KEITH OLBERMANN: Occupy gets political whether it intends to or not. Occupy the New Hampshire Primary and Occupy the Iowa Caucuses, next.
First — because this space here, this is for my version of the occupation — here are "Countdown"'s top three nominees for today's "Worst Persons in the World."
The bronze goes to our old pal, Billo the clown. I used to mean "clown," as in foolish in his opinions. Now, it's about his rapidly-declining performance.
He got into an argument with Alan Colmes about government ineffectiveness. Colmes argued that the government actually has done a pretty good job running the U.S. military over the years. Whereupon, O'Reilly revealed he didn't know that the government ran the military and was insistent that the military runs itself and the secretary of defense and the president just sort of watch from the sidelines while the Pentagon makes all the decisions. Seriously.
(Excerpt from video clip) ALAN COLMES: Can they run the military?
(Excerpt from video clip) BILL O'REILLY: They can run the military because it's military controlled, not civilian.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: That's government run.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: It's not civilian control.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: It's still the government doing it. We have a civilian government.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: The Pentagon calls the shots.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: We have civilian — civilian — the commander-in-chief's a civilian.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: No, no, no.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: The government runs the military well.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: That is wrong. The Pentagon calls the shots on how the military operates.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: That's the government.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: The Pentagon is military people.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: It's the government, it's still the government.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: It's overseen by the secretary of defense —
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: And they do a pretty good job of it.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: But the generals, the joint chiefs, call the shots.
(Excerpt from video clip) COLMES: They run — and they work for the government. It's a government-run military.
(Excerpt from video clip) O'REILLY: "They work for" and "the government running" are two different things.
OLBERMANN: So if you've ever wondered why, to you — as the rational, contemplative scholar that you are — O'Reilly has never made any sense, there's the explanation. He believes we've always lived in a kind of mega-police state where the military operates on its own and the government is something else all together.
The runner-up? Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. Arrested today at LaGuardia Airport in New York. The district attorney says he tried to get on board a Delta flight and brought with him a box containing a Glock-27 pistol and 19 — count 'em — 19 nine-millimeter cartridges. He has a gun permit in California but not in New York.
Charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon — that's a felony — he could face 15 years.
Two months ago, Mr. Meckler wrote a piece for Politico, raging at any comparisons between Occupy and those peaceful, law-abiding tea partiers. "Unlike protesters in New York," — irony —"I can find no reports of tea partiers being arrested." — irony — "We are not lawbreakers." — irony. By contrast, to him, Occupy is "a group of law-breaking miscreants who treated law enforcement with disrespect and disdain."
Had a gun without a permit and nineteen shells and tried to bring it on a commercial flight. Nice respect for the law, sonny.
But our winner, once again? Robert Niblock, the Chairman of Lowe's hardware. Parenthetically, the number of people who have written to me to say, "By the way, Lowe's sells overpriced crap. You shouldn't buy your stuff there anyway" — it's astounding.
Nevertheless, they have once again remained silent on their astonishing kowtowing to a tiny Florida lunatic right-wing pressure group, which is run by an admitted porn-and-masturbation addict. Which saw them publicly pull their ads from the TLC cable show "All-American Muslim" because the program did not depict enough terrorists to satisfy the psychopathic Islamophobes like Pamela Geller.
Lowe's is still trying to stonewall after its caving in was attacked by the Anti-Defamation League and then 32 members of the US Congress and, today, by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and by Rabbi Marc Schneier, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress.
Lowe's is apparently trying to tough this one out.
We give this award out every night. And once again, we give it to Robert Niblock, the CEO of Lowe's, today's "Worst Person in the World."
Remember, don't shop at Lowe's!
