'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
podcast missing

Replacement video via MSNBC:
Details emerge on would-be terrorist
Specter of terror inspires bilious Cheney
Cashing in on terrorism

Guests: Even Kohlmann, Richard Wolffe, Eugene Robinson

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID SHUSTER, GUEST HOST (voice-over): Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?

Dick Cheney emerges from his undisclosed location to accuse President Obama of trying to pretend we are not at war with terrorists.

Dick also accuses the president of making the country less safe in response to the recent attempted attack on a civilian jetliner.

But how has this administration's actions been any different than what the Bush administration did after "shoe bomber" Richard Reid tried to blow up an airliner in 2001? Hypocritical much?

Speaking of which, there are Republicans now trying to cash in, literally, on terrorism.

All that plus Keith Olbermann brings you our "Favorite People of 2009"

Carrie Prejean, that means you - now on Countdown.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHUSTER: Good evening from Washington, everybody. I'm David Shuster in tonight for Keith Olbermann.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney today criticized President Obama to his response to the Christmas Day bombing attempt, an act allegedly carried out by a radical Muslim who was twice allowed to fly into the United States by the Bush/Cheney administration, was flying into Detroit on a visa granted by the Bush/Cheney administration, was carrying a bomb obtained from al Qaeda in a country neglected by the Bush/Cheney administration, was under orders from al Qaeda leaders who were set free by the Bush/Cheney administration so they could become better people through art therapy and the dialogue.

Our number five story on the Countdown: Why President Obama's record on terrorism is 9/11 times better than Bush/Cheney's.

But first, the investigation. "Politico" today reports President Obama has asked to have the results of a preliminarily review by tomorrow, and that early findings confirm that if U.S. intelligence had connected the dots about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, he would have been screened more thoroughly before being allowed to board his flight to Detroit without checking any bags.

His father informed the CIA in Nigeria, on November the 17th, that his son had disappeared and he feared he had been radicalized. The CIA passed information to other agencies, but did not raise appropriate flags with the FBI, "Politico" reports.

The fact that two leaders of the al Qaeda offshoot taking credit for the bombing attempt were U.S. detainees at Guantanamo Bay has figured into the fuselage from the right, arguing that Abdulmutallab should go to Gitmo, too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM RIDGE, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I take a look at this individual who's been charged, criminally, does that mean he's going to get his Miranda warnings? Does that mean the only kind of information we're going to get from him is if he volunteers it? He's not a citizen of this country. He is a terrorist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHUSTER: We should note that the Bush/Cheney administration sent shoe bomber Richard Reid to prison in Colorado.

But in a statement last night, Cheney jumped on the bandwagon. "President Obama seems to think if he has a low-key response in an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won't be at war. He seems to think if we closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe."

Let's bring in NBC terrorism analyst, Evan Kohlmann.

Good evening, Evan.

EVAN KOHLMANN, NBC TERRORISM ANALYST: Good evening.

SHUSTER: What do we know and still need to know about how this guy could get on a plane for Detroit?

KOHLMANN: Well, I think the answer is, is that we've had the wrong mentality. We have this fortress mentality where we're trying to stop terrorists at airports and in airplanes when they're already at the target, long before we should have stopped them initially. The way to stop these folks is through intelligence.

And, you know, the fact that we haven't processed intelligence in this case, that's not an isolated example. This is a phenomenon that's been happening for the last nine years, ongoing.

Richard Reid, you just mentioned Richard Reid, we had Guantanamo Bay detainees in our custody at the time of Richard Reid's attempted bombing of an American Airlines plane who knew him, who knew that he was an al Qaeda operative, who knew that he was close friends with Zacarias Moussaoui, and yet, that information was never fed to anyone. Nobody realized it until after Richard Reid had already tried to detonate his shoes on board that airliner.

So, the logic that we send people to Guantanamo Bay and that somehow solves the problem, look, that's entirely bankrupt. Not to mention the fact that the people that sent out Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, these were Guantanamo Bay detainees. They were released by the Bush administration, against the advice of the U.S. military, who repeatedly said that these individuals posed an active threat to U.S. national security.

For political reasons, within months of these people being judged unfit for release, they were sent back to Saudi Arabia. How can that happen? There was a serious breakdown here. It's not just a breakdown that's happened in the last year, it's a breakdown that's happened over the last nine years.

SHUSTER: Can you fact-check the criticism a little bit? Were the critics equally hard on Mr. Bush? And secondly, are they saying anything substantive that the White House has yet to acknowledge?

KOHLMANN: No. Look, I - you know, I look at what Peter King is saying and I wonder, how come he wasn't saying this five years ago, when the Bush administration failed to take under its wing the intelligence reform that was promised to the American people. It was promised on the 9/11 Commission report. This reform never happened.

If you talk to foreign intelligence agencies right now, if you talk to foreign law enforcement agencies, there are consistent complaints that the United States and its various different agencies are not sharing information in a timely manner. They are not sharing information with other, even Scotland Yard in the United Kingdom is finding out about critical pieces of evidence in their terrorism cases, based upon the fact that they come out in public indictments, or they're leaked to news agencies.

This is a problem that has been ongoing for nine years. And it was a problem that was started under the Bush and Cheney administration. Even neocons acknowledge the fact that the release of the 11 individuals from Guantanamo Bay, who have rejoined al Qaeda, was a horrifically naive decision.

SHUSTER: If Abdulmutallab's father had not come to the CIA, we'd focus a lot more on the bomb and the underpants - didn't the Bush administration tell us they were effectively moving the border outward to airport checkpoints in foreign countries? I mean, is that not maybe more disturbing here, since that should have picked up the actual bomb rather than just raising flags?

KOHLMANN: We shouldn't be grabbing at people's crotches, looking for bombs. That's not a way to stop terrorism, OK?

We need to focus on intelligence. We need to identify these people long before they get to an airport. Because as you saw just a few years ago in the United Kingdom, it's not just a matter of people bombing airlines, they can crash a vehicle through the front of Glasgow Airport, set themselves on fire, and start dancing around.

We knew about these people ahead of time. We knew about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. What's even more disturbing is the suggestion, and it hasn't been proven yet, that Abdulmutallab may have been in contact with the same radical cleric that was in touch with Major Malik Hasan, the individual before the Fort Hood massacre.

These are communications that have gone on for at least a year and a half. They're not something that took place just during the Obama administration. The fact that nobody put these pieces together is criminal.

Somebody's head needs to roll. Somebody needs to pay a price for this, and it's not just the Obama administration, it's not just President Obama. There are people within the Bush administration who failed to do their job. And somebody needs to be held to account.

SHUSTER: NBC terrorism analyst, Evan Kohlmann - Evan, thanks for your time tonight. We appreciate it.

KOHLMANN: Thank you.

SHUSTER: Mr. Cheney's implications raise other questions, of course.

If Mr. Obama's response was low-key, speaking out three days later, what to make of Mr. Bush's five days of silence after the shoe-bombing attempt? Never demanding accountability for those failures, let alone his own. On August the 6th, 2001, to act on a CIA briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" - Mr. Bush just told his briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now."

Mr. Cheney also did not explain why this suspect should be interrogated at Gitmo, when he has already given up his liaison and the bombing expert that equipped him while being held by the FBI in Michigan. Mr. Cheney did not mention his administration's thinking in giving Abdulmutallab a visa last year or letting him fly into Houston in August of '08, after associating with radical militants as president of his school's Islamic society.

And if they, the Bush/Cheney administration, were more serious about terrorism, why did they implement a policy last year that Senator Dianne Feinstein now says prevented the suspect from getting on the no-fly list?

And why did it take Mr. Obama to get serious about al Qaeda's presence in Yemen, backing air strikes that took out dozen of al Qaeda there this month?

One raid killed an al Qaeda operative who was planning an attack on the British embassy after being set free from Gitmo by the Bush/Cheney administration - much like two leaders of a new al Qaeda offshoot in Yemen and Saudi Arabia were also set loose by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. Why? Quoting "The Washington Post," "They were sent to a Saudi rehabilitation program that uses dialogue and art therapy to reform militants."

Joining us now is MSNBC political analyst, Richard Wolffe, also a senior strategist at Public Strategies and author of "Renegade: The Making of a President."

Richard, good to see you, as always.

RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to be with you, David.

SHUSTER: White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, posted an online statement that Mr. Obama does, in fact, know we are at war, writing, quote, "The difference is President Obama doesn't need to beat his chest to prove it. And unlike the last administration, we are not at war with a tactic, i.e., terrorism."

Read between the lines.

WOLFFE: OK. So they're being very restrained here. Maybe they don't want to beat their chests about their actual record on what the last gang called the war on terror. But we - we can maybe explain a little bit.

If this president, as Dick Cheney suggests, is pretending that he's not at war, then he's not pretending very well. He's trebled, more than trebled the number of troops in Afghanistan, which just so happens to be what they call, they used to call, the central front on tin the war on terrorism, that's where the core leadership of al Qaeda is. And for Dick Cheney, those are the people who actually attacked America on 9/11.

So, you know, the idea that he's pretending not to be at war doesn't stack up with his record and the focus on al Qaeda as opposed to Saddam Hussein and his so-called weapons of mass destruction is actually on point. It's a relevant thing and the only pretense here is Dick Cheney's forgetful pretense about his own record.

SHUSTER: On some level, does Dick Cheney realize that Abdulmutallab, his very existence as a radicalized Muslim, as a bomb-carrying passenger on a plane, are all literally traced back to the Bush/Cheney administration? And could that explain why Dick Cheney is coming out so hard now?

WOLFFE: I'm not sure that in Dick Cheney's world, there's enough room for self-doubt. You know, he's the defender of a weakened and fearful country. He's the sole defender. And so, the idea that he may be linked to anything that's happened, I don't think he even approaches his consciousness.

What is going on here is that he's trying to put together - he and a number of Republicans, we've seen in the last couple of days, trying to put together, Humpty Dumpty-like, this old narrative, the Democrats are weak on terrorism, on national security. And of course, it doesn't stack up.

It doesn't stack up, not at least because of Richard Reid, a guy who used the same explosive to try to do the same thing, bring down an American jetliner, and where did he get tried? Where is he now residing? Without parole and a life sentence on American soil in a civilian prison, not tried as an enemy combatant, tried in a civilian federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.

So, the narrative really doesn't stack up to what we saw during the Bush years.

SHUSTER: We dinged the former Bush homeland secretary, Tom Ridge, but he's been mostly nonpartisan on this, as have many Republicans. But Cheney didn't even manage to say anything about condemning the attack, reassuring America. Not even lip service to traditional American values.

Are we starting to see Cheney go off the rails more publicly this time?

WOLFFE: Well, when you speak to former Bush administration officials, they say - not just with Cheney, but also with Karl Rove - they suffer from this problem of not having people to sort of put a lid on their opinions. This is all the unfiltered stuff that they used to have to sort of keep a lid on.

But I actually think - look, Cheney doesn't feel the need to reassure the nation. This is political opportunity - opportunism. Maybe he sees this as a - he sees President Obama as a repudiation, he ought to, a repudiation of the Bush record, of his own record, of that kind of politics. This is an attempt to re-inject fear and patriotism as they worked for - in 2002 and 2004, back into the national dialogue.

SHUSTER: To that end, we see al Qaeda, essentially, popping up in Yemen, Somalia, even Saudi Arabia, becoming al Qaeda strongholds. If only because Mr. Obama strikes out at them, what does it all do to Mr. Cheney's record of focusing on Afghanistan and then Iraq?

WOLFFE: Well, I don't think he really did focus on Afghanistan. When Richard Reid was trying to light his shoes, so incompetently, Dick Cheney was thinking, already, we know from multiple records, about Iraq. And this is the fundamental flaw here, the fundamental strategic, systemic, if you will, mistake and blunder of the Bush years.

To ignore what were once considered - I had a conversation with senior military folks in the White House after 9/11, they said they were going to go for the low-hanging fruit. That was Yemen, the Horn of Africa. They missed it. They took their eye of the ball.

SHUSTER: Richard Wolffe - Richard, interesting stuff. Thanks so much for coming in tonight. We appreciate it, as always. And Happy New Year.

WOLFFE: Thank you, David.

SHUSTER: Still ahead: Playing politics with terror. We don't recall Republicans doing much criticizing or complaining when similar incidents took place under President Bush's watch. Republicans are trying to cash in, literally.

And later, Keith returns with Countdown's list of our favorite people of 2009, including the former future favorite son-in-law that one Republican named Sarah Palin has come to hate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHUSTER: Republicans didn't say much when George W. Bush ignored the now infamous August 6th presidential daily brief while vacationing at his Crawford ranch. They didn't seem to mind when it took Mr. Bush six days to comment on Richard Reid's failed shoe bomb.

But in our fourth story on the Countdown: The GOP sure has a lot to say about President Obama's response to the Christmas Day terror attempt. And now, they're trying to cash in.

Congressman Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, says the Obama administration failed to connect the dots on national security issues, making that comment before he was even briefed on the incident. Hoekstra, also running for governor of Michigan, is connecting the monetary dots in a fundraising letter.

"They just don't get it. The system didn't work here, far from it. It is insulting that the Obama administration would make such a claim, but then again, these are the same weak-kneed liberals who have recently tried to bring Guantanamo Bay terrorists right here to Michigan.

If you agree that we need a governor who will stand up to the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security, please make a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100, or even $250 to my campaign."

Also jumping on the bandwagon, the National Republican Congressional Committee picking up the Hoekstra-Gitmo detainee meme and calling for an immediate contribution via e-mail.

As "Roll Call" reports, Minority Leader Boehner then issued a follow-up statement linking the decision to close Gitmo to the failed terrorist attempt.

But former Romney spokesman, Kevin Madden, offers an explanation to the GOP hypocrisy, he says the real reason why Republicans are attacking Obama national security is because he doesn't have political capital and he's on vacation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MADDEN, FMR. ROMNEY SPOKESMAN: You also have to remember, the fact is, the president being on vacation in Hawaii, it's much different than being in Texas. Hawaii, to many Americans, seems like a foreign place. And I think those images, the optics, hurt President Obama very badly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHUSTER: Time now to call in MSNBC political analyst, Eugene Robinson. He's also the associate editor and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for "The Washington Post."

Good evening, Eugene.

EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening, David.

SHUSTER: Did Kevin Madden get his marching orders from Orly Taitz, and did he just reveal the Republican talking points for tomorrow, Obama is weak on national security because he was on vacation? Do they need a reminder that President Bush was on vacations during major crises?

ROBINSON: President Bush was on vacation, essentially all the time.

So that's not exactly the branch I'd want to walk out on.

And Hawaii is a foreign place? It has been a state for quite some time. It is - it's interesting. It's as if, perhaps Kevin and perhaps Dick Cheney and others have been getting their marching orders from homeless people sitting in bus shelters, just talking to no one in particular. That's kind of the way it sounds.

SHUSTER: Fund-raising off of terrorism. Why is it that when Democrats do it, it's playing politics? When Republicans do it, it's patriotic to give money to them.

ROBINSON: When Republicans do it, it's scaring the voters. And Republicans are very good at that. I mean, they've been practicing it for a while.

And, I - you know, I - look, Democrats, Republicans, we have partisan differences. I, personally, think it's reprehensible to raise money on the back of a near-miss terrorist incident that could have cost 300 lives. That is a time, one would think, where you could be nonpartisan, but maybe there is no time in America these days when you can be nonpartisan.

SHUSTER: Regarding Congressman Hoekstra, the ranking member of that intelligence committee, he tweeted this afternoon that Obama, quote, "Concedes I'm right on the failed airplane bombing." If this kind of rhetoric was coming from Democrats after 9/11, wouldn't there be calls for resignations? And why aren't the Democrats - how can they're not fighting back harder on this?

ROBINSON: You know, I don't know. They may be assuming that the Republicans are going too far and that people will realize this. I think it is always dangerous to leave kind of untruths and mendacity and shamelessness unchallenged in this way.

And so, if someone were to ask my advice, I'd say, no, you've got to -

you've got to counter this stuff, you've got to point out that this is not the way we expect an opposition party to behave at a time when national security is in question. It is outrageous to me, it really is.

SHUSTER: Speaking of the opposition party, Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, he's also out there speaking out against the Obama administration and their national security efforts.

Is he competing with Dick Cheney as the de facto leader of the Republican Party these days?

ROBINSON: You know, I think - I think maybe he is. It's interesting, of course. We keep saying, well, maybe Newt's going to run for this, maybe he's going to run for that. And neither Newt Gingrich nor Dick Cheney has - is in office now and they seem to be liberated to kind of say whatever is on their mind.

You know, now, why is - why did Dick Cheney unleash that screed today? That would be an interesting kind of psychological question to ask.

SHUSTER: Well, and the other great psychological analysis is of Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. He says that the president has downplayed terrorism and accused Mr. Obama of dragging his heels before nominating a TSA chief. And yet, Mr. DeMint is now blocking the nominee because he's afraid that the TSA will somehow unionize as a result. Did he just reveal what's really on his mind?

ROBINSON: Yes. I think the political - the term of art there is nuts, because he's blocking the nomination that he's accusing the president of not moving with enough alacrity on. That is really delusional, crazy, nuts, insane.

SHUSTER: Or maybe selective amnesia on DeMint's part.

ROBINSON: It could be. It could be. You know, we can put him all on the couch and we can be busy for quite some time, David.

SHUSTER: Well, I think we're going to be - we are going to be busy for quite some time along this Christmas and keeps up (ph).

In any case, Eugene Robinson of MSNBC and "The Washington Post," at least the criticism that's totally off the mark and crazy. Many thanks. Happy New Year. We appreciate it.

ROBINSON: Happy New Year.

SHUSTER: When Keith joins you after the break - she used to be your average beauty queen, but how 2009 transformed Carrie Prejean into the opposite of average entertainment and one of Countdown's Favorite People of the Year. Also making the cut, Tiger Woods, if only figuratively these days, since he's taking a break from golf.

Countdown continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEITH OLBERMANN, Countdown HOST: COUNDOWN Favorites 2009. I found myself inexplicably right smack dab in the middle of some other people's drama. Carrie Prejean's, for example. Her support of opposite marriage put her in the middle of a political firestorm. She got so distracted by her new cause that pageant officials not only took her crown away, but they asked her to reimburse them for her breast implants. Somehow, all that was my fault!

And then there's my responsibility in triggering this - Taiwanese journalists say, "I'll see your puppet theater and raise you a Tiger Woods shady husband animation extravaganza."

And Levi Johnston's New Year's resolution for 2009: start telling the truth about Sister Sarah.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: It's the time of the year to appreciate those near and dear, find comfort and joy in family and friends, to make nice with the almost in-laws. But if you're Levi Keith Johnston, that last part, that might be a little tricky. Freed from the constraints of campaign life, to say nothing of the constraints of underwear, this year, Levi embarked on his own kind of campaign, one of salacious, monosyllabic interviews, shocking, ghost written tell alls, and the peddling of an assortment of nuts - pistachios. What?

Taking the high road, his ex-future mother-in-law called him Ricky Hollywood on "Oprah" and accused him of selling his body and doing porn. That alone was enough for Mr. Johnston to earn a spot among Countdown's favorites, but the lesson of Levi shouldn't be taken lightly. Sometimes it takes a 19-year-old hockey player turned nude model from Alaska to remind us revenge is a dish best served cold. And don't forget the nuts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEVI JOHNSTON, FATHER OF SARAH PALIN'S GRANDCHILD: No, she means a lot to me. I'd do just about anything for her. But I really don't think she's - I would vote for her if she ran for president.

OLBERMANN: Whether the engagement was real or just a stunt to spare her having to run for vice president as the mother of an unwed mother, Sarah Palin continues to discover what can happen when somebody you used as a prop starts to talk.

JOHNSTON: I mean, she is very smart. But I just don't think she can handle the stress level as governor. I don't think she can handle it as president or vice president.

OLBERMANN: Our third story on the Countdown, the governor's office went into action to respond to Palin's would-be former son-in-law, Levi Johnston, after he talked to investigative political journalist Tyra Banks.

One issue, whether the governor thought her daughter was practicing abstinence.

TYRA BANKS, "THE TYRA BANKS SHOW": She knew you guys were active.

JOHNSTON: Yeah.

BANKS: You think she knew?

JOHNSTON: I'm pretty sure she probably knew.

BANKS: How are you pretty sure she knew?

JOHNSTON: She's pretty smart.

BANKS: So there were just wardrobe malfunctions?

JOHNSTON: I guess.

BANKS: Yeah? Really.

JOHNSTON: I guess so.

BANKS: Every time you practiced safe sex?

JOHNSTON: Yeah.

BANKS: Every time?

JOHNSTON: Every time.

BANKS: Levi?

JOHNSTON: Most of the time.

BANKS: Most of the time. There you go.

JOHNSTON: They said I didn't live there. I stayed there. I was like, OK, whatever you want to call it. I had my stuff there, so if you want to call it staying there, that's fine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had all your things there?

JOHNSTON: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tooth brush, pajamas, stayed there every night.

JOHNSTON: For a while, yeah. So -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So they're lying.

JOHNSTON: Yeah.

Then after the running, she had talked about how nice it would be to take some of this money people had been offering us and just run with it.

She pretty much tried to blame everything she could on other people.

You know, if I wanted to hurt them, if I wanted to crush them, I could. That's not what I'm trying to do.

CRAIG CRAWFORD, CQPOLITICS.COM: In tonight's episode of the Wasilla Hillbillies -

OLBERMANN: How did it happen that Levi Johnston turns into a Sarah Palin whistle blower?

SARAH PALIN, FMR. GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: He goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now. So if that's the case -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did Sarah ever make any sexual advances toward you?

JOHNSTON: No, she didn't.

OLBERMANN: He and Mrs. Palin; the almost son-in-law reveals all in "Vanity Fair."

Our number one story on the Countdown, honestly, if it claimed there had been hankie pankie, it probably would have been better for the ex-governor than what Johnston actually wrote. One survivor's story of late summer and early autumn spent with Sarah Palin's flying circus. She thought her job as governor was too hard. She thought she was running for president. She wanted to keep her daughter's pregnancy a secret. And perhaps worst of all, she doesn't hunt for her own food, so she makes her kids go fetch Crunch Wrap Supremes from Taco Bell.

And the politics of pistachios.

CROWD: Levi!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now Levi Johnston does it with protection.

OLBERMANN: All right. Let's just get this one out of the way. Turns out pistachios aren't the only nuts Levi Johnston is selling. Ha, ha, ha. Number one story, Sarah Palin's ex-future son-in-law will pose for "Playgirl." In an effort to become the most famous model since Zoolander, Levi Johnston has already booked his next gig, centerfold in "Playgirl," an idea that Johnston has been toying with for sometime. In his last photo shoot for "Vanity Fair," Johnston said of "Playgirl," I assume it's where a dude poses for women.

What do we think they're going to - is there a motif they're going with after that Burt Reynolds, Cosmo, bear skin rug stuff that started all this as sort of a cliche' of cliches from 1972?

MICHAEL MUSTO, "THE VILLAGE VOICE": I think there will be some moose-like body parts, as well as a hint of musk ox and a soup son of cockatoo, but no beaver. I got an advance peek at it. So did Bristol.

OLBERMANN: Oh, god.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: The Levi Johnston/Sister Sarah debacle was not the only high profile family drama of the year. There was, of course, the Thanksgiving golf club attack at chateaux Tiger Woods. The brilliant minds at Apple Daily took us behind closed doors to bring all the Tiger headlines to life, or something that looked vaguely like it. For us, the animation hocus pocus quickly became a Countdown favorite.

Then there was the fall of Carrie Prejean. From beauty queen to defender of opposites to ex-beauty queen, with an extensive video library that sort of spoke for itself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: On April 19, 2009, an otherwise nondescript beauty pageant contestant was asked her views on gay marriage. She said, quote, "I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other." Then she said, quote, "we live in a land where you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage."

Then she said, having just said it's great that Americans can choose, that Americans should not be able to choose. Which would presumably be un-great.

In the uproar that followed, Carrie Prejean soared to even higher levels of rhetorical ding-battery. The upshot, based on what her recent book has to say about the segments you're about to see, is that her right to free speech about her opinions has been violated by other people exercising free speech about their opinions. For her ability to believe and say self-contradictory things in one breath without her head exploding, Carrie Prejean is one of Countdown's favorites of 2009.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: When she told Perez Hilton she believed in opposite marriage, Carrie Prejean was prayed by the right for telling truth over the tiara. But when Miss California became opposite employed, the tiara suddenly stopped looking so bad after all.

Number one story. Carrie Prejean claims religious discrimination and sues, mentioning this program and MSNBC in the lawsuit. The man at the center of the controversy is Michael Musto. To analyze his precarious position, I'll be joined in a moment by Michael Musto.

But first, Carrie Prejean has filed lawsuit against Miss California Pageant Officials, citing slander, libel, public disclosure of private facts, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and religious discrimination, all of this stretching way back to Miss Prejean's original statement on gay marriage at the Miss USA Pageant in April.

CARRIE PREJEAN, FMR. MISS CALIFORNIA: We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.

No offense to anybody out there. But that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be, between a man and a woman.

OLBERMANN: Following that response, Miss Prejean was outed for using performance enhancers that the Miss California association had paid for. Topless photos of her surfaced as she discusses Satan and temptation with James Dobson. And less than a month after Donald Trump told her she could keep the crown, Miss Prejean was fired for contract violations.

Now comes a 23-page lawsuit. On top of page eight, 41, on April 30, 2009, "Prejean became the victim of a vicious attack by Michael Musto and Keith Olbermann on Olbermann's MSNBC program, during which they mocked Prejean, asserting among other vile things that she had had a sex change operation and needed a brain transplant."

If only we had some way of replaying all those vile things that were asserted in the vicious attack.

MICHAEL MUSTO, "THE VILLAGE VOICE": She sort of is like a human Klaus Barbie Doll. You tell Perez Hilton you're against gay marriage, it's like telling Simon Cowell you're against screeching a show tune. This is the kind of girl who sits on the TV and watches the sofa. She thinks the innuendo is an Italian suppository.

On the pageants now, they really should have easier questions, like what is your middle name or what show was Seinfeld on? This girl is a ding-dong. I didn't even like her earrings.

OLBERMANN: The moral in this is, what, never cross a beauty pageant official who knows you've had implants?

MUSTO: Yes, exactly, that's it. This has escalated to a public shaving. What Moakler has left out, Keith, is that they also paid for Carrie to cut off her penis, and sand her Adam's Apple, and a get head to toe waxing.

I know for a fact that Carrie Prejean was Harry Prejean, a homophobic man who liked marriage so much he did it three times. Now he's a babe who needs a brain implant. Maybe they could inject some fat from her butt? Oh, they have?

OLBERMANN: I didn't like her earrings. Joining me now, tonight's legal analyst, Michael Musto. How does it feel to be mentioned in a Carrie Prejean lawsuit? Is there pride, mixed with a kind of apprehension, mixed with a kind of what took her so long?

MUSTO: I'm thrilled, Keith. Not since last year, when Jackie Harry (ph) covered her face when she saw me have I gotten this kind of attention. I'm thrilled that she watches this show, not "Dora the Explorer" or "Real Housewives."

OLBERMANN: She has a book coming out in November. Presumably the lawsuit keeps her in the spotlight until then. Are you expecting that you will be - if you're in the lawsuit, will you be in the book?

MUSTO: I better be in the book. I actually got a sneak peek at the manuscript and she only refers to some guy who should not get married to opposite people, and also shouldn't wear polyester blend, because that's against the Bible, too. I consider that a mention.

OLBERMANN: And the end of Carrie Prejean. A sex tape from little miss preservation of marriage? Not same-sex, not opposite sex, just kind of mono-sex.

Carrie Prejean and the Miss California Pageant have these dueling lawsuits. She wanted a million dollars for wrongful dethroning. The pageant sought reimbursement for Prejean's breast implants. The sides appeared headed for court until, according to TMZ.com, pageant attorneys played, with Prejean and her lawyers present, an X-rated video of a woman engaged in some kind of sex.

The former beauty queen, confused, reportedly said, that's disgusting. Then the camera panned to reveal the face of the woman, and it was Carrie Prejean. Guess she forgot.

Red faced and caught red handed, so to speak, Prejean's demands changed from a million dollars to covering her legal fees. If she covered her legal fees, none of this would have happened.

Carrie Prejean goes on NBC and calls out me?

PREJEAN: If Sean Hannity went out there and said some of the things that Keith Olbermann has said about me - you know, if he said anything about Sonia Sotomayor or Michelle Obama, he would be off the air.

OLBERMANN: Hey, lady, first, you're not Sotomayor or Michelle Obama. Second, he's said worse about them than I've said about you. And, third, you made a sex tape that wound up being shown to your mother.

The free speech and first amendment rights of the dethroned Miss California Carrie Prejean have been so silenced, her freedom so denied that she's only done three national TV interviews in the last 24 hours, including one in the downstairs part of this studio.

Our number one story, did she leave any more of those personal videos hanging around?

PREJEAN: You can call it whatever you want to call it. If you want to call it a sex tape, that's fine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What would you call it?

OLBERMANN: It was me by myself. There was no one else with me. I was not having sex.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are people who say they want to call you on the carpet when they feel you're being a hypocrite. In your book you write, our bodies are temples of the lord. We should earn admiration and respect for our hearts, not for showing skin to look sexy.

PREJEAN: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now people have seen this tape, whatever you want to call it, and they're saying, she's a hypocrite. She writes a book that says one thing.

PREJEAN: I'm a model. I was in a beauty pageant. I mean, if people want to call me a hypocrite, then that's their prerogative.

OLBERMANN: OK. If the tea is steady, Ms. Prejean, you're a hypocrite.

And the self destruction of Carrie Prejean, part 11 billion, the solo sex tape; she was 20 when she made it, says the guy she made it for. And it was one of many tapes.

And look what happened when Larry King tried to exercise his first amendment right to ask her about the settlement of her lawsuit.

LARRY KING, CNN ANCHOR: You took the mike off. If you put the mike on, we can hear.

PREJEAN: Yeah. I think you're being extremely inappropriate right now and I'm about to leave your show.

OLBERMANN: Look, Carrie Prejean is being silenced. Carrie Prejean's freedom of speech is being violated by that evil Carrie Prejean.

When you complain about the media trying to silence you and then you cut off your own microphone after a softball question from Larry King, you have just silenced yourself.

KING: So the agreement discusses the motive behind why each party agreed?

PREJEAN: Larry, you're being inappropriate. You really are?

KING: What?

PREJEAN: Larry, it was completely confidential and you're being inappropriate? OK.

KING: Inappropriate King Live continues.

OLBERMANN: Speaking of madness, do you find it ironic at all that the title of the book is "Still Standing." That, of course, is an Elton John song?

MUSTO: I heard she tried to get the rights to "Big Bottom Girls" by Queen and also "Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror Show. She couldn't get the rights, so she went with a more mainstream gay artist. I'm leaving. This is inappropriate.

OLBERMANN: No, no. I'm leaving, it's inappropriate.

MUSTO: Let's both go. Let's go read her book.

OLBERMANN: That would be great television. Guest and host both walk off.

MUSTO: Yeah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: From the many cell phone videos of Carrie Prejean to the many alleged indiscretions of Tiger Woods. We're pretty sure when Woods was meeting up with all those ladies, he never dreamed that the text messages would become public. We're absolutely positive he never dreamed that his trysts would become a kind of celebrity meltdown version of "Toy Story." Countdown favorites 2009 pays tribute to the high tech art of Apple Daily.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Thanksgiving weekend is supposed to be known as the official start of the holiday shopping season. This year, however, it actually triggered something new: the 12 days of mistress. The squeaky clean image of Tiger Woods came crashing down when he crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant outside his own home.

What started as a disagreement of some sort with his wife, allegedly over another woman, has turned, instead, into a parade of other, other, other women coming forward. To illustrate the headlines, Countdown could have called upon our trusty journalistic tool that we call puppet theater. But the news gods of Taiwan trumped us. They turned to computer generated animation. Not just any animation. They used news motion.

Our hats off to the folks at Apple Daily for turning the tabloid Tiger headlines into works of art.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Depending on whose reporting you trust, the marriage of Tiger Woods is between six and ten women over par. But his wife has reportedly taken a powder, if not a mulligan, and moved out of their home in Florida. Our number one story, "Radar Online" reporting Elin Woods is living in another house nearby, but his people are trying to keep it quiet, because, quote, "they don't want any publicity about what is going on in the marriage. Yes, that's working well."

No publicity, just a team of Taiwanese animators, working around the clock in shifts, having pumped out three more of their mini-masterpieces. Using Sims like style of animation and a liberal interpretation of facts and gossip, Apple Daily last week produced its first video, title translating as "Woods, Broken Windows at Night to Save His Wife Crash, Shady Husband."

The three new creations include the newspapers own translations from Mandarin to English, kind of English. Here now, a selection from the third animation: "Tiger Woods' Lover Number Three Exposed." We're not saying any of this is exactly true. We think of it more as art.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tiger Woods is facing the biggest challenge of his love. Tabloids have exposed a third lover, Vegas club executive Kalika Muqueen (ph). She was a very influential person of the city. The relationship happened when Elin was pregnant.

They met regularly and were seen publicly. Woods was also seen at the VIP part of a bar, with girls on either side, and hand sup their skirts. Reports said lover number two, Jaimee Grubbs, not only bragged to friends about the relationship, but also played the voicemail.

TIGER WOODS, PGA GOLFER: Can you please take your name of your phone? my wife went through my phone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We see it as anonymous phone call.

OLBERMANN: Unanimous phone call. Well, if it's ten women, maybe it was a unanimous phone call. We continue with the animated tale of the prenup.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: According to "US Weekly," the settlement is over 30 million. Sources say Elin asked for revision short of the ten year limitation, and Woods has agreed, but has already transferred million of dollars into her account.

The couple has also begun intense marriage counseling at home.

OLBERMANN: That was intense. As you saw, Woods got a free Michael Jordan shoe phone with his subscription to "Sports Illustrated."

I know what you're saying. What about alleged lover number one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alleged lover number one, Rachel Uchitel, canceled a scheduled press conference on Thursday. Sources say Uchitel lawyer was bargaining on the phone with Woods, and finally agreed to a million dollars to keep quite.

OLBERMANN: As you saw just there, apparently that was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brokering the deal. It was apparently supposed to be attorney Gloria Allred.

Luckily, thanks to Apple Daily, we now know exactly what happened before the crash. Allegedly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uchitel saved hundreds of Woods' messages with highly sexual nature. The two were texting before the accident. Elin questioned Woods and tried to grab the phone. During the struggle, the phone was broken, and so was the vestibule of the house. That's why Woods refused to let the police.

OLBERMANN: I broke my vestibule. Refused to let him in, like a hockey goalie. No soup for you, officer. As for the post-accident blow by blow, Apple Daily has portrayed this before, but not with as much detail, and not with the neighbors who sleep in their day clothes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: US tabloids also report that, according to Woods' neighbor, Adams, about 2:30 am, right after the car crash, his sister heard a commotion and saw the car light shining in. Adams was awake and went outside, and saw Woods lying next to the car, and Elin was talking to him. Woods was unconscious and snoring.

OLBERMANN: Unconscious and snoring. I would have paid to see that. Back to that prenup. In the fourth video from Apple Daily, "Woods Break the Bank to Keep Lovers Quiet," we learn more about the alleged prenup settlement and about the mother of Tiger Woods and what she was doing during all of the sexy time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Woods agreed to pay Elin five million dollars. If she stayed for two more years, she will be paid 55 million more, and must pretend to be still in love and not disclose anything to the public. If she stays for seven years, she will be paid 75 million.

Rumors said the rift between Elin and mom is the reason breaking the marriage, because Woods' mother demanded to build her a mansion next door, so Elin insisted to separate the house by water.

Last month, when Woods met Uchitel secretly in Australian hotel room, Woods mom was standing right downstairs.

OLBERMANN: Enjoying dinner, mother? Apparently, Mrs. Woods is a witch. The latest bombshell comes to us via a UK tabloid called "The News of the World." A waitress from a Perkins Restaurant in Orlando revealed steamy details of her alleged affair with the world's number one golfer. Unfortunately, Apple Daily hasn't translated this video yet, but I did my best.

Long cool woman in a red dress. Tiger meets Mindy at Perkins, high class style restaurant. He phones in order, has visions of red mushrooms. He asks her back to his place or another restaurant maybe.

MINDY LAWTON, ALLEGED TIGER WOODS MISTRESS: He texted me constantly and he would call me regular will. Every time he would contact me, it was for sex.

OLBERMANN: Some people look better as animated figures. I don't know what she's doing here, but it looks like she needs a shower. This they now do. They have relations all over the place, in his house, but never Tiger's bed, which is queen sized and located in a large closet.

First of all, clearly, the animation team has never been to a Perkins restaurant. Second, Mindy Lawton claims she and Woods were romantic all over the house, yes, in the shower, just not in his bed, which is queen sized and located in a large closet. Ms. Lawton's story continues.

Mindy says something about Tiger's wife, who suddenly getting an X over her face, possibly H1N1. Tiger makes public appearances, adoring crowds, then the spanky spanky. Tiger has thought bubble about underwear he wants her to wear, or maybe it's about Annika Sorenstam. Text messages in, order to restaurant. Van starts a rocking.

So, she helped him change a tire? Oh, you mean - oh.

Night of crash, Tiger didn't feel so hot. This is pill of Vicodin.

Ouch, ouch, I fell on my keys. Tiger Woods and wife check into hospital. Woods using clever name to hide celebrity, William Smith. Police wonder, now there are two pills of Vicodin.

Seriously, you want to remain anonymous, so you check into the hospital as Will Smith. Another tip if you want to remain anonymous, do not take pictures of yourself that might end up in "Playgirl."

Anonymous woman has naughty photo. Look at naughty photo go into lady's ponytail. Tiger Woods takes picture. That looks good. We can sell this. There is much rejoicing.

Dude, Levi Johnston is going to be so upstaged.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Here is hoping in 2010 that you and your loved ones don't find yourself the subject of an Apple Daily extravaganza.

A big thank you to our other favorites. You, our viewer, we appreciate your support in watching. We also appreciated your amazing financial support of the free health care clinics this year. We wish you a happy and healthy new year.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END

'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
video podcast

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST (voice-over): As 2008 turned to 2009 and as President 43 graciously gave way to 44.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: We wish you all the very best.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: ...certain people were less than gracious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOE WILSON (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: You lie!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: From the birthers...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is not an American citizen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: From town hall crazies...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I want to say that I'm a proud right-wing terrorist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: To the duly elected on Capitol Hill...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today, there's another giant sucking sound going on in Washington, D.C., and that's the tightening of sphincters on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: In 2009, the whack jobs were out en masse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: We're being told we have to bend over and grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: This was the year the whack jobs quit their other jobs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Hell, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: They even use a trusty news channel to awaken Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm trying to show you the things that seem to be hidden but they're not. They are out in plain sight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: And a wacky governor used his love of hiking to hide his booty calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MARK SANFORD (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Off we'd go and what these great adventures on the Appalachian Trail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Tonight, find out if your favorite whack job made the cut

Countdown's 2009 Whack Job Jamboree.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: You must send your children out of the room immediately.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York.

A year ago, our country was anxiously awaiting the transfer of power. The frequent question to me at that time was, "What in the world are you going to talk about every night with the Democrat in the White House?"

With the economic crisis, two wars and health care reform all looming, I knew we would not want for topics. But never in my wildest dreams did I think we would hear the cacophony of crazy which conservatives unleashed in 2009. The movement found its figurehead in Sarah Palin and no one is ever better to define that term.

She started the year as governor of Alaska; she ended it as an unemployed Facebook blogger still in search of a self-announced higher calling. While finding herself, she sparked a civil war amongst the Republican Party, helping hand Democrats the seat in the New York 23rd for the first time since the Civil War. Now, that's change you can believe in.

Palin picked fights with the McCain campaign staff that tried to elevate her to the vice presidency. She picked fights with the young man who elevated her to grandmother-hood. And, of course, there was that infamous show with David Letterman.

Our Whack Job Jamboree begins with a big thank you to the "Vanilla Thrilla from Wasilla."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID LETTERMAN, TV HOST: Top 10 highlights now of Sarah Palin's trip to New York. Number two, bought make up at Bloomingdale's to update her slutty flight attendant look.

PALIN: Hey, disparage flight attendants, they work hard. We love them.

LETTERMAN: One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

(LAUGHTER)

PALIN: That's pretty pathetic, good old David Letterman.

OLBERMANN: Our number one story tonight, David Letterman has now admitted to being guilty of poor taste.

LETTERMAN: Yes, maybe these are questionable because the girl who actually - excuse me - was knocked up is now 18 years old. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

LETTERMAN: Did I suggest that it was OK for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.

(LAUGHTER)

OLBERMANN: If you thought last night's apology from David Letterman to the Palin family would be the end of it, you don't know the Palin family.

PALIN: And then I found out later that the comment that was made about statutory rape of my 14-year-old daughter Willow knowing that crossed the line and...

OLBERMANN: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, returning to national television to exploit her own daughters...

PALIN: You and anybody else are extremely naive to believe that convenient excuse of David Letterman's the other day, it took a couple days for him to think of that excuse.

OLBERMANN: If by a couple days, Governor Palin, means 3 ½ hours.

PALIN: No, he wasn't talking about the daughter that was with me at the game, the 14-year-old. He was talking about some other daughter.

OLBERMANN: Governor Palin is a delusional lunatic.

PALIN: It's kind of OK, accepted and funny to talk about statutory rape. It's not cool, it's not funny.

LETTERMAN: I think everything's fine now. I think everything's going to be great, because she called today and invited to take me hunting.

(LAUGHTER)

OLBERMANN (voice-over): Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?

So breathless it takes your breath away. Why the future ex-governor of Alaska, the panic of hyperventilation enveloping her every word, quits while insulting quitters.

LETTERMAN: Something I said?

(LAUGHTER)

OLBERMANN (camera): There has perhaps not been such a combination of terror, panic, anger, urgency, and hyperventilation in a political speech in this country since the famous "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around" address from November 1962.

Our fifth story on the Countdown: If that one is still resonating nearly 47 years later, of course, Sarah Palin's bizarre resignation speech on the Friday of the Fourth of July weekend, the ultimately bad news dump day, would still echo, and one question reverberates across the land: what the hell was that about?

PALIN: Over the past nine months, I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations such as holding a fish in a photograph or wearing a jacket with a logo on it. Todd and I were looking more half a million dollars in legal bills just in order to set the record straight.

OLBERMANN: Record purportedly straightened, let the dead fish analogy commence.

PALIN: It would be apathetic to just kind of hunker down and go with the flow. We're fishermen. We know that only dead fish go with the flow.

OLBERMANN: In case you were wondering, leaving office before one's term has expired would not be the same thing as quitting.

PALIN: And while it may be tempting and more comfortable to just kind of keep your head down and plod along and appease those who are demanding, "Hey, just sit down and shut up," but that's the worthless, easy cap-out. That's quitter's way out.

OLBERMANN: That's right. Winners never - I mean, quitters never - never - quitters. We rejoin Governor Palin already in progress.

PALIN: And they accept that lame duck status and they hit the road, they draw a paycheck, they kind of milk it, and I'm not going to put Alaskans through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That's not how I'm wired. I'm not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual. I promised that four years ago and I meant it.

OLBERMANN: If by four years ago, you mean 2 ½ years ago, what 16 months or so when you've been sworn to support and defend.

Perhaps it's better that Sarah Palin was point guard on her high school basketball team instead of, say, score keeper. Her nickname had been Sarah Barracuda.

PALIN: You are naive if you don't see a full court press from the national level picking their way right now. A good point guard, here's what she does. She drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her head up because she needs to keep her eye on the basket. And she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win.

And it hurts to make this choice, but I'm doing what's best for Alaska. And I have explained why. I think of the saying on my parent's refrigerator, a little magnet that says, "Don't explain, your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it anyway." But I've given my reasons.

OLBERMANN: Reasons? She gave reasons somewhere in there?

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: You haven't finished the job some would say.

PALIN: You're not listening to me as to why I wouldn't be able to finish that final year in office.

OLBERMANN: Governor Palin is still resigned. And she still hates the mainstream media so much and her message is she impeded by its bias that in our fifth story on the Countdown: She invited reporters from the major networks - the definition of the mainstream media - to join her at her family's private fishing grounds so she could talk about it - again.

MITCHELL: Some people have said that you saw the bright lights from the national campaign and came back - it was very hard to readjust to the nitty-gritty work of...

PALIN: The nitty-gritty like, you mean, the fish slime and dirt under the finger nails and stuff that is me?

MITCHELL: Juneau, the state capital, the hard legislative slog.

PALIN: No, that's not - I am a fighter, I thrive on challenge.

OLBERMANN: Except for when she does not fight and quits the job to which she has been elected. As for her future in elected office, Governor Palin telling ABC News, quote, "Politically speaking, if I die, I die, so be it."

OPRAH WINFREY, TV HOST: Even after finishing the book, I still don't know why you stepped down.

OLBERMANN: Never mind that her guy wiped the floor with you and your guy in the election last year. If you want to move product, you go on "Oprah."

PALIN: Bingo. I didn't blink. You can't shut up my mike. Thanks to God and Todd. We're really happy. No, no. And there it is. Right on, right on.

I'm a lover of books. Are you kidding me? I call that porn, 24/7. She's not retreating, she's reloading. I knew that was false. You went rogue on us, Sarah.

WINFREY: Let's talk about the interview with Katie Couric.

PALIN: Must we.

OLBERMANN: Discussing the interview that change everything, Sarah Palin writes, in "Going Rogue" that all she wanted at that time was a minute to breathe and drink an icy diet Dr. Pepper. But that darn Katie Couric.

PALIN: And there's that perky one again.

OLBERMANN: Oh, he's bringing people down with pesky questions about books and newspapers and stuff other than Dr. Pepper.

PALIN: This is our first stop on the campaign trail.

OLBERMANN: The "Going Rogue" book tour bulldozing its way through Indiana today. This afternoon, at a Fort Wayne supermarket and at the Borders Bookstore outside Indianapolis earlier this evening, publishing industry rumors, first week sales more than half a million. No idea if any of them were not at these 50 percent to 75 percent discounts.

LETTERMAN: She was at Barnes & Noble today and she actually had to take a break because she got a cramp in her wink. So that...

(LAUGHTER)

OLBERMANN: The number one story on the Countdown: The staff of Senator John McCain's presidential campaign has responded to Sarah Palin's book with, Sarah Palin is a liar.

PALIN: I didn't know we pulled out of Michigan.

OLBERMANN: Surprise! That's not what she told the reporter who asked her about Michigan.

PALIN: Well, that's not a surprise because, you know, the polls are showing we're not doing as well there, evidently, as we would like to.

OLBERMANN: The Sarah Palin dishonesty tracking center working over time - is that Andrew Sullivan next to the guys from "The Associated Press" back there?

PALIN: She's saying, "I can see Russia from my house," pretending that she was me.

TINA FEY, ACTRESS: And I can see Russia from my house.

(LAUGHTER)

PALIN: Well, of course, I've never said that.

OLBERMANN: You did say such a thing. In fact, she said something far worse.

PALIN: And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in an Alaska.

OLBERMANN: Saying straight faced that seeing Russia from your state made you qualified to deal with Russia's invasion of Georgia, which is nowhere near Alaska.

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors.

OLBERMANN: Steve Schmidt said months ago, if she were the Republican nominee, 2012 would be a, quote, "catastrophic election."

"Saturday Night Live" decided to illustrate the motion picture possibilities of Mr. Schmidt's remark - "Sarahpocolypse Now."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Good evening from Capitol Hill.

What a day this has been.

The nation has a new president.

ANNOUNCER: Sarah Palin!

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: People are scared.

PALIN: I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2012.

PALIN: As for my running mate, it was an honor to stand beside a true American hero.

BECK: I'm sorry. I'm just a guy who cares an awful lot about my country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy...

PALIN: Thanks, but no thanks on that "bridge to nowhere."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: See, but that's not how I imagined it. In my imagination, it's really bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: From the governor who quit to find her higher calling, to the governor who vanished to find the old Appalachian Trail. Governor Mark Sanford, the top Republican governor in the country, until he was forced to resign his leadership position. He literally disappeared over Father's Day, leaving behind a wife, a mistress, and more e-mails than a spammer. He's next.

This is Countdown's 2009 Whack Job Jamboree.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: The GOP's great implosion of '09 reached its zenith during the summer, birthers and death panels, and tea baggers did their best to wreak havoc. But perhaps the most important implosion happened in June among the Republican leadership. That's when the Family Value's crowd watched not one but two of its national leaders disgraced by extramarital affairs.

Senator John Ensign was sleeping with his campaign treasurer, who happened also just to be the wife of his top aide in D.C. And the senator got his whole family involved in this getting his mom and dad to pay his mistress tens of thousands of dollars in so-called "well-being money."

Now, that mess only gets honorable mention in our Whack Job Jamboree because he was out-sleazed by Republican Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

Mr. Sanford went on a little trip over Father's Day weekend. He told the wife and kids and his staff he was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail to clear his mind. But when he got back, it turned out the only thing he had left to clear was his conscience. Maybe he had wished to get cleared his inbox as well because on the very day of his painful confession came the torrent of very painfully embarrassing love letters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York. So, Governor, how was your trip?

Our fifth story on the Countdown: As we wondered allowed on this newshour last night, what could be so bad that the cover story which had the governor of South Carolina hiking the Appalachian Trail on national hike naked day would be preferable to reality. Well, there are a lot really, about a married Republican father of four coming clean at a news conference about his affair with a woman in Argentina, but only after he had been caught this morning arriving back in Atlanta on a flight from Buenos Aires, nowhere near the Appalachian Trail.

Did I mention there are late breaking e-mails from the governor to his mistress?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANFORD: I said, the bottom line is this, I've been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with a - what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently as I suspect some of these things do, in just a casual e-mail back and forth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: How about them e-mails? Governor's Appalachian Trail which eventually led all the way to Argentina, merely a flash for good old electronic mail obtained by the state newspaper in Columbia last December in one, the governor describes his upcoming itinerary to his paramour Maria, whose full name has been redacted, even though e-mail had her full name and address on it.

But the governor's far more engaged in a different kind of description. Governor Sanford quoting, "As I think I had told you, taking the family to China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Thailand and then back to Hong Kong on world wind tour.

The following weekend I have been asked to speak out in Aspen, Colorado with McCain, which has kicked up the whole V.P. talk all over again in the press back home.

You have a particular grace and calm that I adore, and a level of sophistication that's so fitting with your beauty.

I could digress and say you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines, or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself - or two magnificent parts of yourself - in faded glow of the night's light. But hey, that would be going into sexual details.

Three, and finally, all the things above are all to true, at the same time, we are in a hopelessly - or as you put in impossible - or how about combined and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love.

How in the world has this lighting - misspelled - strike snuck up on us, I'm still not quite sure. As I have said to you before, I certainly had a special feeling about you from the time, first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of al too many personal notes.

Lastly, I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I certainly never - certainly never covered before. So, if you have pearls of wisdom - my God - pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out, please let me know." That's not what I thought when I first saw that on the paper.

"In the meantime, please sleep soundly that despite the best efforts of my head, my heart cries out for you, your vice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your fingertips and" - oh, Lord - "an even deeper connection to your soul."

He didn't write like this to all the delegates of that South American Economic Conference?

Now, Maria responded as well in an e-mail which may have provoked that lengthy response from the governor she wrote on July 9th, 2008. Quote, "You are my love, something hard to believe for myself, as it's also a kind of impossible love, not only because of the distance, but situation." She sounds remarkably like he does in this version. "Sometimes you don't choose things, they just happen. I can't redirect my feelings and I'm very happy with mine toward you."

Let's bring in Christian Finnegan, comedian and commentator at large.

Christian, good evening.

CHRISTIAN FINNEGAN, COMEDIAN: Hello, Keith.

OLBERMANN: All right. Steady, last night, I had said, look, the Appalachian Trail story, happening that it cone sided with Naked Hiking Day. It has better be true because what on earth could be so bad that that would be a cover story. So, now we know what could have been worse than that as a cover story?

FINNEGAN: Yes. If one thing is clear, is that this is definitely Mark Sanford's first affair, because no experienced lothario would have played it this badly. There are junior high kids trying to get to third base to have more of a plan than this guy, you know?

(LAUGHTER)

FINNEGAN: You think you can just disappear off the face of the Earth for six days and no one is going to care or notice. You're governor of South Carolina, not the chairman of the RNC.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: I do declare Sanford is still in office, despite repeated calls from his own party for him to resign. Term limits will keep him from running again for governor. He can still run on the Appalachian Trail.

Unfortunately, for the Palmetto State, there's actually close competition for the biggest whack job politician just from their state. Representative Joe Wilson found a new high and low, when he became the only congressman to ever shout down a president during a national address.

The goofier parts of my "Special Comment" to "Wrong Way" Wilson - ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Countdown's 2009 Whack Job Jamboree.

Still on the running for the top spot: Republican Congressman Joe "You Lie" Wilson, who proved himself to be more than truthfully challenged; Orly Taitz, the chief pusher of several different Obama Kenyan birth certificates; and Glenn "Lonesome Roads" Beck, who never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like to make up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: August was a blistering month in the health care debate. Even though polls showed a majority of Americans wanted reform, you couldn't tell that by watching the town halls that occurred across the country during the congressional recess. Instead of discussions about policy, the meetings turned into shouting matches, pitting neighbor against neighbor. The anger, in large part, is an effort to scare Democrats into killing reform.

Then in early September, President Obama decided the best way to take back control of the debate was a primetime address to the nation before a rare joint session of Congress. He laid out his broad goals for reform, and also the moral imperative that we share as our brother's keeper, and then during the speech - a town hall broke out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

WILSON: You lie!

(BOOING)

OBAMA: It's not true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: The shout came from Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Before the lights were even dimmed in the House chamber that night, there were numerous calls for apologies, even from fellow Republicans. A apology phone call was made to the White House that evening, but only in the manner of a scolded child made to do so by his parents.

In the ensuing days, it became abundantly clear that sincerity was one fellow Congressman Wilson had ever met. Neither was a grasp of the facts.

In a Special Comment, I pointed out to the nation that worse than the actual behavior itself was the point that Wilson was just plain wrong, and whose stupidity was underscoring what one great commentator called creeping meatball-ism.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Hey, Mr. Wilson!

"This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill," you hurriedly said last night as a nation caved in on you, and your own party's leadership coerced you into saying something.

"While I disagree with the President's statements, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility." For the lack of civility, Congressman? Is that what you think this is about?

Of course your comments were inappropriate and regrettable. You are a Republican trying to de-legitimize the elected president of the United States. That's all you do, and that's all you've got.

Of course you let your emotions get the best of you. At a figure of $435,296 in campaign donations from the Health Sector, of course your emotions would take over when your gravy train was threatened. It isn't about "inappropriate and regrettable," Sir!

Your comments were inappropriate and regrettable and wrong! You got up in front of the world, embarrassed your district, embarrassed your state, embarrassed your party, embarrassed your nation, shouted at the President like he was a referee at a ball game and you were a drunk in the stands, and you were wrong.

House Bill 3200 specifically says, Sir, in language made precise and binding in section 246 under the heading, quote: No federal payment for undocumented aliens."

Look, Congressman! All capital letters! For the benefit of the factually-challenged! "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."

You got it wrong! There is no ambiguity, Sir. There is no disagreement! The bill says those here illegally will not be covered; yet whether through stupidity or a willful attempt to mislead the gullible, you decided to spend whatever credibility remained to you, on a position in which you are utterly, inarguably, and in a manner obvious to newborns and the more sophisticated of farm animals wrong!

You apologize for your lack of civility? When are you going to apologize for your lack of being right? Wrong-Way Wilson. Whatever it is, it's congenital. Wrong-Way Wilson just wrote an op-ed, on August 27th for the Columbia, South Carolina newspaper "The State," about the non-existent death panels that he and Mrs. Palin saw in their dreams or something:

"Those who have stood up and shown up to have their voices heard have already made a difference in this debate." Perhaps henceforth Mr. Wilson should soft-pedal the "have their voices heard" part.

"...citizens have discovered and brought to light numerous aspects of the health care overhaul (H.R. 3200) that are deeply troubling. These include the end of life counseling program, which has been correctly highlighted by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a program which could lead to seniors being encouraged to seek less care in order to protect the government's bottom line."

Perhaps henceforth Mr. Wilson should soft-pedal the Palin Paranoia, since he caught enough of it that last night, he made himself look like an uninformed eight-year old screaming at an adult.

"Americans... want and deserve this honest debate." Perhaps henceforth Mr. Wilson should remember that the word "honest" is as important as the word "debate." The latter without the former is better known as Political Tourette's Syndrome.

The evidence that Wrong-Way Wilson and reality are strangers goes back much further than last night. When Congressman Rob Filner said the U-S had helped Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons, Wilson went nuts. Worse, he accused Filner of a quote "hatred of America," and insisted "you shouldn't say that" and "you should retract it" and "you know it is not true."

It was true. It had been confirmed by the Commerce Department in 1994. Wrong-Way Wilson was wrong. A year later, when it was asserted that Sen. Strom Thurmond from Wrong-Way's home state had fathered a daughter with a black woman, Mr. Wilson called the assertion a quote "smear on the image" of Sen. Thurmond.

This was after Sen. Thurmond's family had acknowledged not just paternity, but the fact that the Senator had maintained a secret relationship with his daughter, and provided her money, for decades. After this was admitted, Congressman Wilson considered references to it a "smear" and said Thurmond's daughter should have kept it to herself.

Coincidence, of course, Wrong-Way, that it would be you who would consider the confirmed, acknowledged bi-racial child of Strom Thurmond as a "smear." And then it would again be you who in the middle of a festival of blind racial rage dressed up as a health care debate would shout out, "you lie" at a bi-racial President of the United States as he addressed Congress.

And just a coincidence that you're a member of a radicalized, insurrection-glorifying group, accused of harboring white supremacists, called "Sons Of Confederate Veterans."

Back to this incident. You have swallowed some of the Kool-Aid you mix up for those damn fools who believe you, Congressman. You sounded as pathetic as one of those poor souls, stampeded by corporate funding from the insurance and health care industries, who shout out nonsense at those demonstrations of willful stupidity that have been mislabeled "Town Halls" these places where a citizen's life is reduced to acting out that ridiculous maxim, if you're going to be wrong, be wrong at the top of your voice.

But Congressman, you're not supposed to be a Town Hall panicker, you're not supposed to be a Rube defending the efficacy of the Snake Oil, you are a Congressman, and still you were wrong at the top of your voice! Town Halls, Death Panels, Oligarchies, a multi-racial president who is accused of hating half his own ancestry, neuroses about communist artwork, the idea that fascism and socialism aren't mutually exclusive, grass-roots protests bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations, scared seniors terrified enough to turn to insurance companies for protection against reformers who want to increase their coverage and cut their rates, birchers, birthers, deathers, the voices in Michele Bachmann's head, the Republican rebuttal to the President of the United States given by a guy who thought he could become "Lord Boustany" by paying a couple of English con men.

And now to top off this pile of stupidity: Congressman Wrong-Way Wilson, who when a President publicly, and ostentatiously, gave credit for part of his health care reform proposal to the very Republican he swamped in the election last year Wrong-Way Wilson followed that bi-partisan gesture, by shouting "you lie" as soon as he heard the truth.

It is this week, evident that the greatest threat to the nation is not terrorism nor the economy nor H1N1 nor even bad health care. It is rank, willful stupidity. When did we come to extol stupidity ahead of information, and rely on voo-doo, superstition, and prejudice ahead of education?

How many Republicans believe in Death Panels and Brownies and Elves? When did we start to listen to elect the impregnably dense? I was almost too fearful of using the word "impregnably" because of the prospect that Governor Palin would go after me the way she went after Letterman.

The time has come to rise up and take this country back, to again make it safe. for people who actually completed the seventh grade. The crime of Wrong-Way Wilson was not reflected in his emotions, nor his disagreement, nor his inappropriate conduct, nor in his incivility. It was in his prideful wrong-ness.

There are many vague portions of this bill, but section 246 says it plain: "No federal payment for undocumented aliens." I defend Congressman Wilson's right to incivility. A little incivility six years ago might have stopped the Iraq war. He can shout anything he wants, at anybody he wants, in any circumstances he wants.

Providing that he is willing to suffer the consequences of his actions, I am willing to suffer him.

This nation can survive a president being disrespected by some nickel-dime congressman from Beaufort; the shame falls onto the shouter and not the one shouted at.

But this nation cannot survive the continued acceptance, the continued

endorsement, the continued encouragement, the continued

institutionalization of stupidity

I think if Mr. Lincoln were alive he might re-cast his most famous imagery in the light of the truest of our present crises: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half smart, and half stupid.

Section 246 is written expressly: there will be no health care funding for those who are here illegally; that there will be no mechanism created to establish such funding. I fear Section 247 will have to be rewritten expressly: so that there will be a mechanism created to establish stupid panels.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Our jamboree tour now leaves the portion of the program reserved for elected crazies and delves into the at large crazy category. It's Glenn Lonesome Roads Beck versus Orly Obama's from Kenya or Mombassa or somewhere Taitz. It's the marquee match up on the great 2009 whack job whack-a-mole, ahead on this special holiday edition of Countdown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: The biggest whack job theme of the year was the notion that Barack Obama was not the legitimate president of the United States, not because he didn't get the most votes or something on election day, but because he really wasn't born here. It was the bizarre theory pushed by the crowd that came to be known as the birthers.

I call it bizarre because after one of the toughest, tightest Democratic primaries in history, does anybody really think Hillary Clinton would have missed the fact that Obama was born somewhere other than the US? Same thing with the general election. Both McCain and Clinton investigated the claim and found there to be absolutely no there there.

But a woman named Orly Taitz wants us to believe she's smarter than the rest of us. Orly sees things only Orly sees. On Countdown, we saw one of the biggest whack jobs of any year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: As 44 turns 48, a birthday present from the birthers, that forged Kenyan birth certificate produced over the weekend was created from a real birth certificate, but not one from Africa. It comes from a land down under. Our number one story, this just in, the president of the United States is actually a 50-year-old Australian man named Jeffrey - David Jeffrey Bomford, or it's the other way around.

As we reported, a few details of a Russian emigre, dentist turned correspondent school lawyer Orly Taitz's forged Kenyan masterpiece. They're off a little bit. "Washington Independent" now examining the similarities between the fake document and an actual Australian birth certificate from 1959. It appears that somebody did a little copy and paste work with the birth certificate of David Jeffrey Bomford of Adelaide (ph).

Not only identical in design and lay out, but similar in key details. The registrar on the Australian document is G.F. Lavender. On the forged document, it is E.F. Lavender, a type of detergent and a type of specially bred gecko, seriously.

The district registrar on the Australian document is J.H. Miller. On the one brought to us by Ms. Taitz, M.H. Miller. So either a bunch of mid-century birth officials from two different parts of the world all shared similar names, or the forger's attention to detail stopped at the artificial aging of the paper part.

As to the actual man whose birth certificate is helping fuel the

birthers-

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID JEFFREY BOMFORD, AUSTRALIAN: That is ridiculous. Little old person in Adelaide, the president of the United States. I don't know whether to laugh about it or not, or be worried about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Be worried about it. Earlier this afternoon, the jolly swagman president dined with the Senate Dems, Blue Dogs and all, and then stopped by the White House press briefing room, surprising fellow birthday girl and veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas with cupcakes.

Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton, on an ironically times, albeit pre-planned trip to Kenya today-Orly Taitz seems to think she was there to inspect birth certificates. Denying that her forged Obama document is a fake. Ms. Taitz claiming on her blog, "if Kenyan BC," birth certificate, "that I provided would not be genuine, Hillary would not be rushing to Kenya, would she?"

And by the logic, if it was not a fraud, wouldn't the world have come to an end this morning, to prevent everybody in two hemisphere from laughing hysterically at your incompetence, Ms. Taitz?

Joining me now, comedian Paul F. Tompkins. Paul, good evening.

PAUL F. TOMPKINS, COMEDIAN: Good evening, Keith. If I'm not much mistaken, I believe Orly's last name is Taitz.

OLBERMANN: What have I been saying?

TOMPKINS: I would rather not say what you have been saying.

OLBERMANN: What's the difference?

TOMPKINS: Fair enough.

OLBERMANN: The president is now Australian, or this man Bomford is actually our president. What does this means in terms of the vice president? Is Biden out and Hugh Jackman in?

TOMPKINS: Yes, he's talking the Amtrak from Perth. What I don't understand about this-the thing that infuriates me the most is why didn't these goof balls use a Kenyan birth certificate as a template? This is what drives me nuts more than anything. Why Australia? Do they think Australia is a country in Africa? I don't understand why this-some cursory Internet research really would have helped them out. Maybe they could have actually looked up Obama's birth certificate in the first place, and that would have stopped the whole thing there.

OLBERMANN: No, probably not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: No, probably not. Cut from the same cloth as Orly Taitz -

if that's your real name - is Glenn Beck of Fox Noise. Like Bill-O, Beck claims to see things no one else can, like hidden messages in the artwork around Rockefeller Center, hidden socialist messages. Or maybe it was hidden fascist messages, even though fascism and socialism are political opposites, it's all the same to this guy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: In a year which showcased the endless array of whack jobs coming out of the woodwork, the grand poobah of whack jobbery could be none other than Glenn Lonesome Roads Beck. On the radio and on Fox News, his almost daily assertions that he fears for where this country is headed, often reduced even himself to tears, never mind the rest of us.

Beck has compared the president to Hitler, said Obama had a deep-seeded hatred for white people. That racist remark sparked dozens of his advertisers to drop his program. His vitriol so damaging that the Anti-Defamation League actually named him the fear monger in chief.

Because he's so over the top, he's also a popular target to lampoon. From "Saturday Night Live" to "South Park," making fun of Beck has become easy sport. We here on Countdown started it. We had our turn with him, even when Beck decided the artwork around 30 Rock is actually sending secret socialist or fascist messages that only he can see.

Boy, did we have a surprise for him.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: Finally, tonight as promised. Our number one story and the jig is up. I work in MSNBC, comes to you from NBC and GE are headquartered at a communist, fascist, progressive building - an evil, mind-controlling, symbol-ridden, living, breathing evil building. I know this is true because Glenn Beck has telled (ph) me so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: America, I want to talk to you a little about propaganda that you see maybe every day - at least people here in New York and they have no idea what they're even looking at - Rockefeller had Standard Oil. That's how he made all of his money.

Well, Standard Oil had this big Gothic building downtown in New York and they wanted to change it and update it. And there was no real American architect in New York City, in the whole world. They decided to do something completely different. Streamline. Different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: And except, sparky, Rockefeller Center was not built as an updated Rockefeller Standard Oil building. There's never been a Standard Oil office in Rockefeller Center. The Rockefellers didn't even want it to call it Rockefeller Center, but do go on.

The psychiatrists in the audience are all saying this is fascinating.

Let me grab a prescription pad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: This is Rockefeller Plaza. Here is the door frame of this building, this where the concerts are. There's this man and this man. Well, let's see. He's holding a hammer and there's weed over there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: There's weed over there? I've been coming here for 30 years I never knew there was weed over here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: He's holding a hammer and there's weed over there, so this must be the worker. Can you show me this guy? This must be the worker yes, because he has the hammer here's the worker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Maybe he's MC Hammer, or maybe it's an old ad for Arm & Hammer baking soda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: To show you the front of the building 636 Fifth Avenue. This, I walked by this the other day with my wife and I stopped there and I showed her all of this stuff. And it drives me nuts that nobody knows what this is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Do you know what that is? At 636 Fifth Avenue? That's the clothing store Faconnable, that's what that is. So these are French communists.

We rejoin Glenn Beck already in progress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Well, let's show you his hand. This man's strong hand is holding on to the reins tightly here, holding back the engines of industry, being led into the bright future of tomorrow by a young boy. Who is this? Who is this?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Is it Mickey Mantle?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: This is the strong leader taking that, using that industry and those machines to lead us into the bright - into the bright future led by our children.

Gee, who's having indoctrination next week? Ok, that's right. The president; completely unrelated. This represents at the time this was made, Mussolini. This was Mussolini.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Well, so it's Mussolini and it's Obama and it was carved into the side of this Communist building that I work in 30 years before Obama was even born.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: This is actually sitting on my desk. I keep this on my desk to remind myself that very beautiful things can come from really ugly places. There it is, made in the USSR.

What is this? This is actually an image made of this man beating the plow, beating the sword into a plowshare. That sits here in New York City.

It was - it was a gift from the former Soviet Union. It sits behind this building, the United Nations, which happens to sit on land donated to the United States and the world by Rockefeller. Oh, my gosh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Oh, my gosh, you guys. Glenn's about to tell us that the map to the secret treasure is on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

But wait, wait, wait. What was that about the prototype on your desk?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I keep this on my desk to remind myself that very beautiful things can come from really ugly places. Show the other side. There it is, made in the USSR.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: A prototype made in the Soviet Union is sitting on Glenn Beck's desk? Glenn Beck has a Communist paperweight? Well it's probably still broadcasting instructions direct from Joe Stalin into his head? Glenn Beck is a Soviet agent?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: All of the images that I've shown you here, thousands of people walk by every single day. Jack, our sound engineer, how long do you work in that building, Jack?

JACK: 29 years.

BECK: 29 years he's been walking by that stuff he said, I never even seen it. I've never noticed it. Of course not, until somebody points it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Just like now that it's all been pointed out to Jack, every time he walks by Glenn Beck, he'll think, dude's crazy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I'm trying to show you the things that seem to be hidden but they're not. They are out in plain sight. Those with eyes will not see and those with ears will not hear. You're awake; you need to see the things that are hidden in plain sight - progressives, fascists, communists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: But they're not. But you know perhaps Glenn is right about all of this. I mean, let's look for these symbols he talked about hidden in plain sight representing those progressive fascist communists and not just at 636 Fifth Avenue.

Where inside it only looks like a Faconnable store, even now French Communists are selling high-end cocktail dresses to Mussolini, MC Hammer and Nelson Rockefeller.

Let's go a block to the west, to the left, left, if you will, to 1211 Sixth Avenue and strange hidden symbols on the walls of a building which thousands of ordinary Americans pass by every day. Yes. There it is.

The home of such companies as NewsCorp and IIJ America, Internet Initiative Japan, Emperor Hirohito and West LD (INAUDIBLE). And look at this symbol. This is - this is the ancient Sanskrit symbol for being left back a year in school.

And this symbol over here, why on the right it's a hieroglyph dating back to the fourth century B.C., meaning man functioning despite absence of brain.

But what's that on the left? That's Alan Colmes. There's no more Alan Colmes. Why is there still a symbol for Alan Colmes, comrade?

And this is a pictograph from ancient Crete. An ancient Cretan pictograph and it translates into English as "We'll Do It Live."

But nowhere, nowhere among this symbols that are outside the walls of the actual studios of Fox News, nowhere is there a symbol representing Glenn Beck. Are they not proud of the Glenn Beck? Will they not acknowledge the truth of the Glenn Beck or is the symbol for the Glenn Beck just not yet back from Photo-mat?

You know what else is at 1211 Sixth Avenue on the roof? NBC Earth Station; NBC Earth Stations; I work at NBC and that term NBC Earth Stations, that even scares the crap out of me.

NBC and Glenn Beck in the same building, two marionettes, one set of strings, one puppeteer and, and, and, about the symbolism of the address, 1211 Sixth Avenue. Sixth Avenue is actually called the Avenue of the Americas.

Yes, plural. Americas, not just the America but all those little irrelevant Americas where the illegal aliens come from. Renamed Avenue of the Americas by the one-worlders after the Second World War. The philosophers, the internationalists - an address still used to this day at this very hour on the stationery you of this man, Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch of the Avenue of the Americas. Rupert Murdoch, hasta la vista, baby.

And finally, the ultimate awful secret about 1211 Avenue of the Americas, a truth so shocking and horrifying, you must send your children out of the room immediately. I said immediate.

Look at the Web site for 1211 Avenue of the Americas and behold the horror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In New York City, it's all about location. And in midtown Manhattan, 1211 Avenue of the Americas is the premier spot. Located at center of midtown Manhattan this prestigious class A office tower is part of Rockefeller Center.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: That's right. Fox News is in Rockefeller Center. Glenn Beck works in Rockefeller Center. Glenn Beck's office building was designed by Wallace K. Harrison.

And who's Wallace K. Harrison? The personal architect to the Rockefellers. Oh my gosh; the architect who designed the United Nations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Don't let any of these people ever tell you anything other than the truth. And that is, early 20th century progressives and the progressives of today. It makes sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: It all fits together. The map to the treasure chest is on the back of Obama's birth certificate which is in the FEMA detention camp hidden that's inside Glenn Beck's brain which is kept in a mayonnaise jar on the porch next to the NBC Earth Station at 1211 Avenue of the Americas.

Don't get on that ship, Mr. Beck, to serve man. It's a cookbook.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: And that's all the crazy we could jam into our holiday jamboree. We hope you enjoyed it. Something tells me there will be plenty more crazy for us to cover in 2010. Your Countdown crazy-cast is live each week night on MSNBC at 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific. Happy holidays. Good night and good luck.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END