'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
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KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST (voice-over): As 2008 turned to 2009 and as President 43 graciously gave way to 44.
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GEORGE W. BUSH, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: We wish you all the very best.
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OLBERMANN: ...certain people were less than gracious.
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REP. JOE WILSON (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: You lie!
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OLBERMANN: From the birthers...
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is not an American citizen.
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OLBERMANN: From town hall crazies...
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I want to say that I'm a proud right-wing terrorist.
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OLBERMANN: To the duly elected on Capitol Hill...
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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.
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OLBERMANN: In 2009, the whack jobs were out en masse.
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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.
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OLBERMANN: This was the year the whack jobs quit their other jobs.
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SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Hell, yes.
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OLBERMANN: They even use a trusty news channel to awaken Americans.
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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.
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OLBERMANN: And a wacky governor used his love of hiking to hide his booty calls.
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GOV. MARK SANFORD (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Off we'd go and what these great adventures on the Appalachian Trail.
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OLBERMANN: Tonight, find out if your favorite whack job made the cut
Countdown's 2009 Whack Job Jamboree.
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OLBERMANN: You must send your children out of the room immediately.
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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."
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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."
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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."
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OLBERMANN: See, but that's not how I imagined it. In my imagination, it's really bad.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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-
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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OLBERMANN: There's weed over there? I've been coming here for 30 years I never knew there was weed over here.
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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.
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OLBERMANN: Maybe he's MC Hammer, or maybe it's an old ad for Arm & Hammer baking soda.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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OLBERMANN: Is it Mickey Mantle?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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