TRUMP BLOWS UP THE EPSTEIN SCANDAL LIKE A BEACHED WHALE IN OREGON - 12.22.25

So the geniuses in Oregon in nineteen seventy figured some of it will wash away and the smaller parts will be eaten by scavenger animals. Only they had a highway engineer plan it out, and he used half a ton of dynamite instead of the twenty sticks that would have done the job. And the next thing you knew, the whale had become a thousand pieces of rock hard shrapnel. That's what Trump just did to the Epstein cover up.

A piece of blubber, and whale blubber is hard. A piece of blubber the size of a coffee table hit a parked car and crushed it, and the driver later swore he had just bought that car from a lot that was then running a promotion called get a Whale of a Deal. That's what Trump just did to the Epstein cover up. I also want to know today why Trump renamed the Kennedy Center the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. But let me plow through the trump Stein disaster first.

It starts with Image four sixty eight. Image four to sixty eight, from the Epstein files, from which virtually all the Trump stuff had already been scrubbed, was not scrubbed. It was a photo of a bunch of framed photos in a drawer, all of which showed Trump and Epstein together. So, twenty four hours later, Image four to sixty eight, which

hadn't been scrubbed, was instead deleted. And even in doing that, after they posted it and scrubbed it and deleted it, they left Image one three hundred and forty six, a larger shot of framed Epstein photos on a credenza, a couple dozen of them. And sure enough, zoom in on that, as the impeccable Lauren Windsor did, and there is a framed photo of Epstein and Trump and Malania. The three of them doesn't look like anybody's being introduced to anybody else.

At least sixteen pages that were released on Friday had disappeared by yesterday. Some of the ones they did release had one hundred percent redactions five hundred and fifty of them five fifty pages fully redacted, just the black boxes, per Scott McFarlane and CBS News, and they are still counting.

One Epstein victim says she was doxed that Trump released her identifying information and just to apply the chef's kiss, Todd Blanche, who believe it or not, is the Deputy Attorney General, gets on one of the Sunday shows and presents a self fulfilling prophecy or in this case, a self unfulfilling prophecy. Quote. If there's photographs that we have of President Trump or anybody else, they of course will be released, with the exception of any victims or survivors

that we've identified unquote. In other words, any photos proving Trump was with verified Epstein victims or survivors, they will not be released because because because they would show Trump was with verified Epstein victims or survivors, we can't show you THEO that would prove it. Hey did just stuff the dynamite into the dead whale. Yet Cole let her rip, the penultimate flaw of this administration, has now once again moved center stage, even ahead of his own instability. That

second ranked fatal flaw is these people are idiots. Dan Bongino didn't say this as he quit as deputy FBI director, but the suspicion is Cash Patel is too much of an idiot, even for Dan Bongino. I mean, that's a lot of idiot. And apart from Patel screwing up every investigation he's put his eye on, so to speak, the key Trumpest exposure on the brain drain issue is the Epstein files. First was Pam Bondi's empty Epstein loose leaf notebooks bought at a Staples in Georgetown or somewhere for

all we know. Then it was her claim that there was a client list on her desk. Then it was Trump going from running on releasing the Epstein files to Trump calling the Epstein files a hoax, to Trump signing the humiliating House measure to force him to release the Epstein files. Then it was Susie Wiles saying Bondie quote

completely whiffed on the Epstein files. Then it was not releasing documents that must by law be released, and it said releasing only some of them, then unreleasing others, and therefore blowing up the metaphorical whale while simply spreading the metaphorical whale over a square mile area, and by the way, still not complying with the law Trump signs, so people at the DOJ could technically go to jail now or

more likely later. Twenty twenty nine comes to mind. If you'd like to make sure the Epstein story stays alive, you'd do any one of those things I just mentioned. If you'd like to make sure America is convinced Trump is again convicted of complicity with Epstein, I mean a second time after the release of the Trump signed drawing of the nude, do all of those things I just mentioned.

And if you'd like to escalate the Epstein scandal to indelibly market as the Trumpstein scandal, do what these idiots did and plant things in the files and release the planted things, and do it so clumsily and moronically that it gets community noted on Twitter. X Abigail Marone Jackson a deputy Press secretary. And remember if you're a deputy press secretary. When Caroline Levitt is the press secretary, you

are necessarily dumber even than Caroline Levitt is. Abigail Morone Jackson wrote that per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and or miners. Here is a picture of Bill Clinton with his arm around Michael Jackson and redacted individuals might

as well have had a picture of Abraham Lincoln. The picture of Clinton is of course available by googling his name and Michael Jackson and the redacted individuals in that picture are Michael Jackson's two sons and Evan Ross, the son of Diana Ross. And also Diana Ross is also in the picture. And apparently Abigail Moron Jackson doesn't know who she is. She's too inbubbled to know who Diana Ross is. And the picture is from a Democratic fundraiser from two thousand and three, and it don't have a

damn thing to do with the Epstein Files. But Abigail Jackson decided to try to deceive the American public into believing it has something to do with them. In other words, they blew up the whale, and then they went back and assembled the pieces again and blew it up a second time. And that gives anybody an excuse to look at anything in the Epstein files and just assume that if it puts the finger on somebody else, Trump put it there. Nice work, Abigail Moron Jackson. This is Abigail's

second job in life. The first one was as a press aid to Josh Hawley, the January sixth running Man. There are, in fact, at last check, at least eight Twitter ex community notes on posts by Jackson, by the deplorable Todd Blanche, by Pam Bondi herself Blondie, who simply cannot be long for her job. She just can't. New Year's Day would be a surprise if she's still in that job. Wasn't even posting about Trumpstein, and she still

got community noted about trump Stein. She wrote about Trump setting all time great transparency standards for a presidency, and nobody is buying it community note quote contrary to the claim, Instead of transparency, the administration runs defense for pedophiles and rapists. And then there are links to four tweets, including two by Congressman Tom Massey. Keep up the good work, Madam

Attorney Generic Trump. Not just covering up the Epstein files and breaking the law by not fulfilling the law passed by his own party. Not just doing that, but now faking things and putting them in the Epstein files and not even doing it very well, and faking something about Bill Clinton. The day Bill Clinton left the White House, the average American of today was fifteen years old. You might as well have faked something about Epstein and the

y two K computer crisis, Abigail. This underscores why Trumpstein, no matter what happens next, will be self perpetuating in a way nobody dreamed of last Thursday. This is the true danger of conspiracy theories, as no one will find out more than Donald Trump will find out in the days and weeks to come. Twenty percent of Americans do not believe the reality of what happened on nine to eleven. The Kennedy assassination only became more desirable as conspiracy fodder

after the Warren Commission reports. Jill McCay's eighteen forty one book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds has been surpassed since its publication in explaining mass stupidity, but it is still always a wonderful reminder that while it has now been weaponized by everybody from the Nazis to Trump,

people have always been this gullible. It is hard to get away from conspiracy theories except by massive and even shocking straightforwardness and transparency, and that is impossible if a government consists of conspiracy theorists and stupid conspiracy theorists like har Meat Dylan. If you don't know her, she is actually an assistant Attorney General. Her previous job was Tulsey Gabbard's lawyer. She deliberately or otherwise turned the Brown University

shooting into another fake conspiracy. Somebody tweeted that after the shooting, Brown was removing articles from its website about one of its students. She retweeted it with the musk like addition. Concerning Anna, Paulina Luna, the member of the House from Dipshit County, Florida, wrote she found it suspicious that things were altered on the Brown website. Luna also probably finds

it suspicious that the amount of daylight changes every day. Well, Dylan retweeted her too, adding just sus turned out the deletions had nothing to do with the shooting, and the student had nothing to do with the shooting. As I recorded this, Dylan had not even deleted her misinformation sus

this clown. One can argue that it is part of the trumpest playbook, that it is part of the authoritarian playbook, that the less people who believe in official accounts about anything, the more they will turn to one seemingly authoritative source. And unfortunately, for many of these idiots, that's still Trump. I confess. I think that's giving them too much credit.

It's like reading Senator Mike Lee, who is so deep down his let's see what's the amount one million Internet rabbit hole now that he would need to detox to find his way back to reality, and thinking that Mike Lee's borderline paranoia is some kind of re election strategy. It's not. He's just a moron. These people are all just morons. They blew up the Epstein whale. They have not processed that. Conspiracy theories are like giant fire hoses.

They're effective and decisive unless you lose control of yours and you drop it and the next thing you know, the water has drowned you, or the blubber has the

Trump Stein story would have forgive me exploded. If everything had come out Friday, just like a dead whale would eventually explode due to natural biological forces, then there would have been a significant, if probably inaccurate, sense that almost the whole thing was out in the open now, and however bad it might have been, there would have been a virtual end to it. But everything didn't come out Friday.

All that did was just give you a reason to reread the nauseating New York Times story about Epstein giving Trump a twenty year old woman of Trump denying, denying, and denying, and nobody ever bothering to reread the Epstein evidence while playing Trump's words from the Access Hollywood tape and remembering that when Trump said that, it was after most of his sleaziness with Epstein had already occurred, so it didn't come out. Instead, you maniacs, you blew it up.

Damn you, damn you Hotell. And now the blubber will just sit there everywhere. It will just sit there, symbolically, a whole, huge chunk of at the size of a coffee table in the crushed car next to Trump, forever, next to Trump as he dozes off for boasts about acing the cognitive test and being able to tell which one was the giraffe. Let's take another look at those trump Steen photos. Is the draft in there too? How about the dead blowed up whale, loaded up bloaded up,

real good, loaded up, real good. Okay, So why did Trump name it the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. This is not the biggest problem with renaming the Kennedy Center illegally after himself, But didn't anybody else notice this? He changed the name of the Kennedy Center before anybody could file a suit to stop him, and he put up a new sign on it, reading the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. I mean, could we be Is it possible that we're

missing the real lead story here? The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts means well, it does include the idea that it's the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. The word memorial applies to everybody in the new name, It's Trump Memorial. Did I miss a bulletin or something? He's not dead yet, right, I mean officially, officially, not in terms of brain health or his own soul. The Donald J. Trump and the

John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. You read that, and it doesn't mean that only Kennedy is memorialized here. It's it's that's the construction you use when you are memorializing two people in the title of a building or a book or anything else. Then don't tell me, Well, if you're going to slap your name on the Kennedy Center, that's the only way to do it. No, you take out the word memorial and you make it the Donald J.

Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. See, or if you're Trump and you really think there is something too disrespectful even for you to do, and you have to keep the word memorial in there for Kennedy's sake, you take a page from sports stadiums and you make it the Donald J. Trump Auditorium at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. That way, it's Kennedy memorial and Trump not memorial. Obviously, the whole thing

is sacrilege. But there's sacrilege and then there's stupid sacrilege. And what a surprise, Trump chose the stupid sacrilege. This needs to be undone now by court act later just with pick axes, maybe on pay per view, or people buy a two dollars lottery ticket and the winners get to wield the pick axes. You'd raise eleven hundred and

seventy four trillion dollars. But it's just so unsettling that anybody, even a guy as flat out crazy as Trump, would slap his name on an American cultural institution and make it read like it is now the Trump Memorial Center. Sir Memorial means dead sir. On the other hand, if this sticks, Trump will have the last laugh, because of course, sooner or later it will be it will be Trump Memorial. So with trump Stein, kaboom and here comes the blubber.

I'm not sure why Trump probably got scared out of announcing an attack on Venezuela last Wednesday. Do not get me wrong, I would be happy to see Maduro go, no matter the how, just like I'd like to see Putin go, no matter the how. These aren't socialist countries or democracies or whatever form of government Russia has convinced it's captive citizens they are in. These are dictatorships. But once again, if Trump has the right to try to

force regime change in some place like Venezuela. Bunduro necessarily also has the right to try to force regime change in some place like oh here. Plus, Trump's relationship to Venezuela is he wants it to be his. Iraq, Bush managed to sell just enough Americans on the idea that the Iraqis had something to do with nine to eleven. And even if it wasn't much, sure, they didn't really us hanging him and destroying his country would be a

lesson to somebody. In point of fact, it just amped up the terrorist threat, and that secured Bush his narrow reelection in two thousand and four. That obviously is why they have invented this nonsensical term narco terrorism. Might as well name it after Rubio and call it Marco terrorism.

That makes just as little sense. The point is to repeat again and again and again and get the casual American to forge a connection between Venezuela and terrorism, and then use that to in a way repeat Bush's success. And yes, sorry, it pains me more than anybody else I think in media. Yes, Bush was successful in Iraq. Not for America, not for the world, certainly not for Iraq.

Just for Bush. Where does that leave Venezuela. We'll find out after somebody has to tell Trump that the planted photo of Clinton did nothing and the deleting of photos of him was well, somebody has to go go in now and tell Trump about the exploding whale. Couple of headlines. No, it's Trump's economy, you gov. Polling for CBS concluded Friday, released yesterday. What's more responsible for the state of the US economy today? Trump's policies forty seven percent, Biden's twenty

two percent, both equally twenty two percent. You put the key numbers together there, and sixty nine percent of the people think it's at least mostly or partly Trump's economy. Note to former UN ambassador, former New York state candidate for governor soon to be former Representative Elise Stefanic betrayed and abandoned by Trump because ettd the note is from the devil and it consists of two words, no refunds. Gavin Newsom brought it up again. Why do we pay

federal taxes? Tweeted his press office in one of those Kitchie Trump all caps satire posts, and then the governor reposted it seriously again quote. If Trump cannot provide the bare minimum to Californians, perhaps it is time California with holds resources from the Feds. I'm telling you this is the way out. It'll be messy. It is virtually a declaration of war. It destabilizes the country. I mean it destabilizes the country almost as fast as Trump is destabilizing it.

And lastly, Peter Arnett has died. Peter Arnett was not the first reporter to tell the truth about Vietnam, but he was the one who paved the way for all the others too, including the ones on TV, because he was reporting for the Associated Press when the Associated Press had a world duopoly on news services. He won the

Pulitzer Prize in nineteen sixty six from Vietnam. He worked so long and took such personal chances that he was in Vietnam as early as nineteen sixty two and as late as the day we withdrew in the chaos of nineteen seventy five. And he was covering the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in nineteen seventy nine, And he covered the Gulf War from Iraq for CNN, and he covered the Bush War in Iraq in two thousand and three for NBC.

But what made Peter Arnett a great reporter among great reporters is that in between when he was based at the CNN bureau in New York in CNN year one and year two, and that day they didn't need him at the un or he wasn't packing to go overseas, and instead they needed somebody to go interview commuters during a snowstorm, or to get a SoundBite about the latest I don't know, exploding whale. Peter Arnett was the first

to volunteer. He liked reporting, or when the rookie sports reporter needed some advice on how to put together his rookie sports story, Peter Arnett not only gave it, he sat through nearly the entire editing session of the sports

piece in question. When I was next on the same channel as him twenty one years later, he was live from Iraq and before we went on in the commercial break, he said over the satellite, Hey, in that New Zealand accent of his nice career, and I got to say, well, I had a lot of help from the real pros when I was just getting started. Peter Arnett was ninety one years old Thank you, Peter. Also of interest here, I'll mention this again later for your planning purposes. No

podcast Thursday. It's a holiday. The holiday season, of course, does not stop the worst. Of course, memet Oz wants you to know that the price of penises is a going up. And in an unexpectedly possibly related topic, Lindsey Halligan misspelled Virginia. So it looks like maybe she wasn't trying to spell virginia. Maybe she was trying to spell That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown. Hey it's Christmas.

I haven't done any Thurber in a long time. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but the news Hole, as it is colloquially known locally known Broklaw, it's kind of small this week. So let's give you a little something to do if you want to laugh at and with everybody else. His most famous story, the story which began my relationship with the Thurber family and the Literary Trust, and my favorite Thurber story, A holiday three for ahead

from James Thurber. But first, believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about the roundup of the misgrants, morons, undunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. Lebron's worst doctor Oz, you heard him while millions of Americans are about to fall off the economic cliff because he's part of the dictatorship determined to cut healthcare to save money for billionaires.

He gave an address on how inflation is hitting transgender care quote the creation of a penis unquote all right. Pro tip if you are ever giving a speech and you see that phrase on the page in front of you, simply throw the script in the air, make some sort of diversion and run from the podium. In fact, run from the room as fast as you can. Memo and Oz chose not to do this. He continued, the creation of a penis costs on average in America one hundred

and fifty thousand dollars per child. Then he added a scrotleplasty where you add testicles. That's extra. Wait, you can add testicles? Has anybody told Mike Johnson The silver worser Riley Gaines, America's also ran Sweetheart. Her podcast will migrate from the Deplorable OutKick to the Home of the Devil Fox, and interestingly, it has already reached the podcast charts, where it's finished oh in eighty fifth place. Sources say in the first episode, Gains will confess she never really learned

how to swim. But the winner the Worst Lindsey Halligan, Miss Uncongeniality and third runner up from the Colorado Miss USA pageant many many many years ago, and now the unqualified attorney Trump keeps trying to install as the US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, even though she didn't know any of the rules, like you have to show the grand jury whatever it is you claim they voted on, and get approved by somebody for your office

before you start indicting people as political vengeance for the guy who used to own the Miss USA pageant. El Trumpolini, she didn't know stuff like that, while she's done it again, only this one is way simpler and way funnier than the Star Chamber indictments in her name. She keeps having trouble with details, details, and trouble like Lionel Hutts from The Simpsons level trouble noted by someone I think on

Blue Sky. Her self identification on one of the legal documents she filed reads Lindsay Halligan, United States Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia, Florida, bar number one on the nine four three of the tamis and amnue Alexandria Virginia two two three fo Wait, Wait what United States Attorney Eastern District of v I r gi na Virgina Virgina. She misspelled Virginia v i r g i na Virgina. Well, we're assuming she was trying to spell Virginia.

sportscasting thing. You should read Thurber for a living, and I said, yeah, that'll ever happen. This is, for some reason salvation for me, Catharsis, and every other emotion that is appropriate after it has been a long week. A Box to Hide in by James Thurber. I waited till the large woman with the awful hat took up her sack of groceries and went out, peering at the tomatoes and the lettuce on her way. The clerk asked me what mine was. Have you got a box, I asked,

A large box. I want a box to hide in. You want a box, he asked, I want a box to hide in. I said, what do you mean? He said, you mean a big box? I said, I meant a big box big enough to hold me. I haven't got any boxes, he said, only cottons that cans come in. I tried several other groceries and none of them had a box big enough for me to hide in. And there was nothing for it but to face life out. I didn't feel strong, and I'd had this overpowering desire

to hide in a box for a long time. Well, what do you mean you want to hide in this box? One grocer asked me. It's a form of escape, I told him, hiding in a box, it circumscribes your worries in the range of your anguish. You don't see people either. The hell you eat when you're in this box, asked the grocer, I don't know. Hell do you get anything to eat? I said, I had never been in a box and didn't know, but that that would take care of itself. Well, he said, finally, I haven't got any boxes,

only some pasteboard curtains that cans come in. It was the same every place. I gave up when it got dark and the groceries closed, and hid in my room again. I turned out the light and lay on the bed. You feel better when it gets dark. I could have hit in a closet, I suppose, but people are always opening doors. Somebody would find you in a closet. They would be startled, and you'd have to tell them why you're in the closet. Nobody pays attention to a big

box lying on the floor. You could stay in it for days and nobody'd think to look in it, not even the cleaning woman. My cleaning woman came the next morning and woke me up, and I was still feeling bad. I asked her if she knew where I could get a large box. How big a box you want, she asked, I want a box big enough for me to get inside of, I said. She looked at me with big, dim eyes. There's something wrong with her glands. She's awful, but she has a big heart, which makes it worse.

She's unbearable. Her husband is sick, and her children are sick, and she is sick too. I got to thinking how pleasant it would be if I were in a box now and didn't have to see her. I'd be in a box right there in the room, and she wouldn't know. I wondered, if you had a desire to bark or laugh when someone who doesn't know walks by the box you were in, maybe she would have a spell with her heart. If I did that would die right there.

The officers and the elevator man and mister Graham would find us funny, dog Gune, thing happened at the building last night. The doorman would say to his wife, I led in this woman to clean up tenf and she never come out. See she's never in there more in an hour, but she never come out. See. So when it got time for me to go off duty. Wissays to Credit, who was on the elevator. I says, what the hell you suppose happened to that woman cleans tenf? He says he didn't know. He says he never seen

her after he took her up. So I spoke to mister Drammage about it. I'm sorry to bother you, mister Grammage, I says, but there's something funny about that woman cleans ten f. So I told him so he said we better have a look, and we all three goes up and knots on the door and rings the bells sea and nobody answers. So he said we'd have to walk in.

So Credit opened the door and we walked in, and here was this woman cleans the apartment, dead as a herring on the floor, and the gentleman that lives there was in a box. The cleaning woman kept looking at me. It was hard to realize she wasn't dead. It's a form of escape, I murmured, wat say. She asked, Dully, you don't know of any large packing boxes, do you? I asked, now, I don't. She said, I haven't found one yet, But I still have this overpowering urge to

hide in a box. Maybe it will go away, Maybe I'll be all right, Maybe it will get worse. It's hard to say. A box to hide in by James Thurber. James Thurber's best known work, best loved work, and maybe just best work has been made into two different films, neither of which is really satisfactory, but which gives you just a glimpse of what your imagination is doing as you hear or read his words. It is a universal. It is the story of everybody who's ever lived, who

has ever daydreamed. It is the secret life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. We're going through. The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane. If you ask me, I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg said the commander. Throw on the power lights, rever up to eighty five hundred. We're going through.

The pounding of the cylinders increased to pocket to pocket, to pocket, to pocket to pocket. The commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. Sweat youah, number eight auxiliary, He shouted, switch on Mber eight auxiliary repeated. Lieutenant Berg full strength and number three turret shouted the commander full strength and number three turret. The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight engined

Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. The old man will get us through, they said to one another. The old man ain't afraid of hell, not the fast. You're driving too fast, said missus Middy. What are you driving so fast for? Hmmm, said Walter Middy. He looked at his wife in the seat beside him with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. You're up to fifty five, she said. You know I don't like to go more

than forty. You're up to fifty five. Walter Middy drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the s N two two through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying, fading in the remote intimate airways of his mind. Your ten step again, said missus midty. It's one of your days. I wish you'd let doctor Renshaw look you over. Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her

hair done. Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having the hair done, she said, I don't need overshoes, said Mitty. She put her mirror back into her bag. We've been all through that, she said, getting out of the car. You're not a young man any longer. He raced the engine a little. Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves? Walter Mitty reached in a pocket

and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven onto a red light, he took them off again. Pick it up, brother snapped the cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot. It's the millionaire banker Wellington McMillan, said, the pretty nurse, Yes, said Walter Mitty,

removing his gloves slowly. Who has the case? Doctor Renshawn, Doctor Renbow. But there are two specialists here, doctor Remington from New York and mister Prichard Mitford from London. He flew over the door, opened down a long cool carter, and doctor Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. Hello Mitty, he said, we're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt obstriosis of the ductal tract tertiary. Wish you'd take

a look at him. Glad to said Mitty. In the operating room, there were whispered introductions Doctor Remington, doctor Mitty, mister Richard Mitford, doctor Mitty. And I've read you bok Gunscript of thracosis, said Richard Mitford, shaking hands. A brilliant performance, sir, thank you, said Walter Mitty. Didn't know you're in the State's midty, grumbled Remington. Coles to Newcastle, bringing Midford to me up here for a tertiary. You are very kind,

said Mittie. A huge complicated machine connected to the operating table with many tubes and wires began at this moment to go pocket, pocketa pocketa. The new anesthetizer is giving way, shouted an in turn. There is no one in the east who knows how to fix it. Quiet man, said Mitty in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocket to pocket to creep, pocket to pocket to creep. He began fingering delicately a roll of glistening dials. Give me a fountain pen, he snapped.

Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. That will hold for ten minutes, he said, Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. Coreopsis has set him, said Renshaw nervously. If you would take over, Middy. Mitty looked at him, and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave uncertain faces of the two great specialists. If you wish,

he said. They slipped a white gown on him. He adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves. Nurses handed him shiny back it up. Mac look out for that buick Walter. Mitty jammed on the brakes. Wrong lane, mack, said the parking lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. Gee yeah, muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked exit. Only leave us sit there, said the attendant. I'll put her away. Mitty got out of the car. Hey better leave the key, oh, said Mitty, handing the

man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged. They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street. They think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off outside New Milford, and he got them wound around the axles. The man had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garage man. Since then, missus Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains

taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling. They won't grin at me. Then I have my right arm in a sling, and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. Overshoes he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store. When he came out into the street again with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had

told him to get. She had told him twice before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way, he hated these weekly trips to town. He was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thoughts, quibbs, razor blades, now, toothpaste, toothbrush by carbon at carborundum initiative referendum. He gave it up, but she would remember it. Where's the what's its name? She would ask? Don't tell me you forgot the what's its name? The newsboy went by, shouting something about the

Waterbury trial. Perhaps this will refresh your memory. The district attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. Have you ever seen this before? Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. This is my Webley Vicar's fifty point eight, oh, he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge rapped for order. You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe, said the district attorney, insinuatingly, objection,

shouted Mitty's attorney. We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling. On the night of the fourteenth of July. Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly, and the bickering attorneys were stilled with any known make of gun. He said evenly, I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand. Pandemonium

broke out in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlom, and suddenly a lovely, dark haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The district attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair. Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. You miserable, cur puppy biscuit, said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking, and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed.

He said, puppy biscuit. She said to her companion that man said, puppy biscuit to himself. Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an a and p not the first one he came to, but a smaller one farther up the street. I want some biscuit for small young dogs, he said to the clerk. Any special brand, Sir, the greatest pistol shot in the world, thought a moment. It says puppies bark for it on the box, said Walter Mitty. His wife would be through at the hairdressers in fifteen minutes.

Mitty saw in looking at his watch. Unless they had trouble drying it. Sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first. She would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor. Beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair.

Can Germany conquer the world through the air? Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets. The Cannonaden has got the wind up in young Rawleigh, Sir, said, the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked at him through touzled hair. Get him to bed, he said, wearily. With the others, I'll fly alone. But you can't, sir, said the sergeant anxiously. It takes two men to handle that bomber, and the Archies are pounding l out of the air. Von Rickman's

circus is between here and Solier. Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump, said Mitty. I'm going over spot of brandy. He poured a drink for the sergeant and won for himself. Wore, thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. Bit of a near thing, said Captain Mitty carelessly. The box barrage is closing in, said the sergeant. We only live once, sergeant, said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile.

Or do we? He poured another brandy and tossed it off. Never seen a man could hold his brandy. Lock you, sir, said the sergeant, begging you pardon, sir. Captain Mitty stood up and scrapped on his huge Webbley vicars automatic. It's forty kilometers through el, Sir, said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy after all, he said, softly, What isn't

The pounding of the cannon increased. There was the rat tat tatting of the machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing Pucket to Pucket, to Pucket to Pucketer of the new flame throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout, humming out Prey de ma blonde. He turned and waved to the sergeant cheerio. He said. Something struck his shoulder. I've been looking all over this hotel for you, said missus Mitty. Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me

to find you? Things? Close in? Said Walter Mitty, vaguely what Missus Mitty said? Did you get the wats it's name the poppy biscuit? What's in that box overshoes? Said Mitty? Couldn't you put them on on the star? I was thinking, said Walter Mitty. Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking? She looked at him. I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home, she said. They went out through the revolving doors that made a

faintly derisive whistling sound when you push them. It was two blocks to the parking lot at the drug store on the corner. She said, wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute. She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drug store smoking. He put his shoulders back and his heels together. Hell with the handkerchief, said Walter Mitty, scornfully. He took one last drag on

his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad, erect and motionless, proud and disdainful. Walter Mitty, the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, The peace Like Mongoose is the starting point of my relationship with James Thurber's daughter Rosemary, and

his granddaughter and his publishers. It was my dad, fatally sick in the hospital, to whom I would read Thurber every night, who suggested I should read Thurber on the TV news show. I thought he was crazy. I told him if I did that, I'd probably hear from his literary trust. But I did it anyway, and so I read the Peace like Mongoose, and I heard from his literary trust, because at the moment I read this story, Rosie Thurber was on the horns of the proverbial dilemma.

A British publisher wanted to put the piece like Mongoose in an anthology for school kids. It is placements like that which keep an author alive. But that publisher wanted to remove one word from the story, and Rosie was now torn edit her father's work or don't publish her father's work. Unbeknownst to me, she and her daughter Sarah were both Countdown viewers and were watching as I read

the piece like Mongoose. Sarah and then called her mother and said, I think you've got your answer right there. Not long after, the British publisher, probably a coincidence, changed its mind about excising the word amen. The word, by the way, is mongoose sexual, which is a perfect creation of the perfect James Thurber. And the complaint from NBC was about the moral to the story, which I will not read first and without any other pointless ado. The

Piece Like Mongoose by James Thurber. In Cobra Country, a mongoose was born one day who didn't want to fight cobras or anything else. The word spread from mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want to fight cobras. He didn't want to fight anything else. It was his own business. But it was the duty of

every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras. Why, asked the peace like mongoose, And the word went around that the strange new mongoose was not only pro cobra and anti mongoose, but intellectually curious and against the ideals and traditions of mongoosi Ism. He's crazy, cried the young mongoose's father. He's sick, said his mother. He's a coward, shouted his brothers. He is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters.

Strangers who had never laid eyes on the Piece like Mongoose remembered that they had seen him crawling on his stomach, or trying on cobra hoods, or plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia. I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said the strange new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason, said one of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses,

said another. Finally, the rumors spread that the mongoose had venom in his sting like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of pause, and condemned to banishment. Moral ashes to ashes, and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't get you your own folks, may a box to hide in. My favorite Walter Mitty, his most famous and that one that connected me to the eternal Thurber Tree, the piece like mongoos. Okay, I've done all the damage

I can do here, Thank you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, our musical directors of Countdown, and was produced by Tko Brothers, mister Ray on guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shaneil handling the orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments by the best baseball

stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Is the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Today was my friend Larry David. The program was produced by Ted and everything else was as always my fault. That's countdown for today. Day three hundred and thirty seven of America held hostage again, but just one twenty six days until the scheduled end of

his lame duck and lame brained term. Unless he is removed sooner by MAGA, or by Jeffrey Epstein, or by affordability, or by Susie Wiles. There is no countdown Thursday, you know, Merry Christmas. Bluntly, I'm still undecided about next week. Maybe I'll do one from Monday, maybe not. I will advise on social media and via the conduit that is provided with your subscription if you have one. In any event, Happy holidays, and until the next one, I'm Keith Olberman.

Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, 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.