Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Day Mon

Host: Keith Olbermann

Scheduled Topics/Guests:

POPE BACK IN THE HOSPITAL: George Weigel, NBC News analyst and author, "Witness to Hope"
"JUICED: WILD TIMES, RAMPANT 'ROIDS, SMASH HITS AND HOW BASEBALL GOT BIG": Jose Canseco, former Major League Baseball player and author of "Juiced"

THE WIFE OF THE SUSPECT IN THE MURDER OF THE PREGNANT TEXAS WOMAN AND HER SEVEN YEAR-OLD SON SAYS HE'S INNCOCENT: Clint van Zandt, former FBI profiler and MSNBC analyst

Read the transcript to the 8 p.m. ET show
Updated: TRANSCRIPT PENDING

OLBYWATCH GUIDE: Story #5 began with the Pope's health, KO interviewed an American doctor named Richard Smith and Pope Biographer George Weigel. Most the questions were ones that could not be answered because they don't know, like how bad are his lungs, and what will happen if he can't speak for three weeks, etc. It soon became apparent that this was an unstated death watch and rather tacky at that.

#5 was also the Bush/Putin press conference today---is this a new form of Olbyconvergence? What does the Pope have to do with Bush? I have been noticing that stories seem to be randomly lumped together under the same number, some stories don't rate a number, and mostly this countdown thing is turning into a mish mash.

At any rate, pretty straight up reporting of Bush and Putin's press conference, with the obligatory sarcastic labeling of Bush's trip "the Bush charm offensive" and the also obligatory mention that "American soldiers died today in Iraq" at the end of the story. Oh, and later on, a cheap shot clip of Bush missing on a joke at the press conference.

If you wanted to hear about Bush's historic speech today in front of frequently cheering crowds in Slovakia, covered fully by other news outlets, well, between hoping the Pope would die and an extended report on the fact that there was no new info on Gannon, there just wasn't time. Or maybe it was the fact that there wasn't enough of a portion of the tape where the crowd wasn't cheering Bush wildly to make it worth it for KO.

Which brings us to number 4, the Gannon/Guckert story. It is almost bizarre to see that this story refuses to die, with almost no new information. The only new thing is an interview with Campbell Brown in which Gannon provides no new information to the story. Gannon is gay, remember, he's the gay guy that got into the White House? Gannon is gay gay gay gay gay, and he did a gay porno site. Porno porno porno porno. And he was in, he was in in in in the White House. And he was gay. Good God.

I have to mention something that was on both Hardball and KO's show. In one piece of the clip with Campbell Brown she is asking him why he used a fake name (why didn't someone think to bring that up til now?) and he said it was hard to pronounce, and that people who saw it in writing typically mispronounced it. Campbell had him pronounce it, and she said, that was easy, Gook-ert. That was it on Countdown, but on Hardball the reporter was David Shuster covering the Brown interview, who reported Campbell's comment and then proceeded to mispronounce Guckert for the rest of the piece. That was rich.

#3 Jose Canseco, interesting story of the big dust up over steroids that his book is causing.

That was it on serious news, #2 were some new Tsunami photos that were fascinating, one of them was the best photo I have seen so far. #1 was at least three different stories, Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, and a turkey that attacked a cop.

All more important to KO and his two watchers, apparently, than the incredible and historic impact Bush is having in Europe right now.