SEASON 2 EPISODE 51: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is the problem with all national intelligence. It is like an overnight electrical storm: it blindingly illuminates the horizon but only for a second. And you must concentrate entirely on decoding what it really shows you, and not how it fits into your preconceptions.

And so, like Bush before 9/11, like Putin before Ukraine, like a series of American governments before Pearl Harbor, like Neville Chamberlain before the invasion of Poland, Benjamin Netanyahu didn't truly ignore the warnings of Egyptian Intelligence and his own security forces. He simply forced them into a template in which Gaza was stable if not ideal, and The West Bank was a pressure cooker ready to explode - and also the only thing that kept him in power. It was only useful to him if the threat was from The West Bank. It could only BE The West Bank. 

The intel agencies will, as always, be blamed, and are already being blamed - because the politicians have the microphones. This was not a failure of intelligence. This was a failure of Benjamin Netanyahu.

ALSO: Why do Rand Paul and Tommy Tuberville hate Israel? Trump identifies the real culprits: Forbes Magazine and the Forbes 400. And somebody TOLD YOU LAST WEDNESDAY that Kevin McCarthy would wind up being a candidate to be the next Speaker of the House and lookee here - that's exactly what's shaping up.

B-Block (20:06) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There's so many Gaza takes that the Medal Stand (Maximum Occupancy: 3) is SUPER-SIZED with six winners! Listen as Elon Musk, John Roberts, Martha McCallum, Ronna McDaniel, Nancy Mace - and even Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, squeeze onto the podium.

C-Block (28:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: So it's thirteen years and a couple of Saturdays since I not only had to explain to my old classmates that the movie "A Christmas Story" in which Little Ralphie finally wigs out and beats the crap out of the bully was an almost punch-for-punch re-creation of our last day in the 4th Grade but that the bully had come up to me at the reunion and asked "Did we have a FIGHT in the 4th Grade?"