Dude,

Show over at 9PM, your post at 9:03PM! Quickest summary I've ever seen. If Olby were a calf, you would have roped him in 2.0 seconds tonight. Unfortunately, Olby is really a braying, foul smelling donkey.

I challenge you to try to post as close to the end of Countdown as possible!

Johnny,
It wouldn't surprise me if you could write these synopses with perfect accuracy two or three days ahead. All you'd need to know is the quest list.

This was quite a show. I think we've reach a point with Countdown and that we are very likely to see Olbermann have a complete nervous break-down. I thought at one point he might actually jump up on the desk or hang from the camera. Talk about playing oddball... :D

I do have a question, Johnny, about this "domestic spying" terminology that the Administration hates because it's so pejorative.
Isn't it legal to wiretap the conversations of terrorist suspects outside of the country even if the they are calling and speaking with someone within the U.S.?

Going by the argument of the CBS reporter who debated with McClellan, wouldn't THAT also need to be referred to as domestic spying because, as she argued, we are listening in on the conversation of one party on domestic soil?

If so, why haven't the media called that form of wiretapping "domestic survellance" before?

That's what the debate is all about. Clearly you need a warrant for inside-the-US listening. Just as clearly you don't for outside-the-US. But when a phone call is both, it's a little less clear. My first conclusion was that the NSA spying program was not legally justified, but I'm rethinking that, based on separation of powers and constitutional justifications.

Johnny,

The point I'm making is that the WH has spying on a citizen making a call to a terrorist outside the U.S. is NOT domestic spying because it is an INTERNATIONAL call. The media argue that they rightfully label that act of a person being wiretapped in the U.S. as "domestic spying" even when the call is to a terrorist abroad because ONE of the people being listened upon is on U.S. soil.

But that's ALWAYS been the case as well, with the sort of legal wiretapping that's long been done on foreign soil and it has NEVER been called domestic spying though one of the people being eavesdropped on can be on U.S. soil.

It's a phony argument, based on the fact that the media want to characterize the wiretapping in the worst light possible-- "domestic spying".

The only way I can see that it can rightfully be called domestic spying is if you have both parties in the U.S. at the same time.

That first segment, 17 minutes long? was there a break? If the confusing report by the BAD NEWS BUFFOON did'nt make me switch that daily news hack Bozonet had me diving for the remote! That was soooo bad I enjoyed five minutes of Paula Zahn!! What's keeping this show afloat???

The Olympics are comming up. Some events will be on M.S.L.S.D.....OH NO!!!! Olby at the Olympics?

Getting back to tonights show I'm starting to belive that Al Frankin is on board as a ghost writer at this point. How can anybody sit around in a pre-production meeting, look at each other and think. This is the best stuff in cable news!!

And this ones for dopey-wan, You tell us to go watch our reality shows?? Like you and Jill and the rest of you're pinhead friends are so above it all? YOU'RE BOY PUTS RICHARD HATCH IN THE NUMBER ONE SPOT!!!! Not even the boys on Brokeback Mountain are gona be talking about that tommorow!!!

All of this debate about the NSA while a man who plotted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge and a NYC subway station a la the London bombings confesses:

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/62260.htm

[quote]" "It had originally been your plan to put a bomb in the 34th Street subway station?" Brooklyn Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Harrison asked Pakistani-born defendant Shahawar Matin Siraj in federal court.

"Yes, that's correct," Siraj, 23, sniffed nonchalantly.

The suspect then gave similar responses to a string of questions about his alleged mastermind role in the potentially devastating terror scheme.

Siraj was busted in August 2004, just days before the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden, above the hub for the transit system around Herald Square. [ENDQUOTE]

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

Puck,

I'm starting to think that Jill Perry is Olbermann's online doppelganger.

Tonight he sounded every bit as psychotic as she.

I have to admit all this domestic vs international sounds like a bad case of rope-a-dope. And what better dope to bring it to us. That way the totally clueless will watch this and think he must be briliant. Even though they don't have a clue what he just said.

After this Olby could start his own cult. Then Jill would have a place to go and live in.....in.....man now that is a scary thought. Jim Jones has risen from the grave!!!!

hey puck, a little correction to make you look better: -- did'nt = didn't.

Puck looks just fine, Anonymous.

Anonymous,

Let me say though, if you're the anonymous who wrote to Jenna about Iran and Willy Nilly... those two posts are funniest I've read all week.

That's saying something because Puck and KFK can come out with some doozies.

Hey Johnny

Why did TVNewser skip Monday's cable ratings? Can you get the numbers for Monday? I know the dude who runs the site loves Olby and hates Fox, so the numbers must have been abysmal.

Thank you Cecelia.

Just caught this on the Radio Factor. Bill said that the head of M.S.L.S.D. Rick Kaplin, will be getting fired shortly. The Death Watch is on!! He mentioned not by name, Olby's show. He talked about Olby's ratings being so bad that the old fossel Phil should sue for being replaced! Yeah, Donnahue did pull better ratings. Bet the farm O'Reilly will be Worst Person tonight!!!!!!!!!

KFK, I've tried to get ratings leaked to me, but they prefer leaking to other bloggers. Puck, to be fair, Meltdown actually beats CNN in the key demo numbers. Of course, O'Reilly still beats him like a stick even in the demos, and there are those who say demos for cable news (like talk radio) are not that important because it's not the target audience. But he does a little better in demos than he does in total viewers.

Thanks JB, So what you're telling me, Keith does well with The young upper west side crowd because, when they go out to Nobu for dinner they leave the t.v. on to torture their pets. And Paula does well with the Social Security crowd because, they tune into her so they can fall asleep?? Wow!!!! I did not know that!!!!