January 26, 2024 • 45 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 113: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Since Nikki Haley refused to enslave herself after he defeated her in New Hampshire Tuesday, Trump has lost what little remained of his damned mind. He is now running on a novel platform: "Trump 2024: EFF AMERICA!" He wants to crash the economy, leave the borders open so (he says) terrorists can pour in. Yesterday a resolution was floated to the RNC to effectively cancel the remaining 48 Republican primaries and declare Trump the nominee NOW. Even though the GOP rules require 1,215 delegates for nomination and he has exactly 32.
Moreover, one of the underappreciated ratfinks of the fascist push in America for a quarter century, David Bossie of the Clinton Hunt and Citizens United, is the Committeeman who has actually introduced a resolution subverting what passes for democracy within the GOP, to the Republican National Committee.
Last night Trump made a big deal of saying he doesn't want this, that he wants "to do it the old fashioned way" and guess what? I think he's lying. He wants it - he just doesn't want to be seen as being BEHIND it.
So if it happens, does Nikki Haley then sue? She certainly hasn't shrunk away from challenging Trump. He threatened to blacklist her donors? She tweeted the news and attached a link TO donate to her campaign! She's clearly aware that unlike almost any other Republican since 2016, she has destabilized him, and threatened him back.
How far will she go? Especially since Trump's desire to blow-up the border deal may have created an anti-Trump bloc among Republican Senators who might serve as a Haley base of support.
B-Block (22:36) IN SPORTS: A college athlete illegally betting on his own school's games at a legal betting site? How'd EVER have expected that? And why it doesn't matter whether he bet for or against his own team. Plus Jim Harbaugh's new job lets me tell the story of the filming of the ESPN commercial Dan Patrick and I did with him (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Surprise! The January 6th Sprinter, Josh Hawley, is suddenly Senator Socialism! Rep. Ralph Norman, unrepentant insurrectionist and Kaitlin Collins who didn't call him on it. And led by the last GOP nominee for governor of New York, and resident Fox stooges Typhoid and Greg Guttersnipe, decide it's ok to now use the "R-word" on TV, never realize they'd be the first three guys you'd use it to describe.
C-Block (34:35) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: I was talking about my Dad again yesterday and almost immediately I was reminded of HIS favorite Thurber story. So I offer it to you today: "I Went To Sullivant."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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. This
is Friday, January twenty six, twenty twenty four, day eleven
(00:25):
of Donald J. Trump's dementia crisis. And let's summarize what
we have learned about Trump's campaign strategy since he won
in New Hampshire Tuesday night and something went wrong, unprecedented
even for him, wrong, really wrong in his brain. He
is now running on a campaign to trash the US economy,
(00:47):
keep the southern border completely open, and in a personal
pledge to expel anybody who supports NICKI Haley or any
other Republican candidates from the Republican Party. Oh, and there
is a new piece. He is officially anyway insisting he
does not want the Republican National Committee to pass a
resolution to effectively cancel all the remaining GOP primaries and
(01:12):
declare him the nominee today because he's already won a
total of thirty two whole delegates. Yes, it's Trump campaign
twenty twenty four. F U America. This is dementia. I
don't think Haley's obstinates was the actual trigger, just the
(01:33):
last pressure applied to the very weakened spaghetti strands. That
held his vestiges of sanity together. It happens that way,
especially in the brain. But when the result of a
series of events is loser j Trump insisting he will
not accept somebody else's money, something is desperately desperately wrong
(01:55):
with him. Wronger and more dangerous and maybe more imminently disastrous.
Even than usual, Trump could get to the hannibal lector
stage of full body, straight jacket and straight pants and
cage mask. And I don't think he'd ever actually turned
down anybody's money or anybody's endorsement. But there is a
(02:16):
desperation taking over here that suggests that the gravity has
been completely turned off inside Trump world. This new thing. First,
a committee member presented a draft of a resolution to
the Republican National Committee that would declare Trump the nominee
now no Nevada, no South Carolina, no votes by no
(02:37):
Republican voters, no convention, no second thoughts, no vaccies if
he's convicted, and of course no refunds refunds. Last night,
Trump made a big deal out of discouraging this resolution, noting,
of course they have far more votes than necessary to
do it, but that for the sake of party unity,
(02:58):
like he gives a rat's ass about that he quote
should do it the old fashioned way and finish the
process off at the ballot box. Here was the resolution,
in part quote resolved that the Republican National Committee hereby
declares President Trump as our presumptive twenty twenty four nominee
for the office of President of the United States, and
(03:19):
from this moment forward moves into full general election mode,
welcoming supporters of all candidates as valued members of Team
Trump twenty twenty four. Unquote. But Trump wouldn't want that,
he says. Forgive me. I know this is an outlandish
(03:43):
thing to suggest, but I think he's lying, especially considering
who proposed this which Trump. Lackey put his name to
this anti democratic, anti American nineteenth century style political document
of disenfranchisement. Who else but the z of fascism in
(04:06):
America for the last quarter century and more. He was
part of the newt Gingrich ken Starr destruction of journalism
and persecution of President Clinton. He was the President of
Citizens United when it and Floyd Abrams succeeded in getting
a death sentence for democracy in America out of the
Supreme Court. And now he is a Republican National Committee
(04:27):
man from Maryland, David Bossy. David Bossy, the guy who
looks like an evil Bob Hoskins, the guy who has
twice been exiled from Trump World for trying to skim
influence and money and now sees a road back into
the inner circle. And remember this is the Republican Party
(04:50):
in the nineties. It developed a template and then found
the man whose utter lack of morals made him the
perfect human embodiment of venality. The guy you needed to
make this crap work. Look like you're obeying the law,
Scream that you are a bit paying the law, use
the law to destroy the law, and on the way,
break every law you can. Ronald McDaniel still the chair
(05:15):
of the RNC after the midterm disaster of twenty eighteen,
after Trump got his ass kicked in twenty twenty, after
the next midterm disaster in twenty twenty two, she will
do anything to retain that job. She has already insisted
Haley should get out, and she could very easily sign
on to Bossi's resolution. And make no mistake what Bossi's
(05:36):
resolution is designed to be a precedent for if a
bunch of cowering, simpering, amoral twerps on the Republican National
Committee can vote to scrap the nominating process when forty
eight of the fifty states have yet to vote, well,
maybe they can also someday soon convince the House of
Representatives or the Senate or both to vote to scrap
(06:02):
some election because everybody knows Trump is going to win
and everybody wants Trump to serve a third term. It's
still a long shot to do it that way. I mean,
the Martial Law Insurrection Act, threat to the Nation plot
is far more scurty. But if you don't think the
Republicans are not game planning one hundred different ways to
(06:24):
pretend they are legally ending elections in this country, you
must have been in a coma between November twenty twenty
and January twenty twenty one. This is one thing for Trump,
personal madness, personal lust for power, But for the Republican
Party this is existential. They cannot win a majority in
(06:47):
this country. They are losing majorities in purple states. The
demographics are fatal for them, and for thirty years, the
smart ones have seen this coming and they have devoted
themselves to shrinking the electorate. The only thing they can
do to beat the voting is to reduce the number
of people who vote. And hell, what better more economical,
(07:15):
quicker way to shrink the electorate could there be than
to just eliminate voting. All right, that's the future. Back
to the present day. So if the RNC goes along
with David Bossi and Roni McDaniel and ends, you know,
voting inside the Republican Party and just declares Trump king,
what happens? Then who will stop them? There would seem
(07:39):
to be a little doubt Nikki Haley could sue the
RNC for this. Her response to Trump's threat to blacklist
her donors her MAGA was to immediately repost news of
his bullying with a link for people to donate to
her campaign. If she is willing to go that far,
is she also willing to take the official power structure
(08:00):
of her own party to court. The point, certainly is
that it appears that, unlike Ramaswami and Tim Scott and
the other hapless urchins who got out just before Trump
would have wished them into the cornfield. At some point
in the last month six weeks or so, both Haley
and ron DeSantis realized that the fire escape had already
closed behind them, and the only way out was to
(08:23):
fight Trump and beat Trump. DeSantis started it too late.
He got out about half a dozen stunningly insightful jabs
at Trump before he got crushed. But Haley might not fold.
It is hard to root for her. I have said
this before, and it's true. She really is a dope.
(08:46):
But maybe only a dope would be able to do
what she has already done. She has utterly destabilized and
already unstable Trump. She is, after all, the prototype of
the person he hates the most in this world. A woman,
a woman to whom he has lent what he sees
as his credibility, a woman he has employed, and most
(09:10):
of all, most meaningful to him, somebody to whom he
has given money, who has not in turn become his
eternal slave, and somebody who has gotten completely under his skin.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So we got out there and we did our thing,
and we said what we had to say, and then
Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum.
He pitched a fit. He was he was insulting, he
was doing what he does. But I know that's what
he does when he's insecure. I know that's what he
does when he is threatened, and he should feel threatened
(09:49):
without a doubt.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
And so he'll go on.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And you know, even on that day where he was
going on and on about January sixth, you know, we
talked about, Okay, he was having a moment. He was confused.
But it also goes back to why I've continue to
push for mental confidence. He tests for anyone over the
age of seventy five.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Haley might or might not hold out long against Trump
in the primaries. She would be a dreadful president, although
one who would be unlikely to utterly subvert representative government.
But she has done something to him that no other
Republican has done since twenty sixteen. She has successfully threatened
him back. She has made him make terrible mistakes. You
(10:30):
are going to institute a purity test. You're going to
threaten to banish anybody who supports somebody else, Banish them
from MAGA forever. Nicky Haley's donors are banned from MAGA.
You're going to deliberately throw them out. You're going to
(10:51):
deliberately reduce the number of them who will now support you.
You're going to deliberately reduce your own vote totals in
the swing states, and now you're going to try to
declare victory when the number of delegates needed to clinch
the nomination is one thing two hundred and fifteen, and
you have thirty two dumb even for Trump, even for fascists,
(11:13):
staging not a kangaroo court but a kangaroo party. Moreover,
she could have again, could have an unlikely power base
inside that party. Texas Congressman Chip Roy went on Fox
last night and aptly described this as a coronation and
said he can't understand why Trump would be afraid to
(11:35):
go earn it. And he said that his party should
not anoint anyone. And I despise chip Roy, but those
are the two words for it, anoint and coronation. And
then there are the Republicans in the Senate that could
be Haley's constituency in a fight against Trump inside the
GOP because they are steamed about Trump trying to kill
(11:59):
the border deal so he can make things worse there
and run on that. Because right or wrong, racist or
just stupid, Republican senators actually believe there is a crisis there.
You've probably never heard of Senator Todd Young of Indiana.
But you have heard of Mitt Romney, and as much
as Romney is like the male Nikki Hayley and Romney
(12:22):
and Young and Tom Tillis and the chief Republican negotiator,
the Ash and James Langford of Oklahoma are seemingly wimpy.
They could over this and they might actually fight back.
Here is Senator Young first. Anything that interrupts that negotiation,
I think would be tragic. I hope no one is
(12:44):
trying to take this away for campaign purpose.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and
congress people that he doesn't want us to solve the
border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it
is really appalling. But the reality is that we have
a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering
as a result of what's happening at the border, and
(13:08):
someone running for president out to try and get the
problem solved, as opposed to saying, hey, save that problem,
don't solve it, let me take credit for solving it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Later, Senator Tillis was even blunter, quote, it's all about
politics and not having the courage to respectfully disagree with Trump.
I didn't come here to have a president as a
boss or a candidate as a boss. Now, Tillis has
folded before Trump's ire before, but in this time of
the toadies, damn strong words, sir. The one other component
(13:43):
in the Senate is that Mitch McConnell may have deliberately
leaked his own handwringing quandary quote the day before yesterday
about Trump wanting to blow up the border deal. That's
not source, that's not confirmed. That's just me guessing, because
McConnell is not on the hook for reelection this year,
and neither is Romney. He's quitting Ah but Ted cruz
(14:03):
Is and Rick scott Is and Josh hawley Is and
Roger Wicker and Kevin Kramer and Deb Fisher and Pete
Ricketts and Marsha Blackburn and John Barrasso. Plus there are
Republican challengers out there trying to unseat incumbent Democrats and
independence in twenty three other states. And you tell me
how they are going to thread the needle of running
(14:26):
with Trump and running against those evil immigrant terrorists and
explaining that they had a deal to secure the border
in January, but they helped kill it and let in
a million of these people they think are so evil.
You think Ted Cruz, who was already on the ropes
(14:46):
in Texas, can walk that tight rope. He tried it
yesterday on Fox. He said, if you want to solve
this problem, Donald Trump, when he's re elected in January
of next year, will solve this problem. And the Fox
host the Fox host said, is your position that nothing
is better than something? And have you even read this bill?
(15:08):
If Cruz tries to sell that act in Texas, where
the border is, where the governor is out of his
mind and violating the Constitution of the United States to
try to keep immigrants legal or otherwise out, if he
tries that act in Texas for the next nine months,
he will lose bigger than one of the Texas sports
(15:30):
teams will when Ted Cruz is actually in the crowd.
Trump got upstaged in court yesterday by his version of
the Goldfinger Henchman odd job from James Bond. Judge Kaplan
ruled him out of order time after time. Trump basically
got to say nothing for all of four minutes on
(15:52):
the stand at the penalty trial for having defamed E.
Gene Carroll. On the way out, he muttered, this is
in America, and the headline is somebody's phone rings in
the middle of testimony, and Judge Kaplan, who is the
strict just about electronics use in all of the American judiciary, says,
whose telephone is that? And this Stephen Chung idiot raises
(16:13):
his head and Kaplan says, take this man out of
here and out the big guy goes gets escorted like
a bad little boy. Also, I don't know what the
professional record for objections overruled is, but Alina Habba is like,
well into four digits just in this trial. Hall of Famer,
(16:35):
speaking of trials, The bad news for former Trump gnome
Peter Navarro four months in jail for completely ignoring a
congressional subpoena, and in sentencing him to four months in jail,
Judge I'm at Meta dressed him down. Fine, he said,
you think it's a political hatchet job. It's domestic terrorists
running the committee. They had a job to do and
you made it harder. You are not a victim, You
(16:58):
are not the object of a political prosecution. You aren't.
You have received every process you are due. The good news, well,
if Navarro loses on appeal and does go to jail.
The woman who goes to all of his public appearances
with the noisemakers and who keeps up a running commentary
(17:18):
while he's trying to talk to the media. She won't
be in the cell with him, I think so.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
I mean his say a few words him, you have
several these fine attorneys behind me, say a few words.
But the top line here is that not at all.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
But this is what this is what.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Has happened in this country, and it's unfortunate that they
won't respect my First Amendment rights here.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about their fifty ninth Amendment
rights to blow whistles? Lastly, something we all need as
often as possible. Another opportunity to laugh out loud at
Donald dementia, Jay loser Trump. This is contained in a
disturbing revelation that Lindsey Graham has not drunk the kool aid.
(18:09):
He really is houring himself out to Trump and pretending
to have drunk the kool aid. Michael Isikoff has a
book coming out next week, Find Me the Votes, and
he has revealed a snippet from it from Lindsay Graham's
grand jury testimony in the Georgia elections. Subversion case, quoting
Isakoff quoting Graham to the Grand jury, if you told
(18:31):
Trump Martians stole the election, he'd probably believe you. Martians.
Martian Blackburn also of interest here. The last Republican candidate
for governor of New York State goes on Fox and
describes a sitting congresswoman by using the R word, and
(18:55):
the Fox host declares that you can now say the
R word on Fox. And it never occurred to either
of them that if the R word is suddenly okay,
among the first ten people in the world who you
would describe with the R word would be them. Who
are they? That's next? This is countdown. This is Countdown
(19:20):
with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Olberman. In Sports Dateline.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, an NFL player has been arrested for
illegally using a legal sports betting site. Kaishawn Bhute, who
played sparingly as a rookie wide receiver for the Patriots
last year, has turned himself into police on charges that
he used an alias to get around that impregnable age barrier.
(20:11):
You must be twenty one to gamble. He placed a
few bets on sports while he was a player at
Louisiana State, while he wasn't twenty one but just twenty
just a few bets. Only about nine thousand sports bets
over thirteen months, including on at least seventeen college football games,
including bets on at least six of his own teams
(20:32):
college football games. There is no indication Boutet bet against
LSU or tried to negatively impact his own team's games,
But of course that's only part of the problem. If
you bet on some of your own team's games but
not all of your own team's games, are you trying
as hard in the ones you didn't bet on as
(20:55):
you are trying in the ones you did bet on,
And even if you are, you've just raised the question
who could have ever seen this coming when they made
sports gambling legal and ran a million commercials for it
every day during the games? Thank you, Nancy Faust Dateline,
(21:46):
Los Angeles, Well it's official now. Jim Harbaugh, who just
coached Michigan to the College football Championship no idea if
boute bet on that game, has left to coach the
Los Angeles formerly San Diego originally Los Angeles Chargers of
the National Football League, because now he can shoot for
the daily double of a college title and a Super Bowl,
(22:08):
and he can mentor the young Charger quarterback Justin Herbert,
and so so what So this is a great excuse
to play what might be my third or fourth favorite.
This is SportsCenter commercial from back when Harbaugh was a
quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. Harball flew into Bristol. We
got him right into the studio. We put him on
(22:30):
the table in a mock operating room set. Bob Lee
introduced it. Dan Patrick pretended to be covering it live
in the operating theater Harbaugh's knee surgery and the knee
surgeon was me as I recall, we got this done
in about twenty minutes. We're going to be real careful
(22:50):
with journalists.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
We can't stiff over the line between covering a story
and possibly becoming part.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Of the story, like said Jim Harbaugh story. We might
have got over the line there.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Jim Harbaugh's surgery is well underway. It appears to be
going quite smoothly. Let's get an update, Keith, how's you Farren?
Very satisfactory and more suctional Please, aren't I supposed to
to sleep? Dan, You're in my way. I can't see
what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
Yeah, well that'll happen.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
It just boils down to ethics.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
People trust us to know where that line is, and
that's what journalism is all about.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Now. I can't verify this next part, but that day,
and in fact, every time I've seen him since and
Harbaugh's name and those commercials have come up, Dan Patrick
has asked me the same question, did you see them?
Did you see them? And I said as I said
that day after Harball left, see what Dan? And Dan
(23:41):
says the magazines in Harbaugh's bag he had like a sweater,
a shaving kit, a pair of jeans, and in the
bag he brought with him on the flight, he just
left it open on the floor. Didn't you see them? Sweater,
shaving kit, jeans, and about ten girly magazines? As I
said in the commercial, you that'll happen. Still ahead on
(24:29):
Countdown Fridays with Thurber, and the topic of my father
came up again yesterday in conversation, and so I instantly
thought of his favorite James Thurber story. So I will
again see if it becomes your favorite James Thurber story
of the days when if they failed, we actually left
kids back in the fourth grade for a year or two, or,
(24:52):
in Thurber's case, with some of his classmates twenty twenty years.
He swears, I went to Sullivant in Fridays with Thurber
next first time for the daily round up the miss Grins,
Rons and Dunning, krugerffect specimens and others who were left
back in the fourth grade who constitute today's worse persons
(25:12):
in the world. Lebron's worse. Senator Josh Hawley, the January
sixth speed demon himself. Magnitude seven Minerals, an aluminum plant
in New Madrid, Missouri, is going to lay off nearly
its entire staff because you can't smelt when it's so cold.
(25:33):
Senator Sprinter took to Twitter x to demand that President
Biden prevent this and nationalize Magnitude seven minerals. Quote. Some
billionaire wants to put five hundred Missourians out of work
and walk away with the prophet. Can't happen. President Biden
must invoke the Defense Production Act and keep it open.
Wait interfere with private business. Senator Holly tamper with the
(26:00):
free market Senator Holly put social need leez ahead of profits.
Isn't that socialism? And wasn't it Josh Hawley who in
May twenty twenty one went on Fox and said President
Biden was guilty of bringing socialism to the United States
and socialism this and socialism that. And now Josh Hawley
(26:25):
wants to nationalize a private business. What a guy owns himself? Well,
shut my mouth and call me Jay Guabara. Senators Socialist
of Missouri has spoken idiot the runner up Oklahoma congress
and Ralph Norman and CNN host Caitlyn Collins share this
(26:47):
one of their folks currently hiding in broadcaster relocation program
that is euphemistically called CNN Primetime. That's what Ms. Collins is.
She asked Norman about whether or not he regretted his
infamous text to then Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
in twenty twenty which he urged Meadows to convince Trump
to declare martial law, but of course he spelled it
(27:09):
Marshall Mr Shall like Marshall Mathers or General George C. Marshall,
and Norman answered Kitlyn Collins by saying he regretted only
that he had misspelled it, meaning Ralph Norman is an
unrepentant insurrectionist in twenty twenty four, meaning your next question
(27:30):
to him has to be why are you an unrepented
insurrectionist in twenty twenty four unless you're Caitlyn Collins of CNN?
Or why are you still helping Trump push the lie
that he didn't get his ass kicked in the twenty
twenty election? We're better at Your next question should be rhetorical,
Why did we bring this anti democracy, Unamerican bastard onto
(27:51):
my show? I'll be right back. Ralph Norman won't now
this commercial unless you're CNN. But our winners the worst
Greg Guttfeld, who Fox has designated as it's comedian even
though there is no empirical evidence that he has ever
been funny for even two consecutive minutes in his life.
(28:12):
And Lee Zelden, the whackdoodle combover ex congressman who got
smoked by an unelected Democrat in the last New York
State governor's race. And Gutterfield, and remember that the z
in Zelden stands for a last and this functionally illiterate
x boxer Fox puts on tybus typhoid Tyris in one
(28:36):
of the daily Fox attacks on Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
because she's I don't know she's president or she's eleven senators.
I'm not sure why they talk about her all the
time in any event. This time, when they talked about them,
the three of them decided that what is known now
as the R word, a very negative epithet for the
(28:57):
mentally challenged, that is now okay to say on television
and ex Congress and Lee Zelden said it.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
You're going after me because dot dot dot whatever demographic
biographical information she wants to throw out. No, it's because
the argument that you're making every day, all the time
is just too often retarded.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, you can say that now, it's okay. You can
say that. Now, wait what you can say that word?
Don't play with me on my favorite words? Now acceptable,
it's now acceptable. I met with the associations and they said, yes,
well there it is. The R word is now acceptable. Saith,
(29:36):
Greg gut gut, leave gut gut, gutter, gutter, gutter, trash,
Greg Gutfeld, Lee Zelden, and Tyrus the Fox brain Trust, gentlemen,
this note. If the R word is now acceptable. Be
careful what you have wished for, and please report Monday
morning to have it tattooed on your foreheads. Two days
(29:59):
worse person to the number one story on the Countdown
and Friday's with Thurber. And I don't know when I
went to Sullivan became my father's favorite Thurber story. I
(30:23):
suspect it was in the hospital when I was reading
to him in the last six months of his life.
I know I read it to him at least half
a dozen times, the first five by his request. The
last time he did not request it, in fact, and
this is the most perverse kind of compliment I think
any restriter has ever received. I read this story to him.
(30:44):
It was the last thing that I read to him.
In fact, it was the last thing he did on earth,
was to listen to this story in a state of
semi consciousness. He waited till the end of it. He
took one deep, satisfied breath, and he died. I don't
recommend this, but I think it does speak to the
quality of the writing. I went to Sullivant by James Thurber.
(31:09):
I was reminded the other morning by what I don't remember,
and it doesn't matter of a crisp September morning last year,
when I went to the Grand Central to see a
little boy of ten get excitedly on a special coach
that was to take him to a boys' school somewhere
north of Boston. He had never been away to school before.
The coach was squirming with youngsters. You could tell after
(31:32):
a while the novitiates shining and tremulous, and a little
odd from the more aloof boys who had been away
to school before. But they were very much alike at
first glance. There was for me, in case you thought
I was leading up to that, no sharp feeling of
old lost years in the tense atmosphere of that coach.
(31:53):
Because I never went away to a private school. When
I was a little boy. I went to Sullivant School
in Columbus. I thought about it as I walked back
to my hotel. Was an ordinary public school, and yet
it was not like any other I have ever known of.
In seeking an adjective to describe the Sullivant School of
(32:14):
my years nineteen hundred and nineteen hundred and eight, I
can only think of tough. Sullivant School was tough. The
boys of Sullivant came mostly from the region around Central Market,
a poorish district with many families of the laboring class.
The school district also included a number of homes of
the upper classes, because at the turn of the century
(32:36):
one or two old residential streets still lingered near the
shouting and rumbling of the market, reluctant to surrender their
fine old houses to the encroaching rabble of commerce and
become as a last they now have more vulgar business streets.
I remember always first of all, the Sullivant baseball team.
(32:58):
Most grammar school baseball teams are made up of boys
in the seventh and eighth grades, or they were in
my day, but with it was different. Several of its
best players were in the fourth grade, known to the
teachers of the school as the terrible fourth. In that
grade you first encountered fractions and long division, and many
(33:23):
pupils lodged there for years, like logs in a brook.
Some of the more able baseball players have been in
the fourth grade for seven or eight years. Then, too,
there were a number of boys who had not been
in the class past the normal time, but were nevertheless
deep into their teens they had avoided starting to school
(33:46):
by eluding the truant officer until they were ready to
go into long pants, but he always got them in
the end. One or two of these fourth graders were
seventeen or eighteen years old, but the dean of the
squad was a tall, husky young man of twenty two
who was in the film fifth grade. The teachers of
(34:06):
the third and fourth had got tired of having him
around as the years rolled along and had pushed him on.
His name was Dana Waaney, and he had a mustache.
Don't ask me why his parents allowed him to stay
in school so long. There were many mysteries at Sullivant
that were never cleared up. All I know is why
he kept on in school and didn't go to work.
(34:29):
He liked playing on the baseball team, and he had
a pretty easy time in class because the teachers had
given up asking him any questions at all years before.
The story was that he had answered but one question
in the seventeen years he had been going to classes
at Sullivant, and that was what is one use of
the comma? The kami, said Dana embarrassingly, unsnarling his long
(34:56):
legs from beneath a desk much too low for him,
is used to shoot marbles with Commi's was our word
for those cheap ten for a scent at marbles in
case it wasn't yours. The Sulibant School baseball team of
nineteen hundred and five defeated several high school teams in
the city and claimed the high school championship of the state,
(35:16):
to which title it had, of course, no technical right.
I believe the boys could have proved their moral right
to the championship, however, if they had been allowed to
go out of town and play all the teams they challenged,
such as the powerful Dayton and Toledo Nines. But their
road season was called off after a terrific fight that
(35:36):
occurred during one game at Mount Stirling or Picquah or Xenia,
I can't remember which. Our first baseman, Dana Whaney, crowned
the umpire with a bat during an altercation overcalled strike
and the fight was on. It took place in the
fourth inning, so of course the game was never finished.
The battle continued on down into the business section of
(35:59):
the town and raged for hours with much destruction of property.
But since was ahead of the time, seventeen to nothing.
There could have been no doubt as to the outcome.
Nobody was killed. All of us boys were sure our
team could have beaten Ohio State University that year, but
they wouldn't play us. They were scared. Wayney was by
(36:23):
no means the biggest or toughest guy on the Grammar
School team. He was merely the oldest, being about a
year the senior of Floyd, the center fielder who could
jump five feet straight into the air without taking a
running start. Nobody knew, not even the Board of Education,
which once tried to find out whether Floyd was Floyd's
(36:44):
first name or his last name. He apparently only had one.
He didn't have any parents, and nobody, including himself, seemed
to know where he lived. When teachers insisted that he
must have another name to go with Floyd, he would
grow sullen and ominous, and they would cease questioning him
because he was a dangerous scholar in his schoolroom brawl,
(37:07):
as mister Harrigan the janitor found out one morning when
he was called in by a screaming teacher. All our
teachers were women to get Floyd under control after she
had tried to whip him, and he had begun to
take the room apart, beginning with the desks. Floyd broke
into small pieces the switch she had used on him.
(37:30):
Some said he also ate it. I don't know, because
I was home sick at the time with mumps or something.
Harrigan was a burly, iron muscle janitor, a man come
from a long line of coal shovelers, but he was
no match for Floyd, who had to be sure the
considerable advantage of being more aroused than mister Harrigan. When
their fight started, Floyd had him down and was sitting
(37:53):
on his chest in no time, and Harrigan had to
promise to be good and to say that's what I
get ten times before Floyd would let him up. I
don't suppose I would ever got through Sullivant School alive
if it hadn't been for Floyd. For some reason, he
appointed himself my protector, and I needed one. If Floyd
(38:14):
was known to be on your side, nobody in the
school would dare be after you and chase you home.
I was one of the ten or fifteen male pupils
in Sullivant School who always or almost always knew their lessons,
and I believe Floyd admired the mental prowess of a
youngster who knew how many continents there were and whether
or not the sun was inhabited. Also, one time, when
(38:38):
it came to be my turn to read to the class,
we used to take turns reading American history aloud, I
came across the word ducane and knew how to pronounce it.
That charmed Floyd, who had been slouched in his seat
idly following the printed page of his worn and penciled textbook.
How you know that was ducaine, boy, he asked me
(39:01):
after class. I don't know, I said, I just knew it.
He looked at me with round eyes. Oh that's something
he said. After that word got around that Floyd would
beat the tar out of anybody that messed around with me.
I wore glasses from the time I was eight, and
I knew my lessons, and both of those things were
considered pretty terrible at Sullivan. Floyd had one idiosyncrasy though.
(39:26):
In the early nineteen hundred's, long, warm, furry gloves that
came almost to your elbows were popular with boys, and
Floyd had one of the biggest pears in school. He
wore them the year round. Dick Peterson was an either
greater figure on the baseball team and in the school
than Floyd was. He had a way in the classroom
(39:47):
of blurting out a long, deep, rolling be for no
reason at all. Once he licked three boys his own
size single handed, really single handed, for he fought with
his right hand and held a mandolin in his left
hand all the time. It came out uninjured. Dick and
(40:11):
Floyd never met in mortal combats, so nobody ever knew
which one could beat, and the scholars were about evenly
divided in their opinions. Many a fight started among them
after school when the argument came up. I think school
never let out at Sullivan without at least one fight
starting up, And sometimes there were as many as five
or six raging between the corner of Oak and sixth
(40:33):
Streets and the corner of Rich and Fourth Streets four
blocks away. Now and again, virtually the whole school turned
out to fight the Catholic boys of the Holy Cross
Academy in Fifth Street near town for no reason at all.
In winter with snowballs and ice balls, in other seasons
with fists, brick bats, and clubs. Dick Peterson was always
(40:56):
in the van, yelling, singing, being whirling all the way
around when he swung with his right, or if he
hadn't brought a mandolin his left and missed. He made
himself the pitcher on the baseball team because he was
the captain. He was the captain because everybody else was
afraid to challenge his self election except Floyd. Floyd was
(41:19):
too lazy to pitch, and he didn't care who was
captain because he didn't fully uncomprehend what that meant. On
one occasion, when Earl Baddock, a steamfitter's son, had shut
out Mound Street School for six innings without a hit,
Dick took him out of the pitcher's box and went
in himself. He was hit hard, and the other team scored,
but it didn't make much difference because the margin of
(41:41):
Sullivant's victory was so great. The team didn't lose a
game for five years to another grammar school. When Dick
Peterson was in the sixth grade, he got into a
saloon brawl and was killed. When I go back to Columbus,
I always walked past Sullivant's school, and I have never
(42:01):
happened to get there. When classes were letting out, so
I don't know what the pupils are like now. I
am sure there are no more Dick Peterson's and no
more Floyd's, unless Floyd is still going to school there.
The playyard is still entirely bare of grass and covered
with gravel, and the sycamore still lined the curb between
(42:22):
the schoolhouse fence and the Oak Street car line. A
street car line running past a schoolhouse is a dangerous
thing as a rule, but I remember no one being
injured while I was attending Sullivan. I do remember, however,
one person who came very near being injured. He was
a motorman on the Oak Street line, and once when
his car stopped at the corner of six to let
(42:44):
off passengers, he yelled at Cheudy Davidson, who played third
base on the ball team and was a member of
the Terrible Fourth, to get out of the way. Cheudy
was fourteen years old but huge for his age, and
he was standing on the tracks taking a chew of tobacco.
Come on down off of that car and I'll not
get blocked off, said Choudy in what I can only
(43:05):
describe as a sullivant tone of voice. The motorman waited
until shoot. He moved slowly off the tracks. Then he
went on about his business. I think it was lucky
for him that he did. There were boys in those days.
I went to Sullivant by James Thurber. I've done all
(43:40):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitars,
bass and drums, Mister Shanelle handled orchestration in keyboards, and
the music was produced by TKO Brothers and TKO Brothers
or Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle and me. I'm
(44:01):
a music producer. Other music, including some of the Beethoven
compass posicians, arranged and performed by the group No Horns
Allowed Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of the SPN Inc.
By the way the Thurber story I went to Sullivant.
A guy has fact checked that story, and it seems
to be that there were students who were in the
(44:23):
fourth grade at Sullivant around the turn of the nineteenth
and twentieth century who were there for at least five
years in the fourth grade. There were teenagers in the
fourth grade at Sullivan. How much Thurber may have exaggerated
reality has not been determined by the historical record. Any who.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss,
(44:44):
the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today was
my friend Howard Feineman, and everything else was pretty much
my fault. So that's countdown for this the two hundred
and eighty fifth day until the twenty twenty four US
presidential election, and the one one hundred and sixteenth day
since dementia J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government the United States. Use the fourteenth Amendment, use
(45:07):
the Insurrection Act, use the justice system, use the mental
health system to stop him from doing it again while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletin
says the news warrants to land on Keith Alderman, good Morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(45:47):
Olberman 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. This
is Friday, January twenty six, twenty twenty four, day eleven
(00:25):
of Donald J. Trump's dementia crisis. And let's summarize what
we have learned about Trump's campaign strategy since he won
in New Hampshire Tuesday night and something went wrong, unprecedented
even for him, wrong, really wrong in his brain. He
is now running on a campaign to trash the US economy,
(00:47):
keep the southern border completely open, and in a personal
pledge to expel anybody who supports NICKI Haley or any
other Republican candidates from the Republican Party. Oh, and there
is a new piece. He is officially anyway insisting he
does not want the Republican National Committee to pass a
resolution to effectively cancel all the remaining GOP primaries and
(01:12):
declare him the nominee today because he's already won a
total of thirty two whole delegates. Yes, it's Trump campaign
twenty twenty four. F U America. This is dementia. I
don't think Haley's obstinates was the actual trigger, just the
(01:33):
last pressure applied to the very weakened spaghetti strands. That
held his vestiges of sanity together. It happens that way,
especially in the brain. But when the result of a
series of events is loser j Trump insisting he will
not accept somebody else's money, something is desperately desperately wrong
(01:55):
with him. Wronger and more dangerous and maybe more imminently disastrous.
Even than usual, Trump could get to the hannibal lector
stage of full body, straight jacket and straight pants and
cage mask. And I don't think he'd ever actually turned
down anybody's money or anybody's endorsement. But there is a
(02:16):
desperation taking over here that suggests that the gravity has
been completely turned off inside Trump world. This new thing. First,
a committee member presented a draft of a resolution to
the Republican National Committee that would declare Trump the nominee
now no Nevada, no South Carolina, no votes by no
(02:37):
Republican voters, no convention, no second thoughts, no vaccies if
he's convicted, and of course no refunds refunds. Last night,
Trump made a big deal out of discouraging this resolution, noting,
of course they have far more votes than necessary to
do it, but that for the sake of party unity,
(02:58):
like he gives a rat's ass about that he quote
should do it the old fashioned way and finish the
process off at the ballot box. Here was the resolution,
in part quote resolved that the Republican National Committee hereby
declares President Trump as our presumptive twenty twenty four nominee
for the office of President of the United States, and
(03:19):
from this moment forward moves into full general election mode,
welcoming supporters of all candidates as valued members of Team
Trump twenty twenty four. Unquote. But Trump wouldn't want that,
he says. Forgive me. I know this is an outlandish
(03:43):
thing to suggest, but I think he's lying, especially considering
who proposed this which Trump. Lackey put his name to
this anti democratic, anti American nineteenth century style political document
of disenfranchisement. Who else but the z of fascism in
(04:06):
America for the last quarter century and more. He was
part of the newt Gingrich ken Starr destruction of journalism
and persecution of President Clinton. He was the President of
Citizens United when it and Floyd Abrams succeeded in getting
a death sentence for democracy in America out of the
Supreme Court. And now he is a Republican National Committee
(04:27):
man from Maryland, David Bossy. David Bossy, the guy who
looks like an evil Bob Hoskins, the guy who has
twice been exiled from Trump World for trying to skim
influence and money and now sees a road back into
the inner circle. And remember this is the Republican Party
(04:50):
in the nineties. It developed a template and then found
the man whose utter lack of morals made him the
perfect human embodiment of venality. The guy you needed to
make this crap work. Look like you're obeying the law,
Scream that you are a bit paying the law, use
the law to destroy the law, and on the way,
break every law you can. Ronald McDaniel still the chair
(05:15):
of the RNC after the midterm disaster of twenty eighteen,
after Trump got his ass kicked in twenty twenty, after
the next midterm disaster in twenty twenty two, she will
do anything to retain that job. She has already insisted
Haley should get out, and she could very easily sign
on to Bossi's resolution. And make no mistake what Bossi's
(05:36):
resolution is designed to be a precedent for if a
bunch of cowering, simpering, amoral twerps on the Republican National
Committee can vote to scrap the nominating process when forty
eight of the fifty states have yet to vote, well,
maybe they can also someday soon convince the House of
Representatives or the Senate or both to vote to scrap
(06:02):
some election because everybody knows Trump is going to win
and everybody wants Trump to serve a third term. It's
still a long shot to do it that way. I mean,
the Martial Law Insurrection Act, threat to the Nation plot
is far more scurty. But if you don't think the
Republicans are not game planning one hundred different ways to
(06:24):
pretend they are legally ending elections in this country, you
must have been in a coma between November twenty twenty
and January twenty twenty one. This is one thing for Trump,
personal madness, personal lust for power, But for the Republican
Party this is existential. They cannot win a majority in
(06:47):
this country. They are losing majorities in purple states. The
demographics are fatal for them, and for thirty years, the
smart ones have seen this coming and they have devoted
themselves to shrinking the electorate. The only thing they can
do to beat the voting is to reduce the number
of people who vote. And hell, what better more economical,
(07:15):
quicker way to shrink the electorate could there be than
to just eliminate voting. All right, that's the future. Back
to the present day. So if the RNC goes along
with David Bossi and Roni McDaniel and ends, you know,
voting inside the Republican Party and just declares Trump king,
what happens? Then who will stop them? There would seem
(07:39):
to be a little doubt Nikki Haley could sue the
RNC for this. Her response to Trump's threat to blacklist
her donors her MAGA was to immediately repost news of
his bullying with a link for people to donate to
her campaign. If she is willing to go that far,
is she also willing to take the official power structure
(08:00):
of her own party to court. The point, certainly is
that it appears that, unlike Ramaswami and Tim Scott and
the other hapless urchins who got out just before Trump
would have wished them into the cornfield. At some point
in the last month six weeks or so, both Haley
and ron DeSantis realized that the fire escape had already
closed behind them, and the only way out was to
(08:23):
fight Trump and beat Trump. DeSantis started it too late.
He got out about half a dozen stunningly insightful jabs
at Trump before he got crushed. But Haley might not fold.
It is hard to root for her. I have said
this before, and it's true. She really is a dope.
(08:46):
But maybe only a dope would be able to do
what she has already done. She has utterly destabilized and
already unstable Trump. She is, after all, the prototype of
the person he hates the most in this world. A woman,
a woman to whom he has lent what he sees
as his credibility, a woman he has employed, and most
(09:10):
of all, most meaningful to him, somebody to whom he
has given money, who has not in turn become his
eternal slave, and somebody who has gotten completely under his skin.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So we got out there and we did our thing,
and we said what we had to say, and then
Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum.
He pitched a fit. He was he was insulting, he
was doing what he does. But I know that's what
he does when he's insecure. I know that's what he
does when he is threatened, and he should feel threatened
(09:49):
without a doubt.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
And so he'll go on.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And you know, even on that day where he was
going on and on about January sixth, you know, we
talked about, Okay, he was having a moment. He was confused.
But it also goes back to why I've continue to
push for mental confidence. He tests for anyone over the
age of seventy five.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Haley might or might not hold out long against Trump
in the primaries. She would be a dreadful president, although
one who would be unlikely to utterly subvert representative government.
But she has done something to him that no other
Republican has done since twenty sixteen. She has successfully threatened
him back. She has made him make terrible mistakes. You
(10:30):
are going to institute a purity test. You're going to
threaten to banish anybody who supports somebody else, Banish them
from MAGA forever. Nicky Haley's donors are banned from MAGA.
You're going to deliberately throw them out. You're going to
(10:51):
deliberately reduce the number of them who will now support you.
You're going to deliberately reduce your own vote totals in
the swing states, and now you're going to try to
declare victory when the number of delegates needed to clinch
the nomination is one thing two hundred and fifteen, and
you have thirty two dumb even for Trump, even for fascists,
(11:13):
staging not a kangaroo court but a kangaroo party. Moreover,
she could have again, could have an unlikely power base
inside that party. Texas Congressman Chip Roy went on Fox
last night and aptly described this as a coronation and
said he can't understand why Trump would be afraid to
(11:35):
go earn it. And he said that his party should
not anoint anyone. And I despise chip Roy, but those
are the two words for it, anoint and coronation. And
then there are the Republicans in the Senate that could
be Haley's constituency in a fight against Trump inside the
GOP because they are steamed about Trump trying to kill
(11:59):
the border deal so he can make things worse there
and run on that. Because right or wrong, racist or
just stupid, Republican senators actually believe there is a crisis there.
You've probably never heard of Senator Todd Young of Indiana.
But you have heard of Mitt Romney, and as much
as Romney is like the male Nikki Hayley and Romney
(12:22):
and Young and Tom Tillis and the chief Republican negotiator,
the Ash and James Langford of Oklahoma are seemingly wimpy.
They could over this and they might actually fight back.
Here is Senator Young first. Anything that interrupts that negotiation,
I think would be tragic. I hope no one is
(12:44):
trying to take this away for campaign purpose.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
The fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and
congress people that he doesn't want us to solve the
border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it
is really appalling. But the reality is that we have
a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering
as a result of what's happening at the border, and
(13:08):
someone running for president out to try and get the
problem solved, as opposed to saying, hey, save that problem,
don't solve it, let me take credit for solving it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Later, Senator Tillis was even blunter, quote, it's all about
politics and not having the courage to respectfully disagree with Trump.
I didn't come here to have a president as a
boss or a candidate as a boss. Now, Tillis has
folded before Trump's ire before, but in this time of
the toadies, damn strong words, sir. The one other component
(13:43):
in the Senate is that Mitch McConnell may have deliberately
leaked his own handwringing quandary quote the day before yesterday
about Trump wanting to blow up the border deal. That's
not source, that's not confirmed. That's just me guessing, because
McConnell is not on the hook for reelection this year,
and neither is Romney. He's quitting Ah but Ted cruz
(14:03):
Is and Rick scott Is and Josh hawley Is and
Roger Wicker and Kevin Kramer and Deb Fisher and Pete
Ricketts and Marsha Blackburn and John Barrasso. Plus there are
Republican challengers out there trying to unseat incumbent Democrats and
independence in twenty three other states. And you tell me
how they are going to thread the needle of running
(14:26):
with Trump and running against those evil immigrant terrorists and
explaining that they had a deal to secure the border
in January, but they helped kill it and let in
a million of these people they think are so evil.
You think Ted Cruz, who was already on the ropes
(14:46):
in Texas, can walk that tight rope. He tried it
yesterday on Fox. He said, if you want to solve
this problem, Donald Trump, when he's re elected in January
of next year, will solve this problem. And the Fox
host the Fox host said, is your position that nothing
is better than something? And have you even read this bill?
(15:08):
If Cruz tries to sell that act in Texas, where
the border is, where the governor is out of his
mind and violating the Constitution of the United States to
try to keep immigrants legal or otherwise out, if he
tries that act in Texas for the next nine months,
he will lose bigger than one of the Texas sports
(15:30):
teams will when Ted Cruz is actually in the crowd.
Trump got upstaged in court yesterday by his version of
the Goldfinger Henchman odd job from James Bond. Judge Kaplan
ruled him out of order time after time. Trump basically
got to say nothing for all of four minutes on
(15:52):
the stand at the penalty trial for having defamed E.
Gene Carroll. On the way out, he muttered, this is
in America, and the headline is somebody's phone rings in
the middle of testimony, and Judge Kaplan, who is the
strict just about electronics use in all of the American judiciary, says,
whose telephone is that? And this Stephen Chung idiot raises
(16:13):
his head and Kaplan says, take this man out of
here and out the big guy goes gets escorted like
a bad little boy. Also, I don't know what the
professional record for objections overruled is, but Alina Habba is like,
well into four digits just in this trial. Hall of Famer,
(16:35):
speaking of trials, The bad news for former Trump gnome
Peter Navarro four months in jail for completely ignoring a
congressional subpoena, and in sentencing him to four months in jail,
Judge I'm at Meta dressed him down. Fine, he said,
you think it's a political hatchet job. It's domestic terrorists
running the committee. They had a job to do and
you made it harder. You are not a victim, You
(16:58):
are not the object of a political prosecution. You aren't.
You have received every process you are due. The good news, well,
if Navarro loses on appeal and does go to jail.
The woman who goes to all of his public appearances
with the noisemakers and who keeps up a running commentary
(17:18):
while he's trying to talk to the media. She won't
be in the cell with him, I think so.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
I mean his say a few words him, you have
several these fine attorneys behind me, say a few words.
But the top line here is that not at all.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
But this is what this is what.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Has happened in this country, and it's unfortunate that they
won't respect my First Amendment rights here.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about their fifty ninth Amendment
rights to blow whistles? Lastly, something we all need as
often as possible. Another opportunity to laugh out loud at
Donald dementia, Jay loser Trump. This is contained in a
disturbing revelation that Lindsey Graham has not drunk the kool aid.
(18:09):
He really is houring himself out to Trump and pretending
to have drunk the kool aid. Michael Isikoff has a
book coming out next week, Find Me the Votes, and
he has revealed a snippet from it from Lindsay Graham's
grand jury testimony in the Georgia elections. Subversion case, quoting
Isakoff quoting Graham to the Grand jury, if you told
(18:31):
Trump Martians stole the election, he'd probably believe you. Martians.
Martian Blackburn also of interest here. The last Republican candidate
for governor of New York State goes on Fox and
describes a sitting congresswoman by using the R word, and
(18:55):
the Fox host declares that you can now say the
R word on Fox. And it never occurred to either
of them that if the R word is suddenly okay,
among the first ten people in the world who you
would describe with the R word would be them. Who
are they? That's next? This is countdown. This is Countdown
(19:20):
with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith Olberman. In Sports Dateline.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, an NFL player has been arrested for
illegally using a legal sports betting site. Kaishawn Bhute, who
played sparingly as a rookie wide receiver for the Patriots
last year, has turned himself into police on charges that
he used an alias to get around that impregnable age barrier.
(20:11):
You must be twenty one to gamble. He placed a
few bets on sports while he was a player at
Louisiana State, while he wasn't twenty one but just twenty
just a few bets. Only about nine thousand sports bets
over thirteen months, including on at least seventeen college football games,
including bets on at least six of his own teams
(20:32):
college football games. There is no indication Boutet bet against
LSU or tried to negatively impact his own team's games,
But of course that's only part of the problem. If
you bet on some of your own team's games but
not all of your own team's games, are you trying
as hard in the ones you didn't bet on as
(20:55):
you are trying in the ones you did bet on,
And even if you are, you've just raised the question
who could have ever seen this coming when they made
sports gambling legal and ran a million commercials for it
every day during the games? Thank you, Nancy Faust Dateline,
(21:46):
Los Angeles, Well it's official now. Jim Harbaugh, who just
coached Michigan to the College football Championship no idea if
boute bet on that game, has left to coach the
Los Angeles formerly San Diego originally Los Angeles Chargers of
the National Football League, because now he can shoot for
the daily double of a college title and a Super Bowl,
(22:08):
and he can mentor the young Charger quarterback Justin Herbert,
and so so what So this is a great excuse
to play what might be my third or fourth favorite.
This is SportsCenter commercial from back when Harbaugh was a
quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. Harball flew into Bristol. We
got him right into the studio. We put him on
(22:30):
the table in a mock operating room set. Bob Lee
introduced it. Dan Patrick pretended to be covering it live
in the operating theater Harbaugh's knee surgery and the knee
surgeon was me as I recall, we got this done
in about twenty minutes. We're going to be real careful
(22:50):
with journalists.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
We can't stiff over the line between covering a story
and possibly becoming part.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Of the story, like said Jim Harbaugh story. We might
have got over the line there.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Jim Harbaugh's surgery is well underway. It appears to be
going quite smoothly. Let's get an update, Keith, how's you Farren?
Very satisfactory and more suctional Please, aren't I supposed to
to sleep? Dan, You're in my way. I can't see
what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
Yeah, well that'll happen.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
It just boils down to ethics.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
People trust us to know where that line is, and
that's what journalism is all about.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Now. I can't verify this next part, but that day,
and in fact, every time I've seen him since and
Harbaugh's name and those commercials have come up, Dan Patrick
has asked me the same question, did you see them?
Did you see them? And I said as I said
that day after Harball left, see what Dan? And Dan
(23:41):
says the magazines in Harbaugh's bag he had like a sweater,
a shaving kit, a pair of jeans, and in the
bag he brought with him on the flight, he just
left it open on the floor. Didn't you see them? Sweater,
shaving kit, jeans, and about ten girly magazines? As I
said in the commercial, you that'll happen. Still ahead on
(24:29):
Countdown Fridays with Thurber, and the topic of my father
came up again yesterday in conversation, and so I instantly
thought of his favorite James Thurber story. So I will
again see if it becomes your favorite James Thurber story
of the days when if they failed, we actually left
kids back in the fourth grade for a year or two, or,
(24:52):
in Thurber's case, with some of his classmates twenty twenty years.
He swears, I went to Sullivant in Fridays with Thurber
next first time for the daily round up the miss Grins,
Rons and Dunning, krugerffect specimens and others who were left
back in the fourth grade who constitute today's worse persons
(25:12):
in the world. Lebron's worse. Senator Josh Hawley, the January
sixth speed demon himself. Magnitude seven Minerals, an aluminum plant
in New Madrid, Missouri, is going to lay off nearly
its entire staff because you can't smelt when it's so cold.
(25:33):
Senator Sprinter took to Twitter x to demand that President
Biden prevent this and nationalize Magnitude seven minerals. Quote. Some
billionaire wants to put five hundred Missourians out of work
and walk away with the prophet. Can't happen. President Biden
must invoke the Defense Production Act and keep it open.
Wait interfere with private business. Senator Holly tamper with the
(26:00):
free market Senator Holly put social need leez ahead of profits.
Isn't that socialism? And wasn't it Josh Hawley who in
May twenty twenty one went on Fox and said President
Biden was guilty of bringing socialism to the United States
and socialism this and socialism that. And now Josh Hawley
(26:25):
wants to nationalize a private business. What a guy owns himself? Well,
shut my mouth and call me Jay Guabara. Senators Socialist
of Missouri has spoken idiot the runner up Oklahoma congress
and Ralph Norman and CNN host Caitlyn Collins share this
(26:47):
one of their folks currently hiding in broadcaster relocation program
that is euphemistically called CNN Primetime. That's what Ms. Collins is.
She asked Norman about whether or not he regretted his
infamous text to then Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
in twenty twenty which he urged Meadows to convince Trump
to declare martial law, but of course he spelled it
(27:09):
Marshall Mr Shall like Marshall Mathers or General George C. Marshall,
and Norman answered Kitlyn Collins by saying he regretted only
that he had misspelled it, meaning Ralph Norman is an
unrepentant insurrectionist in twenty twenty four, meaning your next question
(27:30):
to him has to be why are you an unrepented
insurrectionist in twenty twenty four unless you're Caitlyn Collins of CNN?
Or why are you still helping Trump push the lie
that he didn't get his ass kicked in the twenty
twenty election? We're better at Your next question should be rhetorical,
Why did we bring this anti democracy, Unamerican bastard onto
(27:51):
my show? I'll be right back. Ralph Norman won't now
this commercial unless you're CNN. But our winners the worst
Greg Guttfeld, who Fox has designated as it's comedian even
though there is no empirical evidence that he has ever
been funny for even two consecutive minutes in his life.
(28:12):
And Lee Zelden, the whackdoodle combover ex congressman who got
smoked by an unelected Democrat in the last New York
State governor's race. And Gutterfield, and remember that the z
in Zelden stands for a last and this functionally illiterate
x boxer Fox puts on tybus typhoid Tyris in one
(28:36):
of the daily Fox attacks on Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
because she's I don't know she's president or she's eleven senators.
I'm not sure why they talk about her all the
time in any event. This time, when they talked about them,
the three of them decided that what is known now
as the R word, a very negative epithet for the
(28:57):
mentally challenged, that is now okay to say on television
and ex Congress and Lee Zelden said it.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
You're going after me because dot dot dot whatever demographic
biographical information she wants to throw out. No, it's because
the argument that you're making every day, all the time
is just too often retarded.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, you can say that now, it's okay. You can
say that. Now, wait what you can say that word?
Don't play with me on my favorite words? Now acceptable,
it's now acceptable. I met with the associations and they said, yes,
well there it is. The R word is now acceptable. Saith,
(29:36):
Greg gut gut, leave gut gut, gutter, gutter, gutter, trash,
Greg Gutfeld, Lee Zelden, and Tyrus the Fox brain Trust, gentlemen,
this note. If the R word is now acceptable. Be
careful what you have wished for, and please report Monday
morning to have it tattooed on your foreheads. Two days
(29:59):
worse person to the number one story on the Countdown
and Friday's with Thurber. And I don't know when I
went to Sullivan became my father's favorite Thurber story. I
(30:23):
suspect it was in the hospital when I was reading
to him in the last six months of his life.
I know I read it to him at least half
a dozen times, the first five by his request. The
last time he did not request it, in fact, and
this is the most perverse kind of compliment I think
any restriter has ever received. I read this story to him.
(30:44):
It was the last thing that I read to him.
In fact, it was the last thing he did on earth,
was to listen to this story in a state of
semi consciousness. He waited till the end of it. He
took one deep, satisfied breath, and he died. I don't
recommend this, but I think it does speak to the
quality of the writing. I went to Sullivant by James Thurber.
(31:09):
I was reminded the other morning by what I don't remember,
and it doesn't matter of a crisp September morning last year,
when I went to the Grand Central to see a
little boy of ten get excitedly on a special coach
that was to take him to a boys' school somewhere
north of Boston. He had never been away to school before.
The coach was squirming with youngsters. You could tell after
(31:32):
a while the novitiates shining and tremulous, and a little
odd from the more aloof boys who had been away
to school before. But they were very much alike at
first glance. There was for me, in case you thought
I was leading up to that, no sharp feeling of
old lost years in the tense atmosphere of that coach.
(31:53):
Because I never went away to a private school. When
I was a little boy. I went to Sullivant School
in Columbus. I thought about it as I walked back
to my hotel. Was an ordinary public school, and yet
it was not like any other I have ever known of.
In seeking an adjective to describe the Sullivant School of
(32:14):
my years nineteen hundred and nineteen hundred and eight, I
can only think of tough. Sullivant School was tough. The
boys of Sullivant came mostly from the region around Central Market,
a poorish district with many families of the laboring class.
The school district also included a number of homes of
the upper classes, because at the turn of the century
(32:36):
one or two old residential streets still lingered near the
shouting and rumbling of the market, reluctant to surrender their
fine old houses to the encroaching rabble of commerce and
become as a last they now have more vulgar business streets.
I remember always first of all, the Sullivant baseball team.
(32:58):
Most grammar school baseball teams are made up of boys
in the seventh and eighth grades, or they were in
my day, but with it was different. Several of its
best players were in the fourth grade, known to the
teachers of the school as the terrible fourth. In that
grade you first encountered fractions and long division, and many
(33:23):
pupils lodged there for years, like logs in a brook.
Some of the more able baseball players have been in
the fourth grade for seven or eight years. Then, too,
there were a number of boys who had not been
in the class past the normal time, but were nevertheless
deep into their teens they had avoided starting to school
(33:46):
by eluding the truant officer until they were ready to
go into long pants, but he always got them in
the end. One or two of these fourth graders were
seventeen or eighteen years old, but the dean of the
squad was a tall, husky young man of twenty two
who was in the film fifth grade. The teachers of
(34:06):
the third and fourth had got tired of having him
around as the years rolled along and had pushed him on.
His name was Dana Waaney, and he had a mustache.
Don't ask me why his parents allowed him to stay
in school so long. There were many mysteries at Sullivant
that were never cleared up. All I know is why
he kept on in school and didn't go to work.
(34:29):
He liked playing on the baseball team, and he had
a pretty easy time in class because the teachers had
given up asking him any questions at all years before.
The story was that he had answered but one question
in the seventeen years he had been going to classes
at Sullivant, and that was what is one use of
the comma? The kami, said Dana embarrassingly, unsnarling his long
(34:56):
legs from beneath a desk much too low for him,
is used to shoot marbles with Commi's was our word
for those cheap ten for a scent at marbles in
case it wasn't yours. The Sulibant School baseball team of
nineteen hundred and five defeated several high school teams in
the city and claimed the high school championship of the state,
(35:16):
to which title it had, of course, no technical right.
I believe the boys could have proved their moral right
to the championship, however, if they had been allowed to
go out of town and play all the teams they challenged,
such as the powerful Dayton and Toledo Nines. But their
road season was called off after a terrific fight that
(35:36):
occurred during one game at Mount Stirling or Picquah or Xenia,
I can't remember which. Our first baseman, Dana Whaney, crowned
the umpire with a bat during an altercation overcalled strike
and the fight was on. It took place in the
fourth inning, so of course the game was never finished.
The battle continued on down into the business section of
(35:59):
the town and raged for hours with much destruction of property.
But since was ahead of the time, seventeen to nothing.
There could have been no doubt as to the outcome.
Nobody was killed. All of us boys were sure our
team could have beaten Ohio State University that year, but
they wouldn't play us. They were scared. Wayney was by
(36:23):
no means the biggest or toughest guy on the Grammar
School team. He was merely the oldest, being about a
year the senior of Floyd, the center fielder who could
jump five feet straight into the air without taking a
running start. Nobody knew, not even the Board of Education,
which once tried to find out whether Floyd was Floyd's
(36:44):
first name or his last name. He apparently only had one.
He didn't have any parents, and nobody, including himself, seemed
to know where he lived. When teachers insisted that he
must have another name to go with Floyd, he would
grow sullen and ominous, and they would cease questioning him
because he was a dangerous scholar in his schoolroom brawl,
(37:07):
as mister Harrigan the janitor found out one morning when
he was called in by a screaming teacher. All our
teachers were women to get Floyd under control after she
had tried to whip him, and he had begun to
take the room apart, beginning with the desks. Floyd broke
into small pieces the switch she had used on him.
(37:30):
Some said he also ate it. I don't know, because
I was home sick at the time with mumps or something.
Harrigan was a burly, iron muscle janitor, a man come
from a long line of coal shovelers, but he was
no match for Floyd, who had to be sure the
considerable advantage of being more aroused than mister Harrigan. When
their fight started, Floyd had him down and was sitting
(37:53):
on his chest in no time, and Harrigan had to
promise to be good and to say that's what I
get ten times before Floyd would let him up. I
don't suppose I would ever got through Sullivant School alive
if it hadn't been for Floyd. For some reason, he
appointed himself my protector, and I needed one. If Floyd
(38:14):
was known to be on your side, nobody in the
school would dare be after you and chase you home.
I was one of the ten or fifteen male pupils
in Sullivant School who always or almost always knew their lessons,
and I believe Floyd admired the mental prowess of a
youngster who knew how many continents there were and whether
or not the sun was inhabited. Also, one time, when
(38:38):
it came to be my turn to read to the class,
we used to take turns reading American history aloud, I
came across the word ducane and knew how to pronounce it.
That charmed Floyd, who had been slouched in his seat
idly following the printed page of his worn and penciled textbook.
How you know that was ducaine, boy, he asked me
(39:01):
after class. I don't know, I said, I just knew it.
He looked at me with round eyes. Oh that's something
he said. After that word got around that Floyd would
beat the tar out of anybody that messed around with me.
I wore glasses from the time I was eight, and
I knew my lessons, and both of those things were
considered pretty terrible at Sullivan. Floyd had one idiosyncrasy though.
(39:26):
In the early nineteen hundred's, long, warm, furry gloves that
came almost to your elbows were popular with boys, and
Floyd had one of the biggest pears in school. He
wore them the year round. Dick Peterson was an either
greater figure on the baseball team and in the school
than Floyd was. He had a way in the classroom
(39:47):
of blurting out a long, deep, rolling be for no
reason at all. Once he licked three boys his own
size single handed, really single handed, for he fought with
his right hand and held a mandolin in his left
hand all the time. It came out uninjured. Dick and
(40:11):
Floyd never met in mortal combats, so nobody ever knew
which one could beat, and the scholars were about evenly
divided in their opinions. Many a fight started among them
after school when the argument came up. I think school
never let out at Sullivan without at least one fight
starting up, And sometimes there were as many as five
or six raging between the corner of Oak and sixth
(40:33):
Streets and the corner of Rich and Fourth Streets four
blocks away. Now and again, virtually the whole school turned
out to fight the Catholic boys of the Holy Cross
Academy in Fifth Street near town for no reason at all.
In winter with snowballs and ice balls, in other seasons
with fists, brick bats, and clubs. Dick Peterson was always
(40:56):
in the van, yelling, singing, being whirling all the way
around when he swung with his right, or if he
hadn't brought a mandolin his left and missed. He made
himself the pitcher on the baseball team because he was
the captain. He was the captain because everybody else was
afraid to challenge his self election except Floyd. Floyd was
(41:19):
too lazy to pitch, and he didn't care who was
captain because he didn't fully uncomprehend what that meant. On
one occasion, when Earl Baddock, a steamfitter's son, had shut
out Mound Street School for six innings without a hit,
Dick took him out of the pitcher's box and went
in himself. He was hit hard, and the other team scored,
but it didn't make much difference because the margin of
(41:41):
Sullivant's victory was so great. The team didn't lose a
game for five years to another grammar school. When Dick
Peterson was in the sixth grade, he got into a
saloon brawl and was killed. When I go back to Columbus,
I always walked past Sullivant's school, and I have never
(42:01):
happened to get there. When classes were letting out, so
I don't know what the pupils are like now. I
am sure there are no more Dick Peterson's and no
more Floyd's, unless Floyd is still going to school there.
The playyard is still entirely bare of grass and covered
with gravel, and the sycamore still lined the curb between
(42:22):
the schoolhouse fence and the Oak Street car line. A
street car line running past a schoolhouse is a dangerous
thing as a rule, but I remember no one being
injured while I was attending Sullivan. I do remember, however,
one person who came very near being injured. He was
a motorman on the Oak Street line, and once when
his car stopped at the corner of six to let
(42:44):
off passengers, he yelled at Cheudy Davidson, who played third
base on the ball team and was a member of
the Terrible Fourth, to get out of the way. Cheudy
was fourteen years old but huge for his age, and
he was standing on the tracks taking a chew of tobacco.
Come on down off of that car and I'll not
get blocked off, said Choudy in what I can only
(43:05):
describe as a sullivant tone of voice. The motorman waited
until shoot. He moved slowly off the tracks. Then he
went on about his business. I think it was lucky
for him that he did. There were boys in those days.
I went to Sullivant by James Thurber. I've done all
(43:40):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown.
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Ray on guitars,
bass and drums, Mister Shanelle handled orchestration in keyboards, and
the music was produced by TKO Brothers and TKO Brothers
or Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle and me. I'm
(44:01):
a music producer. Other music, including some of the Beethoven
compass posicians, arranged and performed by the group No Horns
Allowed Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtesy of the SPN Inc.
By the way the Thurber story I went to Sullivant.
A guy has fact checked that story, and it seems
to be that there were students who were in the
(44:23):
fourth grade at Sullivant around the turn of the nineteenth
and twentieth century who were there for at least five
years in the fourth grade. There were teenagers in the
fourth grade at Sullivan. How much Thurber may have exaggerated
reality has not been determined by the historical record. Any who.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss,
(44:44):
the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today was
my friend Howard Feineman, and everything else was pretty much
my fault. So that's countdown for this the two hundred
and eighty fifth day until the twenty twenty four US
presidential election, and the one one hundred and sixteenth day
since dementia J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government the United States. Use the fourteenth Amendment, use
(45:07):
the Insurrection Act, use the justice system, use the mental
health system to stop him from doing it again while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletin
says the news warrants to land on Keith Alderman, good Morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(45:47):
Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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