October 19, 2023 • 41 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 57: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Who could have guessed this? Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen are only in favor of threats when the threats are NOT made against themselves!
Imagine being SUCH a schmuck that all the other people in the schmuck PARTY not only hate you and are trying to defeat you, but they have coordinated their hatred so that the votes against you keep GROWING and you get MORE humiliated each time you step out there. Imagine that’s YOU. That would make YOU…Jim Jordan!
Hi, Schmuck!
Now it's 22 Republicans vote against him, and at least SEVEN claim Jordan is responsible for doxxing and intimidation and in at least one case, death threats. So they are reportedly co-ordinating their no votes. So he gets LESS support on each vote. And he still plans on conducting a third vote.
I’ll explain who the fictional Senator Fred Van Ackerman was, which movie he was in, and why Jim Jordan is one plot twist away from becoming him and getting Van Ackerman's choice: resign, or stay around as a mute lame duck. Because it turns out the Republicans hate Jordan even more than WE DO.
I’ll also explain how the Gaza Hospital scam didn’t even last 24 hours. Because if it starts with “THEY BOMBED THE HOSPITAL” but it proves they actually “BOMBED THE PARKING LOT," all the other claims become exponentially LESS believable. And that leads us to genius of Joe Biden for going to Israel and throwing this country’s weight behind the truth. And how that dovetails into the story of what the newspapermen were writing 40 years ago today, about the president who was too old to run again and might not run and was facing an unbeatable opponent. And that president wound up winning the electoral college by 525 votes to 13.
B-Block (23:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: GOP Congressman Mike Collins pretends GOP isn't imploding by saying Hakeem Jeffries lost too. And Marjorie Taylor Barney Rubble Greene makes that rare double appearance in the list: winning for attacking "insurrectionists" at the Capitol whose text messages were about hot dog stands.
C-Block (29:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It wasn't THAT traumatic. It was just the most venerable disc jockey in New York radio coming into the newsroom and screaming that he would get me - the 21-year old back-up sportscaster - fired that day, and then an hour later, the same disc jockey coming back into the newsroom and screaming that he would get me a multi-year contract to become a regular on his show.
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. Imagine
being such a schmuck that all the other people in
(00:26):
the Schmuck Party not only hate you and are trying
to defeat you, but that they have coordinated their hatred
so that the votes against you keep growing and you
get more humiliated each time you step out there. Imagine
that's you. That would mean you are Jim Jordan, Hi schmuck.
(00:51):
We've had two rounds of floor votes, writes Congress and
Rutherford of Florida, and the vote against Jordan has only
gotten stronger. The hardball tactics haven't worked. If we move
to a third round, we already know the opposition is
on track to grow. Oh, it's time for Representative Jordan
to understand this race is over tonight. I suggest we
either go to conference to show him in private, or
(01:13):
back to the floor to show him in public. Representative
Jordan is fiddling while the world is on fire. Hot
damn the Republicans. Hey Jim Jordan more than we do.
I'll get to what Rutherford referred to there as hardball tactics.
He ain't talking about the show Chris Matthews now does
(01:33):
for passers by and invisible friends. But first, there is
more reporting that the vote total against Jordan didn't just
increase from twenty on the first ballot to twenty two
on the second, but it was increased deliberately. Quote. Some
of Jim Jordan's opponents tell me they have been purposely
(01:54):
staggering their no votes over multiple ballots, wrote a CNN reporter,
a strategy designed to show Jordan's speakership. Opposition is only growing,
and that's why they tell me Jordan will bleed even
more support on a third ballot. Reporting by other outlets
late last night, including that of the Washington Post, implies
(02:14):
the same thing. Why why, as the Republican brand, we
may not be smart or honest or patriotic, but at
least we're organized crime. Why as the Republican brand is
melting around them, why are key members of the caucus
seemingly making it worse by not just trying to beat Jordan,
(02:36):
but by trying to beat him up because he started it.
Congressman Rutherford there says Jordan has been bullying people for
votes and is personally to blame for threats and doxing
against those who have not supported him. He's absolutely responsible.
For it, Rutherford says, and it doesn't work. Nobody likes
(02:56):
to have their arm twisted. Congresswoman Miller Meeks says she
has gotten quote credible death threats after abandoning her support
for Jordan. Congressman Womack says, based on what I've been
through and what my staff has been through, it's obvious
what the strategy is. Attack attack attack. Congressman Jimenez of
Florida says he went to Jordan directly and told him
(03:17):
I don't really take well to threats. Congresswoman Jen Keggins
says threats and intimidation tactics will not change my principles
and values. But on the other hand, Congresswoman Kay Granger
of Texas says she's been the victim of intimidation and
threats rather than threats and intimidation. Lastly, Congressman Don Bacon's
(03:40):
wife got threatening anonymous texts on her personal cell. Why
is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan.
I thought he was a team player, and your husband
will not hold any political office ever. Again, what a
disappoint and failure he is that semi literate misuse of
(04:03):
disappoint instead of disappointment suggests, of course, that the text
could easily have been personally sent by the boneheaded Jim
Jordan himself. So what next? There is the likeliest answer, Jordan,
who liked most of the Republicans, has never thought for
a moment that if you base a political career on
our party on threats and hate, that eventually somebody on
(04:24):
your own side will threaten and hate you more than
you can threaten and hate them. Jim Jordan will stage
a third vote anyway, and he will lose this one
by at least twenty four. There is the very low
chance that there's a surprise twist here, like there's a
big reveal sometime today that Matt Gates actually works for
(04:45):
Hakeem Jeffries or something. And since Gates propelled this snowball
down the hill right into Republican World headquarters, the Akham's
razor explanation of this would be that he did it deliberately,
(05:18):
Thank you, Nancy Faust twist indeed, or if you want
the fantasy land version of how this turns out, for
a long time now, whenever I have seen this phony
Jim Jordan walking around in his shirt sleeves, because that's
his blue collar pitch that he's got his jacket off
and that means he's working hard for you, mister missus
(05:39):
Joe Ohio, as opposed to just implying that he's taken
his jacket off and can't remember where he put it.
Every time I have seen Jordan do this stick, I
have thought of one character in the most jam packed
piece of political fiction of the nineteen sixties, the Auto
Premeiinger film Advise and Consent. In it, there is a
(06:00):
character called Senator Fred van Ackerman, supposedly of Wyoming, a smarmy,
little bug eyed fascist played to the hilt by the
great George Grizzard. Van Ackerman is a climber, and when
it appears that one of his senate colleagues is blocking
the dying president's controversial pick for Secretary of State, Van
Ackerman blackmails that senator over his gay dalliances during the war.
(06:25):
I mean this was some startling content for nineteen sixty two. Anyway,
the senior senators eventually find out about Van Ackerman's perfidy,
and they confront him, and they confront him during a
vote on the floor, and they bury him alive. Fortunately,
says the majority leader. Our country always manages to survive
(06:46):
patriots like you. We could introduce a resolution to censure
and expel you, but we don't want brig Anderson's tired
old sin made public, whatever it was, So we'll let
you stay if you want to. And as the blood
drains from Van Ackerman's face, the Majority leader's deputy then
(07:08):
croaks if you want to, and you realize Van Ackerman
has the choice between resigning or spending the rest of
his life as Senator Susan Collins Jim Jordan is about
one plot twist away from being Fred van Ackerman. In
(07:28):
Advice and Consent, He's not only not going to be
Speaker of the House, he's going to be damn lucky
at this rate if he winds up just serving out
his term.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Fortunately, our country always manages to.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
You.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yes, you could introduce a resolution to censor if they
don't want to bring in his hold's tired old simm
pummissus bishop, whatever it was. Yes, so we let you stay, mister,
if you want to.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Well, the Gaza hospital scam didn't last twenty four hours,
did it? I mean, I am not prepared to say
case closed, but when it proves that whatever hit the
hospital did not actually hit the hospital, but only hit
the parking lot. All subsequent claims about almost anything become
exponentially more unbelievable. The thing is, I was watching BBC
(08:30):
World as it unfolded, and they had an interview with
a doctor who was inside the hospital, and this was
half an hour, an hour after the explosion, and he
said he heard the explosion. He said he ran down
a hallway and saw the fire, and he saw the wounded,
and he didn't know if the er was still intact
or the operating theaters were. And for a moment, a
little thankful bell went off inside my head that at
(08:52):
least the entire hospital had not been destroyed. And then
that little bell got drowned out by a lot of
subsequent noise, and I never came back to it. A
reminder why I usually keep a whole book of postits
next to me. Now, after the scene at the hospital
was recorded in daylight, it became obvious there was no
(09:13):
giant missile strike. There is a crater about one thousandth
the size of what one would have produced. The hospital
itself is almost untouched. It certainly was not hit by
a missile, and I suppose the allegation that it was
an Israeli attack could have been made sincerely, albeit falsely,
(09:35):
in real time. But once again there are outsized events
that just render the rest of an allegation ludicrous. They
blew up the hospital, well, not the hospital, they blew
up the parking lot. And then a Hamas spokesman goes
on Britain's Channel four news yesterday and denies there was
any kind of Hamas terrorism or attack on October seventh,
(09:59):
and there were no hostages taken, and that all the
Israelis are just prisoners of war. And I think I
think we are giving Hamas too much credit as liars.
I will suggest there may yet be more to this
than meets the eye. The authenticity of that Israeli Defense
Forces audio of a supposed call between two terrorists is
(10:19):
also in doubt in some quarters. Anyway, the act censor
said not to match those of Gosens, and for Gosens,
the two men clearly do not have any idea of
street and building locations, or that claim is just another
Hamas lie as well. It may merit more investigation, but
the principal one doesn't. But this underscores the importance of
(10:45):
the rhetorical question which is given in response now to
the claim that Joe Biden is too old to be president,
too old to do what to fly to Israel overnight
anyway after the Arab leaders suddenly all got too scared
of their own people to meet with him, him and
(11:05):
to devote ninety eight percent of his time in Israel
to support for an ally and especially its people, and
then use the other two percent of the time to
matter of factly state that what he had seen from
intelligence indicated Israel did not bomb a hospital, and to
without fanfare or drama, simply lend the authenticity of the
(11:27):
United States of America to the truth at a time
when truth is on the run worldwide, and get a
symbolic but important concession out of all parties to let
twenty trucks of humanitarian aid in through Egypt. Can your
eighty year old do that, your seventy year old, your
(11:47):
fifty year old, For f's sake, Trump would have tried
to bomb somebody by now, while promoting the Saudis as
great people, great friends of the game of golf, President
Biden is fighting three opponents in the twenty twenty four
presidential race. The Republicans, the unlimited money produced by the
(12:08):
Pandoras box. That was Citizens United, which is not just
supporting Republicans, but supporting a push to end representative government
in this country. More on that in a moment. And
the third opponent the mainstream media, which likes nothing better
than and this was true even in two thousand and
four with Bush at least until the Osama bin Laden
(12:28):
tape dropped the week before the election, which likes nothing
better than the narrative of the incumbent president is in trouble.
You know what was going on forty years ago? This morning,
October nineteenth, nineteen eighty three, I just picked this out
of newspapers dot Com as I was writing today's script.
(12:49):
Throughout American newspapers of October nineteenth, nineteen eighty three, there
are a lot of references to Ronald Reagan, nearly seventy
three years old, being way too old to take a
second term or even to stand for reelection. This was
in literally three hundred or so American newspapers on this
date in nineteen eighty three. It's David Broder's column out
(13:12):
of the Washington Post, the high priest of both sides
ism at the full blossom of his finding some middle
road that leads nowhere you're ready quote. The people who
are opening the Reagan Bush headquarters this week are operating
on two assumptions that Ronald Reagan is a candidate for
(13:34):
a second term and that he will face a tough
fight for reelection. The campaign plan is based on the
assumption that Reagan will face a united and determine Democratic Party,
probably with Walter F. Mondale at the head of the ticket,
but possibly topped by John Glenn. In the view of
(13:54):
the president's strategists, Mondale would be tough, Glen even tougher.
Quote headlines of that Reagan too old, too old. Reagan
might not run for a second term. Too old Reagan
might be primaried. And if he's not, he's very, very
(14:16):
worried about how tough the Democrats will be, especially if
Walter Mondale is the candidate. Outcome three hundred and eighty
five days later, Reagan five hundred and twenty five electoral votes,
Mondale thirteen one three. Biden is running against the media
(14:40):
that will turn or it will at least neutralize as
soon as there is a pro Biden narrative, simple and
catchy enough for even today's David Brothers to understand it
and to then write the same thing about it once
a week for the next fifty four weeks. Keep it simple, stupid.
You're talking to political reporters, Well, maybe that same thing
(15:04):
that they can write about for the next fifty four weeks.
Is this. Not only is Cornell West not the Green
Party candidate, and not only is he not anything except
a spoiler designed to steal votes away from Biden. And
not only is he a utter phony, he's not even
a progressive. NBC News reporting that West's last set of
(15:28):
fundraising reports before the Greens kicked him out and he
went utterly independent, notes the maximum campaign donation of thirty
three hundred dollars from Harlan Crowe. You know Harlan Crowe.
Harlan Crowe is the owner and operator of Justice Clarence Thomas,
(15:50):
Clarence Thomas of your Supreme Religious Court. Harlan Crowe, owner operator.
Harlan Crowe explains his donation simply. He says that Cornell
West is quote a good friend of his. If the
continuing efforts by Trumpists to poison the presidential campaign with
(16:12):
a series of trojan horse Republicans dressed up as independents,
the Joe Lieberman no labels con artists, the hilariously backfiring
RFK Junior campaign, and now this fiasco with Cornell Freaking
West Harlan Crow's thirty three hundred dollars more. If that's
not something for the media to turn into a running
(16:33):
campaign twenty twenty four story, how about this other idea
that I came across, this little effort to destroy the
you know, democracy. The Center for Politics at the University
of Virginia polled Americans on getting rid of representative government.
(16:55):
Thirty one percent of trumps supporters agree that democracy is
no longer a viable system and America should explore alternate
forms of government to insure stability and progress. I don't
know if they asked Harlan Crowe. Thirty percent of Trump
supporters believe elections should be suspended during times of crisis.
(17:20):
At a time of crisis last week, we could have
suspended all the elections.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Then.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Thirty seven percent believe laws should be enacted to limit
the expression of views considered unpatriotic or disloyal. Forty one
percent of Trump supporters believe Red states should secede. Thirty
one percent say the ends justify the means, and any
action taken by the Republican Party is acceptable if it
(17:49):
achieves our goals. You think there might be a story
in that. Now, to be fair, in none of those categories,
none did Democrats turn in as z zero. In fact,
the percentage of Trump's supporters who said Democrats have become
(18:10):
so extreme that it is acceptable to use violence to
stop them is thirty eight percent. But the percentage of
Biden supporters who said Republicans have become so extreme that
it is acceptable to use violence to stop them is
forty one percent. And if you will let me pretend
(18:31):
that I'm upset that we won that one and that
the Democrats are readier if it comes to a fight,
If you'll let me pretend that, I'll let you pretend
the same thing. The funniest thing about this UVA poll
pretending the end of the democracy is the money question
of the whole thing. It's Biden versus Trump. Who you
(18:54):
got and the answer? The answer is fifty two forty
eight Joe Biden. All right, y'all want to end democracy,
but first we need to re elect President Biden. Okay.
(19:16):
Also of interest, here there were pro Palestinian protests at
the US Capitol, and they were peaceful, and the protesters
went and got themselves screened by security before they went in.
Yet one member of Congress compared it to January sixth
and insisted they must all be arrested and it's an insurrection.
And then that member of Congress published the Intifada's group chat,
(19:41):
and the Intefadas group chat is about hot dogs. One
guess who that dumbest member of Congress is who has
done this? That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown
(20:02):
with Keith Overman still ahead on countdown. Not a big deal,
(20:26):
just the most venerable disc jockey in New York promising
to get me the twenty one year old backup morning
sportscaster fired, and then one hour later promising to get
me the twenty one year old backup sportscaster signed to
a multi year contract on his show Things I promised
(20:48):
not to tell. Next first time for the daily roundup
of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the the Brons Georgia congresson
Mike Collins. Gotta give him credit He's trying to make
chicken salad out of the Republican chicken spit caucus clown
(21:10):
show in the House. As Jim Jordan pulled out of
his tie with Steve Scalise for most times not elected
Speaker even though his party has the majority, Collins looked
on the bright side of things. He tweeted, quote breaking,
Hakeem Jeffries just lost his seventeenth straight vote for Speaker. Collins,
(21:30):
of course, missing the starker reality that Jeffries has now
had the most votes in three straight votes for speaker.
The runner up also from congress Barney Rubbell herself, congress
Woman Marjorie Taylor Green, Douglas Mackeye, who in twenty sixteen
ran a campaign to prevent minority voters from voting by
(21:51):
convincing them online they could vote by text. That is
a federal crime, doesn't matter who they might have been
voting for. Douglas Mackie was sentenced to a token jail
term yesterday seven months. He will not serve nearly that long.
Green's response, quote, the communist gulags are here at America.
She learned a new word, goulog. The communist gulags are
(22:14):
here in America. Douglas Mackie was just sentenced to seven
months in federal prison for the crime of posting memes
Who's next you unquote well, first to answer your rhetorical question. Actually, Marge,
hopefully it's you, but our winner. Oh look it's Marjorie
(22:35):
Taylor Green. Again, from that Douglas Mackie tweet, you might
think she's just acting stupid, that she's using her simpleton
mind to please her simpleton supporters, leaving out inconvenient facts
like the memes where we're part of an election fraud
campaign that violated the federal laws. But just when you
(22:55):
start thinking she's not really dumb, she's just playing dumb,
she roars back into show. Now she's really dumb, really
really dumb. There was a pro Palestine protest at the
Capitol yesterday. Protesters went through security to get in. There
(23:16):
was no violence, Nobody bought or brought bear spray. There
were arrests, all of them peaceful, like nearly all the
protests at the Capitol and all the planned arrests they've
ever had there. Green compared this to the one protest
at the Capitol that was not peaceful. To January sixth,
(23:36):
global into Fada. She tweeted over a photo. It's an
Arabic rebellion and uprising photo of one of the insurrectionist phones.
These people are not for peace. The photo, which Green
says she took herself, shows a phone and on the
phone there is a group chat, and the group chat
(23:57):
and the messages are readable, and the heading is Global
into Fada, and the messages read in order quote trying
to find you. The next one says back right if
you face rally, and the third one says back of
the rally next to the dirt path, walks straight back
from Polish hot dog stand. Yes, there, it is the
(24:21):
terrifying message of the Washington d C. Global into Fada,
walk straight back from Polish hot dog stand. Marjorie Taylor
also she misspelled global in her tweet. She wrote goldball,
gold Ball into Fada, Goldball into Fada. Green moron two
(24:47):
days worst person in the world to the number one
story on the countdown and my favorite topic, me and
today's things I promised not to tell. This remains, in short,
(25:10):
as terrifying as anything else in my career. Death threats,
fake anthrax, What New York felt like Post nine to eleven,
The frozen feeling of realizing you've made a terrible, damaging
mistake on a story, even working for Rupert Murdoch, worse
than that. Forty two years have passed since this event,
(25:33):
and nothing has dimmed the memory, nothing has reduced the
palpable sense of anxiety in every joint in my body.
On Sunday, December twenty first, nineteen eighty, the Oakland Raiders
defeated the New York Giants thirty three to seventeen to
end the Giant season at four wins and twelve losses,
with the most points they had given up in one
(25:54):
year since nineteen sixty six. I was the backup sportscaster
at w NEW Radio in New York. We carried the
Giants game broadcast. In fact, we had carried them since
I was two years old. I was now a month
shy of twenty two, and it being Christmas week. I
reported bright and early to the studios at forty first
(26:15):
Street and Third Avenue on Monday, December twenty second. My
first sports cast was at five thirty am. There was
a theme song which invoked the name of the regular sportscaster,
John Kennelly. It said sports and Commentary and my first
few weeks filling in that year, I stuck mostly to
the sports, with just an occasional commentary, but mostly a
(26:35):
joke or pithy observation. Well kind of pithy. But that
first weekend of winter, the giant stink was all that
we could smell in New York, and I felt I
had to point it out, pointed Lee, and so while
I observed that there was a positive they had started
one in eight but then had actually won three of
their last seven games, the rest of my commentary was cynical, acerbic, dissatisfied,
(26:59):
in other words, the average day of the typical New
York sports fan. I ended my show right on time
at five point thirty five AM, and to my surprise,
I heard the disc jockey skip his usual post sportscast
remarks and instead simply play the next record, which I
think was Frank Sinatra's The Way You Look Tonight. We
were a big band station. I stepped out of the
(27:21):
booth and took the dozen strides through the newsroom, busy
even at that hour with eight or ten staffers, and
I was sitting down at my desk when the door
from the main air studio slammed open. In the doorway
stood the disc jockey and he had a message for me.
The message was you punk. The disc jockey's name was
(27:42):
Ted Brown. On the air, he was You're morning Man,
Ted Brown, speaking upbeat drivel, mostly to women who loved
the mellow sound of his voice. Off the air, WNW
was his station and the morning show was his show.
He would fight for it. In fact, he had fought
at least two news reporters in his time in the
(28:03):
studio while Frank Sinatra records played on a turntable thirty
feet away. Ted Brown was a big man, sixty three
six ' four maybe by this point I don't know,
two thirty forty two fifty thick tortoise shell glasses. He
was a sports fan, a huge gambler racetracks mostly the
Giants had begun on WNW in nineteen sixty one. Ted
(28:25):
Brown had begun on WNW in nineteen forty nine. And
he was tough, and it was not even the New
York tough I had grown up with. This guy had
been a tail gunner on a B seventeen during the
Second World War, and the Nazi shot him down and
they took him to Stalog nine see near Leipzig, and
they kept him there for eighteen months, and basically he
(28:46):
chewed up and spit out guys like me for breakfast.
And I respected him. You punk say you don't like
how the Giants. Did you think any of us do?
He gestured towards the newscasters and staffers. Nobody looked up.
You know how easy it is to sit there in
a nice, heated, dry, comfortable newsroom. I was in Stalog ninec.
(29:10):
His contempt for the idea of the newsroom was amazing.
You sit here in your newsroom and pontificate while men,
men in helmets with mud on them, they're bones, breaking,
their hearts pounding. They are out on the field, fighting
and tackling and working on the field of battle. So
(29:32):
you can sit here in your news room. It was
at this point that I remembered where I had first
seen a photograph of Ted Brown. He was in a
booth at Yankee Stadium, where the Giants played in the
nineteen sixties. He was the third man, a combination color
announcer and host on Giants radio broadcasts on WNW. He
(29:56):
was the worst possible person to have heard me rip
the New York Giants. Even the four and twelve nineteen
eighty New York Giants. Even if edit satorially, I was
completely correct and not nearly as hard on the team
as its own announcers had been on our station the
day before. What did you do to earn your spot? Here?
(30:16):
Punk Ted Brown was turning red. One of his fists
was already clenched, while the other arm cut through the
air to emphasize how much I sucked. I truly believed
he was about to take a swing at me. Then
from behind him, the door from his studio swung open again,
and the elderly engineer, the man who actually spun the
(30:37):
records on Ted's show, came through it. Ted I just
had to segue out of Sinatra to Jimmy Cagney singing
Yankee Doodle Dandy. And the general manager called and he said,
I should tell you wnew does not segue no records.
Don't do it again. You better get back in here.
The Cagnes almost finish. The engineer then vanished silently back
(30:59):
through the door. This warning did nothing but make Ted
Brown even angrier. The general amount, have you met the
general manager? Punk Jack Fair and Jack Thayer gets in
here at eight twenty every morning on dot clockwork. Punk,
when you finish your eight thirty sports cast, I'm dragging
(31:20):
you in to meet Jack Thayer, the general manager, And
that punk is when your career at WNW Radio will
come to an abrupt end. You think the New York
Giants had a bad nineteen eighty, how about your nineteen
eighty Punk when your career ended? Because the real men,
(31:43):
the real men, are out there on the playing field,
not sitting inside a noseroom in a sweater. Miscontinued for
some time. The engineer returned, Tennant's there again. I just
segued to Samel Tormat. Ted Thayer wants to talk to you.
He thinks maybe you're not here, and I'm covering for you.
(32:05):
Ted Brown turned and swore dark oaths against the engineer,
and for that matter, against the general manager, Jack Thayer,
and for that matter, against mel Tourmae, You and me,
Punk eight thirty five, the end of your career, Punk.
He lunged at me. Suddenly the engineer grabbed him and
pulled him back through the door. In the newsroom, there
(32:27):
were only two sounds, one my heart, which I suspect
was audible perhaps the next block. The other typing. Nobody
said a word, Nobody looked at me. A phone rang,
the production assistant sang out WNW news. I went over
to the newscaster who had been the most supportive of
(32:47):
me to that point, Bob Hagen, and through my shaking,
I said, thanks for to help Bob. Bob did not
look up from his typewriter. What he said matter of factly? Brown?
I said, yes, Brown, he's gonna get me fired in
three hours. Bob Hagen laughed, No, he's not. I said,
he just spent how many minutes he spent three records
(33:07):
screaming at me. Didn't you hear him? I heard him,
We all heard him. We've all heard him every time
he said that. He said that to every one of
us out here. He said that about every one of
us out here. He took a swing at eyes grow
over there. What was it, Jimmy two months ago? Ignore him?
I said, I failed to see why any of what
(33:28):
he had told me should encourage me to ignore ted Brown.
When we had a meeting with the general manager at
eight thirty five, Bob Hagen now stopped typhing and smiled
up at me reassuringly from his chair. Keith, you do
a good job. Ted is nuts, Ted is mean, Ted
(33:49):
is a crazy Giants fan. Ted is also still bitter
that he's not on the radio broadcast of the Giants games.
But Ted has also been doing morning radio almost every
day since nineteen forty five. Keith, that's thirty five years
of getting up in the mad the night, and many
many years ago, Keith, Ted stopped remembering things like what
(34:12):
somebody said on his show. He doesn't remember, he won't remember.
Just finish off the next sportscast with one of your clever,
funny little kicker stories. And even if he somehow remembers
what you said about the Giants, when he hears a
good laugh, all he'll remember is the laugh. I tried
to be respectful of Bob, but I told him I
(34:33):
found all this hard to believe. Keith. He also drinks,
he has nightmares, he has pow nightmares, and he gets
up at three am every day. He does not imprint
new memories anymore. But no, why should you listen to me.
I've only been on his show for ten years? Why
would I know? I'm telling you, get a good funny
(34:56):
kicker for the six thirty and he'll love you. I
nodded grimly. I did not believe Bob Hagen, but I
knew he meant well, and anyway, he had started to
type again. The clock now moved impossibly quickly, Incredibly, I
did find just the kind of funny, clever kicker story
Bob suggested I should use to close the six thirty
(35:18):
sports cast. I minimized my assault on the Giants and
then finished off my report with some story that shed
a good light on Montclair State College in New Jersey.
I could not have known, and I swear I did
not know, that Ted Brown's sister had graduated from Montclair
State College in New Jersey. I finished off the sports
(35:40):
cast with the story something that made Montclair State look
good a little chuckle, and then Keith ol Rimman for
John Kennelly on the Ted Brown Show ominously again to
my terror, Ted Brown now said nothing on the air.
I could not see him through the window into the
main air studio. The engineer played a record instead. It
may have been the Montavannie Strings play the Beatles. I
(36:03):
opened the door back to the newsrooms slowly and with trepidation.
I crouched as I moved back towards my desk and
That's when it happened. The door from the main air
studio slammed open again. It was Ted Brown again. Where
is he? Where is he? Montclair State? My sister went
to Montclair State. What a story, what a great laugh,
(36:23):
perfectly delivered. My God, that was the best sports cast
we have ever had on this station. Don't you think so? Prely?
God love you? Kid? Wanna tell it? I laughed out loud, Kid,
I don't laugh out loud. It was the same Ted Brown.
I stole a quick glance at the newsroom to see
if this whole thing was some kind of act being
(36:43):
filmed for a hidden camera TV series. Nobody looked up again.
Nobody looked up Ted Brown, the man who an hour
before was ready to beat me up and get me fired,
was now repeating again and again that I had just
delivered the best sports cast in the history of WNW Radio.
(37:03):
That's when his engineer came in. He had segwayed from
Montavani to Perry Como, and the general manager had called,
And now Ted Brown's eyes widened behind the thick glasses.
The general manager, Jack Thayer, say, Keith, have you ever
met Jack Thayer? This gives me a great idea. Jack
Thayer comes in here every morning at eight twenty like clockwork. Look.
I love John Kennelly, he's great, but you were exactly
(37:26):
the kind of new, fresh young voice we need on
this radio station. Dammit, I need on my show. When
Jack Thayer comes in here at eight twenty this morning,
you and I are going right into his office and
we're gonna get you your own sports cast on my show.
We can do two sports casts an hour. We'll take
it out of the stock report Montclair stage. I'll get
you a contract. You and Kennelly will seventy five grand
(37:47):
being up for you. Kid. You're gonna hit the big
time here, my friend, and out the engineer came again.
Jack Thayer had again called in fourth time that I
knew of. He really needed Ted Mack in the studio
to talk to the women. Ted Brown happily shouted okay, okay,
and began to back up into the doorway. The look
(38:09):
in his eyes towards me was one of unimaginable love.
Come wait, come here, wait, come here, come here, come here,
and he lunged at me and grabbed me into a
bear hug. Just brilliant, Montclair State. I gotta call my
sister and tell you see in Jack's office at eight
thirty five, I stood there, having now been pummeled by
(38:36):
two hurricanes, arriving from different directions in the span of
one hour. All was silent in the WNEW newsroom again
but for the typing. But it was silent only for
a moment. That's when Bob Hagen addressed me again. He
did not look up. All he said was Keith. He
(38:59):
won't remember that either. I've done all the damage I
can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come
to you from the Vin Scully Studio at the Olderman
(39:21):
Broadcasting Empire in New York. The music you heard was
for the most part, arranged, produced, and performed by the
Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel. Ryan
Ray handled guitars, bass and drums. John Phillip Schanel did
orchestration and keyboards, and the whole thing was produced by
Tko Brothers. Another music, including other Beethoven tunes, arranged and
(39:43):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it was written by
Mitch Warren Davis, and we call it the Olderman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was my friend Howard Feynman. Everything else was
pretty much my fault. Countdown for this the one thy
(40:06):
seventeenth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him now
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Bulletins has the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Now WAW
(40:29):
sportsen Commentary with John Kenny.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
And good morning Keith Olberman for Big John Sports is
brought to you by Amtrak America is getting into training
with Metro Iner service thirteen times every business day to Philadelphia.
They run from Penn Station and if you were there
last night, you probably heard some noise from upstairs. It
was Ranger fans celebrating the new year a little early,
so we let.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
You stay if you want to, mister Bronson.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, what is it The iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Imagine
being such a schmuck that all the other people in
(00:26):
the Schmuck Party not only hate you and are trying
to defeat you, but that they have coordinated their hatred
so that the votes against you keep growing and you
get more humiliated each time you step out there. Imagine
that's you. That would mean you are Jim Jordan, Hi schmuck.
(00:51):
We've had two rounds of floor votes, writes Congress and
Rutherford of Florida, and the vote against Jordan has only
gotten stronger. The hardball tactics haven't worked. If we move
to a third round, we already know the opposition is
on track to grow. Oh, it's time for Representative Jordan
to understand this race is over tonight. I suggest we
either go to conference to show him in private, or
(01:13):
back to the floor to show him in public. Representative
Jordan is fiddling while the world is on fire. Hot
damn the Republicans. Hey Jim Jordan more than we do.
I'll get to what Rutherford referred to there as hardball tactics.
He ain't talking about the show Chris Matthews now does
(01:33):
for passers by and invisible friends. But first, there is
more reporting that the vote total against Jordan didn't just
increase from twenty on the first ballot to twenty two
on the second, but it was increased deliberately. Quote. Some
of Jim Jordan's opponents tell me they have been purposely
(01:54):
staggering their no votes over multiple ballots, wrote a CNN reporter,
a strategy designed to show Jordan's speakership. Opposition is only growing,
and that's why they tell me Jordan will bleed even
more support on a third ballot. Reporting by other outlets
late last night, including that of the Washington Post, implies
(02:14):
the same thing. Why why, as the Republican brand, we
may not be smart or honest or patriotic, but at
least we're organized crime. Why as the Republican brand is
melting around them, why are key members of the caucus
seemingly making it worse by not just trying to beat Jordan,
(02:36):
but by trying to beat him up because he started it.
Congressman Rutherford there says Jordan has been bullying people for
votes and is personally to blame for threats and doxing
against those who have not supported him. He's absolutely responsible.
For it, Rutherford says, and it doesn't work. Nobody likes
(02:56):
to have their arm twisted. Congresswoman Miller Meeks says she
has gotten quote credible death threats after abandoning her support
for Jordan. Congressman Womack says, based on what I've been
through and what my staff has been through, it's obvious
what the strategy is. Attack attack attack. Congressman Jimenez of
Florida says he went to Jordan directly and told him
(03:17):
I don't really take well to threats. Congresswoman Jen Keggins
says threats and intimidation tactics will not change my principles
and values. But on the other hand, Congresswoman Kay Granger
of Texas says she's been the victim of intimidation and
threats rather than threats and intimidation. Lastly, Congressman Don Bacon's
(03:40):
wife got threatening anonymous texts on her personal cell. Why
is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan.
I thought he was a team player, and your husband
will not hold any political office ever. Again, what a
disappoint and failure he is that semi literate misuse of
(04:03):
disappoint instead of disappointment suggests, of course, that the text
could easily have been personally sent by the boneheaded Jim
Jordan himself. So what next? There is the likeliest answer, Jordan,
who liked most of the Republicans, has never thought for
a moment that if you base a political career on
our party on threats and hate, that eventually somebody on
(04:24):
your own side will threaten and hate you more than
you can threaten and hate them. Jim Jordan will stage
a third vote anyway, and he will lose this one
by at least twenty four. There is the very low
chance that there's a surprise twist here, like there's a
big reveal sometime today that Matt Gates actually works for
(04:45):
Hakeem Jeffries or something. And since Gates propelled this snowball
down the hill right into Republican World headquarters, the Akham's
razor explanation of this would be that he did it deliberately,
(05:18):
Thank you, Nancy Faust twist indeed, or if you want
the fantasy land version of how this turns out, for
a long time now, whenever I have seen this phony
Jim Jordan walking around in his shirt sleeves, because that's
his blue collar pitch that he's got his jacket off
and that means he's working hard for you, mister missus
(05:39):
Joe Ohio, as opposed to just implying that he's taken
his jacket off and can't remember where he put it.
Every time I have seen Jordan do this stick, I
have thought of one character in the most jam packed
piece of political fiction of the nineteen sixties, the Auto
Premeiinger film Advise and Consent. In it, there is a
(06:00):
character called Senator Fred van Ackerman, supposedly of Wyoming, a smarmy,
little bug eyed fascist played to the hilt by the
great George Grizzard. Van Ackerman is a climber, and when
it appears that one of his senate colleagues is blocking
the dying president's controversial pick for Secretary of State, Van
Ackerman blackmails that senator over his gay dalliances during the war.
(06:25):
I mean this was some startling content for nineteen sixty two. Anyway,
the senior senators eventually find out about Van Ackerman's perfidy,
and they confront him, and they confront him during a
vote on the floor, and they bury him alive. Fortunately,
says the majority leader. Our country always manages to survive
(06:46):
patriots like you. We could introduce a resolution to censure
and expel you, but we don't want brig Anderson's tired
old sin made public, whatever it was, So we'll let
you stay if you want to. And as the blood
drains from Van Ackerman's face, the Majority leader's deputy then
(07:08):
croaks if you want to, and you realize Van Ackerman
has the choice between resigning or spending the rest of
his life as Senator Susan Collins Jim Jordan is about
one plot twist away from being Fred van Ackerman. In
(07:28):
Advice and Consent, He's not only not going to be
Speaker of the House, he's going to be damn lucky
at this rate if he winds up just serving out
his term.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Fortunately, our country always manages to.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
You.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yes, you could introduce a resolution to censor if they
don't want to bring in his hold's tired old simm
pummissus bishop, whatever it was. Yes, so we let you stay, mister,
if you want to.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Well, the Gaza hospital scam didn't last twenty four hours,
did it? I mean, I am not prepared to say
case closed, but when it proves that whatever hit the
hospital did not actually hit the hospital, but only hit
the parking lot. All subsequent claims about almost anything become
exponentially more unbelievable. The thing is, I was watching BBC
(08:30):
World as it unfolded, and they had an interview with
a doctor who was inside the hospital, and this was
half an hour, an hour after the explosion, and he
said he heard the explosion. He said he ran down
a hallway and saw the fire, and he saw the wounded,
and he didn't know if the er was still intact
or the operating theaters were. And for a moment, a
little thankful bell went off inside my head that at
(08:52):
least the entire hospital had not been destroyed. And then
that little bell got drowned out by a lot of
subsequent noise, and I never came back to it. A
reminder why I usually keep a whole book of postits
next to me. Now, after the scene at the hospital
was recorded in daylight, it became obvious there was no
(09:13):
giant missile strike. There is a crater about one thousandth
the size of what one would have produced. The hospital
itself is almost untouched. It certainly was not hit by
a missile, and I suppose the allegation that it was
an Israeli attack could have been made sincerely, albeit falsely,
(09:35):
in real time. But once again there are outsized events
that just render the rest of an allegation ludicrous. They
blew up the hospital, well, not the hospital, they blew
up the parking lot. And then a Hamas spokesman goes
on Britain's Channel four news yesterday and denies there was
any kind of Hamas terrorism or attack on October seventh,
(09:59):
and there were no hostages taken, and that all the
Israelis are just prisoners of war. And I think I
think we are giving Hamas too much credit as liars.
I will suggest there may yet be more to this
than meets the eye. The authenticity of that Israeli Defense
Forces audio of a supposed call between two terrorists is
(10:19):
also in doubt in some quarters. Anyway, the act censor
said not to match those of Gosens, and for Gosens,
the two men clearly do not have any idea of
street and building locations, or that claim is just another
Hamas lie as well. It may merit more investigation, but
the principal one doesn't. But this underscores the importance of
(10:45):
the rhetorical question which is given in response now to
the claim that Joe Biden is too old to be president,
too old to do what to fly to Israel overnight
anyway after the Arab leaders suddenly all got too scared
of their own people to meet with him, him and
(11:05):
to devote ninety eight percent of his time in Israel
to support for an ally and especially its people, and
then use the other two percent of the time to
matter of factly state that what he had seen from
intelligence indicated Israel did not bomb a hospital, and to
without fanfare or drama, simply lend the authenticity of the
(11:27):
United States of America to the truth at a time
when truth is on the run worldwide, and get a
symbolic but important concession out of all parties to let
twenty trucks of humanitarian aid in through Egypt. Can your
eighty year old do that, your seventy year old, your
(11:47):
fifty year old, For f's sake, Trump would have tried
to bomb somebody by now, while promoting the Saudis as
great people, great friends of the game of golf, President
Biden is fighting three opponents in the twenty twenty four
presidential race. The Republicans, the unlimited money produced by the
(12:08):
Pandoras box. That was Citizens United, which is not just
supporting Republicans, but supporting a push to end representative government
in this country. More on that in a moment. And
the third opponent the mainstream media, which likes nothing better
than and this was true even in two thousand and
four with Bush at least until the Osama bin Laden
(12:28):
tape dropped the week before the election, which likes nothing
better than the narrative of the incumbent president is in trouble.
You know what was going on forty years ago? This morning,
October nineteenth, nineteen eighty three, I just picked this out
of newspapers dot Com as I was writing today's script.
(12:49):
Throughout American newspapers of October nineteenth, nineteen eighty three, there
are a lot of references to Ronald Reagan, nearly seventy
three years old, being way too old to take a
second term or even to stand for reelection. This was
in literally three hundred or so American newspapers on this
date in nineteen eighty three. It's David Broder's column out
(13:12):
of the Washington Post, the high priest of both sides
ism at the full blossom of his finding some middle
road that leads nowhere you're ready quote. The people who
are opening the Reagan Bush headquarters this week are operating
on two assumptions that Ronald Reagan is a candidate for
(13:34):
a second term and that he will face a tough
fight for reelection. The campaign plan is based on the
assumption that Reagan will face a united and determine Democratic Party,
probably with Walter F. Mondale at the head of the ticket,
but possibly topped by John Glenn. In the view of
(13:54):
the president's strategists, Mondale would be tough, Glen even tougher.
Quote headlines of that Reagan too old, too old. Reagan
might not run for a second term. Too old Reagan
might be primaried. And if he's not, he's very, very
(14:16):
worried about how tough the Democrats will be, especially if
Walter Mondale is the candidate. Outcome three hundred and eighty
five days later, Reagan five hundred and twenty five electoral votes,
Mondale thirteen one three. Biden is running against the media
(14:40):
that will turn or it will at least neutralize as
soon as there is a pro Biden narrative, simple and
catchy enough for even today's David Brothers to understand it
and to then write the same thing about it once
a week for the next fifty four weeks. Keep it simple, stupid.
You're talking to political reporters, Well, maybe that same thing
(15:04):
that they can write about for the next fifty four weeks.
Is this. Not only is Cornell West not the Green
Party candidate, and not only is he not anything except
a spoiler designed to steal votes away from Biden. And
not only is he a utter phony, he's not even
a progressive. NBC News reporting that West's last set of
(15:28):
fundraising reports before the Greens kicked him out and he
went utterly independent, notes the maximum campaign donation of thirty
three hundred dollars from Harlan Crowe. You know Harlan Crowe.
Harlan Crowe is the owner and operator of Justice Clarence Thomas,
(15:50):
Clarence Thomas of your Supreme Religious Court. Harlan Crowe, owner operator.
Harlan Crowe explains his donation simply. He says that Cornell
West is quote a good friend of his. If the
continuing efforts by Trumpists to poison the presidential campaign with
(16:12):
a series of trojan horse Republicans dressed up as independents,
the Joe Lieberman no labels con artists, the hilariously backfiring
RFK Junior campaign, and now this fiasco with Cornell Freaking
West Harlan Crow's thirty three hundred dollars more. If that's
not something for the media to turn into a running
(16:33):
campaign twenty twenty four story, how about this other idea
that I came across, this little effort to destroy the
you know, democracy. The Center for Politics at the University
of Virginia polled Americans on getting rid of representative government.
(16:55):
Thirty one percent of trumps supporters agree that democracy is
no longer a viable system and America should explore alternate
forms of government to insure stability and progress. I don't
know if they asked Harlan Crowe. Thirty percent of Trump
supporters believe elections should be suspended during times of crisis.
(17:20):
At a time of crisis last week, we could have
suspended all the elections.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Then.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Thirty seven percent believe laws should be enacted to limit
the expression of views considered unpatriotic or disloyal. Forty one
percent of Trump supporters believe Red states should secede. Thirty
one percent say the ends justify the means, and any
action taken by the Republican Party is acceptable if it
(17:49):
achieves our goals. You think there might be a story
in that. Now, to be fair, in none of those categories,
none did Democrats turn in as z zero. In fact,
the percentage of Trump's supporters who said Democrats have become
(18:10):
so extreme that it is acceptable to use violence to
stop them is thirty eight percent. But the percentage of
Biden supporters who said Republicans have become so extreme that
it is acceptable to use violence to stop them is
forty one percent. And if you will let me pretend
(18:31):
that I'm upset that we won that one and that
the Democrats are readier if it comes to a fight,
If you'll let me pretend that, I'll let you pretend
the same thing. The funniest thing about this UVA poll
pretending the end of the democracy is the money question
of the whole thing. It's Biden versus Trump. Who you
(18:54):
got and the answer? The answer is fifty two forty
eight Joe Biden. All right, y'all want to end democracy,
but first we need to re elect President Biden. Okay.
(19:16):
Also of interest, here there were pro Palestinian protests at
the US Capitol, and they were peaceful, and the protesters
went and got themselves screened by security before they went in.
Yet one member of Congress compared it to January sixth
and insisted they must all be arrested and it's an insurrection.
And then that member of Congress published the Intifada's group chat,
(19:41):
and the Intefadas group chat is about hot dogs. One
guess who that dumbest member of Congress is who has
done this? That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown
(20:02):
with Keith Overman still ahead on countdown. Not a big deal,
(20:26):
just the most venerable disc jockey in New York promising
to get me the twenty one year old backup morning
sportscaster fired, and then one hour later promising to get
me the twenty one year old backup sportscaster signed to
a multi year contract on his show Things I promised
(20:48):
not to tell. Next first time for the daily roundup
of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Krueger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the the Brons Georgia congresson
Mike Collins. Gotta give him credit He's trying to make
chicken salad out of the Republican chicken spit caucus clown
(21:10):
show in the House. As Jim Jordan pulled out of
his tie with Steve Scalise for most times not elected
Speaker even though his party has the majority, Collins looked
on the bright side of things. He tweeted, quote breaking,
Hakeem Jeffries just lost his seventeenth straight vote for Speaker. Collins,
(21:30):
of course, missing the starker reality that Jeffries has now
had the most votes in three straight votes for speaker.
The runner up also from congress Barney Rubbell herself, congress
Woman Marjorie Taylor Green, Douglas Mackeye, who in twenty sixteen
ran a campaign to prevent minority voters from voting by
(21:51):
convincing them online they could vote by text. That is
a federal crime, doesn't matter who they might have been
voting for. Douglas Mackie was sentenced to a token jail
term yesterday seven months. He will not serve nearly that long.
Green's response, quote, the communist gulags are here at America.
She learned a new word, goulog. The communist gulags are
(22:14):
here in America. Douglas Mackie was just sentenced to seven
months in federal prison for the crime of posting memes
Who's next you unquote well, first to answer your rhetorical question. Actually, Marge,
hopefully it's you, but our winner. Oh look it's Marjorie
(22:35):
Taylor Green. Again, from that Douglas Mackie tweet, you might
think she's just acting stupid, that she's using her simpleton
mind to please her simpleton supporters, leaving out inconvenient facts
like the memes where we're part of an election fraud
campaign that violated the federal laws. But just when you
(22:55):
start thinking she's not really dumb, she's just playing dumb,
she roars back into show. Now she's really dumb, really
really dumb. There was a pro Palestine protest at the
Capitol yesterday. Protesters went through security to get in. There
(23:16):
was no violence, Nobody bought or brought bear spray. There
were arrests, all of them peaceful, like nearly all the
protests at the Capitol and all the planned arrests they've
ever had there. Green compared this to the one protest
at the Capitol that was not peaceful. To January sixth,
(23:36):
global into Fada. She tweeted over a photo. It's an
Arabic rebellion and uprising photo of one of the insurrectionist phones.
These people are not for peace. The photo, which Green
says she took herself, shows a phone and on the
phone there is a group chat, and the group chat
(23:57):
and the messages are readable, and the heading is Global
into Fada, and the messages read in order quote trying
to find you. The next one says back right if
you face rally, and the third one says back of
the rally next to the dirt path, walks straight back
from Polish hot dog stand. Yes, there, it is the
(24:21):
terrifying message of the Washington d C. Global into Fada,
walk straight back from Polish hot dog stand. Marjorie Taylor
also she misspelled global in her tweet. She wrote goldball,
gold Ball into Fada, Goldball into Fada. Green moron two
(24:47):
days worst person in the world to the number one
story on the countdown and my favorite topic, me and
today's things I promised not to tell. This remains, in short,
(25:10):
as terrifying as anything else in my career. Death threats,
fake anthrax, What New York felt like Post nine to eleven,
The frozen feeling of realizing you've made a terrible, damaging
mistake on a story, even working for Rupert Murdoch, worse
than that. Forty two years have passed since this event,
(25:33):
and nothing has dimmed the memory, nothing has reduced the
palpable sense of anxiety in every joint in my body.
On Sunday, December twenty first, nineteen eighty, the Oakland Raiders
defeated the New York Giants thirty three to seventeen to
end the Giant season at four wins and twelve losses,
with the most points they had given up in one
(25:54):
year since nineteen sixty six. I was the backup sportscaster
at w NEW Radio in New York. We carried the
Giants game broadcast. In fact, we had carried them since
I was two years old. I was now a month
shy of twenty two, and it being Christmas week. I
reported bright and early to the studios at forty first
(26:15):
Street and Third Avenue on Monday, December twenty second. My
first sports cast was at five thirty am. There was
a theme song which invoked the name of the regular sportscaster,
John Kennelly. It said sports and Commentary and my first
few weeks filling in that year, I stuck mostly to
the sports, with just an occasional commentary, but mostly a
(26:35):
joke or pithy observation. Well kind of pithy. But that
first weekend of winter, the giant stink was all that
we could smell in New York, and I felt I
had to point it out, pointed Lee, and so while
I observed that there was a positive they had started
one in eight but then had actually won three of
their last seven games, the rest of my commentary was cynical, acerbic, dissatisfied,
(26:59):
in other words, the average day of the typical New
York sports fan. I ended my show right on time
at five point thirty five AM, and to my surprise,
I heard the disc jockey skip his usual post sportscast
remarks and instead simply play the next record, which I
think was Frank Sinatra's The Way You Look Tonight. We
were a big band station. I stepped out of the
(27:21):
booth and took the dozen strides through the newsroom, busy
even at that hour with eight or ten staffers, and
I was sitting down at my desk when the door
from the main air studio slammed open. In the doorway
stood the disc jockey and he had a message for me.
The message was you punk. The disc jockey's name was
(27:42):
Ted Brown. On the air, he was You're morning Man,
Ted Brown, speaking upbeat drivel, mostly to women who loved
the mellow sound of his voice. Off the air, WNW
was his station and the morning show was his show.
He would fight for it. In fact, he had fought
at least two news reporters in his time in the
(28:03):
studio while Frank Sinatra records played on a turntable thirty
feet away. Ted Brown was a big man, sixty three
six ' four maybe by this point I don't know,
two thirty forty two fifty thick tortoise shell glasses. He
was a sports fan, a huge gambler racetracks mostly the
Giants had begun on WNW in nineteen sixty one. Ted
(28:25):
Brown had begun on WNW in nineteen forty nine. And
he was tough, and it was not even the New
York tough I had grown up with. This guy had
been a tail gunner on a B seventeen during the
Second World War, and the Nazi shot him down and
they took him to Stalog nine see near Leipzig, and
they kept him there for eighteen months, and basically he
(28:46):
chewed up and spit out guys like me for breakfast.
And I respected him. You punk say you don't like
how the Giants. Did you think any of us do?
He gestured towards the newscasters and staffers. Nobody looked up.
You know how easy it is to sit there in
a nice, heated, dry, comfortable newsroom. I was in Stalog ninec.
(29:10):
His contempt for the idea of the newsroom was amazing.
You sit here in your newsroom and pontificate while men,
men in helmets with mud on them, they're bones, breaking,
their hearts pounding. They are out on the field, fighting
and tackling and working on the field of battle. So
(29:32):
you can sit here in your news room. It was
at this point that I remembered where I had first
seen a photograph of Ted Brown. He was in a
booth at Yankee Stadium, where the Giants played in the
nineteen sixties. He was the third man, a combination color
announcer and host on Giants radio broadcasts on WNW. He
(29:56):
was the worst possible person to have heard me rip
the New York Giants. Even the four and twelve nineteen
eighty New York Giants. Even if edit satorially, I was
completely correct and not nearly as hard on the team
as its own announcers had been on our station the
day before. What did you do to earn your spot? Here?
(30:16):
Punk Ted Brown was turning red. One of his fists
was already clenched, while the other arm cut through the
air to emphasize how much I sucked. I truly believed
he was about to take a swing at me. Then
from behind him, the door from his studio swung open again,
and the elderly engineer, the man who actually spun the
(30:37):
records on Ted's show, came through it. Ted I just
had to segue out of Sinatra to Jimmy Cagney singing
Yankee Doodle Dandy. And the general manager called and he said,
I should tell you wnew does not segue no records.
Don't do it again. You better get back in here.
The Cagnes almost finish. The engineer then vanished silently back
(30:59):
through the door. This warning did nothing but make Ted
Brown even angrier. The general amount, have you met the
general manager? Punk Jack Fair and Jack Thayer gets in
here at eight twenty every morning on dot clockwork. Punk,
when you finish your eight thirty sports cast, I'm dragging
(31:20):
you in to meet Jack Thayer, the general manager, And
that punk is when your career at WNW Radio will
come to an abrupt end. You think the New York
Giants had a bad nineteen eighty, how about your nineteen
eighty Punk when your career ended? Because the real men,
(31:43):
the real men, are out there on the playing field,
not sitting inside a noseroom in a sweater. Miscontinued for
some time. The engineer returned, Tennant's there again. I just
segued to Samel Tormat. Ted Thayer wants to talk to you.
He thinks maybe you're not here, and I'm covering for you.
(32:05):
Ted Brown turned and swore dark oaths against the engineer,
and for that matter, against the general manager, Jack Thayer,
and for that matter, against mel Tourmae, You and me,
Punk eight thirty five, the end of your career, Punk.
He lunged at me. Suddenly the engineer grabbed him and
pulled him back through the door. In the newsroom, there
(32:27):
were only two sounds, one my heart, which I suspect
was audible perhaps the next block. The other typing. Nobody
said a word, Nobody looked at me. A phone rang,
the production assistant sang out WNW news. I went over
to the newscaster who had been the most supportive of
(32:47):
me to that point, Bob Hagen, and through my shaking,
I said, thanks for to help Bob. Bob did not
look up from his typewriter. What he said matter of factly? Brown?
I said, yes, Brown, he's gonna get me fired in
three hours. Bob Hagen laughed, No, he's not. I said,
he just spent how many minutes he spent three records
(33:07):
screaming at me. Didn't you hear him? I heard him,
We all heard him. We've all heard him every time
he said that. He said that to every one of
us out here. He said that about every one of
us out here. He took a swing at eyes grow
over there. What was it, Jimmy two months ago? Ignore him?
I said, I failed to see why any of what
(33:28):
he had told me should encourage me to ignore ted Brown.
When we had a meeting with the general manager at
eight thirty five, Bob Hagen now stopped typhing and smiled
up at me reassuringly from his chair. Keith, you do
a good job. Ted is nuts, Ted is mean, Ted
(33:49):
is a crazy Giants fan. Ted is also still bitter
that he's not on the radio broadcast of the Giants games.
But Ted has also been doing morning radio almost every
day since nineteen forty five. Keith, that's thirty five years
of getting up in the mad the night, and many
many years ago, Keith, Ted stopped remembering things like what
(34:12):
somebody said on his show. He doesn't remember, he won't remember.
Just finish off the next sportscast with one of your clever,
funny little kicker stories. And even if he somehow remembers
what you said about the Giants, when he hears a
good laugh, all he'll remember is the laugh. I tried
to be respectful of Bob, but I told him I
(34:33):
found all this hard to believe. Keith. He also drinks,
he has nightmares, he has pow nightmares, and he gets
up at three am every day. He does not imprint
new memories anymore. But no, why should you listen to me.
I've only been on his show for ten years? Why
would I know? I'm telling you, get a good funny
(34:56):
kicker for the six thirty and he'll love you. I
nodded grimly. I did not believe Bob Hagen, but I
knew he meant well, and anyway, he had started to
type again. The clock now moved impossibly quickly, Incredibly, I
did find just the kind of funny, clever kicker story
Bob suggested I should use to close the six thirty
(35:18):
sports cast. I minimized my assault on the Giants and
then finished off my report with some story that shed
a good light on Montclair State College in New Jersey.
I could not have known, and I swear I did
not know, that Ted Brown's sister had graduated from Montclair
State College in New Jersey. I finished off the sports
(35:40):
cast with the story something that made Montclair State look
good a little chuckle, and then Keith ol Rimman for
John Kennelly on the Ted Brown Show ominously again to
my terror, Ted Brown now said nothing on the air.
I could not see him through the window into the
main air studio. The engineer played a record instead. It
may have been the Montavannie Strings play the Beatles. I
(36:03):
opened the door back to the newsrooms slowly and with trepidation.
I crouched as I moved back towards my desk and
That's when it happened. The door from the main air
studio slammed open again. It was Ted Brown again. Where
is he? Where is he? Montclair State? My sister went
to Montclair State. What a story, what a great laugh,
(36:23):
perfectly delivered. My God, that was the best sports cast
we have ever had on this station. Don't you think so? Prely?
God love you? Kid? Wanna tell it? I laughed out loud, Kid,
I don't laugh out loud. It was the same Ted Brown.
I stole a quick glance at the newsroom to see
if this whole thing was some kind of act being
(36:43):
filmed for a hidden camera TV series. Nobody looked up again.
Nobody looked up Ted Brown, the man who an hour
before was ready to beat me up and get me fired,
was now repeating again and again that I had just
delivered the best sports cast in the history of WNW Radio.
(37:03):
That's when his engineer came in. He had segwayed from
Montavani to Perry Como, and the general manager had called,
And now Ted Brown's eyes widened behind the thick glasses.
The general manager, Jack Thayer, say, Keith, have you ever
met Jack Thayer? This gives me a great idea. Jack
Thayer comes in here every morning at eight twenty like clockwork. Look.
I love John Kennelly, he's great, but you were exactly
(37:26):
the kind of new, fresh young voice we need on
this radio station. Dammit, I need on my show. When
Jack Thayer comes in here at eight twenty this morning,
you and I are going right into his office and
we're gonna get you your own sports cast on my show.
We can do two sports casts an hour. We'll take
it out of the stock report Montclair stage. I'll get
you a contract. You and Kennelly will seventy five grand
(37:47):
being up for you. Kid. You're gonna hit the big
time here, my friend, and out the engineer came again.
Jack Thayer had again called in fourth time that I
knew of. He really needed Ted Mack in the studio
to talk to the women. Ted Brown happily shouted okay, okay,
and began to back up into the doorway. The look
(38:09):
in his eyes towards me was one of unimaginable love.
Come wait, come here, wait, come here, come here, come here,
and he lunged at me and grabbed me into a
bear hug. Just brilliant, Montclair State. I gotta call my
sister and tell you see in Jack's office at eight
thirty five, I stood there, having now been pummeled by
(38:36):
two hurricanes, arriving from different directions in the span of
one hour. All was silent in the WNEW newsroom again
but for the typing. But it was silent only for
a moment. That's when Bob Hagen addressed me again. He
did not look up. All he said was Keith. He
(38:59):
won't remember that either. I've done all the damage I
can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come
to you from the Vin Scully Studio at the Olderman
(39:21):
Broadcasting Empire in New York. The music you heard was
for the most part, arranged, produced, and performed by the
Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel. Ryan
Ray handled guitars, bass and drums. John Phillip Schanel did
orchestration and keyboards, and the whole thing was produced by
Tko Brothers. Another music, including other Beethoven tunes, arranged and
(39:43):
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it was written by
Mitch Warren Davis, and we call it the Olderman theme
from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our
announcer today was my friend Howard Feynman. Everything else was
pretty much my fault. Countdown for this the one thy
(40:06):
seventeenth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him now
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
Bulletins has the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Now WAW
(40:29):
sportsen Commentary with John Kenny.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
And good morning Keith Olberman for Big John Sports is
brought to you by Amtrak America is getting into training
with Metro Iner service thirteen times every business day to Philadelphia.
They run from Penn Station and if you were there
last night, you probably heard some noise from upstairs. It
was Ranger fans celebrating the new year a little early,
so we let.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
You stay if you want to, mister Bronson.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
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