Book Bin: "War And Indecision: Inside The Pentagon At The Dawn of The War on Terrorism by Douglas Feith

At the Washington Times, John Weisman writes:

There is a lot to recommend "War and Decision," Douglas J. Feith's apologia of his 2001-2005 tour as Donald Rumsfeld's under secretary of defense for policy. Few books have chronicled the labyrinthine, cutthroat process of policy-making from the inside in as detailed a manner as has Mr. Feith. Mr. Feith is also a fine writer. But the most important contribution "W&D" makes to the growing body of literature about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the war on terror and why it should be required reading in schools of public service and government was probably inadvertent on Mr. Feith's part.

"W&D" should be widely read so we never again make the mistakes Mr. Feith and his fellow Pentagon, State Department, CIA and White House senior political staffers made during their planning and execution of the Iraq war, or their tunnel vision abandonment of a successful Afghan campaign that has condemned us to near stalemate and a rejuvenated, opium-funded Taliban. It is obvious Mr. Feith is bright. His vacuity about the real world, however, is shocking.

But not unexpected. Mr. Feith's entire professional life has been spent either in the practice of law or the development of public policy. Thus, he comes off as the textbook example of someone to whom process is more important than victory. Mr. Feith loses sight of the real battlefields — the ones on which soldiers die — in favor of the paper wars fought between competing factions of bureaucrats.

This is a fatal flaw during wartime. Winston Churchill — one of Mr. Feith's heroes — understood this truth. To Churchill, victory meant everything. And if it took head-cracking and tossing process out the window to achieve victory at all costs, so be it. Mr. Feith doesn't think that way. For Mr. Feith, process is all.

There are also some gaps in "W&D." But then Mr. Feith, like the lawyer he is, is prone to buttressing his position with pointillist details and citations while leaving out anything that might give aid and comfort to opposing counsel. He is hugely antagonistic toward CIA. Thus, CIA's many flaws get ample verbiage in "War and Decision." Its accomplishments do not. Even when they deserve to.

Take for example Mr. Feith's timeline "Afghanistan and the War on Terror, September 2001-December 2002." He cites October 7 as the beginning of the Afghan war and October 19th as "First entry into Afghanistan of U.S. Special Ops Forces." Neither Mr. Feith's timeline nor his prose mention the fact that CIA's JAWBREAKER team led by veteran CIA operations officer Gary C. Schroen hit the ground in Afghanistan at 2:45 PM (Local time) on 26 September, 2001, more than three weeks before the first Green Beret.

Mr. Feith never explains that JAWBREAKER, which carried millions of dollars to buy the Northern Alliance's assistance, both paved the way for the Army's special operations personnel, and worked hand in glove with its SF partners to marshal indigenous forces that killed and captured large numbers of Taliban and al-Qaeda combatants.

Equally jarring is Mr. Feith's wide-eyed assertion that his colleague Paul Wolfowitz made "an important contribution" by proposing the concept that Green Beret forces "make contact with the Afghan Northern Alliance and any other potentially cooperating local forces" to act as force multipliers. What is mind-boggling about his assertion is that Mr. Feith appears to have no idea that Green Berets have been acting as force multipliers for decades. Indeed, they are doing exactly that in Afghanistan right now.

Maybe it's naive, but one expects that under secretaries of defense will have at minimum a rudimentary working knowledge of military doctrine and capabilities. Mr. Feith seems not to, which becomes even more than frightening given his wide swath of responsibilities under Secretary Rumsfeld.

Another example of Mr. Feith's real-world ignorance is evident in his coverage of Secretary Rumsfeld's "Strategic Thoughts" paper, Mr. Rumsfeld's "conception of a global war on terrorism." In a nutshell, the Rumsfeldian concept was to get state sponsors of terrorism to alter their behavior through an asymmetric stick-and-carrot combination of military threat, political pressure, humanitarian aid and the use of NGOs.

Again, Mr. Feith's wide-eyed, 'gee whiz' reaction belies the fact that this approach is essentially the same one employed in the 1980s by such counterterrorist pioneers as Adm. James A. Lyons, Jr., who as CINCPACFLT balanced the projection of awesome American sea power with the subtle threat of special forces and humanitarian assistance of the hospital ship USNS Mercy, or Duane R. Clarridge, creator and first chief of CIA CounterTerrorist Center, whose effective asymmetric campaign against the Abu Nidal Organization combined covert action, diplomacy, and PSYOP elements to put Abu Nidal out of business. Seems to me that one vital part of policy-making is knowing when you've invented the wheel, and when you haven't. Once again, Mr. Feith seems clueless.

Mr. Feith does a fair amount of score-settling in "W&D." He repeatedly goes after CIA for its shoddy work, politicized leadership and flawed analysis. And he hits CIA for its inability to gather human-sourced intelligence. "We knew the CIA's coverage of Iraq was spotty," Mr. Feith writes, "though it wasn't until after Saddam's ouster that we learned how pathetically scant its sources in Iraq were."

But even here Mr. Feith's puzzlement is troubling, because as far back as 2001, CIA alumni (including veteran Middle East Clandestine Service officer Robert Baer in his memoir "See No Evil") had gone public about CIA's dearth of human sources in Iraq and the bloodshed and turmoil that would follow any regime change. Did no one in Mr. Feith's office — including Mr. Feith's trusted staffer Chris Straub — who had actually traveled to Northern Iraq with Mr. Baer in the 1990s — read any of these articles or books?

Mr. Feith does have a nice way with words. He portrays former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage as "A hulking bodybuilder with a foghorn voice [who] cultivated the persona of a stereotypical longshoreman union enforcer." Nicely done and spot-on accurate. To Mr. Feith, Mr. Armitage is a constant roadblock to effective policy.

So is Mr. Armitage's boss, SECSTATE Colin Powell, who comes off as insincere and ineffective when it comes to pushing the administration's positions. Mr. Feith is convinced that if Mr. Powell had arm-twisted the Europeans — especially the French and the Germans — and had put his prestige on the line with the Turks pre-invasion, things might have gone differently. And CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks (who according to Bob Woodward's 2004 book "Plan of Attack" once referred to Mr. Feith as "the [expletive] stupidest guy on the face of the earth"), is castigated mainly for his inattention to post-war planning in Iraq.

Here, I must quibble. In his criticism of Gen. Franks, Mr. Feith is far too kind.

There are also fascinating enlightenments. Mr. Feith relates how SECDEF Rumsfeld wrote a pre-war memo listing all the possible calamities that could befall the United States in Iraq. It is unsettling to realize that most of Mr. Rumsfeld's list, which came to be known as the "Parade of the Horribles," came true. And Mr. Feith admits straight up that neither he nor Mr. Rumsfeld nor anyone else anticipated "post regime violence of the type that we encountered in the insurgency . . ." The evidence was there of course, but no one wanted to see it.

And if there was ever any doubt that the Bush administration became so fixated on Iraq that it allowed its initial success in Afghanistan to wither from inattention, Mr. Feith provides a smoking gun. All one has to do is check the index of his book for "Afghanistan." After page 165 of a tome that runs 674 pages there are but three passing citations. Obviously in Mr. Feith's mind, and by extension the administration's, Afghanistan was no longer a matter of consequence once the decision to invade Iraq was made. Once again, process trumped victory. Quel dommage.

John Weisman's most recent CIA novel, "Direct Action," is currently available from Avon Books. He can be reached at blackops@johnweisman.com.

Bill Clinton Denies 'Race Card' Comment

CNN reports:

Former President Bill Clinton denied Tuesday he had accused Sen. Barack Obama's campaign of "playing the race card" during an interview Monday.

Bill Clinton is facing tough questions Tuesday over an interview with a Delaware radio station.

A recording of the former president making the comment is posted on the WHYY Web site.



It says he made the comment in a telephone interview with the Philadelphia public radio station Monday night.

Clinton was asked whether his remarks comparing Obama's strong showing in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson in 1988 had been a mistake given their impact on his wife Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.

"No, I think that they played the race card on me," said Clinton, "and we now know from memos from the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along." Listen to the full interview

"We were talking about South Carolina political history and this was used out of context and twisted for political purposes by the Obama campaign to try to breed resentment elsewhere. And you know, do I regret saying it? No. Do I regret that it was used that way? I certainly do. But you really got to go some to try to portray me as a racist."

After the phone interview, a stray comment of his on the issue was also recorded before he hung up: "I don't think I should take any s*** from anybody on that, do you?" Watch Bill Clinton respond to controversy »

But outside a Pittsburgh campaign event Tuesday, a reporter asked Clinton what he had meant "when you said the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?"

Clinton responded: "When did I say that and to whom did I say that?"



"You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your games today," Clinton added.

"I said what I said -- you can go back and look at the interview, and if you will be real honest you will also report what the question was and what the answer was. But I'm not helping you."

Clinton did not respond when asked what he meant when he charged that the Obama campaign had a memo in which they said they had planned to play the race card.

Meanwhile, at a Pittsburgh press availability on Tuesday, Obama was asked about Clinton's charge that his campaign had drawn up plans to use "the race card."

"Hold on a second,'' he said. "So former President Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he is suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it?"



"You better ask him what he meant by that. I have no idea what he meant. These were words that came out of his mouth. Not words that came out of mine.''

Clinton commented just before the South Carolina primary that "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Bill Clinton: "Obama camp 'played the race card on me'"

CNN reports:

On the eve of Tuesday’s critical Pennsylvania primary, former President Bill Clinton accused Barack Obama’s campaign of playing the race card against him.

After the phone interview with Delaware radio station WHYY Monday night, a stray comment of his on the issue was also recorded before he hung up: “I don’t think I should take any s*** from anybody on that, do you?”

The former president had been asked whether his remarks comparing Obama’s strong showing in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson in 1988 had been a mistake given their impact on his wife Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “No, I think that they played the race card on me,” said Clinton, “and we now know from memos from the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along.”

“We were talking about South Carolina political history and this was used out of context and twisted for political purposes by the Obama campaign to try to breed resentment elsewhere. And you know, do I regret saying it? No. Do I regret that it was used that way? I certainly do. But you really got to go some to try to portray me as a racist.”

He added that the way Obama’s campaign had reacted was “disrespectful to Jesse Jackson” and that the former presidential candidate had told him he was not offended, and that “we all know what’s going on."

UPDATE: At a Pittsburgh press availability, Obama was asked about Clinton's charge that his campaign had drawn up plans to use 'the race card.'

“Hold on a second,’’ he said. “So former President Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he is suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it? You better ask him what he meant by that. I have no idea what he meant. These were words that came out of his mouth. Not words that came out of mine.’’

Bill Clinton's Denial

Boston.com reports:

Bill Clinton became a distraction -- again -- today on voting day in Pennsylvania, at least on the cable TV shows and political blogs.

It started Monday when he was asked about criticism over comments he made comparing Barack Obama's sweeping victory in the South Carolina primary in January to Jesse Jackson's wins in that state. Many Obama backers and black Democrats found that dismissive of Obama's standing and some called it racially insensitive.

But on WHYY radio in Philadelphia, Clinton claimed that the Obama campaign was waiting to accuse him of being racially insensitive. "They played the race card on me," he said. When he thought he was off-air, he followed that up by telling an associate, "I don't think I should take any [expletive] from anybody on that, do you?"

Pressed to explain his comments, Clinton seemed to deny today that he said them, though they are on tape.Obama was incredulous when reporters asked him today about the former president's comments. "I have no idea what he meant," he said. "These were words that came out of his mouth."

Clinton has been both a help and a hindrance to his wife's presidential bid during the campaign. She claims her experience in the White House as a key selling point on her resume, but he has sometimes gone off message with controversial comments.

Break-In At Obama's Campaign Offices in Pennsylvania

At The Chicago Tribune, Josh Drobnyk reports:

Barack Obama's Allentown office was burglarized this week, and multiple laptops and cell phones were stolen, an Obama campaign aide said today. A police spokesman confirmed the incident, but couldn't provide details today because reports are kept in the department's records depository, which is closed weekends.

An Obama aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "a couple" field laptops were taken out of the office at 1233 Linden St. The computers have demographic information that the campaign uses to target voters. "A couple" cell phones were also taken, the aide said.

Police spokesman Capt. James Stephens confirmed the break-in, but could not confirm details of what was taken because the records office is closed on weekends. When and how the break-in occurred also remained unclear. Stephens would only say that it happened "a couple days ago." The Obama campaign declined to comment officially on the incident.

Both campaigns have had their share of incidents at field offices during the race. Obama field offices in California and Iowa have also been broken into. And late last year, a man took campaign workers hostage at a Hillary Clinton field office in Rochester, N.H.

Transcript of 'Race for the White House with David Gregory' for April 17, 2008

With Joe Scarborough, John Harwood, Rachel Maddow and Harold Ford, Jr., as guests

Transcript:

DAVID GREGORY, MSNBC ANCHOR: I‘m David Gregory, tonight, debating the debate. Now it‘s Barack Obama‘s turn to complaint about the format and the treatment, as the RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE rolls on.

Welcome to the RACE, your stop for the fast pace, the bottom line, and every point of view in the room. Five days now before PA, and the question is, did last night‘s debate change any minds? The key exchanges in just a moment. “Inside the War Room” tonight, we find the new poll numbers that expose Hillary Clinton‘s dilemma, to attack or not to attack? At half past, don‘t forget, that‘s at half past the hour. Tonight‘s “Big Questions,” has Michelle Obama pulled ahead in the battle of the political spouses?

The foundation of the program, of course, a panel that comes to play. And with us tonight, MSNBC political analyst and host of the “Rachel Maddow Show” on Air America, Rachel Maddow; NBC News analyst and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Harold Ford Jr.; CNBC‘s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood; and “MORNING JOE” himself, the host of MSNBC‘s “MORNING JOE,” Joe Scarborough.

We begin, as we do every night, with everyone‘s take on the most important political story of the day. It‘s the “Headlines.” My “Headline” tonight, gotcha politics. That‘s how Senator Obama‘s campaign manager described the ABC debate. Obama complained today about 45 minutes of questions focused on his negatives, controversial statements, associations, and gaffes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, I don‘t blame Washington for this, because that‘s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversy, they like playing gotcha game games and getting up to attack each other. And I have to say, you know, Senator Clinton looked in her element.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Obama argued Clinton twisted the knife at various points during the debate, and learned the wrong lesson, in his estimation, from the politics in the ‘90s. Here is Senator Clinton on Obama‘s bitterness remarks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don‘t believe my grandfather or my father or the many people whom I have had the privilege of knowing and meeting across Pennsylvania over many years cling to religion when Washington is not listening to them. I think that is a fundamental sort of misunderstanding of the role of religion and faith in times that are good and times that are bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Obama had this comeback.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Senator Clinton is right, she has gone through this. I recall when back in 1992 when she made a statement about how—what do you expect, should I be at home baking cookies? And people attacked her for being elitist, and this and that, and I remember watching that on TV and saying, well, that‘s not who she is, that‘s not what she believes, that‘s not what she meant, and I‘m sure that that‘s how she felt as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Here‘s the deal, are these the decisive issues? Maybe, maybe not, but personality, credibility, and character do count in campaigns. This is Obama‘s time of testing, and he has to deal with distraction, perception and events beyond his control. How he deals with all of this will determine whether or not he can close the deal and capture this nomination. That‘s my “Headline” tonight.

Joe Scarborough, your take on the debate last night?

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, “MORNING JOE”: David, I couldn‘t agree with you more. The “Headline” last night was—and today is that Obama failed his test. Here‘s a guy who from Iowa on January 3rd through the Wisconsin Primary was a rock star. He was a unifying figure, he was post-partisan, he was post-racial.

Well, the honeymoon is over. Now Barack Obama is another politician getting beaten up. And when he gets beaten up, what does he do? He attacks the messenger. He sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton did a month ago when she kept going after moderators of these debates.

You don‘t do that unless you‘re taking on water. Barack Obama‘s biggest problem is, and this is something that superdelegates are worried about in the Democratic Party tonight, the fact that he had his weakest debate this political season, according to The New York Times, last night.

He should be in mid season form, he‘s not even close. He was testy, he was defensive, and he looked agitated by the fact that he was having to answer some tough questions that Republicans are going to make him answer from Denver all the way through November. He had better get used to it.

GREGORY: A lot to talk about. John Harwood, your “Headline” tonight?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNBC CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: My “Headline” is not a game-changer, David, and sad to say, as brilliant as Joe, he‘s only partly right here. Hillary Clinton had an extremely strong debate last night, Barack Obama did not, but my reporting from Democratic political professionals today, including those in Washington, even though Obama was trashing Washington pols for spreading this kind of stuff, they say this has not shaken the advantage that he has had among superdelegates over the last two months.

He has been accumulating about one a day. She needs to reverse that dynamic very quickly to have a chance in this race. It has not happened yet.

GREGORY: All right. Rachel Maddow, your take on all of this tonight?

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: The big winner from last night was the one not in the room. I‘m referring, of course, to John McCain. And I‘m the first person to criticize the utility of head-to-head match-up polls at this point in this type of election year, but the trend lines are good and getting better for John McCain.

The new AP./Yahoo poll that is out today shows him doing better than anybody could have expected at this point in the campaign, and that‘s because Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are doing the Republican‘s work for him at bottom dollar, tearing each other down. And McCain, without even really campaigning, is reaping the benefits of it.

GREGORY: All right. Harold Ford, welcome to the program, your take, your “Headline” tonight?

HAROLD FORD JR., NBC ANALYST: I think the McCain coronation is a little bit premature, although last night we saw a great raging debate between the two Democrats. Once Obama or Clinton emerge from this serious and what has been a pretty agonizing primary process, for those watching, and I would dare say the candidates, they will find a John McCain who is ready to be defined.

I think he is trying his hardest not only to reintroduce himself to the public, and even to his own party, he‘s having some challenge now cobbling together every element, every part of the Republican Party and is going to have a harder time, I believe, as we move forward at bringing more independents as Democrats frame and define him as a Bush third term.

GREGORY: Harold, if you look at last night, though, you have to think, yes, there is a fight going on on the Democratic side, but this really was the opening chapter of a general election debate as well, because even if some of these issues don‘t hurt Obama in the primary, and they are certainly distracting him, they‘re going to be fodder for a general election campaign.

FORD: Look, this is all a great test for both Barack and Hillary. Barack needs to be tested more, we need to hear more from him, we need to see how he responds under pressure. Hillary has shown a lot of that, but she was the inevitable candidate just a few months ago and now we‘re seeing how she responds as an underdog.

GREGORY: All right. Coming up next, most pundits scored last night‘s debate for Hillary Clinton, but the polls show she‘s suffering big time when it comes to trustworthiness, honesty, and favorability. We‘re going to dissect the numbers coming up.

Later, your playdate with the panel, call us, 212-790-2299. You can e-mail as well, race08@msnbc.com. We‘re right back after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: With all this talk about Pennsylvania‘s primary next week, is anyone looking ahead to Indiana or North Carolina, less than three weeks away? Well, we‘ll get a breakdown of the latest numbers and tell you who is leading in the long run.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: We‘re back. Special edition tonight of “Inside the War Room” breaking down the latest poll numbers to determine which strategies are working and which are not. Back with us, Rachel Maddow, Harold Ford Jr., John Harwood, and Joe Scarborough.

First up, the pundits are saying Hillary Clinton scored some political points after last night‘s debate by putting Obama on the defensive. But according to the polls, she still has an uphill battle to climb when it comes to favorability and credibility in the latest The Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Her unfavorability score, look at this, up 14 points, from 40 in January to 54 percent in April. Obama‘s also jumped up, but by a lesser margin, from 30 percent in January, 39 percent in April. John Harwood, what does it tell you?

HARWOOD: Well, it tells me that she has got a bit of a box in terms of how to go after Barack Obama. I think she had the best of all worlds last night in that debate, because you had Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC raising these issues, putting Obama on the defensive, she could sort of chime in sadly and say, you know, I may not care about this stuff all that much, but there may be a lot of voters out there, and I‘m sorry that this is an issue, but we certainly have to deal with it.

That‘s exactly what she wants, because every time she goes aggressively on the attack herself, her negatives go up. And by the way, there was a lot of criticism of Stephanopoulos and Charlie for raising supposedly irrelevant issues. I think that is complete baloney. They were legitimate issues. Barack Obama is going to have to deal with this stuff if he is the Democratic nominee.

And from a Democratic point of view, if you are a Democratic strategist, better now than in October.

GREGORY: Rachel, what‘s the deal here? I mean, is there a gender aspect to this, that she gets more negative ratings if she goes on the attack? Why can‘t she effectively attack him?

MADDOW: Well, I think she is effectively attacking him, getting his negatives up by 9 points is no mean feat, it has to be said. And honestly, with due respect to John, I think that there‘s nothing about the fact that this slime is being discussed now in the Democratic debate that means it won‘t be discussed later.

Everything that‘s being thrown at Barack Obama right now has been out there. It‘s just a question of...

HARWOOD: He gets to practice his answers.

MADDOW: It‘s just a question of how much he‘s going to have to deal with it. Look, I mean, Democrats have two things they could have expected from this extended nominating contest.

They could have expected either we‘re going to start the general election campaign and get the slime and the insinuation and the personal stuff out there now so we have to deal with it for six months instead of two, or they could have expected this is going to be a debate that‘s about what—the Democrats competing over how best to identify a Democratic alternative to the Republican politics the country has had for the last eight years.

HARWOOD: But why is it slime?

MADDOW: It‘s slime because the first six questions of that debate—or the first one, which I think was already answered, but it‘s not that much of a surprise they started with, will you pick each other as the running mate? The answer is no. Then we get pastor, then we get bitter, then we get flag pin, then we get Bosnia, then we get the Sean Hannity question about the Weather Underground guy.

That is not...

HARWOOD: That‘s tough, but it‘s not slime.

MADDOW: It is slime. Because if you think about the different options that you have for the way Democrats can fight right now, they could be fighting about what‘s America—what ought America be like after George W. Bush? But they‘re not.

FORD: All right. In fairness to George and Charlie Gibson, understand they‘ve had about 15, 16 debates and they‘ve gone back and forth. I‘ve been on the ballot and then sat through some of these debates, and there are times I‘m frustrated at the questions that are asked.

The reality though is neither of these candidates, one will emerge as the nominee, will be able to avoid these tough, uncomfortable, and frankly, at times, insensitive questions. So I think it‘s appropriate.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: Let me—here‘s the issue, though, character questions, authenticity, trustworthiness, these are issues that voters actually vote on. And last night, once again, Clinton faced tough questions for her Bosnia comments. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you reconcile the campaign and credibility that you have when you‘ve made those comments about what happened getting off the plane in Bosnia, which totally misrepresented what really happened on that day? You really lost my vote. And what can you tell me to get that vote back?

CLINTON: I‘m embarrassed by it, I have apologized for it. I‘ve said it was a mistake, and it is, I hope, something that you can look over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: But will voters take her word for it, or did the Bosnia flap permanently damage her credibility? Look again at the polling from ABC News/Washington Post poll, nearly two years ago, 52 percent of respondents thought Hillary Clinton was honest and trustworthy. That number has now plummeted to 39 percent.

And now a majority of voters, 58 percent, say no, she‘s not honest and trustworthy. Meanwhile, when asked who was more honest and trustworthy, Obama‘s lead grew from 38 to 53 percent in April, where Clinton has stayed at 30 percent.

Joe, what‘s the significance?

SCARBOROUGH: Well, the significance is, of course, that these are one of the areas where voters do vote on. You‘re exactly right. They want to know whether they can trust the politician that‘s in office, especially if they‘re going to be president of the United States.

And it‘s something that once you get behind the 8-ball there, it‘s hard to get out from behind it. You look at Ronald Reagan, in late 1986, he lost the American people, they stopped trusting him. Iran/contra came, and for the next two years he battled just to survive. He left the White House with positive poll numbers, but still, it was a tough two years.

The same thing happened with Bill Clinton in 1997, 1998. Once you go down in this category, it‘s hard to rehabilitate yourself, and that can have a real impact, especially in a primary election where there‘s not a lot of great differences on policy. When it gets personal, this is a number that you want to have high.

You want to be high on leadership and you want to be high on trustworthiness. She‘s not right now.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: Let me just jump in for a second. I want to go on to this final point here in the polling, and that is, talk about end game. You look ahead to Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the latest L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll shows Obama ahead of Clinton in Indiana, Obama 40 percent and Clinton trailing by 5 points at 35 percent.

Look at North Carolina, Obama well ahead of Clinton with 47 percent. Clinton trails by double digits, 34 percent. With over 15 percent of voters undecided in both states, still the question of whether it‘s anybody‘s game.

Harold, it just shows you that the stakes are so high for Clinton. She needs a real game-changer out of a debate like this to really shift the numbers here.

FORD: Both of them now have to focus squarely on Pennsylvania. If she enjoys a 12-, 13-, 14-point advantage there and a win on next week, where Barack is able to close up to six or seven points, that will influence those states going forward.

I have to think all the numbers you have put up are relevant. But remember, political contests are choices between one or two candidates. Right now, her opponent is Barack Obama. There has not been a bigger force in newness and politics since Bobby Kennedy. So she‘s being compared to him.

When you pair her or match her up against John McCain or even Barack Obama up against John McCain, there are different qualities and different ways we measure these candidates. Joe is right that there‘s a trustworthiness and integrity issue that we look at closely.

But remember, political contests are choices between two people and two parties. Whichever one of these candidates is able to get out and define the other the quickest—to define the other the quickest in the general will be the one who ends up with an edge, which is why I believe a lot of these numbers are really—are not as relevant as they may seem, or not as important as they may seem.

After we get past Pennsylvania, we will have a clear sense of Indiana and a clear sense of North Carolina. If she wins big, she will benefit in big ways in both of those states going forward as well.

GREGORY: And that‘s going to be the key, how big is the margin of victory after so much time campaigning? I can‘t even remember the last time we had a vote in this primary.

Coming up, dueling “Smart Takes,” Marc Ambinder says that Barack Obama couldn‘t have done any worst at last night‘s debate. Another pundit, Mark Halperin, says he came out on top. So who has got the smarter take tonight?

And Mitt Romney provided some laughs at last night‘s Radio & Television Correspondents Association Dinner, delivering his top 10 list of why he dropped out of the presidential race. Here are a few of our favorites.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Number nine, I got tired of the corkscrew landings under sniper fire.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: Number eight, as a lifelong hunter, I didn‘t want to miss the start of varmint season.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: Number two, I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: Welcome back to the RACE. I‘m David Gregory. “Smart Takes” time. The provocative, the thoughtful, the most insightful. We find them all so you don‘t have to. Here, again, Rachel, Harold, John, and Joe.

First up, doing “Smart Takes” tonight about Obama‘s debate performance, theatlantic.com‘s Marc Ambinder says last night was very bad for Obama. To the quote board: “Keeping the scorecard, there is no way Obama could fare worse, nearly 45 minutes of relentless political scrutiny from the ABC anchors and from Hillary Clinton, followed by an issues and answers session in which his anger carried over and sort of neutered him.”

TIME‘s Mark Halperin says it wasn‘t Obama‘s best night, but he still gave him a B-plus, a higher grade than Clinton. To the quote board: “Subdued and secure, but often peevish and cross, it was a surly, tepid night for Obama, but he still emerged stalwart and in the lead.” Joe?

SCARBOROUGH: I don‘t know how anybody could have said that was a good night for Barack Obama. I respect Mark Halperin, and always read his work on time.com, but, boy, it was a bad night for Barack Obama.

He was peevish, as Halperin said, and unfortunately for him, he has had much better debate performances, but last night was the most watched debate performance, about 10 million people saw Barack Obama, a lot probably for the first time in a debate. That‘s not how he wanted to introduce himself to those people. It was a bad night for Barack Obama.

GREGORY: Well, but, Rachel, here‘s another take on this, which is, is there an advantage—I‘ve talked to some people within the Obama campaign who say, you know, it‘s not so bad to come out looking like he got beat up a little bit here, because they‘ve seen the other side, where it‘s Hillary Clinton complaining about debate coverage and treatment, and that didn‘t work so well for the Obama team. She got some benefit of that before.

MADDOW: I think that‘s right, but kind of for a different reason. I think it‘s not so much that Obama could benefit from the sort of sympathy against a hostile press thing that Clinton benefited from. I think it‘s more that Democrats have been concerned that Barack Obama maybe can‘t take a punch. Well, we have now seen him be punched a lot, and we know what he looks like when he gets punched.

And I think that Halperin is actually right when called him kind of tepid and stalwart. What Barack Obama looks like...

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: But this is the important point. You said it was slime earlier.

MADDOW: Yes.

GREGORY: These are qualities of these campaigns, and this—how he responds to issues like this, taking a punch, how he deals with this kind of stress, and stuff that he thinks is a distraction, it matters. That‘s what he‘s going to face in the White House, isn‘t it?

MADDOW: Well, it depends. I mean, it would have been really also interesting to see him take punches on stuff like Iran, and gas prices, and Iraq, and—you know, and the torture story that ABC broke to such effect last week and then they didn‘t discuss at all last night in their debate.

I mean, there are so many substantive issues on which he could have been hit and sort of pulled apart, and they didn‘t. They instead hit him all with the personal stuff. It‘s interesting, but it‘s not everything.

SCARBOROUGH: The question is, how did he take that punch, Rachel? Does anybody believe he took the—because you said that‘s what‘s important, and that is what‘s important, how is he going to take the punch, how will he take it this fall against John McCain? Does anybody really believe he takes a punch well?

MADDOW: Well, we saw what he does, he said “um” a lot. He punched back kind of mildly, he didn‘t lose his composure, and he actually didn‘t wallow as deep as his opponents and the moderators did in going...

(CROSSTALK)

MADDOW: That‘s what he does, now we know.

HARWOOD: There‘s another question, Joe, and that is, who is going to play Stephanopoulos and Gibson on SNL on Saturday night.

(LAUGHTER)

SCARBOROUGH: That‘s the big question.

HARWOOD: But look, I want to make one point about what—the slime issue that Rachel mentioned earlier. Rachel, Harold, and David are all too young to remember this, but Joe and I are old enough to remember the 1988 campaign. George H.W. Bush went to a flag factory running against Michael Dukakis, who had voted against the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, and everybody said in the press, including—what a ridiculous issue, what a slimy thing to do, what a dumb thing to do.

SCARBOROUGH: They mocked him.

HARWOOD: Guess what? Lee Atwater was right in doing that for George H.W. Bush, that‘s why the things like the flag lapel pin are things that Barack Obama has to learn to have good answers for.

SCARBOROUGH: And if I can say really quickly, everybody did, the press was unmerciful against George Bush senior. He went to flag factories, he talked about it non-stop, and I‘ll be damned if that didn‘t have a great effect. A lot of Americans said, I‘m not voting for this new kind of Democrat that won‘t even let kids in Massachusetts pledge allegiance to the flag. These things that people in Manhattan think are slimy, connect.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: I got to get in here, I‘ve got take a break. We‘re going to come back, “Big Questions” of the night of this campaign coming up on the RACE. Don‘t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

GREGORY: Welcome back to RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE. I‘m David Gregory. Time now for the three big questions of THE RACE. Still with us, MSNBC political analyst and host of the “Rachel Maddow Show” on Air America, Rachel Maddow, NBC News analyst and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Harold Ford Jr., cNBC‘s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood, and Morning Joe himself, the host of MSNBC‘s “MORNING JOE,” Joe Scarborough.

First up, this may have been the marquee moment from the Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton saying, yes, he can, when pressed if Barack Obama could win in the fall. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A simple yes or no question, do you think Senator Obama can beat John McCain or not?

CLINTON: Well, I think we have to beat John McCain and I have every reason to believe we‘ll have a Democratic president and it is going to be either Barack or me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is, do you think Senator Obama can do that? Can he win?

CLINTON: Yes, yes, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Yes, yes, yes. Well, some polls have shown as many as 30 percent of Clinton supporters will vote for McCain if Obama gets the nomination. But last, Clinton seemed to say don‘t worry about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I will do everything to make sure that the people who supported me support our nominee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Our first question tonight, did Clinton concede her strongest argument to these super delegates, her electability argument? Harold Ford Jr., what do you say?

FORD: No, she was being what any good candidate for president, for Senate, for governor, who‘s in a tough primary, of course you make clear. They have split the votes basically in this race. They‘ve split the delegates basically in this race. I thought she did the right thing. She not only showed a kind of maturity, but showed a sense that she wants a Democrat in the White House.

By no means—but she made the case, as Barack would have said, of course, I‘m going to vote for Hillary.

GREGORY: But the issue is, Rachel, was it just a throw-away line to say yes, he can win the general election, when her entire substantive argument is no, he can‘t because of the issues.

MADDOW: I thought it was a moment of graciousness that was a bit empty, and I think that‘s the way that Barack Obama responded to when he said, essentially, later on in response to that—he said, thank you for saying that, and of course I would say the same thing about you, but you‘ve always called me condescending, out of touch, elitist and inelectable.

So it‘s one thing to say of course, your opponent from your same party could win. It‘s another thing to denigrate not only their chances but the fact—the extent to which they deserve it.

FORD: I was 10 years old when George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan ran against each other in 1980. George H.W. Bush called Ronald Reagan‘s economic plan it Voodoo Economics. They joined together and went on to run the country for eight years.

SCARBOROUGH: He was also pro-choice until the night before the convention.

FORD: Funny how things happen.

SCARBOROUGH: David, if I could say really quickly on this electability argument, last night at the dinner down in Washington, D.C., I talked to a lot of leaders of the Republican party, talked to some people in John McCain‘s camp, leaders of that campaign, they told me off the record, quietly, that right now they would prefer to go up against Barack Obama. They think he‘s going to get wiped out in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Missouri. They say if they run against Barack Obama, Missouri is in the bank.

They believe now—two months ago, they believed Hillary Clinton would have been an easier target. But on this electability issue, you ask Republicans quietly, behind the scenes, they will tell you Obama is weaker.

HARWOOD: David, that doesn‘t mean Joe is right. First of all, I‘m surprised Joe would be hanging around with all those Washington elitists in tuxes last night.

SCARBOROUGH: I‘m totally elitist.

HARWOOD: But second of all, rather than being gracious, I think Hillary Clinton was doing the necessary thing in saying that he could win. She would offend super delegates a lot more if she said he couldn‘t win the election, and probably hurt herself in the process. It‘s one thing to say that he‘s less electable, to say he‘s unelectable, even if she thinks it, would be very in-politic and backfire.

GREGORY: Let me go—next up, Barack Obama was hit with the charges of elitism, and Michelle Obama is hitting back. Mrs. Obama is providing she can deliver a pretty effective counterpunch, passionately speaking to voters about her family‘s working-class roots. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, WIFE OF BARACK OBAMA: Yes, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens I grew up with. I‘m the product of a working-class upbringing. I want people to know when they look at me to be clear that they see what an investment in public education can look like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: For most of the season, in a campaign, Bill Clinton has been the spouse in the spot light, both good and bad, but Michelle Obama‘s strong response to the bitter-gate leads us to question number two: in the war of the political spouses, does Michelle Obama have a new edge? Harold, I have been watching over the last couple days. I think she‘s been a controversial figure in the course of this campaign, mostly under the radar. But in some ways, I felt she‘s been helping Obama find his voice on this background question, more effectively than he has.

FORD: Michelle Obama, whom I know, is not only a great campaigner for her husband, she‘s a terrific mom. She‘s a wonderful lawyer, and has given up a lot of her professional pursuits to help her husband. At the end of the day, these races are about the people running. As Hillary Clinton has told her own husband, I think recently, I make decisions in this campaign, and I‘m the candidate. And Barack is the candidate on the other side.

But she‘s very effective. She‘s very smart. But at the end of the day, neither Bill Clinton nor Michelle Obama will sway votes in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina going forward. This is about these two candidates.

GREGORY: I think you‘re fundamentally right. But Joe, you know as well as anybody that just as the Clintons are looked at as a package, as they were back in 1992, when you have both very accomplished spouses here front and center, they‘re looked at. They‘re judged sometimes together.

SCARBOROUGH: And they‘re judged harshly sometimes. It‘s ironic you‘re asking this question tonight, when last night—it‘s not ironic. It‘s a coincidence. Last night, you had Barack Obama talking about Hillary Clinton in 1992 being slammed for being too assertive. It was trouble for Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, despite the fact they ended up winning, also Michelle Obama is walking a very fine line in 2008.

What does that say about the country? I don‘t know, maybe not a lot of positive things. But at the same time, whenever a potential first lady speaks out aggressively, there‘s always criticism and blow back. The question is, will it happen here? Of course, she has been put in the background over the past month or two.

GREGORY: That‘s right. John, I talked to some people close to Obama‘s camp last night at the dinner that we‘re talking about, who were concerned about Michelle Obama‘s level of intensity. Is she a natural campaigner, does she smile enough? Things you talk about in terms of people campaigning, how they come across.

HARWOOD: I got to tell you, David, to take your question, if you take the last two weeks or last two months, I think Michelle Obama has cleaned Bill Clinton‘s clock. She‘s a very appealing figure. That bit about public schools was very powerful. Most of what Bill Clinton has provided for his wife in this campaign would be say stuff that he would have provided even if he had been out of the country during the campaign. It‘s the Clinton brand from the 1990s. That counts for a lot and it counts for a lot of Hillary Clinton‘s political reputation, and what causes a lot of working-class voters to be for her. But in terms of what they‘ve actually done, the blocking and tackling on the campaign trail, she‘s been fantastic.

GREGORY: Finally today, 2008 was supposed to be the year of the Democrats. We‘ve talked about it a lot. Before Iowa, generic presidential match ups by the AP and Yahoo shows a Democratic nominee with a 13-point lead over the Republicans. But the rise of McCain and the prolonged primary battle have virtually erased the Democrats advantage.

A new AP Yahoo match up, McCain gets 37 percent to the Clinton‘s 36 percent, and McCain gets 36 percent to Obama‘s 34 percent. The key quote from the pollsters: “what‘s clear is that some Republican leaning voters who backed Bush in 2004 that lost enthusiasm for him are returning to the GOP fold along with a smaller but significant number of Democrats, who have come to dislike their party‘s two contenders.”

Our third question then, is John McCain now the front-runner in the general election? Rachel, I have a theory or a question about this that is the McCain brand I think jibes well with people who have an anti-political affect to them this year. He‘s seen as authentic. He may by too close to Bush on the war. But he‘s seen positively by people who are skeptical about the system.

MADDOW: I guess I don‘t feel that, because he represents Washington to such a great extent. He‘s been in Washington since roughly right after the Capitol was rebuilt. He‘s been in Washington for a very long time. I do think you‘re right that he‘s trying to tap into that. I think it‘s important to note that his biography tour, his reintroducing himself to the country tour ended at the time in his biography when he came home from Vietnam. He didn‘t do a biography tour about his time in the Senate.

So he wants people to think of him as an outsider, but for my entire lifetime, he‘s been in Washington, so it‘s hard for me to see him as somebody who doesn‘t represent politics.

SCARBOROUGH: David, how much though—try to put a money figure on how much John McCain has gotten goodwill from the American people over the past seven years by being high profile seemingly every time where he‘s been against George W. Bush. He‘s been a maverick over the past seven years. And I know Democrats can name 1,000 issues where he‘s like Bush. But the bottom like is John McCain has been in the news over the past seven years time and time again by sticking a sharp stick in George W. Bush‘s eye. Try to monetize that. You just can‘t do it.

HARWOOD: John McCain is going to be very tough in a general election, but he‘s absolutely not the front-runner in this race. Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary process is going to be the front-runner. You talk privately with McCain‘s people, they know that too.

FORD: I agree.

SCARBOROUGH: Agreed.

MADDOW: It doesn‘t look like that to me, not when I look at those numbers. John McCain isn‘t campaigning right now—

(CROSS TALK)

HARWOOD: That‘s a bad formula.

SCARBOROUGH: And the fact that he‘s only one percentage point ahead in the middle of this intramural blood bath?

MADDOW: What has John McCain done to earn his numbers right now? He‘s run like one three-minute-long web ad involving spooky multi-colored smoke and his high school English teacher. He‘s not even campaigning right now. He‘s essentially on vacation.

SCARBOROUGH: They‘re voting for the maverick brand that John McCain earned over the past 20 years.

MADDOW: They‘re voting against Obama and Clinton right now, who are spending a million and a half dollars a day for that privilege. Obama and Clinton are spending themselves into the ground. They‘re tapping out their fund-raising to a certain extent. They‘re tied with a guy whose not even running.

SCARBOROUGH: They‘ll come together. Republicans a month ago were talking about how they would never join in behind John McCain. Now you look at the polls internally, John McCain‘s beating Hillary Clinton 95 to five percent among Republicans. They‘re breaking back. Democrats will do the same thing. This is just a phase. They get to Denver, the balloons go up, everybody will cry.

(CROSS TALK)

HARWOOD: There‘s no way that 30 percent of Hillary Clinton‘s voters are going to vote on for John McCain. No way.

FORD: This race will be about change, and the Democrat will wear that label. John McCain—I want to remind every one in this program, ten months ago, many of our friends in the media industry declared John McCain politically dead. Ten months later, he now finds himself—

GREGORY: I don‘t remember that. I think everybody in the media was giving him a fair shot. He had a legitimate shot to come back. That‘s the story I‘m sticking with.

I have to take a break. We‘ll come back with your voice mails and e-mails. The panel has a lot to talk about tonight. You do as well. Or phones have been ringing off the hook, inbox is overflowing. And Vice President Cheney has some fun at Hillary Clinton‘s expense last night at the Washington dinner we‘ve been talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Did you see that footage of Hillary knocking back that shot with the beer chaser? It looks like she replaced Mark Penn with Johnny Walker. Apparently, it was pretty strong whisky, and there might have been a few more when the cameras stopped rolling. When the 3:00 a.m. phone call came in, it went right to voice mail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: Back now on RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE. I was talking about the vice president, Dick Cheney, at the correspondents dinner last night. I want you to look at some of this video as he tells these jokes. Every time he delivered a punch line, he looked very, very impressed with himself. But I thought one of the great lines, where he tried to get serious for just a moment. He went on this litany of I want to tell you that your work matters. I want to tell you that you sacrifice a lot, and that you really try hard. I want to tell you all those things, but I just can‘t bring myself to do it.

In other words, he really doesn‘t like us, and he wasn‘t going to make any pretense about it. But here was interesting, Joe, I was talking to Mo Rocca a little bit afterwards, with Noah Oppenheim (ph), our producer, and I said, what was that like sitting next to the vice president. He‘s not an easy guy to make small talk with. Apparently they talked about Mo Rocca‘s book that he had written about presidential pets. And they talked about President Ford‘s lab, I guess, or cocker spaniel. It must have been an amazing moment up there.

SCARBOROUGH: It must have been. I‘ve had an opportunity in past campaigns to sit down and talk to Dick Cheney behind the scenes. He‘s a very likable, relaxing person, doesn‘t seem impressed by himself, completely opposite from the whole Darth Vader image that‘s been cast on him. I love—that was one of my favorite lines, when he said he went to his wife Lynne, complaining about the fact people were calling him Darth Vader, and she said, don‘t worry, honey, it humanizes you.

HARWOOD: Joe, was the Chardonnay up to your standards.

SCARBOROUGH: You know what, I‘m a working class man. I don‘t know if you saw me but, I had some water, bread, and then I actually helped people serve you elitists. I‘m a man of the people. They don‘t call me regular Joe for nothing.

GREGORY: Leave Joe alone. Joe is in touch with the people. Leave this man alone. Let‘s get the viewers to weigh in. I‘ve had a chance to talk to the panel. You get your turn as well, with your play date starting right now. As you can see, Rachel Maddow, Harold Ford Jr., John Harwood, and Joe Scarborough with us.

A lot of responses about the Democratic presidential debate yesterday. Let‘s start with Jim in Kentucky. He says this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At what point are we expecting presidential candidates to not have any kind of association with somebody of questionable character in their past?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: I think that‘s a fair question. Harold Ford Jr., when does guilt by association go a step too far?

FORD: The American people are smart enough to distinguish between these things. If you have a close relationship with someone who has a very checkered, questionable past, and you didn‘t know them before that time, or you met them during that time, and you steadied and grew the friendship, voters are able to see through that. And I thought Barack handled that question fairly well last night. It was an interesting comparison he made between Tom Coburn, but I understood what he was trying to say. I think voters get it.

SCARBOROUGH: But Harold, if you ran for governor of Texas or ran for Senate again, people in Tennessee know you. If there‘s a questionable association, they go, we know Harold Ford, maybe he hung out with a weird guy one summer when he was younger. Whereas if somebody new runs for that Tennessee seat and nobody knows him, then you start saying, OK, who is this person? Who do they hang out with? Who do they associate with?

Barack Obama can‘t be shocked. He was in Washington for one year before he decided to run for president of the United States. People don‘t know him. They know John McCain. They know Hillary Clinton. They don‘t know him. So who he associates himself with is that much more important to voters.

FORD: That‘s why Jeremiah Wright has been such a big issue as well. Joe makes a good point. But I do think the caller‘s question dealt with how far back—how do we know—how long can you punish a candidate or someone running for office for a friendship? At some level, I just think voters are able to get it. Jeremiah Wright will pay bigger than this --- the Weather guy we talked about last night.

MADDOW: Associates and friendships become an issue when political opponents decide to make them an issue. We talked about this before on the show. The Jeremiah Wright

(CROSS TALK)

MADDOW: Joe, let me make my point and then you can dismiss me. Let me make my point first. Jeremiah Wright as a pastor for Barack Obama is an issue. The political associations that John McCain has made with right wing pastors have not been an issue. The issue that has been made about who‘s giving money to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, because their opponents have decided to go after them on that. For example, John McCain had this incredibly controversial relationship with a Florida campaign co-chair, who was caught in a bathroom offering money to a police officer to do something that we can all imagine in a bathroom. Nobody is going to John McCain and saying he was your Florida campaign co-chair; what do you think about men doing that in bathrooms? What do you think about entrapment from police officers? What do you think about public sex?

HARWOOD: That‘s what a general election is for.

MADDOW: But nobody‘s brought that up to John McCain at this point, and it‘s a decision made by political opponents. It‘s not something that happens organically because of how long you‘ve been around the block.

GREGORY: Let me get a break in before I run out of time. You can play with the panel every night. Don‘t forget to call us or email us. Predictions from the panel are coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREGORY: We‘re back. It‘s prediction time. Time for our panelists to peer into the crystal ball and tell us something that they see. Rachel, Harold, John and Joe still with us. Joe, what are you seeing tonight?

SCARBOROUGH: Well, I think I may blow all my time on the predictions to respond to Rachel. I don‘t engage in crossfire type debates and certainly I don‘t want to talk about what people do in bathrooms. I do want to say though that anybody—and you can ask Harold Ford. You can ask anybody that‘s ever run for political office, that the thing you want to do is define your opponent.

You define opponents that people don‘t know more easily than defining opponents that have been in public service for a quarter of a century. It was the only point I was trying to make. And again I don‘t do cross-fire, so if we want to yell back and forth, then Rachel will have to find somebody else.

MADDOW: Joe, I wasn‘t trying to yell back and forth with you. I was starting to make my point and you cut me off before I started my first sentence. You waited for me to start. I started and you jumped in.

SCARBOROUGH: I don‘t mean to be condescending, but I can say that anybody that‘s ever run for political office before knows that there‘s a big difference between John McCain and defining him, who has been in public service for 25 years, and defining Barack Obama who was in Washington, D.C. for one year before he decided to run for president.

GREGORY: All right. I‘m going to shut this particular debate down and move on. John, your thoughts about what‘s coming up ahead.

HARWOOD: After Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is right back in the fight of her life. What she‘s probably done with bitter-gate and with that debate is preserve her lead in Pennsylvania. She‘s got a working margin there. She‘s likely to win next Tuesday. But then she‘s got those May 6th contests in North Carolina. She‘s likely to lose there. She‘s got to win in Indiana, very close race right now. No more than even money bet for her to win that state.

GREGORY: All right. Harold, what do you see coming up?

FORD: The Democratic nominee, once he or she is determined, will surge to a five to 10 point lead over John McCain. I‘m a believer that as this race is joined between McCain and Obama/Clinton, you‘ll see John McCain have to answer questions about how it is that you can believe that going into Iraq, if they had no weapons of mass destruction, was the right thing to do, which he said.

I think Joe Biden laid this case out in the last 48 hours. The Democratic nominee will benefit from the biggest thing happening for Democrats nationally, people want a change, and John McCain doesn‘t represent that.

GREGORY: All right. Rachel, your thoughts tonight?

MADDOW: First of all, Joe and I will go out for a beer and hash this all out. My second prediction is that it will be Cindy versus Laura on morning television. Next week, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, we‘ll have daytime appearances from two major A-list Republican spouses. Cindy is going to be co-hosting on “The View” on Monday, the day before the Pennsylvania primary. Laura Bush is going to be hosting an hour of the “Today Show” the morning of the primary.

I don‘t know if this is a coordinated effort to get Republican family values and very popular Republican spouses out there in advance of that big Democratic contest, but I think it should start an air war, where we see a lot more of Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton being humanistic and interesting on TV in the next few weeks.

FORD: I‘m bringing the Crown Royal for this beer-fest these guys are about to have.

HARWOOD: Joe only drinks white wine.

GREGORY: What is it we‘re seeing with the spouses starting to step it up and go to some of these forums now? It‘s almost the time in the primary season where they think it‘s time to bring them out.

MADDOW: You know, Laura Bush has consistently been the most popular Republican in the country for almost the entire term that Bush has been president. So I think they see this actually probably their best face forward on days that otherwise would be owned by the Democrats just because of the sheer volume of coverage of this Pennsylvania primary.

I think it‘s wicked smart of them to do this. You put something out there that will be non-controversial, that‘s not going to get any sort of push back from the Democrats, that‘s not going to give the Democrats anything to complain about or to put into their stump speeches. But it‘s still going to get this very positive side of the Republican brand out there. I think it is very smart, and I think it was smart for the McCain campaign to jump on “The View” opportunity on Monday after they found out Laura was going to do the “Today Show.”

HARWOOD: Especially since I don‘t think Colin Powell could handle that last hour of the “Today Show.”

MADDOW: Good point.

GREGORY: We‘re going to leave it there. Thanks to the panel. I‘m David Gregory. That does it for RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE for tonight. We‘re back here 6:00 Eastern time. Now stay tuned, “HARDBALL” coming up next on MSNBC.

Sidney Blumenthal, DWI

Clinton aide, Blumenthal, accepts deal in DWI case - Blumenthal fined $900, had license revoked for 10 months

The Nashua Telegraph reports:

Sen. Hillary Clinton campaign adviser Sidney Blumenthal slipped into Nashua District Court to plead guilty and be sentenced last month, three weeks earlier than scheduled.

Blumenthal, 59, of Washington, D.C., was arrested in Nashua on Jan. 7, the day before the New Hampshire primary, accused of speeding while intoxicated on Concord Street.

Blumenthal and his lawyer, Ray Mello, of Nashua, had negotiated a plea bargain with police prosecutors last month. Notice of the deal was filed March 20, and the court scheduled a plea-and-sentencing hearing Friday.

The district court is a busy place, however, and last-minute scheduling changes are common – especially with plea bargains, which are quick and easy for the court to accommodate. Plea bargains are routine; the vast majority of DWI cases and criminal cases in general are resolved by similar deals.

Blumenthal had been charged with aggravated DWI, because police charged he was speeding at about 70 mph in a 30 mph zone.

Blumenthal declined to take a breath or blood test and did not show any obvious signs of impairment during booking at the police station. Blumenthal didn't slur or sway, and he and the officers were all models of politeness, a video of the process shows.
More on this topic
Read Nashua District Court records of Sidney Blumenthal's sentencing.
Asked about any drug or alcohol use, which is part of the routine questioning before detention, Blumenthal said, "I had some wine at dinner."

It was Blumenthal's first arrest, ever, he told police.

Booking videos and other police reports are generally a matter of public record once a case has been closed; The Telegraph requested a copy of the video Friday afternoon and got it Monday morning.

Blumenthal was brought to a cell after booking and later released after posting $200 bail.

Blumenthal pleaded guilty March 28 to a standard, misdemeanor DWI charge. He was fined $900, and his driver's license revoked for 10 months. Blumenthal can seek to get his license restored after 120 days, however, if he completes and alcohol education program in Washington, D.C., court records show.

Blumenthal also agreed not to contest a six-month administrative license suspension, which was already in effect, police have said previously.

Though there is no standard disposition to fit all cases, the terms of Blumenthal's plea are stiffer than a standard DWI charge, and typical of an aggravated DWI plea bargain for a first-time offender, Capt. Peter Segal said. Blumenthal has no prior DWI convictions, he said.

Police negotiated a plea bargain in part because the arresting officer, Christopher Ditullio, was called up for service in Iraq, and would not have been available to testify, Segal said.

Blumenthal is an unpaid adviser to Clinton, actively involved in her presidential campaign, according to his lawyer. Blumenthal also was an adviser to former President Clinton. He was in southern New Hampshire on the eve of the primaries but got lost on the way from dinner to his hotel, he told police.

Sgt. Michael Masella spotted Blumenthal's rented Buick heading north on Concord Street in the area of Greeley Park at about 70 mph on the night before the New Hampshire primaries, police reported. Masella and Ditullio stopped Blumenthal near the Henri Burque Highway and arrested him after performing a field sobriety test.

When Times Are Bad, These Jobs Are Good

Forbes reports:

In his 40-some year career, recovery agent Hank Leleu has witnessed enough economic downturns to know how they'll play out. Once people start missing payments on their "toys," a storm starts brewing. He knows that just from experience.

The country has fallen on hard times once during each of the decades of Leleu's career, and he says it's always the same old story. When times are good, people buy, often beyond their means. When times are bad, as is the case at present in the U.S., debt collectors and recovery agents come calling. In a sense, they're profiting from other people's misery--and there's usually plenty to go round.

There's something different about this one though, he says, particularly about the people who are receiving these calls.

"It seems like no one is really exempt from this cycle," says Leleu, who operates ARB Las Vegas.

From November 2006 to March 2007, ARB was averaging a recovery of 43 high-line cars a month. For the same period a year later, ARB is averaging 55 high-line cars a month. These figures include brand names such as Mercedes, Porsche and Bentley.

Leleu says that a year ago, approximately 75% of the cars recovered were C- and E-class Mercedes Benz, carrying sticker prices of $35,000 to $80,000. A year later, the numbers are up by 20% or so, but the true picture here is that now 75% of the high-line cars ARB is recovering are valued in the range of $100,000 to $500,000.

We're pulling cars from mortgage bankers, real-estate firms,” Leleu says. “We're talking about upper-echelon people. It's like nobody seems to have that savings or extra borrowing ability to get them over the hump.

There has been no clear forecast on the size of this hump. Until we're on the other side, people who profit from others' financial losses, whether they operate pawn shops or run bankruptcy law firms, will thrive. It's nothing personal; it's just business--and a counter-cyclical one at that. These are industries that see a spike in demand during the economic downside.

Collateral recovery is a popular one. These individuals have been affectionately dubbed, throughout economic history, the "repo men."

How does he find you? Skip Smasher is one way.

The company, run by former California-based private investigator Robert Scott, is basically a people finder. It's a legal database of contact information recovery agents and creditors can access for a price.

Scott says the number of users on his Web-based service has jumped 30%, and it's remained at that level since November. He wouldn't specify numbers.

"In my mind, there is no doubt that a recession is here, based on an increase in our business activity," he says.

Perhaps Leleu's story is a clearer sign of how bad it actually is out there. He says that since October-November last year, ARB Las Vegas has gone from handling 18 to 20 accounts daily to 40 to 45 accounts. The amount of items for each account varies; it could be one car or two street sweepers or a bevy of construction equipment.

Leleu recalled recovering a plane from someone 10 or 15 years ago. He even had to take a set of false teeth once.

As for cars, which are still the most frequently recovered item, Leleu says his company is seizing as many as 160 a month, up from 100 a month last year. He has two agents earning as much as $2,000 a week, or between $65 and $100 per car. ARB Las Vegas charges creditors an average of $300 and $325 for a repossession and an additional $125 to $150 for the vehicle's keys.

That increase in volume isn't exclusive to Leleu's region, either. He says he has met with other recovery agents from across the country, and they've reported the same--from Oklahoma to Virginia, Colorado to Florida.

It's nothing personal.

Just ask Bill Bartmann. This former Forbes billionaire took out a $13,000 bank loan in the mid 1980s to start a debt-collection agency with his wife. The now defunct company, Commercial Financial Services, eventually went public, and at its peak, had a market capitalization of $3.5 billion and annual revenues of $1 billion.

"It was a business, and they owed the money," Bartmann says. At the same time, he expresses empathy for those in debt, since he once stood in those shoes.

"They had enjoyed the fruits of the expenditure or whatever it was, and I was trying to help them resolve their obligations."

Bartmann says he had a special approach to a business that relied much on phone calls that were either ignored or never returned. He soon learned that 90% of people wanted to pay their debts, but could only afford to pay about six of the 10 bills they had. His business goal was to be one of the six that did get paid.

If he had to do it all over again, he says, this is the market in which he'd want to be doing it.

Palin Signs Capitol Spending Bill, But Vetoes Majority of Projects

But Did She Really?

The AP's Anne Sutton reports:

Gov. Sarah Palin signed a hotly disputed state supplemental budget bill Thursday, using her line item veto pen to strike more than 80 percent of $70 million in capital projects that were inserted by lawmakers.

But it’s not all bad news for them. She’s recommending that most of those vetoed projects be funded in the 2009 capital budget instead, using this year’s surplus revenues from high oil prices. That’s a promise legislators are banking on.

“Overall I’m pretty pleased with it,” said House Finance Committee Co-Chairman Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage. “It’s my understanding she approved the projects; she just wants them vetted in a different vehicle.”

Local members of the Republican Senate minority largely credited Palin for her approach.

“The minority was on board to have them all moved — if any of them were to remain,” said Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole. “But I think the way she split it was fair.”

Sen. Gary Wilken, R-Fairbanks, a former Senate Finance Committee co-chair, called the move a “reasonable approach.”

He said he’d never heard of any other governor doing it, but added, “We’ve never done capital in the supplemental, either.”

Capital projects have been included in the supplemental budget before, but not in the manner they were this year.

The supplemental budget bill became the battleground in recent weeks between lawmakers asserting their power of appropriation and the governor asserting her right to constrain and shape government spending.

Although the $4.3 billion budget contains significant items, such as $3.6 billion in savings, $18 million for senior benefits and $125 million in tax credits for oil and gas producers, it was capital projects that captured the most attention.

Palin left 52 projects worth $12.4 million in the bill, mostly for rural areas where she said timing was critical for barging in equipment and supplies for this year’s building season.

She is recommending that 155 projects totaling $35.4 million be added to the capital budget.

The remaining 16 projects totaling $22.3 million were vetoed outright.

“It’s time to move beyond the supplemental and work together in a cooperative manner to move Alaska forward,” Palin said.

The House Finance Committee begins work this week on the Senate’s version of the capital budget, which Palin roundly criticized, saying it lacked critical projects.

Now Palin must work with Meyer to see her own items, such as Dalton Highway repairs and deferred maintenance on state-owned facilities, reinserted. Meyer expects to work cooperatively.

“What we found out with the supplemental is that she is listening to us,” Meyer said. “I’m anticipating that we are going to be working closer with the governor as we put together the capital budget on the House side.”

Palin’s decision ends two weeks of meetings with individual lawmakers over the construction projects and equipment that were among the scores of community and school district priorities that she vetoed last summer, to the surprise and anger of lawmakers.

All but five legislators accepted her invitation to meet and explain why their districts’ projects should be included in a bill that is normally reserved for emergencies and cost overruns in the current fiscal year.

The exercise was invaluable, Palin said.

“My staff and I listened and learned a great deal about the many needs across the state. The needs are great and vary dramatically from one community to another,” Palin wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, announcing the bill’s signing.

Palin left $4 million in the budget for the design and construction of a public safety building in Nome and $1.3 million to extend electrical service to key airport safety equipment in Juneau. The bill also includes numerous school maintenance and water and sewer upgrades in rural villages as well as Anchorage traffic improvements.

Of the projects that were vetoed outright, four had already been completed while others had other funding sources available. A $10 million expansion of the Anchorage port was recommended for a bond package and $5 million for Palmer Wasilla Highway improvements was recommended for funding in the 2010 budget.

House lawmakers met with Palin in March in an unsuccessful effort to ward off another round of vetoes. House Minority Leader Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, was disappointed when the talks fell through but is pleased with the final outcome.

“I think there are still difficulties, but this was very smart. The way the supplemental was worked through made sense,” Kerttula said. “I hope everybody comes out of their corners and starts working well with each other. We want to see a good working relationship on all levels.”

The Senate resisted invitations to negotiate with Palin about the supplemental budget.

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, said the capital budget should ideally be crafted “so whomever the governor is has little or no need to use the veto, and they don’t use the veto pen as a de facto budget-writing vehicle.

“The more communication the governor has with the Legislature, which is the appropriating body, the better.”

The bill is Senate Bill 256.

Staff writer Stefan Milkowski and Associated Press writer Steve Quinn contributed to this report.


Gov. Sarah Palin has used her line item veto to strike two-thirds of the capital projects that lawmakers had earlier inserted into a spending bill for the current year.

She left 52 projects worth $12 million in the bill, mostly for rural areas where she said timing was critical for barging in equipment and supplies.

She is recommending that 155 projects totaling $35 million be added to next year's capital budget instead. Some Fairbanks-area projects also survived the cuts; others were set aside. See list below.

The remaining 16 projects totaling $22 million were vetoed outright. These were projects that she had vetoed last summer in the 2008 capital budget.

Palin's staff visited lawmakers' offices ahead of time to inform them of her decision.

The governor signed Senate Bill 256 into law on Thursday. The $4.3 billion supplemental budget bill also adds $3.6 billion to savings accounts and pays for revenue sharing and weatherization programs.

Fairbanks-area projects that survived the cuts include:

-$140,000 Weller Elementary water tanks

-$160,000 North Pole water treatment plant roof

Projects Palin wants moved to the capital budget:

-$500,000 Delta Junction street paving and lighting

-$360,000 J.P. Jones Community Development Center improvements

-$220,000 Tanana Valley Sportsmen’s Association shooting range

-$100,000 Tanana Valley Farmers Market upgrades

-$50,000 Cultural Heritage & Education Institute

-$32,000 Salcha Fair Association playground and fair building

-$25,000 Tanana Valley Sportsmen’s Association facilities

-$20,000 Fairbanks Downtown Association downtown upgrades

-$15,000 Tanana Valley State Fair Association

-$10,000 Fairbanks Youth Facility climbing wall

-$5,000 Fairbanks Soil and Water Conservation District noxious weed project

Ritter Says White House Preparing For War In Iran

The Rutland Herald reports:

Scott Ritter, former head of weapons inspection in Iraq who protested there were no weapons of mass destruction to justify an invasion, believes the same is true for Iran.

But there is an 80 percent chance of war with Iran, he told about 200 people Wednesday at Middlebury College as part of a series of talks facilitated by the Vermont Peace and Justice Center.

The pattern of preparations for such a conflict has been steadily developing and involves Congress as well as the Bush-Cheney administration, he said.

People ask him if he feels vindicated by the absence of WMDs in Iraq, he said, but "there isn't any vindication in being right about this one." A war with Iran would hasten the ongoing decline of American standing in the world, and afterward Russia and China would be ready to take advantage of the resulting power vacuum, he said.

Among the war clouds Ritter cited were:

Preemptive strikes against the two groups most likely to erupt if the United States invaded Iran, Hezbollah (unsuccessfully attacked by Israel) and Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army (unsuccessfully attacked in Basra by Iraq's central government).

Ritter predicted a similarly disappointing showing if the American forces attacked Iran, a country 2-1/2 times as large and populous as Iraq that is much more unified culturally and did not have its army destroyed in a previous war with the United States.

Recent visits to Middle Eastern allies by high officials, ostensibly for other purposes, but really to prepare them for the effects of such a war.

The appearance of the "miracle laptop," as Ritter called it, a thousand pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian computer, which dubiously had just the sort of information the administration needed to support a hard-line stand on Iran.

Congressional supplementary funding for more "bunker-busting" bombs, with a contract completion deadline of April.

Congressional supplementary funding for the extra bombers to carry those bombs, with a contract completion date of April.

Cheney's order to send a third aircraft carrier battle group close to the Persian Gulf, a necessary bolstering of forces for a war with Iran.

Admiral William Fallon, the first admiral to be head of Central Command, said that level of naval forces was unnecessary and blocked the move. Ritter said that was "a heroic thing."

The main target of Ritter's criticisms was an American public that couldn't pass a test on the Constitution and understands little of international history and politics, and refuses to believe the life of an Iraqi is worth as much as the life of an American.

He began his talk, not by trumpeting the danger of war, but by talking about spring, and the birds that will soon have babies in their nests. Mother birds will forage, come to the nests, see open mouths begging for food, and puke into each one, he said.

Just so, Ritter said, people sit in front of their televisions every night and wait to be stuffed with mushy phrases like "The surge has been successful" and "Baghdad is 70 percent secure" and "We have apparently won the war."

"The reality of Iraq is that it is a broken nation," Ritter said. Groups like the Kurds and Shia are not unified groups, there is already a civil war, and most of the opposition to our presence comes from our being the invaders, he said.

"It is far too easy to look for people to blame," he said. For instance, "we blame the media, but the media simply give us what we're asking for."

Everyone needs to start understanding and caring about their Constitutional rights, and everyone needs to start finding the facts for themselves and taking strong individual stands, Ritter said. If you do nothing but take in what the TV and newspapers tell you, "all you're going to get in return is puke."

Transcript of 'Countdown with Keith Olberman' for April 3, 2008

Transcript:


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

Obama 49, Clinton 46: The poll numbers. Obama 40, Clinton 20: The money numbers. How many they raised in millions in March?


Making a speech on the economy, McCain has no plan and Obama is timid, ironic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am continuing to sound the alarm. I feel like, you know, Paulette Revere - the recession is coming, the recession is coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: And the realists may be on their heels.

Clinton superdelegate Jack Murtha: “She has to win Pennsylvania. She has to be ahead in the popular vote to have any chance at all of getting this nomination.”

Clinton superdelegate John Corzine: “I reserve the right to switch to Obama if she doesn‘t have the popular vote.”

“He can‘t win. He can‘t win.” Did Senator Clinton say that to Governor Richardson? Or did Governor Richardson say that to Senator Clinton, changing his mind after the race speech?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I don‘t talk about private conversations but I have consistently made the case that I can win, because I believe I can win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: John McCain believes he can win on a war platform. His bio tour is a trip down memory lane of violence. So, why won‘t he endorse the new G.I. Bill?

Torture: The paper trail goes straight to the top. The new John Yoo memo found. Laws against assault, maiming, torture, meant nothing if the president said they meant nothing.

Political suicide: Congressman Darrell Issa of California‘s says, 9/11 was just an aircraft. No dirty bomb, no chemical munitions, so the federal government should not pay for any treatment of anybody injured or killed at the World Trade Center. Issa doesn‘t want to have to spend federal money, quote, “every single time a similar situation happens.”

And: COUNTDOWN anniversary week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Keith Olbermann, thanks very much for being on the show.

OLBERMANN: Thank you for being having me.

Right in the middle of the interview outside of Earlman (ph), Wisconsin, oh, you better take care of her. It never stops.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: All that and more: Now on COUNTDOWN.

That‘s a nice color on you.

(on camera): Good evening, this is Thursday, April 3rd, 215 days until the 2008 presidential election.

When they came forward publicly and said we support her. We will cast our votes for her as Democratic Party superdelegates, Senator Hillary Clinton vocally let their views be known, explain why their views should hold sway.

But in our fifth story tonight: New comments from these two superdelegates most likely not welcome by the Clinton campaign, not to be found in the headlines of their media releases. The gist: We are behind you all the way. This offer may be withdrawn at any time.

New Jersey Governor John Corzine saying he thinks Senator Clinton will win the popular vote in the primaries counting Florida and Michigan. But then, if she does not, he reserves the right to switch his vote from Clinton to Obama.

Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha is going a step further. Her most recent name endorsement saying that, in that event, the event that she is trailing Obama in total primary and caucus votes, Clinton cannot be the nominee.

Another superdelegate today, former President Jimmy Carter indicating, hinting who will his vote, saying, quote, “My children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama. As a superdelegate I will not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess.” Um, Gary Hart.

Superdelegates aside, the latest Gallup Poll is showing, Clinton is still struggling to close the gap among all those other Democrats. Democratic voters are favoring Obama still by 49 to 46, 46 percent the stubborn ceiling for Clinton in the last two weeks in that tracking poll. Nor is the senator heading into the Pennsylvania primary on April 22nd with any kind of financial edge to help her break that ceiling.

The Clinton campaign sources telling NBC News, she raised $20 million last month but we do not know how much of that is off-limits until the general election. We do know that Obama raised twice as much last month, $40 million, adding almost to 250,000 new donors to his fundraising list and helping (ph) pay for a new ad in Pennsylvania addressing working class economic issues at the fore (ph) in that state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We‘ll fix our trade laws, end tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas, and give them those who create jobs here in America. That‘s why I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Senator Clinton today is saying, McCain has no plan for the economy and notwithstanding Obama‘s recent call for radical regulatory reform, she called Obama timid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Senator Obama has been very timid and unenthusiastic about doing anything with the economy. And I have consistently, you know, said what I thought needed to be done since, you know, since last March.

And I am continuing to sound the alarm. I feel like, you know, Paulette Revere - the recession is coming, the recession is coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: We turn now MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, also, of course, senior White House correspondent for “Newsweek” magazine. Richard, good evening.

RICHARD WOLFFE, NEWSWEEK: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: All right. Read between the lines for me on Corzine and Murtha to start off with. I mean, Corzine in that interview which was CNBC sounded positively tortured just trying to say: is there a fire escape on this floor?

WOLFFE: Yes. You know, I never knew that hedging your bets carried an audible sound. Here you have surrogates who are doing a better job of undermining the Clinton case than anything coming out of the “war room” from the Obama campaign. And, yes, I guess, look, there is a personal side to it.

They want to be on the right side of however this turns out but they have unilaterally taken away at least two major arguments for the Clinton campaign. One, about the big states. If you don‘t win the big states, then, where are you? And two, the idea that this guy called Obama is a flake and he‘s going to be a blowout loser in the general election. Those two arguments they just unilaterally took off the table again, setting expectations far too high for the Clinton campaign.

OLBERMANN: Do these people, Corzine and Murtha and people like Chuck Schumer who on Sunday, hey, said this will be over by June which can also be read as: This is better be over by June, senator. Are they the ones who‘d be eventually the names that we hear leading Senator Clinton away from the campaign if it comes to that?

WOLFFE: I think they are really important voices. Yes, because loyalty is important. These people are out there more often than not doing a better job than this instead (ph) of being surrogates. And the loyalty factor is important for the Clintons.

So, these party elders, if anyone can have a voice along with the New York delegation, as they‘d discussed before, I think, they are the ones to deliver the tough message. But we‘re obviously not there yet. It‘s premature but the “yet” part is what is so evident in those hedging, hemming, horring (ph) remarks we just heard.

OLBERMANN: All right. What are fundraising numbers mean? Because if you raise $20 million while you‘re running for president in a month at anytime to our history, that would ordinarily be an extraordinary triumph for any candidate of any party. $40 million would be a marvel.

But of course, Obama raised $55 million in February. So, I mean, are these numbers bad for both candidates just because of that context?

WOLFFE: Well, February was a really intense month for this campaign and both candidates are down by $15 million. But they are down from record numbers. $55 million is just an astonishing number.

What‘s really important is looking how much money they have in their pockets. Because when you look at the end of February, you saw Hillary Clinton with really $3 million or so left after you take out debts and everything else. Barack Obama was left with a $20 million, $30 million average in February. He‘s extended that now and that money advantage is crucial moving forward because he‘s outspending her on the air right now in Pennsylvania.

OLBERMANN: All right. How are any or all of these factors today that we‘re talking about changing that expectation game for April 22nd in Pennsylvania? In other words, what threshold does she have to hit to prevent a deluge of Obama superdelegates or even her own people to pressure her to call it quits after Pennsylvania?

WOLFFE: Well, I think it‘s better than the running average right now, in RealClearPolitics, it‘s about five points. She really needs to make a very big statement out of Pennsylvania, Partly because they said, it‘s such a big state. We have to win these big states. And so we can win them.

But she also she needs to say in order to get the superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegates, this is a compelling reason why Obama cannot win. So, five points, 10 points is probably is not going to be enough. It has to be a good double-digit victory for her right now in Pennsylvania.

OLBERMANN: The latest reliable polling, 9 percent. We‘ll see what happens. Our own Richard Wolffe, senior White House correspondent for “Newsweek.” As always, great thanks for your time and for your tiara.

WOLFFE: Thank you.

OLBERMANN: One key issue for superdelegates, if only in the minds of Senator Clinton‘s team, the question: is Obama electable? Today conflicting reports of the behind the scenes conflict over that question. A debate between former candidate and now Obama-backer, Bill Richardson and both of the Clintons: Bill and Hillary.

ABC‘s George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton aide, reporting last night that she told Richardson before his endorsement of Obama, quote, “He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win.” Reporting that Richardson disagreed, but today, unnamed sources in the Clinton camp claim that Richardson told the Clintons before Super Tuesday that he would not endorse Obama precisely because he thought Obama could not win—cannot win.

Today, Clinton was asked about her part in this, whether she told Richardson Obama could not win.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I don‘t talk about private conferences but I have consistently made the case that I can win, because I believe I can win. And, you know, sometimes people draw the conclusion I‘m saying somebody else can‘t win.

I can win. I know I can win. That‘s why I do this every day. And that‘s what my campaign is about. I‘m in it to win it. And I intend to do just that. It‘s a no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Why does anyone care? Well, if Richardson did doubt Obama‘s electability, it could help fuel doubts among other superdelegates about Obama‘s electability.

And if Clinton thought Obama unelectable, it helps fuel superdelegates doubts her loyalty to the party unless, of course, the timeline of Richardson‘s conversion supposedly, from he‘s unelectable to he‘s convinced me he is electable, is exactly the point Obama‘s campaign is making about reaction of Americans to increase exposure to their candidate.

At this point, let‘s bring in MSNBC political analyst, Dana Milbank, also, of course, national political reporter from the “Washington Post.” Dana, good evening.

DANA MILBANK, WASHINGTON POST: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Is that how the Obama campaign would want to spin this that is it perhaps, a bad idea for the Clintonite to argue, see, Big Obama-backer, Richardson, he used to be with us, he didn‘t think Obama could win but, oh, yes, now he does?

MILBANK: Right, well, they could spin it that way. I mean, we have the virtue of being true. It does seem that Richardson has made sort of a self-interested calculation here. The fact of the matter is, they don‘t need to spin it at all because what‘s happened here is the Clintons have managed to take a relatively minor endorsement. You know, I‘d say much more of Mike Gravel than Oprah.

And they‘ve blown it up into this big reverberating issue over and over again and it‘s related to Bill Clinton sort of flushed face finger-wagging temper and it‘s managed to cause another distraction for the Clinton campaign at this point. And you know, certainly, Bill Clinton knows there‘s no such thing as loyalty in politics. If you want a friend here, you get a dog.

OLBERMANN: Right. But to try to figure out which of these versions, and if they‘re obviously, exactly opposite versions happened here, is that Richardson said it to her option backed up by what Richardson told us that night that he was indeed close to endorsing Senator Clinton right after the Super Bowl and President Clinton came and visited with him in New Mexico.

And then, something made him hesitate and he stayed on the sidelines until the Obama speech on race and he said he still couldn‘t put his finger on it at that time but to him this was now the guy. That would seem to support he had gone from “no, I don‘t think he‘s electable” to “I‘m endorsing him”?

MILBANK: Right. And it‘s certainly consistent with what Richardson said. And it‘s also consistent with the overall mission of Richardson. I think it‘s been fairly noted a long time ago that he was basically not running for president, he‘s running for vice president, maybe for secretary of state.

So, he wanted to go with the winning horse here. And it is possible back then he was making a calculation that Obama couldn‘t win. Once he has decided that it‘s more likely that Obama is going to win, he wants to get on that train so that he is in line for the vice presidency or secretary of state. That‘s his self-interest but guess what? That‘s how superdelegates make decisions, too. They want to go with the perceived winner.

OLBERMANN: And then, what is the reason for sources in the Clinton campaign speaking about this to anybody, to us or George Stephanopoulos or whoever? Is there subtext? Are they thinking they got the message across that, you know, if you break for Obama, superdelegates we come after you?

MILBANK: I guess that‘s about the best you can come up with. If I were them I‘d be leaking more images of Obama bowling. But there‘s no tremendously great advantage of having it out here. Yes, there will be payback if a superdelegate goes against them. But there‘s only going to be the opportunity for payback if they actually wind up winning.

OLBERMANN: A quick point on issue we haven‘t mentioned. This expectation that the Clinton tax filings are going to be released in 24 hours—within the next 24 hours and there was a “USA Today” editorial suggesting that Bill Clinton should also reveal the funding sources behind his library and foundation, that‘s been a point that‘s been echoed lots of her critics to this point.

Are the Clintons post-presidential finances on their way towards becoming an issue in this campaign or is this just really inside the Democratic cat fight?

MILBANK: Well, the good news for her is it will probably take the Richardson story out of the headlines for a moment. But, you know there are going to be all kinds of things to pick through in the tax returns. So, that‘s going to be another few days distraction here.

I would expect a whole bunch of pushback on giving out the donors to the library and the foundation. They‘re not really required to do that. And there‘s going to be a whole lot of inevitably, whoever‘s library and foundation it is, there‘s going to be a whole lot of seedy and shady money in there. So, I‘d expect a big fight on that one.

OLBERMANN: In fact, there‘s a whole of seedy and shady money in all presidential library. Dana Milbank of the “Washington Post” and MSNBC. Thank you, Dana.

MILBANK: Thanks, Keith.

OLBERMANN: If he is running as a warrior in favor of the war in Iraq, in favor of the war in Iran, romanticizing the words of his and his family‘s past, why is John McCain not joining the bipartisan support for the new G.I. Bill?

And the John Yoo memo is already infamous in the annals of American torture. Now, it turns out there is a second John Yoo memo, it is much worse and for President Bush, it could be the smoking gun.

You are watching COUNTDOWN on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Half the U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike have already endorsed the new G.I. Bill but the White House opposes it. So, naturally, John McCain is avoiding it.

And: the California congressman who just dismissed 9/11 as a plane hitting a building, requiring no more federal funding. Him against the CNN commentator who just called his CNN leagues, quote, “terrorists.” The Worst Persons derby is rich and fulfilling.

Ahead tonight on COUNTDOWN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 on the slogan: “He kept us out of war.” Knowing all the time that probably before his second inaugural, we would be in one.

Dwight Eisenhower ran on a premise that only a warrior could know the true value of peace and devote his farewell speech to warnings about the military industrial complex, yet, spent his presidency escalating the cold war to immeasurable heights.

Our fourth story on the COUNTDOWN: Beware of the man who tells you, he hates war while he takes you on a guided tour of all the war-related places in his personal history, especially if at the very same time, the one place he will not go, is the place where 50 of his Senate colleagues of both parties are supporting the new G.I. Bill.

That bill is described as a no-brainer by one of its co-authors, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, save your puns (ph) about why Senator John McCain would not have yet endorsed it then.

The presumptive Republican nominee saying, quote, “I have not yet had the chance to examine it carefully. It seems to me that it is a good thing to do. But I haven‘t examined it with the care it needs. But we obviously need to do something along those lines.”

But the bill‘s co-authors: Senator Webb and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel have been actively pushing the bill for months. McCain‘s lack of leadership confounding, unless, as noted by Sam Stein of “Huffington Post”: It is compared to the resistance of the Bush administration. White House officials said the bill gives soldiers too strong an incentive to leave the Armed Forces and thus would produce low retention rates.

But in a statement, Senator Webb says, quote, “This is about providing a fair deserved benefit to our troops. Based on his own military history and how strongly he, McCain speaks about the positive contributions of the people who served. I hope that he will get onboard.”

Joining me now, Air America Radio host and MSNBC political analyst:

Rachel Maddow. Good evening.

RACHEL MADDOW, AIR AMERICA RADIO: Hi, Keith.

OLBERMANN: McCain basically selling himself as the would-be war president, and he hasn‘t looked at the G.I. Bill, yet.

MADDOW: Beggar‘s belief. The John McCain biography tour is essentially a tour of how the military has given him his world view. It‘s his experience as a veteran, the importance of the military to his maturation and to his world view, to his overall (ph) values. This is the way he is choosing to redefine himself for voters ahead of the campaign.

If you think about it, this biography tour ends when he comes home from being a prisoner of war. There isn‘t more of the biography tour about his time as a politician. He‘s choosing this as his brunt on which he is going to take his candidacy to the voters.

But if you are asking the American people to extrapolate from our respect for men and women in uniform and our respect for military service to his political future. It‘s beggar‘s belief that you would be somehow unaware of the biggest change in our nation‘s pledge to our veterans in 50 years.

OLBERMANN: And, what on earth would you be doing standing anywhere near, a basic argument from the Bush administration, we can‘t make things too good for our soldiers when they get home.

MADDOW: Right, exactly. I‘ve interviewed a lot of Iraq veterans about the G.I. Bill, talking about what are the prospects for its passage? How are we going to get this passed? Who‘s going to sign on to it?

Where‘s the resistance coming from?

And that‘s the question I asked everybody who I talked to who‘s worked on this bill. What‘s the argument against it? What‘s the resistance? I‘d love to hear it because I‘d like to help come up with the arguments against it, against that resistance.

I think this is so important in terms of our moral commitment to the people who had been fighting these wars. And the only argument against it is this argument from the White House that we can‘t possibly make things too good for the veterans, because it‘s better for the country somehow and better for them if we leave them miserable and resourceless so that they have no choice but continued military service.

OLBERMANN: But the extrapolation of that and everything else and the Stop-Loss programs and everything else that they‘ve done and McCain is going to have this fall on him at some point on this campaign, is to say, basically we want to keep sending these soldiers back into conflict until they get killed, so we don‘t have to care for them.

How on earth can you be a veteran and not, you know, raise the middle finger to that, even if it is the president from your own party?

MADDOW: Let alone put forth those policies and put forth that record and then say, USA, USA! As it‘s a patriotic take on it.

You know, Keith, we have something that‘s about to happen next week in terms of the outrage of using veterans and military service and using the armed forces as a political prop. As you know, Michael Monsoor is going to be awarded the Medal of Honor, Navy SEAL, he‘s going to be awarded that because - he‘s going to be awarded posthumously because he threw himself on a grenade.

OLBERMANN: Yes, one of like 15 acts in his brief life that deserved that award. Yes.

MADDOW: Yes, exactly. And his family is scheduled to be given his Medal of Honor. And the White House has scheduled that ceremony for Tuesday. They scheduled that ceremony as the kickoff event for General Petraeus‘ congressional testimony on why troops have to stay in Iraq.

OLBERMANN: And that ties back into this idea that this McCain tour and the entire - the Bush administration handling of veterans and the war is the romantic “don‘t think too deeply about this, you know, the dead are happier dead,” if you want to go to that point, this irrational romanticizing of war. War is a brand name.

MADDOW: Yes. War is a brand name. I mean, John McCain has said, I‘m sorry to tell you this, there‘s going to be more wars, there‘s going to be more wars. He‘s put the idea of the next war about bombing Iran to the tune of - to Beach Boys‘ tune.

He‘s described his own political biography as encapsulated completely by his pre-political life as not only somebody who served honorably in wartime but he was supposed the son of a four-star admiral, the grandson of a four-star admiral. His entire story about America and his role in it is about war and it‘s not about the mechanics of taking care of people or fighting it.

OLBERMANN: Exactly. So, Mr. McCain, this administration and the one you‘re proposing would have left you in the Hanoi Hilton. That‘s what it boils down to.

All right, are you ready for tomorrow night?

MADDOW: Yes, I am.

OLBERMANN: I can‘t say what it is. But if you remember, tune in tomorrow night, something with Rachel. Rachel Maddow of Air America and MSNBC, see you later, thanks.

MADDOW: Thank you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: If you remember the good old days when people still tried to make a lip sync look legit. I mean, this guy, he‘s singing, he‘s not even moving his lips.

And: What does Glenn Beck of CNN do now? He just called reporter Randi Kaye, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, host Anderson Cooper and everybody else at CNN, quote, “terrorists.”

Worse Persons ahead.

But first: The headlines breaking in the administration‘s 50 running scandal—Bushed.

Number three: Gonzo-gate. It keeps on ruining lives and neutering the Justice Department. Its inspector general is now investigating why last year, Justice did not renew the contract of its own liaison to the U.S. attorneys committee on Native American issues. Leslie Hagen had gotten the highest possible scores on her official job evaluation, the guy would hired her and described as the best qualified person in the nation and Ms. Hagen got fired.

Why? The inspector general is investigating evidence that Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales‘ senior counsel, that woman with that law degree she got in by sending 100 box stuff to religious lunatic university. Goodling heard a rumor that Ms. Hagen was a lesbian. And of course, she limited her duties and then, fired her.

Goodling never heard that department‘s name quite right. Justice.

Not injustice, lady. Justice.

Number two: Support the troops-gate. Five years after we sent our friends and relatives to fight in Iraq and it appears, some of them might still as well be wearing a catcher‘s chest protector and colander as body armor. The Army‘s inspector general can‘t be sure that at least half the body armor that the Army provided between 2004 and 2006 met the safety standards because it never conducted the required tests on it.

And number one: Iran-gate. The administration happily wrings its hands when some announcement out of al Qaeda confirms its worse fears, and by that I mean, what it wants you to fear the worse. When the terrorists say something that contradicts the Bush-McCain world view, it is silence and crickets.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, still the number jackass in al Qaeda, with a statement on the prospect of a conflict between the U.S. and Iran, quote, “The situation will be in the interest of the mujahedeen if the war saps both of them. If however, one of them emerges victorious, its influence will intensify and fierce battles will begin between it and the mujahedeen.”

Translation: Al Qaeda hates Iran. Zawahiri has also said that Iran has stabbed the Muslim nation in the back. Al Qaeda thinks we would be doing them a favor if we attacked Iran. And if Iran somehow did well in that fight with us, then, al Qaeda would target Iran.

In other words the drum beat against Iran which General Petraeus will again start next week, the one McCain started again last month is 100 percent crap.

If you‘d like this country to go into business with al Qaeda, George Bush and John McCain, they‘re your guys.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Kind of a big moment in history on this date in the year 33. You would think there would be a lot more coverage of it. Assuming the man existed, and he met his end the way we are told he did, and that a mid-day lunar eclipse followed his execution, astronomers have calculated that on this date, 1975 years ago, Jesus Christ was crucified at Jerusalem.

Let‘s play Oddball.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN (voice-over): We begin at Balapada Chuba (ph), India, where Mala Medi (ph) has spent 15 years honing his own unique talent. He claims he can sing without ever opening his mouth like this here.

(SINGING)

OLBERMANN: Wow. Britney Spears has just lost it. Apparently, no one has informed Mr Medi that he has trained 15 years to do what he hopes will get him in the Guinness Book of Record, what is actually known as humming.

Brigham City, Utah, where this terrifying creature surfaced in a parking lot next to a pond. Local officials reacting with the kind of aplomb you would expect under such circumstances.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we first saw that fish, we thought what in the crap is this thing?

OLBERMANN: Your tax dollars in action. They still haven‘t figured it out. One aquatic expert thinks it is just a desiccated lake trout. Considering the carcass had already been chewed up by a dog and ran over by a car before it was discovered, and therefore is unrecognizable, we might never find out what the crap is this thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: The paper trail has never been more clear, however, about this: we tortured detainees on the authority of President George W. Bush.

And from blowing up infamous baseballs to infecting other more famous shows with our COUNTDOWN-iness, five years in five minutes ahead. But first time for COUNTDOWN‘s top three best persons in the world.

Number three, best scene from the “World According to Garth” brought to life, Army Rice of Minneapolis. Her dog, a lab retriever named Ella, was suddenly under attack by a pit bull, which had leaped Rice‘s back yard fence. So Miss Rice jumped into the fray, and while trying to save her own dog, she somehow bit the pit bull in the nose. The attacking dog fled.

We do not know if Miss Rice quoted Glen Close from the movie, but she could have said, “Garp bit Bonky.”

Number two, best bad use of good luck, Jill Foreman of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her car was stolen. The cops found it and called the owner, Miss Foreman, and left a message for her. She apparently was confused at just who had phoned and left the message, because when she called the officers back, they say, she thought they were crack dealers and she asked to buy 150 dollars worth off of them. She is under arrest now, but the car is safe.

Number one, best dumb criminal, Mr. Cash Burch of Waterloo, Iowa, arrested there for having tried to steal a Ford Explorer. The evidence is pretty overwhelming. Mr. Burch allegedly broke into the car, but did such a bad job starting it that he wore down the battery. When the battery wears down in these Explorers, the anti-theft defense system kicks. And when the anti-theft defense system kicks in the doors lock.

That is how they found Mr. Cash Burch, who had managed only to lock himself into a car he was trying to steal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: The president‘s war-time authority trumps U.S. laws against torture. Torture is only torture if it results in death or near death. Our third story on the COUNTDOWN, a new paper trail documenting the Bush administration‘s impetus to torture, and just who provided it and just which Keifer Sutherland character helped inspire it. I‘m not kidding.

Under a judge‘s order, the Pentagon has released a hitherto classified torture memo, penned in March 2003, written by the same Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, who had drafted a less explicit torture memo in 2002, which until today we thought was pretty damn bad. In the 2003 opinion, he appears to argue that when it comes to interrogating and detaining and even torturing so called enemy combatants, executive authority is absolute.

Quote, “we do not believe that Congress enacted general criminal provisions, such as the prohibitions against assault, maiming, interstate stalking and torture, pursuant to any express authority that would allow it to infringe on the president‘s constitutional control over the operation of the armed forces in war time.”

As to what that torture, in accordance with its definition in various U.S. laws as severe pain, the memo concludes that, quote, “ to constitute torture severe pain must rise to a similarly high level, the level that would ordinarily be associated with a physical condition or injury sufficiently serious that it would result in death, organ failure or serious impairment of body functions.”

As far as what might not cause death, organ failure or serious impairment, “Vanity Fair Magazine” reporting that in September 2002, when officials at Guantanamo Bay were debating which interrogation techniques to use, one man, quote, gave people lots of ideas, Jack Bauer of the fictional series “24.” It was in its second season on Fox Television.

We are joined now by Jonathan Turley, the constitutional law professor and scholar at George Washington University. John, thanks for your time tonight.

JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Let‘s start with this Yoo memo, the torture memo. It was written for the Pentagon the month the U.S. invaded Iraq. A year after the kind of torture that the memo authorizes comes to light in Iraq. Does that chain of sequence blow the administration‘s it was a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib argument out of the water?

TURLEY: It does. I know John Yoo. It is very personally disappointing to see his name on these memos. Of course, it is nothing new. It destroys the idea that these were just hicks with sticks. They blamed a West Virginia military unit and basically portrayed them as a bunch of thugs. What they were doing is strangely similar to what is laid out carefully in these memos.

So the administration was able to force all of the attention on the low-lying fruit and to protect themselves. That took a lot of effort. It took a lot of lawyers. And I think that in the end of this terrible legacy, I think many lawyers will be ashamed of the role that we played, even those of us who opposed it. The fact that lawyers facilitated these acts is a very, very dark chapter for the American Bar.

OLBERMANN: Yes, it reads parallel to the entire lay out of the plot of the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg,” how you twist a legal system to just provide excuses for a government. To that point, this memo has a bunch of rationales in it, as you suggested, not just to protect the president, but the individual interrogators, from future prosecution. It argues that you could hurt a prisoner and you can perhaps deem it as self-defense against al Qaeda.

How far of a legal stretch is that? How on Earth do you back that up?

TURLEY: It is not even a legal stretch. There is nothing to it. It is an effort to spin, to give some type of cover. The president and his aides were very, very careful to go to the lawyers first, so that they could make a claim that they were acting under some assumption of actual authority. But there really is none.

Part of the problem, I think for all of us who have JDs, is that most of us believe we have a sacred duty, at some point, to stand with the law and against those who would break it. While everyone keeps on pointing to when these memos were written, our job is to be dispassionate. It‘s not to go with the passions of the moment. When you read this memo, it tries so hard to give the president what he wants, and that is the right to do anything that he wants.

OLBERMANN: And it also tries to pick it, as you suggest, and leave it for posterity as something that went up the chain rather than down. Yet, in the “Vanity Fair” thing, there‘s a story about September 2002; there are three visitors to Gitmo, Cheney‘s counsel, David Adington, Rumsfeld‘s counsel, Jim Haines, Alberto Gonzales, who at that point was still Bush‘s counsel. They discussed the interrogation techniques, then they watched them being employed, and one of the attorneys in Gitmo, Diane Beaver (ph) said, they left this clear to do—here‘s the quote—“whatever needed to be done.” That was a green light from the top.”

That‘s it, a green light from the very top.

TURLEY: Right. It is really amazing, because Congress, including the Democrats, have avoided any type of investigation into torture, because they do not want to deal with the fact that the president ordered war crimes. But evidence keeps on coming out. The only thing we don‘t have is a group picture with a detainee attached to electrical wires. Every time we see more evidence; we have more and more high ranking people at the scene of this crime.

What you get from this is that this was a premeditated and carefully orchestrated torture program. Not torture, but a torture program.

OLBERMANN: And the only person who will ever actually be blamed for this will be Jack Bauer, correct?

TURLEY: Well, that explains why torture supposedly stopped. They are off season. I guess they are just waiting.

OLBERMANN: Thank goodness there was something good to that TV writer‘s strike. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, as always, sir, greatest thanks.

TURLEY: Thank you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: We hope we are not overdoing this fifth anniversary stuff. We would not want to offend Ron Burgundy, and we would certainly not want to offend William Hung.

That boat, of course, has sailed for Congressman Darrell Issa of California, after trivializing 9/11 and what the first responders did, does he resign from the House or do we throw him out? Worst persons ahead on COUNTDOWN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Were you there when our special guest was the famed San Diego anchorman Ron Burgundy? Were you watching when our special guest fell over backwards in her little plastic chair in Wisconsin? How about the night we all signed Bill-O‘s petition to get our own show canceled. Five years of COUNTDOWN distilled into five minutes. That‘s next. First, time for our number two story, tonight‘s worst persons in the world.

The bronze to Rupert Murdoch, speaking at Georgetown University;

“People laugh at us because we call ourselves fair and balanced.” True. “The fact is CNN has always been extremely liberal, never had a Republican or conservative voice. The only difference is we have equal voices on both sides.” Sure, you have fascists and conservatives.

Seriously, the Washington Generals of liberals, Alan Colmes and who?

And CNN never had a conservative? Lou Dobbs would scare Atilla the Hun. Pat Buchanan was the original co-host of “Crossfire.” Robert Novack was on there from 1980 through 2005. Rupert, I always thought you were smarter than this. You believe your own crap?

The runner up, Glenn Beck of CNN, takes a brace stance on the Wal-Mart suit against Debbie Shank, the one in which even Wal-Mart figured out that legally right is not the same as morally right and dropped its own suit to reclaim medical expense money from its former employee. Calling the media attention to the story blackmail and the reporters who covered it terrorists, and claiming Wal-Mart folded before the terrorists.

Firstly, this man has children. Secondly, I hate to break it to you Glenny, but the network on which the legal analysts and the correspondent high fived over Wal-Mart‘s admiral reversal, the network which claimed sole credit for getting Wal-Mart to make that reversal was CNN. You‘re beginning to hear that Glenn may have to start looking for a new place to TV.

Our winner and straight into the Worst Hall of Fame, Congressman Darrell Issa of California, who has four times run on the radical right wing platform of fear on terrorists, imminence of attack, the whole smear. At hearings about getting some federal funding for 9/11 first responders who have become gravely ill, who may become the last fatalities of the attack on the World Trade Center, Issa ended his political career.

Quoting, “I have to ask why the fire fighters who went there and everyone in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government. It‘s very simple. I can‘t vote for additional money for New York if I can‘t see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens, which, quite frankly, includes any urban terrorists. It doesn‘t have to be somebody from al Qaeda. It can be someone who decides that they don‘t like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities.

“It simply was an aircraft, residue of two aircraft and residue from the materials used to build this building, that had no dirty bomb in it. It had no chemical munitions in it.”

Congressman Issa, it was just an aircraft? Resign. Resign quickly while you still have some control of this situation. Congressman Darrell Issa of California, fiend, today‘s Worst Person in the World.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: This is the literal truth: after three years away from this company, I was re-hired by NBC in October 2002 to work on the broadcast of the 2004 Olympics. Almost by accident, I was asked to fill in for three days, guest hosting the 5:00 p.m. Eastern time show of the late Jerry Nackman here on MSNBC. Next thing I know, it is five years later, at least 1,200 editions of COUNTDOWN later. And on Monday, this was the third highest rated program in cable news. Last night it was second.

Our number one story tonight, five years condensed to five minutes and 18 seconds, because—because—well, actually, it beats the hell out of me why. Just play the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN (voice-over): Which of these stories will make the

COUNTDOWN?

It began with a simple premise—

(on camera): The first full edition of COUNTDOWN, a newscast in which our top five stories of the day are presented in ascending order.

(voice-over): News with numbers, serious mixed with silly.

(on camera): Don‘t say I didn‘t warn you. Who does he think he is F-ing kidding.

Oh, a kitty.

Oops.

That‘s COUNTDOWN. Thanks for being part of it.

(voice-over): And in the early days, as the cliche goes, I might as well have been talking to myself.

(on camera): You never have the same opinion two days in a row.

Like the stuff in your head.

Who cares about sports any way, you cheese eating surrender monkey.

(voice-over): We did, however, have reason to believe the show would succeed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You look pretty good. I think you look OK already.

OLBERMANN: (on camera): Jacqueline Stallone of JacquelineStallone.com, many thanks for the forecast. We appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You‘ll be OK. Don‘t worry. You can say, that‘s not for the public to know.

OLBERMANN: Yes, indeed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now what kind of questions are you going to ask me?

OLBERMANN: Time to fulfill our promise and introduce you to the candidate of the night.

(voice-over): Even though some guests were more difficult than others.

(on camera): We have the number one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can put it up anywhere you like.

OLBERMANN: I didn‘t know where you were going with that remark.

Did you bring me a pony?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than a pony. I‘ll tell you that.

OLBERMANN: Thank you very much.

(voice-over): We certainly had some choice guest bookings, like the monkey pox family, with the infected rodent and the gravity challenged daughter.

(on camera): Cheyenne pulled up a chair and joined us right in the middle of the interview outside their home in Wisconsin. Oh, you better take care of her. It never stops. Thanks for your time.

(voice-over): The girl was fine. How could the show ever get any better.

WILLIAM HUNG, FORMER “AMERICAN IDOL” CONTESTANT: Young man, there is no need to feel down. I say, young man, take yourself off the ground.

OLBERMANN: And pick ourselves up, we did. Nobody freaked out.

(on camera): You‘ve got to get mad. You‘ve got to say, I‘m a human being, damn it.

(voice-over): As we carried on, certain truths began to present themselves. Some of the worst people in the world came out of the woodwork.

(on camera): Bill O‘Reilly, today‘s worst person in the world.

Today‘s worst person in the world.

Today‘s worst person in the—you know the rest.

(voice over): Despite our sounding the alarm, the Constitution began to get flushed down the toilet.

(on camera): As you can see, even without Habeas Corpus, at least 1/10 of the Bill of Rights—I guess that‘s the bill of right now.

(voice-over): And Bush administration double speak took on epic proportions.

ALBERTO GONZALES, FMR. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think we agree on what would be improper.

I think we also agree on what would be improper.

It would be improper to remove a U.S. attorney and interfere with or influence a particular prosecution for partisan political gain.

OLBERMANN: Eventually, other networks began to hurt, because COUNTDOWN was, well, busting off.

It‘s over. It‘s all over.

Elements at Fox News tried to have this show taken off the air by a petition. So we all signed it.

(on camera): Let‘s see, put in the e-mail address.

(voice-over): I guess I figured I could catch on with some other show.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Keith Olbermann.

OLBERMANN: That‘s right, content burglar Marge Simpson.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I ask in return is that you let my company do just a little bit of dumping in your lake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy don‘t sit right with me, Lois. He don‘t sit right with me.

OLBERMANN: But we all weathered the storm and the staff and I learned a lot along the way. For one thing, we learned Sulu from “Star Trek” has a crush on me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George, who is the hottest reporter here? If you would point him out?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unquestionably Keith Olbermann.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: George likes Keith.

OLBERMANN: We learned also that all of my producers are terrible actors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. This is Keith Olbermann we are talking about. Hello, the ego has landed. I wouldn‘t say any of the stuff to his safe, but the man is --

OLBERMANN: And we learned our executive producer and I met 21 years before we thought we had met, when I was a CNN reporter and I asked her why Reggie Jackson got cheered at Yankee Stadium as a California Angel, and she answered—

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good question. Why didn‘t these people cheer him when he was here.

OLBERMANN: Good question, much better answer. Maybe the only better question, after five amazing years with you, how long can the COUNTDOWN last?

My best guest is, a, as long as we don‘t lose this tape.

The interview outside Wisconsin. Oh, you better take care of her.

And, B, as long as we keep sharing the love.

HUNG: And can you feel the love tonight?

OLBERMANN: Come on!

Hello.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OLBERMANN: The Count. That‘s COUNTDOWN for this the 1,799th day since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq. By the way, this crappy fountain behind me here, they are going to take this away tomorrow. I‘m Keith Olbermann, good night and good luck.