All Episodes

June 21, 2023 41 mins

EPISODE 232: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Sam Alito must resign from the Supreme Court after Pro Publica dropped a ton of bricks on the conservative icon/fraud's head: a Supreme Court case worth as much as $2.4 BILLION to the company of a hedge fund robber baron named Paul Singer, after Paul Singer gave Sam Alito a free ride to Alaska on a private jet. Alito didn't declare the ride and didn't recuse from the case. His argument? The seat "as far as I am aware, would otherwise have been vacant. It was my understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer. Translation? If it was worth anything, why did he give it to me for free? Alito rushed a panicky, sloppy, typo-riddled denial before Pro Publica actually published, and it ran as an Op-Ed on The Wall Street Journal Editorial page.The Op-Ed also implies that the Journal's "informed sources" close to the Supreme Court all this time - including about the Roe-V-Wade leak - was almost certainly Alito.

Plus: Part 2 of Fox's interview with Dementia J. Trump is highlighted by his belief that the stalking horse being run against Biden in the Democratic primary is JFK JUNIOR not RFK JUNIOR. Huge if true. And new polling about DJT is actually newsworthy: GOP approval slips 10 points in one poll.

And a special message to all those Conservatives whining about the Trump indictments and the Hunter Biden plea deal: We don't care. We no longer care what you think. Think what you want - we give up. We will now focus on defeating and silencing you.

B-Block (18:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Somebody put something in the water in the Op-Ed room at The New York Times. SEVENTEEN different "Why (Pop Culture Item X) Explains America" articles. And the contention that 'America Has A Lot To Learn From The Fox Sports Cable Debate Show Skip Bayless And Shannon Sharpe Do That Nobody But Nobody Watches' (24:09) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Do you remember who Liz Truss was? Do you remember who the Lettuce was? Liz is mad about the lettuce. A raid at Paris HQ raises the question: Why do we HAVE Olympics? And how could the Peter Hotez/RFK Junior/Elon Musk/Joe Rogan debate nonsense get any worse? How about if the worthless Megyn Kelly joined in?

C-Block (29:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody brought up "Citizen Kane" the other day and I was flashed back again nearly 40 years to the day I met one of its stars - Hollywood immortal Joseph Cotten - and didn't realize it was him because I was on my way to interview Mickey Mantle. Keith name drops faster than you can. Enjoy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
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. A
ton of bricks is about to fall on a conservative

(00:24):
icon of the Supreme Court, another one. Pro Publica is
clearly poised to expose that the fascistic Samuel Alito, the
man who overturned Roe v. Wade and cited a seventeenth
century which sentencing judge as he did so, has his
own version of Clarence Thomas's Harlan Crowe. And Alito's Harlan

(00:47):
Crowe is named Paul Singer, and Paul Singer is a
billionaire hedge fund manager and one of the funders of
the fascist website The Washington Free Beacon. And whatever exactly
it is that Pro Publica has compiled, it is bad
enough that Alito not only has issued that rarest of denials,
the preemptive denial, but he has done so in the

(01:07):
form of a really sloppy, panicky op ed that the
Wall Street Journal editorial page rushed to publish last night,
and in so doing, the Journal and Alito pretty much
confirmed who the Journal's informed sources have been close to
the court, dating back to even before they speculated that
John Roberts was trying to talk a few other justices

(01:29):
down from the Roe v. Wade ledgend into a compromise
that their informed sources are all named sam Alito, and
sam Alito has been leaking Supreme Court debates and decisions
like a sieve and could, at least, in theory, be
prosecuted for it. For what Alito denies that Pro Publica

(01:49):
hasn't accused him of yet. It appears Alito accepted at
least a free flight on a private jet to Alaska
from this singer, yet did not recuse himself from a
case before the Court that was worth as much as
two billion, five hundred million dollars to a company owned
in part by this singer. Alito says he didn't know
Singer had anything to do with the company. Even if he did,

(02:12):
he didn't have to recuse. He didn't know the seat
on the plane had any value. He wouldn't have had
to disclose it even if he had to and had known,
and had to and had known. And if you think
I'm being gratuitous when I describe Alito's response to this
in the paper as sloppy and panicky, he refers in
his first sentence in the Wall Street Journal to a

(02:34):
quote financial disclose report. This is Alito, who isn't honest,
isn't democratic, isn't law abiting, but is also fiercely arrogant
and never panics. And he wrote this thing so fast
he eluded his own spell check. Alito's opinions and dissents
sometimes strain logic and credulity, but even he has never

(02:56):
written anything this laugh out loud funny as an excuse
for something quote. As for the flight, mister Singer and
others had already made a rain to fly to Alaska
when I was invited shortly before the event, and I
was asked whether I would like to fly there in
a seat that, as far as I am aware, would
have otherwise been vacant. It was my understanding that this

(03:19):
would not impose any extra cost on mister Singer. This
is exactly the same as going to the airport and
asking the nice man over at Delta if you can
have a seat to Paris, and then when it's time
to pay, you say, I don't have to pay anything.
The seat would have otherwise been vacant. It was my
understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on
mister Delta. And to take the lack of logic one

(03:43):
step further, if Delta actually then said, ah, yeah, you're right,
skip it whatever, you then leave the cost of that
flight off your taxes, because if it had value, why
did they give it to you for nothing? I mean,
even for Alito. None of this is really convincing. And
the I don't know him. I didn't have to know
that I knew him. I didn't have to disclose it

(04:04):
in this seat was empty anyway defense is so weak
that it's about a foot away from saying I ran
out of gas, I had a flat tire, I didn't
have enough money for cab fair my tucks didn't come
back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from
out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake,
a terrible flood, locust. There wasn't my fall.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I swear I got.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Owen. Besides the sense that Alito's move let's blow up
pro Publica before they publish, suggests this is about way
more than one free ride on what the spare tire
in the back of the plane, and apart from the
Wall Street Journal's willingness to print this from Alito, and
as noted, apparently not even proof read it, And apart

(04:43):
from the reinforcement of the theory that Alito leaks to
the journal that's why he sent them this rather than say,
sending it to oh, pro Publica in a what do
you call those things? Email? And apart from the fact
that the former FBI executive Pete Struck wrote last night,

(05:04):
wait an Alito free private luxury jet trip to Alaska
with Paul Singer, the same Paul Singer who initially funded
Fusion GPS's OPO work on Donald Trump World, Sure is
funny unquote. Besides all that, there's also another irony in here.

(05:25):
The case that Pro Publica will presumably identify as dirty
was a suit involving NML Capital and others against the
government of Argentina. In two thousand and one. Argentina defaulted
on ninety five billion dollars worth in bonds and offered
creditors thirty three cents on the dollar. NML Capital refused

(05:47):
and sued, and up it went to the Supreme Court,
and nine years ago this month, Scotis voted seven to
one in favor of NML Capital and the others. And
guess what that dissent, the one that wasn't Alito and
there's a newspaper column which shows Paul Singer's involvement in
the case before the court, and it's not exactly subtle.
The case included quote a subsidiary of Paul Singer's Elliott

(06:12):
Management called NML Capitol, which is owed some two point
five billion in principle and back interest unquote. And that
newspaper piece was published on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
And sam Alito might be able to get away with
a lot of denials in his life, but not one

(06:32):
person is ever going to believe him when he says,
I don't read the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Meanwhile,
Dementia J. Trump is at it again, his stalking horse
running against Biden, the famous and crazy political fortunate sun guy.

(06:58):
He and the other Republicans and the Libertarians are propping
up as a challenger to try to sew chaos in
the Democratic primaries. You know the name of the man
I'm talking about, right, Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Right, No, sorry,
you got the name wrong.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
And Biden he's got somebody at twenty one percent. I
just saw a number twenty one percent, jfk Junior, who's
a very nice person. I know him very well. He's
a very very fine person. He's a twenty one percent.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
That from the second half of his interview with Brett
Behar on Fox News Channel. And I have to admit
Brett Behar made me happy. JFK. Junior says dementia. J
Trump bear more in exhaustion than an anger, says Robert.
Robert Trump never even notices it. He thinks that's JFK. Junior.

(07:49):
As to the rest of the Trump interview, in a
surprising development, Trump did not confess again to any or
all of the thirty seven counts in the document's case,
so we'll just have to stick with all of his
confessions from part one on Monday night. In another surprise,
there is that rarest of political news stories now new
polling that is both insightful and newsworthy. The NBC poll

(08:12):
shows fifty nine percent of Americans think Trump should end
his campaign now, and eleven percent more say he should
if convicted. A majority approves of the indictments. Those seventy
one percent say politics played a role in the decision
to charge him. But what does the word politics mean here?
If I think he should never hold political office again?

(08:33):
Is that politics? If I think our system of politics
and government will only be preserved if he is in jail.
Is that politics? Is it? For the average respondent to
this NBC poll? What does politics mean? What isn't politics? Anyway?
There is news in the poll. The percentage of Republicans

(08:54):
who think he should end his campaign now is twenty
six percent, and that is still on the margins, but
keep it filed somewhere. It's a quarter of Republicans who
think he should drop out today because also the Republican's
first choice for their nominee is still Trump, but it's
now forty seven percent. A month ago it was fifty
three percent. And the biggest growth among the other candidates

(09:16):
is impossibly enough Pence. Pence has gone from six percent
to nine percent. But the real inside statistic. One month ago,
before the indictments, Trump was viewed favorably by seventy seven
percent of Republican voters. Now sixty seven percent of Republican voters.

(09:36):
A ten point drop in anything is a trend worth
keeping an eye on. Watch that one the next time
they ask after the next round of indictments. By the way,
if you heard that the trial of the United States
of America versus dementia Jay Trump has been slated to
commence by the Trump appointed judge Eileen Cannon on August fourteenth. Relax,

(09:59):
don't make your reservations. Not one person who has ever
been in the same room as a law textbook thinks
it'll actually start that day. Canon is notorious for choosing
the earliest date possible and then letting the delays start
knocking it back from there. Besides which, we also have
to wait for Alito's next op ed in the Journal
denying that he knows Trump. By the way, I also

(10:26):
have a message for conservatives who are angry about Hunter
Biden's plea deal and Trump's indictment and Trump's other indictment
and Trump's upcoming indictment and Trump's later indictments. The message
for conservatives is this, we don't care the rest of us.
We don't care anymore what you think you believe. Laws

(10:49):
do not apply to you, and especially not to dementia.
J Trump and you bemoan weaponized government when the only
thing you really object to it about it is you
believe you do not own the weapon permanently. Think what
you like. You're wrong. We never should have indulged you
nor are good with you. We're gonna stop that now.
We don't care anymore. The country is not biased against you.

(11:11):
Just because you're paranoid, that does not mean they are
out to get you. The hunter Biden prosecutor was appointed
by Trump. This FBI director was appointed by Trump, and
the only political pressure applied to the Trump documents investigation
was on his behalf. The Biden administration gave him a
full year to give it all back, and then gave
him more time after that, and even now it would

(11:33):
probably take a plea deal with him. And oh, by
the way, Trump is incredibly guilty. He's treason us and
traitorous enough to merit capital punishment, which he will not get.
Because we are squeamish. And if you don't believe all
that reality, we don't care. We don't care anymore. Believe
what you want, you believe what you want anyway. This

(11:56):
is where reality leaves you behind, and the argument ends,
we don't care. There are still millions of rational Americans,
and by that I mean people who are not conservative,
who still in their hearts think that they might be
able to convert Grandpa or talk their old friend back off.

(12:18):
The QAnon ledge forget them. It has not worked, it
will not work. Stop wasting your time. I don't know
what we do about them now, but essentially they are dead,
and I might add for many of them, the fuel
to their insane conservative fire is our efforts to fix them.

(12:38):
I will not fix them. You will not fix them.
They will make it back to reality, or they won't.
You should save your energy for the effort to rehabilitate
them if they actually do seek help. Otherwise, our focus
can only be this, defeat them, kicking their cult leaders

(12:59):
out of office, stripping their attorneys of their law degrees,
marginalizing them in culture and entertainment and business. They think
they are marginalized anyway, Why shouldn't we gain the advantages
that would come with that, and with the blame which
they already heap upon us. The Hunter Biden plea deal
matters because in some senses it draws a perfect picture

(13:20):
of the destabilized terrain upon which conservatism is built. Here
is a Nepo baby. Well, Nepo babies, that's the point
of conservatism. He's got hookers and blow the breakfast of conservatism.
He's a gun owner, the real addiction of conservatism. He's
got his inalienable Second Amendment rights, the litmus test of conservatism,

(13:44):
and he was prosecuted by a weaponized Department of Justice,
the stigmata of conservatism. And they've had to treat him
their brother like an enemy. Hookers in blow and the
Second Amendment walking over this bed of hot coals has

(14:08):
shaken the conservative movement. There are only so many rationalizations. Well,
he had the wrong kind of hookers, and about the guns.
He didn't shoot anybody. And the guy at Justice who
got him to plead to an ownership while drug abusing
charge that they never prosecute. That guy was appointed by

(14:29):
Trump hunter Biden has deranged them well. Also of interest
here well well, Embers from the Elon Musk Joe Rogan,
Peter Hotez debate thing with the JFK RFK senior junior

(14:54):
whoever jf r K, I'll take it from Laguardi instead,
whoever it is. Embers from that flared up again yesterday
and Meghan Kelly involved long enough to make worse persons,
and not because they threw water on her and then
she said she was melting. In fact, she said that's next.
This is kind of this is countdown with Keith Alboman

(15:25):
postscripts to the news. Some headlines, some updates, some stark,
some prediction s date line New York Times headquarters here
in bigtown. Do you see what happens? Do you see
what happens? Larry? Do you see what happens? When you
don't know? You're the butt of a long running internet joke. No,
not Larry David. For years, people have made fun of
The New York Times for its op ed pages, particularly

(15:49):
when those pages try to force culture into a political
box or politics into a cultural box, or sometimes both
at the same time. One running gag, advanced brilliantly by
the Twitter account New York Times pitch Bot, is the
painful Maureen Dowd column in which a movie or musical
plot is twisted to fit her thesis. The most recent

(16:11):
quote job Dick Orcas are attacking pea quads all over
the world, but the only great whale Biden is hunting
is orange by Maureen Dowd. No, she didn't really write that.
Another theme is the in This Ohio Diner Times formula
and the frequently seen column titled how X Explains America.

(16:34):
You can put anything you want to into the X
movie book. TV series. Yesterday, The New York Times either
leaned into the gag, or much more likely, stumbled into
it without knowing. It devoted nearly all of its op
ed section to a series of how X explains America,
How Ted Lasso explains America, How Her explains America, How

(16:58):
a Hazard of New Fortunes explains America. How Ragged Dick
explains America, How The Great Gatsby explained America, How South
Park explains America. How Rappers Delight explains America. There were
seventeen of them in all, presented in full seriousness. Only
one was missing. How Bad New York Times Editing explains America.

(17:21):
Even more harrowing, Yesterday's New York Times opinion section featured
very possibly the most irrelevant trivial thing ever printed in
The New York Times. A guest op ed was titled
what America could learn from Skip and Shannon Undisputed. Skip

(17:41):
and Shannon Undisputed. For those few of you who don't
know what it is, is a television show kind of
It is a cable sports debate program ripped off from
an ESPN cable sports debate program for which Fox Sports
literally hired away from an ESPN Sports debate program a
host called Skip Bayless. All such programs are the same,

(18:04):
with the exception of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, which is
the only one of all of them, and there are
seventeen million on the air right now, designed to be
as succinct as possible half an hour in total, about
a minute maybe ninety seconds per topic tops. All the
others are there for only one reason, to kill as

(18:25):
much TV or radio time as possible. The heroes of
this profession, the well paid ones, are those who can
say one thing and take twenty seven minutes to do it,
and then say it again and kill off another twenty
seven minutes, or, to put it in their terms, to
kill off twenty seven minutes of time, and then to
kill off time in the total of twenty seven minutes.

(18:46):
A hint of racism underneath the conversation usually helps, to
say nothing of a strict avoidance of anything more complicated
than who is undoubtedly the greatest player of all time?
This week. Fox hired Away Bayless from ESPN in twenty sixteen,
and six and a half years later, the Bayles Show
on Fox averages two hundred thousand viewers a day at

(19:10):
this rate of growth. It debuted with one hundred and
seven thousand viewers, so let's say it's adding one hundred
thousand every six and a half years. That means it
will reach a million viewers a show sometime in the
year twenty seventy five, or it would have if Bayless's
co host, Shannon Sharp had not announced he's leaving. Anyway,
I read this New York Times op ed written by

(19:32):
an editor of a Catholic literary journal, twice, and I'm
still not sure what America could learn from Skip and
Shannon undisputed, other than that that which may surprise some
of the millions who used to watch this Bayliss on ESPN,
which is that he did not retire or die in
twenty sixteen. He merely went to Fox. The piece seems

(19:52):
to suffer from something I have never seen before, the
contention that sports debate on TV and radio is well done,
or is somehow necessary, or would somehow be missed if
it all disappeared tomorrow, or shows us how different people
can talk to each other productively or something without I guess,

(20:15):
stabbing each other, or that people watch and like Skip Bayless,
or know what the name of Fox's cable sports network
is I used to work for Fox's cable sports network.
I was the senior correspondent for Fox's cable Sports network.
And I don't even know what the name of it is.
But now it's in the New York Times. It belongs
to the Ages. It's all the news that fits. I

(20:38):
am expecting The New York Times will soon offer me
an op ed titled how what America could learn from
Skipp and Shannon Undisputed Explains America by Maureen Dowd. Still ahead.

(21:03):
Oh boy, he got me talking about Citizen Kane, the
Great movie again, And so I had to tell the
story of the day I met one of its stars
and did not know I had met him until after
he left. Not good, Keith, Not good. Next in things
I promised not to tell. First the daily round up
of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world Brons. The twenty

(21:28):
twenty four Paris Olympic Organizing Committee, its headquarters in San Denis,
outside Paris, and the French public body in charge of
building projects for next summer's Olympics both got little visits
yesterday raided by the French department in charge of investigating
financial crimes. The president of the French Olympic Organizing Committee

(21:48):
had resigned last month. France's national rugby and soccer federation
chiefs both resigned earlier this year. Remind me again why
we have Olympics. The runner up, Liz Truss, does that
name ring a bell, a distant bell? You know she
was Prime Minister of Great Britain last year. Then again,

(22:09):
who wasn't And when she took office there was just
a little expectation that Liz Trust wasn't going to make it.
London's newspaper, The Daily Mail, started a live stream of
ahead of Lettuce to see which would last longer. The
Lettus or Liz Trusts forty four days letter. Having crashed
the British economy and lost the support of her own party,

(22:31):
Liz Trust was forced out. The Lettuce won, but no
hard feelings. Asked by the Irish network RTE what she
thought of the live, local and late breaking Lettuce, Liz
Trust has now replied. She snapped at the question, then
said quote, I don't think it was particularly funny. I
think it's quare Isle Liz. Yeah, but think about how

(22:51):
the lettuce feels. But our winner, Megan Kelly, the fired
Fox and NBC starlett who now keeps the world's camera
filter manufacturers in business, largely because I don't want to
have to go through all this again. I'm going to
assume you know the entire Joe Rogan RFK junior doctor
Peter Hotes debate nonsense. Any who Hotes has now tweeted

(23:15):
that he's hoping to stay on Twitter and other social media,
but it's stranger than ever, especially for scientists like him.
Kelly thereupon chimed in with a two word message for
doctor Hotes quote grow up, unquote grow up. Megan Kelly
is the shrillest, whiniest, most self absorbed, most self martyring,

(23:37):
loudest crying complainer on Twitter. She is a veritable overflowing
toilet of umbrage and unrighteous indignation. And she is telling
somebody else, somebody who actually contributes something to society, to
grow up. Megan. What is her appeal again, Kelly Today's

(24:01):
worst parson and the world. Now to the number one
story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and

(24:21):
things I promised not to tell and I swear I thought,
I heard her say, Carleton, this was also December in
nineteen eighty five in Los Angeles, and if you've never
spent Christmas in a warm metropolitan area for the first
time in your life, you do not know what disorientation
really is. I had just completed three months in my

(24:43):
new job as the sports director of Channel five in LA.
I had spent most of November adjusting not only to
it not getting cold, but to the fact that almost
nobody else noticed that it was not getting cold, except
one of our production assistants, who sprinted through the parking
lot and up the stairs into the little bungalow on
the KTLA lot in Hollywood that housed our sports department.

(25:05):
He shivered like a dog, shaking himself awake, and announced,
my god, it's bitter out there. Bitter. I checked. It
was forty nine degrees. So December nineteen eighty five was
already weird enough. I was doing well in LA Being
three thousand miles away from everyone and everything I knew
had been surprisingly helpful, and there was no ramp up

(25:26):
time for my work. I'd already won a couple of
Best Sportscaster awards, and then the top All News radio
station was asking me to come over every afternoon and
split the afternoon drive sportscasting shift with a guy who'd
been on the air there literally for thirty years, who's
one of the voices in the background and The Godfather
Part two? And now somehow my producer, Ron Grelnick, and

(25:48):
I were headed to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to go
interview Mickey Mantle. For the average LA sportscaster, there really
wasn't much reason to interview Mickey Mantle, which is why
all of them at the bigger three network stations had
turned down the offer of a sit down interview. But
I was a New Yorker and had been three months earlier,

(26:09):
and thus Mickey Mantle was my idol. And moreover, when
I became a baseball fan in nineteen sixty seven, my
folks bought tickets specifically behind first base at Yankee Stadium
because they had just moved Mantle there from the outfield.
And as my dad said, when you are an old man,
you will say the greatest thing you ever saw in
baseball was Mickey Mantle, so you might as well see

(26:31):
as much of him as you can. Well, I'm an
old man now, and my dad was exactly right. Mantle
was on a tour publicizing some kind of hitting video
and he would do one exclusive interview with an LA
station at like exactly five pm on that night in
December nineteen eighty five. And to get it you had
to agree to give the video exactly one plug and

(26:52):
ask him one question about it. But otherwise you could
ask whatever you wanted. He had fifteen minutes then he
was going out to dinner. Yeah, yeah, that was it dinner.
So Ron and I pulled up to the Beverly Wilshire
in his car, and I had never been in, but
I had walked past it a dozen times, and I
knew there was a new wing and an old wing.

(27:13):
And as Ron tried to park, I tried to find
the room where Mantle would be waiting for us, so
I could be there to meet the camera crew that
was joining us from some other shoot somewhere. And also
because he was Mickey Mantle. I had met him before.
I had even interviewed him briefly for CNN, but nothing
like this, nothing like a sit down interview, just me
and him. The room number was something like eight ninety seven,

(27:39):
could have been five ninety seven. Could have been twelve
ninety seven, but it was basically the highest number there
could be on a given hotel floor. And I saw
the elevator just pass the registration desk and up. I
went to the eighth floor, and it was a deserted labyrinth,
turn after turn and nobody there. And then suddenly I
turned a corner, and walking towards me was the most

(28:00):
elegantly dressed older couple I had ever seen to that
or since she was wearing a mink stole atop a
beautiful gown, and she had a diamond necklace big enough
to induce cramps. She had a piercing, glistening set of
deep brown eyes. She looked to be in her mid

(28:23):
to late fifties, but might have been older. He was older,
maybe eighty, but with a full head of thick and
wiry hair. He was tall, thin, extraordinarily elegant in a
perfect tuxedo. But all of this was overwhelmed, almost erased,
by one fact that startles me still thirty seven years later.

(28:44):
This man was wearing a cape. I'm pretty confident that
I had never seen a man wearing a cape before.
I know I have not seen one since I have
been looking, and yet it looked so good on him
that I can recall briefly thinking, Keith, maybe you should

(29:04):
by a cape. This couple was perfect. We seem to
be the only people on the floor. The hallway wasn't
all that wide. I said, good evening as I passed.
She said good evening, and in so doing revealed a
British accent, and he mumbled at evening and revealed what
sounded like the lingering minor aftermaths of a minor stroke.
They walked their way, I walked mine, and my focus

(29:28):
returned to finding Mickey Mantle in room eight ninety seven.
The numbers of the rooms I was passing were like
eight eleven and eight fourteen, And after a few more
turns of the labyrinth that dawned on me that I
must be in the old wing of the Beverly Wilshire,
and the high numbers like eight ninety seven must have
been in the new Wing of the Beverly Wilshire. I

(29:48):
also noticed that I had not passed a doorway or
a vestibule or some kind of connecting bridge to the
new wing, so I had better make it back to
the elevator and the lobby before Ron or the camera
crew made the same mistake I had. Because Mickey Mantle
was waiting, I reversed course. I began to trot. After
three or four more of these labyrinthine turns, I found,

(30:11):
to my shock that the perfectly elegant older couple he
was wearing a cape, was standing exactly where I had
left them. She laughed. She mentioned something about the higher
numbers being in the new wing and everybody made that mistake.
I thanked her, and then she said, you're the young
man who does the spots on the television, aren't you.

(30:32):
And I had gotten pretty popular pretty fast there, but
being recognized was still very surprising and pleasantly so. And
I said that, and I introduced myself, So nice to
meet you. She said, I'm Patricia Carlton. And this she
pointed to the guy in the cape is my husband.
He slowly extended a hand but shook mine vigorously, and
I'm Joseph Carlton. Missus Carlton was very excited. You know,

(30:57):
Joe and I we really are not fans of the sports,
but whenever we were at home in Palm Springs, we
make sure we stay up until the end of the
ten o'clock news so we could walk you. Joe nodded
and smiled in the cape. You know, so clearly enjoying
yourself that we find ourselves enjoying it too. That's really
quite remarkable. I was genuinely touched and remain so I

(31:17):
explained my dilemma. I treated them as you are supposed
to treat viewers, gratefully and solicitously, and I asked them
if they were going to the lobby, and if I
might walk with them so I didn't get any further lost.
We'd be delighted. I must ask you, mister fishman, who
does the news on your program? Is that his real hair?
She saw my shock at the question. Joe and I

(31:38):
have often worn wigs, and we can't be certain. That
means if it is a wig, it's a good one.
We reached the elevator bank and I pushed down. He
was walking slowly. He must have had a stroke. Still,
he was an imposing figure of a man, and not
just because he was wearing a cape. As I steered
them away from the subject of our anchorman's to pay

(32:01):
and talked instead about my Mickey Mantle interview, I realized
he looked extremely familiar like I knew him. Joseph Carleton
kept rolling the name over in my mind, and Patricia Carlton,
who are they? The elevator light went off and a
very loud bell sounded. The doors opened, and there was

(32:23):
my producer, Ron and the two man camera crew, and
the reporter who had been with them on the previous story,
Sam chu Lynn, who had stayed with him because he
wanted to meet Mickey Mantle. And as I joked to
my new friends Joe and Patricia Carlton, oh look, here's
my camera crew. It's four members made no motion to
even leave the elevator. They all looked dumb struck. Sam

(32:45):
chu Lynn's eyes looked like they were about to pop
out of his head. I assumed this was because my
new friend Joe was wearing a cape. Finally I got
the crew to move. I held the door open so
Joe and Patricia could get into the elevator. I actually said,
such a pleasure to meet you, and of course, thank
you so much for watching Channel five News at ten,

(33:06):
and she smiled warmly, and he managed to quick wave
and the doors closed. And only at that exact moment
did it dawn on me where I knew him from
the blood now drained from my face. As I turned
to talk to the camera crew and Ron and Sam, Uh,
you guys knew who those two people were, right, Sam

(33:30):
laughed at me. Of course he did, didn't you? And
I sighed, oh my god. She said her name was
Patricia Carleton and that was her husband, Joseph Carleton. And
she said it that way because she's British. And that's
how if you're British you would say the name Cotton.
She's Patricia Cotton and he's Joseph Cotton, who was in

(33:53):
Citizen Kane. I remember actually put my hand on the
law on my face in my other hand. I just
met Joseph Cotton and I didn't recognize him. The cameraman,
Martin Klancy, also often said things like this, said pretty
stupid of you, huh? And I said, no, you have
no idea how stupid. I mean, obviously I know who

(34:15):
Joseph Cotton is. And Sam Chulin said, are you sure
about that? I gave him a dirty look and I said, no,
it's worse than this. In nineteen forty eight, the president
of the International Joseph Cotton Fan Club was my mother.
There is a picture of that man with my mother

(34:35):
from like thirty seven years ago at the Stork Club.
They all laughed. Then Sam Chulin said, in that photo,
is he wearing that cape? My gaff did serve to
relax me a little for the interview with Mantle. My gaff.

(34:58):
When I get over it, i'll let you know. So anyway,
we all reached room eight ninety seven or whatever it
was in the new Wing the Beverly Wilshire, and as
the crew set up, I managed to tell the story
of the Cottons to Mickey Mantle and he said, yeah,
I saw them in the lobby a couple hours ago.
He's a great actor. I met him in New York,
must be thirty years ago. Did you say hi? Oh right,

(35:20):
you just told me you didn't recognize him. Mickey Mantle
was busting my chops, as I said. I had met
him before, even interviewed him before, but this was our
first sit down and he was in a good mood,
even expansive and playful, and at one point he stunned me.
I said, I know you only have a couple of
minutes left, so forgive me if I'm bringing up something
that takes more than a couple of minutes, and he

(35:41):
interrupted and he said, take as much time as you need.
I'm enjoying us talking. So I asked him about this
one subject, how he felt about what he did in
his career considering how injured he was. When he retired.
Mickey Mantle was third all time in homers. He hit
three hundred ten times. He played in twelve World Series
on one bad knee and one worse knee. Mantle got

(36:06):
very reflective and self critical. We use this SoundBite at
the end of his obituary that I would do for
ESPN a decade later. If I'd known I was going
to live so long, he told me, I would have
taken better care of myself and done better. I said, well,
he'd done pretty good. I could have done better. I

(36:28):
thanked him. Then, as the cameraman moved to get the
shots of me nodding and repeating a question or two,
Mickey Mantle said that was really good. I flushed. I
got to ask you something. Can you give me some pointers?
I suddenly had no idea what the word pointers meant? Pointers?
What are pointers? Mantle said he was going to do

(36:50):
some Yankee games the next year on cable with Mel
Allen I'm doing interviews after games. I'm no damn good
at interviews. Just now, you were moving from topics to topics,
so smooth, Hew, you keep all the questions in your
head now, I laughed. I didn't keep them in my head.
Didn't you see my cheat card? And he laughed and
he said no, And I showed it to him. I said,
it's just a business card with like seven keywords written

(37:13):
on the back. If I think i might freeze up
because I'm nervous because I'm interviewing Mickey Mantle, or I
just met Joseph Cotton and I didn't recognize him, I
make one of these cards. I hide it in the
palm of my hand, and if I get stuck, I
could just look down quickly and see one of the words,
and I've got the question. I've got this card to
remind me. Mickey Mantle's eyes glowed. But wait, he said,

(37:36):
we're using these mics, and he pointed to the clip
on on his shirt, so you don't have to hold mike.
What do you do if you have to hold the
mic like I'll have to in an interview after a ballgame.
What if the card would fall out or you have
to shake hands with the player, and I said, well,
just write the words on your hand whichever hand is
holding the mic, like below the thumb. Mickey Mantle looked

(38:00):
at me as if I had just given him the
secret of eternal life. Wow, he said, that's great, I'm
going to write this down. Thanks, and we were packed up,
and he actually walked me to the hotel room door
and gave me a double handed handshake. So it had
been a big day, even if I didn't realize it
was Joseph Cotton. Mickey Mantle had asked me for advice

(38:23):
about anything. Somehow I had thought of something to tell him,
and he was really happy about the advice, and of
course this provided a punchline. The following spring, we were
in the studios at KTLA, watching on the satellite feed
as the Yankees first cable telecast of the nineteen eighty
six season ended, and sure enough they threw it down
to Mickey Mantle on the field interviewing some player, and

(38:44):
one of my producers said, oh, let's see if he
remembers the lesson you gave him, and another one said,
here's your student, Mickey Mantle, And sure enough, after the
first answer, Mickey Mantle pauses, and I know he can't
remember what he wanted to ask next, And sure enough
I see him cheat his look down slightly towards the
hand holding the microphone, and the next thing I see
he's kind of tilted the microphone sideways and he's asking

(39:07):
the question. But you can barely hear him because the
mic is pointing off at a forty five degree angle,
because he has written his key reminder words not below
the thumb on the outside part of his hand, but
on the palm side of his hand, and he's had

(39:28):
to move the mic out of the way to read
the words on the palm of his hand. And the
producer says, ha ha, Well, now Mickey Mantle hates you.

(39:51):
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 Brian Ray and
John Phillip Chanel The Countdown musical directors guitars Mason, drums
by Brian Ray, All, orchestration in keyboard words by John
Phillip Schaneil, and it was produced by TKO Brothers, John,
Brian and Me. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and

(40:12):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was written
by Mitch Warren Davis, appearing courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical
comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Larry David, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the eight hundred and ninety seventh day since Donald Trump's

(40:34):
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him again while we still can. The
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Twenty percent JFK Junior, who's a very nice person. I
know him very well.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
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.
Advertise With Us

Host

Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.