BIDEN MUST LEAVE TICKET; NEW EVIDENCE TRUMP WASN'T SHOT - 7.19.24

seemingly deserves. I do not make a comparison between their conditions, but truly to have said those words makes me feel like I felt the day I had to make the decision to stop the medical treatments that were keeping my father alive. But there is a time for emotion and a time for being emotionless, and this is the latter.

We can, I hope, spend the next twenty years embracing Joe Biden and the greatest sacrifice made by any American politician in our lifetimes, while we also celebrate Trump being turned down by the pardon board for the twentieth consecutive year later, we need now to make those things happen. The essence of the problem boils down. I think to five points. First, democracy lives or dies on the outcome of this election. Also the climate and thus continuing life

of all kinds on this planet. Second, the long awaited fob push in private is complete. Friends of Biden O be noon yesterday was I think the final semi private warning before they all go public. There appeared at that hour in the Washington Post News that President Obama had told allies in recent days that the Biden path to victory had greatly diminished and that his vice president needs to seriously rethink the viability of his candidacy. The Post

reports Nancy Pelosi called Obama. We know from CNN that Pelosi got on the phone with Biden about how bad the polls are and how the bleeding had spread to the House races, and CNN reports he got defensive. The Clintons may have done what Obama is doing, let something

leak publicly. First, we knew Wednesday that Chuck Schumer had told Biden privately last Saturday that he should drop out a Keen Jeffries in private, we know Adam Schiff was the first big name to go off the public diving board into the pool of unknown depth and call for him to withdraw. CNN and The Times and Axios all said the President was more receptive now to outside input. Even like that. Axios also said he was more dug

in than ever before. Axios also said he is also resigned to the pressure and the polls and could drop out as soon as this weekend. And that's how to cover politics. Three possible outcomes, predict all three of them will happen. Be Steven A. Smith. I will again report

what I reported yesterday and just referenced. If the President does not bow out presently, maybe my Monday, the fobs, some combination of Obama, the Clintons, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffrees, maybe others will gently and with that same sense of bereavement, I feel, go public and force President Biden to get out, merely to repair the damage that such an unprecedented vote of no confidence would represent. It would be manipulative on

the part of the Fobs, but powerful. Third point, as I said previously, America will always choose the old man yelling at the cloud, especially instead of the old man whispering intelligently but inaudibly. This nation elected Reagan twice and George W. Bush twice. And even if you don't think w was an old man, you will agree he was

an old man in spirit. In fact, I believe you could look at every presidential election since the invention of recorded sound and not find one in which a candidate who was often literally unintelligible defeated one who was not. Trump may be saying crazier and crazier things, but those

persuadable voters are having trouble understanding what President Biden is saying. Fourth, as he has voiced in every public appearance since the debate, interviews, news conferences, speeches, the debate itself, the President believes he will be re elected because he's done such a good job, and I refer you to the noted political analyst Mae West and her observation that goodness has nothing to do with it. He has done such a good job, a

great job. This, however, is not how you beat a liar promising the gullible that he will bring them eternal life. They didn't beat Jim Jones that way, and Biden did not beat Trump that way four years ago. It is both a crisis and a tragedy that American politics has devolved into what it is now, But it would be more of a tragedy if Joe and the holdout Democratic leaders denied that it has so devolved, and fifth, the polls are cratering forty seven of them the last forty

seven polls, Trump leads them all. I'm beginning to spot a pattern. The polls underscore a simple reality that the situation the Democratic and Democracy campaigns are now in is not about Joe Biden somehow maintaining the status quo, nor even making up the ground lost since the debate. Before the debate he needed to improve down the stretch. How even if they found him the proverbial fountain of youth, how would they still stop the parsing of every utterance

for a slip. How could we stop what is now the ingrained default position, not just of today's incomparably unqualified political reporters, but of today's incomparably uninformed political voters. We all look for failure, not success. We all remember the

wrong name said, not the right one. Even the people who will make more mistakes in the next hour then Joe Biden will in the rest of his life, will do so because pointing at his mistakes also allows them to ignore their own mistakes and don't blame someone else. I'm not blaming someone else. What do you and I remember from the speeches of Trump that he's crazy and he's evil, and far more easily that he gets all the goddamn names and words wrong. We are living in

snark America, and snark feeds on mistakes. In the new poles, however, there is both the nettle that must be grasped and in that the pained relief that, no, we are not throwing away a victory of some kind by changing horses so well past midstream, but in other new poles by the same company at the same time that didn't get

one thousandth of the coverage. The prospect for redemption that a new candidate will bring is glimpsed polling by Emerson College Monday and Tuesday, widely reported yesterday, widely accepted nationally. It was Trump by two earlier in the month. In this poll, it is now Trump by four. In this poll, Biden is now losing in all seven original swing states, by three in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, by five in Georgia, by six in Pennsylvania, by nine in North Carolina, by

ten in Arizona. Since March, in the Emerson poll, President Biden has lost an average of two points in each of the seven swing states. Those numbers are cataclysmic, yet they are only half the numbers. Emerson is not considered the gold standard in polling, but honest to God, how close do they have to be if Trump is beating

Biden by ten in Arizona and six in Pennsylvania. Adding to the uncertainty about the exactitude of this data is the sponsor of this Emerson poll, the Bill Harris super Pack Democrats for the Next Generation, which has not only come out of nowhere to push hard for Biden to drop out, but propose this nonsensical mini primary and pledged to underwrite it. So just to climb further out onto this particular Harris limb on Democrats for the Next Generation's behested.

Emerson also asked another question of the voters in those swing states where Biden is losing on average now by five and a half points. The question is really self fulfilling. It's almost on the level of for people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like, but the results are so large, they're so startling that it's worth listening to them as some kind of guide post. In imagine, the pollsters asked always a

bad start to a poll question. Imagine you have to choose between two people for president, Donald Trump or another candidate. The other candidate is a younger Democrat who is qualified for the job. How would you decide who to pick? Should have also asked them how many things were wrong with that question? Imagine? Also, what does younger mean define qualified for the job? Please? What if the voter thinks

you're asking them about Taylor Swift? What do pass poles tell us about how much better nameless imaginary candidates do than real life ones. Still, these are the results in North Carolina, the imaginary younger Democrat beats Trump by two. In Arizona and Pennsylvania, he or she beats Trump by six in Nevada and Wisconsin. The Democrat beats Trump by eight in Georgia and Michigan. It is your invisible little

Democratic friend by ten. So that's over here. Biden losing to Trump in the seven Swing states by five and a half in each state. Or the generic imaginary qualified younger Democrat, let's call her for the sake of argument, t Swizzle beating Trump in the seven Swing states by more than seven points in each state. That would be better. That would be better by just under let's see the

swing is just under thirteen points. Again, I'm assuming there is a lot wrong with the pole company, with the pole, with the sponsor, with the question, with the built in imaginary stuff, with the self fulfilling prophecy element. But how much wrong does it have to be before it stops giving a clear indication that, yes, even now, a different Democrat will do better on November fifth than will President Biden. That is ultimately the only question, and there is some,

i think infallible intuitive logic behind this. The nation, even if one hundred percent of those intending to vote for Biden would still vote for him, will still vote for him, no matter what is crying out for a younger, less viscerally flawed candidate. There are drawbacks and prejudices and uncharted territory.

And every American who is worried about America's willingness to elect a woman of color as president on sixteen weeks notice should worry, but should also remember that America has elected a man of color twice and given more popular votes to a woman in the only three elections in which representatives of either group have stood for the office, and those three elections have happened in the last four elections.

One note about process here. I have remained, as I keep using this term, agnostic about this because to me, until and unless President Biden was ready to step away or ready to be convinced to step away, and there were clear indications and some reports yesterday and late Wednesday that he was at least willing to have the meetings, if not take the action. Until that point, I wanted to tamp down the discussion and leave it behind the scenes where it belonged, because the moment it went public

there would be only two remaining options. He quits, where he goes right through until midnight strikes on November fourth and fifth, being told he still needs to quit. And that is where we are now. We got there on the night of the debate. Not your fault, not my fault, the president's fault, and there is only one way out of this place. I have had my doubts for the most practical reason, which I outlined earlier, for at least

a year. And that practical reason, when was the last time a presidential candidate down by two or three or four nationally and at least that much in all the swing states roared back in the final one hundred days, when he no longer had the ability to literally roar. But things seemed to have stabilized, and obviously, given whatever has been inhibiting President Biden, that State of the Union address was the speech of his lifetime and one of

the greatest speeches in American political history. And you may recall that the dump him movement went silent that night, and it stayed silent until the debate. It was buckle up and hope for the best, and we did not get the best. We may have gotten the best possible, but it is clear now it is not enough. And no, this may not work either, but I think, having thought about little else for the last year, this has a better chance of working than staying with Joe Biden does.

I will add two more things. I am not surprised things like this never work out in real life, but I am sorry they could not have arranged for the President to step aside during Trump's acceptance speech last night and watch the networks cutaway. Don't make that face. This always works when you can do it. Eleven years ago, ESPN and I were talking about me going back there after fifteen years of pretty much NonStop nuclear war. They

liked the idea. We had a good plan for a show, but there was no compelling reason to actually do it. And then Fox announced it was launching two new all sports cable networks, and it vowed to take ESPN's business away from it. And that's when the plot was hatched. Fox scheduled and made a lot of noise about a launch party for its new networks, a launch party on July seventeenth, twenty thirteen, at their movie studio, a lot

on Pico Boulevard in La and they spent money. They flew in writers from local newspapers around the country, and on July seventeenth, we let them have about an hour or so of fun and booze and food. And then ESPN put out a press release announcing that after fifteen years of nuclear war, Keith Alberman is returning to ESPN. There is literally video of those writers streaming out of the party to go write stories not about Fox but about me and ESPN sports writers who left free food.

The trick works every time, and I'll add it could still work if President Biden were to use it today. And yes, the last note here, I am trying to make myself laugh, so I don't cry. As I alluded to earlier, this is as striking a moment to me as was the day I had to tell them to disconnect my father's life support. It was the right decision, even from his own unconscious body language as it happened, I think he knew it, and he too knew it

was the right decision. And thirteen years and four months later, I have had only one regret, only one. And maybe it's useful here, and maybe it's not. Maybe it's just about me. I don't know. You be the judge. But my one regret after all this time is this, I waited about two weeks too long, because for those two weeks I just couldn't do it. Also, the Republican Convention is over, the Festival of Whites is at an end. Asshole con twenty four is complete, and the headline you

did not hear. There is now even more evidence today that Trump is lying about having actually been hit by a bullet. The investigative unit at w Television in Pittsburgh reports that four police officers from that city assigned Trump's motorcade Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, were standing just feet from Trump when the shots rang out, and they too were wounded. The policemen were hit by quote either plastic or metal

fragments when the bullets struck objects nearby. The four officers suffered minor injuries from flying debris caused by the bullets, but Trump, standing next to them, and not next to any of the gunshot victims, he was hit by a bullet, not a piece of plastic or metal, even though Secret Service sources confirmed before Trump was out of the Pennsylvania hospital that he had not been shot with a bullet, but had suffered a minor ear injury due to being

hit by flying debris, probably glass, possibly from a teleprompter screen. Even though there has been no Secret Service report indicating Trump was shot, no police report indicating Trump was shot, no hospital reports that his injuries were consistent with those produced by a bullet, no investigation indicating that a bullet

hit him or anywhere near him. And of course Trump would never lie about something like this, and he and his handlers would never trot out the gear of the fireman, the bystander who was actually killed Saturday, as if the pieces of his equipment were religious relics. Certainly they wouldn't do that, and misspell the man's name. His name was misspelled. That Trump survived an assassination attempt is not in doubt

here that it was a close call. Is in doubt that it looks more and more like he exaggerated the gravity of his injuries and especially what caused them. And he seemingly has put some kind of restriction on anybody saying either yes he was shot or no, he wasn't shot. It was a piece of plastic like maybe he had

invoked Hippa regulations. That is essential to understanding this the latest in his endless series of cons and also the new religious overtones to Trump's hold on the unwashed and the unloved who have been so mercilessly exploited by Trump's new Republican fascist party, and the latest reason that idiots like Politico's Natalie Allison would publish a preview of Trump's acceptance speech just five hours before he gave it, in which she claimed quote, there appears to be a new

softness to Trump, with people who've talked to him describing him with words like existential, serene, emotional, and even spiritual. Hey you left out misspelled? Yeah? And which does this sound like? Is this the existential part, or the serene, or the emotional or the spiritual. Was this the pivot or maybe this was just the same goddamned selfish thing he posted literally hours after that deadly piece of plastic

just missed him and cut his ear. A Republican maga shot at me, So all criminal charges against me must be dropped. Because unity, we.

Two other notes. First, my seemingly weakly offer to get a conservative a free CT scan because just on a human level, I'm concerned about their brain. Goes out today to Marjorie Taylor Green, Neanderthal woman appeared on bright Bart News from asshole con and I swear the interviewer had one of those foreheads that juts forward like australopithecus, and she Neanderthal woman claimed Trump was saved from assassination by an angel flag. It seems like God's hand is on his shoulder.

flag didn't look a flipping thing like an angel. Google it Google Trump angel flag and you'll see what it looked like. I vowed to say to you the first thing it made me think of the moment I saw it, And the first thing it made me think of was a sickle as in Grim Reaper. The flag looked like that curved sharp blade the sickle at the top of the sickle, and there was even part of the handle too. And no, the flag didn't turn into a sickle either. So Marge, it's my offer, free cat scan. And lastly,

lou Dobbs died. He was once a respected business anchor on CNN, and then a not so respected business anchor on CNN, and then an original Berther and incredibly he was still host of his own CNN show until they

finally fired him in two thousand and nine. He went to Fox Business and got increasingly fascist and crazy, and naturally he connected with Trump, and by twenty twenty he was pushing the election bullshit, and especially the hallucination that January sixth was Antifa or George Soros or Soros Tifa or whatever, and that the election was rigged by socialist zombie extraterrestrials from the planet Skyron and the Galaxy of

Andromeda using Smartmatic machines. And when Smartmatic sued Fox for two billion, seven hundred million dollars, Lou Dobbs was one of only three Fox anchors actually named in the suit. Fox fired him on February fifth, twenty twenty one, and his show wound up streaming on Mike Lindell's Pillow website. I have previously mentioned my extraordinary personal connection to b Lou Dobbs. He was a CNN original based with the rest of CNN's old nightly business show in the New

York Bureau. I had interviewed with CNN Sports for a job twice in its first year on the air, when I was still in radio and they were interested, and I was interested. And then one Thursday I got a call asking if I could fill in for two weeks as the sports reporter in the New York Bureau, and I said sure, and they said Monday. Only after I had been there a few days did I ask what had happened to their regular sports reporter, a woman I

had met several times on stories named Debbie Sigura. I was told by our producer that Debbie Sigura and her boyfriend Lou Dobbs had suddenly gone on vacation. Then one of the cameramen, once the producer was out of the way, said the boyfriend right. He relayed that Dobbs had suddenly been found out by Missus Dobbs, and by Dobbs's mistress, and by the executive in the New York Bureau he was supposedly gallivanting around with as well. All at once they found out. So Lou had to get out of

town fast, but I mean really fast. Ultimately, Dobbs and Debbie moved to Atlanta and got married, and I got Debbie's job in New York. And when I left that job to go into local TV, CNN sent up an anchor they had in Atlanta to replace me as the New York sports reporter. His name was Dan Patrick. So Lou Dobbs inadvertently invented SportsCenter Lewis Carl Dobbs CNN original is dead and you know how old he was. He

was two hundred and six. Also of interest, here, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the same guy, one worst person two shows in a row. I think Dobbs did it. It has happened again. The guy went on CNN and announced, quote, a bullet couldn't stop Trump, A virus just stopped Biden. And the guy is an idiot. Those are your clues the malefactor's identity. Next, this is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman, my crazy friend, still ahead of us

on this editiative countdown. In the wake of the Republican Party, which started with Lincoln, all right, he was there. What third presidential nominee after John Fremont and somebody else started with Lincoln moved on to Teddy Roosevelt even offered this nation the useful boredom of Dwight E. Eisenhower. In the fifties, the Republican Party nominated a convicted felon and the plotter of an attempt to violently overthrow the government of the

United States, and a psychopath. In the wake of that, there is only one story for me to read to you. In our weekly visits with the Master, the greatest man in the world. On Fridays with Thurber, I had first still more idiots to talk about the daily roundup of the worst persons in the world. We cover the world here the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in

the world. Lebron's worse, says our Condey, chairman of NBC News. I've told you before about him, back when I concluded ten years of listening to MSNBC about going back there. Sometimes they started the conversation. Sometimes I started the conversation, says Our Condey. Had assistant asked me if I was available for breakfast on fairly short notice to talk about a new version of Countdown. I said, of course. She

selected a restaurant, I said, of course. Minutes later she emailed back to say, oh, sorry, he's going to be away in the rest of this week. We'll have to postpone. Little did I know that that was the pinnacle of Saesar Condey's NBC news career, Puck News, and I believe they changed that from the original name, which was something like puck Puck News reports that he not the head

of MSNBC, not even the president of NBC News. He Sayesar Conde was the idiot who decided that they should take their morning political gossip show off the air Monday, even though its entire two hundred and forty three member cast was already in the studios the day the Republican Convention began in Milwaukee. CNN reported that Condy decided this was the right call out of fear that somebody would

say something that would piss off the Trump Nazis. As I noted, this was exactly the MSNBC NBC reaction in two thousand and eight, when the Republicans leaned on Tom Brokaw and Brokaw blackmailed NBC management into removing me and Matthews from covering the rest of the convention and the debates that year. Puck News, however, which employs a media writer with a one hundred percent score from the Committee

to defend corporate news management, at all costs. He says, No, it wasn't censorship, it was condy thinking that quote, he would preempt all of MSNBC's perspective programming with the rolling news coverage from the NBC broadcast feed. In other words, no Scarborough, no Mado Hayes, O'Donnell, No what's your name at night? Know the other? What's your name at night? Know the on the weekend? What's their names? All of

them off the air. As Puck wrote, quote, Conday had been peaked, peaked at by Puck the idea of mobilizing his news platforms to cover a major news event, just as CNN might, only to be reminded that the network's real value proposition was the perspective itself. So wait this moron. Conde had started that morning at NBC. Oh no, he's been chairman of NBC News since May twenty twenty. He's been on the job for four freaking years and two months, and just Monday he realized that you can't just replace

the opinion programs on MSNBC with generic news coverage. And I hate Scarborough like I hate few people in life. He truly is the scum of the earth. But they replaced him and missus Joey Scars with Savannah Sellers and

Joe Fryar of NBC News Now. And I've never heard of Savannah Sellers and Joe Fryar, And in fact, if you asked me, I would have said they sounded like never seen offstage minor characters from the TV series The Morning Show, and the chairman of the News division somehow thought that Savannah Sellers and Joe Fryer would do better

in the ratings. For twenty eight years now, executives at NBC have never accepted the reality that they can't just use MSNBC or CNBC or any of the other channels they own for that matter, as a spillover channel for when there's really news and just fill it the rest of the time with you know, other crap. Just put on that Rachelle woman or whatever her name is, Meadows, Just put on that Meadows woman. This dynamic, let's establish a news based network with appointment viewing and its own

stars that makes money hand over fist. This has fought with this other cynical dream of we can put on all the stuff we can't fit into the Today Show and we can train people on a cable, and when they get good enough, we promote them to real NBC. This has gone on, off and on, waxing and waning since nineteen freaking ninety six. Generation after generation of producers and executives and broadcasters have lived and died as first one boss said make it its own network, and then

the next one said, no, America loves NBC News. MSNBC must be NBC News Junior, MNBC News Triple A, and then back to the first guy again. When we finally got MSNBC profitable two thousand and five or two thousand and six, instead of losing tens of millions of dollars a year for the entirety of its first decade, all of a sudden it started making hundreds of millions of dollars because I yelled at George Bush. Since the day I started doing special comments, MSNBC has earned its owners

ge and now Comcast, several billion dollars. But management's response became, well, that's nice. We liked the billions of dollars, but we wanted to make that money without any controversy and without us having to stay past five PM to deal with the controversy. And they're still doing it, or this guy Conde is just a fool or both. The solution, by the way, which I presented to them in a long memo in two thousand and three, which I'll read here

one day soon, is actually simple. Stop calling MSNBC, MSNBC caught anything else. Call it the American News Channel, caught, the Politics Channel, caught, ethel the Frog, anything, anything that doesn't have NBC in it, and you'll be fine. Silver worser Matt Gates, Florida congressman and botox enthusiast, after his speech to the Republican National Fascist Convention, in which he looked like something in the way of a living iPhone filter. I'm waiting for Gates to do a commercial in which

he says, aha uh sal kunfabo docs a side side cutta. Well, I'll be able to move my mouth again. But there's a larger issue here. The guy looked like he had left his face home and had gotten one drawn on for him. He looked like late stage Bruce Jenner CNNMSNBC, Fox, BBC News, ethel Lefrog News. Dozens of small outlets covered the convention wall to wall, and did anybody say, you know,

Gates looks like somebody just laminated him. I mean, the concept of covering political conventions had died in the nineteen nineties. Nobody watched them, nothing happened. The original idea was that's where they nominated the presidential candidates. That's why you were there to see who the presidential candidate would be. That

stopped years ago. Nothing happens now maybe this year. But they're cheap filler for cable news networks even if nothing happens, and they are easily understood by the morons who work for the cable news networks, but at least brings some actual reporting to them just thirty seconds out of every twenty four hours. Gates looks like he melted Trump last night was preceded by corrupt, racist wrestlers. You people at CNN and the others you over there at ethel the

Frog News. You will go to your graves having never actually contributed anything to people's understanding of the world around you. You will be satisfied, Dana Bash, during your last twenty breaths on this earth, that you managed to get in the entire promo copy before the stage manager finished counting down from ten. That's it. That's your legacy. That's your legacy,

Jake Tapper, that's your mark on this world. I mean, not even saying Matt Gates, unlike we've ever heard him before or seen Dana not even that, just once, maybe just once. Of course, saying something, especially on CNN, brings its own risks, as evidenced by the fact that we have a repeat winner consecutive days. The worst Van Jones I have mentioned before his extraordinary ability to be so impressed by fascists that he thinks you're supposed to praise them.

This is when Donald Trump became president, and particularly that you're supposed to forget all about the rest of what they've done in their lives, as malefactor is in society. Wednesday night, Van Jones, former Obama Special advisor for Green Jobs, went on CNN and mocked the illness of the President of the United States, who was the vice president of the United States when he Van Jones had a job with the government. Quote, a bullet couldn't stop Trump, A

virus just stopped Biden. You've got the nominees of this party getting their butts kissed. Biden's getting his butt kicked by his own party. The Democrats are coming apart, the Republicans are coming together, and then of course he injured himself, patting himself on the back. What was Van Jones's motive there? As often with political pundits at all ends of the left right spectrum, the desire to sound cool on TV

erases all other goals. If you can spontaneously produce parallel sentence structure, you keep going seemingly never realizing you're creating comparisons that are not valid and are not even replacement level intelligent. A bullet couldn't stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden. The virus stopped Biden because Biden chose to

isolate to protect other human beings. The bullet didn't stop Trump because A it may not have been a bullet that hit him, but certainly b He couldn't see the statistics on a screen next to him that was the size of a railroad box car, so he had to turn his head. Utter luck, no skill, no quality, no

action to protect others. One day, I'd like to hear somebody, maybe somebody like Van Jones or whoever replaces him, ask why Trump hid below the podium, emerged unscathed, maybe grazed by a bullet, maybe grazed by a bottle cap, and the only thing he did was to scream and rage rather than urge the crowd to get down, Get down, just for one second in his whole life, to think about somebody else. Nobody asked why he didn't do that. Well, we know why he didn't do that. He's not actually

a human being. He didn't care if you get shot one day. I'd like to hear somebody, maybe somebody like Van Jones or whoever replaces him, ask if now, after the assassination attempt, if now is finally the time we can talk about gun laws, given that the fascist candidate for president almost had his effing head blown off by another gun nut from his own political gun nut party. But no, Van Jones couldn't do any of that because he saw staring him in the face. Parallel sentence construction.

A bullet couldn't stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden. I'm some great, Oh, I hurt my shoulder patting myself on the back. Common decency couldn't stop Biden. Common sense just stopped Van Jones. You see how this works, Van CNN. You must fire him the nation and you're remaining eight hundred and thirty seven viewers will accept no less Jones for the second consecutive day, two days. Worse person and

the world I've thought. I've seen this story playing out in real time in this country almost every day for about seven years. Sit back and relax, if relax is the right word for it. For the Greatest Man in the World by James Thurber. 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 will. 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 Breasthabn 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, the 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 Petuti 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 ser Lee 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 tourist's 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 escaped 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, 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. 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 with a 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 referred to missus Emma's smirch's wish that her son might be drowned. It was, however, too late for that Spurch 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, j 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 warren 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 tomacco, 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 the cock eyed world that I put it over on Lindberg.

See yeah, man, an assaid, I'm two frogs. The two frogs was a reference to a pair of gallant French flyers, who, in attempting to flight only halfway round 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. A 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 disciplined 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' 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 Belusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh of July, Smirch 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 Fannerman 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. I get you, I get you, he cut in nastily. You want me to act like a softie. Huh? You want me to act like that bemny memty 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, he asked, and began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed in a strained way. Jesuits 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. When do I start cutting in on the podies? Huh? 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 newsboys floated up to him. He made out his name, hot Dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He

leaned out over the sill. You tell um 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 fallen 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 to 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 track, 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 carved 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 give an 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 sough 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. Can't imagine who that story could have been about. Never ceases to amaze me. Nineteen thirty one. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip, Shaneil arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass, and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. It

was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olberman 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. The Thurber was by Thurber. My announcer today is my crazy friend Tony Kornheiser, and

everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this, the one and tenth day until the twenty twenty fourth presidential election and the two and eighty ninth day since convicted felon Crazy J. Trump's first attempt at coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used presidential immunity to stop him

from doing it again. While we still can, while you still can, mister President and Republicans please stop shooting at Trump. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as the news requires. Why do I think there's going to be a bulletin till then? I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production

of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.