senars and members of the house who are going to have make tough votes. >> that will have toe the last word for today thank you, susan pe and eamon javers. join us tomorrow nht at 5:00 and 7: eastern for more "hardball." "cntdown with keith bermann" starts right now. breaking news this hr twin battles betwn congress and six democraticemrs of congre claim that cia director panetta testified in the last month that top ancy officials have concealed significant actions om all members of ngress and misled congress datingack 001. thus have eysked him by letter to correct his pa claim made in the wake of speaker pelosi's charges that the agency never briefed her about rtures detainees. and breaking in the lastew minutes, the cia dramatic instance that panetta id no such thingast month and will make no such correctio which of these stories will you be talkingbout tomorrow? she its on alaska. and nothe polls quit on her. three in ten amecans saw their opinions of sarah palin change after her resignatn. democrats now viing less favoray by a margin of four to

one. more tellily, pendents now viewing her less favorably by a margin of two to one. still confused abouthehy? >> you know why they're confused. i guess th cannot take sothing today at face value. >> b as her speeches backchecked, should yonee her at face value.

she claims she was vindicated in all the ethics iestigations, she was no d if she thought she was done as late-night comedy fodde she wanot. >> the category tonight, t ten meages on sarah palin's answering maine. i asked george w. shwhy didn't anyone tell me resignin was an option? king carl is dispod, well, as in he gives a deposition, not ey took his throne away. eight hours of grilling by federal investigators out the politicarge that claimed ne u.s. attorneys. sotomayor again. house senator sessions cares less about a fair hearing and mo aboutsing an unfair one to push his agenda. this as the american bar association issues the jge its top rating. well qualified, as oosed to say, claree thomas, who was st qualified. >>d worsts. anotr cal hero, an arizona state senator and an airfiel rationale for uranm mining of biblical proportions. >> t earth's been here 6,000 years and i know i've been going on and on. it's been here 6,000 yrs, long before anye had environmental laws and somehow it hasn't bee done about. >> this shut up of which speak, when eshat go into fect? all of that and mo now on "countdo." good evening from new york. breang news tonight. oufifth story on the countdown. cia direor leon panetta has told lawmakers that agency officials did indeed mlead

congress andid so since 2001. roughly, of the bush , administration. the cia confirming to msnbc d nbc news that dictor panetta told lawmakers that congressas not adequately informed out unspecified post-9/11 activity, assified activity. this c will not say what the briefing was abo. other officials say was not about waterboarding, nor abo interrogation practices. two days after panetta testimony, several docratic members of the house inteigence committee having then sent the dictor in the wake of his own testimony readg in part, quote, you recall, no dbt, that on may 15th, 09, you stated the following in a letter to cia employees --et me be clear, it is not o policy or practice to mislead congress. that is against oulaws a values. in light of ur testimony, the letter continues, a that you publicly corre your statement of may 15, 2009. in anoth statement tonight, rector panetta is refusing to end what he said in may, nor evenonrm what the congressmen and women said he said in june. ain, reading in part, director panetta stands by may 15 statemt. it is not the licy or practice of the cia to mislead congress.

this agency and is director believe it is vital to keethe congress fully and currently informed. director panet's actions back thatp. rlier this year, house speer pelosi, of crse, having accud the cia of misleading her in briefingsbout the agency's usef waterboarding. somethinshe said she never heard abouin any kind of briefing, secret ootherwe, anllegation for which she has been round attacked by republicans. time now to turn to our chief foren affairs correspondent, andr mchell, who has been working this story for msnbc and nbc news. thanks for your timeonight, anea. >> you bet. there's a lot -- do we know -- >> you kw, keith, there's a lot of disagreement overhat happened and who said what to whom. what we do know ishat the cia and leonanta are not acknowleing in any fashion at he testified that there was any mislding of congress.

th say that is not true. u.s. officials say that netta believes songly that congress shou be informed, that there were some tters that were not adequaly briefed, that were propriately not briefed to congress. and at he changed that when he took over. but hes not attributing to any motivation twhat was done in the past. he's not saying that it was an tempt to mislead or conceal, simply tt they were not informed and that he has made sure tt in t future, they will be informed. >> so isre a -- >> you can see theistinction. >> is there a disconnect betwe -- you'vgot representatives ho and hastings and thompson. is a disconnect, or did they hear something that ey wanted to put othe rerd? why would there be such divergence of wh exactly he said to them? >> ah, you get to the bottom of it. the fa is that these six meers are very close alies of speaker pelo and you know the

background, th thereas been this running feud between the speaker and the headf cia, not a terribly healthy situation, might add. the house is abo to debate and vote tomorrow, barring any unforeseen circutaes on an telligence bill. th intelligence bill has a democratic versi of th intelligence bilhas amendments that would require better briefings, more extensive briefings and would givehe members of coness, the speaker anthe other leaders, the ability to say who shoul briefed on tseecrets, not st the top four or the top eight members of the committs. it would take away from the ministtion and the president the power to determine who gets briefed. today, the white house issuea veto threat, sayg if they vote on tt version of the house intelligence bill, the predent willotign it. soou can see a growing feud between house decrats yal to pelosi, and this is not a document of the intelligce commtee of its leadership or all of its members. it is silyix democrats very closely aligned with the speaker against leon panetta panetta is not acknowledging that there w any lying that we on in the past. he's just saying that nothing like thawill happen in the fure.

>> andrea,he speaker stated she had been misled he cia and republicans said that that was disparagg our country's agents and that this was never done. panetta's comments sam to back up that of the political mastrom here. what we're dling with in between the charactezations by these x presentatives in thatetter and what the cia have said on mr. panetta's behalfn response, is it nuance and shading, or is thiyes or no? do eitr versions confirm what panetta said? >> i think they' in dict conflict although panetta sor indicates roh people that he has no way of knowing what happened, he just knows th it's tru they were not inrmed of certain ings. the big distinction here though

is that officials say it's not over waterboarding. they are backing the fthat pelosi and others were tensively briefed on waterboarding and that tre is, in fact, the are records to that eec they're saying thathis issue is separate from waterboarng anseparate from interrogatio i can't tell y tight what it is. 's covert. i haven'yet uncovered that. >> so what happens nt pertaining to ? is thisolely about that vote and the thre of thveto, or is there more re, are there hearings, more open testony, is this gointoarry on its own accord, or does this go away lative to just this political posturing in front of a vo? >> it's a lot pturing, but it will eventually determine an influence, whether or not more people will be befed. will congress t what the house adership is demanding right now?

ich is more briefings, not ju four or eight top leaders. and we should point outhat only certain members we bried, there were other documents such as the docume bere the iraq war, which was put up there, any number of th senate, anmember of the senate coulhave read it, for instance, and only a very w, only six memrs of e senate read that iraq intelligence briefi. so congress haccording to many critics, llen dn on its side of thbargain, but it's ry clear in the past the cia was not very forthng when clearlithould have been more forthcoming here. e difference is here is, did they l, did they mislead? the cia, panetta are not acknowledginthat. sa it did not happen. >> andrea mitche in our washington bureau, who hasdded so mh to this story in the last half hour. great workgreat thanks. >> thank you. >> for moron the implications of ts, let's turn to former cia officer anformer prosecutor, jack re, giving us

some of his time once agn tonight. thk you for doing so, jack. could this bmissing link or maybbetter, is it a linchpin turning point, whichever cliche is most appropriate, towar some sort of mr of actual substantiative investigaon into bush administtion policy here and what the congressas and was not to by the cia post-91, whether it's about torture, whether it's abou warrantless wireppg or anythi else relating to the agcy? >> potentiallywhat it's really about now is about credibity. there's really two par to this, as we listen to andrea's rert here. the first rt is not providing all of the information that th cia had. that's one part. buif they actually rposefully lied here. the next piece of this investigation, i'm thinkg about this as a rmer prosecutor. i'm thinkingis it e briefer who st screwed up, or the white house who told the ciaho told briefer to screw up. at's the real question. so congress has an oblation hear all of this intelgence. if they're n getting it, they shlde upset. the striking difference between characterization of this, of what leon panetta said he said d what six people stening to him said he said, certainly fits into the history of the cia very nily but does it at all help us -- does that history at all hp us

understand or at lea figure out where we should place ou bets on who's telling the uth, thcia or these six congressman who are, as andrea mentioned, allied wh speaker pelosi, who kindf went off the end of a pier tre without the support from leon panetta since may. >> if we look athat's happened since 2001, it appears tha politics has drithe cia to do a lot of things. they have said a lot of things, their conclusions have been questioned in 15 or 20 differe directions. and they have said over and over has driven mbers of congress and even e currt white house to question those very same things if we think of it fromt perspective anthe fact that they're not actually providi all of the infmation that that tir disposal, i think it doedrive re questions into the ring. now, what is it that ty know anwhen did they know it. those are es that we're going to have to fige out and 're going to have to figure out very, ry soon. >> it is n the policy or actice of the cia to mislead congress. panetta said that on may 15th. his statement no july 8th saysheame thing, the exact same thing. the me wording.

they'rnot changing the wording at a. obviously, wordsnd direction that those words send people in are vital in something le this. the nuances, eveing. is there anything in the that says, if it's not e policy and it's not -it is neither the policy, nor thpractice, does that mn it didn't happen? >> no, it doesn't, does it? that's the obvious link. so we can say, so normly, don't lie to y, but we lied to this time. is tt r conclusion, is that what we stand by? wow, that make us feelo much better if wee a meer of congress, or frankly, just an

avere american citizen. >> jack, if it is true and andrea's just sa that is is what appears to be the case, that these instances of misleading congresand/orot fully briefing tm, depending on whether y believe panetta's versions and terminology o believe congress's ternology, th was not waterboarding, not interrogation, what is the possibilities -- what more is the out ere that we don't know abo? >> that is the bgest question. even ith isn't about terrorism or waterboarding, it's the credibility factor. about what it is that the intelligence cmunity, what the cia was doing on behalf of the american people. and if they're not willingo provide accuratentelligence, th what is going on? this is really the broad question. if we n't believe what was going on outside of the terrorism rem or outside of thtorture realm, how can we possibly believe what s going on inside e torture realm? 's the question we need to find out. now. >> right now it standss, we didn't lie to you, but we didn tell you the truthither. jack rice,ormerly of the cia, who's, as he said there, forme prosecution roleing into playertoo. great thks for your time,

jack. >> always a pleasure. anthen there is governor sah palin and the fact that her resignatn has inspired more thajust reaction in the mea and by the comedians. e has now sunk like a stone in the polls. of course, the comedy not going aways nearly as fast as r popularity is, evidently. for david letterman, this wi be night three of his telethon. one of tonig's targets, we understa, the wading boots the governor wore duringer glut of interviews y yesterdayay governor palin s sliding dn ve you smelled thishair? or these curtains? yoyou've gotta wash this whwholroro! aryou kidding? washt? t's wash it with febreze! whoa! [ sniffs ] hey mrs. weber. [ sniffs ] hey,t smells nice in here. you know, i i likeo keep things fresh. helps me concentrate. [ le announcer ] for all the things that you can'wash wash it with f febzeze. geico's beenenavavinpeople money and who doesn'n'wawantalue for their dollllar

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senator hn mccain having selected governor palin as his running mate in what we then suspected d have since learned was a desperate last-ditch effort to apalo independent voters and centrist democrats last year. what did not work for the reican nominee then does not appear to be working for the former sooto be governor then. it seems that they feel exactly thsame way now, only more so. seven in ten of thosvote

surveyed by gaup for "usa today" saying their opion of the vernas not changed. indendent voters not only sayinghat they would be less kely to vote for her, 51% to 44%, but now 55% of them hoping that governor palin leaves the naonal stage altogether. 77% of democts saying that they areot at all likely to vote for sarah palin in 2012, almost matching the number of republics saying they would be likely to vote her for president. gop candidates notlamoring to have the sooto be former governor join them on the campaignrail. chris christ running to unseat vernor corzine saying that they have no plans to ing governor palin what appea to er main activi ts wednesday, posting to her twitter page. twitter rhymes with critter. some highlights, quote, today, try this. act in accdance to your

cocious. risk by pursuing largevision in opposition to popular, powerfulressure. unknown. why attribute to unkwn when you can ci fm someone who appears to be even the fmer republican senator ohis father, the shington redskins otball coach of great fame. quote, a couple of thohts from the day on beautiful, brightak morn. you have to sacrife to win. that's my philosophy in si words. george allen. ampersan from an inexplable ampersand, let's turno howard fineman and senior corresponde for "newsweek" magazine. >> don forget the ampersand. >> i guess it's e twitter uiva of also, as a complete sentence. the governor's quitting, did this just solidify whatever it was individual voterof any of the litistripes were alady thinking and feeling about her? >> well, keith, i udied that gallup poll very carefly.

i don't think it's so much the fact that she quits the fact at she was so much in the news. i me, only sarah palin could break through the michael jackson story and i think en people got another chancto look at r, it was like quick-dryi cement. the democrats solidified fouto e against her. they vieher as the un-person you know, an unqualified, unintelligt, unintelable, and for alaskans with,he's st. sarah. that gether a long way with e base of the republican rty. >> you can never -- you know, yocan never put the last nail in, as the old sick jo goes and u caver light the fire urself if you're standinin the middle of the py. but was this -- this not kind of a distillatioright now of the same problem that sh brought with her to at ticket last year that as much ashe may have eited the people who were probably already going to vote for h side of it, the sult in the other direction was just as intense anthus, you lose indendents and

centrists anpele who do just naturally shy away from lazation. >> well, what th really happened there is that john mccain undercut his own argument. it was aboutarah palin, but in tainabout the campaign, keith, it was really more abou john mccain. john mccain's calling card to independents andentrists was, i'm e guy with more experience and better judgment. and of course, after theort of lost weekendn st. paul with sah palin, the next two months were the long hangoverthe long poticangover. and jo mccain's judgment was dermined by sarah palin's demonstrable lack of qualifications and preparedness to ba heartbeat away from the presidency. and so in that sense, e destroyethe et she was picked to save. >> with the number that was in that poll abt gop support for her, for the presidency in 2012, are we seeing, you know, in swimmingnd diving, scores are baseon degree of difficult this particur dive gets you a

factor of six and this dive gets you a factor of 12 or whatever the numbers are. dimebody tell the republicans th each vote gets counted on a degree of diiculty basis, that if you ally, really, really like your candidate, it coun tce? well, the thing is, in talking to republicans here in waington and around the consultants, people li cig irley and diana bannister, who i have known for a long time, very experienced people he, theyay, look, sarah palin just can'win presidency. i mean, yes, she is polar within a certain group. and to pursue your analogy about diving dficulty, i mean, she took -- is taking nice swan dive, anasy swan dive into the pool of republican conservatives, but she just can't make the sale bend it. now, she's gngo try, apparentlyhe's going to go around the country, shs going to write her boo and give speeches and see what she'got to give out there. bu geez, the numbers that u see in the gallup poll and everytng that republicans i talk to say, noby thinks she

can, even on this ldtretch of the imaginati, she can win the nomination, that she could win the presidency. that's what they think. that's not what i ink. >> so her calling watweeting? is that the final conclusion here? that a full-time job? >> don't know. well, it's diffilt to do in hip waders, evidently. >>f you use your hips, it is. if you use your fingers, ty' still free, aren't they? howard fineman of "newsweek" and msnbc, i'll spare you the no comment. howard ss no comment on that. >> okay. >> thankou, howard. >> tha you, keith. take obvious, almost unbelievable internatial political analogies r a thousand. ahmadijad attacked by a small flying insect. and this woman leaves on mini into the national fam for something that is the "wor persons" in the world. "best" in a mont. and congralations on breaking into the cell one y. you did notice all those cell phones were hollow, didn you? i missedne omonday, the

>> est" in a moment. anancongratulations on brereakg into the cell l onone ory. you did nonoti a a those cell phones w we e hoow, didn't you? mimied one on monday, the e bibihdhdayf ned beatty, who began in barbebersp p qutets and enenupup ging the second eaeast soliloquy "network,k," you have mettled w wh h thpimal forces of natutureanand won't have it. leles s pl "odd ball."

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rit.t. wallbebe y yand one all the way to the backstop. hehe g a ceremonial second p pch and did slightly b betr.r. pickckt t thstitches on the ball wi y yr finger as long as yoyo can, aimim aththe tcher's head ansay hi to your pitching coach. a day many thohoug w wou never happen.. say hi to the prosececoror. kakarlovove bmveigitngors about the u.s. a aorornescandal and ththerarareven more qutitionto come.meatire, a ahih nsnsecive night ahead of thehe revenge ofof dididetterman, the fofocu what she's wearing ininhe interviews. these stories ahead. but first-time b bt t peons in the world. dateline destined florora,a, bt alias, john quincy adada.. a a maararreed for obstructing traffic c enentied himself as. anand r r st wishes to the sixth president, who has a a bththda coming up this saturury y wh he'll be 242 yeaearsldld. tetene mexico, number two o be surprised thieves.s. at least twowoenen bke into a ll phone store there, , eaeane off several shelves s ofhehe

mehahaise, not even once ticing that even for c cel phones, those werere ptiticurly lightweight. eyey we the hollow replicas used for t theisispls. the actual celell ononesre over there near thehe ch.h. d dateline cecil countnt maryland, number o one b bt bad driviver jonathan schultz o of lalare lled over for drunk drivining without pants. ldldhe officer he had lostst thth.. though none wewe f fou in the car. and yes, they pulled himim or r ne r ring sun, maryland, in n a 50-milile--h-houzone while driving 69. (announcer) ththis is nine generations of the world's m most revered luxury s sedan. this ia history of over 5000 crash-tested cars... ths is world record for ity and endurance.

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>>the former democratic governor of alabamon siegelman may have summed it up. karl rove isne of those who can lie under oath and take a lie detector and pass it. our third ory in the countdown, rove stied under oa about the 2006 bush ministration political purge

of nine u.s. attorys, warning, your t mileage may varied. grilled for no less than eight hours by house judiciary committee lawyers abt his role in thoseings. after the deposition, ro's attorneyssued this statement. the agreement setting uphe interviews contemplated that th wouldemain entirely confidtial until all the interviews were comple out of reect for that term of the agreement, mr. rove is not commenting. respectful. took him nearly two years to him to comment to the investigats. the rove w first subpoenaed in 20, but the bush white house exerted executive privege for rove. the firings began to takshape in 2005, witthen white house uncil myers, alberto gonzalez, and kyle samson tag about replacing all 93 u.s. attorneys. when they figured out that that might have beetoo obvious, the triolleged settled upon firing eight of e prosecutors

in 2006. but it was rove that actually came up with the ia. firsmys and sampson, finally gonzalezas resned. rove has not been touched, possibly, that is til now. he's expected to appear befo the commtee for a second time bere the end of the month. let's turn to the washington editor o"the nation" magazine, chrihayes. so which is is is this e start of something big,r a postscript? >> i hope it's the former, but i fear it's the latter. coteemen -- the chairman john conyers has shown an mirablfidelity to truth and accountability and think he's been pursuing this sort of quietly t zealously in a way that i hope ars some fruit. but the fact of the matter is, we're going to actually open up theks and open up the chatters in the la eight years of wt happed in this country, particularly around secrecy, around thsort of malfsae, the department of

justice, whahappened to the national security ate, intelligence, all that needs be- there has to be a broad political constiency for that. and that's not what i see ght now. particularly nn washington and certainly not among democratic leadership. >> and that goes to the point of what we began this news ur withwith the breaking news about the cia report. and there's a ba and fth here about what leon panetta sa in a private briefing aut which no oneill tell us what it's about. d the six members of this committee say they werld that, yes,hywe at the cia, misled you and panetta says, noi didn say misled, i said, we just simply didn'brief you sufficiently. d in exactly that nuance decide which side is to be believed and i presume therere parallels, although we don't have any evince of it yet, i to that in the rove ca a llels what he is going to teify and whateople will interpret him doing, whether it is nefarious or potentially innocent.

that's right. i think that's a really good point. there's a certain amount of rt of pitical hardening around people's opinion these maers and they're disposed to feel one way oanother. it's interesting, know, you raised petta and rove fit into this as we, being disposed today. i've been doing research othe church commiee back in the 1970s. it really becomes eventhat the was a real -- some different sectors of the elite, of the establishme, of the beway, politically, there was a push for some real draggin things o into the sunlight and having aactual process of reckoning th howe're going to manage this tension beten sortf secrecy and democracy.

and as a whole, as sort of major conceptual enterprise, that not being undertaken. and john conyers deserveall the credit in the world, bute isind of a lone warrior in this enterprise. and unlesshere's a broader nsensus politically, i don't thwe're going to get a whole lot out of this. >> and if you studied the history of the cia, yocan see that at least frank church's forts brought the country ten years, maybe 15 years worth of relativeonesty out of an organization that had never be asked to provide a of that. back to ve here. cast ourories back there, e real motivation, the dn the road payoff for th republicans, if thwhole plan would have worked, if rove's plan would have worked was wt? >> well, the most dip taupic vision would have been one tha the inndence of the partment of justice would have beenomplety compromised, in which the mechanism of the adnistration of the prosecutoriafunction of the american government uld be brought holey within the purview of theresident of the united states andis staff and they would decide on a wh who to property and when. and th would be utterly, utterly un-american and corrosive to our entire system of justice. at a more sort of banal lel, what's really interestg about the invidual cases and david iglesias, one of the man fired speaks about this, these were in some ways payoffs to local

republican cronies this was part of the influence, part of the payback toig wigs around the country that karl ve was managing from the white house. >> and albto gonzalez is going to teach at texas tech university. isegs the reminder that texas tech is thplace where bob ight wt to coach basketball after he shed himsf out of real jobs too. >> it's really too perfect, isn't it? berto gonzalez deserves to be cast out of polite society. and the me is true of you and bybee and othepeople that paicipated in this and i hope that happens. >> that's hn, yore not referring toe personally. i madeserve to be cast out. >> there are some feelhat way. chris has of "the nation," always a please. said it to john and i saidt to sarah, do n cross david letterman. threvenge continues. tonight, about the waders. >>and when rachel joins you at the top of theou frank rich on the gop's distractions, the

ones tt ling and linger, including today's test developments in the senator ensign soaopera. and in "worsts," senor enve called the newest member of the senate a quote,lown and defends itby saying, kind of looks like a clo when i was talking to him. hey, senator enhoff, do u want us to join senators whether or not they look like clow to m make his approach.. to thehe men's room. second announcer: lookoks le he needs to go urgenently. true. and there's casey, about to drive... he has beegoing over and ov. al to the men's room. they oht to see their dococrs. could be male urary symptoms due to bph,h, e enlged prostate. for mamany gs,s, prescription flomaxx reduduceththr urinary symptomsms e to bph in one week. d if their doctors do prescbe flomax, they couldetp to $40 off new or rill escriptions. so guys alalready on flomax can also s sa. on y yr doctor can tell if f you have bph, not t momore serious condition lilikeroroate cancer. avoid driving or hazazarusus tasks for 12 hours after your first dos or increase in dose,

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the david letterman para of parody will ctinue tonight for third straight evening on the cbs' late show, limid hints to the f. those boots. > if you look like senator james inho, should you make a joke about what al franken loo like. and how old is the earth and why that would even matter when you're talking aut mining uranium om the earth. nextn countdown. when you're realin pain

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and the number o message on sarahalin's answering machine, hey, it's mccain, who would have thought y would retire before i did. the revengof david letterman continued and continuing. that's next. tonight's "worst persons" in t world, lebron's toutin at the bsite freedom works, whichut

up a post evisrating several groups of workers, peoplthat works at aig or citioup, or quote, the y work at a company that uses bbyists to steer federaear marcus that way, you are the antithisf this nation's founding with the source of the smiley-faced fascism that creeps faher into our live wow. here's the punch line, freedomworks.com, painting lobbyis and ople at aig and athe source as smiley-facedd fascism. the nner-up, senator james inhofe ooklaho told the newspape"the tulsa world," quote, i'll tell you whaa lot of peoe e thinking, and that is it looks like thin are going be ov and we're going to get the clown from minnesota. i n'know the guy, but for a ving he is a clown. he was criticized for callinal

franken a clown. his late defen, he said when he saw franken, they embd, d quote, believe me, he knew, he kind of looked like a clown when i was talking to m. we'rgoing to judge it on looks, senator inhofe? let's see it. we, there goes the joke. oh, sureouon't want to raise that b a little bit, kind of oking like a clown left. buour winner, state senator sylvia allen of arizona. another local litico up from the ranks to instant nional stardom tonight. we join setor allen at the retirement and world developnt mmittee hearing into possisibl uranium mining in ariziza.a. >> i can't say enonoughohoit's ti t thawe get beyond and start focusing o on e e chnology we havave d d mo forward into thfuture so that our andchildren can have t theamame lifestyle we have and thisis earth's beenen he e 6,0 years and i know i'm going o on d d o

and i'll shut up - -- 's's bn rere,000 years, long before anyone had environmentalaws and somew it hasn't been done away with. we need toet the uranium here inrizona so this state canet the money from it and the revenue from it and it can be done safely and you'll never evnow the mine was there when they're don i am for this. >> i love this woman. even the infamous bishop you shall wehe 17th century irh cleric calculated if lirally correct, the bible places the start of the earth on october 23rd, 1204, back. is is better than that. you want to believe the earth is 6,000 earth, despite the eviden of civilizations 8,000 years ago, go ahead. don't make yoursellook like the stest person on the planet during a hearing about digging upranium. the way we know the rth is billionsf years old because of the speed we c measu the radioactive cay of uranium. of uranium!

carbon dating. dot tell senator allen about that, though. you know wt you're going to t then. carbating? told you what would happen if we let those gays start to get married. now people are dating carbon state tor sylvia, the earth s created 6,000 years ago, i knowi've bn there allen. today's worst personn the rld!

>> anyone can harp on one issue or one persoday after day. hi but to do so a make it fresh each time and make ibull's-eye every night for days and weeks on end, that is genius. or as in our numbeone story, if youe sarah palin, that is hell. well tonight, must have been the

shoes. a brief preview this evening's joke theme. first, the second of what three consecutive nights. quipping after the nonsensical speech about h parent's refrigerator magnet lin went out on her porch and waved good-bye to russia. letterman suggesti t almost-ex-governor may want a future as the next octom. to which paul haefer cracked, watch t, they're demonstratin outside. and then the top ten list, managing to mock geoe bush, john mccain and himself and stilmaintained pin as his punch li. >> the category night, top ten mees on sarah palin's answering machine. i can't tell you h we did it, but we got ald of her answerinmachine and here are the top ten ssag friday, she anunced she would be stepping down as goveor of alaska and wld not seek

re-election. here we have now the top ten messages left oner mne after that controversial announcement. number ten. hi, it's george w.ush. why didn't anyone lle resigning s an option. number ne, it's john mccain, why did i call? number eight, markanford here. ev bn to argentina? number seven i'calling from geico to see if you want to renew yourogsled insurance. numb six, it's letterman, we still cool? number five, mccain again. still idea why i called. number fou hi, it's the dry cleaner,avinouble getting riu blood out of your prad jacket. numb three. hi, it's sarah, whoopsdialed my own numr. number two, scarzenegger here, if you wt a job, california could use a new governor.

and the number one message on sarapalin's answering machine. hey, it's mccain, who would ha thought u would retire before i did. >> we are surprised that t barrage does continue tonight with most of thealin jokes about what s was wearing during that oriny of interviews yesteay, one about havi naughty thoughts about her fishing wading boots david tterman reportedly immediately apogizes in advance. time to call in chriian fiegan who joins happens.r things like this les art with whatever he did at the recording of tonighs show late this afternoon about the waders. there seems to be an impcation to her here. you give h matl, any material, even what you're wearing, he wille able to run with this. >> well, you havtonderstand, after last month's kerfuffle, david letterman basically has an owrship stake in sarah palin medy. used to belong to tina fey, no it's david letterm.

that's very powerful. that's like sobody handing you exlibur. johnny carsohad dan quayle, w letterman has palin. i he jimallon put dibs on idahrepresentative, walt minick, which seems like a bit of a reach. >> it's creative, at least. letterman pounded john mccain for week upon week upon we aftethe senator blew him off in october of last year,nd each night it was new and it was frh. it was not outlaish. he didn't stray far om the original basline of the first joke about suspendinthe campaign and n showing up. do we have any estimate w long this could gon, because therno finish line to this the way there was wi the election last year >> no, i think we can all put on some sweat pants and get comfortable, because what's great about sarapalin is that she'already done half the work for him. she's condioned us to laugh at her. me, saying the word sarah palin to a late-nit talk show audience is like me saying the word cheese in front of my wife's chihuahua. the ears pick up, it lik wh, what, sarah palin, oh, this is going to be good. >> it remarkable tyou, as it

feels to me, that she ha remained silent out this? no facebook missives, noweets. ishat going to last, or is she going he to come back at her again? >> in her defense, she spent a few days trying to pick out th perfect fishing wadershat would look gooon "nbc nightly ne." now that tt completely organic and not at all stageset of interviews is over with, shean take her criticsead on. she'just installed a large cross that s's going to jump on at the slightest provocation and they have a ack of ingnant press releases tha are mad libs. okay, vid letterman, offended, paul trunry, eskim >> wader i don't me to ect you, but, by the way,hat cross went up, that was built by the me people that built the wasilla sports complex. that's been up for a while. i've got to get the tweeting thing. she tweeted philosophical musings. act in accordadance do your conscious, t then anmpersand.

at was one of them frorom today. is thihiit? this the higher callili? is this why she ---- has s gone full-time intoto tweetin has she e figured t how to make a profofit offf this? >> i aed if she stole that o off a snapple cap. you can'n't blamthat on the twtwter foat. i counted and d she haa solid 25 characacters lt to play with, unleless sheas doing us a favor and leaving roomom for wn i had a hash tag that said, , things stupid peoplplsay wh they're trtrying tsound deep. >> it y have come off the sees of starbucks cups a and that was what was left o off. read it on a statarbucksup down in libereral, new rk. comedian christianan finnega thank you. that's countdodown sincehe 2,260th day since the prprevious prprident clared mission accomplied in iraq. good nht and good luck. an nowow frank rich and the gop,