on june 30. oh, and glenn beck has endorsed that part of the constitution that required the continuation of slavery in this country. you heard me. glenn beck has endorsed constitutionally-supported slavery. all that and more now on "countdown." good evening from new york. if you're examining health care reform and you're examining filibusteritis, you look for certain symptoms. the patient spits out some truth like admitting he is repeating himself or here works for. as you'll see in our fifth story, the diagnosis is in, filibusteritis or kyl's disease. republicans have got it bad. the gop's latest efforts stop everything. there are hundreds of amendments the republicans have offered to halt, slow or politicize its final health care reform bill with thousands losing their insurance daily, time is of the essence. but after a summer of public

debate preceded by a year of campaign debate, preceded by decades of legislative debate, republicans now say not so fast. because, you know, it's just too much excitement. senator jim bunning there, offering an amendment the spirit of the newfound gop love for transparency, posting an analysis of the final legislative language 72 hours before voting. the analysis would itself take two weeks. even though chairman max baucus says a plain english version will go online before the vote, senator pat roberts defended the delay and revealed exactly who it is for. >> the thing i'm trying to point out is that we would at least have 72 hours for the people that the providers have hired to keep up with all of the legislation that we pass around here to say hey, wait a minute, have you considered this. >> that's all i'm asking. >> the people the providers have hired? that's you, senator who have

taken money from pharma and insurers. and your bosses. they already know what the committee is doing. they are killing a proposal to pay lower rates for prescription drugs which you oppose. a heck of a job. today democrats called out republicans for their delay tactics. arizona's john kyl took umbrage at the accusation even though he had just admitted he was saying the same thing, quote, as i pointed out in my opening statement and wanted to, quote, note one example i gave. in the clip you're about to say, he acknowledges a third time he already pointed out what he has yet to say. in other words, he quotes his own words which he had already said to the same committee but still angrily denies he's filibustering. >> what's one of the cost drivers? i pointed out a study that said that -- mr. chairman, let me just complete my thought here. >> you have one minute to complete your thought. okay, we've got -- >> i'll complete my thought then make another point.

>> you're delaying. >> mr. chairman, i am not delaying. i'm making an extremely important point. >> it's very, very important point but it's also delaying. other senators have amendments they wish to offer. >> mr. chairman -- >> go ahead, complete your thought. then i'm going to have to recognize another center. >> in deference to -- courteous to other senators -- >> it's courteous if you don't interrupt right in the middle of a sentence of an important point they're trying to make. >> i would last eight minutes in elected office. pulling himself away from the finance committee festival of the amendments tonight, jay rockefeller who chairs the subcommittee on health care. great thanks for your time tonight, senator. >> thanks, keith. i was there. i didn't realize it was that bad. >> it was that bad. >> politico reporting tonight the blue dog democrats in the house want to delay their floor vote until after the senate has its bill completed. does that shed any light on what you have called the substantial

slow walk in your own committee? no, because we don't have any blue dogs on our committee. we have republicans and that more than makes up for it. it's absolutely extraordinary. i think the average amendment they offered took one hour in which people talked endlessly, endlessly, endlessly. and i have never really seen anything like it. but i just love the way you put that together into a montage that just showed how really pathetic it was. under the guise of doing something the nation desperately needs, which is lower the cost of health care and raise the quality of health care which is what the public option is all about. that will happen tomorrow. that you will probably have a couple of shows on. >> unfortunately we do. roll call tonight on the subject of the public option that you

don't seem to have by their tally the votes to get the public option into your bill when that amendment comes up tomorrow. there was a telephone news conference tonight in which you have a good shot, but you did not explain why you think that. so i think the obvious question here is why do you think that? >> one reason i think that, near the end of the session, we passed something 15-3, which someone said would never, ever pass in the finance committee is met pac, something that takes away from the lobbyists and senators and congressmen the right to set reimbursement rates for hospitals, doctors. right now it's a fundraising exercise and it's shameful. everyone went along with it. maybe they were ashamed not to, i don't know.

but the amendment passed. to me, nothing is impossible and to me that includes the public option. >> shame working in these circumstances, as i'm sure you know. senator roberts says why big companies specifically. >> the whole thing is a joke. the idea of kent conrad took out -- this is what you're going to have, mr. roberts. and he took out three legislative pages by lawyers, and not one person in the room understood a single word that was said. however, the point wasn't registered on mr. roberts or others. they went right ahead as usual. obviously, you don't write legislation. you write it for lawyers. it's posted on all websites available anywhere in the western world. i'm sure this is true in lithuania, scandinavia and all over.

they want the language printed. actually it is printed. it is there for people to see. different options and amendments are coming up almost as we speak and it makes it very difficult. but it's a terrible demonstration, keith. it's a terrible demonstration of public irresponsibility, the way the republicans are behaving on this. i mean, health care -- look, i come from west virginia. i went there as a vista volunteer. i've lived with people that have a whole lot that they need in life, including health care. they are under the control of insurance companies. this congress, at least a part of it, appears to be under the control of insurance companies. in fact, what we basically are doing here, raising more subsidies to subsidize insurance companies to do what they ought to be doing anyway, which is why the public option is so important. it doesn't have to make a profit. it doesn't have any shareholders. it doesn't have to report to wall street. it doesn't have any marble

buildings, and when it passes, people are going to have a real choice and a lot of them are going to pick. and what's interesting is the public option. what's interesting is that -- including single payer, about 20% of all doctors in this country, an additional 50% or 60% of all doctors in this country want the public option. no, they're not afraid of the public option. they want the public option. because it's going to make things a lot clearer and take away a lot of paper work. it's going to minimize the insurance rolls. >> thanks for making time for us tonight. as to tomorrow and the vote on the public option, good luck and bring your sandwiches with you. it will probably be in there for a while. let's turn now to msnbc political analyst howard fineman and political columnist for "newsweek" magazine. good evening.

you heard senator rockefeller on the public option. enthusiastic, optimistic or hopeful. revoking the medpac 15-3 vote today. is he going to get what he wants? >> i'm not sure he is, keith. the senate leaders are looking at the big vote on the floor of the senate. they want to try to get 60 votes to shut off debate if they can. so they could pass a real bill, not a swiss cheese bill through reconciliation. they've got their new senator, paul kirk, that's going to fill in. they got a chance to get it. but if the public option is in there, the possibility exists they could lose two or three conservative democrats in the senate and wouldn't then get the 60 votes to have the real bill. i'm not sure it's going to work. i think there's a lot of sentiment for it, and it's good for the democrats on the house side, for senator rockefeller to be touting this and to be talking about it and to be passionate about it because

there is more passion on the house side for the public option. you want to keep the house democrats in the ball game, you want to keep them enthusiastic. all of this is pointing to the conference committee they hope to have sometime down the road. >> is that the white house strategy at the bottom of this, the democrats would let republicans try to kill all reform, which they can't do, they don't clearly have the votes to do it, but exhaust all the possibilities. then the democrats pass whatever they can in each chamber, then the senate democrats and the house democrats decide what goes to the president. and the president says you've got the public option from the house side, maybe not the senate side. can it survive the conference? that's the bottom line. >> well, it might be able to. that might be the plan. although i've got to say, down at the white house, and i've heard this for months, they downplayed the public option from the very beginning, keith,

because they realized the treacherousness of it in the senate. so it's a machiavellian game going on. i think barack obama wants it. his advisers told him if you're too public about it, insist on it, push too hard, it will complicate things. let's wait to see what we could get in the end. i wouldn't rule it out. if you commit at the very end, let's see. >> does it mean anything that senator snowe did not appear at the news conference that the gop members of senator rockefeller's committee held today? >> i think it means a lot. i think she's still in play. she's the big kahuna on the republican side. i think she clearly wants to be part of it. i think she wants to vote for it in the end if there's any way she can see her way clear to do it. she's still there, even though paul kirk is coming down from massachusetts, olympia snowe is still a very key player and i think could be till the very end. >> howard fineman of "newsweek" and msnbc. it will be a big day tomorrow. great, thanks for helping us. >> can i also say, keith, you

said you would last eight minutes in politics. i think you're being generous. >> howard won't be back. thanks, howard. talk to you soon. so, of course, the president has dealt with nothing but health care reform since, i don't know, the late 1800s, which is why the security council was speak on climate change, middle east peace, nuclear proliferation. went to troy, new york, to investigate job retraining. yet the latest republican stall is the president is taking his eye off afghanistan because he's thinking only of health care reform. ironies untold continue to unfold. this is from the same people who took their eyes off afghanistan so we could go into iraq. okay. seriously, you choose. go national. go like a pro. every day you're put to the test. that's why secret created clinical strength...

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republicans say obama is ignoring afghanistan to focus on health care, forgetting the president who could not multitask left office. your special guest tonight here in the studio is michael moore. and you are really going to take off on glenn beck for, in effect, endorsing slavery. and i am watching "countdown" on msnbc.

one year ago tonight when senator john mccain announced it would be necessary for him to stop campaigning for a time so the nation could focus on the economic crisis for which he had tried to blame his opponent and, oh, by the way, had to postpone the first presidential debate, then-senator barack obama said it's going part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once. our fourth story on the "countdown." after eight years after

president bush still incredulous that it's possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. now accusing this president of putting troops in afghanistan at risk. not focusing on them but instead, as if it were an either-or on health care reform. you recall the commander-in-chief now reviewing the strategy in afghanistan. his top commander there having recommended earlier in a leaked memo that unless more troops are sent to that conflict, it will, quote, likely result in failure. senator "waterloo" demint of south carolina claimed that the republican is dragging his feet on the request because he has taken his eye off the ball. >> the problem is the war in afghanistan and our economy are our two biggest issues, but he's working on other issues such as health care and he's putting off the decision on afghanistan, which i think puts our troops at risk. he needs to focus on priorities right now and not ram so many things down our throat in congress.

he needs to address the issue of afghanistan quickly. >> we have to make one meal at a time. time to call in jonathan alter, senior news editor at "newsweek" magazine. questions about afghanistan is the irony of that being the topic du jour. is this how the gop somehow convinces america the health care system is not really in crisis, it does not need to be a priority and is anybody actually buying that? >> it's a pretty lame argument. i don't remember jim demint saying when george w. bush was proposing to reform social security a few years ago that somehow he was putting the troops at risk in iraq because he was worried about some domestic issue. look, the republicans at this point are basically irrelevant in the process. i know that sounds like a harsh and definitive thing to say, but they've taken a hard right off the main highway of american politics, and the democrats don't need their votes. and whatever noise they make is

ambient noise. it's not really relevant to how any of this shakes out. >> you have bizarre behavior that there may not be any memory of later, and demint is a great example of this. there's a harvard study that's come out that says 45,000 americans each year are dying because they don't have health insurance. that's one every 12 minutes, five per hour. does that not qualify, even giving demint the idea that this is a legitimate argument and not another strawman, but doesn't that sound like a stunning casualty list to compete with the worst conflict imaginable? why does jim demint hate american sick people? >> well, you know, it's ten times as many people as we lost in iraq, ten times as many as we lost on 9/11. look, it's possible to overstate this. there are a lot of things that are very good about the american health care system. a lot of people come from other

countries to get health care here, but there are flaws that many knows are deeply problematic. one is discrimination against sick people. that's what the status quo does. it discriminates against people and pushes them into medical bankruptcy for no other reason than that they're sick. and this bill, whatever version passes will end that. and in that sense it's the most important civil rights legislation we've had in this country in a generation. >> the political audacity of this, demint was the one who said health care reform, when obama lost on it would be his waterloo. so the republicans spend the summer whipping up the politics on this to near revolt status. and obama is then criticized for devoting any time to it? one side starts a fight and is offended when somebody stands up to the bully in the equation. i don't understand this. >> well, yeah, you saw that when wilson was reprimanded that that

somehow was a distraction or taking our eye off the ball of health care. it took all of five minutes to push that through. they're getting to the bottom of the barrel of the arguments. i think that is a happy indicator that we are moving towards some kind of resolution. there are a lot of tough issues. there are a lot of moving parts in this bill. there are an opportunity, as senator rockefeller said at the 11th hour to get some really important things like a public option back into this bill in conference. they also need to pay attention to insurance regulation, which has not been talked about nearly enough. you have a lot of people in this country who have been hit by 20% annual premium increases. those increases need to be capped, there needs to be rock solid rules so insurance industry cannot gouging people. there are a lot of details here. the press and all of us need to stay on top of this.

stay on top of it like we follow sports and get into the sausage-making factory. >> last point. not just mccain has done this. boehner has done this. the comparison to afghanistan and not prioritizing it. am i hallucinating this. are these not the same men who enabled george bush to take his eye off the ball and go away from afghanistan and focus on nothing in iraq for seven years. >> great point. the reason we're in this soup right now in afghanistan is because they did not pay enough attention to it. and barack obama ran partly on that. and that complicates his situation right now, because he did make such a big deal during the campaign of us getting distracted from the real fight in afghanistan, that it's going to be a little bit hard for him to walk away from this war. >> but those two issues could be dealt with simultaneously. it's not either-or. jonathan alter of "newsweek" and msnbc. thanks for coming in. i just mention, this is september 24. mccain day. let's look back at the exact

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>> michael moore in a moment, then glenn beck's endorsement of the continuation of slavery for another 20 years. genius, genius i tell you. on this date in 2008, john mccain lost the election.

suspending the debate. he was scheduled to be david letterman's only guest a year ago tonight, mccain bailed out, forcing dave to bring in as a guest guest, me. and the final mail, mccain then lied to letterman about where he was going instead of on his own show, and i got to watch. >> our people here were told it's so serious he's getting on a plane immediately and racing back to washington. and now we've just been told -- take a look. do we have it on the thing? this is going live. there he is right there. >> he doesn't seem to be racing to the airport, does he? this is just getting uglier and uglier. let's just see what he has to say. hey, john, i have a question. do you need a ride to the airport? >> it will be in all the history books like this. look. the caption will read letterman shown on the right. man on the left, unidentified. let's play "oddball."

got to hear him twice tonight. to nottingham, england where bachelor parties can be expensive, so the brits turn to zorbing, which is defined as climbing inside a big inflatable ball and falling down a hill. zorbing does tend to make people dizzy but it's better than a hangover. another idea, driving a tank around. i don't know about this one gentleman. you might want to do this as you celebrate your last few days of freedom. to india, watch carefully. iter the elephant does not like cars or failed his driver's test by a lot. the instant involved a worker elephant. it was pulling logs when it turned violent. it attacked three vehicles in all. where's the cash for clunkers program when you really need it? the rampage continued for hours with villagers obviously not too

thrown by this, happily trailing behind. the pachyderm was eventually tranquilized and shipped to nottingham, england, for a stag party. now he premiers "capitalism." they're really not going to like this. michael moore joins me here next. and what the republicans used to say about the democratic politicians criticizing bush while he was out of the country or they were out of the country. obviously sarah palin can do it. you're watching "countdown" on msnbc.

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monday may 10, 1886. the detroit wolverines surprised the national league favorite new york giants 9-2 in detroit. senator john sherman of ohio, celebrated his 63rd birthday and the supreme court of the united states issued its ruling in a little number we call santa clara county v southern railroad company. that confirmed corporations were kind of like real people. you couldn't tax them in ways that you couldn't tax real people, but of course you

couldn't them send to jail for anything and they could be immortal. the it ultimately gave michael moore his latest topic and gave our country 120 years of held on earth of what is the greedy vampire. the mere controversy is grist for controversy always. what you probably won't hear about the movie "capitalism" is that it was produced in traverse city, a small town in moore's beloved state, a state with the highest unemployment rate, 15%. sosa he is looking through that window. so take aim at that when he looks at the industries that benefit the top 1% of the population. the injustices that still persist and prevail in our society, that's a powerful message. he tries to explain the treacherous with dark, comic frankness. >> the scam to swindle people out of the homes they already owned was masterful. here's how it worked. first, tell these home owners

that they own a bank, and that bank is your home. so if your home is worth $250,000, that makes you a quarter millionaire. you're sitting on a gold mine. you own your own bank. the bank of you. and you could use your bank to get more money. just refinance. everyone is doing it. of course, hidden in the dozens of hundreds of pages of fine print are tricky clauses that allow the bank to raise your interest rate to a number you don't know about. perhaps so high you won't be able to repay your own loan. but that's okay. if you can't repay it, we'll just take your house. >> joining me now as promised, michael moore. his movie opens nationwide next friday. welcome. >> thank you for having me here. great to meet you. >> pleasure. the mess that was exposed beginning a year ago, basically this week, and which has become more shocking by the day as we have realized what we funneled

all this money into, was it sadly inevitable? or were there other ways to deal with it by the time it hit the tipping way? >> no, it was always going to happen because we actually started on this path about 30 years ago with the election of ronald reagan. and reagan and his people, don regan, in particular, his secretary of treasury, who happened to be with merrill lynch at the time. they decided the way for them to get more filthy rich than they already were, was to throw as many people out of work as they possibly could. let's see if we can get rid of half the work force and have the remaining half work twice as hard. don't give them any raise in their wages, and think of the money we're going to make. and that was the plan. and for a while, it worked. because for short-term gain, you get rid of people, i mean, your bottom line is going to immediately look better because that's your biggest expense. but what it did in the long run is it decimated the middle

class. and it killed the very people that were supposed to buy their cars or their tvs or washing machines or whatever was being built and we stopped making things in this country and we turned it over to a bunch of really psychotic people who had these crazy schemes about how to create virtual casinos down on wall street, take people's pensions and their 401(k)s, create betting scheme where is they would take out a bet against -- they would bet against the bet. then take out an insurance policy against both bets. it was just absolutely -- absolutely crazy, insane. and it has almost wrecked us. >> the statement a year ago was if we did not intervene, if we did not pour as much money in as we did to the banks, if we didn't get that money it meant another great depression. in retrospect, was there any truth to that? >> well, we'll never know. >> yeah.

>> but they are masters at manipulating the fear in people. everyone had to act right away. you couldn't have any hearings. don't even read the bill. >> it's written on the back of somebody's cocktail napkin. >> it's about two and a half pages long, about $1 billion a word. don't read the bill. just pass it. these guys are great at what they do. it was almost a replay -- because here it was six weeks, eight weeks before the election. you know, go back to 2002. six, eight weeks before the election, mushroom clouds, missile city london, et cetera, et cetera. you know, steel rods, balloons -- gliders that could make it here from baghdad and the trailers full of latrines it turned out. >> and to do it for congress before they're up for

re-election. and make them afraid if they vote against this then they're for saddam. >> right. >> and so now flip ahead to 2008, if you don't vote for this bailout, you're against the american people. you want to destroy the teacher's pension fund. i mean, they really -- geez. you know, this is what bugs me, keith. they actually are smarter than you and i. they pull this stuff off. and they get away with it, they get away with murder. here we are a year later. oh, what we need are more regulations. just get the rules back in place and we'll be okay. here we are a year later. where's the rules? and a year from now it won't be anything either, until the people at home decide to say that's it. >> all right, now, is that still capable of happening? because as i mentioned it's 1886 since the santa clara decision, which created these sort of semi humans. as there ever been a real chance to get control of a nation back from the corporations after that point?

>> well, there have been attempts to do that. but especially with the conservative core in recent years, they want to protect the rights of these corporations. they believe that money equals free speech. there's a case they're going to decide this year that i got kind of wrangled into because of this anti-hillary movie that was made as an ad. saying well, michael moore gets to make "fahrenheit 9/11." that's actually a move that wins awards. i don't work for the democratic party. >> it's a movie. it's not an ad. but the supreme court may rule in favor of these corporations, may be able to not have to follow the election laws and do things like what that business did. >> is the one saving grace in the corporate system we were talking about before was, the reason you can make your film, the reason i can do my show without being thrown out the windows up there. the corporation is not necessarily immoral. it's amoral. if you make money, most of the

time, it will let you do whatever -- it is built into sustain itself even when we're at our -- doing whatever it is that we do best, correct? >> right. because -- well, because the corporation is obviously -- it's just in the business of making money. it doesn't really matter how it makes -- this is why i say capitalism is such an immoral system. because it is only about making the money. but you and i are -- because of that crack in the system that allows even us to do this, because we make the money. trust me, if we didn't make the money, that would be the last you would hear from us. >> good night, everybody. yeah. >> but here's the thing, though. this is when they'll stop putting you on the air and when they'll stop distributing my movies. if people after they get done watching "countdown" each night or after they leave the movie theatres, they get up off the couch and do something. if your boss at ge or my distributor at viacom and liberty media decides that oh,

my god, oh, my god, look what happened, we put this movie in theatres and now the people are revolting and our lobbyists aren't getting their way in congress? the representatives are actually doing what the people want? that's when they're going to maybe say okay, this is a mistake. so my appeal to the viewers is put keith and me out of business. >> exactly. i was just going to say, are you willing to make that trade? >> absolutely. oh, my god. yes. >> me, too. exactly. then we can go to a ball game. michael moore's movie is "capitalism -- a love story." great luck with it. a pleasure to meet you. you have done great work for this country, sir. >> thank you for being here every night. >> thank you for being here this night. better stop with the thank yous or it will be the rest of the show. >> at least we have a show tonight. >> sarah palin talking to chinese communist bankers and ripping the president as she does so. perfect. and the part of the constitution that banned slavery, glenn beck is in favor of that.

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spaim explain death panels. that's next. to sean hannity. he called the administration and radical environmentalists of causing a drought there in order to protect the fish call the delta smelt. >> today their water is gone. shut off by the government. with all the money being spent on a fail stimulus, health care reform and bailing out wall street banks, the solution here is relatively simple. turn the water back on. >> the department of the interior turned the water back on on the 30th of june. the pumping restrictions ended nearly three months ago. you missed it, sean. so, to too did the wall street times, the rest of the morons echo chamber. check the water you're standing in, sean.

there's a shark in there that you just jumped. runner-up, chuck norris describes the 9/12 washout as a revolutionary movement and says to keep it going you should take down your heathen flag down and post the betsy loss flag, navy jack. if you get a modern flag, get one that's tea-stained to show your solidarity with the founders. saying the u.s. flag deliberately desecrates old glory? why does chuck norris hate the american flag? but our winner, lonesome road beck, migration or importation of such persons as any of these states now existing stall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the congress prior to the year 1808 but a tax for duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding $10 per person. do you know what that part of the constitution is about? glenn doesn't.

that's right, he writes. the founders actually put a price tag on coming to this country. $10 apparently they felt there was a value to being able to live here. not anymore. these days we can't ask anything of immigrants including that they abide by our laws. >> it's a little confusing. it is, after all, 18th century legalese. the key word is at the start. the migration or importation of such persons. the importation of persons? buying slaves from other countries. the clause beck thinks has something to do with a price tag on coming to this country was a clause that made it illegal to ban the importation of slaves until at least 1808. but it gave congress the right to tax a slave owner $10 for each new slave he brought in. this is the fool who thinks he is thomas payne or thomas jefferson or somebody, or he thinks he and he alone is interpreting the meaning of the founders of the country.

and he thinks the clause requiring the continuation of slavery and making it constitutional for one american to own another is about immigration. this guy may well be the dumbest man on the planet. ur old duster. ♪ love stinks! ♪ yeah! yeah! ♪ love stinks ♪ [ female announcer ] swiffer 360 dusters cleans deep into hard to reach places and removes allergens, feather dusters can leave behind. the thick all around fibers trap and lock on contact. swiffer gives cleaning a deep new meaning. exact change, buddy. ♪ love stinks!

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as of two days ago, sarah palin's main foreign policy credential was her front porch's proximity to russia. now she uses her coming out speech to rail against the president, something her party used to view as akin to treason. ex-governor palin hints at her political future. maybe she can see 2012 from her podium. more tonight from palin's speech in hong kong. now she's posted an excerpt on her facebook page. we need to go back to fiscal

discipline and unfortunately that hasn't been the view of the current administration. she also disparages the foreign policy against china. today, howard berman saying that, leaving aside criticizing the president, the assertion that the united states is ignoring areas of disagreement with china is flat wrong. and after palin explained faith euthanasia to a room full of bankers as opposed to youth in asia, it was time for tea parties and her own employment status. >> meanwhile on her way out of town, she had this to say about her own political ambitions. >> i wish i could predict the future. cannot answer that question right now.

look for more opportunities to send good messages from the u.s. and hopefully help meet some of the challenges that we're all facing today. >> kind of got lost in that last sentence there. joining us now craig crawford. >> you got a pretty good palin impression going there. you've got a future. >> i listened to tina fey very, very carefully. did we just get a glimpse at the future according to palin even though she said she can't see it. can she go out and be as inflammatory as she damn well pleases? >> as much as we trash her, keith, she's just in the cat bird seat. she's just got us all because i think she can tease this forever and go all the way to the next presidential election. my hunch, my hunch is that she's going to tease it all the way into new hampshire and iowa, maybe make trips there, and, you know, show up and we'll all be

wondering all the way up to the filing day if she's going to run. but my guess is she won't run because fame and fortune is more important to her than power. >> and you have to run for a long time. and that's not getting it done. the idea of criticizing the president while abroard, this old, you know, the politics ends at the water's edge stuff. if a democrat had spoken of president bush in those terms when either the democrat or bush were out of the country, that would have been considered akin to treason. where's the outrage from the right about her doing it in china of all places? >> like i think i've said here before, if hypocrisy was a virus among politicians, they would all be dead. the thing is, you know, i do recall, i remember bill clinton getting impeached while he was running a war in bosnia. and, you know, republicans, if that had been reversed, republicans would have called that treasonous, i suppose. but it's all in the eye of the beholder.

and i think, you know, increasingly, what we're going to find is republicans are just, because they're out of power are just going to say anything. >> well, yeah. but why bring up death panels or tea parties in that environment if you don't invite the media along. isn't that just wasting the references to your favorite topics? >> i think part of her strategy not inviting the media is because she's targeting the media. it makes us complain about it and then we look like the accusers that she wants us to be, and she's the martyr. so it's hard to win in this situation with her. >> well, let's give her a minute to spin on this one here. in alaska, the permanent fund, which is this dividend that every man, woman and child gets from the state's oil income lost 18% of its value this year, and the thing is the pay is going to be less than what it was by half, about 50% or so. is this the palin legacy? when the going is going to get tough, get out well in advance?

>> yeah, when the going gets tough, the smart get out. she has left alaska perhaps just in time in that sense. but, you know, i think now she has it made. she doesn't have any responsibilities to govern. that's why i think she may not actually ever run for president because, so long as she's not accountable to voters or for her views, she can say absolutely anything. and she can lead her charge among conservatives who love to listen to her all the more because she's avoiding scrutiny. >> and she gets to keep the clothes this time. craig crawford, cqpolitics.com and msnbc as always. thank you, craig. >> and great to almost follow michael moore. >> between michael moore and ken burns. how about that.

i'm keith olbermann. stay classy, "countdown" land. now how a.c.o.r.n. started world war i and other news coverage about the organization that's only slightly less inaccurate.