Olbermann also included a response to former Bush Chief-of-Staff Andy Card's criticism of Olbermann's and Chris Matthews' "cynical" attitude toward Monday's State of the Union Address:
Clearly, Bush is at his hyperbolic worst here. Consider how his former Chief of Staff, Andy Card, came on and scolded Chris Matthews and me after the State of the Union Address. "The President's address tonight was very important," Card said, "because it really was a sobering call to reality for us. And the reality is we have an enemy who wants to hurt us. The primary job of the President is to protect us. He talked about protecting us. He talked about the needs to have the tools to protect us."
The Countdown host, who recently admitted to sometimes recusing himself from interviewing certain Republicans, deferring to Matthews, because of Olbermann's past criticisms of them, on Monday night did not take part in interviewing Card, and did not respond after Card called out Olbermann and Matthews during a live interview. Card from Monday: "I can't tell you how cynical you two sound, and almost every guest you've had on has been very cynical. You can't even find an objective skeptic to interview."
Olbermann concluded his Thursday "Special Comment":
The eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counterterrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat, the thwarting of which could hinge on an e-mail or a phone call that's going through room 641A at AT&T in San Francisco next week or next month. Because if there were, Mr. Bush, and you were to, by your own hand, veto an extension of this eavesdropping and some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists, you would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people, you would not merely be guilty of stupidity, you would not merely be guilty of treason, sir, but you would be personally and eternally responsible. And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing that you have proved time and time again under any and all circumstances, it is that you are never responsible. Good night and good luck.
Below is a complete transcript of Olbermann's "Special Comment" from the Thursday January 31 Countdown show on MSNBC:
In the State of the Union Address, sir, you told Congress if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened, and our citizens will be in greater danger. Yet, you are willing to weaken that ability. You will subject us, your citizens, to that greater danger. This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough even for you to understand. If Congress approves a new FISA act without telecom immunity and sends it to your desk and you veto it, you by your own terms and your own definitions, you will have just sided with the terrorists. You gotta have this law or we're all going to die, but you might veto this law.
It's bad enough, sir, that you are demanding an ex post facto law which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive, and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email. but when you then demand it again in the State of the Union Address, that Congress retroactively clear the Verizons and the AT&T's, you wouldn't even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserve to be cleared. The Congress must pass liability protection for companies "believed" to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.
Believe?! Don't you know? Does the endless hair-splitting of your presidential fine print extend even here? If you, sir, are asking Congress and us to join you in this shameless, breathless literal textbook example of fascism, the merged efforts of government and corporations who answer to no government, you still don't have the guts to say the telecom companies did assist you in your efforts. Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon who never go on the record about anything, even the stuff you claim to believe in?
Silly me. Of course Mr. Bush is going to say "believed." Yes, it sounds dumber than if he referred to himself as the "alleged President," or had said today was "reportedly Thursday," or had claimed "mission accomplished" in Iraq. But the moment he does say anything else, any doubt that the telecoms knowingly broke the law is out the window and with it, any chance that even the Republicans who are fighting this like they were trying to fend off terrorists using nothing but broken beer bottles and swear words could not consent to retroactively immunize corporate criminals. Which is why the Vice President probably shouldn't have phoned into the Rush Limbaugh propaganda festival yesterday. Sixth sentence out of Mr. Cheney's mouth: The FISA bill is about, quote, "retroactive liability protection for the companies that have worked with us and helped us prevent further attacks against the United States."
Oops. Mr. Cheney is something of a loose cannon, of course, but he kind of let the wrong cat out of the bag there because Mr. Bush and the corporations that he values more than people, did not want anybody to verify what Mark Klein says. Mark Klein is the AT&T whistle blower who appeared on this newscast last November, who explained in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood IT desk how he personally attached all of AT&T's circuits, everything, carrying every phone call, every e-mail, every bit of Web browsing, into a secure room, room number 641A at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco, where it was all copied so the government could look at it. Not some of it, not just the international part of it, certainly not just the stuff some truly patriotic and telepathic spy might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist -- everything. Every time you looked at a naked picture, every time you bid on eBay. Every time you phoned in a donation to a Democrat. "My thought was George Orwell's 1984," Mr. Klein told me, reflecting back, "and here I am, forced to connect the 'big brother machine.'"
You know, Mr. Bush, if Mr. Klein's "big brother machine," the one the Vice President conveniently just confirmed for us, if it was of any damn use at all at actually finding anything, you could probably program it to find out who started that slanderous e-mail about Barack Obama. Use room 641A to identify that e-assassin, sir, and I'll stand up and applaud you. Yeah, I'm holding my breath on that one, too. But, of course, sir, this isn't about finding that kind of needle in a hay stack. This is not even about finding a haystack. This is about scooping up every piece of hay there ever was and laying the ground work for the next little job which you have to outsource to AT&T and Verizon and all the rest.
It was your Director of National Intelligence, Mr. McConnell, letting this one out of that same bag. The need for Homeland Security to stave off cyber attacks against the government's computer networks. And how do they do that, sir? By constantly monitoring the Internet -- the whole Internet. And who actually physically does that, Mr. Bush? Right. The same telecom giants for whom you want immunity quickly, so quickly you wouldn't believe it, because this previous domestic spying, and this upcoming policing of the Internet, they may be completely evil, indiscriminate, unlawful, so you have to dress it all up as something opposite. It's isn't evil, it's, you said, "to protect America." It isn't indiscriminate, you said it's "the ability to monitor terrorist communications." It isn't unlawful, it's just the kind of perfectly legal thing for which you happen to need immunity.
There's yet another level to this, and here we move from big brother to sleazy son. Mr. Bush's new Attorney General, Mr. Mukasey, the one who's already taken four different positions on waterboarding, and who may yet tie that record on this subject of telecom immunity, he has a very personal stake in all this. There happens to be a partner in the law firm of Bracewell and Giuliani named Mark Mukasey. And Bracewell and Giuliani and the Attorney General's son Mark just happen to represent Verizon. You know, Verizon, telecom giant. And all of a sudden, this is no longer just a farce in which protecting the telecoms is dressed up as protecting us from terrorist conference calls. Now it begins to look like the bureaucrats of the Third Reich trying to protect the Krupp family industrial giants by literally rewriting the laws of Germany for their benefit. And we know how that turned out. Alfred Krupp and 11 of his directors were convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg.
Nevertheless, for those of us watching a President demand this specific law, the ones the Germans had was called the Lechs Krupp, there is one surprising bit of comfort in all of this. Clearly, Bush is at his hyperbolic worst here. Consider how his former Chief of Staff, Andy Card, came on and scolded Chris Matthews and me after the State of the Union Address. "The President's address tonight was very important," Card said, "because it really was a sobering call to reality for us. And the reality is we have an enemy who wants to hurt us. The primary job of the President is to protect us. He talked about protecting us. He talked about the needs to have the tools to protect us."
Indeed, Mr. Bush. The primary job of any President is to protect us, not just those of us who own Internet and telephone companies, but all of us. And even you, sir, with your intermittent grasp of reality, even with your ego greater than 100 percent approval rating, even with your messianic petulance, even you could not truly choose to protect the corporations instead of the people. I'm not talking about ethics here. I am talking about blame. Even if it's you throwing out the baby with the bath water, Mr. Bush, it still means we can safely conclude there is no baby. There is not a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or protecting the people from terrorists, sir. There is a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution or pretending to protect the people from terrorists.
Sorry, Mr. Bush, the eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counterterrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat, the thwarting of which could hinge on an e-mail or a phone call that's going through room 641A at AT&T in San Francisco next week or next month. Because if there were, Mr. Bush, and you were to, by your own hand, veto an extension of this eavesdropping and some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists, you would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people, you would not merely be guilty of stupidity, you would not merely be guilty of treason, sir, but you would be personally and eternally responsible. And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing that you have proved time and time again under any and all circumstances, it is that you are never responsible. Good night and good luck.
