March 13, 2024 • 57 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 139: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump 3rd Party stalking horse and QAnon Party would-be spoiler RFK Junior has confirmed his top two choices for Vice President are: New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and wrestling, government, and TV washout Jesse Ventura.
But how could you be New York Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers AND Vice President Aaron Rodgers at the same time? That's the easy part! Based on 2023 being an NFL quarterback would only take about three and a half minutes out of his Vice Presidential year: "Now they're going to swear in the Vice Presi... OHHHH HE'S TORN HIS ACHILLES WHILE TRYING TO STAND UP."
Back-up Ventura is still insisting he was fired by MSNBC in November 2003 because he opposed the war in Iraq. Yeah, I started on MSNBC in February 2003 and I outlasted George W. Bush. I'll tell you the real story of why MSNBC fired him (Jesse may not even know it).
(7:02) SPECIAL COMMENT II: Robert K. Hur, the Biden "Special Counsel" and Trump operative named to the job by the impossibly inadequate Merrick Garland, was already DOA at yesterday's House "Biden Age Plot" Committee Hearing before it started. Republicans are enraged because the transcript of Hur's interview with President Biden they subpoenaed was also released to the taxpayers who paid for it. To the surprise (and more importantly the rage) of every Democrat, nearly every reporter, and even some Democrats, it showed that Hur COMPLETELY FABRICATED THE ENTIRE "BIDEN COULDN'T REMEMBER WHEN HIS SON DIED" saga. The transcript proved Hur a liar in that case, and time after time. Honestly, he should've told the car service driver to go right past the Rayburn Building and just take him to Dulles Airport for a trip anywhere else in the world.
Hey, maybe he can be RFK Jr's Vice President. Or get a sub host job at NewsMax!
B-Block (27:00) We didn't win, it's all rigged (28:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: North Carolina Republicans have nominated as the State Superintendent of Schools, a woman named Michele Morrow who believes the QAnon delusion that Jim Carrey keeps himself looking young by drinking the blood of children (wait - Jim Carrey looks YOUNG?). They've topped that in Arizona where both houses of the legislature have approved a bill that lets university students appeal their grades if they're conservative but the professor is liberal. And best of all, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is now doing infomercials for a Cosmetic Dentist in Texas. Her last advertising idea, you may recall, was SD's anti-meth program: "Meth - We're On It!"
C-Block (38:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well, no, the Political Podcast of the Year award we didn't win wasn't rigged. But 35 years ago the local NBC station figured out how to game the local news Emmy awards - part of the reason I'm 0-forever in Emmys. So it's a good time to tell you that saga.
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. Okay,
this is newer and dumber, so let's save for a
(00:24):
moment the self defenestration of former Special counsel and perhaps
soon former Attorney Robert K Her and begin instead with
Robert F. Kennedy Junior identifying his top two picks to
be his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Rodgers and Jesse
the Body Ventura. Because the Dilbert guy and Kurt Schilling
(00:49):
and that weirdo who used to play Roseanne on The
Roseanne Show. I guess they're two main stream. The New
York Times scoop this, and the fact that the domain
name Kennedy Rogers dot com was registered last week. Aaron
Rodgers seems ana to run with Kennedy vaccine denying asshole
perfect with the hallucinating New York Jets quarterback as his
(01:12):
viv RFK Junior could christen their ticket the brain Damage Party.
And if you're asking, how could you be vice president
of the United States and quarterback of the New York
Jets at the same time, that's the easy part. Based
on twenty twenty three, Being Jets quarterback Rogers would take
only three and a half minutes out of the year
(01:33):
of Vice President Rogers. Hell, he could be back in
the Vice Presidential Residents at the Naval Observatory by halftime.
Perfect Team. The vice president with no connection to the
real world and an admission he has used hallucinogens, and
a president with no connection to the real world who
has not admitted he has used hallucinogens and who thus
(01:56):
may or may not know. He's just a stalking horse
for Trump with Aaron Rodgers, four time football Most Valuable Player.
Somehow could not translate that into a job as a
game show host and is instead a sidekick on a
streaming show run by ESPN. Perfect Team, and now we
(02:17):
will swear in the vice president. Oh no, he torre's
achilles standing up. Damn. The best part of this is
The New York Times ruined its own scoop by taking
this parade of Stoner's seriously quote, the involvement of mister
Rogers or of mister Ventura could add star power and
(02:39):
independent zeal to mister Kennedy's outsider bid. Sure so could
the combination of President RFK Junior and Vice President Donald
Trump Junior or or President RFK Junior and hear me
out President RFK Junior and Vice President RFK Senior. Huh Yeah.
(03:06):
As to Ventura, who could not beat out somebody named
Howie to become nominee for president of the Green Party
four years ago, who hasn't been in wrestling since nineteen ninety,
who hasn't been governor of Minnesota since two thousand and three,
who hasn't been on television since MSNBC fired him in
October two thousand and three after like five episodes of
a weekend show called Jesse Ventura's America. To this day,
(03:32):
Jesse Ventura insists and says he was fired by MSNBC
because he opposed the Iraq war. Hello, I was on
at eight pm on MSNBC starting eight months before he
did an I outlasted George W. Bush friend in fact,
(03:55):
and I was part of a small crew trying to
prevent him from getting fired, because hell, he would have
been better than Joe Scarborough. Jesse Ventura got fired at
MSNBC because he couldn't do the television part of the television.
I mean, his questions were okay, and he could bluster
and pontificate pretty well, but ask him to throw to
a commercial to say something like, uh, We'll be right back,
(04:19):
and he froze flatlined. I tried to talk our bosses
into hiring somebody as his announcer. I suggested my friend
Bill Pedo from ESPN. Ah, I'm Bell Pedo, and this
is Jesse Ventura's America. Okay, Governor, what do you have?
And okay, governor, time to take a quick break. This
is Jesse Ventura's America. Please, and to introduce the guests
(04:42):
for him too, because he couldn't do that either. They
paid him the full three years left on his contract,
so he too, would make a perfect pairing with RFK
if Aaron Rodgers says no or forgets how to speak
in human language with RFK talking like somebody who just
had his throat run over by a cactus covered umbe
(05:05):
and Jesse talking down here like this whole perfect. So
Kennedy and Aaron Rodgers or oh wait, hear me out,
Kennedy and Kennedy and Robert k Her because Robert k
Her is done in the lawyering business. As the kids say,
(05:31):
the President Biden special counsel mister Herr yesterday, where exactly
was his head at? I have no idea, but check
around the House Judiciary Hearing room for it, because long
before his hearing yesterday was over, HER's head had clearly
come off his body and rolled away. I mean, after
everybody left, did they search hearing room twenty one to
(05:53):
forty one in the ray Burn Building, Because this guy
is done in the single most destructive testimony, self destructive
testimony since the steroids in baseball hearing nineteen years ago
this Sunday, when Mark McGuire said he wasn't there to
talk about the past, and Sammy Sosa pretended not to
speak English, and hell McGuire should have pretended not to
(06:15):
speak English. In the worst work since then. Robert K.
Hurr was proved a liar who edited out the parts
of his own interview with Joe Biden in which he
had complemented Biden's memory, who was repeatedly contradicted by the
transcript of his own interview with Joe Biden, who started
(06:38):
that interview with Biden by literally not knowing what time
it was, who misidentified other counsel in the case, and
whose mistakes and stupidity and lies were so obvious, so
easily proven by his own documents that all that happened
before the Democratic Congressan could even get to him before
the hearing even started. And before the hearing even started,
(07:01):
Robert Hurr's lies were so unavoidable that he was taken
apart by politics, by the Associated Press, by the Washington Post,
by CBS News. There was enough time still left before
that gabble hit that desk in Rayburn that Robert K.
Hurr could have told the car service to take him
not to Capitol Hill but to Dulles Airport, and he
(07:22):
could have gotten on a plane going anywhere else in
the world, because anywhere else in the world would have
worked out better for him than did hearing room twenty
one to forty one in Rayburn. The Biden Age plot,
and I will repeat that the phrase is not mine,
it's politico. The biden Age plot depended on three key
moments in the last six days. The MAGA assumption that
(07:44):
the President would fall into the orchestra pit during the
State of the Union, the in retrospect fire everybody assumption
that Katie Britt would not be instantly transformed into Sarah
Palin levels of punchlineeness, and the saving grace the person
who we have all else failed and failed could still
(08:05):
paint an indelible picture of a confused, delusional, dysfunctional, dishonest
Joe Biden, and freed from bewoke Department of Justice, he
could convict President Biden in the court of public opinion.
Except Robert K. Hurr turned out to be a fraud
(08:27):
and so bad at being a fraud that if you
told me he had quit the Department of Justice to
avoid being prosecuted by the Department of Justice for professional misconduct,
or that he had composed his Special Counsel's report about
Biden entirely by memory without ever consulting the transcript of
his interview with Biden, I would believe you. And again.
(08:51):
Then the hearings started. As soon as they realized what
dead weight her was the Republicans, and I have to
say I predicted this here yesterday. The Republicans turned quickly
and venomously on him, and every Democrat on the committee
kicked him enough to merit that Simpson stop stop, He's
already dead meme. But the kill shot came courtesy Representative
(09:16):
Madeline Dean of the Pennsylvania Fourth It's so bad you
may want to stand well back from your device as
you listen to this, because you could still get splattered.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Your report on page two oh eight says that mister
Biden couldn't come up with the date the year of
his son Bo Biden's death, when in fact, in the transcript,
it shows that you asked him the month and do
you know what he said, mister Her, he said, oh God,
May thirtieth. Would you like to correct the record? His
memory was pretty firm on the month and the day.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Congress Roman, I don't believe that's correct with respect to
the transcript, but if you could refer me to a
specific page, I'd be.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Happy to look. Huge mistake, Bobby Her from.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
The transcription, page eighty two, the words are President.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Biden, what month did Bo die? Oh?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
God, May thirtieth.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
This is what Robert K. Her, who will be lucky
if he comes out of this still having a law license,
wrote in his report about President Biden quote he did
not remember, even within several years, when his son Bo died.
And that turns out to have been an utter fabrication.
(10:31):
The transcript the transcript of Robert HER's interview over two
days with Joe Biden, which starts with her saying good
morning to Biden and everybody else. President except it was afternoon.
The transcript shows her asks Biden about where he kept
the papers promulgated after he left the vice presidency in
January twenty seventeen, and the President answers, quote, I hadn't
(10:52):
walked away from the idea that I may run for
office again. But if I ran again, I'd be running
for president. And so what was happening?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Though?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
What month did Bo die? Oh? God, May thirtieth. One
of his lawyers then interjected, twenty fifteen. Another person present
also said twenty fifteen. Biden then says, was it May
twenty fifteen he had died? Another unidentified speaker says it
was May of twenty fifteen. Biden then says it was
twenty fifteen. Another Biden lawyer reconfirms the year. Robert HER's
(11:27):
deputy then confirms the year. That's it. That was the
entire testimony about the death of Bo. Biden he did
not remember even within several years when his son Bo died. Bullshit,
a complete fabrication. Robert khur should be in jail for
(11:49):
that because Robert Khurr was contradicted by Robert k Herr's
own transcript, and he wasn't even smart enough to check
the transcript or to anticipate that if he had promised
to turn the transcript for political reasons over to the
Biden Age Plot Committee, you know, the Department of Justice
would have to make it public at some point too.
(12:12):
So the other half of that is when President Biden
lashed out at Robert Hurr after her release is now
proven to be fictional Special Counsel report, when Biden said,
how in the hell dare he raise that he wasn't
complaining that her had asked him about his son during
the interview, because her hadn't. Biden was complaining about her
(12:33):
lying about Biden getting the year of his own son's
death wrong when he had not gotten the year of
his own son's death wrong. And by the way, and
I'm sure you have a story like this too. I
think I have asked my sister once a year, for
five years, ten years for the date our mother died.
(12:58):
I cannot shake the idea that it was in April,
because she was a great New York Yankee fan. The
first game at the New Yankee Stadium was the same
day that she died, so it had to be April,
except the first official game in the New Yankee Stadium
that counted was in April. The first exhibition game was
in March, which is when she died. Sometimes I tell
(13:20):
people my mom and dad died in the same year,
because she died late in March two thousand and nine
and he died in the middle of March twenty ten. O.
And by the way, Robert Hurr had a transcript of
what Biden had said about his son bo and his death.
Joe Biden didn't, So her is not just another corrupt
(13:41):
partisan political hitman Trump whorer posing as a lawyer and
a special counsel. He's a stupid, corrupt partisan political hitman,
Trump horror posing as a lawyer and a special counsel.
And oh, by the way, where the committee Republicans enraged
about that whoa man about their star witness, the last
(14:02):
hope of anything they could throw at Biden him being
hoisted by the petard that was his own transcript. No,
they were enraged, all right, but not about the transcript
contradicting Robert Hert. They were outraged that the transcript had
been released by the Department of Justice. Dan Bishop, republican
(14:23):
author of an anti trans bathroom bill from the North
Carolina eight, which is also his IQ. Yeah, Dan, they
got a lot of nerve releasing your secret evidence a
(14:45):
Department of Justice transcript. You guys subpoened to the public
who paid for it before you could cherry pick something
from it. Actually, DOJ did you a favor, Dan Bishop,
because you couldn't have cherry picked anything from it, because
on page forty seven of the Day one transcript complemented
(15:06):
Joe Biden's memory and he chose to leave that out
of the report too. And when Eric Swallwell nailed her
on it, Robert Hirr couldn't even muster the honesty to say, yeah,
I said.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
That Day one, page forty seven, you said to President Biden,
you have appear to have a photographic understanding and.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Recall of the House.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Did you say that to President Biden?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Those words do appear on page forty seven of the transcript.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Photographic, is what you said?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Is that right? That word does appear on page forty
seven of the transcript.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Never appeared in your report, though, Is that correct? The
word photographic that does not appear in my report.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So a cowardly and stupid, corrupt partisan political hitman Trump Horror,
posing as a lawyer and a special count. Then remember
when I said this was the worst congressional testimony since
Mark maguire, saying he was not there to talk about
the past. Well Swollwell also gave this nitwit her a
(16:17):
chance to at least save his future by saying, of course,
I'm not doing this because Trump promised me a big
job if he's elected. I was a nonpartisan figure at
the Department of Justice. Instead, her said, oh, no thanks, Congressman,
I'll just twist here. I'll just twist slowly in the wind.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
You want to be perceived understandably as credible, and so
I want to first see if you will pledge to
not accept an appointment from Donald Trump if he is
elected Againness President.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Congressman, I don't. I'm not here to testify. I'm I'm
here to talk about the report and the work that
went into it.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
You don't want to be associated with that guy again, do.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You, Congressman. I'm not here to offer any opinions about
what may it may not happen in the future. I'm
here to talk about the work that went into the report,
which I stand by.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I mean, this guy is an idiot, so much of
an idiot that James Comer was not the biggest idiot
in that room. Comer says someone named Dana Remis was
Biden's White House counsel, and her corrects Comer and says, no, no,
Dana Remis was Obama's White House counsel. Except no, mister her,
Dana Remis was Biden's White House counsel. Stickler for details,
(17:32):
this dude ain't. At another point in the transcript, her
is not sure about a detail about furniture. Three times
in nine lines of transcript, her says he might be misremembering.
Later in the transcript, her deputy adds a word to
a supposed Biden quote and reads it back to Biden.
Biden remembers the quote correctly and corrects the guy, and
(17:55):
on and on and on and on and on, and
then the Republicans went after him because he didn't blow
up Biden in the report or obviously in the hearing room.
This is Tom Tiffany of the Wisconsin Seventh, well known
as one of the most gullible of the magas. That's
presumably a result of the twenty years that he ran
(18:17):
petroleum distribution at places like Zenker Oil. Twenty years is
a lot of gas fumes to inhale.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
So I want to thank you for the work that
you did as far as you could, but unfortunately you
are part of the praetorian guard that guards the swamp
out here in Washington, DC, protecting the elites, and Joe
Biden is part of that company of the elites.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Whatever you say, Karen, I mean Matt Gates even attacked
Bob her not great Bob, and so silent, mournful, abandoned, broken,
Robert k Hur recedes into the darkness. He will go
into history as a possible fill in host for the
(19:01):
three pm show on Newsmax as how shall I put
this as a sympathetic, well meaning middle aged man with
a poor memory, only without the sympathetic part or the
well meaning part. Do not discount the reaction to this
(19:31):
from the Washington press corps. They ran away from Robert
hr as fast as their cloven feet could carry them.
After seventeen Biden is demented stories the Wall Street Journal,
President quote not stumped on basic factual questions. After thirty
(19:51):
Biden is unfit stories in New York Times, Biden quote
fumbled with dates and the sequence of events, while otherwise
appearing clearheaded. After thirty three, Biden is troubled stories. The
Washington Post Biden quote doesn't come across as being as
absent minded as her has made him out to be.
Associated press quote the full transcript could raise questions about
(20:13):
HER's depiction of the eighty one year old president as
having quote significant limitations unquote on his memory. The White
House correspondent of CBS News quote the President was fired
up about HER's claim that he couldn't remember when his
son bo died because it was false. Nay, everybody got
off this Titanic except a guy named Kendalanian of NBC
(20:41):
News News and Justice correspondent last scene putting up a
one source story about more Biden documents being found. His quote.
The Robert Herr hearing is a perfect example of what
American politics has become. A career public servant spends a
year reaching conclusions that are inconvenient for partisans of each party,
(21:02):
so they set about questioning his motives and ethics on
national television. I'm pushing my oath quota again, but ken bullshit.
Robert Herr career public servant. As recently as seven years ago,
(21:24):
Robert Herr was at a private DC law firm, the
twenty second biggest law firm in the world judged by income.
Robert Herr was up to his ass in corporate law,
cash and ethics. This man doesn't have any any ethics.
(21:48):
In essence, he doctored his own transcript of his own
interview of the President of the United States, edited out
the exculpatory good parts about Biden's memory, fabricated this whole
couldn't get the date of his own son's death, right bullshit.
Clearly had not even read his own transcript where it
contradicted him, inserted amateur medical opinions of his own into
(22:12):
his report. Lied, tried to lie at the hearing. And oh,
by the way, one party is trying to lie about
the mental health of the President of the United States
when the brains of its hitler wanna be candidate are
seeping out his own ears, and the other party is
trying to stop them and preserve representative government in this country.
(22:35):
In this case, stopped them by proving their operative. Robert k.
Hurr lied, But that's all the same to this hack
Kendelanian and he and NBC News can shove their both
sides as him up their asses waiting for Kristen Welker.
(22:59):
On Sunday, Kendelanian allegedly wrote, also of interest here, ken
Buck is not just retiring from Congress. The Colorado representative
can't stand another goddamned minute of this crap. The Republican
majority just drops to two as of the end of
next week. He's quitting a special election as early as
June fifteenth. Lauren Bobert can't wait to get her hands
(23:24):
all over the special election. New law in Arizona, students
can appeal their grades if they are Conservatives but the
professor is liberal. And in North Carolina, the Republicans have
nominated for state superintendent of schools a q moron who
believes Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children to look
so young and vibrant. Wait, Jim Carrey looks young and vibrant.
(23:48):
So this today, this minute, right now, this may turn
out to be the golden age of American education. That's next.
This is Countdown. This is Countdown, with Keith Olberman still
(24:27):
ahead of us on this edition of Countdown, Things I
Promised not to tell and Shock Shock, we did not
win the Political Podcast of the Year at the iHeart
Podcast Awards at South By Southwest told you so. I mean,
it was obvious Pod Save America would win. It was
nominated in three different categories, including overall Podcast of the Year,
(24:50):
so it was obvious. I do want to congratulate Favreau
and Vider and those guys on the award and on
surviving their grueling schedule of two episodes a week with
only the five different hosts Karaja boys now seriously, congratulations. Also,
it's all rigged anyway. Seems like a good time to
(25:13):
explain the award process. I'm not saying these awards are rigged.
I'm sure they're not, but there are ways to actually
rig media awards. And with the retrospective period of time
of almost let's see thirty five years, I'll tell you why.
I now laugh at the story of how NBC gamed
(25:34):
the Local News Emmys years ago at my expense, in
things I promised not to tell. First, still more idiots
to talk about the daily roundup of the miscrants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons
in the world. And we begin with an honorary winner. Me.
(25:56):
Yesterday I noted that Pope Francis had unfortunately invoked the
appeasement of Hitler before and during World War Two when
he suggested that President Zelenski embrace quote the courage of
the white flag and surrendered to Putin. I mentioned that
the World War two popes were Pious the sixth and
Pious the seventh, and they pretty much told the world
(26:17):
to do that with Hitler. Regular listener and longtime friend
Charlie Pierce of Esquire reached out yesterday morning to note
that Pius the seventh died in August August eighteen twenty three,
and Pius the sixth died in August seventeen ninety nine.
So I got the wrong Pi I, as mister Pierce noted,
(26:39):
I meant Pious the eleventh, who died in nineteen thirty nine,
and Pious the twelfth, and the twelfth, he said, is
up for sainthood, which would be a big problem for
me obviously, and which would be a big surprise to
you know, German, Jews and other Europeans from the nineteen forties.
As I would note, I think this does underscore the
real reason that the Roman Empire collapsed. Those goddamned Roman
(27:02):
numerals see x v L. I'm not trying to spell
the hip version of clicks here. I'm trying to count anyway.
The Countdown Editorial Board regrets the error and it has
suspended me for my mistake. Okay, I'm back. The suspension
was for one second. Now to the winners. The bronze
(27:22):
worse Michelle Morrow, who won the primary for the election
for state Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina. She
would be in charge of two thousand schools and one
hundred thousand teachers. She's a Newsmax writer. She marched in
DC on January sixth. She said, after Pride Month last year,
(27:43):
quote as a nurse, I want you to understand something.
There is no pride in perversion. And that was the
good part about her. As always, these nitwitz like Michelle
Morrow never even think to scrub their psycho's social media history,
which is where we discover that she has written that
the country should quote ban Islam and quote ban Muslims
(28:05):
from elected offices. And that was only the sort of
bad part. She's also a Q moron one post, follow
all and retweet Trump twenty Q twenty Q patriots to
Unite Worldwide WWG one WGA, which sadly is not her
(28:26):
showing her support for the Writers Guild of America. And
even that is only the sort of sort of bad part.
Ms Morrow has also referenced the q and on theory
that Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children in order
to stay that young. And you wonder at some point
if anybody has seen Jim Carrey, I mean Jim Carrey.
(28:48):
It would be a lot less crazy of a theory
if Jim Carrey was not sixty two years old but
looked seventy two years old. He's drinking blood, it evidently
doesn't do anything for you, assholes, just all assholes. And
even that is only the sort of sort of bad part.
(29:08):
This moro woman has referenced the QAnon theory that the
actor and comedian Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children
in order to stay that young. Does anybody in QAnon
look at anything but QAnon crap online like a picture
of Jim Carrey. I mean, it would be a lot
(29:29):
less crazy of a theory if Jim Carrey was not
sixty two years old but looks more like seventy two.
I mean, if he's drinking blood, evidently it does nothing
for you. Your Republican nominee for Superintendent of Schools for
all of North Carolina who should not be allowed out
of her house unless she's wearing a leash, Michelle Morrow,
(29:53):
and in this context she's both dumb and dumber. The
runner up worser and continuing this theme, Republican State Senator
Anthony Kern of Arizona, who has hit the nail on
the head with what is along with this country half
of the nation idiots, measurable, factually provable boneheads. Senator Kern
has introduced Arizona Senate Bill fourteen seventy seven, which will
(30:15):
fix all that in his state. It will establish the
Arizona Grade Challenge Board, which will allow any student at
any Arizona Public university to demand that their instructor reevaluate
their exam grade, or even their entire course grade, if
the student files an allegation of bias, not racial bias,
(30:38):
not religious bias, not gender bias, not LGBTQ bias, only
political bias. This is the gist of our unsolvable national problem.
Half the country believes it cannot possibly be wrong, it
(30:59):
cannot possibly be stupid, it cannot possibly have gotten a
C minus in geometry has to be because the teacher
is a liberal. It was Oliver Cromwell who said, I
beseech you in the bowels of Christ to think it
possible you may be mistaken. But of course, these idiot
(31:21):
students in Arizona, for whom the bias board grade challenge
as being established, they've never heard of Oliver Cromwell or
Oliver Hardy or Laurence Olivier because they're so smart they
don't need to know who those people are. And if
the answer on the exam is Oliver Cromwell and they
(31:43):
instead write Carrie Lake and they get a C minus,
it's because the professors two woke. The system is biased
against me, which is true. The system is biased against them.
It's supposed to be because they're stupid, and some people
are irredeemably stupid. But now this system is broken and
(32:06):
they can vote themselves smart. And I don't know how
to fix this. More importantly, I don't know how to
weed out the really stupid people, like the Arizona State
Senator Anthony Kern, who is stupid, and his colleagues in
the Senate, in the state House, the Republicans in Arizona
who approved his bill happily. They did not approve it
by a big enough margin to override the upcoming governor
(32:27):
veto after which they will say the governor vetoed it
because she's a liberal and their conservatives, and we start
the whole cycle over again. No, she vetoed it because
you're idiots. But the winner the worst, Speaking of idiots,
Governor Christy Nome of South Dakota, who has done a
(32:48):
personal testimonial commercial for some cosmetic dentistry place in Texas.
This is four minutes and fifty one seconds on Twitter
in which she talks about how they gave her a
new smile and she's so grateful because they're orthodontic. Uncle
would not fix her teeth when she was a kid
and she's always suffered because of that and total loss
(33:13):
of well, I guess credibility is the right word here.
She looks straight into the camera for four minutes and
fifty one seconds and ad libs about her smile and
how perfect it is now. I mean, she didn't have
much credibility to start with, but she's now governor infomercial.
I mean six years ago, Governor Teeth launched a campaign
(33:34):
in South Dakota. Christy Nome's campaign against crystal meth and
Christy Nomes named it meth. We're on it. This is
an advertising genius right here, and if you don't agree,
it's because you're woke. As an aside, can we start
calling these ads on Twitter what they have now? Become spam?
(33:58):
Governor Christy do you kiss your husband with that infomercial
mouth of yours? And Corey Lewandowski gnome two days worst person.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And now.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
To the number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
The website The Athletic has reported that my old friends
at ESPN had for years been gaming the system at
the Sports Emmy Awards, bribing voters now trying to push
(34:45):
the voting by nominating stories about the judges or about
the places they were from. Now otherwise tampering with the
process of who got nominated or who won, or anything
like that. No, their crime was adding to the list
of nominees fictional names, so that if their shows won,
(35:06):
they would be able to get extra trophies that could
be re engraved and given to people who were not
eligible to win those Emmy awards. Those people were the
hosts and reporters of the show. Rather incredibly, until the
last few years, if a network submitted one of its
shows for Best Studio Sportscast or one of several other categories,
(35:29):
virtually everybody who worked on the show was eligible. NBC
won the Emmy for the Outstanding Live Sports Special in
twenty twenty two, and NBC in its submission listed all
the executives, the producers, the directors, the associate producers, everybody
down to the stage managers. Literally three one hundred and
(35:51):
sixty five different sportspeople, and if they shelled out the
money or if the network did it for them, they
all got an actual Emmy award, not one anchor or
report among them. Now, obviously this concerns me far more
than it does you. And don't get me wrong, I
(36:12):
do not begrudge any of those three hundred and sixty
five winners their Emmys, including the nine stage managers. And
it looks like I worked with like three of them,
and they were great. Counting them up, I saw literally
dozens of names of friends and former colleagues, and they
were all great. But the National Academy of Television Arts
and Sciences did not permit adding even just the lead
(36:34):
anchors and reporters from the twenty twenty two Olympics or
any other nominated Best Show if they were on the air.
The official explanation for this curiosity was they didn't want
anybody quote double dipping getting an award for Best Anchor,
Best Reporter and getting another Emmy if the show they
(36:56):
were anchoring one best show. There are just five different
categories for people on the air in the Sports Emmys.
That's it. Three hundred and sixty five Emmys were given
out to the producers and stage managers from the Olympics,
and five were given out to all the people on
the air at the Olympics on the NBA broadcasts, football
(37:18):
play by play, sports centers, postgame shows, pardon the interruptions, baseball, curling, darts, whatever. Now,
practically speaking, that is not literally true because of the
ESPN dodge, which I will grant is hilarious and which
I'll get to in a moment. But there was also
the dodge used by MLB Network and other operations over
(37:39):
the years. In twenty twenty, when it showed MLB Tonight
won the Emmy for Best Daily Live Sports Series, MLB
Network submitted the name of sixty three different producers among
them were Greg Amsinger, and that's a coincidence. There's also
a Greg Amsinger who was the primary anchor of MLB Tonight.
(38:00):
And then there's a producer named Bob Costas, other producer
named Peter Gammons. And my friends Ron Darling producer and
ex Yankees manager, Joe Girardi producer and Harold Reynolds producer
who I've known for thirty three years, and Baseball Hall
of famers Maedro Martinez producer and Jim Tomy producer. Why
(38:22):
once nearly ran over with a golf cart in Arizona,
But I'll tell that story some other time. Heydro Martinez,
who I got started in television at Turner in twenty thirteen,
won an Emmy in twenty twenty as a producer of
MLB Tonight, not as an analyst, because you couldn't give
an Emmy to an analyst, even if he was the
(38:43):
best thing on MLB Tonight, if he was. No Emmy's
for those lousy talent. Didn't they get enough honors as
it is? We're given out five of them and money?
Don't they get all the money? And you know what,
that's fine too. From my first day in television. August third,
nineteen eighty one, somewhere around one two pm, the fourth
or fifth hour of my television career, I thought, and
(39:06):
I think I said it aloud to the producer, that
I did not understand why anybody would work in television
if they were not on the air. If the job
fills the yawning maw of your insatiable ego, you know,
like it does mine, that's great, makes sense. Being on
TV has given purpose to the lives of lots of
(39:27):
us who would otherwise have spent our entire lives just
standing in front of a mirror talking to ourselves, maybe
holding a microphone as we did so, a microphone that
was not plugged into anything. But there are only two
things that ever bring any attention to these Sports Emmy
Awards and the News Emmys and the Entertainment Emmys. How
(39:50):
many awards go to each network and who won those
five little awards for best Sports Personalities. Maybe once in
a while, an unlikely show will win for Best Studio Show,
and it will get a little attention on Twitter for
a lo like three hours, But otherwise nobody writes up
those three hundred and sixty five different trophies given out
(40:11):
to NBC's twenty twenty two Olympic non on air staff.
And I think there is a little hypocrisy here because
the on air people are used for publicity such as
it is, while there was this horrible fear that they
might win too many awards for just one show, or
that adding them to the list of the real nominees
(40:32):
would make the lists too long. I mean, three hundred
and sixty five Olympic Emmy Award winners is just right,
but three hundred and eighty five would have been a
nightmarish embarrassment anyway. Finally, to the Athletic report on how
ESPN gained the system until the rule about quote talent
unquote was changed for I believe twenty twenty three. I'll
(40:55):
quote a part of the Athletic story. The Emmy administrators
quote uncovered a scheme that the network used to acquire
more than thirty of the coveted statuettes were on air
talent ineligible to receive them since at least twenty ten,
ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the
(41:15):
awards won by some of these imaginary individuals, had them
re engraved, and gave them to on air personalities oohoo,
describing this as fraud and as ill gotten Emmys. Katie
Strang of the Athletics somehow managed to sleuth out this clever,
almost indecipherable series of immoral substitutions, quoting her again. Names
(41:40):
similar to the names of on air personalities and with
identical initials were listed, all under the title of associate producers.
Miss Strang gave the fake names and then helpfully followed
the fake names with parentheses which contained the real names
of those evil talent who, by fraud and deception and
trickery and another disregard for the sacred sanctity of the
(42:05):
Emmy Awards, took possession of young, unsuspecting and vulnerable trophies
that they did not deserve. Quote Kirk Henry parenthesis, Kirk Herbstreet,
Lee Clark parenthesis, Lee Corso, Dirk Howard parenthesis, Desmond Howard
(42:28):
and Tim Richard parentheses, Tom Ronaldi, Stephen Ponder parentheses, Sam
Ponder and Gene Wilson, Gene Wojatowski, Chris Fulton, Chris Fowler,
Tell Fowler, I can hear him? And Shelley Saunders Shelley Smith.
(42:49):
How did anyone ever figure out these aliases reflective of
evil masterminds at ESPN. My god, did the Athletic hire
the World War Two codebreakers from Bletchley Park? Who would
have ever believed the Dirk Howard and Desmond Howard were
the same person. I bet some of those crack MLB
(43:11):
tonight MLB network producers could have done that detective work.
Producer Pedro Martinez perhaps, or producer Jim Tomay or producer
Bill Ripkin Col's brother. Seriously, don't those names seem a
little too obvious? I mean, if you're trying to trick
somebody into thinking the award is not for Sam Ponder,
(43:33):
why do you write Steven Ponder? Somebody observed on social
media that these names sound like the names in a
sports video game when you can't get the rights to
the real players' names. Why is the Kansas City quarterback
named Patrick your Holmes. The Emmys did not crack down
(43:55):
on MLB network as near as I know anyway. It
certainly wasn't mentioned in the Athletic piece. It did not
crack down on MLB network listing all of its on
air guys as pus so they could get trophies. Doesn't
it seem plausible that the use of the phony names
and phony is doing a lot of work in this sentence,
the use of the barely phony names was the Emmy
(44:16):
committee looking the other way as ESPN tried to get
a couple of trophies for its reporters and anchors. I
mean thirty over thirteen years. That's not a lot. The
problem here is somebody at the Emmy's found out called
ESPN on it. ESPN made those on air people give
the trophies back. And there is, at least in the
(44:40):
Athletics article, the implication that maybe a couple of producers
were fired by ESPN for doing this. It's madness. And
there are two other serious components to this, and obviously
one of them is going to be about me. I
have been nominated for like fifteen Emmys over the years,
twenty twenty five local sports network, Sports Network News. I
(45:04):
have never I am the Susan Lucci of sports and
News Emmys. Actually that is a bad comp Susan Lucci
finally won an Emmy in nineteen ninety nine. Me I
am oh since nineteen eighty one. Now, there are a
lot of reasons for this, none of which really matters.
(45:25):
But the primary of which is roll of the Dice.
I got nominated against Bob Costas twice in three years
in the nineties, and who's going to win that battle?
He would he did. Then he came over sheepishly and
he apologized. Why the guys who are only on once
a week like me are pitted against the guys who
are on every night like you. I can't understand if
(45:47):
Bob had not been a great friend of mine before that.
He sealed it with that remark. On the other hand,
there was a lot of corruption in the local Emmys.
They are judged by panels in other cities, at least
they were when I was in local news. And in
early nineteen eighty eight, apparently the news director of the
NBC affiliated station in Toledo, Ohio found out that any
(46:10):
voters in Toledo would be voting on that year's awards
for Los Angeles. So somebody thought, let's game this system.
The awards submitted by KNBC in Los Angeles for Best
Sports Reporting for nineteen eighty eight was about morgana, the
Kissing Bandit, the Buxom dancer who used to run onto
(46:32):
the field during baseball games and kiss the players, and
she lived in Toledo, Ohio. So sure enough that year
the guy at CANBC in Los Angeles beat me out
for Best Local TV Sports Reporting in Los Angeles because
he had submitted a report consisting entirely of Benny Hill's
(46:54):
style site gags in which Morgana The Kissing Bandit of Toledo,
Ohio chased him around. All I had in my house
submission was the day I exclusively broke the story that
the Los Angeles Kings were trading five players and fifteen
million dollars to Edmonton for Wayne Gretzky. Great report, loser,
(47:17):
I know what kind of reporting is that compared to
Morgana The Kissing Bandit. So anyway, when they gave him
that award, my girlfriend and my agent and I stood
up and left. But I'm not a bad loser, just
a vengeful one. One year I was really pissed about
(47:38):
not getting an Emmy. In nineteen ninety nine and two thousand,
in addition to five nights a week on the Fox
cable version of Sports Center, I also hosted the pregame
and postgame shows wrapping around the Fox Network Baseball game
of the week. These were, to say the least arduous
days six am to six pm on a Saturday, invariably
(48:00):
a beautiful day in southern California. And it was made
doubly arduous by my analyst, Steve Lyons, as sleazy and
as disagreeable man as anybody with whom I have ever worked.
Steve Lyons made homophobic jokes on the air. He criticized
a Jewish player for not playing on Yam Kipper. He
(48:23):
implied a Latino manager had stolen his wallet. Later, his
career ended after a domestic battery charge. And when he
wasn't doing all that, Lions mastered and specialized in one
other thing, complaining. I mean, the makeup artist on our
show once thanked me for never complaining, and I said,
(48:47):
but I complain all the time, and she said, not
even close anyway. Two years of this. The first year,
nineteen ninety nine, the winner for the Emmy for Best
Live Studio Sports Show was not SportsCenter, was not the
NFL Today on CBS. It was Fox MLB pregame me
(49:07):
and Lions. He did not get an Emmy. I did
not get an Emmy. The producers got Emmys. To their credit.
The people at Fox said they were going to try
to get me one, and they did not succeed. It
was against the rules, and we had not thought of
the little bit of a dec here and putting me
in as an associate producer under the name Teeth Alderman.
(49:30):
The next year, two thousand, the winner for the Emmy
for the Best Studio Analyst was Steve Lyons. He got
an Emmy. My boss on the show said, not only
should I have gotten his Emmy, but quote, you should
have gotten a second one for carrying that buffoon on
your back every week. But personal whining aside. I mean, honestly,
(49:53):
what would happen if I won an Emmy now? For
some reason? I mean, you think anybody would ever remember that?
If I am remembered, it'll be for not ever winning
an Emmy. I keep coming back to this idea finally
corrected in twenty twenty two that the awards are for
the producers and not those whiny free madonnas the talent.
(50:14):
When I was twenty nine, I moved from one LA
TV station to another. In fact, it was just a
couple of weeks after that Gretzky story that lost out
to MORGANA The Kissing Bandit. The news station was KCBS
and I already knew everybody there because for three years
I had been popping by their station every day to
do afternoon drive sportscasts on their all news radio station,
(50:35):
and I had gotten to know and delight in knowing
the company of one of my fellow kN X and
soon to be KCBS sportscasters, Gil Stratton. Gil had been
the first sports guy on the local news in LA
in nineteen fifty four, and he did the play by
play for the Rams games on the CBS network, and
(50:56):
they wanted him to move to New York to be
the face of CBS Sports. Are you kidding? Gil told them,
I'm from New York. Why would I leave l to
move back to New York? In La, Gil was the
star until he retired to Hawaii to run his own
radio station about nineteen seventy six. It didn't go well,
(51:17):
and now again we're in nineteen eighty eight. He was
back in LA, but at the bottom of the LA
sports totem pole Saturday mornings on radio. He was the backups,
backup on television and Gil did not care. Beats a
real job, he used to tell me with a smile. Plus,
I make more now in this building. Than I did
fifteen years ago, even adjusted for inflation. Anyway, if the
(51:43):
name Gil Stratton seems vaguely familiar to you, or maybe
more than vaguely, it was because he was also an actor.
I hope you have seen the movie Stalog seventeen, one
of the all time classics about prisoners in a World
War two military prison camp in Germany. If you haven't
seen it, turn off the podcast, go watch the movie,
then come back to me. Stalog seventeen. William Holden is
(52:05):
the star. His right hand man is Gil Stratton. Gil
was also in the Wild One with Marlon Brando and
in Girl Crazy with Judy Garland, in about two dozen
TV series, and he spent a year as a lead
in a Broadway musical. The day before I was to
join Channel two as sports director and nominally as Gill's boss,
(52:26):
Gil sat me down in the lunch room and said
he wanted to warn me about something you need to know.
He said that the executives here are the biggest bunch
of prima donnas I have ever seen. The general manager
sent me on an assignment for the station and they
had gotten everything wrong. Wrong city, wrong building, wrong day,
(52:48):
wrong person to interview, When I got back and told
him I had managed to get him a SoundBite despite
all the screw ups, but that was going to be it,
he burst into tears. Gil laughed, and while I'm at it,
you're young enough, maybe you still believe that we are
the prima donnas. Take it from me. I've been doing
(53:10):
this and Hollywood and Broadway for forty seven years. The
producers and the studio executives and the TV executives have
created this fiction that we are all impossibly difficult to
work with, and we are all ego, and it's them,
they are the prima donnas. Listen, I rode motorcycles, Gill said,
(53:31):
with Brando, I chased girls with Holden. I kissed Judy
Garland flush on the lips. And they were all supposed
to be prima donna's and none of them, not even
Judy Garland on her worst day, was as much of
a prima donna as the blasted general manager of this
television station. So, needless to say, there is an existential
(53:53):
dispute here. We get the money and the fame, or
what's left of the money and the fame now that
television is dying in exchange for which we get all
the potshots and the Athletic piece about the fake names,
and I left out Eric Andrews, which apparently was code
for Aaron Andrews. They changed one letter genius. I mean,
(54:15):
as unsolvable as the sphinx. Who would ever know that
Eric Andrews was supposed to be Aaron Andrews. The Athletic
piece about the fake name contained one anonymous pot shot
that really underscored the everlasting lie that Gil Stratton told
me about so many years ago. Quote. When asked why
(54:36):
people at the network would scheme to secure trophies for
on air talent, one person involved in the ESPN Emmy
submission process in recent years said, quote, you have to
remember that those personalities are so important and they have egos.
(54:58):
Tell me again, who submitted a list of three hundred
and sixty five NBC producers and directors and stage managers
for an Emmy for one Olympics. Was it Judy Garland
on her worst day or was it an off air
television executive. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(55:29):
Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
John Phillip Schaneale arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and
mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced
by Tko Brothers. And I'm only sorry we did not
win Political Podcast of the Year award because they would
have gotten statues too. Probably, I don't know how this works.
(55:51):
And when I say I'm only concerned because it affects them,
I'm lying. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. And frankly,
the way things have been going in Bristol, the Podcast
(56:12):
of the Year Political Podcast of the Year award would
have been like a big highlight of the year for them.
So I'm sorry on their behalf too, only on their behalf.
And when I say only on their behalf, I'm lying.
Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
the best baseball stadium organist ever, so she didn't need
the award. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van
zandt like he needs awards. Everything else was pretty much
(56:34):
my fault. So that's countdown for this two hundred and
thirty eighth day before the twenty twenty four presidential election
and the one one hundred and sixty third day since dementia.
J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Use the Fourteenth Amendment, the not
Regularly Given elector objection option, the Insurrection Act, the justice system,
(56:56):
the mental health system to stop him from doing it
again while we still can. And as we list countdowns,
what is it like the thirty third day before the
premiere of The Robert k. Her Show on Flomax Newsmax. Sorry,
you know, when you turn sixty five you actually shouldn't
make jokes about Flomax. Keith. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
(57:18):
Bulletins is the news warrants, A steady stream of bulletins
as the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Ulrimman, Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Olremman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(57:40):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts,
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Okay,
this is newer and dumber, so let's save for a
(00:24):
moment the self defenestration of former Special counsel and perhaps
soon former Attorney Robert K Her and begin instead with
Robert F. Kennedy Junior identifying his top two picks to
be his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Rodgers and Jesse
the Body Ventura. Because the Dilbert guy and Kurt Schilling
(00:49):
and that weirdo who used to play Roseanne on The
Roseanne Show. I guess they're two main stream. The New
York Times scoop this, and the fact that the domain
name Kennedy Rogers dot com was registered last week. Aaron
Rodgers seems ana to run with Kennedy vaccine denying asshole
perfect with the hallucinating New York Jets quarterback as his
(01:12):
viv RFK Junior could christen their ticket the brain Damage Party.
And if you're asking, how could you be vice president
of the United States and quarterback of the New York
Jets at the same time, that's the easy part. Based
on twenty twenty three, Being Jets quarterback Rogers would take
only three and a half minutes out of the year
(01:33):
of Vice President Rogers. Hell, he could be back in
the Vice Presidential Residents at the Naval Observatory by halftime.
Perfect Team. The vice president with no connection to the
real world and an admission he has used hallucinogens, and
a president with no connection to the real world who
has not admitted he has used hallucinogens and who thus
(01:56):
may or may not know. He's just a stalking horse
for Trump with Aaron Rodgers, four time football Most Valuable Player.
Somehow could not translate that into a job as a
game show host and is instead a sidekick on a
streaming show run by ESPN. Perfect Team, and now we
(02:17):
will swear in the vice president. Oh no, he torre's
achilles standing up. Damn. The best part of this is
The New York Times ruined its own scoop by taking
this parade of Stoner's seriously quote, the involvement of mister
Rogers or of mister Ventura could add star power and
(02:39):
independent zeal to mister Kennedy's outsider bid. Sure so could
the combination of President RFK Junior and Vice President Donald
Trump Junior or or President RFK Junior and hear me
out President RFK Junior and Vice President RFK Senior. Huh Yeah.
(03:06):
As to Ventura, who could not beat out somebody named
Howie to become nominee for president of the Green Party
four years ago, who hasn't been in wrestling since nineteen ninety,
who hasn't been governor of Minnesota since two thousand and three,
who hasn't been on television since MSNBC fired him in
October two thousand and three after like five episodes of
a weekend show called Jesse Ventura's America. To this day,
(03:32):
Jesse Ventura insists and says he was fired by MSNBC
because he opposed the Iraq war. Hello, I was on
at eight pm on MSNBC starting eight months before he
did an I outlasted George W. Bush friend in fact,
(03:55):
and I was part of a small crew trying to
prevent him from getting fired, because hell, he would have
been better than Joe Scarborough. Jesse Ventura got fired at
MSNBC because he couldn't do the television part of the television.
I mean, his questions were okay, and he could bluster
and pontificate pretty well, but ask him to throw to
a commercial to say something like, uh, We'll be right back,
(04:19):
and he froze flatlined. I tried to talk our bosses
into hiring somebody as his announcer. I suggested my friend
Bill Pedo from ESPN. Ah, I'm Bell Pedo, and this
is Jesse Ventura's America. Okay, Governor, what do you have?
And okay, governor, time to take a quick break. This
is Jesse Ventura's America. Please, and to introduce the guests
(04:42):
for him too, because he couldn't do that either. They
paid him the full three years left on his contract,
so he too, would make a perfect pairing with RFK
if Aaron Rodgers says no or forgets how to speak
in human language with RFK talking like somebody who just
had his throat run over by a cactus covered umbe
(05:05):
and Jesse talking down here like this whole perfect. So
Kennedy and Aaron Rodgers or oh wait, hear me out,
Kennedy and Kennedy and Robert k Her because Robert k
Her is done in the lawyering business. As the kids say,
(05:31):
the President Biden special counsel mister Herr yesterday, where exactly
was his head at? I have no idea, but check
around the House Judiciary Hearing room for it, because long
before his hearing yesterday was over, HER's head had clearly
come off his body and rolled away. I mean, after
everybody left, did they search hearing room twenty one to
(05:53):
forty one in the ray Burn Building, Because this guy
is done in the single most destructive testimony, self destructive
testimony since the steroids in baseball hearing nineteen years ago
this Sunday, when Mark McGuire said he wasn't there to
talk about the past, and Sammy Sosa pretended not to
speak English, and hell McGuire should have pretended not to
(06:15):
speak English. In the worst work since then. Robert K.
Hurr was proved a liar who edited out the parts
of his own interview with Joe Biden in which he
had complemented Biden's memory, who was repeatedly contradicted by the
transcript of his own interview with Joe Biden, who started
(06:38):
that interview with Biden by literally not knowing what time
it was, who misidentified other counsel in the case, and
whose mistakes and stupidity and lies were so obvious, so
easily proven by his own documents that all that happened
before the Democratic Congressan could even get to him before
the hearing even started. And before the hearing even started,
(07:01):
Robert Hurr's lies were so unavoidable that he was taken
apart by politics, by the Associated Press, by the Washington Post,
by CBS News. There was enough time still left before
that gabble hit that desk in Rayburn that Robert K.
Hurr could have told the car service to take him
not to Capitol Hill but to Dulles Airport, and he
(07:22):
could have gotten on a plane going anywhere else in
the world, because anywhere else in the world would have
worked out better for him than did hearing room twenty
one to forty one in Rayburn. The Biden Age plot,
and I will repeat that the phrase is not mine,
it's politico. The biden Age plot depended on three key
moments in the last six days. The MAGA assumption that
(07:44):
the President would fall into the orchestra pit during the
State of the Union, the in retrospect fire everybody assumption
that Katie Britt would not be instantly transformed into Sarah
Palin levels of punchlineeness, and the saving grace the person
who we have all else failed and failed could still
(08:05):
paint an indelible picture of a confused, delusional, dysfunctional, dishonest
Joe Biden, and freed from bewoke Department of Justice, he
could convict President Biden in the court of public opinion.
Except Robert K. Hurr turned out to be a fraud
(08:27):
and so bad at being a fraud that if you
told me he had quit the Department of Justice to
avoid being prosecuted by the Department of Justice for professional misconduct,
or that he had composed his Special Counsel's report about
Biden entirely by memory without ever consulting the transcript of
his interview with Biden, I would believe you. And again.
(08:51):
Then the hearings started. As soon as they realized what
dead weight her was the Republicans, and I have to
say I predicted this here yesterday. The Republicans turned quickly
and venomously on him, and every Democrat on the committee
kicked him enough to merit that Simpson stop stop, He's
already dead meme. But the kill shot came courtesy Representative
(09:16):
Madeline Dean of the Pennsylvania Fourth It's so bad you
may want to stand well back from your device as
you listen to this, because you could still get splattered.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Your report on page two oh eight says that mister
Biden couldn't come up with the date the year of
his son Bo Biden's death, when in fact, in the transcript,
it shows that you asked him the month and do
you know what he said, mister Her, he said, oh God,
May thirtieth. Would you like to correct the record? His
memory was pretty firm on the month and the day.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Congress Roman, I don't believe that's correct with respect to
the transcript, but if you could refer me to a
specific page, I'd be.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Happy to look. Huge mistake, Bobby Her from.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
The transcription, page eighty two, the words are President.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Biden, what month did Bo die? Oh?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
God, May thirtieth.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
This is what Robert K. Her, who will be lucky
if he comes out of this still having a law license,
wrote in his report about President Biden quote he did
not remember, even within several years, when his son Bo died.
And that turns out to have been an utter fabrication.
(10:31):
The transcript the transcript of Robert HER's interview over two
days with Joe Biden, which starts with her saying good
morning to Biden and everybody else. President except it was afternoon.
The transcript shows her asks Biden about where he kept
the papers promulgated after he left the vice presidency in
January twenty seventeen, and the President answers, quote, I hadn't
(10:52):
walked away from the idea that I may run for
office again. But if I ran again, I'd be running
for president. And so what was happening?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Though?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
What month did Bo die? Oh? God, May thirtieth. One
of his lawyers then interjected, twenty fifteen. Another person present
also said twenty fifteen. Biden then says, was it May
twenty fifteen he had died? Another unidentified speaker says it
was May of twenty fifteen. Biden then says it was
twenty fifteen. Another Biden lawyer reconfirms the year. Robert HER's
(11:27):
deputy then confirms the year. That's it. That was the
entire testimony about the death of Bo. Biden he did
not remember even within several years when his son Bo died. Bullshit,
a complete fabrication. Robert khur should be in jail for
(11:49):
that because Robert Khurr was contradicted by Robert k Herr's
own transcript, and he wasn't even smart enough to check
the transcript or to anticipate that if he had promised
to turn the transcript for political reasons over to the
Biden Age Plot Committee, you know, the Department of Justice
would have to make it public at some point too.
(12:12):
So the other half of that is when President Biden
lashed out at Robert Hurr after her release is now
proven to be fictional Special Counsel report, when Biden said,
how in the hell dare he raise that he wasn't
complaining that her had asked him about his son during
the interview, because her hadn't. Biden was complaining about her
(12:33):
lying about Biden getting the year of his own son's
death wrong when he had not gotten the year of
his own son's death wrong. And by the way, and
I'm sure you have a story like this too. I
think I have asked my sister once a year, for
five years, ten years for the date our mother died.
(12:58):
I cannot shake the idea that it was in April,
because she was a great New York Yankee fan. The
first game at the New Yankee Stadium was the same
day that she died, so it had to be April,
except the first official game in the New Yankee Stadium
that counted was in April. The first exhibition game was
in March, which is when she died. Sometimes I tell
(13:20):
people my mom and dad died in the same year,
because she died late in March two thousand and nine
and he died in the middle of March twenty ten. O.
And by the way, Robert Hurr had a transcript of
what Biden had said about his son bo and his death.
Joe Biden didn't, So her is not just another corrupt
(13:41):
partisan political hitman Trump whorer posing as a lawyer and
a special counsel. He's a stupid, corrupt partisan political hitman,
Trump horror posing as a lawyer and a special counsel.
And oh, by the way, where the committee Republicans enraged
about that whoa man about their star witness, the last
(14:02):
hope of anything they could throw at Biden him being
hoisted by the petard that was his own transcript. No,
they were enraged, all right, but not about the transcript
contradicting Robert Hert. They were outraged that the transcript had
been released by the Department of Justice. Dan Bishop, republican
(14:23):
author of an anti trans bathroom bill from the North
Carolina eight, which is also his IQ. Yeah, Dan, they
got a lot of nerve releasing your secret evidence a
(14:45):
Department of Justice transcript. You guys subpoened to the public
who paid for it before you could cherry pick something
from it. Actually, DOJ did you a favor, Dan Bishop,
because you couldn't have cherry picked anything from it, because
on page forty seven of the Day one transcript complemented
(15:06):
Joe Biden's memory and he chose to leave that out
of the report too. And when Eric Swallwell nailed her
on it, Robert Hirr couldn't even muster the honesty to say, yeah,
I said.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
That Day one, page forty seven, you said to President Biden,
you have appear to have a photographic understanding and.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Recall of the House.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Did you say that to President Biden?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Those words do appear on page forty seven of the transcript.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Photographic, is what you said?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Is that right? That word does appear on page forty
seven of the transcript.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Never appeared in your report, though, Is that correct? The
word photographic that does not appear in my report.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So a cowardly and stupid, corrupt partisan political hitman Trump Horror,
posing as a lawyer and a special count. Then remember
when I said this was the worst congressional testimony since
Mark maguire, saying he was not there to talk about
the past. Well Swollwell also gave this nitwit her a
(16:17):
chance to at least save his future by saying, of course,
I'm not doing this because Trump promised me a big
job if he's elected. I was a nonpartisan figure at
the Department of Justice. Instead, her said, oh, no thanks, Congressman,
I'll just twist here. I'll just twist slowly in the wind.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
You want to be perceived understandably as credible, and so
I want to first see if you will pledge to
not accept an appointment from Donald Trump if he is
elected Againness President.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Congressman, I don't. I'm not here to testify. I'm I'm
here to talk about the report and the work that
went into it.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
You don't want to be associated with that guy again, do.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You, Congressman. I'm not here to offer any opinions about
what may it may not happen in the future. I'm
here to talk about the work that went into the report,
which I stand by.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I mean, this guy is an idiot, so much of
an idiot that James Comer was not the biggest idiot
in that room. Comer says someone named Dana Remis was
Biden's White House counsel, and her corrects Comer and says, no, no,
Dana Remis was Obama's White House counsel. Except no, mister her,
Dana Remis was Biden's White House counsel. Stickler for details,
(17:32):
this dude ain't. At another point in the transcript, her
is not sure about a detail about furniture. Three times
in nine lines of transcript, her says he might be misremembering.
Later in the transcript, her deputy adds a word to
a supposed Biden quote and reads it back to Biden.
Biden remembers the quote correctly and corrects the guy, and
(17:55):
on and on and on and on and on, and
then the Republicans went after him because he didn't blow
up Biden in the report or obviously in the hearing room.
This is Tom Tiffany of the Wisconsin Seventh, well known
as one of the most gullible of the magas. That's
presumably a result of the twenty years that he ran
(18:17):
petroleum distribution at places like Zenker Oil. Twenty years is
a lot of gas fumes to inhale.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
So I want to thank you for the work that
you did as far as you could, but unfortunately you
are part of the praetorian guard that guards the swamp
out here in Washington, DC, protecting the elites, and Joe
Biden is part of that company of the elites.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Whatever you say, Karen, I mean Matt Gates even attacked
Bob her not great Bob, and so silent, mournful, abandoned, broken,
Robert k Hur recedes into the darkness. He will go
into history as a possible fill in host for the
(19:01):
three pm show on Newsmax as how shall I put
this as a sympathetic, well meaning middle aged man with
a poor memory, only without the sympathetic part or the
well meaning part. Do not discount the reaction to this
(19:31):
from the Washington press corps. They ran away from Robert
hr as fast as their cloven feet could carry them.
After seventeen Biden is demented stories the Wall Street Journal,
President quote not stumped on basic factual questions. After thirty
(19:51):
Biden is unfit stories in New York Times, Biden quote
fumbled with dates and the sequence of events, while otherwise
appearing clearheaded. After thirty three, Biden is troubled stories. The
Washington Post Biden quote doesn't come across as being as
absent minded as her has made him out to be.
Associated press quote the full transcript could raise questions about
(20:13):
HER's depiction of the eighty one year old president as
having quote significant limitations unquote on his memory. The White
House correspondent of CBS News quote the President was fired
up about HER's claim that he couldn't remember when his
son bo died because it was false. Nay, everybody got
off this Titanic except a guy named Kendalanian of NBC
(20:41):
News News and Justice correspondent last scene putting up a
one source story about more Biden documents being found. His quote.
The Robert Herr hearing is a perfect example of what
American politics has become. A career public servant spends a
year reaching conclusions that are inconvenient for partisans of each party,
(21:02):
so they set about questioning his motives and ethics on
national television. I'm pushing my oath quota again, but ken bullshit.
Robert Herr career public servant. As recently as seven years ago,
(21:24):
Robert Herr was at a private DC law firm, the
twenty second biggest law firm in the world judged by income.
Robert Herr was up to his ass in corporate law,
cash and ethics. This man doesn't have any any ethics.
(21:48):
In essence, he doctored his own transcript of his own
interview of the President of the United States, edited out
the exculpatory good parts about Biden's memory, fabricated this whole
couldn't get the date of his own son's death, right bullshit.
Clearly had not even read his own transcript where it
contradicted him, inserted amateur medical opinions of his own into
(22:12):
his report. Lied, tried to lie at the hearing. And oh,
by the way, one party is trying to lie about
the mental health of the President of the United States
when the brains of its hitler wanna be candidate are
seeping out his own ears, and the other party is
trying to stop them and preserve representative government in this country.
(22:35):
In this case, stopped them by proving their operative. Robert k.
Hurr lied, But that's all the same to this hack
Kendelanian and he and NBC News can shove their both
sides as him up their asses waiting for Kristen Welker.
(22:59):
On Sunday, Kendelanian allegedly wrote, also of interest here, ken
Buck is not just retiring from Congress. The Colorado representative
can't stand another goddamned minute of this crap. The Republican
majority just drops to two as of the end of
next week. He's quitting a special election as early as
June fifteenth. Lauren Bobert can't wait to get her hands
(23:24):
all over the special election. New law in Arizona, students
can appeal their grades if they are Conservatives but the
professor is liberal. And in North Carolina, the Republicans have
nominated for state superintendent of schools a q moron who
believes Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children to look
so young and vibrant. Wait, Jim Carrey looks young and vibrant.
(23:48):
So this today, this minute, right now, this may turn
out to be the golden age of American education. That's next.
This is Countdown. This is Countdown, with Keith Olberman still
(24:27):
ahead of us on this edition of Countdown, Things I
Promised not to tell and Shock Shock, we did not
win the Political Podcast of the Year at the iHeart
Podcast Awards at South By Southwest told you so. I mean,
it was obvious Pod Save America would win. It was
nominated in three different categories, including overall Podcast of the Year,
(24:50):
so it was obvious. I do want to congratulate Favreau
and Vider and those guys on the award and on
surviving their grueling schedule of two episodes a week with
only the five different hosts Karaja boys now seriously, congratulations. Also,
it's all rigged anyway. Seems like a good time to
(25:13):
explain the award process. I'm not saying these awards are rigged.
I'm sure they're not, but there are ways to actually
rig media awards. And with the retrospective period of time
of almost let's see thirty five years, I'll tell you why.
I now laugh at the story of how NBC gamed
(25:34):
the Local News Emmys years ago at my expense, in
things I promised not to tell. First, still more idiots
to talk about the daily roundup of the miscrants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons
in the world. And we begin with an honorary winner. Me.
(25:56):
Yesterday I noted that Pope Francis had unfortunately invoked the
appeasement of Hitler before and during World War Two when
he suggested that President Zelenski embrace quote the courage of
the white flag and surrendered to Putin. I mentioned that
the World War two popes were Pious the sixth and
Pious the seventh, and they pretty much told the world
(26:17):
to do that with Hitler. Regular listener and longtime friend
Charlie Pierce of Esquire reached out yesterday morning to note
that Pius the seventh died in August August eighteen twenty three,
and Pius the sixth died in August seventeen ninety nine.
So I got the wrong Pi I, as mister Pierce noted,
(26:39):
I meant Pious the eleventh, who died in nineteen thirty nine,
and Pious the twelfth, and the twelfth, he said, is
up for sainthood, which would be a big problem for
me obviously, and which would be a big surprise to
you know, German, Jews and other Europeans from the nineteen forties.
As I would note, I think this does underscore the
real reason that the Roman Empire collapsed. Those goddamned Roman
(27:02):
numerals see x v L. I'm not trying to spell
the hip version of clicks here. I'm trying to count anyway.
The Countdown Editorial Board regrets the error and it has
suspended me for my mistake. Okay, I'm back. The suspension
was for one second. Now to the winners. The bronze
(27:22):
worse Michelle Morrow, who won the primary for the election
for state Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina. She
would be in charge of two thousand schools and one
hundred thousand teachers. She's a Newsmax writer. She marched in
DC on January sixth. She said, after Pride Month last year,
(27:43):
quote as a nurse, I want you to understand something.
There is no pride in perversion. And that was the
good part about her. As always, these nitwitz like Michelle
Morrow never even think to scrub their psycho's social media history,
which is where we discover that she has written that
the country should quote ban Islam and quote ban Muslims
(28:05):
from elected offices. And that was only the sort of
bad part. She's also a Q moron one post, follow
all and retweet Trump twenty Q twenty Q patriots to
Unite Worldwide WWG one WGA, which sadly is not her
(28:26):
showing her support for the Writers Guild of America. And
even that is only the sort of sort of bad part.
Ms Morrow has also referenced the q and on theory
that Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children in order
to stay that young. And you wonder at some point
if anybody has seen Jim Carrey, I mean Jim Carrey.
(28:48):
It would be a lot less crazy of a theory
if Jim Carrey was not sixty two years old but
looked seventy two years old. He's drinking blood, it evidently
doesn't do anything for you, assholes, just all assholes. And
even that is only the sort of sort of bad part.
(29:08):
This moro woman has referenced the QAnon theory that the
actor and comedian Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children
in order to stay that young. Does anybody in QAnon
look at anything but QAnon crap online like a picture
of Jim Carrey. I mean, it would be a lot
(29:29):
less crazy of a theory if Jim Carrey was not
sixty two years old but looks more like seventy two.
I mean, if he's drinking blood, evidently it does nothing
for you. Your Republican nominee for Superintendent of Schools for
all of North Carolina who should not be allowed out
of her house unless she's wearing a leash, Michelle Morrow,
(29:53):
and in this context she's both dumb and dumber. The
runner up worser and continuing this theme, Republican State Senator
Anthony Kern of Arizona, who has hit the nail on
the head with what is along with this country half
of the nation idiots, measurable, factually provable boneheads. Senator Kern
has introduced Arizona Senate Bill fourteen seventy seven, which will
(30:15):
fix all that in his state. It will establish the
Arizona Grade Challenge Board, which will allow any student at
any Arizona Public university to demand that their instructor reevaluate
their exam grade, or even their entire course grade, if
the student files an allegation of bias, not racial bias,
(30:38):
not religious bias, not gender bias, not LGBTQ bias, only
political bias. This is the gist of our unsolvable national problem.
Half the country believes it cannot possibly be wrong, it
(30:59):
cannot possibly be stupid, it cannot possibly have gotten a
C minus in geometry has to be because the teacher
is a liberal. It was Oliver Cromwell who said, I
beseech you in the bowels of Christ to think it
possible you may be mistaken. But of course, these idiot
(31:21):
students in Arizona, for whom the bias board grade challenge
as being established, they've never heard of Oliver Cromwell or
Oliver Hardy or Laurence Olivier because they're so smart they
don't need to know who those people are. And if
the answer on the exam is Oliver Cromwell and they
(31:43):
instead write Carrie Lake and they get a C minus,
it's because the professors two woke. The system is biased
against me, which is true. The system is biased against them.
It's supposed to be because they're stupid, and some people
are irredeemably stupid. But now this system is broken and
(32:06):
they can vote themselves smart. And I don't know how
to fix this. More importantly, I don't know how to
weed out the really stupid people, like the Arizona State
Senator Anthony Kern, who is stupid, and his colleagues in
the Senate, in the state House, the Republicans in Arizona
who approved his bill happily. They did not approve it
by a big enough margin to override the upcoming governor
(32:27):
veto after which they will say the governor vetoed it
because she's a liberal and their conservatives, and we start
the whole cycle over again. No, she vetoed it because
you're idiots. But the winner the worst, Speaking of idiots,
Governor Christy Nome of South Dakota, who has done a
(32:48):
personal testimonial commercial for some cosmetic dentistry place in Texas.
This is four minutes and fifty one seconds on Twitter
in which she talks about how they gave her a
new smile and she's so grateful because they're orthodontic. Uncle
would not fix her teeth when she was a kid
and she's always suffered because of that and total loss
(33:13):
of well, I guess credibility is the right word here.
She looks straight into the camera for four minutes and
fifty one seconds and ad libs about her smile and
how perfect it is now. I mean, she didn't have
much credibility to start with, but she's now governor infomercial.
I mean six years ago, Governor Teeth launched a campaign
(33:34):
in South Dakota. Christy Nome's campaign against crystal meth and
Christy Nomes named it meth. We're on it. This is
an advertising genius right here, and if you don't agree,
it's because you're woke. As an aside, can we start
calling these ads on Twitter what they have now? Become spam?
(33:58):
Governor Christy do you kiss your husband with that infomercial
mouth of yours? And Corey Lewandowski gnome two days worst person.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And now.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
To the number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
The website The Athletic has reported that my old friends
at ESPN had for years been gaming the system at
the Sports Emmy Awards, bribing voters now trying to push
(34:45):
the voting by nominating stories about the judges or about
the places they were from. Now otherwise tampering with the
process of who got nominated or who won, or anything
like that. No, their crime was adding to the list
of nominees fictional names, so that if their shows won,
(35:06):
they would be able to get extra trophies that could
be re engraved and given to people who were not
eligible to win those Emmy awards. Those people were the
hosts and reporters of the show. Rather incredibly, until the
last few years, if a network submitted one of its
shows for Best Studio Sportscast or one of several other categories,
(35:29):
virtually everybody who worked on the show was eligible. NBC
won the Emmy for the Outstanding Live Sports Special in
twenty twenty two, and NBC in its submission listed all
the executives, the producers, the directors, the associate producers, everybody
down to the stage managers. Literally three one hundred and
(35:51):
sixty five different sportspeople, and if they shelled out the
money or if the network did it for them, they
all got an actual Emmy award, not one anchor or
report among them. Now, obviously this concerns me far more
than it does you. And don't get me wrong, I
(36:12):
do not begrudge any of those three hundred and sixty
five winners their Emmys, including the nine stage managers. And
it looks like I worked with like three of them,
and they were great. Counting them up, I saw literally
dozens of names of friends and former colleagues, and they
were all great. But the National Academy of Television Arts
and Sciences did not permit adding even just the lead
(36:34):
anchors and reporters from the twenty twenty two Olympics or
any other nominated Best Show if they were on the air.
The official explanation for this curiosity was they didn't want
anybody quote double dipping getting an award for Best Anchor,
Best Reporter and getting another Emmy if the show they
(36:56):
were anchoring one best show. There are just five different
categories for people on the air in the Sports Emmys.
That's it. Three hundred and sixty five Emmys were given
out to the producers and stage managers from the Olympics,
and five were given out to all the people on
the air at the Olympics on the NBA broadcasts, football
(37:18):
play by play, sports centers, postgame shows, pardon the interruptions, baseball, curling, darts, whatever. Now,
practically speaking, that is not literally true because of the
ESPN dodge, which I will grant is hilarious and which
I'll get to in a moment. But there was also
the dodge used by MLB Network and other operations over
(37:39):
the years. In twenty twenty, when it showed MLB Tonight
won the Emmy for Best Daily Live Sports Series, MLB
Network submitted the name of sixty three different producers among
them were Greg Amsinger, and that's a coincidence. There's also
a Greg Amsinger who was the primary anchor of MLB Tonight.
(38:00):
And then there's a producer named Bob Costas, other producer
named Peter Gammons. And my friends Ron Darling producer and
ex Yankees manager, Joe Girardi producer and Harold Reynolds producer
who I've known for thirty three years, and Baseball Hall
of famers Maedro Martinez producer and Jim Tomy producer. Why
(38:22):
once nearly ran over with a golf cart in Arizona,
But I'll tell that story some other time. Heydro Martinez,
who I got started in television at Turner in twenty thirteen,
won an Emmy in twenty twenty as a producer of
MLB Tonight, not as an analyst, because you couldn't give
an Emmy to an analyst, even if he was the
(38:43):
best thing on MLB Tonight, if he was. No Emmy's
for those lousy talent. Didn't they get enough honors as
it is? We're given out five of them and money?
Don't they get all the money? And you know what,
that's fine too. From my first day in television. August third,
nineteen eighty one, somewhere around one two pm, the fourth
or fifth hour of my television career, I thought, and
(39:06):
I think I said it aloud to the producer, that
I did not understand why anybody would work in television
if they were not on the air. If the job
fills the yawning maw of your insatiable ego, you know,
like it does mine, that's great, makes sense. Being on
TV has given purpose to the lives of lots of
(39:27):
us who would otherwise have spent our entire lives just
standing in front of a mirror talking to ourselves, maybe
holding a microphone as we did so, a microphone that
was not plugged into anything. But there are only two
things that ever bring any attention to these Sports Emmy
Awards and the News Emmys and the Entertainment Emmys. How
(39:50):
many awards go to each network and who won those
five little awards for best Sports Personalities. Maybe once in
a while, an unlikely show will win for Best Studio Show,
and it will get a little attention on Twitter for
a lo like three hours, But otherwise nobody writes up
those three hundred and sixty five different trophies given out
(40:11):
to NBC's twenty twenty two Olympic non on air staff.
And I think there is a little hypocrisy here because
the on air people are used for publicity such as
it is, while there was this horrible fear that they
might win too many awards for just one show, or
that adding them to the list of the real nominees
(40:32):
would make the lists too long. I mean, three hundred
and sixty five Olympic Emmy Award winners is just right,
but three hundred and eighty five would have been a
nightmarish embarrassment anyway. Finally, to the Athletic report on how
ESPN gained the system until the rule about quote talent
unquote was changed for I believe twenty twenty three. I'll
(40:55):
quote a part of the Athletic story. The Emmy administrators
quote uncovered a scheme that the network used to acquire
more than thirty of the coveted statuettes were on air
talent ineligible to receive them since at least twenty ten,
ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the
(41:15):
awards won by some of these imaginary individuals, had them
re engraved, and gave them to on air personalities oohoo,
describing this as fraud and as ill gotten Emmys. Katie
Strang of the Athletics somehow managed to sleuth out this clever,
almost indecipherable series of immoral substitutions, quoting her again. Names
(41:40):
similar to the names of on air personalities and with
identical initials were listed, all under the title of associate producers.
Miss Strang gave the fake names and then helpfully followed
the fake names with parentheses which contained the real names
of those evil talent who, by fraud and deception and
trickery and another disregard for the sacred sanctity of the
(42:05):
Emmy Awards, took possession of young, unsuspecting and vulnerable trophies
that they did not deserve. Quote Kirk Henry parenthesis, Kirk Herbstreet,
Lee Clark parenthesis, Lee Corso, Dirk Howard parenthesis, Desmond Howard
(42:28):
and Tim Richard parentheses, Tom Ronaldi, Stephen Ponder parentheses, Sam
Ponder and Gene Wilson, Gene Wojatowski, Chris Fulton, Chris Fowler,
Tell Fowler, I can hear him? And Shelley Saunders Shelley Smith.
(42:49):
How did anyone ever figure out these aliases reflective of
evil masterminds at ESPN. My god, did the Athletic hire
the World War Two codebreakers from Bletchley Park? Who would
have ever believed the Dirk Howard and Desmond Howard were
the same person. I bet some of those crack MLB
(43:11):
tonight MLB network producers could have done that detective work.
Producer Pedro Martinez perhaps, or producer Jim Tomay or producer
Bill Ripkin Col's brother. Seriously, don't those names seem a
little too obvious? I mean, if you're trying to trick
somebody into thinking the award is not for Sam Ponder,
(43:33):
why do you write Steven Ponder? Somebody observed on social
media that these names sound like the names in a
sports video game when you can't get the rights to
the real players' names. Why is the Kansas City quarterback
named Patrick your Holmes. The Emmys did not crack down
(43:55):
on MLB network as near as I know anyway. It
certainly wasn't mentioned in the Athletic piece. It did not
crack down on MLB network listing all of its on
air guys as pus so they could get trophies. Doesn't
it seem plausible that the use of the phony names
and phony is doing a lot of work in this sentence,
the use of the barely phony names was the Emmy
(44:16):
committee looking the other way as ESPN tried to get
a couple of trophies for its reporters and anchors. I
mean thirty over thirteen years. That's not a lot. The
problem here is somebody at the Emmy's found out called
ESPN on it. ESPN made those on air people give
the trophies back. And there is, at least in the
(44:40):
Athletics article, the implication that maybe a couple of producers
were fired by ESPN for doing this. It's madness. And
there are two other serious components to this, and obviously
one of them is going to be about me. I
have been nominated for like fifteen Emmys over the years,
twenty twenty five local sports network, Sports Network News. I
(45:04):
have never I am the Susan Lucci of sports and
News Emmys. Actually that is a bad comp Susan Lucci
finally won an Emmy in nineteen ninety nine. Me I
am oh since nineteen eighty one. Now, there are a
lot of reasons for this, none of which really matters.
(45:25):
But the primary of which is roll of the Dice.
I got nominated against Bob Costas twice in three years
in the nineties, and who's going to win that battle?
He would he did. Then he came over sheepishly and
he apologized. Why the guys who are only on once
a week like me are pitted against the guys who
are on every night like you. I can't understand if
(45:47):
Bob had not been a great friend of mine before that.
He sealed it with that remark. On the other hand,
there was a lot of corruption in the local Emmys.
They are judged by panels in other cities, at least
they were when I was in local news. And in
early nineteen eighty eight, apparently the news director of the
NBC affiliated station in Toledo, Ohio found out that any
(46:10):
voters in Toledo would be voting on that year's awards
for Los Angeles. So somebody thought, let's game this system.
The awards submitted by KNBC in Los Angeles for Best
Sports Reporting for nineteen eighty eight was about morgana, the
Kissing Bandit, the Buxom dancer who used to run onto
(46:32):
the field during baseball games and kiss the players, and
she lived in Toledo, Ohio. So sure enough that year
the guy at CANBC in Los Angeles beat me out
for Best Local TV Sports Reporting in Los Angeles because
he had submitted a report consisting entirely of Benny Hill's
(46:54):
style site gags in which Morgana The Kissing Bandit of Toledo,
Ohio chased him around. All I had in my house
submission was the day I exclusively broke the story that
the Los Angeles Kings were trading five players and fifteen
million dollars to Edmonton for Wayne Gretzky. Great report, loser,
(47:17):
I know what kind of reporting is that compared to
Morgana The Kissing Bandit. So anyway, when they gave him
that award, my girlfriend and my agent and I stood
up and left. But I'm not a bad loser, just
a vengeful one. One year I was really pissed about
(47:38):
not getting an Emmy. In nineteen ninety nine and two thousand,
in addition to five nights a week on the Fox
cable version of Sports Center, I also hosted the pregame
and postgame shows wrapping around the Fox Network Baseball game
of the week. These were, to say the least arduous
days six am to six pm on a Saturday, invariably
(48:00):
a beautiful day in southern California. And it was made
doubly arduous by my analyst, Steve Lyons, as sleazy and
as disagreeable man as anybody with whom I have ever worked.
Steve Lyons made homophobic jokes on the air. He criticized
a Jewish player for not playing on Yam Kipper. He
(48:23):
implied a Latino manager had stolen his wallet. Later, his
career ended after a domestic battery charge. And when he
wasn't doing all that, Lions mastered and specialized in one
other thing, complaining. I mean, the makeup artist on our
show once thanked me for never complaining, and I said,
(48:47):
but I complain all the time, and she said, not
even close anyway. Two years of this. The first year,
nineteen ninety nine, the winner for the Emmy for Best
Live Studio Sports Show was not SportsCenter, was not the
NFL Today on CBS. It was Fox MLB pregame me
(49:07):
and Lions. He did not get an Emmy. I did
not get an Emmy. The producers got Emmys. To their credit.
The people at Fox said they were going to try
to get me one, and they did not succeed. It
was against the rules, and we had not thought of
the little bit of a dec here and putting me
in as an associate producer under the name Teeth Alderman.
(49:30):
The next year, two thousand, the winner for the Emmy
for the Best Studio Analyst was Steve Lyons. He got
an Emmy. My boss on the show said, not only
should I have gotten his Emmy, but quote, you should
have gotten a second one for carrying that buffoon on
your back every week. But personal whining aside. I mean, honestly,
(49:53):
what would happen if I won an Emmy now? For
some reason? I mean, you think anybody would ever remember that?
If I am remembered, it'll be for not ever winning
an Emmy. I keep coming back to this idea finally
corrected in twenty twenty two that the awards are for
the producers and not those whiny free madonnas the talent.
(50:14):
When I was twenty nine, I moved from one LA
TV station to another. In fact, it was just a
couple of weeks after that Gretzky story that lost out
to MORGANA The Kissing Bandit. The news station was KCBS
and I already knew everybody there because for three years
I had been popping by their station every day to
do afternoon drive sportscasts on their all news radio station,
(50:35):
and I had gotten to know and delight in knowing
the company of one of my fellow kN X and
soon to be KCBS sportscasters, Gil Stratton. Gil had been
the first sports guy on the local news in LA
in nineteen fifty four, and he did the play by
play for the Rams games on the CBS network, and
(50:56):
they wanted him to move to New York to be
the face of CBS Sports. Are you kidding? Gil told them,
I'm from New York. Why would I leave l to
move back to New York? In La, Gil was the
star until he retired to Hawaii to run his own
radio station about nineteen seventy six. It didn't go well,
(51:17):
and now again we're in nineteen eighty eight. He was
back in LA, but at the bottom of the LA
sports totem pole Saturday mornings on radio. He was the backups,
backup on television and Gil did not care. Beats a
real job, he used to tell me with a smile. Plus,
I make more now in this building. Than I did
fifteen years ago, even adjusted for inflation. Anyway, if the
(51:43):
name Gil Stratton seems vaguely familiar to you, or maybe
more than vaguely, it was because he was also an actor.
I hope you have seen the movie Stalog seventeen, one
of the all time classics about prisoners in a World
War two military prison camp in Germany. If you haven't
seen it, turn off the podcast, go watch the movie,
then come back to me. Stalog seventeen. William Holden is
(52:05):
the star. His right hand man is Gil Stratton. Gil
was also in the Wild One with Marlon Brando and
in Girl Crazy with Judy Garland, in about two dozen
TV series, and he spent a year as a lead
in a Broadway musical. The day before I was to
join Channel two as sports director and nominally as Gill's boss,
(52:26):
Gil sat me down in the lunch room and said
he wanted to warn me about something you need to know.
He said that the executives here are the biggest bunch
of prima donnas I have ever seen. The general manager
sent me on an assignment for the station and they
had gotten everything wrong. Wrong city, wrong building, wrong day,
(52:48):
wrong person to interview, When I got back and told
him I had managed to get him a SoundBite despite
all the screw ups, but that was going to be it,
he burst into tears. Gil laughed, and while I'm at it,
you're young enough, maybe you still believe that we are
the prima donnas. Take it from me. I've been doing
(53:10):
this and Hollywood and Broadway for forty seven years. The
producers and the studio executives and the TV executives have
created this fiction that we are all impossibly difficult to
work with, and we are all ego, and it's them,
they are the prima donnas. Listen, I rode motorcycles, Gill said,
(53:31):
with Brando, I chased girls with Holden. I kissed Judy
Garland flush on the lips. And they were all supposed
to be prima donna's and none of them, not even
Judy Garland on her worst day, was as much of
a prima donna as the blasted general manager of this
television station. So, needless to say, there is an existential
(53:53):
dispute here. We get the money and the fame, or
what's left of the money and the fame now that
television is dying in exchange for which we get all
the potshots and the Athletic piece about the fake names,
and I left out Eric Andrews, which apparently was code
for Aaron Andrews. They changed one letter genius. I mean,
(54:15):
as unsolvable as the sphinx. Who would ever know that
Eric Andrews was supposed to be Aaron Andrews. The Athletic
piece about the fake name contained one anonymous pot shot
that really underscored the everlasting lie that Gil Stratton told
me about so many years ago. Quote. When asked why
(54:36):
people at the network would scheme to secure trophies for
on air talent, one person involved in the ESPN Emmy
submission process in recent years said, quote, you have to
remember that those personalities are so important and they have egos.
(54:58):
Tell me again, who submitted a list of three hundred
and sixty five NBC producers and directors and stage managers
for an Emmy for one Olympics. Was it Judy Garland
on her worst day or was it an off air
television executive. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(55:29):
Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and
John Phillip Schaneale arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and
mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced
by Tko Brothers. And I'm only sorry we did not
win Political Podcast of the Year award because they would
have gotten statues too. Probably, I don't know how this works.
(55:51):
And when I say I'm only concerned because it affects them,
I'm lying. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. And frankly,
the way things have been going in Bristol, the Podcast
(56:12):
of the Year Political Podcast of the Year award would
have been like a big highlight of the year for them.
So I'm sorry on their behalf too, only on their behalf.
And when I say only on their behalf, I'm lying.
Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
the best baseball stadium organist ever, so she didn't need
the award. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van
zandt like he needs awards. Everything else was pretty much
(56:34):
my fault. So that's countdown for this two hundred and
thirty eighth day before the twenty twenty four presidential election
and the one one hundred and sixty third day since dementia.
J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Use the Fourteenth Amendment, the not
Regularly Given elector objection option, the Insurrection Act, the justice system,
(56:56):
the mental health system to stop him from doing it
again while we still can. And as we list countdowns,
what is it like the thirty third day before the
premiere of The Robert k. Her Show on Flomax Newsmax. Sorry,
you know, when you turn sixty five you actually shouldn't
make jokes about Flomax. Keith. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
(57:18):
Bulletins is the news warrants, A steady stream of bulletins
as the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Ulrimman, Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Olremman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(57:40):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts,
Host
Keith Olbermann
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