SERIES 2 EPISODE 107: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump did NOT crush DeSantis and Haley in Iowa. The "takeaway" is not that he crushed DeSantis and Haley in Iowa. The "takeaway" is he beat the field by only 2,222 votes. And the reality is Trump got a total of 56,260 votes and that’s about half the size of this podcast’s daily audience. And Trump only got 51 percent OF the votes in Iowa and if President Biden only got 51 percent in a primary they would cancel everything on television for the next 26 days and cover nothing BUT Biden only getting 51 percent in a primary, right up until kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday 26 days from now. “Biden Crisis Day 26. We pause now for football. Here’s the anthem. Join Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson, David Axelrod, and Usher at halftime for a preview of Biden Crisis Day 27.”

It's madness. Political media in this country has been in freefall since the 1990’s – hell, I succeeded in it, no experience necessary – but it is hard to believe it has ever been worse, even more a victim of band-wagoning, even more a john overflowing unto eternity, each reporter abandoning reality and objectivity to prove that THEIR take was right or that their NEXT take is FIRST or that THEY can stuff more undeserved accolades into a sentence than anybody else. It’s not that they are obsessed with the horserace – the horserace coverage is FINE. But when it’s a pack of miniature ponies struggling to make it around a ten-foot track, SAY THAT, don’t call them Secretariat and Man’o’War.

Other REAL "takeaways" include Trump rolling out the new 2024 Con: his God Con, and Nikki Haley being utterly full of crap. And DeSantis realizing only too late that his path to victory was to turn on Trump and beat him senseless. Oh and Trump is deteriorating faster than ever before. If you mistake Biden for Obama, that's one thing. If you think the thing you rode down before you launched your campaign is an ESCALADE instead of an ESCALATOR... consult your physician!

B-Block (21:26) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Gosh, where will Margie Green get her porn? House GOP may have dropped the Hunter Biden contempt plan. Knicks-Rangers owner James Dolan sued, accused of trafficking a woman to Harvey Weinstein. (23:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is so used to lying to its own morons it forgets the rest of the world needs to be slightly convinced. "Dudesy" steals George Carlin's jokes and calls it "A.I." Nate Cohn of The New York Times with a hiccup over "Hick-Up."

C-Block (30:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Our 701-day snowless streak in Fun City is over and it got cold and clammy and as always I flashed back to the day my great doctor Ed Ceccolini gave me meds I wasn't ready for and the next thing I knew my face was stuck to the window of a commuter train in Grand Central because my drool had frozen onto it!