Countdown Newsletter, 10/27 show: "Miers Out"

Subject: "Miers Out"
Date: October 27, 2005 12:50:51 PM EDT

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Tonight on Countdown
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Under withering attack from conservatives, Harriet Miers on Thursday withdrew her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a statement, President Bush said he "reluctantly accepted" her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9837151/

Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.

Residents armed with chain saws and brooms and an army of electrical repair crews on Tuesday attacked the shambles left behind by Hurricane Wilma's rampage through Florida, where 6 million people were without power. Wilma, at one time the most intense hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, killed at least four people in Florida on Monday after a devastating trek through the Caribbean that killed at least ten in Haiti and seven in Mexico. http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-25T134238Z_01_KNE417919_RTRUKOC_0_UK-WEATHER-WILMA.xml

President Bush traveled to South Florida on Thursday to view damage from Hurricane Wilma, but it sounded like New Orleans all over again after Miami's mayor complained about a shortage of federal aid while the top federal official urged patience. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9836418/

The prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation presented a summary of his case to a federal grand jury yesterday and is expected to announce a final decision on charges in the two-year-long probe tomorrow, according to people familiar with the case. Even as Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald wrapped up his case, the legal team of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has been engaged in a furious effort to convince the prosecutor that Rove did not commit perjury during the course of the investigation, according to people close to the aide. The sources, who indicated that the effort intensified in recent weeks, said Rove still did not know last night whether he would be indicted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/26/AR2005102600532.html

The mansionization battle rustling the leaves of North Barrington Avenue is something new even for Brentwood. It's a dispute not over a 12,000-square-foot neo-Tudor monster or a towering modernist cube, but over a backyard treehouse for an 18-month-old girl. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-treehouse26oct26,1,7565762story?ctrack=1&cset=true

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Keith blogs: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

Finally,
First she was assaulted with spray paint, then kidnapped. Now, Sharon the goat faces eviction. The 7-month-old animal has been the mascot for the Sigma Chi fraternity at Southeast Missouri State University. On Oct. 21, someone got inside a security fence at the frat house and spray-painted the goat. Then early Sunday, the fraternity reported Sharon missing. She turned up unharmed a day later inside fencing at an animal hospital. The fraternity has a week to find a new home for the goat, which roams freely on Sigma Chi's two-acre plot, and is allowed indoors. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOATS_WOES?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME
So goat lovers, here's your chance.

-- Carey Fox

Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

More:
Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr clashed Thursday with Sunni militants in fighting that killed at least 15 people, and three American soldiers died in separate attacks the day before, officials said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9823089/

About half of the 4,500 companies in the U.N. oil-for-food program, including Volvo and DaimlerChrysler, paid $1.8 billion kickbacks and illicit surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government, a U.N.-backed investigation said in a report released Thursday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9833759/

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed an open-ended offensive against Palestinian militants and Israeli aircraft struck the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a suicide bomber killed five Israelis. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9825313/

The world's failure to come up with quick cash to help save hundreds of thousands of Pakistani quake survivors before winter sets in left relief officials on the ground baffled and upset on Thursday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9831919/

Exxon Mobil Corp. had a quarter for the record books. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9837574/

Sweep home Chicago! Sox win World Series. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9832610/

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9837151

Miers withdraws Supreme Court nomination

Stunning news in tense D.C.; Bush accepts decision ‘reluctantly’
NBC News and news services
Updated: 12:40 p.m. ET Oct. 27, 2005

WASHINGTON - Under withering attack from conservatives, Harriet Miers on Thursday withdrew her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a statement, President Bush said he “reluctantly accepted” her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down.

Bush said Miers withdrew because of a bipartisan effort in Congress to gain access to internal documents related to her current role as counsel to the president.

(snip)

A White House source, who had been working on Miers’ confirmation, told NBC News that the withdrawal was the result of a “perfect storm” of events — including a call to the White House Wednesday from a conservative Senate Judiciary Committee member who “hoped” the nomination would be withdrawn.

(snip)