HOW BIDEN CAN KILL THE "DOCUMENTS" STORY 1.23.23

EPISODE 117: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: I do not believe Joe Biden and/or his team mishandled any classified documents. Unfortunately, it’s clear Joe Biden and/or his team mishandled the messaging, the process, and the narrative. If you have to tell seven different stories in two weeks, it begins to matter less and less that you were totally cooperative and proactive and invited the feds to search, and it begins to look more and more like that oldest of presidential story templates: It no longer looks like what the president said it was.

Happily there are several things the president can still did to regain the narrative and smash the undeserved gift his team handed the inquisition-happy Republicans and the pudding-brained American political-media complex so desperate for a Democratic scandal that Peter Baker actually wrote a piece comparing Biden's papers to Clinton-Lewinsky! And he better do them TODAY.

B-Block (16:25) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Sebastian; (17:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault documentary, Revised Edition, plus George Santos, and the SCOTUS Investigation that wasn't really an investigation. (20:14) IN SPORTS: Trump praises Trump, The Golfer Of Strength And Stamina. Hockey's Vancouver Canucks screw up again. A month until Spring Training games and the chaos of the new rules. And my secret method to make sure all batting averages actually go up (24:36) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nikki Haley doesn't know what the "P" in VP stands for, the lights are on but no one's home, and Greg Abbott's epic twitter self-own.

C-Block (29:13) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Talk about White Houses trying to control the narrative: in 2004 George W. Bush's people were a) convinced I was on their side b) knew I was only interviewing Iraq War critic Ambassador Joe Wilson in order to savage him c) decided to help me by emailing all their talking points but d) couldn't figure out how to spell my name. Hilarity ensued (and all they wound up doing was revealing to me all of "their" people at NBC News.

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