Left: African Witch Hunter Rev. Muthee prays over Palin; Right: “Countdown” reports on Palin’s claim that Muthee’s blessing helped her become governor

Transcript from the Sept. 19 edition of “Countdown” on MSNBC:

OLBERMANN: When nearly 60 years ago, Senator Joe McCarthy and the Republicans conducted their figurative witch hunt, it had perhaps only one redeeming value: they never actually called anybody a witch. In our third story in the COUNTDOWN, not so for an evangelist so closely tied to the Republican vice presidential nominee that she gives him partial credit for making her governor of Alaska. “Times of London” reporting today that Pastor Thomas Moothy (ph) [sic, Muthee] not only began his career by literally persecuting a woman in a Kenyan village as literally a witch, but that he boasted about it, and Governor Palin‘s church in Alaska boasted about it, too.

The details in a moment. First a refresher on the governor‘s

reference to him in her testimony in church this June.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: We forgot to talk about Pastor Moothy. As I was mayor and Pastor Moothy was here and he was praying over me. You know how he speaks, and he‘s so bold. He‘s praying, lord make a way, lord make a way. And I‘m thinking, this guy is really bold. He doesn‘t even know what I‘m going to do. He doesn‘t know what my plans are. And he‘s praying not, oh, lord, if it be your will, may she become governor, whatever. No, he just prayed for it. He said, lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that‘s exactly what happened. Again, very, very powerful coming from this church. So that was awesome about Pastor Moothy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: “Times of London” assembling previous reporting on Pastor Moothy. He is an African evangelist who founded the World of Faith Church, also known as the Prayer Cave, in Kyumbu (ph), Kenya in 1989. He did so after, he says, he and his late wife were called there by god because there was demonic presence in the town being blamed for a number of fatal car accidents among other ills. In a trailer for his evangelical video, Moothy tells how he found the source of that bad spirit; “we prayed. We fasted. The lord showed us a spirit of witchcraft resting over the place.”

According to the “Christian Science Monitor,” six months of praying and research led him to a local named Momma Jane. She allegedly was involved in fortune telling and therefore responsible for what plagued Kyubmu. Pastor Moothy publicly declared that she was a witch and gave her a choice, be saved or leave town.

First she stayed. Then Moothy held a crusade; 200 people joined in his grocery store basement prayer sessions. Momma Jane became a pariah, people panicked. Police raided her home. Somebody shot a snake thought to be a demon. After she was questioned and released, Pastor Moothy‘s witch is said to have left town.

According to the “Times of London,” Moothy still refers to this witch hunt in his sermon, ten of which were delivered at the Wasilla Assembly of God in the fall of 2005, during the time Sarah Palin was preparing to run for governor of Alaska.

Shannyn Moore is a radio journalist in that state. She joins us once again from Anchorage. Good evening. Thank you for your time tonight.

SHANNYN MOORE, RADIO JOURNALIST: Hi, Keith.

OLBERMANN: This is starting to sound startling enough to be terrifying. Is this pastor‘s witch hunting history common knowledge in Alaska?

MOORE: No, it‘s not. I think, you know, we‘re known for our hunting up here, but witches hasn‘t been part of the conversation to date. And I think—I think this information actually has surprised a lot of Alaskans, as has many of the stories that have come out on Sarah Palin since she was nominated by John McCain.

OLBERMANN: Well, just within her own religious parameters, the governor‘s own churches and her beliefs and the people that she believes with, would witch hunting be too much? I mean, would members of her church say, hell, no, we don‘t condone witch hunts or people who have conducted them?

MOORE: Or not out of airplanes. I think that this church in particular—and I think all evangelical churches have their own space. And I don‘t know about any others. But certainly her church believes in quite a few things that seem sort of outside the realms for most of us. You know, speaking in tongues, certainly the whole idea that Alaska is going to be the last day‘s refuge for so many, that hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to Alaska for the tribulation period, is part of their whole platform.

They may be coming now that they know we get dividend checks, but I don‘t think this last days idea is—it‘s certainly not the view of many Alaskans.

OLBERMANN: But even all that you mentioned there, every part of—the other things about this church in particular, that‘s one set of stuff. Over here is witch hunts. Witch hunts have a very bad reputation, and deservedly so, in this country. The last place where we had a major series of them 300 years ago, that part of the community changed its name to avoid association with the rest of the community, changed its name from Salem to Braintree. Is this specifically—would this be as alarming to people there and to even people in that church as it would seem to be to the average American?

MOORE: I think that this church, in particular, they embraced him. They knew what this pastor‘s record was. He ran on the fact that he had chased a witch out of a town and that he was able to do this sort of spiritual warfare, which is something that they talk about a lot at this church, spiritual warfare, that they‘re able to go into communities and really target the demonic areas and pray over them and actually change their crime statistics.

So this is all part of the belief system that this church has put out. And it‘s pretty far fetched, I think, to many of us. I think we would actually want to put more cops on the street. I think that the rapture isn‘t environmental policy for many people, but certainly to this church it is.

OLBERMANN: I also forgot to mention that Pastor Moothy claimed that after the demon was forced out of the town in Kenya, most of the bars closed, too. I suggested earlier that he, at first Blush anyway, makes Jeremiah Wright look like Father Flanagan from “Boys Town.” As governor, has Mrs. Palin been questioned about this man, her association with him and specifically this topic of witch huntery?

MOORE: No, I don‘t think so. I haven‘t heard people ask her this. Certainly people‘s rights to whatever church, as bizarre as it may be, if they‘re selling rapture insurance or whatever. That‘s not part of the fray here. We try to stay on policy, because people‘s private lives are so important to all of us. But in this case, I think in hindsight we should have asked her about her church more because she does have a real fuzzy line between the separation of church and state, when it has come to her governorship and her policies here.

OLBERMANN: We‘re not talking about something ancient. That tape that we saw earlier is this year, this June.

MOORE: Right, this June, a couple months ago. And she‘s talking about the fact that he laid hands on her and how that was—that really is how she got—she‘s given a lot of credit to becoming governor to this pastor who is a witch hunter. And you look at this and you wonder, are we going to go from water boarding to just throwing people in ponds and see if they float or not. It‘s really a stretch for a lot of people and it‘s even weird for Alaskans, I assure you.

OLBERMANN: There we go, I guess that‘s the question—the answer I was looking for. Somebody turn me into a newt. Shannyn Moore, a radio journalist joining us once again from Alaska with our great thanks. Have a great weekend.

MOORE: Thank you so much.