: fellow Will Lewis turns, he steps on another rake, or
Speaker 1: he gets hit over the head by somebody carrying a
Speaker 1: nuclear rake. The newspaper The Guardian now reports that on
Speaker 1: top of the phone hacking scandal that Lewis was involved
Speaker 1: with and his attempts to bury coverage of the phone
Speaker 1: hacking scandal in the Post, Lewis was also an informal
Speaker 1: advisor to the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and when
Speaker 1: the party gate scandal broke at the worst moments of COVID,
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson ordered the UK to stay home and isolate,
Speaker 1: and then like right after that broadcast, he and his
Speaker 1: staff promptly went into an office and held a big
Speaker 1: party for somebody, and Lewis, according to the Guardian, told
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson that Johnson and his staff should then clean
Speaker 1: up their phones, that is, get rid of all the
Speaker 1: texts and photos about and of that party, and he's
Speaker 1: still editor or publisher of The Washington Post. Well, clearly
Speaker 1: Bezos is too distracted. He's on vacation with his fiance
Speaker 1: and I guess he's trying to remember how to inflate
Speaker 1: her or whatever. But our winner, Dylan Buyers. Dylan Byers
Speaker 1: is probably not a name you know. He is the
Speaker 1: well traveled media writer and writer is doing the proverbial
Speaker 1: lot of work here. He's a media jock sniffer, especially
Speaker 1: a media management jock sniffer. He's now part of Puck News,
Speaker 1: which is one letter off from being an accurate description
Speaker 1: of the man. If you read of an anonymous management
Speaker 1: source somewhere trashing a reporter or an anchor or the
Speaker 1: audience or whatever, you're probably reading something that Dylan Buyers wrote.
Speaker 1: He's one of those guys who finds it hard to
Speaker 1: believe that an executive would lie, and he cannot and
Speaker 1: will not believe that an executive or a newspaper or
Speaker 1: a website or a network would lie to him. Dylan Buyers.
Speaker 1: This week, one of the Buyer's emails about the news
Speaker 1: business began at the funeral of Howard Feinneman. It's actually
Speaker 1: pretty good, especially for buyers. And I'm going out of
Speaker 1: chronological order here. I'm going to first read you what
Speaker 1: he wrote about Howard on Monday, and then read you
Speaker 1: what he wrote about him in April of last year. Quote.
Speaker 1: On Monday, many of the swells of the Washington political
Speaker 1: media in crowd gathered at Temple Sinai to celebrate the
Speaker 1: life and times of legendary author and journalist Howard Feyneman.
Speaker 1: The longtime Newsweek star and NBC analyst Mark Whittaker. Evan Thomas,
Speaker 1: Chris Matthews, Al Franken, and Jill Abramson were among those
Speaker 1: who delivered remarks, and at the end of his eulogy,
Speaker 1: Former Rep. John Yarmouth broke out a mini bar sized
Speaker 1: bourbon and toasted Fineman's days as a cub reporter for
Speaker 1: the Louisville Courier Journal with a wig from the pulpit
Speaker 1: in Washington, a town built on institutions and legacies. It
Speaker 1: was a true heroes. Goodbye well, very nice, legendary Newsweek star,
Speaker 1: A true heroes, Goodbye, Howard Fineman. On April twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, the same Dylan Byers was writing something
Speaker 1: else about somebody else, and it had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Howard Fineman when he complimented the somebody else who
Speaker 1: was somebody named Smith by throwing in out of nowhere
Speaker 1: that the guy's work quote sure beat whatever throat clearing
Speaker 1: Mount Olympus garbage that some Howard Fineman type was recycling
Speaker 1: in Newsweek or the echo chamber of the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: End quote, throat clearing Mount Olympus garbage that some Howard
Speaker 1: Fineman type was recycling now bluntly, since Howard was my
Speaker 1: friend and he had confided in me three months previously
Speaker 1: that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had
Speaker 1: been given as little as four months to live, and
Speaker 1: thank goodness, he really beat that and lasted until last week.
Speaker 1: I may have overreacted to reading this from Dylan Byers.
Speaker 1: I screenshotted what Buyers had written, and I sent it
Speaker 1: back to him, along with the message, what a truly childish,
Speaker 1: worthless piece of shit you really are. Feineman is a
Speaker 1: better man than you, and that dropped fire hose Smith
Speaker 1: would combine to be in a hundred lifetimes. How you
Speaker 1: will regret writing this Obviously, buyers could not have known
Speaker 1: he had gratuitously insulted someone who just received a terminal prognosis.
Speaker 1: I did not believe that he should be blamed for
Speaker 1: that part of it. But of course, even without the knowledge,
Speaker 1: there is the idea that maybe you shouldn't just gratuitously
Speaker 1: insult somebody with a fifty year career in journalism who
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with what you're writing about in
Speaker 1: a desperate and unsuccessful bid just to sound cool, especially
Speaker 1: given the simple actuarial odds that whoever you pick, if
Speaker 1: they are seventy four years old, you're probably going to
Speaker 1: be publicly trashing someone who is sick, or someone who's
Speaker 1: just lost a loved one, or someone who is retiring
Speaker 1: against their will. I mean, if you're criticizing somebody for
Speaker 1: a reason they wrote this crap last week, or they
Speaker 1: did that terrible thing to somebody a year ago, fine
Speaker 1: do it. I am the last person to criticize criticism,
Speaker 1: but just to do it for its own sake, as
Speaker 1: an aside, just to shoot somebody at random, subhuman Maybe
Speaker 1: that defense of whoever this smith was would have been
Speaker 1: just as good with quote sure beat whatever, throat clearing
Speaker 1: mount Olympus garbage someone was recycling in Newsweek or the
Speaker 1: echo chamber of the Washington Post, not mentioning Howard Feineman,
Speaker 1: not mentioning anybody for that matter. Throat clearing. Mount Olympus
Speaker 1: garbage is a pretty good phrase. It needs to be
Speaker 1: smeared over somebody's face for you to feel good about
Speaker 1: what you're writing. But to then come back after you
Speaker 1: did that, and you did smear somebody and rub this
Speaker 1: line over their face, and to go to the funeral
Speaker 1: of that person that you could not resist insulting fourteen
Speaker 1: months earlier for no good reason, and in the same
Speaker 1: newsletter report from it, and suddenly attach fake respect that
Speaker 1: is probably just as gratuitous as the insult was in
Speaker 1: your soulless mind. That makes it all exponentially worse. What
Speaker 1: a scumbag Dylan Buyers. And someday there may be an
Speaker 1: additional payoff. Someday somebody will be praising some media critic
Speaker 1: or writer or someone and they'll say he was so
Speaker 1: much better than his useless, aging contemporary Dylan Buyers. Well,
Speaker 1: now that I think of it, probably not. I mean,
Speaker 1: who is going to remember the work of Dylan Buyers?
Speaker 1: So don't be Dylan Buyers, because you never know when
Speaker 1: the person you're going to gratuitously name drop an insult
Speaker 1: is going to you know, die Dylan Byers, Today's worst
Speaker 1: person in the World to the top of the countdown
Speaker 1: and Fridays with Thurber, and I am not going to
Speaker 1: dare suggest to you that there isn't at least something
Speaker 1: misogynistic about mister Prebble gets rid of his wife. But
Speaker 1: the ultimate point of this short story, so masterfully crafted
Speaker 1: by James Thurber, this matter of fact style that almost
Speaker 1: makes you forget you are hearing about a man trying
Speaker 1: to murder his wife, is in a larger sense, about
Speaker 1: the fact that women are more success bes full than men.
Speaker 1: This story does not compliment men, it does not compliment women,
Speaker 1: It does not compliment human beings. But it is still marvelous.
Speaker 1: Mister Preble Gets rid of his Wife by James Thurber.
Speaker 1: Mister Prebble was a plump, middle aged lawyer in Scarsdale.
Speaker 1: He used to kid with his stenographer about running away
Speaker 1: with him. Let's run away together, he would say, during
Speaker 1: a pause in dictation, alrighty, she would say. One rainy
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon, mister Prebble was more serious about it than usual.
Speaker 1: Let's run away together, said mister Preble. Alrighty, said his stenographer.
Speaker 1: Mister Prebble jingled the keys in his pocket and looked
Speaker 1: out the window. My wife would be glad to get
Speaker 1: rid of me, he said. Would you give you a divorce,
Speaker 1: asked the stenographer. I don't suppose so, he said. The
Speaker 1: stenographer laughed, you'd have to get rid of your wife,
Speaker 1: she said. Mister Preble was unusually silent at dinner that night.
Speaker 1: About half an hour after coffee, he spoke, without looking
Speaker 1: up from his paper, let's uh go down in the cellar.
Speaker 1: Mister Prebble said to his wife, what far? She said,
Speaker 1: not looking up from her book. Oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: he said. We uh never go down in the cellar
Speaker 1: anymore the way we used to. We never did go
Speaker 1: down in the cellar that I remember, said missus Prebble.
Speaker 1: I could rest easy the balance of my life if
Speaker 1: I never went down in the cellar. Mister Preble was
Speaker 1: silent for several minutes. Supposing I said, it meant a
Speaker 1: whole lot to me. Began mister Prebble, what's come over you?
Speaker 1: His wife demanded, it's cold down there. There's absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: to do. We could pick up pieces of coal, said mister.
Speaker 1: We might get up some sort of game with pieces
Speaker 1: of coal. I don't want to, said his wife. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm reading, listen, said mister Prebble, rising and walking up
Speaker 1: and down. Why won't you come down in the cellar.
Speaker 1: You can read down there as far as that goes.
Speaker 1: There isn't a good enough light down there, she said.
Speaker 1: And anyway, I'm not going to go down in the cellar.
Speaker 1: You may as well make up your mind. That g whiz,
Speaker 1: said mister Prebble, kicking into the edge of a rug.
Speaker 1: Other people's wives go down in the cellar. Why is
Speaker 1: it you never want to do anything? I come home
Speaker 1: worn out from the office, and you won't even go
Speaker 1: down in the cellar with me. God knows, it isn't
Speaker 1: very far. It isn't as if I was asking you
Speaker 1: to go to the movies or someplace. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go, shouted missus Prebble. Mister Preble sat down on
Speaker 1: the edge of a davenport. All right, all right, he said,
Speaker 1: He picked up the newspaper again. I wish you'd let
Speaker 1: me tell you more about it. It's kind of a surprise.
Speaker 1: Well you quit harping on that subject, asked missus Prebble. Listen,
Speaker 1: said mister Prebble, leaping to his feet, I might as
Speaker 1: well tell you the truth instead of beating around the bush.
Speaker 1: I want to get rid of you so I can
Speaker 1: marry my stenographer. Is there anything especially wrong about that?
Speaker 1: People do it every day. Love is something you can't control.
Speaker 1: We've been all over that, said missus Prebble. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go all over that again. I just wanted
Speaker 1: you to know how things are, said mister Prebble. But
Speaker 1: you have to take everything so literally. Good Lord, do
Speaker 1: you suppose I really wanted to go down in the
Speaker 1: cellar and make up some silly game with pieces of coal.
Speaker 1: I never believe that for a minute, said missus Preble.
Speaker 1: I knew all along you wanted to get me down
Speaker 1: there and bury me. You can say that now after
Speaker 1: I told you, said mister Prebble. But it would never
Speaker 1: have occurred to you if I hadn't. You didn't tell me.
Speaker 1: I got it out of you, said missus Prebble. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm always two steps ahead of what you're thinking. You're
Speaker 1: never within a mile of what I'm thinking, said mister Prebble.
Speaker 1: Is that so I knew you wanted to bury me
Speaker 1: the minute you got some foot in this house tonight,
Speaker 1: missus Prebble held him with a glare. Now that's just
Speaker 1: plain damn exaggeration, said mister Prebble, considerably annoyed. You knew
Speaker 1: nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: never thought of it till just a few minutes ago.
Speaker 1: It was in the back of your mind, said missus Prebble.
Speaker 1: I suppose this filing woman puts you up to it.
Speaker 1: You needn't get sarcastic, said mister Prebble. I have plenty
Speaker 1: of people to file without having her file. She doesn't
Speaker 1: know anything about this, She isn't in on it. I
Speaker 1: was going to tell her you'd gone to visit some
Speaker 1: friends and fell over a cliff. She wants me to
Speaker 1: get a divorce. That's a laugh, said missus Prebble. That's
Speaker 1: a laugh. You may bury me, but you'll never get
Speaker 1: a divorce. She knows that I told her that, said
Speaker 1: mister Prebble. I mean I told her I'd never get
Speaker 1: a divorce. Oh, you probably told her about burying me too,
Speaker 1: said missus Prebble. That's not true, said mister Prebble, with dignity.
Speaker 1: That's between you and me. I was never going to
Speaker 1: tell a soul. You'd blab it to the whole world.
Speaker 1: Don't tell me, said missus Prebble. I know you. Mister
Speaker 1: Prebble puffed at his cigar. I wish you were buried
Speaker 1: now it was all over with, he said. Don't you
Speaker 1: suppose you would get caught, you crazy thing? She said,
Speaker 1: They always get caught. Why don't you go to bed.
Speaker 1: You're just getting yourself all worked up over nothing. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to bed, said mister Prebble. I'm going to
Speaker 1: bury you in the cellar. I got my mind made
Speaker 1: up to it. I don't know how I could make
Speaker 1: any plainer listen, cried missus Preble, throwing her book down.
Speaker 1: Will you be satisfied and shut up? If I go
Speaker 1: down in the cellar. Can I have a little peace?
Speaker 1: If I go down in the cellar, will you let
Speaker 1: me alone? Then? Yes, said mister Prebble. But you spoil
Speaker 1: it by taking that attitude. Sure, sure, I always spoil everything.
Speaker 1: I stop reading right in the middle of a chapter.
Speaker 1: I'll never know how the story comes out. But that's
Speaker 1: nothing to you. Did I make you start reading that book,
Speaker 1: asked mister Prebble. He opened the cellar door. Here you
Speaker 1: go first, said missus Prebble, starting down the steps. It's
Speaker 1: cold down here. You would think of this at this
Speaker 1: time of the year. Any other husband would have buried
Speaker 1: his wife in the summer. You can't arrange those things
Speaker 1: just whenever you want to, said mister Prebble. That didn't
Speaker 1: fall in love with this girl till late fall. Anybody
Speaker 1: else would have fallen in love with her long before that.
Speaker 1: She's been around for years. Why is it you always
Speaker 1: let other men get in ahead of you, mercy? But
Speaker 1: it's dirty down here. What have you got down there?
Speaker 1: I was going to hit you over the head with
Speaker 1: a shovel, said mister Prebble. You were huh, said missus Prebble.
Speaker 1: We'll get that out of your mind. You want to
Speaker 1: leave a great, big clue right here in the middle
Speaker 1: of everything. We're the first detective to come snooping around
Speaker 1: will find it. Come out in the street and find
Speaker 1: some piece of iron or something. Something doesn't belong to you,
Speaker 1: all right, said mister Prebble. But there won't be any
Speaker 1: piece of iron in the street. Women always expect to
Speaker 1: pick up a piece of iron anywhere. If you look
Speaker 1: in the right place, you'll find it, said missus Prebble.
Speaker 1: And don't be gone long, don't you dare stopping at
Speaker 1: the cigar store. I'm not going to stand down here
Speaker 1: in this cold cellar all night and freeze, all right,
Speaker 1: said mister Prebble. I'll hurry and shut that door behind you.
Speaker 1: She screamed after him, Where were you born in a barn?
Speaker 1: Mister Preble gets rid of his wife by James Thurber.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Speaker 1: Phillip Schanell arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Speaker 1: Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Speaker 1: Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
Speaker 1: including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed
Speaker 1: by No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme
Speaker 1: from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of
Speaker 1: ESPN inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by
Speaker 1: Nancy Fauss. The Best Baseball stadium organist. Ever, our announcer
Speaker 1: today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and
Speaker 1: Better Call Saul. And of course James Thurber's mister Prebble
Speaker 1: gets rid of his wife is courtesy the Thurber Literary Trust.
Speaker 1: Everything else, everything else was pretty much my fault. So
Speaker 1: that's count for this. The one hundred and thirty eighth
Speaker 1: day until the twenty twenty four presidential election and sixty
Speaker 1: fourth day since convicted felon elderly Donald Trump's first attempted
Speaker 1: coup against the democratically elected government in the United States.
Speaker 1: Use the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system,
Speaker 1: use presidential immunity if it happens, to stop him from
Speaker 1: doing it again while we still can. A reminder will
Speaker 1: be live again on YouTube after the debate next Thursday night.
Speaker 1: Send your link to this podcast to somebody who doesn't
Speaker 1: already listen, and don't forget to join us on YouTube
Speaker 1: and on the podcast thereafter. The next scheduled countdown is
Speaker 1: Tuesday Bulletins as the news warrants until the next one.
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Olriman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
Speaker 1: good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.