June 21, 2024 • 46 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 198: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The New York Times' sourced story - that a year ago first a senior federal judge in Florida phoned Judge Aileen Cannon and urged her to hand off the Trump Espionage/Stolen Classified Documents case to some other judge, and when Cannon ignored the idea, the CHIEF federal judge in Florida phoned Cannon and warned her that the optics of ruling on the president who appointed her with disastrous - is not just a great bit of reporting.
It's a clear shot across the bow of Cannon. It's an indicator that this is her last chance to voluntarily recuse from a case she has so mishandled that even when both Trump and Jack Smith said they were ready to start the trial, SHE refused. I think it's a legitimate inference that if she again ignores it, a real move will be made against her (maybe even against her fitness to continue as a judge). The chief judge who issued the warning was appointed by Governor Bush and then President Bush and to me it's clear this was a planned leak. Let's hope it works.
MEANWHILE IT'S TIME FOR RFK JUNIOR TO DROP OUT. The nephew of a martyred President and son of a man who easily could've won the office has now threatened to jail Dana Bash and Jake Tapper of CNN - and the whole network management and production staff - because the network has excluded him from the debate next week.
Kennedy's farcical, dangerous, insane Trump stalking horse campaign has to end. He isn't a victim and he isn't being persecuted. He's nuts.
AND DONALD SUTHERLAND HAS DIED. This spectacularly talented man was, I am proud to say, my friend. He appointed himself my "acting father" after my Dad died. He was supportive, insightful, hilarious, and I think I can tell you something you may not know about him: he was as good a writer as I've ever read. I will read you one of the dozens of emails he sent me. I will restrain myself and chose one about baseball, not one about...Jane Fonda.
B-Block (27:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What if a Tucker Carlson fell over in Australia and nobody was there to hear it? His speaking tour? Plenty of good seats available. Jeff Bezos still won't do the obvious: Will Lewis has to be fired before he crashes The Washington Post. And Dylan Byers trots out words like "hero" and "great" for my late friend Howard Fineman. 14 months ago he gratuitously and painfully insulted him in a story that gad nothing to do with Howard just because he felt like taking a shot at somebody. Byers, a management-jock-sniffing jackass, might meet the same fate 30 years from now - except nobody will remember his work.
C-Block (40:02) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: One of the existential premises of his work was: everything in the world could be reduced to a husband and wife arguing over the dumbest of things. This week he has her insisting that he is murdering her wrong in "Mr. Preble Gets Rid Of His Wife."
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. My
friend Donald Sutherland died yesterday and I have a lot
(00:25):
to tell you about him, and I will do that.
But as someone who began his professional life as a
radio news reporter as a teenager, he would have been
appalled if I led with him, and not with my
suspicion that somebody is setting up Trump's concierge, Judge Eileen Cannon,
for removal from his case and maybe removal from the bench,
(00:45):
and amen to both. The New York Times quotes two
sources briefed on the conversations who say that the Chief
Judge of the Southern District of Florida and another experienced
judge both called Judge Cannon a year ago this month
to urge her to recuse herself from the Trump case,
to decline handling it, to send it to a different judge,
(01:08):
not just because of the terrible optics, but because she
was so inexperienced behind the bench, let alone behind the
bench in such a high profile and complicated case. The
obvious peril is that Trump appointed Judge Cannon, and this
was emphasized to her by Chief Judge Cecilia Altlanaga, who
(01:29):
herself was appointed to the Circuit Court by Governor Jeb
Bush and then appointed to the Federal Court by President
George W. Bush. So one would think Judge Altonaga's opinion
on bad appointment optics would be taken seriously by Eileen Cannon.
But it's Aileen goddamned Canon. And as I always feel
(01:49):
compelled to mention to you, she is the former yoga
and flamenco correspondent for the Miami Nuevo Herald newspaper. Then
I wish I were making that up, but I'm not.
And she is a nit wit, and her handling of
the last year has been, at its best and most
noble moments, an utter disgrace, and at its worst so corrupt,
so slow, so inadequate, that not only was she chastised
(02:12):
by a conservative appeals court panel, but all of her
behavior would embarrass Clarence Thomas. Needless to say, the Times
reports Judge Canon refused to follow Judge Altonaga's suggestion or
the suggestion by the other senior Florida judge, whose identity
the Times sources did not reveal, although it does explain
(02:36):
that the unidentified judge called first and when Canon did
not take that hint, only then did the chief judge
follow up. There is a reason I suggest that this
story and the leak or leaks or planted leaks behind
it pressage a bid to get Canon off the case
beyond the obvious one that you just don't hear stories
(02:58):
of judges criticizing other judges, especially judges who would seemingly
share the same political origins and leafs as Altonaga and Canon.
The Times story contains details of what Canon has done
wrong and what the chief judge warned her she could
do wrong, And they look like somebody is trying to
(03:19):
warn Judge Cannon that if even at this laid date
she does not bow out, they are going to take
the limited steps available to them to get the Eleventh
Circuit Court to throw her out. But the details, the
choice of details, is what makes me think this is
the start of a get rid of Canon move. The
details are not the ones, the obvious ones, the fact
(03:42):
that she's in the tank for Trump. The details are
instead about how she did not follow accepted practice for
federal judges to farm out the pre trial motions to
a magistrate judge, how she indefinitely postponed the trial. How
even after the prosecution and the defense had both said
they were ready to go, she still declined to set
(04:04):
a start date. The details are about how she failed
to recognize that the case required a secure facility, a
skiff suitable to handle the classified materials that are at
the heart of the trial, and instead of handing the
trial off to a judge operating in the federal courthouse
in Miami, which is where Trump was indicted and which
(04:26):
already has such a secure skiff facility, she kept the
case in Fort freaking Pierce, two hours away. And because
she did that, that has required the wasting of taxpayer
money to build a whole new secure facility just for
this trial. That all, apparently was the argument from the
(04:50):
first judge. Chief Judge Altonaga reiterated those logistics in her call,
and then, according to The Times, brought up the optics
and Cannon's missteps when she got some of the Trump
nuisance motions about the search at Mary Lago. The Times
obviously does not identify its sources in this story about
the internal effort to get Canon off the Trump trial,
(05:12):
but it does say of those sources quote each had
been told about it by different federal judges in the
Southern District of Florida, including Judge Altonaga. They are setting
Cannon up, setting her up for forced removal, and telling
her publicly that they're going to do it, but first
(05:33):
that they're giving her a way out. Whether or not
she listens, whether or not she can hear any of
it over the sound of the flamenco music of years
gone by, that is a separate question, as is whether
or not there is some involvement here by the Office
of the Special Council, which would have to instigate or
(05:55):
at least accelerate the rare attempt to remove a judge who,
if she is not removed, will still be there ready
to rule off or more likely rule against their case. Okay,
(06:32):
time for Bob Kennedy Junior to drop out of the
presidential race. Time for him and vice presidential candidate Ditsy
mcmoney bags or whatever the hell her name is, to
bow out, and for their party, the Asshole Party or
whatever its name is, to stop burning through millions of
dollars in Trump's stalking horse money, because under Robert F.
(06:56):
Kennedy Junior's name, his campaign has just threatened to put
Danna Bash and Jake Tapper and all the executives from
in prison because they will not let Kennedy participate in
next week's debate prison Quoting the Kennedy campaign official statement,
serious jail time. Kennedy just threatened not merely to imprison
(07:21):
news reporters, but to imprison specific news reporters. This makes
Trump look good enough. I knew this man before. Whatever
it was he used to inject between his toes completely
destroyed his mind. And he was only and already and
given what happened to his father and to his uncle,
(07:43):
understandably tending towards conspiracy theories. This press release, this is
not a conspiracy theory. This is disqualifying. This is get
everybody to the famous Kennedy compound in Hyanna's Port and
take a vote and forcibly institutionalize Bobby Junior. That level
(08:03):
of disqualifying. The press release begins quote CNN today announced
the June twenty seven debate in Atlanta will be a
head to head with Presidents Biden and Trump, excluding Kennedy
from the stage. This decision is a clear violation of
federal law. Then we get the disqualifying quote from the
(08:24):
candidate himself. Presidents Biden and Trump do not want me
on the debate stage, and CNN illegally agreed to their demand. Unquote. Again,
the campaign says that because it is excluding Kennedy because
he has not been nominated by a major party nor
officially qualified for enough states for enough electoral votes to
(08:47):
get elected, but that Biden and Trump have been accepted
for the debate even though technically they have not been
nominated yet either quote. This means CNN and every member
of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding
this debate is at risk of prosecut has happened to
Michael Cohen for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is
(09:12):
now acute given that any further violation would be knowing
and willful and thus could carry with it serious jail time.
It's serious insanity. It's literally insanity if the debate goes
forward without mister Kennedy. The Kennedy campaign intends to pursue
(09:34):
this issue for as long as it takes to obtain
justice against these illegal acts, if for no other reason
than to ensure this type of undemocratic and un American
conduct does not occur again in the future. This is
after Kennedy suggested that the news organizations are run by
(09:54):
the CIA. He needs to be institutionalized, and Bunny mcs
self funding or whatever her name is, she needs to
take one of those Trump style cognitive tests. But fast
called doctor Johnson, doctor Jackson, doctor Johnson, doctor Jackson, not
my sister, my daughter, doctor Johnson. To be fair, I
(10:21):
will say the debate does inspire many conspiracy theories. I
even have one. I keep thinking the Supreme Court has
been deliberately holding up announcing a ruling on the fascist
fantasy of presidential immunity, holding it up maybe until a
week from today, just so it won't be a topic
(10:42):
in the debate, because on a practical level, if they
rule that, of course it's nonsense, Trump will spend the
debate whining and self martyring about it and threatening the
justices about it. On the other hand, if they rule
there is presidential immunity, Biden can stop the debate at
any point he wants and have Trump arrested, and there's
(11:04):
fall anybody can do about it. And if the Supreme
Court tries to stop it, he can have the Supreme
Court arrested. Two. Of course, they may have ruled on
it by the time you're hearing this one last debate note.
Biden won the coin toss and was thus given first
choice of two logistical questions, which podium do you want?
(11:26):
And do you want to give the first closing statement
or the second closing statement? You get the first choice
of one of those two questions. The Biden team decided
the optics are more important. They want him on the
right side of the television screen. I imagine there's research or something.
All I know is I have some experience of being
(11:48):
on television with somebody else for an hour or two
at a time, or seven or eight, with me on
one side of the screen and the other person on
the other side. And at SportsCenter management told me they
wanted me on the left side of the screen, that
that ind priority of the two anchors. And then at
MSNBC management told me they wanted me on the right
(12:11):
side of the screen because that indicated priority. For all
I know, they told my broadcast partners that the right
side at Sports Center indicated priority and the left side
at MSNBC indicated priority. This decision left the Trump crew
(12:31):
to decide which closing address to give. They decided Biden
should give the first one, and Trump will give the
rebuttal the second one, the last thing viewers see. This,
in turn allows me to propose the following, especially if
Bob Kennedy goes through with his threats and the CNN
people need bail money, I will pay CNN executives the
(12:56):
equivalent of one year's CNN TV network profits. That's right,
five thousand dollars. I will pay them five thousand dollars
American unmarked. I will pay them five thousand dollars if
(13:19):
as soon as Trump starts his closing statement, they cut
off the mics and turn off the studio lights. As
I said earlier, Donald Sutherland died yesterday, and he was
my friend. I came to know him only about fifteen
years ago, after one of those free health clinics we
used to co sponsor on the Countdown TV series. He
(13:42):
loved that and was appalled by the necessity of it,
as was I. He feared for this country in the
way that I have found only those who were alive
during the Second World War could fear for it. All
of the death, the upheaval, the terror, the uncertainty. They
(14:04):
lived through that without the assurance we have when we
think about that time. We know how it turned out.
We know how Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese military
dictatorship were defeated. We knew how evil lost. They knew
that time. They know it still. Donald knew it as
(14:26):
a tangible thing, an uncertainty and evil that could have
destroyed the world in nineteen forty four and can easily
destroy it in twenty twenty four, twenty ten, two thousand
and nine. He saw a Trump coming, He saw freedom
here being taken for granted. Hell, he even warned me
(14:48):
that just from watching all of us, several people on
MSNBC who I thought were friends were nothing of the kind.
And sadly he was completely right, and I was completely wrong.
And I don't know that I've ever known anybody who
cared more deeply about more import things than did Donald Sutherland.
(15:09):
And by the way, he might have been the best
and most prolific and most versatile actor you and I
will ever see. There are so many characters in film
and television who I would have wanted to know in
real life, and I think at least half of them
were performed by him. And that was before I knew him.
His greatness as an actor I think was believing in
(15:32):
people and sympathizing and empathizing with them, and summoning that
as he portrayed them. He was in so many films,
so many TV series, in so many commercial voiceovers for
so many decades that I'm sure it's hard to believe
that there might be things everybody did not already know
about him. But here is one. He was the best
(15:57):
correspondent I have ever known, and I mean correspondent in
the old sense of the word. He wrote to me
a lot emails, stream of consciousness, meandering, surprising, often initially inscrutable,
emails that turned out to be nothing less than poetry
about his career, about my career, about my dad's coma,
(16:22):
about his coma from nineteen sixty nine, about filming mash
about Baseball, about Jane Fonda, more about Jane Fonda. I
cannot read you any of the emails about Jane Fonda.
Trust me. It's really tempting, really really really tempting, but
it is beyond the pale. I did suggest to mister
(16:45):
Sutherland once that he was such a good writer and
had so many extraordinary stories that he had to put
them in a book. He asked if I had suddenly
gone crazy and had suddenly become incapable of realizing how
many people would respond to such a book by trying
to kill him. But what a writer, And I think
(17:08):
I'm within ethical bounds to read one of his briefer emails,
an email about baseball. He had described to me before
his lonely upbringing as a sickly child in New Brunswick
and then Nova Scotia in Canada in the forties and fifties,
and his first taste of the outside world the radio
(17:31):
broadcasts of Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games by the legendary Red
Barber that somehow you could hear in Nova Scotia. He
used to keep score of the baseball games at home
by himself, feeling like that phrase by himself meant by
(17:52):
himself in the world, never dreaming he'd actually get to
go to a baseball game, so he kept scoring every
game he ever went to, first as a Brooklyn Dodger fan,
and then as a crazy I can't go to the
bathroom now we're winning fan of the late lamented Montreal Expos.
(18:14):
He kept score of baseball games for sixty years, and
he kept the score books and Red Barber's broadcasts, he wrote,
had inspired him to pursue his original career radio news.
He was a radio news correspondent too as a teenager
(18:36):
with that voice. And then he said, the drama of
the games translated into the drama of acting in an off.
He went in that direction, so I knew what to do.
I sent him a CD, and on the CD was
the complete recording of Red Barber's broadcast of the Brooklyn
Dodgers New York Giants game at Ebbittsfield in Brooklyn, New York,
(18:59):
on Saturday, the twenty second of April nineteen fifty. This
was the email he sent in reply, it's one paragraph.
It's one paragraph, and try to imagine this Red in
Donald Sutherland's voice, my car up. Heears old ten years old,
(19:21):
and the CD player skips, so I hear a bit
and then it stalls like an old seventy eight and
I push buttons to get past it. I think there's
a CD in the kitchen, one of those Sony kitchen
televisions with the CD that front Gate used to sell.
What a delight this recording. I'm transfixed. Time has stopped.
(19:42):
They're trying to get people out to the park a doubleheader,
see the end of this one and all the next one,
and eat a good breakfast. One of the requisite items
was bread and butter. Duke Snyder gave me my score
books a big blue binder each year in the eighties.
He did color for the Expos broadcasts. I still have them,
(20:04):
Peter you. Eustonoff told a story about getting on a
train for London in Manchester. He had a repertory theater
there and I worked for him. Once he got on
the train and into one of those two benched, sliding
doored six cedar cabins in first class and lounged languidly
in the corner. He's Russian. Eustonof was a chap with
(20:25):
a furled umbrella and a black briefcase, a bowler hat
and a black three piece suit. A La Savile row
came in and sat kitty corner to him by the window.
Eustonov said he looked down his nose at the chap
and watched him bring sheet music out of his briefcase.
Being Russian, Eustonof fancied he had music in his DNA,
(20:50):
kind of like Ali. When someone asked him if he
played the piano, and he said he didn't know if
he did or not, because he'd never sat down at one.
Eustinov watched the guy turn the pages one, two, three, four,
and then halfway down the fifth page, the fellow reading
the music quietly started to laugh to himself. Eustonoff said
(21:17):
he then knew that he Eustonoff, knew nothing about music.
Years ago, my brilliant accountant, who'd run as a child
from one of the camps through Switzerland and Spain to
Ellis Island, told me that he loved reading year end spreadsheets.
(21:37):
They were novels to him, an entire year's life presented
itself to him in exquisite detail. He was transported. Sorry
this has been so long. The point of it was
that looking at those old score books, the line drives
and the pop ups, the bullpen, the pitfalls of that
(22:00):
awful stadium became in themselves such a saga. And so
does this CD. I'm fifteen again now though out of
the car, I'm seventy five, and I'm in the garden.
The car stopped by my wife. I left at the
(22:22):
top of the seventh but Red Barber's just come back.
Post Toasties two to one Pirates, Philly's losing six to
two in Chicago. I hope the CD player in the
kitchen works because it's going to rain. Thank you for this.
(22:46):
I will miss my friend. He was one of our
greatest humanists. He was one of our greatest actors. You
could watch one great performance from him every week and
it would be twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven
or so before you'd even have to think about starting
from the beginning again. And I somehow got a little
(23:07):
bit more to remember him with. I have those emails,
baseball emails, MSNBC emails, emails about individual commentaries I did
on the show, emails after emails, after emails, and now
while we take a break before I return with Worst
(23:29):
Persons and Thurber, you can think about what one of
those emails from Donald Sutherland would have sounded like when
it was about Jane. This is Countdown with Keith Alboman
(24:09):
still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown Fridays
with Thurber. I have to admit I will always be
very proud that my late friend mister Sutherland thought I
read these well. It goes without saying there was no
better narrator reader none. Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones
are more resonant, but their work is consistent. Donald Sutherland
(24:30):
had about forty different styles of reading aloud. The field
was his, at least since Orson Wells died. Anyway, on
that list, I'm somewhere around at number ten thousand, I'll
do my best with Thurber. Thurber proving this week he
could turn anything as if on a Dare from the
(24:50):
universe into just another story of just another squabble between
a married couple. As she tells him he is murdering
her all wrong In mister Prebble gets rid of his wife.
But first there are still more new idiots to talk about.
The daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
(25:16):
The Bronze Worst. Tucker Carlson. Remember Tucker Carlson. He's on tour.
Pay money to see Tucker Carlson live when you could
see him talk endlessly on TV or Twitter for hours
on end for free. It's not a good business model. Actually,
it turns out to not be any kind of business model.
(25:38):
He opens in Tuesday in Sydney, Australia and as the
broadcasters say, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by, there
are plenty of good seats available. Mister Sutherland mentioned it
in his email. Well there are plenty of good seats
available and bad seats too, Tucker down Under, you should
excuse The expression was announced in April by the chairman
(26:01):
of the United Australia Party, which is apparently for Auzzie
nut jobs. You think Rupert Murdoch is too liberal. His
name is Clive Palmer. His strip mining company sponsored the
tour at as a bonus. When you pay two hundred
dollars Australian, you know, get just Tucker Carlson. You also
get to hear Clive speak as well. Ah but two
(26:22):
hundred dollars. Those two hundred dollars seats are now available
for your cost fifty dollars. The Australian newspaper, cleverly called
The Australian says it cannot calculate how many tickets have
not sold like hotcakes, but that there are hundreds still
available for the opening night in Sydney. And one of
the events in Sydney is at the ICC Sydney Theater,
(26:43):
which seats nine thousand people, so hundreds of seats are
still available is not good news. And the price cut
from one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars a seat
down to fifty that's also not good news. In Brisbane
it's down to eighty dollars a ticket, Adelaide, Melbourne and
Perth down to one hundred and ten. But there at
(27:04):
the end of the time, so look out below, further
deep discounts may be applied. Why has Tucker Live failed? Well,
For one thing, he started as a manipulative, dishonest fascist.
That was when I worked with him twenty years ago.
But he's gone bad since then and he's now approaching
full on psychosis. The other thing, I forgot to mention
(27:26):
the special guest on the tour Detucker, Denesh Desuza, will
be there. Come on, give it up for Denesh Desuza.
Come on out, Denesh and lie to the people. Come
on the runner up. Jeff Bezos still owner of the
Washington Post and still apparently not even close to steering
out of the skid that could yet destroy the paper.
(27:49):
He is still committed, apparently to this British publisher Will Lewis,
even after my friend David Marinus, who has worked at
the Washington Post since I was a sophomore in college,
publicly called for new leadership there and a new editor
and a new publisher. And David said of Bezos that
he quote owns the Post, but he is not of
(28:10):
and for the Post, or he would understand everywhere this
fellow Will Lewis turns, he steps on another rake, or
he gets hit over the head by somebody carrying a
nuclear rake. The newspaper The Guardian now reports that on
top of the phone hacking scandal that Lewis was involved
with and his attempts to bury coverage of the phone
(28:31):
hacking scandal in the Post, Lewis was also an informal
advisor to the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and when
the party gate scandal broke at the worst moments of COVID,
Boris Johnson ordered the UK to stay home and isolate,
and then like right after that broadcast, he and his
staff promptly went into an office and held a big
(28:51):
party for somebody, and Lewis, according to the Guardian, told
Boris Johnson that Johnson and his staff should then clean
up their phones, that is, get rid of all the
texts and photos about and of that party, and he's
still editor or publisher of The Washington Post. Well, clearly
Bezos is too distracted. He's on vacation with his fiance
(29:14):
and I guess he's trying to remember how to inflate
her or whatever. But our winner, Dylan Buyers. Dylan Byers
is probably not a name you know. He is the
well traveled media writer and writer is doing the proverbial
lot of work here. He's a media jock sniffer, especially
a media management jock sniffer. He's now part of Puck News,
(29:36):
which is one letter off from being an accurate description
of the man. If you read of an anonymous management
source somewhere trashing a reporter or an anchor or the
audience or whatever, you're probably reading something that Dylan Buyers wrote.
He's one of those guys who finds it hard to
believe that an executive would lie, and he cannot and
(29:57):
will not believe that an executive or a newspaper or
a website or a network would lie to him. Dylan Buyers.
This week, one of the Buyer's emails about the news
business began at the funeral of Howard Feinneman. It's actually
pretty good, especially for buyers. And I'm going out of
(30:20):
chronological order here. I'm going to first read you what
he wrote about Howard on Monday, and then read you
what he wrote about him in April of last year. Quote.
On Monday, many of the swells of the Washington political
media in crowd gathered at Temple Sinai to celebrate the
life and times of legendary author and journalist Howard Feyneman.
(30:43):
The longtime Newsweek star and NBC analyst Mark Whittaker. Evan Thomas,
Chris Matthews, Al Franken, and Jill Abramson were among those
who delivered remarks, and at the end of his eulogy,
Former Rep. John Yarmouth broke out a mini bar sized
bourbon and toasted Fineman's days as a cub reporter for
the Louisville Courier Journal with a wig from the pulpit
(31:06):
in Washington, a town built on institutions and legacies. It
was a true heroes. Goodbye well, very nice, legendary Newsweek star,
A true heroes, Goodbye, Howard Fineman. On April twenty first,
twenty twenty three, the same Dylan Byers was writing something
(31:28):
else about somebody else, and it had nothing to do
with Howard Fineman when he complimented the somebody else who
was somebody named Smith by throwing in out of nowhere
that the guy's work quote sure beat whatever throat clearing
Mount Olympus garbage that some Howard Fineman type was recycling
(31:49):
in Newsweek or the echo chamber of the Washington Post.
End quote, throat clearing Mount Olympus garbage that some Howard
Fineman type was recycling now bluntly, since Howard was my
friend and he had confided in me three months previously
that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had
(32:09):
been given as little as four months to live, and
thank goodness, he really beat that and lasted until last week.
I may have overreacted to reading this from Dylan Byers.
I screenshotted what Buyers had written, and I sent it
back to him, along with the message, what a truly childish,
worthless piece of shit you really are. Feineman is a
(32:31):
better man than you, and that dropped fire hose Smith
would combine to be in a hundred lifetimes. How you
will regret writing this Obviously, buyers could not have known
he had gratuitously insulted someone who just received a terminal prognosis.
I did not believe that he should be blamed for
that part of it. But of course, even without the knowledge,
(32:53):
there is the idea that maybe you shouldn't just gratuitously
insult somebody with a fifty year career in journalism who
has nothing to do with what you're writing about in
a desperate and unsuccessful bid just to sound cool, especially
given the simple actuarial odds that whoever you pick, if
they are seventy four years old, you're probably going to
(33:15):
be publicly trashing someone who is sick, or someone who's
just lost a loved one, or someone who is retiring
against their will. I mean, if you're criticizing somebody for
a reason they wrote this crap last week, or they
did that terrible thing to somebody a year ago, fine
do it. I am the last person to criticize criticism,
(33:36):
but just to do it for its own sake, as
an aside, just to shoot somebody at random, subhuman Maybe
that defense of whoever this smith was would have been
just as good with quote sure beat whatever, throat clearing
mount Olympus garbage someone was recycling in Newsweek or the
(33:56):
echo chamber of the Washington Post, not mentioning Howard Feineman,
not mentioning anybody for that matter. Throat clearing. Mount Olympus
garbage is a pretty good phrase. It needs to be
smeared over somebody's face for you to feel good about
what you're writing. But to then come back after you
(34:17):
did that, and you did smear somebody and rub this
line over their face, and to go to the funeral
of that person that you could not resist insulting fourteen
months earlier for no good reason, and in the same
newsletter report from it, and suddenly attach fake respect that
is probably just as gratuitous as the insult was in
(34:40):
your soulless mind. That makes it all exponentially worse. What
a scumbag Dylan Buyers. And someday there may be an
additional payoff. Someday somebody will be praising some media critic
or writer or someone and they'll say he was so
(35:01):
much better than his useless, aging contemporary Dylan Buyers. Well,
now that I think of it, probably not. I mean,
who is going to remember the work of Dylan Buyers?
So don't be Dylan Buyers, because you never know when
the person you're going to gratuitously name drop an insult
(35:22):
is going to you know, die Dylan Byers, Today's worst
person in the World to the top of the countdown
and Fridays with Thurber, and I am not going to
dare suggest to you that there isn't at least something
(35:44):
misogynistic about mister Prebble gets rid of his wife. But
the ultimate point of this short story, so masterfully crafted
by James Thurber, this matter of fact style that almost
makes you forget you are hearing about a man trying
to murder his wife, is in a larger sense, about
the fact that women are more success bes full than men.
(36:06):
This story does not compliment men, it does not compliment women,
It does not compliment human beings. But it is still marvelous.
Mister Preble Gets rid of his Wife by James Thurber.
Mister Prebble was a plump, middle aged lawyer in Scarsdale.
He used to kid with his stenographer about running away
(36:28):
with him. Let's run away together, he would say, during
a pause in dictation, alrighty, she would say. One rainy
Monday afternoon, mister Prebble was more serious about it than usual.
Let's run away together, said mister Preble. Alrighty, said his stenographer.
(36:49):
Mister Prebble jingled the keys in his pocket and looked
out the window. My wife would be glad to get
rid of me, he said. Would you give you a divorce,
asked the stenographer. I don't suppose so, he said. The
stenographer laughed, you'd have to get rid of your wife,
she said. Mister Preble was unusually silent at dinner that night.
(37:12):
About half an hour after coffee, he spoke, without looking
up from his paper, let's uh go down in the cellar.
Mister Prebble said to his wife, what far? She said,
not looking up from her book. Oh, I don't know,
he said. We uh never go down in the cellar
(37:33):
anymore the way we used to. We never did go
down in the cellar that I remember, said missus Prebble.
I could rest easy the balance of my life if
I never went down in the cellar. Mister Preble was
silent for several minutes. Supposing I said, it meant a
whole lot to me. Began mister Prebble, what's come over you?
(37:54):
His wife demanded, it's cold down there. There's absolutely nothing
to do. We could pick up pieces of coal, said mister.
We might get up some sort of game with pieces
of coal. I don't want to, said his wife. Anyway,
I'm reading, listen, said mister Prebble, rising and walking up
(38:17):
and down. Why won't you come down in the cellar.
You can read down there as far as that goes.
There isn't a good enough light down there, she said.
And anyway, I'm not going to go down in the cellar.
You may as well make up your mind. That g whiz,
said mister Prebble, kicking into the edge of a rug.
Other people's wives go down in the cellar. Why is
(38:39):
it you never want to do anything? I come home
worn out from the office, and you won't even go
down in the cellar with me. God knows, it isn't
very far. It isn't as if I was asking you
to go to the movies or someplace. I don't want
to go, shouted missus Prebble. Mister Preble sat down on
the edge of a davenport. All right, all right, he said,
(39:05):
He picked up the newspaper again. I wish you'd let
me tell you more about it. It's kind of a surprise.
Well you quit harping on that subject, asked missus Prebble. Listen,
said mister Prebble, leaping to his feet, I might as
well tell you the truth instead of beating around the bush.
I want to get rid of you so I can
marry my stenographer. Is there anything especially wrong about that?
(39:27):
People do it every day. Love is something you can't control.
We've been all over that, said missus Prebble. I'm not
going to go all over that again. I just wanted
you to know how things are, said mister Prebble. But
you have to take everything so literally. Good Lord, do
(39:47):
you suppose I really wanted to go down in the
cellar and make up some silly game with pieces of coal.
I never believe that for a minute, said missus Preble.
I knew all along you wanted to get me down
there and bury me. You can say that now after
I told you, said mister Prebble. But it would never
(40:08):
have occurred to you if I hadn't. You didn't tell me.
I got it out of you, said missus Prebble. Anyway,
I'm always two steps ahead of what you're thinking. You're
never within a mile of what I'm thinking, said mister Prebble.
Is that so I knew you wanted to bury me
the minute you got some foot in this house tonight,
missus Prebble held him with a glare. Now that's just
(40:32):
plain damn exaggeration, said mister Prebble, considerably annoyed. You knew
nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I
never thought of it till just a few minutes ago.
It was in the back of your mind, said missus Prebble.
I suppose this filing woman puts you up to it.
You needn't get sarcastic, said mister Prebble. I have plenty
(40:52):
of people to file without having her file. She doesn't
know anything about this, She isn't in on it. I
was going to tell her you'd gone to visit some
friends and fell over a cliff. She wants me to
get a divorce. That's a laugh, said missus Prebble. That's
a laugh. You may bury me, but you'll never get
a divorce. She knows that I told her that, said
(41:15):
mister Prebble. I mean I told her I'd never get
a divorce. Oh, you probably told her about burying me too,
said missus Prebble. That's not true, said mister Prebble, with dignity.
That's between you and me. I was never going to
tell a soul. You'd blab it to the whole world.
Don't tell me, said missus Prebble. I know you. Mister
(41:39):
Prebble puffed at his cigar. I wish you were buried
now it was all over with, he said. Don't you
suppose you would get caught, you crazy thing? She said,
They always get caught. Why don't you go to bed.
You're just getting yourself all worked up over nothing. I'm
not going to bed, said mister Prebble. I'm going to
bury you in the cellar. I got my mind made
(42:00):
up to it. I don't know how I could make
any plainer listen, cried missus Preble, throwing her book down.
Will you be satisfied and shut up? If I go
down in the cellar. Can I have a little peace?
If I go down in the cellar, will you let
me alone? Then? Yes, said mister Prebble. But you spoil
it by taking that attitude. Sure, sure, I always spoil everything.
(42:25):
I stop reading right in the middle of a chapter.
I'll never know how the story comes out. But that's
nothing to you. Did I make you start reading that book,
asked mister Prebble. He opened the cellar door. Here you
go first, said missus Prebble, starting down the steps. It's
cold down here. You would think of this at this
time of the year. Any other husband would have buried
(42:46):
his wife in the summer. You can't arrange those things
just whenever you want to, said mister Prebble. That didn't
fall in love with this girl till late fall. Anybody
else would have fallen in love with her long before that.
She's been around for years. Why is it you always
let other men get in ahead of you, mercy? But
it's dirty down here. What have you got down there?
I was going to hit you over the head with
(43:07):
a shovel, said mister Prebble. You were huh, said missus Prebble.
We'll get that out of your mind. You want to
leave a great, big clue right here in the middle
of everything. We're the first detective to come snooping around
will find it. Come out in the street and find
some piece of iron or something. Something doesn't belong to you,
all right, said mister Prebble. But there won't be any
(43:29):
piece of iron in the street. Women always expect to
pick up a piece of iron anywhere. If you look
in the right place, you'll find it, said missus Prebble.
And don't be gone long, don't you dare stopping at
the cigar store. I'm not going to stand down here
in this cold cellar all night and freeze, all right,
said mister Prebble. I'll hurry and shut that door behind you.
(43:51):
She screamed after him, Where were you born in a barn?
Mister Preble gets rid of his wife by James Thurber.
(44:16):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanell arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed
by No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme
(44:38):
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of
ESPN inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by
Nancy Fauss. The Best Baseball stadium organist. Ever, our announcer
today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and
Better Call Saul. And of course James Thurber's mister Prebble
gets rid of his wife is courtesy the Thurber Literary Trust.
(45:00):
Everything else, everything else was pretty much my fault. So
that's count for this. The one hundred and thirty eighth
day until the twenty twenty four presidential election and sixty
fourth day since convicted felon elderly Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government in the United States.
(45:20):
Use the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system,
use presidential immunity if it happens, to stop him from
doing it again while we still can. A reminder will
be live again on YouTube after the debate next Thursday night.
Send your link to this podcast to somebody who doesn't
(45:43):
already listen, and don't forget to join us on YouTube
and on the podcast thereafter. The next scheduled countdown is
Tuesday Bulletins as the news warrants until the next one.
I'm Keith Olriman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(46:22):
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. My
friend Donald Sutherland died yesterday and I have a lot
(00:25):
to tell you about him, and I will do that.
But as someone who began his professional life as a
radio news reporter as a teenager, he would have been
appalled if I led with him, and not with my
suspicion that somebody is setting up Trump's concierge, Judge Eileen Cannon,
for removal from his case and maybe removal from the bench,
(00:45):
and amen to both. The New York Times quotes two
sources briefed on the conversations who say that the Chief
Judge of the Southern District of Florida and another experienced
judge both called Judge Cannon a year ago this month
to urge her to recuse herself from the Trump case,
to decline handling it, to send it to a different judge,
(01:08):
not just because of the terrible optics, but because she
was so inexperienced behind the bench, let alone behind the
bench in such a high profile and complicated case. The
obvious peril is that Trump appointed Judge Cannon, and this
was emphasized to her by Chief Judge Cecilia Altlanaga, who
(01:29):
herself was appointed to the Circuit Court by Governor Jeb
Bush and then appointed to the Federal Court by President
George W. Bush. So one would think Judge Altonaga's opinion
on bad appointment optics would be taken seriously by Eileen Cannon.
But it's Aileen goddamned Canon. And as I always feel
(01:49):
compelled to mention to you, she is the former yoga
and flamenco correspondent for the Miami Nuevo Herald newspaper. Then
I wish I were making that up, but I'm not.
And she is a nit wit, and her handling of
the last year has been, at its best and most
noble moments, an utter disgrace, and at its worst so corrupt,
so slow, so inadequate, that not only was she chastised
(02:12):
by a conservative appeals court panel, but all of her
behavior would embarrass Clarence Thomas. Needless to say, the Times
reports Judge Canon refused to follow Judge Altonaga's suggestion or
the suggestion by the other senior Florida judge, whose identity
the Times sources did not reveal, although it does explain
(02:36):
that the unidentified judge called first and when Canon did
not take that hint, only then did the chief judge
follow up. There is a reason I suggest that this
story and the leak or leaks or planted leaks behind
it pressage a bid to get Canon off the case
beyond the obvious one that you just don't hear stories
(02:58):
of judges criticizing other judges, especially judges who would seemingly
share the same political origins and leafs as Altonaga and Canon.
The Times story contains details of what Canon has done
wrong and what the chief judge warned her she could
do wrong, And they look like somebody is trying to
(03:19):
warn Judge Cannon that if even at this laid date
she does not bow out, they are going to take
the limited steps available to them to get the Eleventh
Circuit Court to throw her out. But the details, the
choice of details, is what makes me think this is
the start of a get rid of Canon move. The
details are not the ones, the obvious ones, the fact
(03:42):
that she's in the tank for Trump. The details are
instead about how she did not follow accepted practice for
federal judges to farm out the pre trial motions to
a magistrate judge, how she indefinitely postponed the trial. How
even after the prosecution and the defense had both said
they were ready to go, she still declined to set
(04:04):
a start date. The details are about how she failed
to recognize that the case required a secure facility, a
skiff suitable to handle the classified materials that are at
the heart of the trial, and instead of handing the
trial off to a judge operating in the federal courthouse
in Miami, which is where Trump was indicted and which
(04:26):
already has such a secure skiff facility, she kept the
case in Fort freaking Pierce, two hours away. And because
she did that, that has required the wasting of taxpayer
money to build a whole new secure facility just for
this trial. That all, apparently was the argument from the
(04:50):
first judge. Chief Judge Altonaga reiterated those logistics in her call,
and then, according to The Times, brought up the optics
and Cannon's missteps when she got some of the Trump
nuisance motions about the search at Mary Lago. The Times
obviously does not identify its sources in this story about
the internal effort to get Canon off the Trump trial,
(05:12):
but it does say of those sources quote each had
been told about it by different federal judges in the
Southern District of Florida, including Judge Altonaga. They are setting
Cannon up, setting her up for forced removal, and telling
her publicly that they're going to do it, but first
(05:33):
that they're giving her a way out. Whether or not
she listens, whether or not she can hear any of
it over the sound of the flamenco music of years
gone by, that is a separate question, as is whether
or not there is some involvement here by the Office
of the Special Council, which would have to instigate or
(05:55):
at least accelerate the rare attempt to remove a judge who,
if she is not removed, will still be there ready
to rule off or more likely rule against their case. Okay,
(06:32):
time for Bob Kennedy Junior to drop out of the
presidential race. Time for him and vice presidential candidate Ditsy
mcmoney bags or whatever the hell her name is, to
bow out, and for their party, the Asshole Party or
whatever its name is, to stop burning through millions of
dollars in Trump's stalking horse money, because under Robert F.
(06:56):
Kennedy Junior's name, his campaign has just threatened to put
Danna Bash and Jake Tapper and all the executives from
in prison because they will not let Kennedy participate in
next week's debate prison Quoting the Kennedy campaign official statement,
serious jail time. Kennedy just threatened not merely to imprison
(07:21):
news reporters, but to imprison specific news reporters. This makes
Trump look good enough. I knew this man before. Whatever
it was he used to inject between his toes completely
destroyed his mind. And he was only and already and
given what happened to his father and to his uncle,
(07:43):
understandably tending towards conspiracy theories. This press release, this is
not a conspiracy theory. This is disqualifying. This is get
everybody to the famous Kennedy compound in Hyanna's Port and
take a vote and forcibly institutionalize Bobby Junior. That level
(08:03):
of disqualifying. The press release begins quote CNN today announced
the June twenty seven debate in Atlanta will be a
head to head with Presidents Biden and Trump, excluding Kennedy
from the stage. This decision is a clear violation of
federal law. Then we get the disqualifying quote from the
(08:24):
candidate himself. Presidents Biden and Trump do not want me
on the debate stage, and CNN illegally agreed to their demand. Unquote. Again,
the campaign says that because it is excluding Kennedy because
he has not been nominated by a major party nor
officially qualified for enough states for enough electoral votes to
(08:47):
get elected, but that Biden and Trump have been accepted
for the debate even though technically they have not been
nominated yet either quote. This means CNN and every member
of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding
this debate is at risk of prosecut has happened to
Michael Cohen for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is
(09:12):
now acute given that any further violation would be knowing
and willful and thus could carry with it serious jail time.
It's serious insanity. It's literally insanity if the debate goes
forward without mister Kennedy. The Kennedy campaign intends to pursue
(09:34):
this issue for as long as it takes to obtain
justice against these illegal acts, if for no other reason
than to ensure this type of undemocratic and un American
conduct does not occur again in the future. This is
after Kennedy suggested that the news organizations are run by
(09:54):
the CIA. He needs to be institutionalized, and Bunny mcs
self funding or whatever her name is, she needs to
take one of those Trump style cognitive tests. But fast
called doctor Johnson, doctor Jackson, doctor Johnson, doctor Jackson, not
my sister, my daughter, doctor Johnson. To be fair, I
(10:21):
will say the debate does inspire many conspiracy theories. I
even have one. I keep thinking the Supreme Court has
been deliberately holding up announcing a ruling on the fascist
fantasy of presidential immunity, holding it up maybe until a
week from today, just so it won't be a topic
(10:42):
in the debate, because on a practical level, if they
rule that, of course it's nonsense, Trump will spend the
debate whining and self martyring about it and threatening the
justices about it. On the other hand, if they rule
there is presidential immunity, Biden can stop the debate at
any point he wants and have Trump arrested, and there's
(11:04):
fall anybody can do about it. And if the Supreme
Court tries to stop it, he can have the Supreme
Court arrested. Two. Of course, they may have ruled on
it by the time you're hearing this one last debate note.
Biden won the coin toss and was thus given first
choice of two logistical questions, which podium do you want?
(11:26):
And do you want to give the first closing statement
or the second closing statement? You get the first choice
of one of those two questions. The Biden team decided
the optics are more important. They want him on the
right side of the television screen. I imagine there's research or something.
All I know is I have some experience of being
(11:48):
on television with somebody else for an hour or two
at a time, or seven or eight, with me on
one side of the screen and the other person on
the other side. And at SportsCenter management told me they
wanted me on the left side of the screen, that
that ind priority of the two anchors. And then at
MSNBC management told me they wanted me on the right
(12:11):
side of the screen because that indicated priority. For all
I know, they told my broadcast partners that the right
side at Sports Center indicated priority and the left side
at MSNBC indicated priority. This decision left the Trump crew
(12:31):
to decide which closing address to give. They decided Biden
should give the first one, and Trump will give the
rebuttal the second one, the last thing viewers see. This,
in turn allows me to propose the following, especially if
Bob Kennedy goes through with his threats and the CNN
people need bail money, I will pay CNN executives the
(12:56):
equivalent of one year's CNN TV network profits. That's right,
five thousand dollars. I will pay them five thousand dollars
American unmarked. I will pay them five thousand dollars if
(13:19):
as soon as Trump starts his closing statement, they cut
off the mics and turn off the studio lights. As
I said earlier, Donald Sutherland died yesterday, and he was
my friend. I came to know him only about fifteen
years ago, after one of those free health clinics we
used to co sponsor on the Countdown TV series. He
(13:42):
loved that and was appalled by the necessity of it,
as was I. He feared for this country in the
way that I have found only those who were alive
during the Second World War could fear for it. All
of the death, the upheaval, the terror, the uncertainty. They
(14:04):
lived through that without the assurance we have when we
think about that time. We know how it turned out.
We know how Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese military
dictatorship were defeated. We knew how evil lost. They knew
that time. They know it still. Donald knew it as
(14:26):
a tangible thing, an uncertainty and evil that could have
destroyed the world in nineteen forty four and can easily
destroy it in twenty twenty four, twenty ten, two thousand
and nine. He saw a Trump coming, He saw freedom
here being taken for granted. Hell, he even warned me
(14:48):
that just from watching all of us, several people on
MSNBC who I thought were friends were nothing of the kind.
And sadly he was completely right, and I was completely wrong.
And I don't know that I've ever known anybody who
cared more deeply about more import things than did Donald Sutherland.
(15:09):
And by the way, he might have been the best
and most prolific and most versatile actor you and I
will ever see. There are so many characters in film
and television who I would have wanted to know in
real life, and I think at least half of them
were performed by him. And that was before I knew him.
His greatness as an actor I think was believing in
(15:32):
people and sympathizing and empathizing with them, and summoning that
as he portrayed them. He was in so many films,
so many TV series, in so many commercial voiceovers for
so many decades that I'm sure it's hard to believe
that there might be things everybody did not already know
about him. But here is one. He was the best
(15:57):
correspondent I have ever known, and I mean correspondent in
the old sense of the word. He wrote to me
a lot emails, stream of consciousness, meandering, surprising, often initially inscrutable,
emails that turned out to be nothing less than poetry
about his career, about my career, about my dad's coma,
(16:22):
about his coma from nineteen sixty nine, about filming mash
about Baseball, about Jane Fonda, more about Jane Fonda. I
cannot read you any of the emails about Jane Fonda.
Trust me. It's really tempting, really really really tempting, but
it is beyond the pale. I did suggest to mister
(16:45):
Sutherland once that he was such a good writer and
had so many extraordinary stories that he had to put
them in a book. He asked if I had suddenly
gone crazy and had suddenly become incapable of realizing how
many people would respond to such a book by trying
to kill him. But what a writer, And I think
(17:08):
I'm within ethical bounds to read one of his briefer emails,
an email about baseball. He had described to me before
his lonely upbringing as a sickly child in New Brunswick
and then Nova Scotia in Canada in the forties and fifties,
and his first taste of the outside world the radio
(17:31):
broadcasts of Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games by the legendary Red
Barber that somehow you could hear in Nova Scotia. He
used to keep score of the baseball games at home
by himself, feeling like that phrase by himself meant by
(17:52):
himself in the world, never dreaming he'd actually get to
go to a baseball game, so he kept scoring every
game he ever went to, first as a Brooklyn Dodger fan,
and then as a crazy I can't go to the
bathroom now we're winning fan of the late lamented Montreal Expos.
(18:14):
He kept score of baseball games for sixty years, and
he kept the score books and Red Barber's broadcasts, he wrote,
had inspired him to pursue his original career radio news.
He was a radio news correspondent too as a teenager
(18:36):
with that voice. And then he said, the drama of
the games translated into the drama of acting in an off.
He went in that direction, so I knew what to do.
I sent him a CD, and on the CD was
the complete recording of Red Barber's broadcast of the Brooklyn
Dodgers New York Giants game at Ebbittsfield in Brooklyn, New York,
(18:59):
on Saturday, the twenty second of April nineteen fifty. This
was the email he sent in reply, it's one paragraph.
It's one paragraph, and try to imagine this Red in
Donald Sutherland's voice, my car up. Heears old ten years old,
(19:21):
and the CD player skips, so I hear a bit
and then it stalls like an old seventy eight and
I push buttons to get past it. I think there's
a CD in the kitchen, one of those Sony kitchen
televisions with the CD that front Gate used to sell.
What a delight this recording. I'm transfixed. Time has stopped.
(19:42):
They're trying to get people out to the park a doubleheader,
see the end of this one and all the next one,
and eat a good breakfast. One of the requisite items
was bread and butter. Duke Snyder gave me my score
books a big blue binder each year in the eighties.
He did color for the Expos broadcasts. I still have them,
(20:04):
Peter you. Eustonoff told a story about getting on a
train for London in Manchester. He had a repertory theater
there and I worked for him. Once he got on
the train and into one of those two benched, sliding
doored six cedar cabins in first class and lounged languidly
in the corner. He's Russian. Eustonof was a chap with
(20:25):
a furled umbrella and a black briefcase, a bowler hat
and a black three piece suit. A La Savile row
came in and sat kitty corner to him by the window.
Eustonov said he looked down his nose at the chap
and watched him bring sheet music out of his briefcase.
Being Russian, Eustonof fancied he had music in his DNA,
(20:50):
kind of like Ali. When someone asked him if he
played the piano, and he said he didn't know if
he did or not, because he'd never sat down at one.
Eustinov watched the guy turn the pages one, two, three, four,
and then halfway down the fifth page, the fellow reading
the music quietly started to laugh to himself. Eustonoff said
(21:17):
he then knew that he Eustonoff, knew nothing about music.
Years ago, my brilliant accountant, who'd run as a child
from one of the camps through Switzerland and Spain to
Ellis Island, told me that he loved reading year end spreadsheets.
(21:37):
They were novels to him, an entire year's life presented
itself to him in exquisite detail. He was transported. Sorry
this has been so long. The point of it was
that looking at those old score books, the line drives
and the pop ups, the bullpen, the pitfalls of that
(22:00):
awful stadium became in themselves such a saga. And so
does this CD. I'm fifteen again now though out of
the car, I'm seventy five, and I'm in the garden.
The car stopped by my wife. I left at the
(22:22):
top of the seventh but Red Barber's just come back.
Post Toasties two to one Pirates, Philly's losing six to
two in Chicago. I hope the CD player in the
kitchen works because it's going to rain. Thank you for this.
(22:46):
I will miss my friend. He was one of our
greatest humanists. He was one of our greatest actors. You
could watch one great performance from him every week and
it would be twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven
or so before you'd even have to think about starting
from the beginning again. And I somehow got a little
(23:07):
bit more to remember him with. I have those emails,
baseball emails, MSNBC emails, emails about individual commentaries I did
on the show, emails after emails, after emails, and now
while we take a break before I return with Worst
(23:29):
Persons and Thurber, you can think about what one of
those emails from Donald Sutherland would have sounded like when
it was about Jane. This is Countdown with Keith Alboman
(24:09):
still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown Fridays
with Thurber. I have to admit I will always be
very proud that my late friend mister Sutherland thought I
read these well. It goes without saying there was no
better narrator reader none. Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones
are more resonant, but their work is consistent. Donald Sutherland
(24:30):
had about forty different styles of reading aloud. The field
was his, at least since Orson Wells died. Anyway, on
that list, I'm somewhere around at number ten thousand, I'll
do my best with Thurber. Thurber proving this week he
could turn anything as if on a Dare from the
(24:50):
universe into just another story of just another squabble between
a married couple. As she tells him he is murdering
her all wrong In mister Prebble gets rid of his wife.
But first there are still more new idiots to talk about.
The daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in the world.
(25:16):
The Bronze Worst. Tucker Carlson. Remember Tucker Carlson. He's on tour.
Pay money to see Tucker Carlson live when you could
see him talk endlessly on TV or Twitter for hours
on end for free. It's not a good business model. Actually,
it turns out to not be any kind of business model.
(25:38):
He opens in Tuesday in Sydney, Australia and as the
broadcasters say, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by, there
are plenty of good seats available. Mister Sutherland mentioned it
in his email. Well there are plenty of good seats
available and bad seats too, Tucker down Under, you should
excuse The expression was announced in April by the chairman
(26:01):
of the United Australia Party, which is apparently for Auzzie
nut jobs. You think Rupert Murdoch is too liberal. His
name is Clive Palmer. His strip mining company sponsored the
tour at as a bonus. When you pay two hundred
dollars Australian, you know, get just Tucker Carlson. You also
get to hear Clive speak as well. Ah but two
(26:22):
hundred dollars. Those two hundred dollars seats are now available
for your cost fifty dollars. The Australian newspaper, cleverly called
The Australian says it cannot calculate how many tickets have
not sold like hotcakes, but that there are hundreds still
available for the opening night in Sydney. And one of
the events in Sydney is at the ICC Sydney Theater,
(26:43):
which seats nine thousand people, so hundreds of seats are
still available is not good news. And the price cut
from one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars a seat
down to fifty that's also not good news. In Brisbane
it's down to eighty dollars a ticket, Adelaide, Melbourne and
Perth down to one hundred and ten. But there at
(27:04):
the end of the time, so look out below, further
deep discounts may be applied. Why has Tucker Live failed? Well,
For one thing, he started as a manipulative, dishonest fascist.
That was when I worked with him twenty years ago.
But he's gone bad since then and he's now approaching
full on psychosis. The other thing, I forgot to mention
(27:26):
the special guest on the tour Detucker, Denesh Desuza, will
be there. Come on, give it up for Denesh Desuza.
Come on out, Denesh and lie to the people. Come
on the runner up. Jeff Bezos still owner of the
Washington Post and still apparently not even close to steering
out of the skid that could yet destroy the paper.
(27:49):
He is still committed, apparently to this British publisher Will Lewis,
even after my friend David Marinus, who has worked at
the Washington Post since I was a sophomore in college,
publicly called for new leadership there and a new editor
and a new publisher. And David said of Bezos that
he quote owns the Post, but he is not of
(28:10):
and for the Post, or he would understand everywhere this
fellow Will Lewis turns, he steps on another rake, or
he gets hit over the head by somebody carrying a
nuclear rake. The newspaper The Guardian now reports that on
top of the phone hacking scandal that Lewis was involved
with and his attempts to bury coverage of the phone
(28:31):
hacking scandal in the Post, Lewis was also an informal
advisor to the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and when
the party gate scandal broke at the worst moments of COVID,
Boris Johnson ordered the UK to stay home and isolate,
and then like right after that broadcast, he and his
staff promptly went into an office and held a big
(28:51):
party for somebody, and Lewis, according to the Guardian, told
Boris Johnson that Johnson and his staff should then clean
up their phones, that is, get rid of all the
texts and photos about and of that party, and he's
still editor or publisher of The Washington Post. Well, clearly
Bezos is too distracted. He's on vacation with his fiance
(29:14):
and I guess he's trying to remember how to inflate
her or whatever. But our winner, Dylan Buyers. Dylan Byers
is probably not a name you know. He is the
well traveled media writer and writer is doing the proverbial
lot of work here. He's a media jock sniffer, especially
a media management jock sniffer. He's now part of Puck News,
(29:36):
which is one letter off from being an accurate description
of the man. If you read of an anonymous management
source somewhere trashing a reporter or an anchor or the
audience or whatever, you're probably reading something that Dylan Buyers wrote.
He's one of those guys who finds it hard to
believe that an executive would lie, and he cannot and
(29:57):
will not believe that an executive or a newspaper or
a website or a network would lie to him. Dylan Buyers.
This week, one of the Buyer's emails about the news
business began at the funeral of Howard Feinneman. It's actually
pretty good, especially for buyers. And I'm going out of
(30:20):
chronological order here. I'm going to first read you what
he wrote about Howard on Monday, and then read you
what he wrote about him in April of last year. Quote.
On Monday, many of the swells of the Washington political
media in crowd gathered at Temple Sinai to celebrate the
life and times of legendary author and journalist Howard Feyneman.
(30:43):
The longtime Newsweek star and NBC analyst Mark Whittaker. Evan Thomas,
Chris Matthews, Al Franken, and Jill Abramson were among those
who delivered remarks, and at the end of his eulogy,
Former Rep. John Yarmouth broke out a mini bar sized
bourbon and toasted Fineman's days as a cub reporter for
the Louisville Courier Journal with a wig from the pulpit
(31:06):
in Washington, a town built on institutions and legacies. It
was a true heroes. Goodbye well, very nice, legendary Newsweek star,
A true heroes, Goodbye, Howard Fineman. On April twenty first,
twenty twenty three, the same Dylan Byers was writing something
(31:28):
else about somebody else, and it had nothing to do
with Howard Fineman when he complimented the somebody else who
was somebody named Smith by throwing in out of nowhere
that the guy's work quote sure beat whatever throat clearing
Mount Olympus garbage that some Howard Fineman type was recycling
(31:49):
in Newsweek or the echo chamber of the Washington Post.
End quote, throat clearing Mount Olympus garbage that some Howard
Fineman type was recycling now bluntly, since Howard was my
friend and he had confided in me three months previously
that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had
(32:09):
been given as little as four months to live, and
thank goodness, he really beat that and lasted until last week.
I may have overreacted to reading this from Dylan Byers.
I screenshotted what Buyers had written, and I sent it
back to him, along with the message, what a truly childish,
worthless piece of shit you really are. Feineman is a
(32:31):
better man than you, and that dropped fire hose Smith
would combine to be in a hundred lifetimes. How you
will regret writing this Obviously, buyers could not have known
he had gratuitously insulted someone who just received a terminal prognosis.
I did not believe that he should be blamed for
that part of it. But of course, even without the knowledge,
(32:53):
there is the idea that maybe you shouldn't just gratuitously
insult somebody with a fifty year career in journalism who
has nothing to do with what you're writing about in
a desperate and unsuccessful bid just to sound cool, especially
given the simple actuarial odds that whoever you pick, if
they are seventy four years old, you're probably going to
(33:15):
be publicly trashing someone who is sick, or someone who's
just lost a loved one, or someone who is retiring
against their will. I mean, if you're criticizing somebody for
a reason they wrote this crap last week, or they
did that terrible thing to somebody a year ago, fine
do it. I am the last person to criticize criticism,
(33:36):
but just to do it for its own sake, as
an aside, just to shoot somebody at random, subhuman Maybe
that defense of whoever this smith was would have been
just as good with quote sure beat whatever, throat clearing
mount Olympus garbage someone was recycling in Newsweek or the
(33:56):
echo chamber of the Washington Post, not mentioning Howard Feineman,
not mentioning anybody for that matter. Throat clearing. Mount Olympus
garbage is a pretty good phrase. It needs to be
smeared over somebody's face for you to feel good about
what you're writing. But to then come back after you
(34:17):
did that, and you did smear somebody and rub this
line over their face, and to go to the funeral
of that person that you could not resist insulting fourteen
months earlier for no good reason, and in the same
newsletter report from it, and suddenly attach fake respect that
is probably just as gratuitous as the insult was in
(34:40):
your soulless mind. That makes it all exponentially worse. What
a scumbag Dylan Buyers. And someday there may be an
additional payoff. Someday somebody will be praising some media critic
or writer or someone and they'll say he was so
(35:01):
much better than his useless, aging contemporary Dylan Buyers. Well,
now that I think of it, probably not. I mean,
who is going to remember the work of Dylan Buyers?
So don't be Dylan Buyers, because you never know when
the person you're going to gratuitously name drop an insult
(35:22):
is going to you know, die Dylan Byers, Today's worst
person in the World to the top of the countdown
and Fridays with Thurber, and I am not going to
dare suggest to you that there isn't at least something
(35:44):
misogynistic about mister Prebble gets rid of his wife. But
the ultimate point of this short story, so masterfully crafted
by James Thurber, this matter of fact style that almost
makes you forget you are hearing about a man trying
to murder his wife, is in a larger sense, about
the fact that women are more success bes full than men.
(36:06):
This story does not compliment men, it does not compliment women,
It does not compliment human beings. But it is still marvelous.
Mister Preble Gets rid of his Wife by James Thurber.
Mister Prebble was a plump, middle aged lawyer in Scarsdale.
He used to kid with his stenographer about running away
(36:28):
with him. Let's run away together, he would say, during
a pause in dictation, alrighty, she would say. One rainy
Monday afternoon, mister Prebble was more serious about it than usual.
Let's run away together, said mister Preble. Alrighty, said his stenographer.
(36:49):
Mister Prebble jingled the keys in his pocket and looked
out the window. My wife would be glad to get
rid of me, he said. Would you give you a divorce,
asked the stenographer. I don't suppose so, he said. The
stenographer laughed, you'd have to get rid of your wife,
she said. Mister Preble was unusually silent at dinner that night.
(37:12):
About half an hour after coffee, he spoke, without looking
up from his paper, let's uh go down in the cellar.
Mister Prebble said to his wife, what far? She said,
not looking up from her book. Oh, I don't know,
he said. We uh never go down in the cellar
(37:33):
anymore the way we used to. We never did go
down in the cellar that I remember, said missus Prebble.
I could rest easy the balance of my life if
I never went down in the cellar. Mister Preble was
silent for several minutes. Supposing I said, it meant a
whole lot to me. Began mister Prebble, what's come over you?
(37:54):
His wife demanded, it's cold down there. There's absolutely nothing
to do. We could pick up pieces of coal, said mister.
We might get up some sort of game with pieces
of coal. I don't want to, said his wife. Anyway,
I'm reading, listen, said mister Prebble, rising and walking up
(38:17):
and down. Why won't you come down in the cellar.
You can read down there as far as that goes.
There isn't a good enough light down there, she said.
And anyway, I'm not going to go down in the cellar.
You may as well make up your mind. That g whiz,
said mister Prebble, kicking into the edge of a rug.
Other people's wives go down in the cellar. Why is
(38:39):
it you never want to do anything? I come home
worn out from the office, and you won't even go
down in the cellar with me. God knows, it isn't
very far. It isn't as if I was asking you
to go to the movies or someplace. I don't want
to go, shouted missus Prebble. Mister Preble sat down on
the edge of a davenport. All right, all right, he said,
(39:05):
He picked up the newspaper again. I wish you'd let
me tell you more about it. It's kind of a surprise.
Well you quit harping on that subject, asked missus Prebble. Listen,
said mister Prebble, leaping to his feet, I might as
well tell you the truth instead of beating around the bush.
I want to get rid of you so I can
marry my stenographer. Is there anything especially wrong about that?
(39:27):
People do it every day. Love is something you can't control.
We've been all over that, said missus Prebble. I'm not
going to go all over that again. I just wanted
you to know how things are, said mister Prebble. But
you have to take everything so literally. Good Lord, do
(39:47):
you suppose I really wanted to go down in the
cellar and make up some silly game with pieces of coal.
I never believe that for a minute, said missus Preble.
I knew all along you wanted to get me down
there and bury me. You can say that now after
I told you, said mister Prebble. But it would never
(40:08):
have occurred to you if I hadn't. You didn't tell me.
I got it out of you, said missus Prebble. Anyway,
I'm always two steps ahead of what you're thinking. You're
never within a mile of what I'm thinking, said mister Prebble.
Is that so I knew you wanted to bury me
the minute you got some foot in this house tonight,
missus Prebble held him with a glare. Now that's just
(40:32):
plain damn exaggeration, said mister Prebble, considerably annoyed. You knew
nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I
never thought of it till just a few minutes ago.
It was in the back of your mind, said missus Prebble.
I suppose this filing woman puts you up to it.
You needn't get sarcastic, said mister Prebble. I have plenty
(40:52):
of people to file without having her file. She doesn't
know anything about this, She isn't in on it. I
was going to tell her you'd gone to visit some
friends and fell over a cliff. She wants me to
get a divorce. That's a laugh, said missus Prebble. That's
a laugh. You may bury me, but you'll never get
a divorce. She knows that I told her that, said
(41:15):
mister Prebble. I mean I told her I'd never get
a divorce. Oh, you probably told her about burying me too,
said missus Prebble. That's not true, said mister Prebble, with dignity.
That's between you and me. I was never going to
tell a soul. You'd blab it to the whole world.
Don't tell me, said missus Prebble. I know you. Mister
(41:39):
Prebble puffed at his cigar. I wish you were buried
now it was all over with, he said. Don't you
suppose you would get caught, you crazy thing? She said,
They always get caught. Why don't you go to bed.
You're just getting yourself all worked up over nothing. I'm
not going to bed, said mister Prebble. I'm going to
bury you in the cellar. I got my mind made
(42:00):
up to it. I don't know how I could make
any plainer listen, cried missus Preble, throwing her book down.
Will you be satisfied and shut up? If I go
down in the cellar. Can I have a little peace?
If I go down in the cellar, will you let
me alone? Then? Yes, said mister Prebble. But you spoil
it by taking that attitude. Sure, sure, I always spoil everything.
(42:25):
I stop reading right in the middle of a chapter.
I'll never know how the story comes out. But that's
nothing to you. Did I make you start reading that book,
asked mister Prebble. He opened the cellar door. Here you
go first, said missus Prebble, starting down the steps. It's
cold down here. You would think of this at this
time of the year. Any other husband would have buried
(42:46):
his wife in the summer. You can't arrange those things
just whenever you want to, said mister Prebble. That didn't
fall in love with this girl till late fall. Anybody
else would have fallen in love with her long before that.
She's been around for years. Why is it you always
let other men get in ahead of you, mercy? But
it's dirty down here. What have you got down there?
I was going to hit you over the head with
(43:07):
a shovel, said mister Prebble. You were huh, said missus Prebble.
We'll get that out of your mind. You want to
leave a great, big clue right here in the middle
of everything. We're the first detective to come snooping around
will find it. Come out in the street and find
some piece of iron or something. Something doesn't belong to you,
all right, said mister Prebble. But there won't be any
(43:29):
piece of iron in the street. Women always expect to
pick up a piece of iron anywhere. If you look
in the right place, you'll find it, said missus Prebble.
And don't be gone long, don't you dare stopping at
the cigar store. I'm not going to stand down here
in this cold cellar all night and freeze, all right,
said mister Prebble. I'll hurry and shut that door behind you.
(43:51):
She screamed after him, Where were you born in a barn?
Mister Preble gets rid of his wife by James Thurber.
(44:16):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanell arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. Mister
Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed
by No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme
(44:38):
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of
ESPN inc. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by
Nancy Fauss. The Best Baseball stadium organist. Ever, our announcer
today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and
Better Call Saul. And of course James Thurber's mister Prebble
gets rid of his wife is courtesy the Thurber Literary Trust.
(45:00):
Everything else, everything else was pretty much my fault. So
that's count for this. The one hundred and thirty eighth
day until the twenty twenty four presidential election and sixty
fourth day since convicted felon elderly Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government in the United States.
(45:20):
Use the July eleventh sentencing hearing, use the mental health system,
use presidential immunity if it happens, to stop him from
doing it again while we still can. A reminder will
be live again on YouTube after the debate next Thursday night.
Send your link to this podcast to somebody who doesn't
(45:43):
already listen, and don't forget to join us on YouTube
and on the podcast thereafter. The next scheduled countdown is
Tuesday Bulletins as the news warrants until the next one.
I'm Keith Olriman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(46:22):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
Popular Podcasts
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!