Guests: Jonathan Turley, Ezra Klein, John Dean, David Weigel, Matt Frei.
KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST (voice-over): Which of these stories will you
be talking about tomorrow?
Fluid on the First Amendment? Mediocre on checking executive power
abuse, iffy on indefinite detention without trial for terror suspects, and
never a judge. The Harriet Miers of the left? Or center-left? Middle?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A great lawyer, a great
teacher, and a devoted public servant who I am confident will make an
outstanding Supreme Court justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Or is the strategy: find somebody middle-of-the-roadish
enough who can occasionally drag a conservative over once in a while?
And does that matter compare to the answer of this question: if a
Republican president nominated an Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, would
you support the nomination?
The politics with Ezra Klein; the law with Jonathan Turley.
The worst may be yet to come—the attorney general talking about
making Miranda rights adjustable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think that we have to think
about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow
coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the
threat that we now face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: What the hell! My guest: John Dean.
The tea party again defeats a Republican to the benefit of a
Democratic—Bob Bennett out as GOP Senate nominee in Utah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BOB BENNETT ®, UTAH: The political atmosphere, obviously, has
been toxic and it‘s very clear that some of the votes that I have cast have
added to the toxic environment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Meanwhile, back in Nevada, “chicken lady” can‘t stop
talking about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUE LOWDEN ®, NEVADA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: They want to make this
about chicken and checks—a check I wrote decades ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Tiger Woods pulls out, possible disk problem. Only the
reporter didn‘t say “disk.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: And thinks it could be a bulging (EXPLETIVE DELETED) --
disk in his upper back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Why does that sound so familiar?
And the best British drama since Shakespeare—the prime minister
will throw himself under the bus in hopes that the Liberal Democrats will
form a coalition with his successor. Better yet, Gordon Brown‘s successor,
the possible next prime minister of Great Britain? Ed Balls.
All the news and commentary—now on COUNTDOWN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON BROWN, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: That is a judgment on me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York.
Swing and a miss. President Obama today is announcing his second
nomination to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the woman
who argues the administration‘s cases to the Supreme Court.
And in our fifth story: The president igniting a political firestorm
less on the right or between imbecilic responses some Republicans are
admitting Kagan‘s acceptability; rather more so on the left where a host of
concerns arose since and well before today‘s announcement.
Mr. Obama‘s nominee would make history, giving the court three women
simultaneously and also for the first time, giving it not a single
Protestant. As was widely reported before today however, Mr. Obama was
interested in finding a judge who could—at least on occasion—win over
what remains of the swing vote on the high court, most noticeably Justice
Anthony Kennedy, consensus-building made explicit today as one of the
criteria.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: But Elena‘s respected and admired not just for her intellect
and record of achievement, but also for her temperament, her openness to a
broad array of viewpoints, her habit—to borrow a phrase from Justice
Stevens—of understanding before disagreeing, her fair-mindedness and
skill as a consensus-builder.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: That insistence on relying on more than law alone, on life
experience, already drawing fire from the right as Republicans insist that
becoming the first female solicitor general and Harvard‘s first female law
dean and serving as deputy policy adviser to President Clinton—do not
count as real world experience of nominees that have not served as judges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: The American people
want a nominee with the requisite legal experience. They instinctively
know that a lifetime position on the Supreme Court does not lend itself to
on-the-job training. Of course, one does not need to have prior experience
as a judge before being appointed to the country‘s highest court.
But it strikes me that if a nominee does not have judicial experience,
they should have substantial litigation experience. Ms. Kagan has neither.
Unlike Justice Rehnquist, for instance, who was in private practice for 16
years prior to his appointment as assistant attorney general for the Office
of Legal Counsel, a job he had at the time of his appointment to the
Supreme Court.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Democrats suggested Republicans would push back against
anybody.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY CMTE.: I told the
president, I said, you realize if you nominated Moses, the lawgiver,
somebody would raise—but he doesn‘t have a birth certificate. Where‘s
his birth certificate?
I mean, come on. Let‘s—we‘re talking about a Supreme Court
justice. Let‘s look at the qualifications. Vote up, vote down. She will
be confirmed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Solicitor General Kagan herself doing nothing to ease
Republican suspicions about her populism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELENA KAGAN, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: The court is an extraordinary
institution, in the work it does and in the work it can do for the American
people by advancing the tenets of our Constitution, by upholding the rule
of law and by enabling all Americans—regardless of their background or
their beliefs—to get a fair hearing and an equal chance at justice.
My professional life has been marked by great good fortune. I clerked
for a judge, Abner Mikva, who represents the best in public service and for
a justice, Thurgood Marshall, who did more to promote justice over the
course of his legal career than did any lawyer in his lifetime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Republican chairman, Michael Steele, latched on to a
previous tribute to Justice Marshall, specifically Ms. Kagan quoting
Marshall as calling the original Constitution defective, a critique
explicitly made in reference to the constitutional endorsement of slavery -
that‘s right, the GOP defending slavery again.
But it is Kagan‘s defense of Bush and Obama policies on detainees that
has drawn substantive fire—Kagan in her confirmation hearing for
solicitor general arguing the executive branch can call anywhere in the
world a battlefield and thus deny suspects criminal court due process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM ®, SOUTH CAROLINA: When you talk about the
physical battlefield, if our intelligence agency should capture someone in
the Philippines that is suspected of financing al Qaeda worldwide, would
you consider that person part of the battlefield? Even though we‘re in the
Philippines, if they were involved in al Qaeda activity? Holder said, the
attorney general said, “Yes, I would.” Do you agree with that?
KAGAN: I do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Kagan has also drawn criticism for the meager female and
minority hiring record while she was the dean at Harvard Law, as well as
from the right, attacks and innuendo about her ban on-campus military
recruiting because “don‘t ask, don‘t tell” violated campus anti-
discrimination guidelines, a ban she reversed after the Supreme Court ruled
it would cost Harvard millions in federal grants.
Let‘s bring in Jonathan Turley, scholar of constitutional law and
professor at George Washington University.
Jon, good evening.
JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Hi, Keith.
OLBERMANN: The solicitor general does have—as Republicans pointed
out—remarkably little courtroom experience, especially in what we like
to think of as the modern era. Does that really matter?
TURLEY: I have to tell you, I don‘t think it does. I‘ve always
rejected this idea that Supreme Court justices have to have some standard
resume or standard components. It‘s not an institution like that. What
you‘re looking for are people who are interested in the law who have the
intellect to see a legal horizon that may not appear to others, that have a
good temperament, but more importantly are engaged in law.
She has a splendid resume. It‘s a different resume. But I find this
all silly as to whether you have to be a judge or litigator. She has a
wonderful resume.
Those that are questioning her from the left, and I‘ve raised some
questions, it‘s about her views. Not about her background, which I think
is quite stellar.
OLBERMANN: She pushed back against the Bush era excesses on detainee
policy in a letter to Senator Graham in 2005. Is it possible that the
positions that she expressed as solicitor general, as has been expressed as
solicitor general, are merely reflecting her advocacy for the opinions of
her bosses?
TURLEY: I saw that spin coming off some blogs and I went back and
looked again at these tapes. It seems to me that she is clearly intending
to send the message that this is her viewpoint. I thought it was
interesting that she also said that she agreed with the proposition that we
should have viewed ourselves at war since the 1990s. Those things seem to
me like they were being conveyed as her viewpoints.
It doesn‘t mean she can‘t walk back from that. People change their
views on the Supreme Court. But she is viewed with great trepidation by
civil libertarians because of those statements and her role in the
administration.
OLBERMANN: And to that concern and trepidation, you have your own
concerns about another point that really hasn‘t been emphasized too much in
this day or since the rumor came out about it. First, her views on the
First Amendment—would you expand on that?
TURLEY: Yes. I—actually, that was the issue I flagged on my blog.
I read her article, her 1996 article. She‘s a rather limited writing
background. But what she has written raises some great concerns for those
of us who believe strongly in free speech.
She wrote a piece that indicates that she believes the government can
regulate speech, in a much wider way than most of us feel comfortable. And
the piece really breaks away from the concept that many of us have of the
First Amendment as a bright line rule protecting speech. She views it more
as looking at the mode of the government, why is the government regulating.
Now, many of us view that as a slippery slope, a very dangerous one.
And it seems clear from the article, to me, that she does not view that
bright line as particularly bright. And she probably shares that, by the
way, with Justice Sotomayor, who had similar views that worried free speech
people.
OLBERMANN: I‘m going to ask our next guest, Ezra Klein, the same
question, but I want your opinion on it first. Law is not math. The
bench, especially at that level, is not free of politics. Is it better to
have a proud known progressive who always loses as the fourth vote in 5-4
decisions for the next umpteen years or a centrist compromiser who
sometimes wins by nudging over a fifth vote?
TURLEY: I have to tell you, it may sound Shakespearean, but give me
the principled loser every time. I‘ll tell you why. That once you start
to treat things like the First Amendment as something to barter, you
validate the views of the other side. You suggest that it‘s all fungible
or fluid.
I would rather have justices that state the Constitution as it is—
at least as I believe it is—that the First Amendment may not be
absolute. But it‘s the thing that holds us together.
And compromises are dangerous. We saw that with the Fourth Amendment
where so many exceptions occurred, there was more holes than cheese in
parts of the Fourth Amendment. We can‘t afford that as a free nation in
areas like the First Amendment. I would rather justices stand on
principle.
And by the way, Keith, as much as consensus building is important,
these justices aren‘t going to change their vote because they like Elena
Kagan or they want to get along. They vote the way that they believe they
should vote. And they make compromises in some degree on the doctrine, but
don‘t put too much stake in that.
It‘s much more important in my view to be principled and right than to
be victorious.
OLBERMANN: Plus one never knows what the makeup of the court is going
to be conservative to liberal from second to second depending on how the
actual tables play out.
TURLEY: That‘s right.
OLBERMANN: Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington University
School of Law—as always, Jon, thanks for helping us try to understand
this.
TURLEY: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: To judge the political lay of the land, let‘s turn as
promised to Ezra Klein of “Washington Post” and “Newsweek.”
Ezra, good evening.
EZRA KLEIN, WASHINGTON POST: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: So, that—is that the gist of this, the question: what‘s
better, the progressive leader on the court who would lose or the centrist
who sometimes wins or could the president have gotten both in another
nominee?
KLEIN: Well, the big question is, whether or not we‘re facing that
choice because you could have a centrist who loses, you could have a
progressive who‘s bringing people over. That was the genius of John Paul
Stevens. He was a wonderful vote counter. He could craft an opinion that
would bring others onto it.
The thing that the folks in the Clinton White House and Obama White
House will say about Kagan, the thing that they‘re telling people, is that
she is say wonderful political negotiator. That she‘s good at getting into
a room, understanding where the other side is on an issue, and then using
that understanding to bring them to fashion a compromise that they can live
with. So, they believe that can move the political balance of the court.
I think there‘s reason to be skeptical. I sort of agree with Jonathan
on this point that every couple of years when you do a Supreme Court
nomination, we talk about Anthony Kennedy like he‘s an idiot. We just keep
saying, oh, we need someone who a bit smarter than him and move him. I
doubt that works and I don‘t see much evidence that works.
That said, we don‘t know that Kagan is a centrist either. The issue
with Kagan is we actually don‘t know that much about her right now.
OLBERMANN: And—I mean, if that were the premise you could just
find out what his favorite candy was, and bring a big box of that candy
would be, whoever had the biggest box would be.
KLEIN: Big (INAUDIBLE) fan of Anthony Kennedy.
OLBERMANN: Yes. The nominee has worked for President Clinton,
Justice Marshall, Senator Biden, was hired by Larry Summers of Harvard Law.
When she was in Illinois, she tried to hire Barack Obama—Professor
Barack Obama. If she‘s—she‘s not known publicly necessarily from this
important but not exactly front row position in the administration,
certainly, Democratic insiders must know exactly what they are getting.
Is that correct or is that their sales point or—assess that for us.
KLEIN: That is—that‘s certainly correct. So, not only that, but
she also worked for a liberal New York judge. She used to work—a
liberal New York senator, I‘m sorry, worked for Thurgood Marshall. She has
been in Democratic Party politics for a very long time, which is not
common.
And so, it does mean that what you‘re getting here is a lot of private
knowledge. Not public knowledge. But I likened her today to when Joe
Biden appointed his former chief of staff, Ted Kaufman to a Senate seat.
This was someone who Biden knew really, really, well.
Now, the voters didn‘t know him that well, the media didn‘t know him
well, but Biden did. And that is how they have done the Kagan pick. And I
think they like it that way for two reasons. One, they feel comfortable
with her. They know her, they like her. They are very impressed and this
is important too, with her political and intellectual skill set.
And number two, they like the idea that she‘s a bit of a cipher. It‘s
not horrible for them that the left is a bit disappointed. It‘s good she
doesn‘t have a huge paper trail that people can use to attack her. So, to
them this is a bit of a feature.
But I think it should be said that sort of a record in Democratic
politics is a record about what she believes intellectually. Hard to
believe she‘d be, you know, putting that much into it if they didn‘t think
on some level that these were policies she want to associate herself with.
OLBERMANN: Why the gap, though, finally, between Republican nominees
who, you know, proudly wear these right wing pro-corporation credentials,
the Roberts‘s and the Alitos and the left has got to essentially try to
divine with a cleft stick where the nominees come from and where they‘re
going?
KLEIN: I think there are a couple reasons. One is that—remember
that the right wing has had in recent years some very, very bad
experiences. John Paul Stevens was a Gerald Ford appointee. David Souter
was, again, a Republican appointee. They‘ve got a couple of times where
they go someone they thought they knew what they were getting into, and
really, really didn‘t. So, they‘ve been more burned I think than the left
has on this.
And did you see, in the Bush era, the attempted appointment of Harriet
Miers who the right really didn‘t know well and they were able to shout
that one down. But, so, I think it‘s a bit more of a checkered situation
over there than sometimes people realize.
OLBERMANN: Ezra Klein of “The Washington Post” and “Newsweek—as
always, great thanks, Reza.
KLEIN: Thank you.
OLBERMANN: One gets the feeling that court with or without a Justice
Kagan will someday get to rule on a case main-lining back to something just
said by the current attorney general. Quote, “We have to give serious
consideration to at least modifying that public safety exception to Miranda
rights. “ John Dean—next on COUNTDOWN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: What on earth did this man mean when he said we need to
determine if Miranda rights have the necessary flexibility to handle
terrorism suspects? Miranda‘s flexibility? What is this, “Sex and the
City?” John Dean joins me.
The most painful injury in sports, not to have for forecasters to
pronounce is bulging—what the announcer meant to say.
Did you know American liberals refuse to fight Hitler? So says she.
She also looks like she just seen FDR‘s ghost.
And now, better than the best political fiction, the prime minister
will sacrifice himself so the third party will make a deal with his
successor. That could mean we get to say, “Prime Minister Ed Balls.”
Ahead on COUNTDOWN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: The FBI questioned Faisal Shahzad for more than three
hours before he was read his Miranda rights—under a well-established
exemption to Miranda for immediate threats to public safety. But Attorney
General Eric Holder apparently concerned that investigators may push that
exception too far, has now called on Congress to enact a broader exception
to Miranda.
In our fourth story tonight: Would it be a regrettable move to chip
away at the Constitution, this under President Obama? John Dean will join
us in a moment.
Attorney General Holder did, once again, defend the criminal justice
system‘s capacity to deal with terror suspects, including reading those
suspects their Miranda rights. But he thinks Congress should revisit those
rights established by the Supreme Court in 1966.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLDER: I think we also want to look and make determinations as to
whether or not we have the necessary flexibility, whether we have a system
that can deal with the situation that agents now confront. We‘re now
dealing with international terrorism. If we‘re going to have a system that
is capable of dealing in a public safety context with this new threat, I
think we have to give serious consideration to at least modifying that
public safety exception. And that‘s one of the things that I think we‘re
going to be reaching out to Congress to do, to come up with a proposal that
is both constitutional but that is also relevant to our time and a threat
that we now face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: No indication that a broader exception to Miranda based on
international terrorism would even satisfy those bending the issue for
political purposes who do not want terrorist suspects at all put through
our nation‘s criminal justice system. Rudy Giuliani, for instance,
supported Holder‘s proposal. He said it would still be better to hold
suspects like Shahzad as military detainees. Giuliani joins the likes of
Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Joe Lieberman, who have offered various
ideas about how to discard Miranda rights in the case of a terror suspect.
Let‘s bring in, as promised, former White House counsel, now columnist
for FindLaw.com, John Dean, also the author of “Blind Ambition.”
John, good evening.
JOHN DEAN, FINDLAW.COM: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Are we clear yet to any degree what Holder is proposing
here? Do you have any idea?
DEAN: Well, I actually caught the clips and then thought that isn‘t
very clear. So, I went back and looked at the entire transcript and I
wasn‘t clear at first if he was really responding just to leading questions
or if he‘d actually had some proposal that he had in mind at the Justice
Department. It appears the latter—although I don‘t think he was ready
to announce it Sunday—but rather it was forced out because of the
questioning.
OLBERMANN: It would seem as if a public safety exception to Miranda
would be enough of a dilution and we just saw its effectives in practical
real-time circumstances in New York, in the capture and arrest and
interrogation of Shahzad. But why would anybody think that‘s not
sufficient?
DEAN: Well, it‘s certainly good political grandstanding. The right
has been hammering on this on how tough they are on terrorism, how weak the
Democrats are. So, they keep pounding that drum.
It looks like Mr. Holder and the administration is trying to respond
to that. They‘re never going to satisfy it. In fact, we don‘t need
legislation. There‘s no evidence that Miranda has ever been a problem for
law enforcement. There‘s no evidence that it‘s a problem now with
terrorism. There‘s no evidence they need anything more in the exception
than they already have.
OLBERMANN: In 2000, the Supreme Court addressed the Miranda case or a
case that was supposed to essentially overrule Miranda. Can you fill us in
on that?
DEAN: Yes, they—that was the first real sort of constitutional
test of Miranda. A lot thought because of some of the earlier opinions
he‘d written that Rehnquist would overturn it. It turned out in the
Dickenson case there was no such overturning of the—based on the
statute.
Congress had tried to really redefine the whole area of Miranda
unsuccessfully.
That isn‘t the case here. There happens to be already an exception
that Rehnquist wrote in another opinion later in ‘84 while he was on the
Burger Court and that‘s really the prevailing law. And I believe there‘s
ample room within that exception today for terrorist investigations.
OLBERMANN: It‘s curious, certainly, the timing of this that, as you
suggest, that it would sound like Mr. Holder had an idea but wasn‘t really
ready to announce it and yet addresses sort of announce there‘s is an idea
the day before a Supreme Court nominee is revealed. Are these things—is
it just juxtaposition or are these somehow related? Is this going to—is
this going to come up in the Kagan confirmation hearings and perhaps was it
intended to come up in the Kagan confirmation hearings?
DEAN: I‘m sure it‘s going to come up in the Kagan confirmation
hearings. I‘m sure she will dodge the question as all good nominees do.
They don‘t say what they will do or not do when they‘re on the court.
What‘s interesting, though, is as solicitor general, while she‘s still
there, she could resolve this problem. There is a split in the circuits.
There has been for years. There‘s a broader interpretation of the
exception. There‘s the very narrow interpretation of the exception.
I‘m sure there are enough cases that they could pull one up as
solicitor general and she could litigate this before the court.
OLBERMANN: So, as we‘re on the subject of Kagan moving slightly away
from the subject of Miranda, Jonathan Turley has concerns. In my layman‘s
way, I have concerns. Do you have concerns about this nomination?
DEAN: Well, we don‘t know much about her, Keith. That‘s the thing.
And she‘s not—I think it‘s good we‘re not having another judge
appointed. Some of the greatest justices we‘ve had have not had prior
judicial experience. I think that brings a fresh view into the court.
She‘s obviously bright. She has progressive background. Yes, there
are some things she‘s done. Really, I think, though, in an institutional
sense, that we don‘t know what her personal feelings are on some of these
things she‘s done when working within an institutional context. So, I‘m
actually a little encouraged.
I like her smarts, if you will, that somebody can get in there and
tangle with a Scalia and maybe move a centrist like Kennedy around a little
bit and move the court in a direction I think is healthy.
OLBERMANN: John Dean, Nixon White House counsel, columnist for
FindLaw.com more recently—great thanks, John. Have a good night.
DEAN: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Theoretically, some day, the tea partiers might realize
that by knocking off the moderate Republicans they are, maybe not this
November, but eventually going to make it easier for some Democrat
somewhere. Not so soon, though, I think we can‘t do a segment on the
purging of Senator Bennett of Utah—ahead on COUNTDOWN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: A warning that Oddball will begin in about a minute with
two television bloopers that you may find offensive, or hilarious, or
hilariously offensive.
First, the Tweets of the day. For all I know, these real all typos.
There was some sort of Twelt down today. Third place, from OTooleFan—
that‘s Don Millard (ph) -- “Sean Hannity talks about Ronald Reagan the same
way a five-year-old talks about Superman.”
From a friend of mine, the frustrated and wind-addled field reporter
for the New York Mets‘ telecast, Kevin Burkhat, who has apparently had it
with the Shirako (ph) winds that made the weekend hell at the Mets‘ home,
Citi Field. “Dear Citi Field wind, you suck. Enough is enough already.”
Speaking of Citi Field, it was there yesterday that one of those
moments was avoided. A friend of mine the is also an acquaintance of Bill-
O‘s. Bill-O was sitting in my friend‘s box, so I sat in the press box
instead. I thought it was funny. Didn‘t seem that way according to a
conservative Tweeter. Apparently Bill O‘Reilly got tickets to the game for
Mother‘s day and @Keith Olbermann is whining about it because it should
have been him.
Bill Orly. Bill Orly? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new nickname.
He‘s Bill Orly. They told me Twitter was great and now I believe it. Or
the other thing too. That‘s my mistake. Now let‘s see the other ones.
Play oddball.
Makes fun of bulging things and then says what I said, sorry. To the
Golf Channel, when an anchor identified by the “Huffington Post” as Wynn
McMurray (ph) tried to zip through an explanation of Tiger Woods‘ bulging
disc problem. Again the warning, some viewers might find this offensive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says he‘s been playing with a bad neck for
about a month and thinks it could be a bulging—disc in his upper neck.
He has plans to get an MRI next week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: But that was hardly the first time a sports anchor
accidentally uttered that phrase while describing that problem. The year
was 1996. ESPN. sonny. My co-anchor, Steve Levy, was reporting about New
England Patriots Quarterback Maurice Hearst who was out with a—same
warning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE LEVY, ESPN ANCHOR: The agent claims that at the request of the
team, Hearst has been playing with a bulging dick—disk in his neck since
the start of the season.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: We laughed silently for seven minutes.
Remarkably, a CNN sports anchor said it about a baseball player named
Steve Balboni in the late 1980s. Only he said he had two bulging—well,
you know.
To Vasderas (ph), in Sweden, where Tony Bergmand (ph) has set a new
world record for the fastest vertical run, in which a person runs as he
rappels from 100 meters to the ground. The vertical run was created in the
last ‘60s by the military as a way to rapidly descend from a helicopter,
which seems to support this question: is that guy really running, in any
sense of the word? More like a really fast control—ah!
Not that there‘s no skill involved, mind you, in doing that. Anyway,
Mr. Bergmand, for dropping 100 meters in 34.7 seconds—Ah—
congratulations.
All right. No more of those jokes. Although the next prime minister
of England may be Ed—well, maybe be David Miliband.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: At their state‘s nominating convention this week, Utah
Republicans decided that the three-term senator who had been endorsed by
the NRA, who had a perfect rating from the National Right to Life
Organization, and a 90 percent rating from Americans for Tax Reform, just
was not conservative enough for them. In our third story, Senator Robert
Bennett of Utah is the first incumbent of 2010 to lose his own party‘s
nomination. Republicans are eating their own, but first boiling them in a
pot of tea.
Saturday in Salt Lake City, 3,500 Republican delegates picked the top
two candidates for a June primary. Senator Bennett was challenged by
businessman Tim Bridgewater and Attorney Mike Lee. The latter pair courted
Tea Partiers, attacking Bennett from the right for the vote on the Tarp
program and for the health care bill he co-sponsored with Democrat Ron
Wyden.
In February, Lee received an endorsement from Dick Armey‘s group,
Freedom Works. And when it was announced that Bennett had finished third
in a three man race, the Lee crowd erupted unfurling multiple “Don‘t Tread
On Me” flags.
As for Bennett, a write-in candidacy is possible, though an
independent bid is not. He missed the filing date for that. After defeat,
he spoke to reporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ROBERT BENNETT ®, UTAH: The political atmosphere obviously has
been toxic, and it‘s very clear that some of the votes that I have cast
have added to the toxic environment. Looking back on them with, one or two
very minor exceptions, I wouldn‘t have cast any of them any differently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Let‘s turn now to David Weigel, “Washington Post”
political reporter and author of the blog “Right Now.” Dave, good evening.
DAVID WEIGEL, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: All right, 3,500 delegates sent Bennett packing. Was it
just a function of the Tea Party group targeting a sample, persuadable
sample to get their first real victory or was there something more deep
about this?
WEIGEL: It was largely and specifically the first thing you
mentioned. The Club for Growth, which has taken on multiple incumbents
over the course of a decade like this, saw this opportunity a long time ago
and started helping Tea Party activists organize in order to take over
party caucuses. On March 23rd, they held party caucuses. They selected
mostly anti-Bennett, pro-Tea Party delegate. Not just for one of these
other candidates, but just anti-Bennett. That was the key thing.
A lot of people point out today that was when he lost. He had no
chance with this electorate to get reelected.
OLBERMANN: He had the support of Karl Rove. He had an endorsement
from Newt Gingrich. He had an endorsement from Mitt Romney. That used to
cover the whole spectrum on that side of the equation. If he had not voted
for Tarp, would he still have his job come November, or would they have
found some other pretext to do this?
WEIGEL: I think that‘s almost indisputable. Utah is a state that
occasionally will kick out an incumbent in this convention. Without
getting too into the weeds, it‘s a strange process where if you get more
than 60 percent at the convention you‘re the nominee and everyone gets
knocked out. It‘s unlike any other state. But Tarp just stuck to him.
This is a Republican president and a Republican treasury secretary asking
for a bill that the Republican whip in the House, Eric Cantor supported and
Paul Ryan supported.
But just it‘s unforgivable if conservative voters have a chance to
look at your record again to have that on there. And the fact that he
endorsed the health care bill with Wyden, that was part of it. But it was
Tarp that was toxic. When he referred obliquely to one of the votes he
might have cast a different way, I think that‘s what he meant.
OLBERMANN: Covering this stuff as intensely as you do, do you ever
wonder if the Dick Armey funding stories or the Club for Growth stories are
just a cover, that in reality the Tea Parties are secretly funded by the
Democratic National Committee? And if so, are the Democrats in any
position to exploit perhaps this situation in Utah?
WEIGEL: Well, they do celebrate whenever this happens. And they
think they‘ll have a better shot at a couple of House seats if Tea Partiers
nominate somebody who can‘t win. In this case, Utah is a very tough nut to
crack. They have a candidate, but they‘re not optimistic.
But in Arizona, if J.D. Hayworth beats John McCain, they‘ve got a
Phoenix City councilman who they think could win that. Charlie Crist, if
he ends up winning that three way race, or if Kendrick Meek wins in
Florida, that‘s better than they could have had in a two-way race.
They actually had a bad situation this week in Hawaii where there was
an inter-Democratic feud that cost them the seat. But generally, they‘re
quietly cheering, and they‘re waiting to unleash a lot of opposition
research once these nominees are well chosen.
Utah, not so much. Other states like South Dakota, not Ohio yet, but
other states they‘re are hoping and sitting as the Tea Party candidates
make these challenges.
OLBERMANN: Is there even a prospect that the election of one of these
guys could actually work to the Democrats‘ benefit? If you get somebody
from an extreme and put them in the national spotlight, in the Senate more
so than the House, you might look like a clown?
WEIGEL: It hasn‘t worked like that in this congress. Democrats love
to make fun of Michele Bachmann. Every day, Michele Bachmann will say
something that they put out a press release ad. They raise money.
Indisputably, they can raise a lot of money off things like that. But as
long as the country‘s angry at politicians, the Michele Bachmann type of
politician, the Mike Lee type of politician is not somebody that makes the
rest of the party look bad. Their hope is that, like 1994, the electorate
is so angry that it sends a couple Republicans who embarrass everyone. The
country‘s in a little bit less of a foul mood in 2012 and those guys go
down, Republicans have to apologize for them.
I mean, Democrats love the Birther movement, for example, for that
reason. They think some people are going to roll in and make everyone look
bad. But so far they still should be sweating this electorate. Rather
than helping a Democrat squeak through, in a lot of cases, they‘re going to
end up with somebody much more right wing than, say, Bob Bennett.
OLBERMANN: Clearly in this case. Dave Weigel of the “Washington
Post,” as always, great thanks.
WEIGEL: Thank you very much.
OLBERMANN: The British political plot thickens by the hour. The
prime minister will resign in the hopes that the third party will form a
coalition with his successor.
Proving a history degree is useless if you do not believe any of the
facts, Coulter-Geist is back with a whopper, that liberals defended Hitler.
Also, what‘s with the evil eye?
And when Rachel joins you at the top of the hour, the case against
Supreme Court Nominee Kagan with her guest, Glenn Greenwald.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: The British drama series worthy of an introductory
explanation from Alistair Cook. Only it‘s real life. The Labor Party can
stay in charge, but only if its leader quits. So he quits. Back to London
with BBC America‘s Matt Frei. That‘s next, but first tonight‘s worst
persons in the world.
The bronze to Samuel Wuerzelbacher, Joe the unlicensed plumber.
Interviewed by the increasingly bizarre AOL News. To be fair, he was
asked, “if you could punch one famous person, who would it be?” “Bill
Maher jumps to mind right away. It would be fun to lay that boy out. But
I‘d look like a bully because he‘s so much smaller than I am.” But you
look like a bully now.
Before we jump all over Mr. Wuerzelbacher, however, let‘s move on to
the next AOL question. “Have you ever stolen anything?” “When I was a
very little boy -- I don‘t exactly remember it—I guess we were going
through a department store and I stole a pair of silk female garments and
put them beneath my butt because I apparently liked how it felt.”
Moving on. Moving on. Moving on.
The runner-up, Coulter-Geist, with another hilarious mistake proving
you can get a degree in history and still not know a damn thing about
history. Her latest sputter session with Bill-O—I‘m sorry, Bill Orly-
Tates. Coulter, “you will find liberals always rooting for savages against
civilization.” “They didn‘t root for the Nazis against civilization.”
“Oh, yes, they did. It was only when Hitler invaded their precious Soviet
Union that, at the last minute, they came in and suddenly started to say
oh, no, now you have to fight Hitler.”
Right, those Republican isolationists in this country, the America
first crowd, like German American Bund, and Charles Lindbergh, they were
all liberals. And FDR arranging lend-lease with Churchill and trying to
get around the Neutrality Act that Gerald Ford and Colonel McCormick and
Regnory (ph) and all the other negotiate with Germany crowd supported—
FDR must have been a Republican.
While we‘re here, one other thing. What‘s—what‘s with the eye?
What‘s with the left eye? I mean, was it always like that? It looks like
it‘s trying to escape or something.
Anyway, our winner, Marry Fallon, Congresswoman from the Oklahoma
fifth, running for governor in her state. She like most Republicans claims
to be upset about wasteful government spending. So upset that she sent out
a flyer, beautifully made, to everybody in her district, in which she notes
she voted against the Stimulus bill, against health care reform, against
the entire 2010 budget, and, quote, potential job killing cap and trade
legislation. This so she can, quote, “reduce the tax burden on all
Americans.”
Except, what is that bit of fine print on the front of that thing?
This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense. So
you‘re going to reduce the tax burden on Americans by charging us for the
spiffy, ego-trip postcards telling us how you‘re going to do it. Seems a
little—what‘s the word? Oh, yeah, what Jon Stewart said.
Congresswoman Mary “do as I say, not as I do” Fallon, today‘s worst
person in the world.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: Four days after the election, Great Britain still does not
have a new government. And the newest, likeliest solution is almost
literally the severing of the proverbial Gordian knot. Our number one
story in the COUNTDOWN, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has agreed to resign as
part of an as-yet not completed deal by which the third party Liberal
Democrats will swing their support to Brown‘s successor. He will, in
essence, end his own career to keep his own party in power.
Mr. Brown, at 10 Downing Street, making a surprise announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON BROWN, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I have no desire to stay in my
position longer than is needed to ensure the path to economic growth is
assured and the process of political reform we have agreed moves forward
quickly. The reason we have a hung parliament is that no single party and
no single leader was able to win the full support of the country. As
leader of my party, I must accept that that is a judgment on me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Mr. Brown will remain in office for the next few months,
helping oversee talks for a new government, and then step aside as PM and
head of the Labor party once a new Labor leader is elected. If all of that
goes according to plan, it should happened before the party‘s annual
conference in September. Getting pushback from members of his own party
over talks with the Conservatives, the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg calling
Mr. Brown‘s resignation, quote, important.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK CLEGG, LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADER: We think it‘s the right
thing, the responsible thing to now open talks on exactly the same basis as
we‘ve been having with the conservative party with the Labor Party. Us, of
course, continuing discussions with the Conservatives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Mr. Clegg maintaining the talks with Conservatives are
still constructive. As for Conservative leader David Cameron, whose party
did manage to win the most seats, he said he is willing to go the extra
mile to secure the supports of the Lib Dems, but only to a referendum on
voting reform, not actual voting reform legislation.
Late tonight, the current foreign secretary, David Miliband,
confirming that Labor would not elect a leader until a coalition government
was in place. Mr. Miliband is thought to be a front-runner for the
position, along with, yes, our hero, school secretary Ed Waltz. We‘ll put
down the silly for a moment and rejoin the anchor of “BBC World News
America” Matt Frei in London. Thanks again for some of your time, Matt.
MATT FREI, “BBC WORLD NEWS AMERICA”: Thank you.
OLBERMANN: When we left you on Friday, the one thing you and I agreed
on, Brown would never quit so his party could stay in power. Should we, in
fact, have seen this coming? Isn‘t this exactly the sort of thing he would
love to do, the sort of stoic, do it for queen and country self-sacrifice?
FREI: You‘re being very kind about him. He‘s also the man who
cravenly sought power for more than a decade while Tony Blair was stealing
the show the whole time. I think the thing about Brown is he had always
yearned, especially after this election was out, for an exit with dignity,
some shred of dignity, a little fig leaf of it. And he got that tonight by
effectively saying to the country, we need some stability, we need to have
these negotiations in open. There is something that my party and my
coalition can offer. And therefore I‘m going to bow out.
That was the minimum price that Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats
demanded and they got that. The party clearly said to Gordon Brown listen,
mate, it‘s time to leave. Otherwise, we‘re all going to be in trouble.
What happened is you have a sort of rainbow coalition with just about every
color in it, apart from Brown.
*
OLBERMANN: The first part of what the Lib Dems wanted, they‘ve
gotten. Brown‘s head, as you said. The second part was this voting
reform. Explain what it is that is wanted here and how, if they go for it
whole hog, how that would change the structure of British politics.
FREI: Basically, what the Liberal Democrats and before that the
Liberals have always wanted is what we call proportional representation.
In other words, if you get 23 percent of the vote, you get 23 percent of
the parliamentary seats. A bit like in Israel or in many European
countries. At the moment, they‘ve got 23 percent of the vote, but only 10
percent of the seats. So they would never under the current system—or
rarely ever get into a position where they can actually be in power.
What you‘ve had over the years, over the decades, Keith, is a duoply
of power between the two big parties, Labor and the Tories. What they want
is a shared representation in parliament. This is what the Tories have
resisted giving them. This is something else we talked about on Friday.
If you give them more seats in parliament, it means fewer seats for the
Tories and, indeed, for Labor.
But that is the bottom line for them. They will not engage in the
coalition unless they get some degree of proportional representation, what
we call the alternative vote, or AV plus. It all gets terribly complicated
at this stage. The point is, the Tories were not prepared to give it to
them, until tonight, until after Gordon Brown said he would resign. Then
they suddenly said, you know what? You can have a referendum on electoral
reform. Labor said, forget the referendum, we‘ll give it to you anyway.
The problem is the one people not being consulted in all this are
those very strange people, the electorate. You remember the people who
went to the polls last week.
OLBERMANN: The conservative response to—it is along that line to
this is outrageous. This is an unelected prime minister, if this plays out
the way it looks like it‘s going to. To some degree isn‘t that a red
herring or perhaps an irrelevancy? Gordon Brown was unelected prime
minister. John Major was when he succeed Margaret Thatcher. Churchill in
1940. I think William Pitt the younger came to office without election.
Is it essential that you be voted in? Can‘t this work?
FREI: I covered William Pitt the younger and that was very, very
controversial indeed. As you may remember yourself, of course. There was
a great line that John Major came up with. Indeed, he was hoisted into
power while Margaret Thatcher was shuffled into the background, stabbed in
the back. And that was an unelected prime minister like me is like living
in sin with the electorate. To be honest, we‘ve had too much living in
sin. John Major did it, but then he got elected finally. Gordon Brown has
been doing it for the last few years and failed to seize the opportunity as
soon as he got into power to try to consummate the marriage.
So, in a way, that‘s the price he‘s paying for now. To do that again,
and to basically have a prime minister who did not take part in that famous
debate that we all covered a few weeks ago, the prime ministerial debate,
which is the most presidential thing this country has done, is to basically
snub your nose at the electorate. You can‘t turn around after this
campaign and say, we‘re really a parliamentary system. It‘s all about the
number of MPs and majority party. And they‘re trying to say that, but it‘s
become, by default if not by design, a very presidential system.
OLBERMANN: I have a joke about a potential prime minister that fits
in with some of your last analogies, but unfortunately we‘re out of time.
So I can‘t do it. Matt Frei, the anchor of “BBC World News America,” it‘s
so much more fun—
FREI: Wouldn‘t be Ed Balls, by any chance, would it?
OLBERMANN: Perhaps. More fun for us to watch from afar what would
panic us if it were happening here. Thanks again for you time, Matt.
FREI: Thanks.
OLBERMANN: That‘s COUNTDOWN for this 2,566th day since the previous
president declared mission accomplished in Iraq. I‘m Keith Olbermann, good
night and good luck.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
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