June 30, 2023 • 56 mins
EPISODE 239: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Jack Smith is reportedly ready to indict Trump on between 30 and 45 MORE counts. And he is preparing to indict several of Trump’s lawyers from the Fake Electors Scheme including (voluntary interview notwithstanding) Rudy Giuliani. And all that is reported by the same British newspaper that correctly nailed the Miami indictments two days before they were finally handed up. CNN adds that the main Trump campaign official in charge of the Fake Electors will take the immunity deal he was offered and testifying for the Special Prosecutor.
If the source for Britain's "The independent" is correct, Trump could be facing as many as 77 counts in a superseding indictment, although its sources are not clear if those charges would come in a superseding indictment in Florida or might be filed in a different jurisdiction (and we have already discussed the possibility of Trump being indicted in New Jersey for The Trump Confession Tape, plus all the crimes still on the table in D.C.). There is one intriguing new twist to the seemingly trivial question of where to indict. It will, quoting the story, “depend in part on whether they feel the Trump-appointed district judge overseeing the case against him in the Southern District of Florida, Aileen Cannon, is giving undue deference” to Trump. As to the hapless Giuliani, Feinberg’s source says that despite the ex-Mayor’s proffer offer to prosecutors, Rudy will quote “most definitely” face at least some charges from Jack Smith’s office, dating to his actions in the interval between the election and January 6th.
Also: Trump showed that secret map to the co-chair of a lobbying firm taking millions from at least three Chinese tech firms closely linked to the Chinese government. The “I should not be showing the map” map? The “so don’t get too close”map? Wednesday night ABC News identified the person Trump showed the classified map to as Susie Wiles, a Trump adviser and campaign official and his potential 2024 campaign chair. Last night the NEW YORK POST, of all news outlets, identified Susie Wiles as the co-chairman of Mercury Public Affairs, lobbying mouthpieces for at least three really bad, really dangerous Chinese firms including Alibaba – the online retailer and web services company that is actually partially owned BY the Chinese GOVERNMENT and which the Post says Susie Wiles’ company, Mercury, is STILL receiving payments from.
And the nightmare unfolds at the Supreme Court: Affirmative Action is struck down and although work-arounds are offered and President Biden lambasted the Fascist Theocratic Court's interference with the settled law of the nation and agreed that the court is not a "normal" one, when offered the cure, he shied away: "If we start the process of trying to expand the court, we’re going to politicize it, maybe forever, in a way that is not healthy, that you can’t get back.”
President Biden? It's irredeemably politicized NOW. It's FOREVER. It is ALREADY not healthy. And we can't get it back.
(17:54) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The 5'7" Prime Minister of the UK violates the first rule of comparative height: NEVER give away 14 inches in a photo. Pirro, Ingraham, others at Fox mock Biden's use of CPAP machine despite own physical and emotional problems; New York Mayor Eric Adams must resign: he rages against a renters' advocate, compares her to a slaveowner, insults her repeatedly. She's an 84-year old woman who escaped the holocaust yet within seconds of her remarks he played the race card against her.
B-Block (28:06) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Not only did Joe Biden spend most of his senatorial career fighting a reputation as a hothead, but when he decided to fight it he turned to advice about how to productively focus his anger to...me?
C-Block (39:10) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: I succumb to Bothsidesism! If I have a long Biden story, I must offer a long Trump story. And Thurber wrote one, and somehow managed to do it 15 years before Trump was born. When success is mistaken for character and the worst person in the world is mistaken for "The Greatest Man In The World."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Jack
Smith is ready to indict Trump on between thirty and
(00:26):
forty five more counts, and he is preparing to indict
several of Trump's lawyers from the fake elector's scheme, and
one of them is despite his voluntary interview and proffer
to turn on everybody else in a bid to win
Citizen of the Week award Rudy Giuliani. That is all
from the British newspaper that correctly nailed the Miami indictments
(00:49):
two days before they were finally handed up. CNN ads
at the main Trump campaign official in charge of the
fake electors will cut an immunity deal and will testify
for the special prosecutor. But the headlines run up the
score on Trump to as many as seventy nine counts
and making America's mayor into America's co defendant. They are
(01:13):
coming from Andrew Feinberg in The Independent. Again. Feinberg writes
that the DOJ quote is prepared to seek indictments against
multiple figures in Trump's orbit, and may yet bring additional
charges against the ex president in the coming weeks, although
its sources are not clear, if those charges would come
(01:33):
in a superseding indictment in Florida, or they might be
filed in a different jurisdiction. And we have already discussed
the possibility of Trump being indicted in New Jersey for
the Trump confession tape, plus all the crimes still on
the table in DC. There is one intriguing new twist
to the seemingly trivial question of where to indict Trump next.
(01:57):
It will quoting the story depend in part on whether
they feel the Trump appointed district judge overseeing the case
again against him in the Southern District of Florida, Eileen
Cannon is giving undue deference to Trump. As to the
hapless Rudy Giuliani, Finberg source says that despite the ex
mayor's profer offered to prosecutors, Rudy will quote most definitely
(02:21):
face at least some charges from Jack Smith's office dating
to his actions in the interval between the election and
January sixth. No other specifics and no names of other
lawyers to be indicted mentioned, but we know from Wednesday's
reporting that Giuliani was asked about Jeff can I put
my pants on Clark and John Eastman and Boris Epstein
(02:45):
and Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Jack Wallenchik were mentioned
in different contexts. It would be the CNN scoop that
would presumably explain the independent scoop. CNN's story is that
Mike Roman, who was in essence the desk officer inside
the Trump campaign responsible for coordinate all the fake electors,
(03:06):
and whom The New York Times reported a week ago
had been offered his own limited immunity deal in exchange
for his testimony against the others, has accepted that immunity deal.
Jack Smith's people, in fact, are apparently jonesing so big
time for Roman's info, to the degree that CNN says
Roman may not even have to go before the grand jury.
(03:27):
He may talk instead directly to the prosecutors, and only
the prosecutors, in an interview format. So what is next
in this world in which we struggle out of one
nightmare only to realize we have merely awakened into a
different nightmare? How about this? Trump showed that secret map
(03:49):
to the co chair of a lobbying firm which has
taken millions from at least three Chinese tech firms closely
linked to the Chinese government, the I should not be
showing the map map, so don't get too map. Wednesday night,
ABC News identified the person Trump showed that classified map
(04:11):
to as Susie Wiles, a Trump advisor and Trump campaign
official and his potential twenty twenty four campaign chair. Last night,
The New York Post of all news outlets, identified Susie
Wiles as the co chairman of Mercury Public Affairs, a
lobbying mouthpiece for at least three really bad, really dangerous
(04:35):
Chinese firms, including Ali Baba, the online retailer and web
services company that is actually partially owned by the Chinese government,
in which the Post says, Susie Wiles's company, Mercury, is
still receiving payments from So Trump was explaining a military
operation to a Political Action Committee representative. He said it
(04:59):
was not going well, and to clarify, he showed this
Wiles a classified map of a foreign nation, a map
he had stolen. And she is co chairperson of a
company that receives money that the Chinese government washes through
Ali Baba. And it gets worse. The New York Post
also reported Wiles's company lobbied for Hick Vision was paid
(05:23):
more than a million, seven hundred thousand dollars just last year,
and Hick Vision makes the video surveillance equipment that the
Chinese government quote used to locate and detain Wiger Muslims
in Xinjiang Province, and the co chair of their US
lobbying firm was shown a classified map of another country
(05:46):
by Trump. Posts make sure to emphasize that all government
records show that Susie Wiles herself did not personally lobby
for these Chinese firms, which would have a little more
meaning and which would be a little bit more reassuring
if you know, she wasn't co chair of the company
that did love before them, And we could not collectively
(06:08):
have imagined a worse person for Trump to show that
map too, or show anything he stole to Because there's
even more. Somehow, Susie Wiles's company serviced yet a third
nightmarish Chinese outfit, and it only severed its relationship with
that company last month. This one is a telecommunications firm
(06:29):
called Yaylink, and two years ago Senator Van Holland of
Maryland wrote to Commerce Secretary Ramundo to report a security
analytic company it found. Yaylink phones include software that could
secretly record calls and secretly track the web browsing done
on local networks, and secretly transfer all of that private
(06:51):
information back to Yaylink headquarters in China, as The New
York Post noted, China, where companies must comply with any
government requests to hand over information really to national security
and when in August or September twenty twenty one, Trump
showed Susie Wiles a classified American military map of a
(07:14):
country where it was not going well, and the immediate
speculation was that was a map of Afghanistan. She was
the boss of the lobbying company for one Chinese company
co owned by the Chinese government, another Chinese company that
supplies the Chinese government with video location equipment it uses
to round up minorities, and a third Chinese company that
(07:35):
makes a tool with which the Chinese government can spy
on ordinary citizens anywhere in the world, including in this country.
Because if you order now, you can have a Ylink
phone on your desk by next Monday. It is mind boggling,
and not just because of how wantonly Trump compromised American
security to a person who runs a company lobbying the
(07:58):
US government on behalf of three outlets that are directly
utilized by the Chinese government. And it's mind boggling not
just because this security breach was revealed by a Murdoch paper.
It's mind boggling because one of the tenets of Trump's
undermining of our society has been his continual stoking of
anti Asian sentiment and fear and violence, and his attempt
(08:20):
to brand anybody who disagrees with him as an agent
of the Chinese government. Except he's showing a classified map
he stole to somebody who comes infuriatingly close to that
exact description of agent of the Chinese government. And ultimately,
it is mind boggling because of this, Even if Trump
had some sort of right to show her that map,
(08:43):
or even if he had never shown her any classified materials.
What the hell is Susie Wiles, riddled with connections at
one remove through the Chinese government doing near the top
of the twenty sixteen campaign of the eventual president of
the United States. What is she doing now as a
(09:03):
de facto leader of his twenty twenty four campaign, and
what is she doing as his prospective campaign manager? We
have crushed the concept of the Manchurian candidate into the
ground from over use. Here instead, we have the Manchurian
campaign manager, and if you'd like it all ratcheted up
(09:26):
one more notch. Still, the New York Post is happy
to oblige. Quote. Susie could put Trump away for years.
In just one minute of testimony to Jack Smith, a
rival GOP operative told the Post, She's got Trump by
the balls, which means she can name her price for
(09:47):
her loyalty and Trump can't say no. Unquote. Who the
hell knows where that comes from. The Post does not
explain it's the Post, but it just adds to yet
one more confirmation that however bad you think it is
with Trump, it is always worse, which would describe the
(10:08):
arrest of a man named Taylor Toronto yesterday. He was
picked up near the home of President Barack Obama. Taylor
Toronto is a January sixth participant who has been advertising
that he's been living in a van near the DC
Jailhouse in some sort of twisted solidarity with the other insurrectionists. Trump,
(10:30):
of course, recently posted a screenshot showing what was purportedly
the address of President Obama. Toronto reposted it, adding quote
got them surrounded unquote in short dementia. J Trump doxed
the Obamas when Jack Smith hits him with those additional
(10:54):
dozens of counts reported by The Independent. This time, I
want this scumbag denied bail. The other story you know
about the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in at least
elite universities. There are some mitigating factors that understandably are
(11:17):
not the top part of this story. The ruling is
in large part limited to the biggest schools. One analysis
of acceptance rates at one three hundred and sixty four
four year American colleges and universities showed that the number
of them that admit fewer than ten percent of all
applicants is seventeen out of one thousand, three hundred and
(11:38):
sixty four. The total that admitted fewer than twenty percent
forty six. Most American students get to go where they
want to go, and the idea of voice by the
John Roberts opinion and emphasized by President Biden that any
applicant anywhere can go around the band by devoting part
(11:58):
of their application essay to their personal experience with race
and racism. It is an alternative, though is hardly a
happy one. As Tony Morrison pointed out, the very serious
function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing
your work, It keeps you explaining over and over again
your reason for being distraction. This solution sounds like the
(12:22):
old don't ask, don't tell in the military. Seventeen year
old kids now have to jerry rig a method to
correct the imbalance in this country so ingrained and so
pervasive that forty five years ago this month, when I
started my internship at a New York City television station,
it never occurred to me, not once, that I had
any kind of advantage, let alone a racial advantage, by
(12:46):
the simple fact that my parents had enough money that
I could take the internship and didn't have to spend
those hours working, even though my own father had to
turn down a college scholarship because his parents didn't have
enough money and he did have to spend those hours working.
It looked brief like there would be another silver lining
(13:07):
to this when President Biden spoke to the nation after
the ruling, and particularly with his answer to the one
question that was shouted at him after his remarks, and
the person said, the Supreme Court has proligiate questions on legitacy.
Is this a rogue court? He is not. It is
(13:30):
not a normal court. There is a solution to that.
Within the hour, President Biden was asked about that solution,
and he dropped the ball. Quote, if we start the
process of trying to expand the court, we're going to
politicize it, maybe forever in a way that is not
healthy that you can't get back. Mister President. The Court
(13:54):
is utterly and irredeemably politicized. Now. It is not healthy.
Now it has reached forever corrupt levels. Now, its reputation
cannot be gotten back. Now you either have to expand
it or remove it. God damn. Biden was so close.
(14:21):
But moreover and sitting over this like a vampire cloud
is the simple hypocrisy of people like Clarence Thomas, and
a parable that did dawn on me in my youth,
even if my accidental privilege did not dawn on me.
Then it is the parable of the lifeboat. And probably
(14:45):
for forty years, I have believed that America and probably
all of mankind divides into just two groups. In essence,
you are a passenger on a liner at sea, and
you are hundreds of miles from land, and the boat
suddenly sinks. There are explosions, at horrors and death, and
suddenly you're underwater. And then just as suddenly you bobb
(15:07):
to the surface, and incredibly next to you, not only
are you alive, but they're floating. Is a perfectly undamaged lifeboat.
It is huge, There are ores, there are provisions. You
pull yourself onto it with surprising ease, and then and
there you must join one of the two and only
(15:30):
two groups in the world. If you are in the
first group, your mind crowds with calculations. How many people
can I fit into this boat with me? Should they
all be women and children? Or do I need to
make sure there's several big men in here too so
they can help me row the damn thing? Should I need?
Do I have to get a crew member because I
(15:54):
need somebody with experience on the sea? How long will
all that food last? Could we make it last longer
than it should if we skipped a day here and there?
Those are the thoughts in one group, the thoughts in
the other group. Look, my boat is here, and I
have all this room to myself, and look at all
(16:15):
of my food, And best of all, I have these
great big oars, so I can kill anybody who tries
to climb out of the water and get into my boat.
Clarence Thomas is a member of that second group. It's
his effing boat. Of course, affirmative action must be ended.
(16:39):
What the hell do you think those oars are for.
I'm messing around with the format today, So now time
for the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and
(17:00):
dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst person in
the world. The runner up, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
Prime Minister took a photograph with another Conservative member of
the British Parliament, Daniel Kazinsky, who promptly posted the photo.
The Prime Minister is five feet seven inches tall, mister
(17:22):
Kazinski is six feet nine If you have not seen
this photo, a go and look at it. B It
looks like a publicity still for a ventriloquist to act.
That's not hyperbole, that's what it looks like. The runners
up the fine folks at Fox quote news unquote. They
(17:44):
responded to the report that the President uses a CPAP
machine for sleep apnea by mocking his illness. Laura Ingram
suggested it's quote a scam, and it's a way to
say no, he's not mentally impaired. He just needs to
get a good night's sleep. That's Laura Ingram and I'm
guessing therefore that her alcoholism she wants had twenty drinks
(18:05):
in my presence in one night on a date. I
guess that wasn't a real thing either, and that was
just her covering up her mental impairment. The anchors of
Foxes the five, which is named because it is the
collective IQ of the hosts, were also subhuman on the illness.
The guy is clueless, said Janine Piro, who once held
(18:27):
up her own press conference at which she announced she
was running for senator from New York for a measured
thirty two seconds because she had lost page ten of
her speech, and she asked everybody in the room if
they had seen page ten of her speech. Buzzy can't
breathe half the time. Just for the record, here are
(18:50):
the methods four of the five five hosts with the
five total IQ used to get to sleep. Jesse Waters Chucker,
Carlson's replacement who just lost Carlson's audience by appearing at
a Ron DeSantis event on Thursday. He just hits himself
in the head with a ballpeen hammer that works. Greg Gut.
(19:10):
Greg Gutt keeps tilting his head over until it exceeds
the ninety degree level and then it falls off. Dana Perino, Well,
no brain, no pain, Piero ripple, but our winner New
York City Mayor Eric Adams. You know Eric Adams. Last
summer he said, I thank God I'm the mayor right now.
(19:33):
And last spring he said there is no way God
created me for this moment if he did not believe
this was my moment. I'll read that one again. It's
a wonderful tautology. There is no way God created me
for this moment if he did not believe this was
my moment. Well, Mayor Adams has actually topped both of
(19:55):
those inane, unbalanced sounding remarks. At a town hall in
Washington Heights Wednesday night, a long time rent control activist
went off on Mayor Adams for not fulfilling promises he
made to support specific rent control guidelines, possibly because Adams
is himself a landlord, and in response to this, Mayor
(20:17):
Adams lost his mind. Okay, First, if you're.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Going to ask a question, don't point at me, and
don't be disrespectful to me. I'm the mayor of this city,
and treat me with the respect that would I'm deserved
to be treated. I'm speaking to you as an adult.
Don't stand in front like you treated someone that's on
your plantation that you own. Give me the respect I
deserve and engage in the conversation up here in Washington Heights.
(20:42):
Treat me with the same level of respect I treat you.
So don't be pointing at me, don't be disrespectful to me.
Speak with me as an adult, because I'm a grown man.
I walked into this room as a grown man, and
I'm gonna walk out of this room as a grown man.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I answered your question. That diatribe in which Adams compared
the rent control advocate to a slave owner was directed
at an eighty four year old woman named Jeanie Dubnow,
who has spent five decades pushing to help New Yorkers
of all races and ethnicities to be able to live
here despite the exorbitant rents. She's also a microbiologist at
(21:19):
Rutgers University, and she is a Holocaust survivor. Her parents
fled Germany, then they fled Belgium, then they fled France
and came here. Mayor Adams, trying to get back at her,
went immediately to the race card to attack her in public.
(21:39):
Mayor Adams is an embarrassment to this city. He is
an embarrassment to the Democratic Party. He is an embarrassment
to New York and worst of all, after his last
two years of petulant, self absorbed, idiotic behavior, when he
shouts at an eighty four year old woman, I'm a
grown man, my first response is, exactly what evidence do
(22:00):
you have for that statement, sir? Because you have behaved
consists like an unloved child. Mayor Eric Adams of New
York he won't do this, of course, but he should
resign his office. This city deserves better, and almost anybody
would be better. Eric Adams, Today's worst person in the world.
(22:37):
Also of note here, if you have not heard, we
have begun a YouTube edition of this podcast. It features
what is frankly an adorable animated little ko and some
spectacular oscillator graphics, and the soundtrack is the podcast. It's
just the podcast with some video attached to it. But
if you prefer to watch me, read these scripts except
(23:00):
not really because that's animated me rather than just listening
to me read the scripts. It's available now starting each
weekday at eight am Eastern. We started the YouTube edition
last Monday, just in time to bring in the monthly
total of downloads and full video views of this series
to approximately one million, seven hundred thousand for the month
(23:22):
of June. It was just January when we were celebrating
crossing for the first time the download milestone of one million.
So one million, seven hundred thousand is more. I thank
you kindly again. Tell the others. Speaking of last January,
(23:43):
it turns out the last time I took three consecutive
days off was the Christmas New Year's holiday. So I'm
going to go sit down before I fall down. This
is the two hundred and thirty ninth episode of this
podcast since it debuted last August. First, that too is more.
(24:05):
I'm going to take off next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
and schedule the next countdown for Thursday, July fifth. Have
a happy Fireworks Day. As always, if there is a bulletin,
there will be a bulletin edition. I mean, what could
possibly break between now and then? What was Trump showing
classified maps to a lobbyist for China and Jack Smith
readying forty five more counts against Trump. I mean, what
(24:28):
could possibly happen? I'm sure I'll get my three days
off this time. As to the rest of this edition
of Countdown, I'm mailing it in Things I promised not
to tell is about the day Joe Biden took me
to lunch to ask my advice about public speaking. And
it is still Fridays with Thurber. So let me again
read you his most harrowing story, the one that is
(24:49):
basically about Trump, even though he wrote it in nineteen
thirty one, fifteen years before the world was blighted by
Trump's birth. Hey, look, I'm following textbook both sides ism.
A Biden story means I also have to have a
Trump story. That's next. This is Countdown, you know, this
(25:10):
is Countdown with you know Keith Olberman. Early in two
thousand and seven, my phone rang at MSNBC headquarters in
New Jersey. The Senator would like to take you to
lunch the next time he's in New York. He needs
your advice. Would you be interested? It was Joe Biden's
press guy. My first reaction was to ask if they
(25:33):
had called the wrong number. My next reaction was to
make sure this was not some sort of policy question,
because as a news anchor and commentator for MSNBC, it
did not seem appropriate to offer advice to a candidate
for his party's presidential nomination. And doesn't that seem quite
right now, Sean Hannity.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I was told it was more technical, more about communications,
no policy, my antique standards satisfied, I said sure, They
gave me a couple of dates. They suggested, given his schedule,
the best play to eat would be a restaurant in Manhattan.
Then it turned out it happened to be about forty
five seconds from my home. So the day and hour
arrived March twenty seventh, two thousand and seven, and I
(26:15):
made it to the restaurant all the way down there,
forty five seconds from my home. I sat down, and
moments later in came the Senator from Delaware and his
pres guy. He had the big welcoming smile and equally
big welcoming handshake that you may have seen from back
when candidates could still go greet the people in the crowd.
He reminded me that we had met briefly when he
was in Los Angeles for the two thousand Democratic Convention,
(26:38):
and happened to be staying in the hotel there in
which I lived. Senator Biden then said some nice things
about my days in sports, and particularly about the commentaries
I had begun to do the previous summer on MSNBC.
Those special comments, he said, with first a smile and
then a whistle. There was, then and there remains now,
(26:58):
almost no space between the public Joe Biden of the
campaign or the presidency and the guy who taught informally
to some knucklehead off the streets, which in this story
is me. The word malarkey was used during our lunch,
and I remember that particularly because, as I told him,
I went to grammar school with a kid named Malarkey.
And he was delighted by that. He said, he assumed
(27:19):
we gave the fellow a hard time, and I said, yeah,
but not because of his name. None of us third
graders knew what malarkey meant. Why'd you give him a
hard time? Then Biden asked, it was the third grade.
I said, everybody gave everybody a hard time. He liked
that answer. But back to the point of the lunch.
Your language in these special comments, he said, in those days,
(27:41):
people often brought up my language. See I used to
tell President Bush to shut the hell up, only because
they wouldn't let me use the other word. And some
of the events of that presidency so infuriated me that
I would actually Redden on camera, and I don't Redden
in a sauna. Once my high school history teacher, a distinguished,
(28:01):
an elegant man whose nine older siblings had been born
he Vienna, and who had the courtliness which that implies,
mentioned the language of the special comments, and I thought
I was in for it. He Walter Schneller, told me
on the day I had graduated that my plans to
be a sportscaster were very nice, and he was sure
I would go and do that, but that he was
(28:22):
also sure that I would wind up in politics someday,
either as reporter or combatant. And I told him I
was flattered, but he was crazy. Mister Schneller was the
one who, years later was put in charge of the
school's surprisingly generous fund for bringing in speakers to address
the student body, and he was very annoyed by the
fact that for decades all of the speakers had either
(28:45):
looked like Hugh side the columnist for Time Magazine, or
they had been Hugh Sidey, the columnist for Time Magazine.
He began scouring the Northeast for anybody smart who might
have a diverse background, and that's how he happened to
be driving to the railroad station at Tarrytown, New York,
one morning in nineteen ninety one, to meet the train
(29:06):
that carried that day's guest speaker, an editor of the
Harvard Law Review named Barack Obama. His last words to
Obama were, I'm sure you're going to go very far.
So mister Schneller and I were talking about the commentaries
again about two thousand and six or seven, and he
said about the language, and I braced myself and preamptly apologized, no, no,
(29:31):
He said, urgently, you miss my point entirely. I am
amazed that your language is so restrained. If I were speaking,
I'd have called mister Bush a. And thereupon mister Schneller
made reference to somebody's mother. So when Joe Biden asked
about the language I used, I was wary, but he
followed it by saying that it was kind of why
(29:52):
he had asked me to lunch. I watched those commentaries
you do, and people send me the video and my
staffers tell me about them, and every time I think
the same thing. Here you are expressing anger, but as
as close as it comes to the line, you never
cross it. I say to my staff folks, is he
too angry for you? And they say no, just right.
So here's my question, and then we can enjoy this
(30:14):
great lunch. Here. When I'm passionate about something and I
speak on the Senate floor or anywhere else, I get
told by my friends and my enemies, you're too angry.
And when I really am angry, they all say, you're
really too angry. And here, Joe Biden laughed. Now you
you go on TV, far larger audience, far longer speeches,
and people say that allerman, guy, he's righteously indignant. And now,
(30:37):
with a mixture of laughter, astonishment and curiosity, he said me,
I'm angry. You you're righteously indignant. How do you do that?
How do you do it? Man? Can you tell me?
Without thinking? I replied, You have been in the Senate
(30:58):
for how long? Now, Senator thirty four years? He nodded,
And you're only just asking this question now. The words
were barely out of my mouth when I froze. This
was not a friend or a colleague who would take
the little joking jab I had just thrown in the
way in which I intended. This was a politician. Politicians
(31:21):
may have senses of humor, very few have a sense
of humor about themselves. In that split second, I assume
Joe Biden might get up and leave. And he was
silent for a moment, and then the corners of his
mouth turned up into my great relief, he burst into laughter.
He rocked back into his chair. He slapped the table
with a palm. My god, that's funny. More laughter, My God,
(31:44):
it's true, louder laughter. I don't mind telling you I
have loved him ever since. I didn't think I had
much advice for Senator Biden, but as we talked about
this topic, he asked me follow up questions that made
me analyze for the first time some of the processes
I used when writing and reading on television. I'd never
(32:05):
thought of them before, because I'd never had lunch with
Joe Biden before. I will not bore you with the
full results of the dissection of the process of turning
anger into righteous indignation. The most valuable conclusion was the
oldest one in the book. I always wrote late at night,
while fully angry, and then in the morning I would
take things out of the script, usually the juicier adjectives.
(32:26):
Whatever anger was left was only the most intense and
the most justifiable. And if you present it twenty four
hours after you have written it, you'll be in control
of the anger. Your anger will not be in control
of you. Shorter version, sleep on it. I saw the
senator next in August of two thousand and seven Democratic
(32:49):
primary debate the AFL CIO Candidates Forum officially Soldier Field, Chicago.
Who's outdoors ninety five degrees, ninety five percent humidity, threat
of killer thunderstorms? Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd Richardson, Kucinich, Edwards,
and the moderator me. There are photos of this Joe
(33:10):
Biden and I walking towards each other, hands extended for
a greeting, and I remember it clearly. He is literally
asking me if I've noticed that he's been trying to
turn his anger into righteous indignation, and he's asking me
if I thought he'd succeeded. Well. He did not succeed
in that debate. He actually came over to me during
the commercial break and told me what he was going
(33:31):
to do when we came back, and I told him,
don't do that, and he did it anyway and it
looked bad, And later he let me know I was
right and he was wrong. And since then I can't
recall him being angry, certainly not inappropriately angry, not even
in those debates with that goddamn madman. His words were harsh,
(33:54):
the tone was less so perfect a plus, But it
occurs to me in all the analysis of all the
changes in Joe Biden since day one in nineteen seventy three,
or even the vice presidency, nobody touches on this one thing.
As late as fifteen years ago, he seemed to be
a hothead. When was the last time he was accused
(34:17):
of that. I'm not saying I had anything to do
with that, But two years in and he's not even
accused of being a hot head. It's an awfully nice change,
isn't it. To the master the work of James Thurber,
(34:41):
there is a short film of this story. I don't
think it really does it justice. I don't think anything
does it justice. Occasionally, real life does do it justice.
I've thought, I've seen this story playing out in real
time in this country almost every day for about seven years.
Sit back and relax, if rel is the right word
(35:05):
for it. For the Greatest Man in the World by
James Thurber. Looking back on it now from the vantage
point of nineteen forty, one can only marvel that it
had not happened. Long before it did. The United States
of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk blindly constructing
(35:27):
the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later it must
be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would come,
roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence,
background and character, successfully to endure the mounting orgies of
glory prepared for aviators who stayed up for a long
(35:47):
time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh and Byrd,
fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had been gentlemen,
So had our other famous aviators. They wore their laurels, gracefully,
withstood the awful weather of publicity, married excellent women, usually
fine family, and quietly retired to private life and the
(36:10):
enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No untoward incidents on a
worldwide scale, marred the perfection of their conduct on the
perilous heights of fame. The exception to the rule was, however,
bound to occur, and it did in July nineteen thirty seven,
(36:30):
when Jack Pal Smirch erstwhile mechanics helper in a small
garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew a second hand, single motored
Presthabn Dragonfly three monoplane all the way around the world
without stopping. Never before in the history of aviation had
(36:52):
such a flight as Smirches even been dreamed of. No
one had even taken seriously the weird floating auxiliary gas
tanks invention of the mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy,
doctor Charles. It was Gresham upon which Smirch placed full
reliance When the garage worker, a slightly built, surly unprepossessing
(37:13):
young man of twenty two, appeared at Roosevelt Field early
in July nineteen thirty seven, slowly chewing a great quid
of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody ain't seen no flying yet.
The newspapers touched briefly and satirically upon his projected twenty
five thousand mile flight aeronautical and automotive experts dismissed the idea,
(37:37):
curtly implying that it was a hoax, the publicity stunt.
The rusty, battered second hand plane wouldn't go, the Gresham
auxiliary tanks wouldn't work. It was simply a cheap joke smirch. However,
after calling on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in
(38:00):
the flap folding department of a large paper box factory,
a girl whom he laid described as his sweet Bituti,
climbed nonchalantly into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable
seventh of July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of
tobacco juice into the still air, and took off, carrying
with him only a gallon of bootleg gin and six
(38:23):
pounds of salami. When the garage boy thundered out over
the ocean, the papers were forced to record in all
seriousness that a mad, unknown young man his name was
variously misspelled, had actually set out upon a preposterous attempt
to span the world in a rickety one engine contraption,
(38:44):
trusting to the long distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster.
When nine days later, without having stopped once the tiny
plane appeared above San Francisco Bay, headed for New York,
spluttering and choking, to be sure, but still magnificently and
miraculously aloft the headlines, which long since had crowded everything
(39:04):
something else off the front page. Even the shooting of
the governor of Illinois by the Valetti Gang swelled to
unprecedented size, and the news stories began to run to
twenty five and thirty columns. It was noticeable, however, that
the accounts of the epoch making flight touched rather lightly
(39:26):
upon the aviator himself. This was not because the facts
about the hero as a man were too meager, but
because they were too complete. Reporters who had been rushed
out to Iowa when Smirch's plane was first sighted over
the ledge, a little French coast town of ser Lee
Lemaire to dig up the story of the great man's life,
(39:48):
had promptly discovered that the story of his life could
not be printed. His mother, a sullen short order cook
in a shack restaurant on the edge of a tourists
camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries as to her
son with an angry and the hell with him he drowns.
His father appeared to be in jail somewhere for stealing
(40:09):
spotlights and lap robes from tourists automobiles. His young brother,
a weak minded lad, had but recently escaped from the Preston,
Iowa Reformatory, and was already wanted in several Western towns
for the theft of money order blanks from post offices.
These alarming discoveries were still piling up at the very
time that pal Smirch, the greatest hero of the twentieth century,
(40:34):
lear eyed dead for sleep, half starved, was piloting his
crazy junk heap high above the region in which the
lamentable story of his private life was being unearthed, headed
for New York and a greater glory than any man
of his time had ever known. The necessity for printing
(40:54):
some account in the papers of the young man's career
and personality had led to a remarkable predicament. It was,
of course, impossible to reveal the facts, for a tremendous
popular feeling in favor of the young hero had sprung
up like a grass fire when he was halfway across
Europe on his flight around the globe. He was therefore
(41:14):
described as a modest, chap taciturn blonde, popular with his friends,
popular with girls. The only available snapshot of Smirch, taken
at the wheel of a phony automobile in a cheap
photo studio at an amusement park, was touched up so
that the little vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer
(41:36):
was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth was in
this way kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did
not dream that the Smirch family was despised and feared
by its neighbors in the obscure Iowa town, nor that
the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come
to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace.
(42:00):
Pal's Smirch had, the reporters discovered, once knife the principle
of his high school, not mortally, to be sure, but
he had knifed him, and on another occasion, surprised in
the act of an stealing altar cloth from a church,
he had bashed the sexton over the head with a
pot of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses he
(42:22):
had served a sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities,
both in New York and in Washington, prayed that an
understanding providence might, however awful, such a thing seemed, bring
disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot,
whose unheard of flight had aroused the civilized world to
(42:43):
hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the
character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight
of adulation was bound to reveal him to all the
world as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to
cope with his own prodigious fame. Trust said the Secretary
(43:06):
of State at one of the many secret cabinet meetings
called to consider the national dilemma. I trust that his
mother's prayer will be answered, by which he referred to
missus Emma's Smirch's wish that her son might be drowned.
It was, however, too late for that Smirch had leaped
the Atlantic and then the Pacific as if they were
(43:28):
mill ponds. At three minutes after two o'clock on the
afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven, the garage boy
brought his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect
three point landing. It had, of course been out of
the question to arrange a modest little reception for the
greatest flier in the history of the world. He was
(43:49):
received at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies
as rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the warren and spent
hero promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily from his plane,
and was spirited from the field with a having opened
his mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity
of his first reception, a reception illumined by the presence
(44:13):
of the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor Michael J.
Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada, Governor's Fanamine Groves, mcpheey,
and Critchfield, in a brilliant array of European diplomats. Smirch
did not, in fact come too in time to take
part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at City Hall for
the next day. He was rushed to a secluded nursing
(44:34):
home and confined in bed. It was nine days before
he was able to get up, or to be more exact,
before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile, the greatest
minds in the country, in solemn assembly, had arranged a
secret conference of city, state, and government officials, which Smirch
was to attend for the purpose of being instructed in
(44:58):
the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the day that
the little mechanic was finally allowed to get up in
dress and for the first time in two weeks, took
a great chew of tomacco, he was permitted to receive
the newspaper men this by way of testing him out.
Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said,
(45:20):
and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell a
cock guyed world that I put it over on Lindbergh.
See yeah, man, an ass said, I'm two frogs. The
two frogs was a reference to a pair of gallant
French flyers who, in attempting to flight only halfway round
the world, had two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea.
(45:44):
The Times Man was bold enough at this point to
sketch out for Smirch. He accepted formula for interviews in
cases of this kind. He explained that there should be
no arrogant statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly
heroes of foreign nations. A the hell with that, said Smirch.
I did it. See he did it, and I'm talking
(46:06):
about it, and he did talk about it. None of
this extraordinary interview was, of course printed. On the contrary,
the newspapers, already under the disciplined direction of a secret
directorate created for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors,
gave out to a panting and restless world that Jackie,
(46:26):
as he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say
only that he was very happy, and that anyone could
have done what he did. My achievement has been I
fear slightly exaggerated. The times Man's article had him protest
with a modest smile. These newspaper stories were kept from
the hero, a restriction which did not serve to abate
(46:49):
the rising malevolence of his temper. The situation was indeed
extremely grave for Pal's Smirch was, as he kept insisting,
raring to go. He could not much longer be kept
from a nation clam who lionize him. It was the
most desperate crisis the United States of America had faced
(47:10):
since the sinking of the Lusitania. On the afternoon of
the twenty seventh of July, Smirch was spirited away to
a conference room in which were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists,
and editors. He gave them each a limp moist paw,
and a brief, unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch
(47:35):
was seated, the Mayor of New York arose and, with
obvious pessimism, attempted to explain what he must say and
how he must act when presented to the world, ending
his talk with a high tribute to the hero's courage
and integrity. The mayor was followed by Governor Fannomen of
New York, who, after a touching declaration of faith, introduced
Cameron Spottiswood, second Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris.
(47:58):
The gentlemen selected to coach Smirch in the amenities of
public ceremonies. Sitting in a chair with a soiled yellow
tie in his hand and his shirt open at the throat, unshaved,
smoking a rolled cigarette, Jack Smirch listened with a leer
on his lips. I get you, I get you, he
(48:20):
cut in nastily. You want me to act like a softie? Huh?
You want me to act like that any murmury baby
face lind big huh, well nuts to that. See. Everyone
took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh and
a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began. A United States Senator purple
(48:42):
with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring his
nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh,
for God's sake, that big somebody shut off the blasphemies
with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word
the room. Everyone stood up, except Smirch, who was still
busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up.
(49:03):
Mister smir said someone sternly, the President of the United States.
It had been thought that the presence of the Chief
Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero,
and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation
of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room.
A great painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a
(49:31):
hand at the President. How you coming? He asked, and
began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed
in a strained way. Jesus hot, ain't it, said smirch.
(49:52):
He loosened two more shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest
and the tattooed word sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart.
The great and important men in the room, faced by
the most serious crisis in American history, exchanged worried frowns.
Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Come on, come on,
(50:15):
said smirch. Let's get the hell out of here. When
do I start cutting in on the podies? Eh? And
when is there gonna be this in it? He rubbed
a thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a state
senator shocked Pale. Yeah, money, said Pal, flipping his cigarette
(50:37):
out of the window. And big money. He began rolling
a fresh cigarette. Big money, he repeated, Frowning over the
rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and leered
at each gentleman separately, the leer of an animal that
knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose in
a bird and dog shop. Ah, for God's sake, let's
(51:01):
get someplace where it's cool, he said, I've been cooped
up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood up and walked
over to an open window, where he stood staring down
into the street nine floors below. The faint shouting of
newsboys floated up to him. He made out his name,
hot Dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He leaned out over
(51:26):
the sill. You tell him, babies, he shouted down, Hot
Diggity Dog. In the tense little knot of men standing
behind him, a quick, mad impulse flared up. An unspoken
word of appeal of command seemed to ring through the room,
yet it was deadly silent. Charles K. L Brand, secretary
(51:48):
to the Mayor of New York City, happened to be
standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at the President of
the United States. The President pale grim, nodded shortly. Brand,
a tall, powerfully built man wants to tackle at Rutgers University,
stepped forward, seized the greatest man in the world by
his left shoulder and the seat of his pants, and
(52:09):
pushed him out the window. My god, he's fallen out
the window, cried a quick witted editor. Get me out
of here. Cried the president. Several men sprang to his side,
and he was hurriedly escorted out of a door toward
a side entrance of the building. The editor of the
Associated Press took charge, being used to such things crisply,
he ordered certain men to leave, others to stay quickly.
He outlined a story which all the papers were to
(52:31):
agree on, sent two men to the street to handle
that end of the tragedy, commanded a Senator to sob
and two congressmen to go to pieces nervously. In a word,
he skillfully set the stage for the gigantic task that
was to follow, the task of breaking to a grief
stricken world the sad story of the untimely accidental death
(52:53):
of its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was,
as you know, the most elaborate, the finest columnist, and
the saddest ever held in the United States of America.
The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with its clean white shaft
of marble, then the simple device of a tiny plane
(53:17):
carved on its base, is a place for pilgrims in
deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid
lofty tributes to little Jackie smirch America's greatest hero. At
a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout
the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town
(53:41):
of Westfield, Iowa, observed this touching ceremony. Agents of the
Department of Justice sought that one of them was especially
assigned to stand grimly in the doorway of a little
shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's camping ground
just outside the town. There, under his stern scrutiny, missus
(54:03):
Emma smirched her head over to Hamburger steaks sizzling on
her grill, bowed her head, and turned away so that
the secret serviceman could not see the twisted, strangely familiar
leer on her lips. The Greatest Man in the World
(54:25):
by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I can
do here. Thank you for listening. Here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by
(54:45):
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneale, who are the Countdown
musical directors. Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray All,
orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel produced by Tko Brothers.
Another Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Lderman
theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren
(55:06):
Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Richard Lewis birthday boy as of Thursday, the
twenty ninth of June. Anyway, everything else is pretty much
my fault. So that's countdown. As we reach shouting distance
of the one thousand daymark since Donald Trump's first attempted
(55:28):
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States,
arrest him again while we still can, and then let
him go out on bail and arrest him again. As
I mentioned earlier, the next scheduled countdown is Thursday, July
sixth bulletins. As the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck food for everyone.
(56:07):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts,
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Jack
Smith is ready to indict Trump on between thirty and
(00:26):
forty five more counts, and he is preparing to indict
several of Trump's lawyers from the fake elector's scheme, and
one of them is despite his voluntary interview and proffer
to turn on everybody else in a bid to win
Citizen of the Week award Rudy Giuliani. That is all
from the British newspaper that correctly nailed the Miami indictments
(00:49):
two days before they were finally handed up. CNN ads
at the main Trump campaign official in charge of the
fake electors will cut an immunity deal and will testify
for the special prosecutor. But the headlines run up the
score on Trump to as many as seventy nine counts
and making America's mayor into America's co defendant. They are
(01:13):
coming from Andrew Feinberg in The Independent. Again. Feinberg writes
that the DOJ quote is prepared to seek indictments against
multiple figures in Trump's orbit, and may yet bring additional
charges against the ex president in the coming weeks, although
its sources are not clear, if those charges would come
(01:33):
in a superseding indictment in Florida, or they might be
filed in a different jurisdiction. And we have already discussed
the possibility of Trump being indicted in New Jersey for
the Trump confession tape, plus all the crimes still on
the table in DC. There is one intriguing new twist
to the seemingly trivial question of where to indict Trump next.
(01:57):
It will quoting the story depend in part on whether
they feel the Trump appointed district judge overseeing the case
again against him in the Southern District of Florida, Eileen
Cannon is giving undue deference to Trump. As to the
hapless Rudy Giuliani, Finberg source says that despite the ex
mayor's profer offered to prosecutors, Rudy will quote most definitely
(02:21):
face at least some charges from Jack Smith's office dating
to his actions in the interval between the election and
January sixth. No other specifics and no names of other
lawyers to be indicted mentioned, but we know from Wednesday's
reporting that Giuliani was asked about Jeff can I put
my pants on Clark and John Eastman and Boris Epstein
(02:45):
and Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Jack Wallenchik were mentioned
in different contexts. It would be the CNN scoop that
would presumably explain the independent scoop. CNN's story is that
Mike Roman, who was in essence the desk officer inside
the Trump campaign responsible for coordinate all the fake electors,
(03:06):
and whom The New York Times reported a week ago
had been offered his own limited immunity deal in exchange
for his testimony against the others, has accepted that immunity deal.
Jack Smith's people, in fact, are apparently jonesing so big
time for Roman's info, to the degree that CNN says
Roman may not even have to go before the grand jury.
(03:27):
He may talk instead directly to the prosecutors, and only
the prosecutors, in an interview format. So what is next
in this world in which we struggle out of one
nightmare only to realize we have merely awakened into a
different nightmare? How about this? Trump showed that secret map
(03:49):
to the co chair of a lobbying firm which has
taken millions from at least three Chinese tech firms closely
linked to the Chinese government, the I should not be
showing the map map, so don't get too map. Wednesday night,
ABC News identified the person Trump showed that classified map
(04:11):
to as Susie Wiles, a Trump advisor and Trump campaign
official and his potential twenty twenty four campaign chair. Last night,
The New York Post of all news outlets, identified Susie
Wiles as the co chairman of Mercury Public Affairs, a
lobbying mouthpiece for at least three really bad, really dangerous
(04:35):
Chinese firms, including Ali Baba, the online retailer and web
services company that is actually partially owned by the Chinese government,
in which the Post says, Susie Wiles's company, Mercury, is
still receiving payments from So Trump was explaining a military
operation to a Political Action Committee representative. He said it
(04:59):
was not going well, and to clarify, he showed this
Wiles a classified map of a foreign nation, a map
he had stolen. And she is co chairperson of a
company that receives money that the Chinese government washes through
Ali Baba. And it gets worse. The New York Post
also reported Wiles's company lobbied for Hick Vision was paid
(05:23):
more than a million, seven hundred thousand dollars just last year,
and Hick Vision makes the video surveillance equipment that the
Chinese government quote used to locate and detain Wiger Muslims
in Xinjiang Province, and the co chair of their US
lobbying firm was shown a classified map of another country
(05:46):
by Trump. Posts make sure to emphasize that all government
records show that Susie Wiles herself did not personally lobby
for these Chinese firms, which would have a little more
meaning and which would be a little bit more reassuring
if you know, she wasn't co chair of the company
that did love before them, And we could not collectively
(06:08):
have imagined a worse person for Trump to show that
map too, or show anything he stole to Because there's
even more. Somehow, Susie Wiles's company serviced yet a third
nightmarish Chinese outfit, and it only severed its relationship with
that company last month. This one is a telecommunications firm
(06:29):
called Yaylink, and two years ago Senator Van Holland of
Maryland wrote to Commerce Secretary Ramundo to report a security
analytic company it found. Yaylink phones include software that could
secretly record calls and secretly track the web browsing done
on local networks, and secretly transfer all of that private
(06:51):
information back to Yaylink headquarters in China, as The New
York Post noted, China, where companies must comply with any
government requests to hand over information really to national security
and when in August or September twenty twenty one, Trump
showed Susie Wiles a classified American military map of a
(07:14):
country where it was not going well, and the immediate
speculation was that was a map of Afghanistan. She was
the boss of the lobbying company for one Chinese company
co owned by the Chinese government, another Chinese company that
supplies the Chinese government with video location equipment it uses
to round up minorities, and a third Chinese company that
(07:35):
makes a tool with which the Chinese government can spy
on ordinary citizens anywhere in the world, including in this country.
Because if you order now, you can have a Ylink
phone on your desk by next Monday. It is mind boggling,
and not just because of how wantonly Trump compromised American
security to a person who runs a company lobbying the
(07:58):
US government on behalf of three outlets that are directly
utilized by the Chinese government. And it's mind boggling not
just because this security breach was revealed by a Murdoch paper.
It's mind boggling because one of the tenets of Trump's
undermining of our society has been his continual stoking of
anti Asian sentiment and fear and violence, and his attempt
(08:20):
to brand anybody who disagrees with him as an agent
of the Chinese government. Except he's showing a classified map
he stole to somebody who comes infuriatingly close to that
exact description of agent of the Chinese government. And ultimately,
it is mind boggling because of this, Even if Trump
had some sort of right to show her that map,
(08:43):
or even if he had never shown her any classified materials.
What the hell is Susie Wiles, riddled with connections at
one remove through the Chinese government doing near the top
of the twenty sixteen campaign of the eventual president of
the United States. What is she doing now as a
(09:03):
de facto leader of his twenty twenty four campaign, and
what is she doing as his prospective campaign manager? We
have crushed the concept of the Manchurian candidate into the
ground from over use. Here instead, we have the Manchurian
campaign manager, and if you'd like it all ratcheted up
(09:26):
one more notch. Still, the New York Post is happy
to oblige. Quote. Susie could put Trump away for years.
In just one minute of testimony to Jack Smith, a
rival GOP operative told the Post, She's got Trump by
the balls, which means she can name her price for
(09:47):
her loyalty and Trump can't say no. Unquote. Who the
hell knows where that comes from. The Post does not
explain it's the Post, but it just adds to yet
one more confirmation that however bad you think it is
with Trump, it is always worse, which would describe the
(10:08):
arrest of a man named Taylor Toronto yesterday. He was
picked up near the home of President Barack Obama. Taylor
Toronto is a January sixth participant who has been advertising
that he's been living in a van near the DC
Jailhouse in some sort of twisted solidarity with the other insurrectionists. Trump,
(10:30):
of course, recently posted a screenshot showing what was purportedly
the address of President Obama. Toronto reposted it, adding quote
got them surrounded unquote in short dementia. J Trump doxed
the Obamas when Jack Smith hits him with those additional
(10:54):
dozens of counts reported by The Independent. This time, I
want this scumbag denied bail. The other story you know
about the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in at least
elite universities. There are some mitigating factors that understandably are
(11:17):
not the top part of this story. The ruling is
in large part limited to the biggest schools. One analysis
of acceptance rates at one three hundred and sixty four
four year American colleges and universities showed that the number
of them that admit fewer than ten percent of all
applicants is seventeen out of one thousand, three hundred and
(11:38):
sixty four. The total that admitted fewer than twenty percent
forty six. Most American students get to go where they
want to go, and the idea of voice by the
John Roberts opinion and emphasized by President Biden that any
applicant anywhere can go around the band by devoting part
(11:58):
of their application essay to their personal experience with race
and racism. It is an alternative, though is hardly a
happy one. As Tony Morrison pointed out, the very serious
function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing
your work, It keeps you explaining over and over again
your reason for being distraction. This solution sounds like the
(12:22):
old don't ask, don't tell in the military. Seventeen year
old kids now have to jerry rig a method to
correct the imbalance in this country so ingrained and so
pervasive that forty five years ago this month, when I
started my internship at a New York City television station,
it never occurred to me, not once, that I had
any kind of advantage, let alone a racial advantage, by
(12:46):
the simple fact that my parents had enough money that
I could take the internship and didn't have to spend
those hours working, even though my own father had to
turn down a college scholarship because his parents didn't have
enough money and he did have to spend those hours working.
It looked brief like there would be another silver lining
(13:07):
to this when President Biden spoke to the nation after
the ruling, and particularly with his answer to the one
question that was shouted at him after his remarks, and
the person said, the Supreme Court has proligiate questions on legitacy.
Is this a rogue court? He is not. It is
(13:30):
not a normal court. There is a solution to that.
Within the hour, President Biden was asked about that solution,
and he dropped the ball. Quote, if we start the
process of trying to expand the court, we're going to
politicize it, maybe forever in a way that is not
healthy that you can't get back. Mister President. The Court
(13:54):
is utterly and irredeemably politicized. Now. It is not healthy.
Now it has reached forever corrupt levels. Now, its reputation
cannot be gotten back. Now you either have to expand
it or remove it. God damn. Biden was so close.
(14:21):
But moreover and sitting over this like a vampire cloud
is the simple hypocrisy of people like Clarence Thomas, and
a parable that did dawn on me in my youth,
even if my accidental privilege did not dawn on me.
Then it is the parable of the lifeboat. And probably
(14:45):
for forty years, I have believed that America and probably
all of mankind divides into just two groups. In essence,
you are a passenger on a liner at sea, and
you are hundreds of miles from land, and the boat
suddenly sinks. There are explosions, at horrors and death, and
suddenly you're underwater. And then just as suddenly you bobb
(15:07):
to the surface, and incredibly next to you, not only
are you alive, but they're floating. Is a perfectly undamaged lifeboat.
It is huge, There are ores, there are provisions. You
pull yourself onto it with surprising ease, and then and
there you must join one of the two and only
(15:30):
two groups in the world. If you are in the
first group, your mind crowds with calculations. How many people
can I fit into this boat with me? Should they
all be women and children? Or do I need to
make sure there's several big men in here too so
they can help me row the damn thing? Should I need?
Do I have to get a crew member because I
(15:54):
need somebody with experience on the sea? How long will
all that food last? Could we make it last longer
than it should if we skipped a day here and there?
Those are the thoughts in one group, the thoughts in
the other group. Look, my boat is here, and I
have all this room to myself, and look at all
(16:15):
of my food, And best of all, I have these
great big oars, so I can kill anybody who tries
to climb out of the water and get into my boat.
Clarence Thomas is a member of that second group. It's
his effing boat. Of course, affirmative action must be ended.
(16:39):
What the hell do you think those oars are for.
I'm messing around with the format today, So now time
for the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and
(17:00):
dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst person in
the world. The runner up, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
Prime Minister took a photograph with another Conservative member of
the British Parliament, Daniel Kazinsky, who promptly posted the photo.
The Prime Minister is five feet seven inches tall, mister
(17:22):
Kazinski is six feet nine If you have not seen
this photo, a go and look at it. B It
looks like a publicity still for a ventriloquist to act.
That's not hyperbole, that's what it looks like. The runners
up the fine folks at Fox quote news unquote. They
(17:44):
responded to the report that the President uses a CPAP
machine for sleep apnea by mocking his illness. Laura Ingram
suggested it's quote a scam, and it's a way to
say no, he's not mentally impaired. He just needs to
get a good night's sleep. That's Laura Ingram and I'm
guessing therefore that her alcoholism she wants had twenty drinks
(18:05):
in my presence in one night on a date. I
guess that wasn't a real thing either, and that was
just her covering up her mental impairment. The anchors of
Foxes the five, which is named because it is the
collective IQ of the hosts, were also subhuman on the illness.
The guy is clueless, said Janine Piro, who once held
(18:27):
up her own press conference at which she announced she
was running for senator from New York for a measured
thirty two seconds because she had lost page ten of
her speech, and she asked everybody in the room if
they had seen page ten of her speech. Buzzy can't
breathe half the time. Just for the record, here are
(18:50):
the methods four of the five five hosts with the
five total IQ used to get to sleep. Jesse Waters Chucker,
Carlson's replacement who just lost Carlson's audience by appearing at
a Ron DeSantis event on Thursday. He just hits himself
in the head with a ballpeen hammer that works. Greg Gut.
(19:10):
Greg Gutt keeps tilting his head over until it exceeds
the ninety degree level and then it falls off. Dana Perino, Well,
no brain, no pain, Piero ripple, but our winner New
York City Mayor Eric Adams. You know Eric Adams. Last
summer he said, I thank God I'm the mayor right now.
(19:33):
And last spring he said there is no way God
created me for this moment if he did not believe
this was my moment. I'll read that one again. It's
a wonderful tautology. There is no way God created me
for this moment if he did not believe this was
my moment. Well, Mayor Adams has actually topped both of
(19:55):
those inane, unbalanced sounding remarks. At a town hall in
Washington Heights Wednesday night, a long time rent control activist
went off on Mayor Adams for not fulfilling promises he
made to support specific rent control guidelines, possibly because Adams
is himself a landlord, and in response to this, Mayor
(20:17):
Adams lost his mind. Okay, First, if you're.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Going to ask a question, don't point at me, and
don't be disrespectful to me. I'm the mayor of this city,
and treat me with the respect that would I'm deserved
to be treated. I'm speaking to you as an adult.
Don't stand in front like you treated someone that's on
your plantation that you own. Give me the respect I
deserve and engage in the conversation up here in Washington Heights.
(20:42):
Treat me with the same level of respect I treat you.
So don't be pointing at me, don't be disrespectful to me.
Speak with me as an adult, because I'm a grown man.
I walked into this room as a grown man, and
I'm gonna walk out of this room as a grown man.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I answered your question. That diatribe in which Adams compared
the rent control advocate to a slave owner was directed
at an eighty four year old woman named Jeanie Dubnow,
who has spent five decades pushing to help New Yorkers
of all races and ethnicities to be able to live
here despite the exorbitant rents. She's also a microbiologist at
(21:19):
Rutgers University, and she is a Holocaust survivor. Her parents
fled Germany, then they fled Belgium, then they fled France
and came here. Mayor Adams, trying to get back at her,
went immediately to the race card to attack her in public.
(21:39):
Mayor Adams is an embarrassment to this city. He is
an embarrassment to the Democratic Party. He is an embarrassment
to New York and worst of all, after his last
two years of petulant, self absorbed, idiotic behavior, when he
shouts at an eighty four year old woman, I'm a
grown man, my first response is, exactly what evidence do
(22:00):
you have for that statement, sir? Because you have behaved
consists like an unloved child. Mayor Eric Adams of New
York he won't do this, of course, but he should
resign his office. This city deserves better, and almost anybody
would be better. Eric Adams, Today's worst person in the world.
(22:37):
Also of note here, if you have not heard, we
have begun a YouTube edition of this podcast. It features
what is frankly an adorable animated little ko and some
spectacular oscillator graphics, and the soundtrack is the podcast. It's
just the podcast with some video attached to it. But
if you prefer to watch me, read these scripts except
(23:00):
not really because that's animated me rather than just listening
to me read the scripts. It's available now starting each
weekday at eight am Eastern. We started the YouTube edition
last Monday, just in time to bring in the monthly
total of downloads and full video views of this series
to approximately one million, seven hundred thousand for the month
(23:22):
of June. It was just January when we were celebrating
crossing for the first time the download milestone of one million.
So one million, seven hundred thousand is more. I thank
you kindly again. Tell the others. Speaking of last January,
(23:43):
it turns out the last time I took three consecutive
days off was the Christmas New Year's holiday. So I'm
going to go sit down before I fall down. This
is the two hundred and thirty ninth episode of this
podcast since it debuted last August. First, that too is more.
(24:05):
I'm going to take off next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
and schedule the next countdown for Thursday, July fifth. Have
a happy Fireworks Day. As always, if there is a bulletin,
there will be a bulletin edition. I mean, what could
possibly break between now and then? What was Trump showing
classified maps to a lobbyist for China and Jack Smith
readying forty five more counts against Trump. I mean, what
(24:28):
could possibly happen? I'm sure I'll get my three days
off this time. As to the rest of this edition
of Countdown, I'm mailing it in Things I promised not
to tell is about the day Joe Biden took me
to lunch to ask my advice about public speaking. And
it is still Fridays with Thurber. So let me again
read you his most harrowing story, the one that is
(24:49):
basically about Trump, even though he wrote it in nineteen
thirty one, fifteen years before the world was blighted by
Trump's birth. Hey, look, I'm following textbook both sides ism.
A Biden story means I also have to have a
Trump story. That's next. This is Countdown, you know, this
(25:10):
is Countdown with you know Keith Olberman. Early in two
thousand and seven, my phone rang at MSNBC headquarters in
New Jersey. The Senator would like to take you to
lunch the next time he's in New York. He needs
your advice. Would you be interested? It was Joe Biden's
press guy. My first reaction was to ask if they
(25:33):
had called the wrong number. My next reaction was to
make sure this was not some sort of policy question,
because as a news anchor and commentator for MSNBC, it
did not seem appropriate to offer advice to a candidate
for his party's presidential nomination. And doesn't that seem quite
right now, Sean Hannity.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I was told it was more technical, more about communications,
no policy, my antique standards satisfied, I said sure, They
gave me a couple of dates. They suggested, given his schedule,
the best play to eat would be a restaurant in Manhattan.
Then it turned out it happened to be about forty
five seconds from my home. So the day and hour
arrived March twenty seventh, two thousand and seven, and I
(26:15):
made it to the restaurant all the way down there,
forty five seconds from my home. I sat down, and
moments later in came the Senator from Delaware and his
pres guy. He had the big welcoming smile and equally
big welcoming handshake that you may have seen from back
when candidates could still go greet the people in the crowd.
He reminded me that we had met briefly when he
was in Los Angeles for the two thousand Democratic Convention,
(26:38):
and happened to be staying in the hotel there in
which I lived. Senator Biden then said some nice things
about my days in sports, and particularly about the commentaries
I had begun to do the previous summer on MSNBC.
Those special comments, he said, with first a smile and
then a whistle. There was, then and there remains now,
(26:58):
almost no space between the public Joe Biden of the
campaign or the presidency and the guy who taught informally
to some knucklehead off the streets, which in this story
is me. The word malarkey was used during our lunch,
and I remember that particularly because, as I told him,
I went to grammar school with a kid named Malarkey.
And he was delighted by that. He said, he assumed
(27:19):
we gave the fellow a hard time, and I said, yeah,
but not because of his name. None of us third
graders knew what malarkey meant. Why'd you give him a
hard time? Then Biden asked, it was the third grade.
I said, everybody gave everybody a hard time. He liked
that answer. But back to the point of the lunch.
Your language in these special comments, he said, in those days,
(27:41):
people often brought up my language. See I used to
tell President Bush to shut the hell up, only because
they wouldn't let me use the other word. And some
of the events of that presidency so infuriated me that
I would actually Redden on camera, and I don't Redden
in a sauna. Once my high school history teacher, a distinguished,
(28:01):
an elegant man whose nine older siblings had been born
he Vienna, and who had the courtliness which that implies,
mentioned the language of the special comments, and I thought
I was in for it. He Walter Schneller, told me
on the day I had graduated that my plans to
be a sportscaster were very nice, and he was sure
I would go and do that, but that he was
(28:22):
also sure that I would wind up in politics someday,
either as reporter or combatant. And I told him I
was flattered, but he was crazy. Mister Schneller was the
one who, years later was put in charge of the
school's surprisingly generous fund for bringing in speakers to address
the student body, and he was very annoyed by the
fact that for decades all of the speakers had either
(28:45):
looked like Hugh side the columnist for Time Magazine, or
they had been Hugh Sidey, the columnist for Time Magazine.
He began scouring the Northeast for anybody smart who might
have a diverse background, and that's how he happened to
be driving to the railroad station at Tarrytown, New York,
one morning in nineteen ninety one, to meet the train
(29:06):
that carried that day's guest speaker, an editor of the
Harvard Law Review named Barack Obama. His last words to
Obama were, I'm sure you're going to go very far.
So mister Schneller and I were talking about the commentaries
again about two thousand and six or seven, and he
said about the language, and I braced myself and preamptly apologized, no, no,
(29:31):
He said, urgently, you miss my point entirely. I am
amazed that your language is so restrained. If I were speaking,
I'd have called mister Bush a. And thereupon mister Schneller
made reference to somebody's mother. So when Joe Biden asked
about the language I used, I was wary, but he
followed it by saying that it was kind of why
(29:52):
he had asked me to lunch. I watched those commentaries
you do, and people send me the video and my
staffers tell me about them, and every time I think
the same thing. Here you are expressing anger, but as
as close as it comes to the line, you never
cross it. I say to my staff folks, is he
too angry for you? And they say no, just right.
So here's my question, and then we can enjoy this
(30:14):
great lunch. Here. When I'm passionate about something and I
speak on the Senate floor or anywhere else, I get
told by my friends and my enemies, you're too angry.
And when I really am angry, they all say, you're
really too angry. And here, Joe Biden laughed. Now you
you go on TV, far larger audience, far longer speeches,
and people say that allerman, guy, he's righteously indignant. And now,
(30:37):
with a mixture of laughter, astonishment and curiosity, he said me,
I'm angry. You you're righteously indignant. How do you do that?
How do you do it? Man? Can you tell me?
Without thinking? I replied, You have been in the Senate
(30:58):
for how long? Now, Senator thirty four years? He nodded,
And you're only just asking this question now. The words
were barely out of my mouth when I froze. This
was not a friend or a colleague who would take
the little joking jab I had just thrown in the
way in which I intended. This was a politician. Politicians
(31:21):
may have senses of humor, very few have a sense
of humor about themselves. In that split second, I assume
Joe Biden might get up and leave. And he was
silent for a moment, and then the corners of his
mouth turned up into my great relief, he burst into laughter.
He rocked back into his chair. He slapped the table
with a palm. My god, that's funny. More laughter, My God,
(31:44):
it's true, louder laughter. I don't mind telling you I
have loved him ever since. I didn't think I had
much advice for Senator Biden, but as we talked about
this topic, he asked me follow up questions that made
me analyze for the first time some of the processes
I used when writing and reading on television. I'd never
(32:05):
thought of them before, because I'd never had lunch with
Joe Biden before. I will not bore you with the
full results of the dissection of the process of turning
anger into righteous indignation. The most valuable conclusion was the
oldest one in the book. I always wrote late at night,
while fully angry, and then in the morning I would
take things out of the script, usually the juicier adjectives.
(32:26):
Whatever anger was left was only the most intense and
the most justifiable. And if you present it twenty four
hours after you have written it, you'll be in control
of the anger. Your anger will not be in control
of you. Shorter version, sleep on it. I saw the
senator next in August of two thousand and seven Democratic
(32:49):
primary debate the AFL CIO Candidates Forum officially Soldier Field, Chicago.
Who's outdoors ninety five degrees, ninety five percent humidity, threat
of killer thunderstorms? Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd Richardson, Kucinich, Edwards,
and the moderator me. There are photos of this Joe
(33:10):
Biden and I walking towards each other, hands extended for
a greeting, and I remember it clearly. He is literally
asking me if I've noticed that he's been trying to
turn his anger into righteous indignation, and he's asking me
if I thought he'd succeeded. Well. He did not succeed
in that debate. He actually came over to me during
the commercial break and told me what he was going
(33:31):
to do when we came back, and I told him,
don't do that, and he did it anyway and it
looked bad, And later he let me know I was
right and he was wrong. And since then I can't
recall him being angry, certainly not inappropriately angry, not even
in those debates with that goddamn madman. His words were harsh,
(33:54):
the tone was less so perfect a plus, But it
occurs to me in all the analysis of all the
changes in Joe Biden since day one in nineteen seventy three,
or even the vice presidency, nobody touches on this one thing.
As late as fifteen years ago, he seemed to be
a hothead. When was the last time he was accused
(34:17):
of that. I'm not saying I had anything to do
with that, But two years in and he's not even
accused of being a hot head. It's an awfully nice change,
isn't it. To the master the work of James Thurber,
(34:41):
there is a short film of this story. I don't
think it really does it justice. I don't think anything
does it justice. Occasionally, real life does do it justice.
I've thought, I've seen this story playing out in real
time in this country almost every day for about seven years.
Sit back and relax, if rel is the right word
(35:05):
for it. For the Greatest Man in the World by
James Thurber. Looking back on it now from the vantage
point of nineteen forty, one can only marvel that it
had not happened. Long before it did. The United States
of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk blindly constructing
(35:27):
the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later it must
be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would come,
roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence,
background and character, successfully to endure the mounting orgies of
glory prepared for aviators who stayed up for a long
(35:47):
time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh and Byrd,
fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had been gentlemen,
So had our other famous aviators. They wore their laurels, gracefully,
withstood the awful weather of publicity, married excellent women, usually
fine family, and quietly retired to private life and the
(36:10):
enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No untoward incidents on a
worldwide scale, marred the perfection of their conduct on the
perilous heights of fame. The exception to the rule was, however,
bound to occur, and it did in July nineteen thirty seven,
(36:30):
when Jack Pal Smirch erstwhile mechanics helper in a small
garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew a second hand, single motored
Presthabn Dragonfly three monoplane all the way around the world
without stopping. Never before in the history of aviation had
(36:52):
such a flight as Smirches even been dreamed of. No
one had even taken seriously the weird floating auxiliary gas
tanks invention of the mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy,
doctor Charles. It was Gresham upon which Smirch placed full
reliance When the garage worker, a slightly built, surly unprepossessing
(37:13):
young man of twenty two, appeared at Roosevelt Field early
in July nineteen thirty seven, slowly chewing a great quid
of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody ain't seen no flying yet.
The newspapers touched briefly and satirically upon his projected twenty
five thousand mile flight aeronautical and automotive experts dismissed the idea,
(37:37):
curtly implying that it was a hoax, the publicity stunt.
The rusty, battered second hand plane wouldn't go, the Gresham
auxiliary tanks wouldn't work. It was simply a cheap joke smirch. However,
after calling on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in
(38:00):
the flap folding department of a large paper box factory,
a girl whom he laid described as his sweet Bituti,
climbed nonchalantly into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable
seventh of July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of
tobacco juice into the still air, and took off, carrying
with him only a gallon of bootleg gin and six
(38:23):
pounds of salami. When the garage boy thundered out over
the ocean, the papers were forced to record in all
seriousness that a mad, unknown young man his name was
variously misspelled, had actually set out upon a preposterous attempt
to span the world in a rickety one engine contraption,
(38:44):
trusting to the long distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster.
When nine days later, without having stopped once the tiny
plane appeared above San Francisco Bay, headed for New York,
spluttering and choking, to be sure, but still magnificently and
miraculously aloft the headlines, which long since had crowded everything
(39:04):
something else off the front page. Even the shooting of
the governor of Illinois by the Valetti Gang swelled to
unprecedented size, and the news stories began to run to
twenty five and thirty columns. It was noticeable, however, that
the accounts of the epoch making flight touched rather lightly
(39:26):
upon the aviator himself. This was not because the facts
about the hero as a man were too meager, but
because they were too complete. Reporters who had been rushed
out to Iowa when Smirch's plane was first sighted over
the ledge, a little French coast town of ser Lee
Lemaire to dig up the story of the great man's life,
(39:48):
had promptly discovered that the story of his life could
not be printed. His mother, a sullen short order cook
in a shack restaurant on the edge of a tourists
camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries as to her
son with an angry and the hell with him he drowns.
His father appeared to be in jail somewhere for stealing
(40:09):
spotlights and lap robes from tourists automobiles. His young brother,
a weak minded lad, had but recently escaped from the Preston,
Iowa Reformatory, and was already wanted in several Western towns
for the theft of money order blanks from post offices.
These alarming discoveries were still piling up at the very
time that pal Smirch, the greatest hero of the twentieth century,
(40:34):
lear eyed dead for sleep, half starved, was piloting his
crazy junk heap high above the region in which the
lamentable story of his private life was being unearthed, headed
for New York and a greater glory than any man
of his time had ever known. The necessity for printing
(40:54):
some account in the papers of the young man's career
and personality had led to a remarkable predicament. It was,
of course, impossible to reveal the facts, for a tremendous
popular feeling in favor of the young hero had sprung
up like a grass fire when he was halfway across
Europe on his flight around the globe. He was therefore
(41:14):
described as a modest, chap taciturn blonde, popular with his friends,
popular with girls. The only available snapshot of Smirch, taken
at the wheel of a phony automobile in a cheap
photo studio at an amusement park, was touched up so
that the little vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer
(41:36):
was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth was in
this way kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did
not dream that the Smirch family was despised and feared
by its neighbors in the obscure Iowa town, nor that
the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come
to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace.
(42:00):
Pal's Smirch had, the reporters discovered, once knife the principle
of his high school, not mortally, to be sure, but
he had knifed him, and on another occasion, surprised in
the act of an stealing altar cloth from a church,
he had bashed the sexton over the head with a
pot of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses he
(42:22):
had served a sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities,
both in New York and in Washington, prayed that an
understanding providence might, however awful, such a thing seemed, bring
disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot,
whose unheard of flight had aroused the civilized world to
(42:43):
hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the
character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight
of adulation was bound to reveal him to all the
world as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to
cope with his own prodigious fame. Trust said the Secretary
(43:06):
of State at one of the many secret cabinet meetings
called to consider the national dilemma. I trust that his
mother's prayer will be answered, by which he referred to
missus Emma's Smirch's wish that her son might be drowned.
It was, however, too late for that Smirch had leaped
the Atlantic and then the Pacific as if they were
(43:28):
mill ponds. At three minutes after two o'clock on the
afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven, the garage boy
brought his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect
three point landing. It had, of course been out of
the question to arrange a modest little reception for the
greatest flier in the history of the world. He was
(43:49):
received at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies
as rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the warren and spent
hero promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily from his plane,
and was spirited from the field with a having opened
his mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity
of his first reception, a reception illumined by the presence
(44:13):
of the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor Michael J.
Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada, Governor's Fanamine Groves, mcpheey,
and Critchfield, in a brilliant array of European diplomats. Smirch
did not, in fact come too in time to take
part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at City Hall for
the next day. He was rushed to a secluded nursing
(44:34):
home and confined in bed. It was nine days before
he was able to get up, or to be more exact,
before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile, the greatest
minds in the country, in solemn assembly, had arranged a
secret conference of city, state, and government officials, which Smirch
was to attend for the purpose of being instructed in
(44:58):
the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the day that
the little mechanic was finally allowed to get up in
dress and for the first time in two weeks, took
a great chew of tomacco, he was permitted to receive
the newspaper men this by way of testing him out.
Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said,
(45:20):
and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell a
cock guyed world that I put it over on Lindbergh.
See yeah, man, an ass said, I'm two frogs. The
two frogs was a reference to a pair of gallant
French flyers who, in attempting to flight only halfway round
the world, had two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea.
(45:44):
The Times Man was bold enough at this point to
sketch out for Smirch. He accepted formula for interviews in
cases of this kind. He explained that there should be
no arrogant statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly
heroes of foreign nations. A the hell with that, said Smirch.
I did it. See he did it, and I'm talking
(46:06):
about it, and he did talk about it. None of
this extraordinary interview was, of course printed. On the contrary,
the newspapers, already under the disciplined direction of a secret
directorate created for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors,
gave out to a panting and restless world that Jackie,
(46:26):
as he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say
only that he was very happy, and that anyone could
have done what he did. My achievement has been I
fear slightly exaggerated. The times Man's article had him protest
with a modest smile. These newspaper stories were kept from
the hero, a restriction which did not serve to abate
(46:49):
the rising malevolence of his temper. The situation was indeed
extremely grave for Pal's Smirch was, as he kept insisting,
raring to go. He could not much longer be kept
from a nation clam who lionize him. It was the
most desperate crisis the United States of America had faced
(47:10):
since the sinking of the Lusitania. On the afternoon of
the twenty seventh of July, Smirch was spirited away to
a conference room in which were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists,
and editors. He gave them each a limp moist paw,
and a brief, unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch
(47:35):
was seated, the Mayor of New York arose and, with
obvious pessimism, attempted to explain what he must say and
how he must act when presented to the world, ending
his talk with a high tribute to the hero's courage
and integrity. The mayor was followed by Governor Fannomen of
New York, who, after a touching declaration of faith, introduced
Cameron Spottiswood, second Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris.
(47:58):
The gentlemen selected to coach Smirch in the amenities of
public ceremonies. Sitting in a chair with a soiled yellow
tie in his hand and his shirt open at the throat, unshaved,
smoking a rolled cigarette, Jack Smirch listened with a leer
on his lips. I get you, I get you, he
(48:20):
cut in nastily. You want me to act like a softie? Huh?
You want me to act like that any murmury baby
face lind big huh, well nuts to that. See. Everyone
took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh and
a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began. A United States Senator purple
(48:42):
with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring his
nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh,
for God's sake, that big somebody shut off the blasphemies
with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word
the room. Everyone stood up, except Smirch, who was still
busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up.
(49:03):
Mister smir said someone sternly, the President of the United States.
It had been thought that the presence of the Chief
Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero,
and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation
of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room.
A great painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a
(49:31):
hand at the President. How you coming? He asked, and
began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed
in a strained way. Jesus hot, ain't it, said smirch.
(49:52):
He loosened two more shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest
and the tattooed word sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart.
The great and important men in the room, faced by
the most serious crisis in American history, exchanged worried frowns.
Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Come on, come on,
(50:15):
said smirch. Let's get the hell out of here. When
do I start cutting in on the podies? Eh? And
when is there gonna be this in it? He rubbed
a thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a state
senator shocked Pale. Yeah, money, said Pal, flipping his cigarette
(50:37):
out of the window. And big money. He began rolling
a fresh cigarette. Big money, he repeated, Frowning over the
rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and leered
at each gentleman separately, the leer of an animal that
knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose in
a bird and dog shop. Ah, for God's sake, let's
(51:01):
get someplace where it's cool, he said, I've been cooped
up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood up and walked
over to an open window, where he stood staring down
into the street nine floors below. The faint shouting of
newsboys floated up to him. He made out his name,
hot Dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He leaned out over
(51:26):
the sill. You tell him, babies, he shouted down, Hot
Diggity Dog. In the tense little knot of men standing
behind him, a quick, mad impulse flared up. An unspoken
word of appeal of command seemed to ring through the room,
yet it was deadly silent. Charles K. L Brand, secretary
(51:48):
to the Mayor of New York City, happened to be
standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at the President of
the United States. The President pale grim, nodded shortly. Brand,
a tall, powerfully built man wants to tackle at Rutgers University,
stepped forward, seized the greatest man in the world by
his left shoulder and the seat of his pants, and
(52:09):
pushed him out the window. My god, he's fallen out
the window, cried a quick witted editor. Get me out
of here. Cried the president. Several men sprang to his side,
and he was hurriedly escorted out of a door toward
a side entrance of the building. The editor of the
Associated Press took charge, being used to such things crisply,
he ordered certain men to leave, others to stay quickly.
He outlined a story which all the papers were to
(52:31):
agree on, sent two men to the street to handle
that end of the tragedy, commanded a Senator to sob
and two congressmen to go to pieces nervously. In a word,
he skillfully set the stage for the gigantic task that
was to follow, the task of breaking to a grief
stricken world the sad story of the untimely accidental death
(52:53):
of its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was,
as you know, the most elaborate, the finest columnist, and
the saddest ever held in the United States of America.
The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with its clean white shaft
of marble, then the simple device of a tiny plane
(53:17):
carved on its base, is a place for pilgrims in
deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid
lofty tributes to little Jackie smirch America's greatest hero. At
a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout
the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town
(53:41):
of Westfield, Iowa, observed this touching ceremony. Agents of the
Department of Justice sought that one of them was especially
assigned to stand grimly in the doorway of a little
shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's camping ground
just outside the town. There, under his stern scrutiny, missus
(54:03):
Emma smirched her head over to Hamburger steaks sizzling on
her grill, bowed her head, and turned away so that
the secret serviceman could not see the twisted, strangely familiar
leer on her lips. The Greatest Man in the World
(54:25):
by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I can
do here. Thank you for listening. Here are the credits.
Most of the music was arranged, produced, and performed by
(54:45):
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneale, who are the Countdown
musical directors. Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray All,
orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel produced by Tko Brothers.
Another Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Lderman
theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren
(55:06):
Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Richard Lewis birthday boy as of Thursday, the
twenty ninth of June. Anyway, everything else is pretty much
my fault. So that's countdown. As we reach shouting distance
of the one thousand daymark since Donald Trump's first attempted
(55:28):
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States,
arrest him again while we still can, and then let
him go out on bail and arrest him again. As
I mentioned earlier, the next scheduled countdown is Thursday, July
sixth bulletins. As the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck food for everyone.
(56:07):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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