Bushisms and Other Ridiculous Ideas

Dear Keith,

Over the past two years I have watched Countdown with more regularity than any television program since SOAP. Each evening your acumen and tongue-in-cheek incisiveness are both informative and entertaining. As an interviewer you are fair and balanced, and Countdown's guests are usually representative of a cross section of opinion and unusually well informed. I admit I also have little or no interest in celebrity news, and simultaneously shake my head and chuckle over every episode of Worst Person in the World. No doubt these, as well as your personality and obvious character, have contributed to Countdown's uninterrupted climb in ratings since it's debut.

Last week, however, I questioned whether your personal address to Secretary Rumsfeld, albeit in every word truthful, may have been the blow that broke the belay of the chip on the bully's shoulder that might force a) GE/MSNBC to leave you dangling at the end of a precariously brittle limb or, b) a Ziegler-esque assault from the press room podium at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

"But among the crowds a little child suddenly gasped out, 'But he hasn't got anything on.' And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said. 'He hasn't got anything on.' 'There's a little child saying he hasn't got anything on.' Till everyone was saying, 'But he hasn't got anything on.'"
-- Hans Christian Andersen.

After last evening it is glaringly obvious that yours is the one courageous voice that echos that the emperor has no clothes. After five years, there is absolutely nothing left to support a call for a network to retract with an apoplectic apology or for an apathetic administration to foment rage with, as Ben Bradley once coined, "a non-denial denial."

Your 9/11 commentary was Pulitzer prose. Your address to the President, in my opinion, ranks right up there with seeing Cronkite stand up and step out from behind the CBS news desk in 1968 to declare Viet Nam a stalemate. And both of us are too young to have witnessed it live, although I have read it in it's entirety, but your words were of the caliber and awe as those you cited last week, from Edward R. Murrow's fearless commentary.

Further, my own take on your nightly use of "Good night and good luck," has been that it is out of your personal respect and ennui for Murrow and his ethic, stemming from your own dignity and belief in the rights and responsibilities set forth in the Bill of Rights. Regardless of your motive, please continue the habit. I think Ed Murrow would be proud.

As I have emailed you a few times in the past I am aware that you may never read, much less respond to, this one. Nevertheless, as you go forward, I am compelled to emphasize John Dean's phrase: "Without Conscience." My Machiavellian paranoia recalls the names of Jimmy Hoffa, Dennis Cassini, Barry Seal, Daniel Ellsberg, and Vincent Foster; and causes me to shudder at the names of Murray Chotiner, Mac Wallace, Haroldson L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, Gordon Liddy, and, of course, Karl Rove.


This I believe,

JR Ford
UP (Unsubstantiated Press)
St. Petersburg, Fl.
sixtimeseven@aol.com
12 Sep 2006

"As for Nixon... he was an unprincipled puppet, which is the most dangerous kind." -- Nikita Khrushchev.

Cc: KOlbermann@msnbc.com
countdown@msnbc.com
AStewart@msnbc.com