October 11, 2023 • 52 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 52: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is nearly impossible to be shocked by anything bubbling up in Jack Smith's prosecutions of Donald Trump, and yet Smith has pulled it off. He has promised the court that during the trial of the United States vs. Trump for the stolen documents and secrets: "Why it occurred, what Trump knew, and what Trump intended in retaining them – all issues that the Government will prove at trial, primarily with unclassified evidence."
It's a stunning guarantee, buried deep in Smith's filing, answering why Trump should to get his wish to delay the trial until after the election. And he tantalizes us: because nothing else in the motion even REFERS to it, let alone explains it.
But it does dovetail with the latest grim details from Israel - and the awful echoes from Washington.Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, has now demanded that American aide to Ukraine be CUT OFF and sent instead to Israel, as if there were a reason for such a false either/or choice, and apparently unaware that people can see that his own performance and that of the rest of the Republican anti-Ukraine caucus is not in support of Israel but actually in support of Hamas and Iran. Twice in the last year the Kremlin invited Hamas to send delegations to Moscow and the terrorist group’s leadership met with Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in September 2022 and this past March. There is considerable analysis being done in Europe that the Russians encouraged – even bribed – Hamas, to undertake the full-scale attack that began from the Gaza Strip on Saturday and continues even at this hour. The Russians, this analysis reasons, wanted this because they are Iran’s leading ally and because a Middle East conflict of almost any size would amount to a second front, in which Western resources being dedicated to fighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, might be re-directed TO Israel. In other words, Josh Hawley is doing exactly what the Russians want: degrading western support for Ukraine on the false excuse that the money must go instead to defend Israel. THAT would just give Russia a freer hand in Ukraine, and more money and materiel, to send to Hamas, to DEFEAT Israel, as Iran wants.
It MUST not be forgotten, especially not at this hour, that on May 10th, 2017, in the Oval Office, Trump disclosed classified intelligence – classified intelligence obtained by the Israelis – about an ISIS plot the Israelis unraveled in a town in Syria. Trump gave the information, directly, to Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The same man who twice met with the Hamas delegations in Moscow.
PLUS: not only confirmation that Egypt warned Israel about an attack from Gaza, but a reason to suspect that somebody in the Netanyahu government has thrown the defense services under the bus to protect the troubled Prime Minister.
B-Block (26:12) IN SPORTS: Steve Garvey? Running for Senator? The baseball hero whose political career died in 1988 when he became "The Father Of Our Country"? His old team underscores baseball's playoff crisis. Hockey dives further into homophobia. And one of that game's best ambassadors has to quit to attend to his own health. (39:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Has-been Aaron Rodgers says nasty things about Taylor Swift's boyfriend who they still pay to make commercials, there's a 1/6 defendant worried about "chest-feeding" and the Murdoch empire inadvertently reveals that if the Democrats were to switch candidates, there's one alternate choice with all the name recognition in the world.
C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The words were spoken by the best Communications professor I ever had, 44 or 45 years ago. And every week since - and literally yesterday - it's been ignored. "Whatever you do: DON'T SAY THIS."
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. Senator
Josh Pawley has now descended into a bottomless pit of
(00:25):
immorality in which he is pretending to help Israel during
the current crisis, when in fact he is helping only
Hamas and Hamas's backers in Russia. And I will get
to that presently. But while it is still hard to
be shocked by anything out of the Trump prosecutions, here
it comes. Jack Smith has now made the rather startling
(00:48):
promise that he will both explain and prove in court
not just that Trump stole top secret documents at American
war plans, but why he stole them all. Credit to
Aaron Blake of The Washington Post, too has now found
this extraordinary guarantee inside Monday's Smith filing to Judge Eileen
(01:12):
Cannon in Florida, quoting that the classified materials at issue
in this case were taken from the White House and
retained at marri Lago is not in dispute. Smith and
his team buried four pages and ten paragraphs into their
answer to Trump's demand to postpone the Florida trial until
December twenty twenty four, quoting again What is in dispute
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is how that occurred, why it occurred, what Trump knew,
and what Trump intended in retaining them, all issues that
the government will prove at trial, primarily with unclassified evidence unquote.
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And we're waiting that sadly is it? All of it?
There is not one further reference in the Smith filing
to be found by Blake or anybody else, just that
tantalizing promise that whatever it is, the government will prove
it at trial. So let's go. For now. We are
(02:18):
left to our own devices, and to a few breadcrumbs
Smith and other prosecutors have left along the way. About
that crucial word, not crucial to prosecution and conviction, but
crucial to our understanding of what has happened here, motive.
The hypothesized explanations of what Trump intended in retaining them
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begin naturally with money. There are no human relationships in
Trump's life. Everything is a contract or a lawsuit, or
a non disclosure agreement, or a personal services deal or
a naming license. So naturally, the monetary value of these
documents would have been instantaneously clear to a creature to
(03:00):
whom life has been like a seventy seven year long
episode of Antiques Road show What is this worth? Who
will pay me for it? Could I leverage these to
get more money out of the Saudis in my golf deal.
I give them three secrets and they give me bigger
signage at the tournament in Katar. The monetary explanation includes
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everything from the Russian Ministry of Defense as his client,
to the great collectors of presidential memorabilia. Then, of course,
there is the prospect that Trump stole all the documents
and secrets to use them later as blackmail and or
revenge and or self defense. We already know from the
recording of him brandishing the Mark Milly Invasion of Iran document,
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an actual US war plan, the stealing of which is
almost as nefarious a crime as anybody could commit. We
know from that document that Trump had it handy because
he was angry that Milly had publicly accused him of
fomenting war with Iran. Purposeful theft the idea that each
document was seen as a separate opportunity by Trump to
(04:08):
use as a cudgel or as a shield given very
specific circumstances. There really have been only two other positive explanations.
They have been pushed by Trump apologists mostly, and they
are twin excuses. He's a pack rat. He keeps everything.
(04:29):
There was nothing nefarious in him shipping box after box
after box after box after box of highly classified secret
documents from the White House to marri Lago. Some of
the documents so secret that nobody who now knows that
they exist is legally allowed to know that they exist.
He just kept everything that was handed to him in
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order to keep them for himself, like baseball cards. The
other version of this is the one favored by those
who worked with Trump the last two years, based on
mark on the boxes themselves, the beautiful mind psychosis theory,
noting that Trump often traveled with these boxes filled with paper,
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some of it classified paper, some of it not classified paper.
This explanation goes that Trump did not take anything to
sell it. He didn't take anything to keep it. He
didn't take anything to blackmail with them, nor defend with them.
He didn't take them to prove specific things to specific people. Later.
He took all of it to prove he's alive, to
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prove he exists. That everybody gains the fundamental existential validation.
I am here, I have been here, I have made
my impression on the world through something, through children, through accomplishments,
through money, that is a kind of given in life.
(06:01):
And this theory goes that Trump and others whose brains
don't don't work properly must keep and keep nearby within
reach tangible records of what they have brushed up against
in their lives. And if those things are not nearby,
they cannot be certain that they really have been alive.
(06:22):
And then, of course, there is the final option. All
of the above, Blake does remind us of something relevant,
though not decisive. Quote. Smith's team has clearly shown an
interest in whether Trump used the documents for his personal advantage.
In April, its subpoened information about the dealings of Trump's
businesses with foreign countries, for instance, apparently in search of
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a possible financial motive. But just as quickly as this
seeming clue to Smith's riddle is offered to us, Blake
snatches it back. But such a motive wasn't referenced in
Trump's indictment unquote, So what is it? Oddly enough, the
day's latest headlines from the Nightmare in Israel actually support
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and entirely different, albeit not an entirely new explanation descending
into immorality exceeded only by the Hamas terrorists themselves. Senator Hawley,
Republican of Missouri, has now demanded that American aid to
Ukraine be cut off and the money sent instead to Israel,
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as if there were a reason for such a false
either or choice. He is apparently unaware that people can
see that Hawley's own performance and that of the rest
of the Republican anti Ukraine caucus is not in support
of Israel, but actually is in support of Hamas and
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Iran and Russia. Twice in the last year, the Kremlin
invited Hamas to send delegations to Mah and the terrorist
group's leadership met with Putin's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in
September twenty twenty two and this past March. There is
considerable analysis being done, particularly in Europe, that the Russians encouraged,
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even bribed Hamas to undertake this full scale attack that
began from the Gaza Strip on Saturday and continues even
at this hour. The Russians, this analysis reasons, wanted this
not merely because they have been Israel's implacable existential enemy
since nineteen forty eight, and because they are Iran's leading ally,
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but also because a Middle East conflict of almost any
size would amount to a second front in which Western
resources being dedicated now to fighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
might be redirected to protect Israel. In other words, Josh
Hawley is doing exactly what the Russians want, degrading Western
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support for Ukraine on the false excuse that the money
must go instead to defend Israel. That would only give
Russia a freer hand in Ukraine and more money and
materiel to send to Hamas to defeat Israel as Iran wants.
In this equation, Hawley is a Russian dupe helping Hamas,
(09:26):
helping Iran, encouraging conflagration in the Middle East, encouraging more
attacks on Israel. And even the Republicans who are not
as easily led by the nose as this Hawley, the
ones not explicitly saying redirect American aid from Ukraine to Israel,
the ones who are only concerned that money not be
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spent on Ukraine under any circumstances, they are also doing
Hamas's job for them. Less trouble for Russia in Ukraine
means more Russian resources for Hamas and more trouble and
more death for Israel. Jim Jordan, by this measure, is
helping Hamas. Marjorie Taylor Green is helping Hamas. Congressman Matt
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Gates is helping Hamas. Congressman James Comer, Congressman Byron Donalds,
the woman who calls herself Anna Paulina Luna Good of Virginia.
Gozar Biggs Bobart Kevin McCarthy pulled funding out of the
last continuing resolution he passed as Speaker that helps Hamas.
(10:35):
There were ninety three Republicans in the House who voted
two weeks ago tomorrow to cut Ukraine funding out of
the defense budget. At that point, before the gathering Hamas
storm was known to be on the way outside the
Middle East and perhaps Moscow, those ninety three could have
pleaded ignorance, and who could argue with Bobert saying she
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was ignorant. They could get away with admitting their own stupidity.
Now they cannot. To oppose. American support of Ukraine is
to encourage and embolden Russia, and to embolden Russia is
to free Russia. To help Hamas more. It is a
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straight line, and the Russian Republicans in the House are
not alone in walking that line. Ron DeSantis opposes aid
to Ukraine, and thus he is helping Hamas and hurting
Israel in this way. Vivek Ramaswami opposes aid to Ukraine,
and he is thus helping Hamas and hurting Israel in
this way. And most relevantly with his constant bleedings about
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President Biden putting Ukraine first in America, last, Donald Trump
is helping Hamas and Iran and hurting Israel. And it
circles back to that question. Jack Smith has promised to
answer at trial why Trump stole our secrets because that
time as all of it together, Russian support of Hamas
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at its cloudy role in the attack on Israel, Republicans
support for Hamas by pulling the rug out from under
Ukraine's defense against Russia, and Trump's criminal use of American
classified intelligence as if it were gossip tips that he
was giving to the New York Posts page six in
a phone call in which he called himself John barn
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It must not be forgotten, especially not at this exact
hour that on May tenth, twenty seventeen, in the Oval
Office Trump disclosed classified intelligence, classified intelligence obtained by the Israelis,
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and shared with this nation classified information about an ISIS
plot that the Israelis unraveled in a town in Syria.
Trump gave that intion directly to Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
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Where have we heard that name before? He is the
same man who has twice met with the Hamas delegations
in Moscow in the last year. At the time Trump
gave away Israeli intelligence, the biggest fear was that the
details of how Israel interrupted an ISIS scheme, how it
penetrated a terror network, would wind up in the hands
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of the Iranians. Now we know that we had just
as much to fear from the realization that Trump gave
Israel's secrets to Lavrov and Russia, and Lavrov and Russia
could have in turn given them to Hamas. Trump in
effect is working against Israel on behalf of Hamas, on
behalf of Iran, and as ever on behalf of Russia.
(14:03):
As an aside, it is not lost on me, as
it might not be lost on you. I spent the
first half of my life looking on in astonishment at
the universal demonization in this country of Russia by Republicans
and the far right. It made little sense. Russia's collapse
caused in fact by Union organizers in Poland, but claimed
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by Republicans as Ronald Reagan's magic, as if Reagan had
anything to do with it other than the fact that
he was only joking that he had signed legislation to
outlaw Russia and would begin bombing in five minutes. Russia's collapse,
because of its own weight, seemed to reorder American reaction
to the former Soviet Union. And here we are, thirty
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years after that happened, and Republicans ranging from this despicable,
manipulative bastard Josh Hawley, through these literally cretinous humanoids like
Bobard and Gates and Green right onto the pro dictatorship
always authoritarian Trump. They are serving russia needs as well
as any paid agents could. And I am sitting here
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saying Russia is the devil. As I said yesterday, this
is not sophisticated analysis, and it does not have to
be sophisticated. The Russians wanted to weaken America by widening
its divisions and fishers, and so it buttressed Trump's candidacy.
The Russians wanted to reassemble the Soviet Union, reclaim Ukraine
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now and probably Poland later, and so it attacked Ukraine
and counted on Trump to stand aside, and it went
back in thinking Trump had poisoned the American well sufficiently
to still weaken support for Ukraine under Biden. But they
were mistaken about that. That failed, and it failed, and
it needed somebody to cut off American aid to Ukraine,
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and in part to make that more likely, it befriended Hamas,
and Hamas attacked Israel, and Josh Howley could get up
a pretend he was supporting Israel by demanding that the
aid meant for Ukraine be directed to Israel. It is
not either or we spend too much money on the military.
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What we have sent to Ukraine, what we are scheduled
still to send to Ukraine, what we will send in
the future to Ukraine amounts to less than five percent
of our military budget. It is less than zero point
three three percent of our gross domestic product. That's half
of what Poland is spending. That is a quarter of
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what Latvia is spending. And the only positive to our
military industrial psychological complex is that we have unbelievable quantities
of weapons and other materiel at the ready. We could
fully stock Ukraine and Israel and half a dozen other nations,
and that would not even free up half a dozen
(17:02):
parking spots at the Pentagon. The Russians are as evil
now as the Republicans believed they were in the nineteen fifties,
and the Republicans are as much a pro Russian fifth
column in this country as the Republicans believed the Liberals
were in the same era. And in a sane country,
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we would right now collectively be so effectively chasing the
Trumps and the gates Is and the Ramaswamis, and especially
this scumbag Hawlly, that the way Hawley ran to escape
his own mob on January sixth would seem like nothing
more than a warm up exercise. As a follow up
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to Yesterday's analysis that the failure of intelligence in Israel
was not of military intelligence nor counter intelligence, but that
of Benjamin Netanyahu's personal intelligence, there is not only yet
another confirmation that the egips warned the netan Yahoo government
that something bad and large was headed its way, but
that quote senior Egyptian officials had warned Israel of an
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impending assault from Gaza unquote. The news source is the
Middle East centric news site Al Monitor, citing its own sources,
confirming the previous four or five legitimate reports about the
Egyptian warning, but with an added twist. Quoting it again,
they said, Egyptian intelligence officials had indeed shared warnings with
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their Israeli counterparts, but the information was not specific or focused,
and and here is the critical tell, and was not
brought to netan Yahoo's attention unquote. Thus, can one work
backwards and guess pretty quickly and probably pretty accurately that
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the only people in the Israeli government or the Israeli
military who would tell any journalist anywhere that who would say, well, yes,
there was a warning of a massive attack coming from Gaza,
but no, of course we didn't tell the Prime minister,
the prime minister who yearns for any excuse to attack
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any threat from any Arab neighbor. The only people who
would say that would be those who so keenly felt
the need to protect Netanyahu that they were willing to
throw their own intelligence services under the bus to do so.
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One last note from another bus and others being thrown
under it from far less Afield and last night's Republican
circular firing squad. Non surprise, Jordan and Scalise, neither of
them got enough support to become speaker. And know when
they asked Jordan if he would commit to backing Scalise
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if Scalise won the nomination, he wouldn't say it. And
when Congressman Ken Buck got up at the Republican coven
last night and asked both of them if Trump won
or lost in twenty twenty, neither gave a straight answer.
Kevin McCarthy asked his pals not to nominate him to
be the next speaker, and that changes nothing about my
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prediction that he will at least be in the final
vote for speaker. Oh and George Santos attended, and then
on the way out he pretended he knew nothing about
these twenty three counts you say in the new conspiracy
and fraud indictment against him, which includes allegations of stealing
the identities and the credit cards of his own donors.
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You know, if he's found guilty of that, that would
make him the two hundred and twenty seventh most corrupt
Republican in the country. And lastly, Congresswoman Nancy Mace war
to this conference a T shirt with a red letter
A over her breasts. She insisted she was wearing the
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scarlet letter. She called it the scarlet letter because she'd
been demonized for the last week over her vote and
her gender, and goddamn it, it's the first time I
can think of that she's ever told the truth. Also,
once again, golf clap for choosing to actually get out
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of bed, Congresswoman. Also of interest here, Senator Steve Garvey,
literally four decades after he first seemed to be the
rising young star of the Republican Party, the ex Los
Angeles Dodger Most Valuable Player will run for the Senate.
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Why the wait? Something that only time could accomplish. Most
of the people who remember the Steve Garvey scandals of
nineteen eighty eight and nineteen eighty nine are dead or
have forgotten the Steve Garvey scandals. So guess whose job
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it is to whom it falls to remind you of
the Steve Garvey scandals of nineteen eighty eight and nineteen
eighty nine. Your hints are the Father of our country
and the giant sign at a ballpark which read Steve
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Marvin Hamlish. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown
with Keith old Woman. This is sports Senate. Wait, check
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that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Aulberman in sports.
Steve Garvey, who fifty seasons ago suddenly blossomed from underachieving
utility man of the Los Angeles Dodgers to the most
valuable player in the National League, has announced he is
running for the Republican nomination for senator from California. He
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is seventy four years old, and though the prospect of
a political career was raised long before injuries forced him
to retire as an active player in nineteen eighty seven,
this will be his maiden political attempt. California Democrats outnumber
California Republicans two to one. On the other hand, in
the poll last month, Garvey led all possible Republican senatorial candidates.
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On the other other hand, he led all of them
with the support of seven of all of California's voters.
Why has he waited so long to run for office? Well,
one of the reasons might be he was waiting for
everybody to forget. In nineteen eighty three, Steve Garvey and
his wife Cindy, a Good Morning La type host, divorced.
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He had a girlfriend, his former secretary. At the same time,
he had another girlfriend, an assignment editor for CNN in Atlanta,
and just as he was about to propose to her
in nineteen eighty eight, he found out that a medical
sales rep from San Diego was pregnant with his child.
Then the assignment editor got pregnant. Then there was his
other girlfriend, Candace, and she got pregnant three times. As
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a result, Steve Garvey earned a new nickname that tied
into his political aspirations, The Father of Our Country. Bob
Hope did Steve Garvey fatherhood jokes, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
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As early as nineteen eighty one, Garvey had told Playboy
magazine he thought about becoming president Father of Our Country. Indeed,
that was just about the time, however, late in the
baseball season, that his wife left him to begin a
relationship with the rather nerdy film composer Marvin Hamlish. When
his Dodgers got to Yankee Stadium for Game one of
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the nineteen eighty one World Series, a giant banner hung
briefly from the upper deck in right field. It read
in Giant block letters, Steve, Marvin Hamlish. Steve Garvey's been
hoping everybody's forgotten about all that he might be right.
The story in the La Times announcing his candidacy doesn't
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mention any of it, not the girlfriends, not the kids,
not the Marvin Hamlish banner. On the other hand, all
of his children are now a voting age. So that's
what couple hundred votes right there. Thank you again, Nancy Faust,
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speaking of Garvey, I am the last person ever to
root for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But if you have
finished with the best record in baseball twenty two games
ahead of the second place San Diego Padres in twenty
twenty two, and then you have finished with the second
best record in baseball sixteen games ahead of the second
place Arizona Diamondbacks in twenty twenty three to win the
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National League Western Division and four days off and the
buy and home field advantage two years in a row.
And you play the twenty twenty two Padres and you
lose to them in four games, And you play the
twenty twenty three Diamondbacks and you'll lose the first two
games to them by a combined score of fifteen to
four at your home stadium, and you are on the
verge of being eliminated in the first round again. And
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the same thing could happen to the Eastern champion Atlanta
Braves also for the second straight year. One of the
following two things is necessarily true. A there is something
desperately wrong with the baseball playoff structure, or B there
is something desperately wrong with the baseball regular season structure.
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Maybe both. What is the point of even trying to
win your division, or for that matter, trying harder than
is absolutely necessary just to reach the playoffs. How well
you do in the regular season is irrelevant in the playoffs.
I have frequently bemoaned baseball's murder of its own, authentic,
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organic rivalry, the American League versus the National League in
the World Series, which made baseball hands down the most
popular postseason sport well into the nineteen eighties. When adjusted
for population growth, the television audience for the World Series
in the nineteen eighties was roughly four times what it
is now, and any two broadcasts of World Series games
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had a larger audience than the Super Bowl, as opposed
to today, when the Super Bowl will outrate a full
highly watched seven game World Series in its entirety. I
think one of the factors is what we're seeing in
these postseasons. The premise of the regular season. You give
every team in the American League essentially an identical task.
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You can be pretty confident you've sent the best team,
or at least the second best team in the league
to the World Series. Same for the National League that
has been erased by interleague play. Teams do not play
the same schedules anymore. They don't play each other team
as many times as their competition does. Yet the season
is still the same extraordinary length one hundred and sixty
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two games as it used to be when they still
did play every other team the same number of games
as every other team. Thus, the baseball season is interminably long.
Almost none of it matters except which players you trade
for on August first, and which players get injured during
the season. And if a mediocre team then in previous
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years would not have been in the playoffs, would have
been eliminated in September. Can stay alive and get hot
for three weeks, it can win the World Series. Its madness.
Fourteen wild card team games have reached the world Series.
Seven have won the World Series, and with their now
being as many wildcard teams as there are division winners,
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that number will likely increase. So we will see the
spectacle of more Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres knocking
off teams they were fourteen or sixteen or twenty two
games worse than, and each time it will delegitimize the
regular season or the playoffs, or both just a little
bit more. As it is right now, I don't really
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know what the point of watching the regular season is.
I just know that it doesn't really matter, and they're
beginning to lose me and I used to host the
World Series. The basketball and hockey regular seasons basically began
as simple and comparatively short seeding contests for their playoffs,
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as did football. I guess if baseball wants to go
that route, have fun, but the fans seem to be
wising up to it. Baseball saving grace is that the
other sports usually find ways, of course, to screw up
other things that make them look small and petty. Last year,
National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman proved yes he could
screw it up worse by folding to homophobic players and
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the new American fascists of the Republican Party, and ending
the traditional and by that point no longer controversial Pride
Night warm up uniforms. Now, the league has sent a simpering,
cowering message to its teams, banning the use even of
Pride colored tape on players sticks on Pride Nights and
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protecting homophobes like players Ivon Provaroff and Eric Stahl and
Mark Stahl and Ilia Lubushkin and Dennis Geryanov and Andre
Kuzmenko and unnamed Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers players.
Instead of banning these guys as the worms, they are
are asking why are we prioritizing Russians, some of whom
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have openly backed the dictator pou while taking our money?
Why are we prioritizing them instead of, say, you know,
the fans. The NHL has now issued this amazing statement
quote players shall not be put in the position of
having to demonstrate or where they may be appearing to
demonstrate personal support for any special initiatives as in aside,
(32:27):
I'm just thinking about all those pro cancer players. This
protects a factor that may be considered in this regard includes,
for example, whether a player or players is required to
be in close proximity to any groups or individuals visibly
or otherwise clearly associated with such special initiatives. I mean,
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Commissioner Bettman, you might as well have written that the
players should not be required to stand too close to
the Pride Night participants, because maybe hockey's gutless bosses and
its prejudiced players among the many non prejudiced players might
think that the gay is infectious. One more hockey note
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about a long time colleague, Barry Melrose, who has spent
most of the last twenty eight years as the primary
hockey analyst at ESPN, is stepping away from that network
after a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. I have never met
an ex athlete who stepped more seamlessly into broadcasting, largely
because Melrose never acted like he was only doing it
(33:33):
till he could get back into coaching. Ironically, he did
get back into coaching for sixteen games in two thousand
and eight before he got fired, and his embrasive broadcasting
was even more total and more joyful and even grateful
the second time around. There are two notes to mention
here about Barry Melrose. The most valuable rookie hockey card
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in the nineteen seventy nine eighty Hockey Card Series belongs
unsurprisingly to Wayne Gretzky. But I once asked Barry Melrose
on air if he knew who the second most valuable
rookie card in that series was. He did not. It's
his Barry Melrose, defenseman Winnipeg Jets. And if you ever
(34:16):
watch a hockey playoff game and it goes into overtime
and you spontaneously start a gambling pool or just a
for fun pool about who's going to score the sudden
death game winning goal, you kind of have Barry Melrose
to thank. In the tiny studio of nineteen ninety five
and nineteen ninety six, in nineteen ninety seven, that sports
center shared with the NHL Show on ESPN and Baseball
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Tonight and everybody else, as soon as regulation ended in
a tie, Barry would cheerfully shout, okay, who you got.
Barry Melrose would take down everybody's dollar and keep track
of which players were and were not still available, and
he'd usually all keep which staffers had chosen which players
(34:58):
in his head, and he never participated. He never chose
a player. He just was the banker like monopoly. I
want to ask him why easiest way to make new
hockey fans. Everybody was invested in every overtime game thanks
to Barry Melrose. Barry, all of us send all of
(35:19):
our best wishes still ahead on an all new edition
(35:44):
of Countdown. Two words no broadcaster in any format or
medium should ever say. I heard them again yesterday on
the air, and it flashed me back to the day
forty five years ago that the best communications professor I
ever had warned me never say that things I promised
not to tell. Next first with the note that if
(36:04):
you ever wanted to be chief communications officer of CNN,
they just posted the job on. Indeed, Wow, don't everybody
rush at once, but first time for the daily round
up of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects
specimens who constitute two days other worst persons in the world.
(36:25):
Lebron's former NFL quarterback Aaron No Yards, no cloud of dust,
just to torn Achilles Rogers of the New York Jets,
who has fully gone off the deep end. He has
challenged Travis Kelcey of the Kansas City Chiefs, who does
commercials for the COVID vaccines to a debate over Rogers'
(36:45):
conspiracy theory delusion nutjob ramblings. Rogers says they should each
have seconds at this debate. That's not going to happen
except in Aaron's head. Rogers says he'll bring Robert F.
Kennedy Junior, and Kelsey should bring doctor Anthony Fauci. That's
(37:05):
Travis Kelcey, who is if you had not heard dating,
what's the name here? Taylor swiped versus Aaron Rodgers, whose
only publicity seems to be coming from being a new
sidekick on the Pat McAfee Show, which has produced surprisingly
poor ratings after it switched to ESPN. Why would Travis
(37:27):
Kelcey waste his time on a has been like Aaron Rodgers.
They runner up aj Fisher, who had been ranked number
two hundred and twenty two on the FBI's most wanted
list for January sixth. Fisher was the guy with the
oiled chest and the ray bands. He's still awaiting trial,
but Fisher has now asked the court to let him
(37:49):
leave Florida, I guess for a wedding in Puerto Rico
with his fiance so they can take their child with them.
Otherwise she will have to go alone, Fisher says, and
leave the child with him, and he will have to
take care of the child who is apparently still nursing.
Fisher assumes that prosecutors will want him to stay and
breastfield the child himself, because they quote have fallen for
(38:13):
such disinformation as quote the recent anti biology myth of
male chest feeding. Because these January sixth morons still believe
whatever they read on four chan. Sure the court wants
you to breastfeed your child, sir, I know who you
(38:35):
should call. Call Aaron Rodgers, but the winner Murdoch's New
York Post and Fox News. A study by the website
Axios indicates that in the last year, the Post has
run five hundred and fifty two stories mentioning Ron DeSantis,
who is laughably or otherwise a presidential candidate, but it's
run seven hundred and eighty four articles more than to
(38:56):
a day about Hunter Biden. Meanwhile, for the last year,
the Fox propaganda channel has devoted an average of thirty
three minutes a month to mentioning the name Donald Trump
and twenty seven minutes a month to mentioning the name
Hunter Biden. Hidden in this non journalistic madness is something
for Democrats to consider. If Trump proved that name recognition
(39:21):
and media attention could be all that you're really needed
to win the White House, and if the Democratic hierarchy
actually might consider somebody other than the president for the
twenty twenty four election the choice to swap in in
his place, I think that's clear. The guy all the
voters know is Hunter Biden, Rupert Murdoch and the other
(39:45):
people who run Fox, Quote News and The New York Post.
I mean, what the hell, Rupert, I thought you were
leaving or getting cryogenically frozen or non cryogenically frozen or something.
Let's go how we're going to miss you if you
don't go away to day's worse persons and the world today.
(40:27):
So I was listening to All News Radio yesterday, a
daunting prospect which I do not advise you to do yourself,
when a promo came on for somebody's podcast. In fact,
it was Richard Ditsch, the former Sports Illustrated sports media
critic who now writes for The Athletic and does this podcast.
And this is nothing particularly against Richard Ditsch. He's made
(40:51):
a few mistakes in his career. We all have, But
he said something at the start of this promo for
the podcast that flashed me back to a date in
nineteen seventy eight or nineteen seventy nine, and one of
the best piece of advice I ever heard that still
seems to have not caught on almost anywhere else in broadcasting.
(41:12):
This is the way Richard Ditsch began his promo for
his podcast, and I checked a couple of his podcasts
and he begins it the same way too. Hi, everybody.
Let me ask you a question, how many times have
you listened to a podcast with somebody? My guess is
(41:36):
the answer is never, not once, never, ever, ever. People
listen to podcasts, to streaming services, to news radio, to
music radio largely by themselves. In fact, they tend to
consume television largely by themselves. So why does anybody say
(41:58):
hi everybody? And what do they think the impact is
going to be when they say that? Over Even if
you are watching television or listening to radio in a
group of two or more people, do you want to
be addressed as everybody? Or is that in some way
(42:19):
off putting? I've always thought that psychologically this might explain
for twenty five to fifty percent of the times people
say I don't like that guy's podcast, I don't like
that guy's radio show, I don't like that guy, and
they really don't have a further answer beyond that there
are so many psychological connections or disconnections between the broadcaster
(42:44):
for want of a better term, and the listener that
I think they populate the entire interaction. And without making
this sound like too much of one of the Cornell
Communication Arts theory courses that I was subjected to, forced
to take against my will between the years nineteen seventy
five and nineteen seventy nine, which did give me some
(43:04):
of the best naps I've ever had in my life.
Trying to avoid making it in that I do think
there's something to it, and that's where the flashback came.
I had the benefit of one really superb professor at
Cornell University in the Communication Arts department. His name was
Don Martin. That was his American name. He once told
(43:27):
me his birth name and I could not pronounce it,
and he could barely pronounce it, and I could not
remember it and could not still. He was a Polish
war refugee as a young man, I think seven or
eight years old. He came from Poland to the United
States in the nineteen thirties the late nineteen thirties at
(43:48):
the advent of World War Two, and wound up in Ithaca,
New York, not speaking a word of English and having
to learn everything from scratch. And what he learned was
as good diction and as much of an announcing voice
as I have ever heard in any human being. When
I first got to Ithaca, New York at the age
of sixteen, and put the radio on to the Cornell
(44:09):
owned radio station WHCU, I heard this voice, and I
assumed it was the CBS Radio network announcer doing something,
And then he started talking about the Cornell football score.
He was announcing the Corneil football game, and it was
as good a broadcast as I had ever heard, which
got me very worried about my prospects of getting anywhere
in radio anywhere at all, let alone just Ithaca, New
(44:33):
York on the Cornell student radio station. But I found
out later his name was Don Martin, and then, much
to my delight, when I was a junior, it turned
out he was teaching the radio Writing and production course.
Now most of the Cornell Communication arts courses, although they
have improved in the ensuing forty years. Ah, they weren't
that really good then, particularly the ones that pertained to
(44:55):
writing things or broadcasting things, the theory of communications, maybe
how to I don't know, own a radio station. Those
classes were okay, but the production ones, with the exception
of Professor Don Martin's class, not so much. Don happened
to be not just the football announcer for WHCU, but
he was also the general manager of the station, and
(45:16):
he taught this course, and I learned things from him
when I had not really learned anything from any of
my other communication arts professors in the entire time I
was there, and it went so well that Don actually
asked me to be his teaching assistant when I was
a senior the next year. So I came back and
had to get special permission from the course director, from
(45:38):
the Communication Arts Department, from the University Agriculture College, from
the university itself, because they did not have undergraduate teaching
assistants except with special permission. And Don Martin asked for me,
and I got to be his teaching assistant, and one day,
either in nineteen seventy eight or perhaps more likely in
nineteen seventy nine when I was working for him. We
(45:59):
were seated outside the ancient ag Quad building in which
he taught this course, discussing what we were going to
do in the day ahead. And he was just ruminating
about things like, have you ever noticed during allergy season
that you don't actually sneeze or cough when you go
on to the radio. What does this tell you about
(46:21):
the psychology of broadcasting and of allergies. Well that had
me going for about a week wondering what that all meant.
But then he said something else, and this takes us
back to Richard Ditsch, the poor victim of this flashback.
Don Martin said, you know, one thing I noticed in
listening to one of your broadcasts on WVBR was you
(46:43):
just said hello or thank you and the name of
the other announcer. You did not say hello everyone or
good morning, Ithaca. And he got very agitated. He was
very fair skinned and light haired, and he got red.
And Don Martin said, you know, whenever I hear someone
say hello everyone or good morning, Ithaca, I turn around
(47:10):
and I look to see if somebody has come into
the room with me. Remember this, Keith, broadcasting is one
to one speak to the other person, not persons. When
you say everyone everybody, when you address them as if
you are standing in front of a crowd of hundreds
(47:31):
or thousands, or if you're really egotistical millions, that's just
for you. That aids nothing in the communication between you
and the listener. Don't say that, and tell others who
do not to say that, because even if you are
part of a crowd listening to a broadcast, My experience
(47:54):
is when I am greeted in that way and they
say hello everyone, and there's a bunch of us together,
I assume that the guy is talking to everyone else.
The wisdom of Don Martin has lasted me now forty
four years plus. I saw him again, interestingly enough, we
(48:15):
were both back on the Cornell campus one day in
nineteen ninety eight. I was giving the commencement address, and
he had retired to Seattle, Washington, if I remember correctly,
And we had a lovely, lovely afternoon and a nice meal,
and he was very, very laudatory towards my career, and
I was more laudatory towards the help that he gave me.
(48:35):
And we discussed this one thing, and he said, have
you noticed that my wise words have gotten absolutely nowhere
in the twenty years since I spoke them to you,
And I said, yes, yes I have. And to make
it even worse, remember this part, I have added my
voice to the chorus of people saying, don't say hello everybody.
(48:57):
And he said, yes, it just proves another one of
my points. They may be listening, but they don't seem
to be hearing anything that we're saying. And I said
to him as I said goodbye, and we embraced, and
he went back to Seattle and I went to prepare
my speech. I said goodbye everybody, and he laughed and
we embraced again, and that was the last I ever
(49:19):
saw of him. But this is just a reminder. If
you start a podcast, and the odds I believe now
are about two to one in favor of you eventually
someday doing a podcast or hosting a show on a
cable news network, don't say everybody, just say hi, or
(49:42):
don't say hi at all. I'm not in the room
with you. Just start or say good evening, something generic.
Don't say hello mister and missus America and all the
ships at sea, and certainly don't say if you remember
my story, about the Los Angeles newscaster who lasted seven
(50:03):
hundred years on that job, Jerry Dunfe do not say
from the desert to the sea to all of Southern
California a good evening. Well, now the guy's talking to
the desert and the sea and all of southern California,
he certainly doesn't mean me. And on that note, so long, everybody,
(50:40):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you all for listening. Countdown has come to you from
the Vin Scully Studio at the Old Woman Broadcasting Empire
in New York, so named because there are four pictures
of Vin on the door outside the studio. The music
you've heard was, for the most part of range, produced
and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John
(51:01):
Phillip Schenel. Brian Ray handled the guitars, base and drums.
John Phillip Schaneil did the orchestration and keyboards, and it
was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including other Beethoven songs,
were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the
(51:22):
Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the one thousand and ninth day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
(51:43):
Convict him now while we still can. The next schedule
countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news warrants till then.
I'm Keith Olriman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck everybody, everyone, Ithaca World, Bye, Everybody. Countdown with
(52:05):
Keith Alderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Senator
Josh Pawley has now descended into a bottomless pit of
(00:25):
immorality in which he is pretending to help Israel during
the current crisis, when in fact he is helping only
Hamas and Hamas's backers in Russia. And I will get
to that presently. But while it is still hard to
be shocked by anything out of the Trump prosecutions, here
it comes. Jack Smith has now made the rather startling
(00:48):
promise that he will both explain and prove in court
not just that Trump stole top secret documents at American
war plans, but why he stole them all. Credit to
Aaron Blake of The Washington Post, too has now found
this extraordinary guarantee inside Monday's Smith filing to Judge Eileen
(01:12):
Cannon in Florida, quoting that the classified materials at issue
in this case were taken from the White House and
retained at marri Lago is not in dispute. Smith and
his team buried four pages and ten paragraphs into their
answer to Trump's demand to postpone the Florida trial until
December twenty twenty four, quoting again What is in dispute
(01:35):
is how that occurred, why it occurred, what Trump knew,
and what Trump intended in retaining them, all issues that
the government will prove at trial, primarily with unclassified evidence unquote.
(01:56):
And we're waiting that sadly is it? All of it?
There is not one further reference in the Smith filing
to be found by Blake or anybody else, just that
tantalizing promise that whatever it is, the government will prove
it at trial. So let's go. For now. We are
(02:18):
left to our own devices, and to a few breadcrumbs
Smith and other prosecutors have left along the way. About
that crucial word, not crucial to prosecution and conviction, but
crucial to our understanding of what has happened here, motive.
The hypothesized explanations of what Trump intended in retaining them
(02:39):
begin naturally with money. There are no human relationships in
Trump's life. Everything is a contract or a lawsuit, or
a non disclosure agreement, or a personal services deal or
a naming license. So naturally, the monetary value of these
documents would have been instantaneously clear to a creature to
(03:00):
whom life has been like a seventy seven year long
episode of Antiques Road show What is this worth? Who
will pay me for it? Could I leverage these to
get more money out of the Saudis in my golf deal.
I give them three secrets and they give me bigger
signage at the tournament in Katar. The monetary explanation includes
(03:22):
everything from the Russian Ministry of Defense as his client,
to the great collectors of presidential memorabilia. Then, of course,
there is the prospect that Trump stole all the documents
and secrets to use them later as blackmail and or
revenge and or self defense. We already know from the
recording of him brandishing the Mark Milly Invasion of Iran document,
(03:44):
an actual US war plan, the stealing of which is
almost as nefarious a crime as anybody could commit. We
know from that document that Trump had it handy because
he was angry that Milly had publicly accused him of
fomenting war with Iran. Purposeful theft the idea that each
document was seen as a separate opportunity by Trump to
(04:08):
use as a cudgel or as a shield given very
specific circumstances. There really have been only two other positive explanations.
They have been pushed by Trump apologists mostly, and they
are twin excuses. He's a pack rat. He keeps everything.
(04:29):
There was nothing nefarious in him shipping box after box
after box after box after box of highly classified secret
documents from the White House to marri Lago. Some of
the documents so secret that nobody who now knows that
they exist is legally allowed to know that they exist.
He just kept everything that was handed to him in
(04:51):
order to keep them for himself, like baseball cards. The
other version of this is the one favored by those
who worked with Trump the last two years, based on
mark on the boxes themselves, the beautiful mind psychosis theory,
noting that Trump often traveled with these boxes filled with paper,
(05:14):
some of it classified paper, some of it not classified paper.
This explanation goes that Trump did not take anything to
sell it. He didn't take anything to keep it. He
didn't take anything to blackmail with them, nor defend with them.
He didn't take them to prove specific things to specific people. Later.
He took all of it to prove he's alive, to
(05:39):
prove he exists. That everybody gains the fundamental existential validation.
I am here, I have been here, I have made
my impression on the world through something, through children, through accomplishments,
through money, that is a kind of given in life.
(06:01):
And this theory goes that Trump and others whose brains
don't don't work properly must keep and keep nearby within
reach tangible records of what they have brushed up against
in their lives. And if those things are not nearby,
they cannot be certain that they really have been alive.
(06:22):
And then, of course, there is the final option. All
of the above, Blake does remind us of something relevant,
though not decisive. Quote. Smith's team has clearly shown an
interest in whether Trump used the documents for his personal advantage.
In April, its subpoened information about the dealings of Trump's
businesses with foreign countries, for instance, apparently in search of
(06:46):
a possible financial motive. But just as quickly as this
seeming clue to Smith's riddle is offered to us, Blake
snatches it back. But such a motive wasn't referenced in
Trump's indictment unquote, So what is it? Oddly enough, the
day's latest headlines from the Nightmare in Israel actually support
(07:11):
and entirely different, albeit not an entirely new explanation descending
into immorality exceeded only by the Hamas terrorists themselves. Senator Hawley,
Republican of Missouri, has now demanded that American aid to
Ukraine be cut off and the money sent instead to Israel,
(07:35):
as if there were a reason for such a false
either or choice. He is apparently unaware that people can
see that Hawley's own performance and that of the rest
of the Republican anti Ukraine caucus is not in support
of Israel, but actually is in support of Hamas and
(07:56):
Iran and Russia. Twice in the last year, the Kremlin
invited Hamas to send delegations to Mah and the terrorist
group's leadership met with Putin's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in
September twenty twenty two and this past March. There is
considerable analysis being done, particularly in Europe, that the Russians encouraged,
(08:19):
even bribed Hamas to undertake this full scale attack that
began from the Gaza Strip on Saturday and continues even
at this hour. The Russians, this analysis reasons, wanted this
not merely because they have been Israel's implacable existential enemy
since nineteen forty eight, and because they are Iran's leading ally,
(08:39):
but also because a Middle East conflict of almost any
size would amount to a second front in which Western
resources being dedicated now to fighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
might be redirected to protect Israel. In other words, Josh
Hawley is doing exactly what the Russians want, degrading Western
(09:01):
support for Ukraine on the false excuse that the money
must go instead to defend Israel. That would only give
Russia a freer hand in Ukraine and more money and
materiel to send to Hamas to defeat Israel as Iran wants.
In this equation, Hawley is a Russian dupe helping Hamas,
(09:26):
helping Iran, encouraging conflagration in the Middle East, encouraging more
attacks on Israel. And even the Republicans who are not
as easily led by the nose as this Hawley, the
ones not explicitly saying redirect American aid from Ukraine to Israel,
the ones who are only concerned that money not be
(09:49):
spent on Ukraine under any circumstances, they are also doing
Hamas's job for them. Less trouble for Russia in Ukraine
means more Russian resources for Hamas and more trouble and
more death for Israel. Jim Jordan, by this measure, is
helping Hamas. Marjorie Taylor Green is helping Hamas. Congressman Matt
(10:13):
Gates is helping Hamas. Congressman James Comer, Congressman Byron Donalds,
the woman who calls herself Anna Paulina Luna Good of Virginia.
Gozar Biggs Bobart Kevin McCarthy pulled funding out of the
last continuing resolution he passed as Speaker that helps Hamas.
(10:35):
There were ninety three Republicans in the House who voted
two weeks ago tomorrow to cut Ukraine funding out of
the defense budget. At that point, before the gathering Hamas
storm was known to be on the way outside the
Middle East and perhaps Moscow, those ninety three could have
pleaded ignorance, and who could argue with Bobert saying she
(10:59):
was ignorant. They could get away with admitting their own stupidity.
Now they cannot. To oppose. American support of Ukraine is
to encourage and embolden Russia, and to embolden Russia is
to free Russia. To help Hamas more. It is a
(11:23):
straight line, and the Russian Republicans in the House are
not alone in walking that line. Ron DeSantis opposes aid
to Ukraine, and thus he is helping Hamas and hurting
Israel in this way. Vivek Ramaswami opposes aid to Ukraine,
and he is thus helping Hamas and hurting Israel in
this way. And most relevantly with his constant bleedings about
(11:44):
President Biden putting Ukraine first in America, last, Donald Trump
is helping Hamas and Iran and hurting Israel. And it
circles back to that question. Jack Smith has promised to
answer at trial why Trump stole our secrets because that
time as all of it together, Russian support of Hamas
(12:07):
at its cloudy role in the attack on Israel, Republicans
support for Hamas by pulling the rug out from under
Ukraine's defense against Russia, and Trump's criminal use of American
classified intelligence as if it were gossip tips that he
was giving to the New York Posts page six in
a phone call in which he called himself John barn
(12:29):
It must not be forgotten, especially not at this exact
hour that on May tenth, twenty seventeen, in the Oval
Office Trump disclosed classified intelligence, classified intelligence obtained by the Israelis,
(12:49):
and shared with this nation classified information about an ISIS
plot that the Israelis unraveled in a town in Syria.
Trump gave that intion directly to Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
(13:13):
Where have we heard that name before? He is the
same man who has twice met with the Hamas delegations
in Moscow in the last year. At the time Trump
gave away Israeli intelligence, the biggest fear was that the
details of how Israel interrupted an ISIS scheme, how it
penetrated a terror network, would wind up in the hands
(13:36):
of the Iranians. Now we know that we had just
as much to fear from the realization that Trump gave
Israel's secrets to Lavrov and Russia, and Lavrov and Russia
could have in turn given them to Hamas. Trump in
effect is working against Israel on behalf of Hamas, on
behalf of Iran, and as ever on behalf of Russia.
(14:03):
As an aside, it is not lost on me, as
it might not be lost on you. I spent the
first half of my life looking on in astonishment at
the universal demonization in this country of Russia by Republicans
and the far right. It made little sense. Russia's collapse
caused in fact by Union organizers in Poland, but claimed
(14:27):
by Republicans as Ronald Reagan's magic, as if Reagan had
anything to do with it other than the fact that
he was only joking that he had signed legislation to
outlaw Russia and would begin bombing in five minutes. Russia's collapse,
because of its own weight, seemed to reorder American reaction
to the former Soviet Union. And here we are, thirty
(14:48):
years after that happened, and Republicans ranging from this despicable,
manipulative bastard Josh Hawley, through these literally cretinous humanoids like
Bobard and Gates and Green right onto the pro dictatorship
always authoritarian Trump. They are serving russia needs as well
as any paid agents could. And I am sitting here
(15:10):
saying Russia is the devil. As I said yesterday, this
is not sophisticated analysis, and it does not have to
be sophisticated. The Russians wanted to weaken America by widening
its divisions and fishers, and so it buttressed Trump's candidacy.
The Russians wanted to reassemble the Soviet Union, reclaim Ukraine
(15:33):
now and probably Poland later, and so it attacked Ukraine
and counted on Trump to stand aside, and it went
back in thinking Trump had poisoned the American well sufficiently
to still weaken support for Ukraine under Biden. But they
were mistaken about that. That failed, and it failed, and
it needed somebody to cut off American aid to Ukraine,
(15:57):
and in part to make that more likely, it befriended Hamas,
and Hamas attacked Israel, and Josh Howley could get up
a pretend he was supporting Israel by demanding that the
aid meant for Ukraine be directed to Israel. It is
not either or we spend too much money on the military.
(16:19):
What we have sent to Ukraine, what we are scheduled
still to send to Ukraine, what we will send in
the future to Ukraine amounts to less than five percent
of our military budget. It is less than zero point
three three percent of our gross domestic product. That's half
of what Poland is spending. That is a quarter of
(16:40):
what Latvia is spending. And the only positive to our
military industrial psychological complex is that we have unbelievable quantities
of weapons and other materiel at the ready. We could
fully stock Ukraine and Israel and half a dozen other nations,
and that would not even free up half a dozen
(17:02):
parking spots at the Pentagon. The Russians are as evil
now as the Republicans believed they were in the nineteen fifties,
and the Republicans are as much a pro Russian fifth
column in this country as the Republicans believed the Liberals
were in the same era. And in a sane country,
(17:25):
we would right now collectively be so effectively chasing the
Trumps and the gates Is and the Ramaswamis, and especially
this scumbag Hawlly, that the way Hawley ran to escape
his own mob on January sixth would seem like nothing
more than a warm up exercise. As a follow up
(17:51):
to Yesterday's analysis that the failure of intelligence in Israel
was not of military intelligence nor counter intelligence, but that
of Benjamin Netanyahu's personal intelligence, there is not only yet
another confirmation that the egips warned the netan Yahoo government
that something bad and large was headed its way, but
that quote senior Egyptian officials had warned Israel of an
(18:13):
impending assault from Gaza unquote. The news source is the
Middle East centric news site Al Monitor, citing its own sources,
confirming the previous four or five legitimate reports about the
Egyptian warning, but with an added twist. Quoting it again,
they said, Egyptian intelligence officials had indeed shared warnings with
(18:36):
their Israeli counterparts, but the information was not specific or focused,
and and here is the critical tell, and was not
brought to netan Yahoo's attention unquote. Thus, can one work
backwards and guess pretty quickly and probably pretty accurately that
(18:59):
the only people in the Israeli government or the Israeli
military who would tell any journalist anywhere that who would say, well, yes,
there was a warning of a massive attack coming from Gaza,
but no, of course we didn't tell the Prime minister,
the prime minister who yearns for any excuse to attack
(19:23):
any threat from any Arab neighbor. The only people who
would say that would be those who so keenly felt
the need to protect Netanyahu that they were willing to
throw their own intelligence services under the bus to do so.
(19:46):
One last note from another bus and others being thrown
under it from far less Afield and last night's Republican
circular firing squad. Non surprise, Jordan and Scalise, neither of
them got enough support to become speaker. And know when
they asked Jordan if he would commit to backing Scalise
(20:08):
if Scalise won the nomination, he wouldn't say it. And
when Congressman Ken Buck got up at the Republican coven
last night and asked both of them if Trump won
or lost in twenty twenty, neither gave a straight answer.
Kevin McCarthy asked his pals not to nominate him to
be the next speaker, and that changes nothing about my
(20:29):
prediction that he will at least be in the final
vote for speaker. Oh and George Santos attended, and then
on the way out he pretended he knew nothing about
these twenty three counts you say in the new conspiracy
and fraud indictment against him, which includes allegations of stealing
the identities and the credit cards of his own donors.
(20:53):
You know, if he's found guilty of that, that would
make him the two hundred and twenty seventh most corrupt
Republican in the country. And lastly, Congresswoman Nancy Mace war
to this conference a T shirt with a red letter
A over her breasts. She insisted she was wearing the
(21:15):
scarlet letter. She called it the scarlet letter because she'd
been demonized for the last week over her vote and
her gender, and goddamn it, it's the first time I
can think of that she's ever told the truth. Also,
once again, golf clap for choosing to actually get out
(21:36):
of bed, Congresswoman. Also of interest here, Senator Steve Garvey,
literally four decades after he first seemed to be the
rising young star of the Republican Party, the ex Los
Angeles Dodger Most Valuable Player will run for the Senate.
(22:01):
Why the wait? Something that only time could accomplish. Most
of the people who remember the Steve Garvey scandals of
nineteen eighty eight and nineteen eighty nine are dead or
have forgotten the Steve Garvey scandals. So guess whose job
(22:23):
it is to whom it falls to remind you of
the Steve Garvey scandals of nineteen eighty eight and nineteen
eighty nine. Your hints are the Father of our country
and the giant sign at a ballpark which read Steve
(22:46):
Marvin Hamlish. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown
with Keith old Woman. This is sports Senate. Wait, check
(23:11):
that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Aulberman in sports.
Steve Garvey, who fifty seasons ago suddenly blossomed from underachieving
utility man of the Los Angeles Dodgers to the most
valuable player in the National League, has announced he is
running for the Republican nomination for senator from California. He
(23:35):
is seventy four years old, and though the prospect of
a political career was raised long before injuries forced him
to retire as an active player in nineteen eighty seven,
this will be his maiden political attempt. California Democrats outnumber
California Republicans two to one. On the other hand, in
the poll last month, Garvey led all possible Republican senatorial candidates.
(23:59):
On the other other hand, he led all of them
with the support of seven of all of California's voters.
Why has he waited so long to run for office? Well,
one of the reasons might be he was waiting for
everybody to forget. In nineteen eighty three, Steve Garvey and
his wife Cindy, a Good Morning La type host, divorced.
(24:23):
He had a girlfriend, his former secretary. At the same time,
he had another girlfriend, an assignment editor for CNN in Atlanta,
and just as he was about to propose to her
in nineteen eighty eight, he found out that a medical
sales rep from San Diego was pregnant with his child.
Then the assignment editor got pregnant. Then there was his
other girlfriend, Candace, and she got pregnant three times. As
(24:47):
a result, Steve Garvey earned a new nickname that tied
into his political aspirations, The Father of Our Country. Bob
Hope did Steve Garvey fatherhood jokes, Thank you, Nancy Faust.
(25:22):
As early as nineteen eighty one, Garvey had told Playboy
magazine he thought about becoming president Father of Our Country. Indeed,
that was just about the time, however, late in the
baseball season, that his wife left him to begin a
relationship with the rather nerdy film composer Marvin Hamlish. When
his Dodgers got to Yankee Stadium for Game one of
(25:43):
the nineteen eighty one World Series, a giant banner hung
briefly from the upper deck in right field. It read
in Giant block letters, Steve, Marvin Hamlish. Steve Garvey's been
hoping everybody's forgotten about all that he might be right.
The story in the La Times announcing his candidacy doesn't
(26:06):
mention any of it, not the girlfriends, not the kids,
not the Marvin Hamlish banner. On the other hand, all
of his children are now a voting age. So that's
what couple hundred votes right there. Thank you again, Nancy Faust,
(26:56):
speaking of Garvey, I am the last person ever to
root for the Los Angeles Dodgers. But if you have
finished with the best record in baseball twenty two games
ahead of the second place San Diego Padres in twenty
twenty two, and then you have finished with the second
best record in baseball sixteen games ahead of the second
place Arizona Diamondbacks in twenty twenty three to win the
(27:17):
National League Western Division and four days off and the
buy and home field advantage two years in a row.
And you play the twenty twenty two Padres and you
lose to them in four games, And you play the
twenty twenty three Diamondbacks and you'll lose the first two
games to them by a combined score of fifteen to
four at your home stadium, and you are on the
verge of being eliminated in the first round again. And
(27:39):
the same thing could happen to the Eastern champion Atlanta
Braves also for the second straight year. One of the
following two things is necessarily true. A there is something
desperately wrong with the baseball playoff structure, or B there
is something desperately wrong with the baseball regular season structure.
(28:02):
Maybe both. What is the point of even trying to
win your division, or for that matter, trying harder than
is absolutely necessary just to reach the playoffs. How well
you do in the regular season is irrelevant in the playoffs.
I have frequently bemoaned baseball's murder of its own, authentic,
(28:23):
organic rivalry, the American League versus the National League in
the World Series, which made baseball hands down the most
popular postseason sport well into the nineteen eighties. When adjusted
for population growth, the television audience for the World Series
in the nineteen eighties was roughly four times what it
is now, and any two broadcasts of World Series games
(28:47):
had a larger audience than the Super Bowl, as opposed
to today, when the Super Bowl will outrate a full
highly watched seven game World Series in its entirety. I
think one of the factors is what we're seeing in
these postseasons. The premise of the regular season. You give
every team in the American League essentially an identical task.
(29:08):
You can be pretty confident you've sent the best team,
or at least the second best team in the league
to the World Series. Same for the National League that
has been erased by interleague play. Teams do not play
the same schedules anymore. They don't play each other team
as many times as their competition does. Yet the season
is still the same extraordinary length one hundred and sixty
(29:31):
two games as it used to be when they still
did play every other team the same number of games
as every other team. Thus, the baseball season is interminably long.
Almost none of it matters except which players you trade
for on August first, and which players get injured during
the season. And if a mediocre team then in previous
(29:52):
years would not have been in the playoffs, would have
been eliminated in September. Can stay alive and get hot
for three weeks, it can win the World Series. Its madness.
Fourteen wild card team games have reached the world Series.
Seven have won the World Series, and with their now
being as many wildcard teams as there are division winners,
(30:13):
that number will likely increase. So we will see the
spectacle of more Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres knocking
off teams they were fourteen or sixteen or twenty two
games worse than, and each time it will delegitimize the
regular season or the playoffs, or both just a little
bit more. As it is right now, I don't really
(30:35):
know what the point of watching the regular season is.
I just know that it doesn't really matter, and they're
beginning to lose me and I used to host the
World Series. The basketball and hockey regular seasons basically began
as simple and comparatively short seeding contests for their playoffs,
(30:56):
as did football. I guess if baseball wants to go
that route, have fun, but the fans seem to be
wising up to it. Baseball saving grace is that the
other sports usually find ways, of course, to screw up
other things that make them look small and petty. Last year,
National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman proved yes he could
screw it up worse by folding to homophobic players and
(31:20):
the new American fascists of the Republican Party, and ending
the traditional and by that point no longer controversial Pride
Night warm up uniforms. Now, the league has sent a simpering,
cowering message to its teams, banning the use even of
Pride colored tape on players sticks on Pride Nights and
(31:42):
protecting homophobes like players Ivon Provaroff and Eric Stahl and
Mark Stahl and Ilia Lubushkin and Dennis Geryanov and Andre
Kuzmenko and unnamed Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers players.
Instead of banning these guys as the worms, they are
are asking why are we prioritizing Russians, some of whom
(32:02):
have openly backed the dictator pou while taking our money?
Why are we prioritizing them instead of, say, you know,
the fans. The NHL has now issued this amazing statement
quote players shall not be put in the position of
having to demonstrate or where they may be appearing to
demonstrate personal support for any special initiatives as in aside,
(32:27):
I'm just thinking about all those pro cancer players. This
protects a factor that may be considered in this regard includes,
for example, whether a player or players is required to
be in close proximity to any groups or individuals visibly
or otherwise clearly associated with such special initiatives. I mean,
(32:48):
Commissioner Bettman, you might as well have written that the
players should not be required to stand too close to
the Pride Night participants, because maybe hockey's gutless bosses and
its prejudiced players among the many non prejudiced players might
think that the gay is infectious. One more hockey note
(33:11):
about a long time colleague, Barry Melrose, who has spent
most of the last twenty eight years as the primary
hockey analyst at ESPN, is stepping away from that network
after a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. I have never met
an ex athlete who stepped more seamlessly into broadcasting, largely
because Melrose never acted like he was only doing it
(33:33):
till he could get back into coaching. Ironically, he did
get back into coaching for sixteen games in two thousand
and eight before he got fired, and his embrasive broadcasting
was even more total and more joyful and even grateful
the second time around. There are two notes to mention
here about Barry Melrose. The most valuable rookie hockey card
(33:54):
in the nineteen seventy nine eighty Hockey Card Series belongs
unsurprisingly to Wayne Gretzky. But I once asked Barry Melrose
on air if he knew who the second most valuable
rookie card in that series was. He did not. It's
his Barry Melrose, defenseman Winnipeg Jets. And if you ever
(34:16):
watch a hockey playoff game and it goes into overtime
and you spontaneously start a gambling pool or just a
for fun pool about who's going to score the sudden
death game winning goal, you kind of have Barry Melrose
to thank. In the tiny studio of nineteen ninety five
and nineteen ninety six, in nineteen ninety seven, that sports
center shared with the NHL Show on ESPN and Baseball
(34:38):
Tonight and everybody else, as soon as regulation ended in
a tie, Barry would cheerfully shout, okay, who you got.
Barry Melrose would take down everybody's dollar and keep track
of which players were and were not still available, and
he'd usually all keep which staffers had chosen which players
(34:58):
in his head, and he never participated. He never chose
a player. He just was the banker like monopoly. I
want to ask him why easiest way to make new
hockey fans. Everybody was invested in every overtime game thanks
to Barry Melrose. Barry, all of us send all of
(35:19):
our best wishes still ahead on an all new edition
(35:44):
of Countdown. Two words no broadcaster in any format or
medium should ever say. I heard them again yesterday on
the air, and it flashed me back to the day
forty five years ago that the best communications professor I
ever had warned me never say that things I promised
not to tell. Next first with the note that if
(36:04):
you ever wanted to be chief communications officer of CNN,
they just posted the job on. Indeed, Wow, don't everybody
rush at once, but first time for the daily round
up of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects
specimens who constitute two days other worst persons in the world.
(36:25):
Lebron's former NFL quarterback Aaron No Yards, no cloud of dust,
just to torn Achilles Rogers of the New York Jets,
who has fully gone off the deep end. He has
challenged Travis Kelcey of the Kansas City Chiefs, who does
commercials for the COVID vaccines to a debate over Rogers'
(36:45):
conspiracy theory delusion nutjob ramblings. Rogers says they should each
have seconds at this debate. That's not going to happen
except in Aaron's head. Rogers says he'll bring Robert F.
Kennedy Junior, and Kelsey should bring doctor Anthony Fauci. That's
(37:05):
Travis Kelcey, who is if you had not heard dating,
what's the name here? Taylor swiped versus Aaron Rodgers, whose
only publicity seems to be coming from being a new
sidekick on the Pat McAfee Show, which has produced surprisingly
poor ratings after it switched to ESPN. Why would Travis
(37:27):
Kelcey waste his time on a has been like Aaron Rodgers.
They runner up aj Fisher, who had been ranked number
two hundred and twenty two on the FBI's most wanted
list for January sixth. Fisher was the guy with the
oiled chest and the ray bands. He's still awaiting trial,
but Fisher has now asked the court to let him
(37:49):
leave Florida, I guess for a wedding in Puerto Rico
with his fiance so they can take their child with them.
Otherwise she will have to go alone, Fisher says, and
leave the child with him, and he will have to
take care of the child who is apparently still nursing.
Fisher assumes that prosecutors will want him to stay and
breastfield the child himself, because they quote have fallen for
(38:13):
such disinformation as quote the recent anti biology myth of
male chest feeding. Because these January sixth morons still believe
whatever they read on four chan. Sure the court wants
you to breastfeed your child, sir, I know who you
(38:35):
should call. Call Aaron Rodgers, but the winner Murdoch's New
York Post and Fox News. A study by the website
Axios indicates that in the last year, the Post has
run five hundred and fifty two stories mentioning Ron DeSantis,
who is laughably or otherwise a presidential candidate, but it's
run seven hundred and eighty four articles more than to
(38:56):
a day about Hunter Biden. Meanwhile, for the last year,
the Fox propaganda channel has devoted an average of thirty
three minutes a month to mentioning the name Donald Trump
and twenty seven minutes a month to mentioning the name
Hunter Biden. Hidden in this non journalistic madness is something
for Democrats to consider. If Trump proved that name recognition
(39:21):
and media attention could be all that you're really needed
to win the White House, and if the Democratic hierarchy
actually might consider somebody other than the president for the
twenty twenty four election the choice to swap in in
his place, I think that's clear. The guy all the
voters know is Hunter Biden, Rupert Murdoch and the other
(39:45):
people who run Fox, Quote News and The New York Post.
I mean, what the hell, Rupert, I thought you were
leaving or getting cryogenically frozen or non cryogenically frozen or something.
Let's go how we're going to miss you if you
don't go away to day's worse persons and the world today.
(40:27):
So I was listening to All News Radio yesterday, a
daunting prospect which I do not advise you to do yourself,
when a promo came on for somebody's podcast. In fact,
it was Richard Ditsch, the former Sports Illustrated sports media
critic who now writes for The Athletic and does this podcast.
And this is nothing particularly against Richard Ditsch. He's made
(40:51):
a few mistakes in his career. We all have, But
he said something at the start of this promo for
the podcast that flashed me back to a date in
nineteen seventy eight or nineteen seventy nine, and one of
the best piece of advice I ever heard that still
seems to have not caught on almost anywhere else in broadcasting.
(41:12):
This is the way Richard Ditsch began his promo for
his podcast, and I checked a couple of his podcasts
and he begins it the same way too. Hi, everybody.
Let me ask you a question, how many times have
you listened to a podcast with somebody? My guess is
(41:36):
the answer is never, not once, never, ever, ever. People
listen to podcasts, to streaming services, to news radio, to
music radio largely by themselves. In fact, they tend to
consume television largely by themselves. So why does anybody say
(41:58):
hi everybody? And what do they think the impact is
going to be when they say that? Over Even if
you are watching television or listening to radio in a
group of two or more people, do you want to
be addressed as everybody? Or is that in some way
(42:19):
off putting? I've always thought that psychologically this might explain
for twenty five to fifty percent of the times people
say I don't like that guy's podcast, I don't like
that guy's radio show, I don't like that guy, and
they really don't have a further answer beyond that there
are so many psychological connections or disconnections between the broadcaster
(42:44):
for want of a better term, and the listener that
I think they populate the entire interaction. And without making
this sound like too much of one of the Cornell
Communication Arts theory courses that I was subjected to, forced
to take against my will between the years nineteen seventy
five and nineteen seventy nine, which did give me some
(43:04):
of the best naps I've ever had in my life.
Trying to avoid making it in that I do think
there's something to it, and that's where the flashback came.
I had the benefit of one really superb professor at
Cornell University in the Communication Arts department. His name was
Don Martin. That was his American name. He once told
(43:27):
me his birth name and I could not pronounce it,
and he could barely pronounce it, and I could not
remember it and could not still. He was a Polish
war refugee as a young man, I think seven or
eight years old. He came from Poland to the United
States in the nineteen thirties the late nineteen thirties at
(43:48):
the advent of World War Two, and wound up in Ithaca,
New York, not speaking a word of English and having
to learn everything from scratch. And what he learned was
as good diction and as much of an announcing voice
as I have ever heard in any human being. When
I first got to Ithaca, New York at the age
of sixteen, and put the radio on to the Cornell
(44:09):
owned radio station WHCU, I heard this voice, and I
assumed it was the CBS Radio network announcer doing something,
And then he started talking about the Cornell football score.
He was announcing the Corneil football game, and it was
as good a broadcast as I had ever heard, which
got me very worried about my prospects of getting anywhere
in radio anywhere at all, let alone just Ithaca, New
(44:33):
York on the Cornell student radio station. But I found
out later his name was Don Martin, and then, much
to my delight, when I was a junior, it turned
out he was teaching the radio Writing and production course.
Now most of the Cornell Communication arts courses, although they
have improved in the ensuing forty years. Ah, they weren't
that really good then, particularly the ones that pertained to
(44:55):
writing things or broadcasting things, the theory of communications, maybe
how to I don't know, own a radio station. Those
classes were okay, but the production ones, with the exception
of Professor Don Martin's class, not so much. Don happened
to be not just the football announcer for WHCU, but
he was also the general manager of the station, and
(45:16):
he taught this course, and I learned things from him
when I had not really learned anything from any of
my other communication arts professors in the entire time I
was there, and it went so well that Don actually
asked me to be his teaching assistant when I was
a senior the next year. So I came back and
had to get special permission from the course director, from
(45:38):
the Communication Arts Department, from the University Agriculture College, from
the university itself, because they did not have undergraduate teaching
assistants except with special permission. And Don Martin asked for me,
and I got to be his teaching assistant, and one day,
either in nineteen seventy eight or perhaps more likely in
nineteen seventy nine when I was working for him. We
(45:59):
were seated outside the ancient ag Quad building in which
he taught this course, discussing what we were going to
do in the day ahead. And he was just ruminating
about things like, have you ever noticed during allergy season
that you don't actually sneeze or cough when you go
on to the radio. What does this tell you about
(46:21):
the psychology of broadcasting and of allergies. Well that had
me going for about a week wondering what that all meant.
But then he said something else, and this takes us
back to Richard Ditsch, the poor victim of this flashback.
Don Martin said, you know, one thing I noticed in
listening to one of your broadcasts on WVBR was you
(46:43):
just said hello or thank you and the name of
the other announcer. You did not say hello everyone or
good morning, Ithaca. And he got very agitated. He was
very fair skinned and light haired, and he got red.
And Don Martin said, you know, whenever I hear someone
say hello everyone or good morning, Ithaca, I turn around
(47:10):
and I look to see if somebody has come into
the room with me. Remember this, Keith, broadcasting is one
to one speak to the other person, not persons. When
you say everyone everybody, when you address them as if
you are standing in front of a crowd of hundreds
(47:31):
or thousands, or if you're really egotistical millions, that's just
for you. That aids nothing in the communication between you
and the listener. Don't say that, and tell others who
do not to say that, because even if you are
part of a crowd listening to a broadcast, My experience
(47:54):
is when I am greeted in that way and they
say hello everyone, and there's a bunch of us together,
I assume that the guy is talking to everyone else.
The wisdom of Don Martin has lasted me now forty
four years plus. I saw him again, interestingly enough, we
(48:15):
were both back on the Cornell campus one day in
nineteen ninety eight. I was giving the commencement address, and
he had retired to Seattle, Washington, if I remember correctly,
And we had a lovely, lovely afternoon and a nice meal,
and he was very, very laudatory towards my career, and
I was more laudatory towards the help that he gave me.
(48:35):
And we discussed this one thing, and he said, have
you noticed that my wise words have gotten absolutely nowhere
in the twenty years since I spoke them to you,
And I said, yes, yes I have. And to make
it even worse, remember this part, I have added my
voice to the chorus of people saying, don't say hello everybody.
(48:57):
And he said, yes, it just proves another one of
my points. They may be listening, but they don't seem
to be hearing anything that we're saying. And I said
to him as I said goodbye, and we embraced, and
he went back to Seattle and I went to prepare
my speech. I said goodbye everybody, and he laughed and
we embraced again, and that was the last I ever
(49:19):
saw of him. But this is just a reminder. If
you start a podcast, and the odds I believe now
are about two to one in favor of you eventually
someday doing a podcast or hosting a show on a
cable news network, don't say everybody, just say hi, or
(49:42):
don't say hi at all. I'm not in the room
with you. Just start or say good evening, something generic.
Don't say hello mister and missus America and all the
ships at sea, and certainly don't say if you remember
my story, about the Los Angeles newscaster who lasted seven
(50:03):
hundred years on that job, Jerry Dunfe do not say
from the desert to the sea to all of Southern
California a good evening. Well, now the guy's talking to
the desert and the sea and all of southern California,
he certainly doesn't mean me. And on that note, so long, everybody,
(50:40):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you all for listening. Countdown has come to you from
the Vin Scully Studio at the Old Woman Broadcasting Empire
in New York, so named because there are four pictures
of Vin on the door outside the studio. The music
you've heard was, for the most part of range, produced
and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John
(51:01):
Phillip Schenel. Brian Ray handled the guitars, base and drums.
John Phillip Schaneil did the orchestration and keyboards, and it
was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including other Beethoven songs,
were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it
was written by Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the
(51:22):
Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical
comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this,
the one thousand and ninth day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
(51:43):
Convict him now while we still can. The next schedule
countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news warrants till then.
I'm Keith Olriman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck everybody, everyone, Ithaca World, Bye, Everybody. Countdown with
(52:05):
Keith Alderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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