Goldwater on McCain: “… held him in minimal high regard, as diplomats might say …” April 25th, 2008
[SOURCE: 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, April 24]
KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: When Barry Goldwater Jr. and his roommate at school discussed someday writing a book about Barry Senior, the legendary Arizona senator and conservative icon, neither of them guessed that the roommate would go on to become an icon himself, White House council, who became a household name during Watergate, only to be resigned 35 years ago next week. In our third story tonight, that roommate John Dean and Barry Goldwater Junior, who himself grew up to be a member of Congress in his own write, have finally written that book, containing newly discovered journal entries and correspondence of the late senator, including a series of letters chronicling a dispute Goldwater had with John McCain after McCain succeed Goldwater as senator from Arizona, and a tantalizing reference to the political skills of one Hillary Rodham in her capacity as a Republican campaigner back in 1964, when Goldwater ran for president.
Goldwater himself underwent some well chronicled political conversions or perhaps remained stoically the same as his party changed around him. Portrayed and defeated in 1964 as a right wing extremist. By the ‘80s and ‘90s, he had became a moderating force in his party, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-medical marijuana, pro-freedom, pro-honesty. Even on occasion, pro-Democrat. Leaving us to wonder whether Goldwater‘s newly revealed writings revealed anything about what the man known as Mr. Conservative would say about today‘s politics.
Joining me now is John Dean, author of “Broken Government” and now “Pure Goldwater,” as co-author of that book with Barry Goldwater Jr.. John, good evening.
JOHN DEAN, “PURE GOLDWATER”: Good evening, Keith. Nice to be interviewed by a giant.
OLBERMANN: It‘s just—I don‘t know what he means to this day. Let me start with something that did not make it into the book, something we haven‘t heard before about Senator McCain and his race for the Senate; after seeing these never-released documents from Goldwater‘s files, can you tell us now what you know about his role in McCain‘s run in ‘86?
DEAN: I think I can. I tried not to make this book overly political, because I was collaborating with somebody who was a very good member of the Republican party, Barry Goldwater Jr., my long-time friend. I did see correspondence along the way and I have talked to the senator‘s staff.
First of all, McCain was viewed when he came to Arizona as a carpet bagger. The senator‘s letter, which we didn‘t put in the book, where he endorses McCain to have his Senate seat when he‘s retiring in ‘86, looks to me very much like a nod to Admiral Jack McCain, who was a good friend of the senator and who he greatly respected. I‘m not sure he had the same feelings towards John McCain.
OLBERMANN: If they started there, where did Goldwater‘s assessment of John McCain go from there?
DEAN: They went downhill. After the Keating Five scandal, with Charles Keating, the savings and loan mogul, whose investigation was blocked by the efforts of a number of senators, McCain being part of the group, Goldwater really cooled on him, not that he was that warm initially. But I think he held him in minimal high regard, as diplomats might say, at that point. They got quite distant in their relationship. In fact, it got chilly when the name was misused by McCain, when he started using Goldwater‘s name. I put a couple letters in because I thought they were important historically to show that Senator Goldwater pulled up Senator McCain pretty short.
OLBERMANN: All right. Obviously he has this unusual connection to another candidate still in this race. We hear a lot about Hillary Clinton‘s 35 years of experience in politics. Obviously it goes back further than that. What was she up to in 1964? How did she come to Goldwater‘s knowledge and what did he think about her?
DEAN: I think the knowledge that she was a Goldwater Girl came many years later. I think it initially came when Bill Clinton called Senator Goldwater and said, Hillary Clinton is having a 40th birthday and we‘re having a surprise party. Would you call her because you initially attracted her to politics? The senator did. It actually started a very warm and extended relationship, right up to the senator‘s death, between the Clintons and the Goldwaters.
The Clintons wanting nothing out of this man, but fascinated by this icon and exemplary public figure. They really visited with him in Phoenix, visited with him when he was in the hospital. There was a very wonderful relationship. I think he would look pretty friendly toward Hillary Clinton‘s campaign right now.
OLBERMANN: I know your co-author, Barry Goldwater Junior, has endorsed Senator McCain and says his father would have done so as well. Is that your assessment, based on what you researched? How would he feel also about Senator Obama?
DEAN: Barry Junior and I have been talking about the book. He really initially endorsed Ron Paul. He thinks his father would have been attracted to Ron Paul as well. He‘s looking at McCain as the presumed nominee and he would vote for him, he says. He wouldn‘t leave the party over it. But I don‘t sense in my former roommate any great enthusiasm for this cause.
OLBERMANN: And as to senior?
DEAN: As to senior, unpredictable. I think he would like all those candidates except McCain, frankly.
OLBERMANN: What an irony there. John Dean, whose new book, with Barry Goldwater Jr., is entitled “Pure Goldwater.” As ever, John, many thanks.
DEAN: Thank you, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Take care.
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DocumentDump.com ^ RWCS.com Says:
Richard Lewis on Countdown (4-24-08)
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Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ for Thursday, April 24
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24312488/
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KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Bitterness in American politics. You need a reason to be bitter? Ask an expert. The expert will be here. Mr. Richard Lewis, everybody.
[... ...]
OLBERMANN: It was quickly reduced to and will forever be known as the bitter comments, Senator Obama‘s perception of the frustration and anger of some small town working class voters. Then a barely noticed separate reference to bitter voters by Senator Clinton. In our number one story in the COUNTDOWN, don‘t we all have a hell of a lot about which to be bitter?
Mr. Richard Lewis will join us presently to do bitter one better. That‘s a pun. Even yesterday, nearly two weeks after Obama‘s remarks became public, people were still bitching about bitter. At a town hall meeting for Senator McCain in Inez, Kentucky, a local GOP leader said that Senator Obama‘s comments showed that he, quote, doesn‘t understand our neck of the woods.
RICHARD LEWIS, COMEDIAN: Come on.
OLBERMANN: OK, for that State Senator Brandon Smith received a standing ovation, not knowing he, too, was making a pun. McCain himself again said that Senator Obama‘s observation was elitist, itself an interesting observation from a guy whose wife is worth at least a hundred million bucks in beer money.
As promised, let‘s bring in Richard Lewis, one of the stars of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” whose memoir, “The Other Great Depression,” is now available in paperback. He also has a new DVD, “Richard Lewis Naked.” His Misery Loves Company tour takes him to the 92nd Street Y this weekend in the company of some news caster who is going to sit there and pretend to interview him.
LEWIS: A hundred million dollars. Do you see his tax return? He had 8.90.
OLBERMANN: He made 8.90. She made 100 million.
LEWIS: You think he ever goes and says, can I borrow a couple bucks?
I want to get a beer.
OLBERMANN: She gives him the empties and he takes them back for the refund.
LEWIS: I thought the bitter herbs—I have two relatives in Florida, uncle Herb, I thought they were the bitter herbs. Happy Passover to the remaining Jews in this country. Speaking of Jews—ready?
OLBERMANN: Yes.
LEWIS: I don‘t have time. I don‘t. I want a gig. The president likes me, NBC News. Why can‘t I be—when you guys are sitting around—
I‘m so honored to follow Dean—
OLBERMANN: Me, too.
LEWIS: These two guys, these are the guys we need. These are real heroes. But there‘s not enough. There‘s not enough with the balls to do what they do. They‘ve been there, done it and they come back. That‘s what John Kerry did when he came back and he opened up and he saluted. Why didn‘t he win?
The country got what they deserved. I‘m angry at the country. There‘s going to be racists. There‘s going to be anti-Semites, but those are the fringe people. I don‘t why the candidates—I‘m not here tonight to support a candidate. It‘s making McCain, who is flip-flopping more than like a pancake guy—forget it. Unless he has a 30-year-old vice president, let‘s let him drink himself away in Arizona and watch the salamanders hang himself, because it‘s 130 degrees in the winter.
OLBERMANN: You‘re skin gets all wrinkly.
LEWIS: Skin, it‘s unbearable. Here is the thing that bothers me—a lot of things bother me.
OLBERMANN: I noticed.
LEWIS: Yes, he was a hero. Here‘s what happens—when we went to war, the war, the wrong war—I love the soldiers. It‘s like Super Bowl Sunday. If they‘re sent is somewhere, they go. They‘re supposed to. I love this country. But they went to Afghanistan. They might as well have blown up Miami beach. It was ridiculous. Miami Beach, Miami Beach. They would have—Coppertone; it would have been a joke because they work for the president.
But the guy—who knows why they went to the wrong—this is old news. I want a job. I want to be the MSNBC psycho-analyst, sit with you guys after you talk, all you pundits talk—and you‘re brilliant people on this network, the most brilliant, but I have psychological problems with a lot of this stuff.
Number one, the two Democrats are making McCain like the Boston Celtics. They were in the play-offs after nine hours. Some of them showed up in slacks because they had to go get a lap dance by half-time. It‘s not fair. I know they have to win. They want to win. I know they make points.
Let‘s take Obama for a second. If he tries to be above the fray, he‘s elitist. If he tries to fight, now he‘s like a regular politician. The guy is in a no-win situation that way.
OLBERMANN: Certainly Hillary is trying to put him in a no-win situation.
LEWIS: Yes, I know.
OLBERMANN: I‘m sorry.
LEWIS: It‘s not a pun. The whole thing is this; every war—I do concerts all over the country. While I‘m on stage, people are taking pictures of my show. So I can do this, I can go, you know, this guy was—
I‘m not a racist like this guy was. And then I go on Youtube, I‘m a racist. It‘s over. It‘s over for me. And that‘s what‘s happening to the politicians.
Youtube, this society, it‘s like crazy. People have this attention deficit disorder and they have no time to just relax. I think this country has to take a big deep breath and say, look, OK, OK, there‘s a handful of people who hate Jews. There‘s more than a handful that hate African-Americans. But let them listen. Let them talk.
They‘re not talking about the economy. They‘re just talking about—they‘re picking on things. This whole Reverend thing, and then they‘re talking—and then Obama fights back. They‘re fighting each other. They‘re not fighting for us. It‘s really bugging the hell out of me.
I‘m a Democrat, I think, for all the right reasons. And I‘m more of a broad philosophical—don‘t give me that look. I‘m making no sense. I shouldn‘t.
OLBERMANN: I understand what you‘re saying, that‘s what I‘m giving you the look for.
LEWIS: This is the worst eight years. Cheney has oil, not blood, running through his vein. His wonderful daughter, don‘t know her. She‘s a lesbian. Should she read the plank of the Republican party, she doesn‘t count. She‘s like Casper the lesbian. It‘s unbearable. How can you be gay, a lesbian, a person of color? Ever look at the side of the Republicans, they have photo ops like central casting. I need a Latino and a Jew. Hurry up.
Then you see some poor Hasidic Jew going, hey, I should be in temple.
I got to get out of here. Do I get paid? Do I get paid? It‘s ridiculous. It‘s so stupid. That‘s one of the reasons I was a Democrat. When I grew up as a kid, it‘s like America, a pelting pot. This is not a melting pot. This is a smelting pot. That‘s quite an add-lib. You could shoot me for that. I‘m bitter that I said that.
OLBERMANN: We came back to bitter again.
LEWIS: I am bitter. Remember when Bush—we gave Bush—he stole it and/or we voted for this the guy, the country did. And Kerry ran a campaign that could have been obviously much better. I worked my ass off for Gore and Clinton. I was broken hearted. After four years putting this guy in, again, the country deserves—
OLBERMANN: Everybody got scared. People got scared and enough of them were scared that they went along with it.
LEWIS: They‘re doing it again. Here‘s what I want to say about McCain: he‘s—what he went through was intolerable. I love him for being a war hero. But we‘ve got to isolate that and say, this is one of the few heroes in our lifetime to come out of that. That doesn‘t say, let‘s move that into the war and then wrap the flag around this guy and forget about all the people that aren‘t paying—don‘t have any money, don‘t have any jobs, don‘t have any health insurance. That doesn‘t have anything to do with how much of a hero this guy is.
I‘m afraid, when the flags came out the first day, when we bombed—
Shock and Awe, which, by the way, it takes me weeks to get a ticket round trip to Miami. Shock and Awe had to be planned when the first President Bush—I didn‘t get him. I didn‘t get it.
OLBERMANN: Pass it on to the son. We‘re going to have to pick this up, because the show has ended already.
LEWIS: I don‘t want Dan to get upset with me.
OLBERMANN: Richard Lewis, the Misery Loves Company tour. He‘ll provide the misery on 92nd Street. I‘ll provide the company.
LEWIS: Just remember that we‘re Americans. We have to tweak ourselves. There‘s no civility left in this country. Come on, let‘s get it together, man.
OLBERMANN: That‘s COUNTDOWN for this the 1,820th day since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq. I‘m Keith Olbermann; he‘s Richard Lewis. Good night and good luck.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ for Thursday, April 24
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24312488/
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