SERIES 2 EPISODE 97: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: For all those wringing their hands about disqualifying Trump from the ballot via the 14th Amendment without a conviction: What would Donald Trump have done with Joe Biden if January 6th had somehow worked?
Or TO him?
It's January 20, 2021 and the 46th President-Elect of the United States is prevented by whatever means from assuming office as demanded by the Constitution and Trump remains in power extra-legally, extra-judicially, extra-constitutionally. And we are supposed to believe that Biden would have been left free to speak in public, on television, on social media, to the press, in the courts, to the Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Schumer, to the Democratic governors with their authority over the National Guard?
Trump would have found a pretext to detain him. Or he HAD a pretext to detain him; a plan we just haven’t found out about. Having once crossed the ultimate threshold – ENDING 237 years of American democracy – having retained power as a dictator by some other name, what would Trump have then NOT been willing to do? And most importantly, what Trump would have done with a man he would’ve wanted the world to believe was an extra, illegitimate American president who had somehow plotted against Trump?
He would have had Joe Biden killed.
Or if somebody had stopped him from that, he would have had him seized somehow, by someone, by some official sounding but ultimately fabricated and illegal and anti-American quote “authority” unquote, and held. Incommunicado. With Kamala Harris and Pelosi and Schumer and uncooperative Senators and Congressmen of both parties and hundreds of reporters and editors and you and me and god knows how many others, on the pretext of god knows WHAT kind of imaginary plot to… enforce the Constitution?
THAT is why the Colorado Supreme Court was right. Because THAT second plan is the TRUE comparison to the Civil War traitors on whom the 14th Amendment was first applied. Because the Confederacy’s plans involved killing the President and the Vice President and half the cabinet and burning down New York City and seizing Northern ports. And just because the Confederacy did not win the Civil War those plans did not miraculously disappear from the minds of the traitors. Just as Trump’s plans for what to do with one president too many did not miraculously disappear from HIS diseased and monomaniacal and traitorous mind. The 14th Amendment is Iabout what ELSE he was willing to do, and what horrors he is willing to precipitate today, and in 2024, and, god forbid, in January of 2029.
ALSO: Trump's not an insurrectionist! He was so concerned about it he posted 11 whole words denying it. And as his lapdogs race to defend his paraphrases of Hitler, Trump undercut them again last night by repeating the "blood poisoning" line. He's also in even more insurrection trouble: turns out there's a RECORDING of his phone conversation pressuring Michigan Republicans to not certify Biden's win there in November, 2020. And Ronna McDaniel could go to jail - she's on the tape too, offering to pay for their lawyers. That is a bribe.
And for comic relief, Rudy Giuliani has gone from Moral Bankruptcy to Actual Bankruptcy. He's filed for Chapter 11. And while he's unlikely to get it granted, he has revealed who he owes money to it and the list somehow includes Hunter Biden! It's so bad it has inspired yet more "singing" on the part of your deluded tone deaf host.
B-Block (28:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rep. Tim Burchett thinks there are Republicans in the House being blackmailed with honey pots. He describes in stark detail (as if he were in the room when it happened!) what that would've been like. Kiss The Washington Post goodbye; its new publisher was a Murdoch editor. And John Schneider threatens Biden again. John Schneider. The actor. The guy from 'Dukes Of Hazzard.' The actor you thought was DEAD.
C-Block (34:40) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Only one way to close out 2023: with James Thurber's amazingly prescient saga of a man everyone thinks is a hero but is in fact a nightmare who must be stopped: "The Greatest Man In The World." And no, he wrote this 15 years before Trump was born.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. What would Donald Trump have done with Joe Biden? If January sixth had somehow worked for all those wringing their hands about disqualifying Trump from the ballot via the fourteenth Amendment without a conviction, even though the fourteenth Amendment does not say convicted or charged, just engaged in insurrection. For the Steve Schmidts and the Byron Donaldses and the idiots from New York Magazine and Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and the transparently scheming Congressman Dean Phillips trying to primary the president and pretend he's a Democrat. Let me repeat the question with which I just began. If Trump's attempt to stop the transfer of power by violence on January sixth, twenty twenty one, had worked, or if Trump's eastman chesbro fake Elector's coup had worked, or if Trump's Jeffrey Clark That's why we have an Insurrection Act coup had worked, or if Trump's Special Council Sidney Powell Seizes the Voting Machine's coup had worked, If any subversion of the twenty twenty election or violent or merely threatening violence overthrow of the democratically elected government of the United States, or if any other of Trump's perversions had worked, if noon on January twentieth had come but Trump had not gone, what do you think Donald Trump would have done with Joe Biden? Or let me rephrase it, what would Donald Trump have done too? Joe Biden the forty sixth President elect of the United States, and he is prevented by whatever means, from assuming office as demanded by the Constitution, and Trump remains in power extra legally, extra judicially, extra constitutionally, and we are to believe that Biden would have been left free to speak in public, to appear on television, on social media, in the courts, to talk to the Speaker of the House of Representatives from the Democratic Party and to the majority leader of the Senate from the Democratic Party, to speak with Democratic governors with their authority over the National Guard, to speak with anyone who just you know, likes the constitution. Trump would have found a pretext to detain President elect Biden, or he had pretext to detain him a plan we just have not found out about yet. And that's the best case scenario for having once crossed the ultimate threshold, having ended two hundred and thirty seven years of American democracy, having retained power as a dictator by some other title. What would Trump have then not been willing to do next to anybody still pawing at the dirt and looking at the fourteenth Amendment, which was used successfully and non violently and without convictions or charges, and pretty much uncontroversially half a century before the nineteenth Amendment was used to give votes to women, let me ask you about whether it has dawned on you yet that you are rationalizing superimposing a standard of proof not required by the Constitution on a scumbag insurrectionist who tried to overthrow the government and certainly had a second plan of some kind ready if he succeeded, a second, darker, bloodier plan. And guess what Trump's plan for Joe Biden would not have required convictions either. Sorry to offend your sensibilities, I mean, not to hammer this into the ground, and not to cost you any sleep during the holiday season, But what was the end game for Trump? On January sixth? What happens to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the editors of the New York Times and the producers at PBS, and the Democratic senators and the Republicans who spoke out against him. What happens to all of them, Steve Schmidt, and to you and to me, and most importantly, what would Trump have done with a man he would have wanted the world to believe was an extra American president, an illegitimate extra American president, a man somehow involved. Trump would have said, in the greatest political crime in the modern history of the Western world. He would have had Joe Biden killed, or if somebody had stopped him, Trump would have had him seized somehow by someone by some official sounding but ultimately fabricated and illegal and anti American quote authority. And he would have had him held in communicado disappeared with Kamala Harris and Pelosian Schumer and uncooperative senators and congressmen of both parties, and hundreds of reporters and editors and governors, and you and me and Schmidt and God knows how many others on the pretext of God knows what kind of imaginary plot we were all involved with to thwart Trump by enforcing the Constitution. Bluntly, it is hard to believe the following sentence could ever be said by anybody at any time. But the darker, grimmer point about enforcing the Constitution, enforcing the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, is that Trump's insurrection is not just what he planned and fomented and watched with glee from the White House on January sixth, not just what actually happened. It is more importantly, more damningly about whatever he had planned next. That is why the Colorado Supreme Court was right, because that second plant is the true comparison to the Civil War traders against whom the Fourteenth Amendment was first applied. Because the Confederacy's plans involved killing the President of the United States and the vice president and half the cabinet and burning down New York City and using agents coming in from Canada to seize Northern American ports, and just because the Confederacy did not win the Civil War, those plans did not miraculously disappear from the minds of the traders, just as Trump's plans for what to do with one president too many did not miraculously disappear from his diseased and monomaniacal and traitorous mind in the context in which it must be applied today, The Fourteenth Amendment is not about what Trump did in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. It's about what else he was willing to do, and what horrors he is willing to precipitate today and in twenty twenty four, next month, and God forbid, in January of twenty twenty nine. The Fourteenth Amendment is not some violation of our tradition of due process, just as Lincoln defending the government of the United States by military force in eighteen sixty one was not some violation of due process. The simple truth is that Donald Trump has been treated with kid gloves by this country, and, recognizing that the Fourteenth Amendment has already disqualified him from running for president or any office ever again in his goddamned life, this is in fact a continuation of treating him with kid gloves. Sixteen days shy of three full, long, agonizing years, this nation has bent over backwards and not crushed the perpetrator of insurrection and rebellion against the United States of America and specifically its constitution. The Constitution, however, is self protecting. That is what the fourteenth Amendment is. Four. If you have doubts about it, ask yourself that question with which I began rhetorically, if January sixth had succeeded, what would Trump have then done with? And two, Joe Biden, keep your answer to yourself and get the hell out of the way of justice and get the hell out of the way of the Constitution of the United States of America. Oh but happily turns out Trump is not an insurrectionist. You know how we know that because he's now posted this online. I'm not an insurrectionist parenthesis peacefully and patriotically, and parenthesis Biden is end quote. And you know how you can tell Trump is telling the truth because he used eleven whole words to deny that he's an insurrectionist. The guy who writes thousand word long threads every three days insisting the judge is lying and he is too richer than all the rest of us bastards put together. And those threads are all caps eleven words. Wait, his next definitive post, Hitler, not me. None of my relatives were from Braunau. I am not secretly related to him. None of my relatives served into the sixteenth Bavarian Reserve regiment with him. I've never even read Hitler's zweitez Buch. Why hasn't Biden said this? The Republican rationales for Trump channeling Hitler now baby Hitler channeling old Hitler, they are happily so lame as to be genuinely funny at a time when we need this. Senators Sullivan of Alaska and Vance of Ohio actually wondered if maybe he was talking about fentanyl. Congresswoman Mally Atacus of New York, who is just not bright, said no, no, he was talking about democratic policies. That's what he meant by poisoning. And then Trump made all three of them look like idiots when he said, no, you're right, I am saying the same things as Hitler, but quote in a much different way, and He's going to keep on saying it. Rolling Stone, which has had sources who sometimes outlandish claims and predictions about what Baby Hitler would do next have been scoffed at, and then they turned out to be pretty much prescient and exact. Rolling Stone quotes one of those sources again is saying Trump quote said he's going to keep doing it. He's going to keep saying they're poisoning the blood of the nation and destroying and killing the country. He says, it's a quote great line unquote. Well, of course it's a great line. Look at what Hitler did with it in the thirties. A second Rolling Stone source says Trump thinks he's been quote too nice about the quote animals, so he's going to get tougher and guess what. He did it again last night. He put out a video at seven four pm Eastern Standard time.
Integration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They're coming from prisons, from mental institutions, from all over the world. Without borders and fair elections, you don't have a country.
I didn't hear the word ventanyl in there, did you, oil boy? As Nicole mally attack is going to be sorely pressed to make up new bullshit excuses every day. Back to disqualification. Early polling, the country favors enforcing the fourteenth Amendment fifty four percent strongly or somewhat approved, thirty five percent strongly or somewhat disapprove. That is a nineteen point margin, with only eleven percent undecided. Hell, a quarter of Republicans approve of it. It's a UGOV poll. And they also did the general election with and without a Trump conviction. It is forty four forty four. Right now with a Trump conviction, it's forty six thirty nine Biden. So now here's another question. Who else is ineligible to run for any office now under the fourteenth Amendment, Because if there's one scale the Supreme Court cannot stick its thumb on for sure, it's for anybody running for Congress or the Senate or governor, since the fourteenth has already been used to disqualify people running for those offices. Trial now under way in Atlanta to disqualify George's Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones because he was one of Trump's fake electors, bigger fish. Well, nobody's moved on Congressman Scott Perry yet, but this has his name written all over it. Or how about Ronald McDaniel. She has aspirations for elected office, Well they're out the window. The Detroit News revealed last night it has reviewed a recording from November seventeenth, twenty twenty, in which Trump gets on the blower and pressures two canvassers from I'm Wayne County, Michigan to not sign the certification of the twenty twenty election for Biden in their state. We've got to fight for our country. Trump is recorded as saying on the call, we can't let these people take our country away from us. Then another voice chimes in and tells the two Michigan politicians, if you can go home tonight, do not sign it. We will get you attorneys. The voice was that of Ronald McDaniel, chairman of the RNC. If she is now only hit with the fourteenth Amendment, she'll be lucky because that's a crime for which she could go to jail. Vivek Ramaswami is probably safe. However, he is also probably nuts. It's clear the puppet masters have lost their use for Biden and are slowly sidelining him, he writes on Twitter X. But the real trick is who they're propping up instead. It's not Gavin or Michelle as I'd assumed before. It's far more insidious. Open your eyes, folks, it's staring us right in the face. Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. It's Taylor Swift. Oh my god, oh my god, Oh my god. Taylor Swift's going to be president the puppet masters Christ Trameslami is it Kermit the frog moron? And of course, as you have already heard, a day after the judge in the sea Os Ruby Freeman case ruled that he has a history of trying to avoid paying stuff, so they should and legally could claim there one hundred and forty eight million dollars from Rudy Giuliani right now. Rudy Giuliani filed for Chapter eleven yesterday from marley bankrupt to actually bankrupt. In the document he claims assets of up to ten million dollars, but debts of one hundred and fifty two point six million dollars. That would be more right. The best part is the list of debtors that Woody submitted in the filing that a lot of experts think will be rejected anyway. There's this company, Giuliani Partners, Rudy owes himself money. There's the federal government, the New York State government. He owes a total of a million in back taxes. By the way, the New York Post once wrote me up because my accountant and the irs were politely resolving a disagreement over seven hundred and twenty five dollars over middle Wards taxes. Rudy owes money to his former assistant, the one who said he offered to sell pardons on Trump's behalf. He owes money to a divorce accountant. Oh, and he owes money to one Robert Hunter Biden. Rudy owes money to Hunter Biden. Rudy, Rudy, Rudy Wait, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Oh, oh, Nancy, WHOA Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Are you bankrupt?
Ah?
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, are you bro Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Are you drugged of? Rudy Rudy? Did you go?
WHOA?
Thank you? Nancy post Also of interest here, Congressman Tim Burchett says Republicans in the House are being blackmailed by the Russians using honeypots. He goes into great detail. He seems to know an awful lot about how this would work in real time, like a lot like way too much. But first, this is the last scheduled episode of the year. I'm betting there will be a bulletin before in New Year's Eve. So I have two things about it being the last scheduled episode of the year. I've never asked you to forward a given edition of the podcast to anybody, but if you would forward this one to somebody who does not listen, I think the point about what Trump would have done to Biden had the coup worked is an essential question, and I haven't heard it asked, at least not recently, at least not in the context of applying the fourteenth Amendment. And on a lighter note, I think you may have noticed that I like being silly about even these darkest of topics when possible, and that, for some reason, even at my advanced age, I still fancy myself a modern Tom Lairr. Wow, modern Tom Lahr who can quote sing unquote for like thirteen fourteen seconds. So here, just for you are all of the mock songs I've done with Nancy Faust in twenty twenty three. Enjoy and or hit stop immediately might be indedd in the morning, Dean don The locks are gonna.
Charm, pitch me, jail me, fuck me, and fail me, but get me to the.
Trial on time.
You make a bind.
Time to leave me, you.
Seal with forty cots against me and your bleed the boss wants server deleaded, won't he you've ADVANTI leave me ucy.
Thinking it's a fast.
Ride a show, got food talk on ours, m F baton for your drunken le sa dim dinzoba been doun feed a fast mood, got.
A man and fell don Broyd boe some through.
Don't conant past.
I am so indicted and I just can't fight. I'm about to go to jail in America likes it. I'm so indicted.
My defensing they're tightened, and I know, I know the unindicted co conspirators can bite it.
Can A get a witness? Canna righting a witness? Can I timidate a witness? Canda terrorize a wedness? Thank you Nancy Post. Reinvited and it feels so good. Reindied like a file in wood. You want the big fit and sugar freeze.
It is the.
Country so excited causes griefsty Thank you, Nancy Post.
Into something parked?
Hey you insurrection. Who you're gonna call gods?
My size?
Thank you Nancy Post. I had the scoop that you had the contract. Then I had the story, the plane and the hours. I wish you had signed with Toronto Deer Show. He because now my career has been sent to the showers.
Where where are you?
Do not?
How could you leave me here all alone? I searched the world over and I thought up out of Nie. But you met the Dodgers and you was gone, think Nancy.
If I host, this is Countdown with Keith Oberman Oberman, my.
Friend Larry David doing his impression of the late Yankee Stadium Stentorian PA announcer Bob Shepherd introducing me. The streams have merged, still to come on Countdown. End of the week, end of the year. Merry Christmas with for my money, the most Wonderful. He's cynical and stunningly prophetic. Of all of the works of James Thurber, most of them read like he wrote them last week. But this time he wrote a story about Trump. But in nineteen forty The Greatest Man in the World and Fridays with Thurber first time for the daily roundup of the miss Grants, Morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst Persons in the World World the Bronze Worse. Congressman Tim Burchett. He has told a fascist podcast that he is confident that a large number of conservative congressmen and women are compromised by the Russians and by others. He thinks they are being forced to vote against Republican bills by the Russians. And I think he's whistling past graveyards there, But that's not the point. The point is. Listen to this quote from Tim Burchett. You know, the old honey pot. The Russians do that, and I'm sure members of Congress have been caught up. Why in the world would good conservatives vote for crazy stuff like what we've been seeing. Here's how it works. You're visiting, you're out of the country or out of town, or you're in a motel or at a bar in DC and whatever. You're into women, men whatever comes up and they're very attractive, and they're laughing at your jokes, and you're buying them a drink. Next thing you know, you're in the motel room with them naked. And next thing you know, you're about to make a key vote, and what happens, Some well dressed person comes up, whispers in your ear, Hey man, there's tapes out on you. Were you in a motel room on whatever with whoever, and you're like, uh oh, and they say you really ought not to be voting for this thing, and what do they do? It's human nature unquote, just as shame Burchett couldn't go into any detail. Huh. It's like, I mean, it's just a hunch on my part here, but it's almost like he's been in the room with the victims of the compromat and the people doing the compromat. Just saying, by the way, the point here is this has been characterized as Congressman Burchett thinks a large number of conservative congressmen and women are compromised by Russians and others. No, the real headlines should be phrased. Congressman Burchette thinks there are actually some conservative congressmen and women who are not being compromised by the Russians. Now that's a story runners up worser the Washington Post. If you noticed that in the last year the Washington Post started to let me use a journalistic insider term here, If you notice the Washington Post started to suck, you ain't seen nothing than yet. The new publisher and CEO just appointed by Jeff Bezos to replace the last publisher and CEO who made the Post suck. He is Sir William Lewis, and apart from the fact that he is a Murdoch editor, he ran the Wall Street Journal. He helped run the company that ran Murdoch's News of the World, which was so up to its neck in the infamous British phone hacking journalism scandal, which included the stealing of voicemails of a murdered British teenaged girl. It was so infamous that Rupert Murdoch closed the paper down rather than deal with the fallout of the hacking scandal. This is the guy who will now run the Washington Post. Talk about compromot. Think they got Jeff Bezos this time? Hey, New York Times, better step up, boys, But our winner the worst. John Schneider, that actor from the Dukes of Hazzard who I'm guessing you like me, thought was dead. He has been body snatched though, Mister President, he writes in a response to a tweet from Joe Biden, I believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly hung your son too. Your response is sincerely John Schneider unquote. I'm guessing Biden's response would be who in the hell is John Schneider Like he's gonna respond to you, dude, John. Also, it's hanged dim bulb, unless you're referring to those photos of Hunter that Marjorie Taylor Green showed in the House Committee and then took home with her Waka waka Schneider two days worse person in the world. Okay, the last Fridays with Thurber for the year twenty twenty three, And once again I can never get over how prophetic this was. James Thurber wrote this story in the nineteen thirties, and it is as bitterly cynical and deeply observant as anything else he ever wrote, And nearly everything he wrote was bitterly cynical and deeply observant. The greatest man in the world. When it turns out the greatest man in the world is Trump, and he's fooled everybody. Only this was written before Trump was born, James Thurber and the greatest man in the world. Looking back on it now from the vantage point of nineteen forty one can only marvel that it had not happened. Long before it did. The United States of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk blindly constructing the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later it must be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would come roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence, background and character, successfully to endure the mounting orgies of glory prepared for aviators who stayed up for a long time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh and Byrd, fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had been gentlemen, So had our other famous aviators. They wore their laurels, gracefully, withstood the awful weather of publicity, married excellent women, usually fine family, and quietly retired to private life and the enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No untoward incidents on a worldwide scale marred the perfection of their conduct on the perilous heights of fame. The exception to the rule was, however, bound to occur, and it did in July nineteen thirty seven, when Jack pal smirch erstwhile mechanics helper in a small garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew a second hand, single motored Bresthaven Dragonfly three monoplane all the way around the world, without stopping. Never before in the history of aviation had such a flight as Smirches even been dreamed of. No one had even taken seriously the weird floating auxiliary gas tanks invention of the mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy, doctor Charles Lewis Gresham, upon which Smirch placed full reliance. When the garage worker, a slightly built, surly unprepossessing young man of twenty two, appeared at Roosevelt Field early in July nineteen thirty seven, slowly chewing a great quid of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody ain't seen no flying yet. The newspapers touched briefly and satirically upon his projected twenty five thousand mile flight. Aeronautical and automotive experts dismissed the idea, curtly, implying that it was a hoax of publicity stunt. The rusty, battered second hand plane wouldn't go, the Gresham auxiliary tanks wouldn't work. It was simply a cheap joke. Smirch, however, after calling on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap folding department of a large paper box factory, a girl whom he later described as his sweet Pittuti, climbed nonchalantly into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable seventh of July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of tobacco juice into the still air, and took off, carrying with him only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds of salami. When the garage boy thundered out over the ocean, the papers were forced to record in all seriousness that a mad, unknown young man his name was variously misspelled, had actually set out upon a preposterous attempt to span the world in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting to the long distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster. When nine days later, without having stopped once, the tiny plane appeared above San Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering and choking, to be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously aloft the headlines, which long since had crowded everything else off the front page. Even the shooting of the Governor of Illinois by the Valetti Gang swelled to unprecedented size, and the news stories began to run to twenty five and thirty columns. It was noticeable, however, that the accounts of the epoch making flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself. This was not because the facts about the hero as a man were too meager, but because they were too complete. Reporters who had been rushed out to Iowa when Smirch's plane was first sighted over the little French coast town of Serlee Lemaire to dig up the story of the great man's life, had promptly discovered that the story of his life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen short order cook and a shack restaurant on the edge of a tourists camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries as to her son with an angry and the hell with him a help he drowns. His father appeared to be in jail somewhere for stealing spotlights and lap robes from tourists automobiles. His young brother, a weak minded lad, had but recently a gate from the Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and was already wanted in several western towns for the theft of money order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries were still piling up at the very time that Pal Smirch, the greatest hero of the twentieth century, blear eyed, dead for sleep, half starved, was piloting his crazy junk heap high above the region in which the lamentable story of his private life was being unearthed, headed for New York and a greater glory than any man of his time had ever known. The necessity for printing some account in the papers of the young man's career and personality had led to a remarkable predicament. It was, of course, impossible to reveal the facts, for a tremendous popular feeling in favor of the young hero had sprung up like a grass fire when he was halfway across Europe on his flight around the globe. He was therefore described as a modest, chap taciturn blonde, popular with his friends, popular with girls. The only available snapshot of Smirch, taken at the wheel of a phony automobile in a cheap photo studio at an amusement park, was touched up so that the little vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth was in this way kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did not dream that the Smirch family was despised and feared by its neighbors in the obscure Iowa town, nor that the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace. Pal's Smirch had, the reporters discovered, once knife the principle of his high school, not mortally, to be sure, but he had knifed him, and on another occasion, surprised in the act of an stealing altar cloth from a church, he had bashed the sexton over the head the pot of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses he had served a sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities, both in New York and in Washington, prayed that an understanding providence might, however awful, such a thing seemed, bring disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot, whose unheard of flight had aroused the civilized world to hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight of adulation was bound to reveal him to all the world as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to cope with his own prodigious fame. I trust, said the Secretary of State, at one of the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national dilemma. I trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by which he ref to missus Emma's Smirch's wish that her son might be drowned. It was, however, too late for that Smirch had leaped the Atlantic and then the Pacific as if they were mill ponds. At three minutes after two o'clock on the afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven, the garage boy brought his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect three point landing. It had, of course been out of the question to arrange a modest little reception for the greatest flier in the history of the world. He was received at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies as rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the worn and spent hero, promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily from his plane, and was spirited from the field without having opened his mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity of his first reception, a reception illumined by the presence of the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor Michael J. Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada, Governors Fanamine Groves, mcpheey and Critchfield, and a brilliant array of European diplomats. Smirch did not, in fact come too in time to take part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at City Hall for the next day. He was rushed to a secluded nursing home and confined in bed. It was nine days before he was able to get up, or, to be more exact, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile, the greatest minds in the country, in solemn assembly, had arranged a secret conference of city, state and government officials, which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get up in dress, and for the first time in two weeks, took a great chew of tobacco. He was permitted to receive. The newspaper men this by way of testing him out. Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said, and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell a cock eyed world that I put it over on Lindbergh. See, yeah, made an asset. I'm two frogs. The two frogs was a reference to a pair of gallant French flyers who, in attempting to flight only halfway around the world, had two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea. The Times Man was bold enough at this point to sketch out for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in cases of this kind. He explained that there should be no arrogant statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly heroes of foreign nations. Ah the hell with that, said Smirch.
I did it.
See I did it, and I'm talking about it. And he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary interview was, of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers already under the discipline direction of a secret directorate created for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors gave out to a panting and restless world that Jackie, as he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only that he was very happy and that anyone could have done what he did. My achievement has been I fear slightly exaggerated. The Times Man's article had him protest with a modest smile. These newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave for Palell's. Smirch was, as he kept insisting, raring to go. He could not much longer be kept from a nation clamorous to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis the United States of America had faced since the sinking of the Lusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh of July, Mrch was spirited away to a conference room in which were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists, and editors. He gave them each a limp moist paw and a brief, unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch was seated, the mayor of New York arose and with obvious pessimism, attempted to explain what he must say and how he must act when presented to the world, ending his talk with a high tribute to the hero's courage and integrity. The mayor was followed by Governor Fannaman of New York, who, after a touching declaration of faith, introduced Cameron Spottiswood, second Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris, the gentleman selected to coach Smirch in the amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting in a chair with a soiled yellow tie in his hand and his shirt open at the throat, unshaved, smoking a rolled cigarette, Jack Smirch listened with a leer on his lips. Get you, I get you, He cut in nastily. You want me to act like a softie.
Huh?
You want me to act like thaty memany baby face lind big huh? Well nuts to that.
See.
Everyone took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh and a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began a United States Senator purple with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring his nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh, for God's sake, that big somebody shut off the blasphemies with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word the room. Everyone stood up except Smirch, who was still busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up. Mister Smirch, said someone sternly. The President of the United States. It had been thought that the presence of the Chief Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero, and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room. A great, painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a hand at the president. How you coming, he asked, and began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed in a strained way. Jesus hot, ain't it, said Smirch. He loosened two more shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest and the tattooed word sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart. The great and important men in the room, faced by the most serious crisis in American history, exchanged worried frowns. Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Come on, come on, said Smirch. Let's get the hell out of here. Yeah, when do I start cutting in on the podies?
Euh?
And when is there gonna be this in it? He rubbed a thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a state senator, shocked. Pale. Yeah, money, said pal, flipping his cigarette out of the window. And big money. He began rolling a fresh cigarette. Big money, he repeated, frowning over the rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and leered at each gentleman separately, the leer of an animal that knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose in a bird and dog shop. Ah, for God's sake, let's get someplace where it's cool, he said. I've been cooped up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood up and walked over to an open window, where he stood staring down into the street nine floors below. The faint shouting of news boys floated up to him. He made out his name, hot dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He leaned out over the sill. You tell him, babies, he shouted down, Hot diggity dog in the tense little knot of men standing behind him. A quick, mad impulse flared up. An unspoken word of appeal of command seemed to ring through the room, yet it was deadly silent. Charles K. L Brand, secretary to the Mayor of New York City, happened to be standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at the President of the United States. The President, pale grim nodded shortly. Brand, a tall, powerfully built man wants to tackle at Rutgers University, stepped forward, seized the greatest man in the world by his left shoulder and the seat of his pants, and pushed him out the window. My god, he's falling out the window, cried a quick witted editor. Get me out of here, cried the President. Several men sprang to his side, and he was hurriedly escorted out of a door toward a side entrance of the building. The editor of the Associated Press took charge. Being used to such things crisply, he ordered certain men to leave, others to stay. Quickly. He outlined a story which all the papers were to agree on, sent two men to the street to handle that end of the tragedy. Commanded a senator to sob and two congressmen to go to pieces nervously. In a word, he skillfully set the stage for the gigantic task that was to follow, the task of breaking to a grief stricken world the sad story of the untimely accidental death of its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was, as you know, the most elaborate, the finest, the solemnest, and the saddest ever held in the United States of America. The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with its clean white shaft of marble and the simple device of a tiny plane cause on its base, is a place for pilgrims in deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid lofty tributes to Little Jackie Smirch, America's greatest hero. At a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town of Westfield, Iowa, observed this touching ceremony. Agents of the Department of Justice sought to that one of them was especially assigned to stand grimly in the doorway of a little shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's camping ground, just outside the town there under his stern scrutiny, missus Emma Smirch bowed her head over two Hamburger steaks sizzling on her grill. Bowed her head and turned away so that the secret serviceman could not see the twisted, strangely familiar leer on her lips. The Greatest Man in the World by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. And I'm proud to say my accompanists he missed a company. The woman who played the organ during my attempts at singing throughout twenty twenty three and the Rudy song today. Thank you Nancy. Our announcer today is my friend Larry David doing his impression of the late Bob Shepherd from Yankee Stadium, and everything else was pretty much my fault for the sixty fifth consecutive year. That's countdown for this the one thy eighty first day since dementia. J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the fourteenth Amendment, use the Insurrection Act, convict him in court, use everything we got while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday, January second, twenty twenty four. Bulletins as the news warrants, and boy will I be surprised if there is not a bulletin TwixT now and January second, twenty four till then, thank you for your supporting twenty twenty three, and let's hope that twenty twenty four actually happens as scheduled. In the interim, I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, good luck, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Whoa rudy, Rudy Rudy? Are you bankrupt.
Oh, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Are you bro go Rudy, Rudy Rudy. Are you dug? Rudy Rudey.
Did you go?
Whoa go?
Thank you. That's a fast Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.