SERIES 2 EPISODE 212: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I've never actually seen it done before: somebody put the toothpaste back into the tube.

Not all of it. Not hardly. There are still a thousand reasons to ask President Biden to leave the ticket. He called Zelensky "Putin" and Kamala Harris "Vice President Trump" and when Trump tried to mock him on it he shoved it up Trump's posterior. And more importantly, for 50 minutes he interwove foreign and domestic policy, his own post-debate mistakes, the history of the relations between South Korea and Japan, his own calculations and miscalculations about retaining the presidency, and expressed an openness to change both his approach and maybe candidates.

It was unprecedented.

Simply, if he had been like this at the debate, or if he had held this news conference the day after it, it is impossible that the events of the last two weeks could've unfolded the way they have. So I do not know what to think (that'll get me kicked out of the pundits club) but I think there is a germ of an idea here if the plan is to stick with Biden atop the ticket:

Put him on TV live once a week. Press conferences, sit-down TV interviews, Town Halls. Put him on TV to do THAT every week and maybe he will put all the toothpaste back in the tube.

In the interim, he needs to offload many of his campaign advisers and handlers because they are killing him.

B-Block (25:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Chuck Todd somehow transfers his own selfishness and personal failure onto Biden. In humorous relief, the Toronto Globe and Mail asserts that a man fought for his life while being interviewed by NBC. And Lauren Boebert gets caught speeding. Was it because she couldn't handle a stick?

C-Block (30:20) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Fitting for an examination of the dumbing down of America and how it has kept Trump viable: the woman who thought MacBeth wasn't as good as her standard paperbacks: "The Macbeth Murder Mystery."