5,000 dryer fires happen every year! that's why it's important to regularly clean and inspect your vents! correct. where did you get that?! i built it. [ male announcer ] we are insurance. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ we'll broadcast live from new hampshire. "in the arena" starts right now. good evening. welcome to the program. i'm eliot spitzer. president obama brought out his rhetoric today in an attempt to explain the role america can spla in this storm of change that just keeps sweeping through the arab world. it appears that the arab spring may quickly turn into a long, hot summer, and barack obama may

see his best laid plans hijacked by the seemingly endless israeli-palestinian problems. it's our top story. we'll have more on it in a moment, but, first, a look at the other stories we're drilling down on tonight. >> he is indicted, but he is getting out on bail. details from dominique strauss khan's indictment for attempted rape, and the politics of peace. >> the united states of america was founded on the belief that people should governor themselves. >> president obama reaches out to the middle east, but how is it playing here in the united states? then the truth has to hurt. edie hill goes one-on-one with bush's attorney general. do we need torture to kau catch the next bin laden? to our headliner segment. a moment of opportunity. that's how barack obama described the chaotic and historic change we're witnessing in the arab world. in a speech the good old american reason in the fever sweeping the region. instead, he may see the temperature soaring.

yesterday i heard something in the white house. the president's spokesman jay carney said we see specific new ideas, but did we? joining me now to talk about it, james trou, the contributing writer for the "new york times" making sfwleen, and director of the moral courage project at morning university and author of the book "allah, liberty, and love" that comes out in june. before we have our conversation, just lisp ten to a few of the great obama moments we heard today. listen to this. >> square by square, town by town, country by country the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. two leaders have stepped aside. more may follow, and though these countries may be a great distance from our shores, we know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security, by history, and by

faith. we had the chance to show that america values the dignity and the street venter in tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator. there must be no doubt that the united states of america favors -- yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise, but after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be. >> let me start with you. there were beautiful moments in this speech. the rhetoric was exquiz it. the principle, the theory. great to listen to, but did you hear anything in this n that speech that explains why we're doing what we're doing in libya, egypt, syria, or not doing, or anything that told you what we would do differently in any of those countries now that we've

heard the president speak? >> of course not, and i say of course because this is vintage obama. heavy on loftiness and light on the details. you can hardly blame him. this region is a moras of complexity, but i would have liked obama to take inspiration of the democracy activesists in the region and say i'm inspired by them enough to speak truth to power, and here are some of the things that we have to deal with. i'll get into some of those in just a moment. >> james, did you agree that this was beautiful rhetoric short on details, short on explanations of the granularity on what our policy is and what it should be. >> i think his options are limited. within those limited options there were some things he said that were new, and that i was very happy to hear. >> such as? >> on bahrain, example. bahrain is interesting for the following reason. that it's very easy for obama to say i'm with the people of egypt and tunisia.

that one is over. the good guys will have won. it's easy for obama to say we stand against qadhafi. the hard one is where the united states has serious national security interests, but these democratic issues have arisen. bahrain is a great example of that. we have the fifth fleet there. we have a compliant leader. for the first time, at least that i'm aware of, he spoke quite bluntly about the failures of the bahraini regime despite the fact that we have these interests. i was pleased to hear that. that was at least something. >> let me push you a little bit. he certainly articulated, and i think i've heard this from the state department before today, we are deeply troubled by the way the government there is repressing the opposition voices, but he didn't say we were going to do anything about it. nor did he even mention saudi arabia in the speech where there is the greatest tension between interests and principles. >> he didn't actually address realities on the ground, in my view, eliot, and one of those

realities going back to the center of much of the attention, namely egypt, he talked, again, in very sweeping terms about the wings of change, but amnesty international, you know, released a report -- and it's an open secret what this report confirmed -- that there continues to be great repression in egypt by the authorities, that the detainees continue to be tortured and civilians are tried in military tribunals and courts and not much has changed for real people wanting democracy. this is not something that was addressed at all in president obama's speech. >> let me say this in his defense. maybe he couldn't. there are these inevitable tensions. he was trying to square a circle that perhaps can't be done. the geometry simply isn't there. he said, yes, we are supportive of this democracy movement that is the arab spring, and, yet, he didn't give anybody who was over there any greater hope that if you are a syrian dissident and

you are standing up to assad, what is the united states now going to do? >> i have another criticism, which is in the case of egypt and tunisia, those are countries where the united states actually at this point could do some good, but some of the good we have to do would cost some money, and if you listen to the part where he said these are the things i'm going to do in egypt and tunisia, it actually amounts to no new money, because he doesn't have any. so, for example, what did he say about egypt? he said we will -- we are prepared to forgive up to $1 billion of egypt's foreign debt. well, egypt's foreign debt is $31 billion. $1 billion doesn't get you invest, and the rest were a set of trade agreements. >> this is kind of like citibank -- he said we're not going to foreclose on a house that's worthless anyway. >> we'll knock off $10 a month on your mortgage. he doesn't have any moj money, and money is one of the instruments in this case that can be useful. >> well, it can be, but it often hasn't been, and even in such times, james, i think you'll agree because you have done a

lot of reporting from that part of the world that money has often been misused and misdirected and just as an example, over the years egyptians far and wide have reported that much of the u.s. foreign aid to their country has wound up in the hands of retiring military generals who have demanded hush money to shut up about the corruption that's happening within their midst. how do we know, eliot, this is what i mean in part by light on details. how do we know that what obama is now redefining as investment rather than assistance -- how do we know that's going to wind up in the right hands now? of course, we don't. >> in that case, maybe he shouldn't be doing anything for egypt. >> maybe he shouldn't. >> that wouldn't be my argument. i wish we could do more. >> from an american taxpayers' point of view, and, again, for those that actually care about these issues, you know, i mean, as a taxpayer, one would think that you would want to know this time what is the united states government going to be doing differently in light of the changed context? again, it is about, you know, sort of embracing the

anti-corruption spirit that has suffused the arab spring, and that's my point about taking inspiration from these democracy activists. he could have stepped it up and said if we find as a government that our money is consistently misused going forward, we will pull back. >> that would be a negative message, not a positive message. that would be punitive. that's not what he needs to say at this point. >> it's anti-corruption. can i tell you from, again, a lot of contact with people on the ground in approximate that part of the world, that it may not sound positive to your ears or mine, but they would embrace it exactly because -- >> i think that's not the best -- >> i'm devastated. i had thought actually the one point where he succeeded was in aligning our interests theoretically with the dissident groups, even if we were not going to be able to do something. you say we failed there, and i thought the $1 billion, maybe that's real nothing. you are saying that's nothing. he is 0 for 2. >> the rest of it was possible trade agreements, but those may or may not happen. congress has to approve those. i think those are important, if congress would do it.

trade is a big deal. >> a positive message, which i think he tried to eek through, but didn't bust through, frankly, is this is a part of the world -- i have said this to you before -- that 60% of people are under the age of 20. so many of these young people aspire to be entrepreneurs, small business owners and obviously achieve their individual dreams, and it is by monitoring where u.s. investment will be going that the positive message could have been given to young aspiring entrepreneurs. >> who was his audience, very quickly? was his audience the arab youth? was it the arab leadership or domestic politics? >> the fact that it was given at 1:00 noon tells you that the audience was as. the middle east as it was here. you don't give a speech at noon in order to reach an american audience. >> he gives most of his speeches in the morning. >> i do think that was the arab world is a very important part of that audience, and i don't think they'll be terribly overwhelmed. >> rash yad, final word. >> important part, yes, but i think we all agree the only

audience, the 2012 campaign, as we all know, is already well underway. americans were and are a huge part of this audience, and, in part, that is why the coming week is going to be so interesting to see how he deals with the israeli-palestinian conflict, particularly with former israeli lobbyists in this country. >> let's give the guy an a for effort on an impossible issue. he is trying desperately to square a circle. maybe you can't do it. >> maybe he didn't need to deliver the speech at all. >> maybe it was an unnecessary speech. >> you are a tough crowd. thank you for being with us. the case against dominique strauss khan, and edi, you are talking torture with bush's attorney general. >> alberto gonzales has helped draft how we view the war on terror. he is going to talk about the techniques that we are using and whether it was legal to kill an unarmed obama. >> alberto gonzales describing the techniques of torture. i do not want to miss that.

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if fever, unexplained weakness or confusion develops, tell your doctor promptly. these may be signs of ttp, a rare but potentially life-threatening condition, reported sometimes less than two weeks after starting plavix. dominique strauss khan accused of assaulting a maid in a new york luxury hotel will be out on bail starting tomorrow.

the conditions are strict. $1 million bail, a $5 million bond, 24-hour camera monitoring, and a full-time ankle bracelet. all this as his accuser spent a second day talking to a grand jury which then indicted strauss khan on seven counts, including felony sexual assault and attempted rape. a few minutes ago we spoke to a woman who wrote the book on prosecuting sex crimes. >> we are joined by linda fairstein. you have created this whole area of prosecution, sex crimes, so let's begin with the two big headlines of the day. first, he was granted bail. did that surprise you? >> it didn't surprise me. the prosecutor in me wanted to make the argument, you keep him in, but really, as you and i know from our days together, it's a first offense of a man his age with -- although not residential roots in this community. he has a home in america. he has been asked to put up a

lot of bail. he is going to have an ankle bracelet. it's not shocking to me. >> bail isn't about the severity of the crime. it's about will this guy come back for trial? >> absolutely. is he a flight risk? will he return? the likelihood that he wants to return to clear his name, if that's -- needs to happen. >> also the likelihood that he could walk out of his apartment and go anywhere pretty slim because one of the other things they added was there will be a security blanket around him that he will have to pay for, i presume, cameras everywhere he goes. this guy really can't go anywhere. >> i think he can't. i think that's a pretty safe bet. >> the second big headline, of course, he was indicted. >> yes. >> maybe no surprise. what does that mean procedurally, and let's talk about substance. >> the woman who has made the allegations literally had to appear and testify through a prosecutor before a grand jury, and this is the test of independent citizens that determine this evidence and see if they know that a crime has been committed. i understand she testified yesterday, and a little surprising, nantd that she testified again today. >> let's talk about that for a minute. most of the times that i would do a grand jury presentation and i'm sure the same with you, you

would try to do it in one sitting, keep it brief, and the reason to keep it brief is the defense will get a copy of her testimony, so what do you think it means to have to bring her back a second day? >> it puzzles me. it could be the grand jurors had questions, and there were unresolved things they wanted answered. it could be some of the forensic evidence was analyzed and they wanted more detailed testimony about it. it could be worst case scenario that ben brafman presented the prosecutors with some evidence that might have required them to go deeper in, but you and i were trained, i think, on the bare bones presentation, make it quick, so i was quite surprised. >> explain when you say bare bones. prosecutors mean you put in as little as possible into the grand jury for a simple reason. the defense will get a copy of that testimony and can use it to cross-examine and to do its own investigation. do you think that they pr sued that, or was there another theory to get more from her?

>> that's what puzzles me. whether there was something unclear that they wanted to make a clearer record, again, it gets precisely more to the defense to work with, more to cross-examine ultimately. >> the other side of the coin, of course sshgs that the more you lock in your witness -- had he she is now under oath answering all these questions. it makes it harder for her to change her story later on. >> absolutely. and, again, that's why we were taught to just get the essentials on out. she's locked into however much time she spent in. whatever she's been asked. it's under oath. >> now, the defendant and his lawyers, obviously, will get a copy of the indictment. no surprises. the counts here, sexual assault, attempted -- did the counts themselves spreez you in any way? >> not at all. they seem very consistent with what the story that's been released so far is. >> now, play defense lawyer. i know this is completely against your dna, but play for a minute. it seems there have been two theories floated by the defense. one was alibi. i wasn't there. the second was it was consensual. you can't do both of those,

obviously. >> what always hams, you were white collar, and this is what i did was i wasn't there, didn't do it, don't know the woman. the minute you say the prosecutor says we have dna and it's yours, then, okay, i was there, but she wanted to be there with me. that was no surprise to me at all. >> once he acknowledges a sexual relationship, then the issues become much more complex. >> much more complex. then how did it start? now, she's the victim, and she's presumed to be telling the truth when she comes to the prosecutor's office. you know the hard look that we have to give at everything, and how did this encounter begin, and already people are saying and especially come to me because of my experience, well, if the door was open, why didn't she turn around and walk out of the room? why didn't she scream? so you find yourself defensively as a prosecutor having to make her explain why. >> and her life will be examined top to bottom. has she ever made allegations like this before? her entire work record. if she accused her sister 30 years ago of stealing her shirt

falsely, that will come in on her krinlt. this is what victims go through, unfortunately. >> this is what they go through. that started already in this process, and there's a very good defense team here, and i'm sure that is well underway already. >> last question. she has a lawyer. >> yes. >> does that matter? >> oh, yes. as you know and many of your viewers do, there's the criminal prosecution, and any victim is entitled if there's a third party responsible for -- to have a civil suit. they proceed in entirely separate direction wrshz nightmare to me is to have the civil lawyer in early. there may be very legitimate reasons. this woman is being attacked everywhere, including -- i don't mean attacked by the media, but they're going to her home and talking to neighbors and relatives. she's being pursued. there may or -- this may or may not be about money in a civil lawsuit. you have to defend it with a deep pocket, but if it is about money, that becomes an issue at the trial. i always preferred for my victims if they were in a civil lawsuit, to wait until the case was disposed of, and then go on,

because the defense can argue that these are motives to lie, and one motive, one dollar, one motive for every dollar that she's seeking. >> cross-examination, isn't it the case you have filed a civil lawsuit, you hope to recover millions of dollars from this defendant? >> absolutely. that's not necessarily helpful to either the prosecution or certainly to the woman herself. >> all right. linda fairstein, thank you for your wisdom on this very tough issue. coming up, is the war on terror less effective now than it was during the bush administration? edie hill talks about alberto gonzales, the man who ran bush's defense department. ♪ [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience.

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the war on terror brought america to a place that it had not been before, and the man who helped draft the rules on how we

wage the war on terror is former attorney general alberto gonzales. is he a visiting professor at texas tech university right now. he joins us here for an exclusive interview. >> it's good to see you again. >> you know, i was intrigued by the fact that president bush was likened this lone gun slinger. yet, it was president obama who decided union laterally to go into an allied country and go deep inside that country and, you know, without even informing the ally. did that surprise you? >> not at all. we had quiet communications with the pakistan government during the bush administration, and we were clear that if we as a government had actual intelligence tooz where bin laden was that we would take him. we would take him out. i was not surprised that once we got that actual intelligence -- it takes a long time to develop that. we took the action that we did.

>> did you think it was legally justifiable, killing bin laden the way we did, unarmed some. >> absolutely. he was a military target. as a military target, you know, you are going to get killed in an armed conflict. the only question in my mind it seems to me is whether or not did he try to surrender? if he tries to surrender, you have an obligation not to execute him, but, again, in the circumstances as i understand it -- and let's be very clear here, you know, i don't know what i don't know about what really happened. we're still unraveling, and the facts seem to change daily, but based on what i have observed and based on what i know, this seems to be a totally justified killing. >> if we had been able to take him alive -- say they go up the stairs, and he is standing there waving a white flag, hands in the air, where would we have taken him? >> i assume he would have been taken to some kind of u.s. military facility, and then we would get into the discussion about, okay, what do we do with him? do we bring him to justice immediately? do we simply detain him as an enemy combatant, that we're

entitled to detain someone indeaf netly during an armed conflicted, or do we bring him to justice in a military commission or bring him to justice in a military court in the united states? do we bring him to justice in an international tribunal. these are all the difficult questions that we're avoided by the actions of the s.e.a.l.s. >> the initial information that was about the courier's code name was obtained in part through the enhanced interrogation techniques. most people assume that was waterboarding. waterboarding, per president obama, is banned right now. do we have other enhanced interrogation technique that is we can use to get solid information that you think are effective? >> well, in fact, waterboarding was banned by the u.s. congress in passing legislation before president obama became president. as to whether or not we have additional techniques, those techniques would be classified, i think, and, obviously, it would be consistent with the facts that have been laid down about the i u.s. congress.

in every conflict, every country has to develop a set of rules in which they're going to collect information or deal with detainees that are captured, and so we've got those sets of rules in place now, and we have an obligation to follow them. like we follow the rules that existed at the time president bush was president. >> you know, i was reading an article that was in "gq" at the end 6 last year, and in it the current attorney general, eric holder, told the reporter that when he was able to look at what occurred during the war on terror, under president bush, that "our agents strangled prisoners, held power drills to their heads, and threatened to rape their wives and children. did you ever see any reports of that? >> i never --s and if anyone ever did that, they would have been prosecuted. that goes well beyond anything the department of justice ever authorized. what we -- what the department of justice authorized was a number of techniques closely supervised by medical officers, by trained interrogators, and so

the kinds of conduct you just described go well beyond what was authorized by the department of justice. >> holder is making a statement that he becomes attorney general, he is privy to these documents, and he claims this is true. >> well, again, to the extent there are allegations that someone did this, there may have, in fact, been allegations. perhaps there was an investigation, and the investigation showed that, in fact, these allegations were not true, but, again any conduct like that, or coming close to that, would have been unlawful and would have been prosecuted under the bush administration. >> someone said that when you are running for president, you say things that are different than what you actually do once you become president. president obama had promised to close gitmo, and he promised we would have these federal courts handling terrorist trulz trials, presumably here in new york. gitmo is open. military tribunals are out there. were you sort of surprised that he did come around to that, or were you expecting that we were

going have to come up with a whole new set of rules on how we deal with terrorists in america? >> i'm not surprised. we looked at these issues very hard in the bush administration. we knew these were tough measures we were putting in place. we knew they would be controversial. it was important, though, for the security of our country to put these measures in place. we tried to institutionalize this framework for futures command ner chief, and president obama now having seen the intelligence now understanding the depths to which this enemy will go to hurt u.s. interests, he now appreciates that these policies have been totally effective and that they need to continue for the best intf our country. >> do you feel vindicated? >> i don't know if i -- i think this is -- i think it's a reaffirmation of the courage and the wisdom of president bush. he understood how dangerous this enemy was and that we had to take extraordinary steps -- extraordinary but lawful, constitutional steps, but, you know, we move it would be

controversial, and we're gratified that president obama has continued many of these same policies for the best interest of our country. >> alberto gonzales, thank you so much for joining us, former attorney general, and professor at texas tech university. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, remember when you could open a bottle of aspirin without consulting a how-to manual? well, then seven people died from laced tylenol, and it all changed. now the surprising person who may have done it. stay tuned. ♪ you love money ♪ well, you know i love it too ♪

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it was a crime that shook the nation 29 years ago. panic spread after a wave of deaths in illinois all tied to off the shelf bottles of the pain medicine tylenol. now the fbi is taking a fresh look at the crimes, and they've zeroed in on one of america's most notorious criminals. brian todd joins us now. >> we had a hard time believing the name when we first saw it lijed. it is ted kazinski, the uni bomber. all the fbi is saying about it right now is that in the reopening of the tylenol probe, they are trying to get dna from several people, including ted kazinski. it's a chilling connection between two cases that still haunt investigators. it's one of the f.'s most notorious unsolved case. the 1982 tylenol murders. seven people in the chicago area died after taking tylenol laced

with po takes yum cyanide. now the bureau is hinting at a possible link to one of america's most feared domestic terrorists, ted kazinski, the unibomber. >> i think it's a broad brush approach. ted kaczinsky is serving time for killing three people and wounding dozens others from a string of bombings from 1978 to 1995. the fbi in a statement says in re-examining the tylenol case, it's attempted to secure dna sample from numerous individuals, including ted kaczinsky. ted says he won't give them a sample voluntarily unless the fbi meets a certain condition that neither he nor the bureau have disclosed. kaczinsky says his detailed journals establish his whereabouts and activitieses in 1992, and he says i have never

possessed any potassium cyanide. he then asks the judge to block -- the cabben now sits here in the museum in washington. kaczinsky says some of the items here should used to preserve exonerating him in the tylenol case. on the block? his clothes, sunglasses, his infamous manifesto, and his journals, which according to a lead investigator, kaczinsky wrote in secret code. >> he recorded everything. there are over 30,000 pages of documents that he had and that he wrote over the years in his cabben. >> reporter: no evidence has surfaced linking kaczinsky to the tylenol plot, and no prosecution of him is currently planned. >> the tylenol case, is that ted kac sdmr insky's m.o.? >> no, it's not. first of all, we think it was an extortion case rather than some

kind of wild scheme to alter society, and, also, we find that extortionists, bombers, assassins, and arsonists all tend to stick with what they know and what they feel comfortable with. >> he says he sdbt think ted kaczinsky would have been going into drug stores and tampering with tylenol bottles. an attorney for ted, says he is persuaded that ted kaczensky had no involvement in any aspect of the tylenol case. >> thanks for that report. shocking, indeed. up next, did the wall street bailout teach us anything? ed aznor, the star of "too big to fail" says not so much. stay with us. building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people

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a crisis say terrible thing to waste. since the economic meltdown of 2008 when banks fated and the governor used -- did we learn anything? has anything changed? those questions are at the heart of the new hbo movie "too big to fail" based on andrew ross sorkin's terrific book. in this scene treasury secretary henry paulson calls for help from the world's richest man, warren buffett. take a look. >> i understand you have been talking to dick foe. >> you know my misgivings, hank, about investment banks. as soon as they started trading for themselves, the risk managers lost control.

i had a very unpleasant time at solomon brothers. >> that's fair enough. but we both know that investment banking is a profitable business. >> i figure it brings you $1 billion or so, huh some. >> buffett is played by none other than the legendary ed azner who we loved as hugh grant on "the mary tyler moore show" and in the movie "up." welcome. it is an honor to have you here. a legend of the tv world. >> glad to be with you. >> so i just got to ask you. this book "too big to fail" and the movie, why is it important? >> well, it talks bay big goof-up in the history of our country and the financial circles. it demonstrates how the problems took place, why they took place, what it fails to achieve, what has not been achieved in real life a solution to preventing it

from happening again. >> when you look at the movie, does the movie -- and you had to get into the mind of warren buffett and your colleagues had to get into the mind of hank paulson. do you like the characters were playing at the end of the day? >> i have always liked warren buffett. i feel we have the -- so many similar traits, bank accounts, acumen, self-respect. we have all of those together. we'll topt invest with you like we want to invest with him shortly. >> i'm a clone. >> in terms of william, paulson has such an off-putting appearance that i was quite surprised and intrigued of the fact that william played that role. it creates a totally different person while he creates the life-saving function for the banks that he did in this movie. at the same time i -- i'll bend over and give him the credit

that maybe he wasn't just saving the banks. maybe he was trying to save the country. >> who were the government folks trying to save? were they saving the banks, or were they saving the economy? were they saving the nation? what do you think they thought? >> that's a question where you can only give them the benefit of the doubt. >> right. >> but -- the bp thing is another failure. all tracing back to regulation. the bank failures, the housing failures, all lack a regulation and carrying out official duties by government people. they have been deprived of a leg to stand on, but they had legs to stand on, and they were deficient. they were -- >> the critical moment to me was

when -- >> not lehman brothers, but all the others, saks and on down the line. it was not asked of them for the money. >> you couldn't get enough guarantees for them. forget the money that the banks that was not distributed to the people. sfoo the people, for instance, the homeowners whose mourns were under water. >> even those coming to borrow some money so that our unemployment still stinks in this country. it shows no sign of recovery so far. and the banks are still giving out thoer their bonuses. >> you were lou grant as a journalist. >> yeah. >> if you were a journalist,

would you be out there going after these guys? >> i would hope so. i should turn in my card if whatever card i'm carrying. >> right. >> if i didn't pursue that. i'm a very simple man. i read my "people" and i form my opinion, hopefully, and for instance, i saw what the "new york times" did with iraq and how they were all part of the juggernaut that brought us into iraq and how that stunk, and sitting where i was, i'm saying the "new york times" stinks as well. >> at the end of the day, is this movie a tragedy? is it a comedy? is it straight history? >> i think it's the biggest warning sign you could get, and the american people and those people who can move them and shake them don't respond to this movie and act accordingly, i'm a

leftist democrat, and i see every day i read m paper -- by the way, after iraq the "new york times" smelled the flowers and changed. >> sure. >> enormously, and i give them credit for that. every day they blow the whistle on the republican obstinancy and refusal to perform life-saving ventures through congress and through investment, so, i mean, if they don't start smelling the flowers, we have to have democrats stand up for the first time in a long time. we have to find the roosevelt. >> i think we have found him in you. i don't know whether to call you f.d.r., ed asner, lou grant. you are a legend, and this movie is well worth seeing, in part, of course, because you're many it. sir, a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you. >> thank you. we'll be right back.

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today the president laid out a vision for the american role in the arab upheaval, and he

used some stirring words to do it. >> we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. those words must guide our response to the change that is transforming the middle east and north africa. words which tell us that repression will fail. and the tyrants will fall, and every man and woman is endowed with certain inalienable rights. >> did he outline a change in american policy? >> david gergen, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. it's good to be with you. >> so i listened to the president's speech today. i thought it was a brilliant articulation of principles guiding ideas that should dominate and should be the guide post for our foreign policy, but then when it came to the part of the speech where i expected him to say now here is what we're doing in each of these countries, it seemed a little thin. >> i agree that satisfiesment, and i was surprised.

normally presidential speeches, especially the ones that are labelled big, you know, they do have this sort of preamble. here's how we got here, and here are the principles that are going to guide our policy in this very complex situation, and now, therefore, i am now announce being the following three, four, five things the united states is going to do, and what the surprise was after the preamble, which was wonderful. i thought he did a beautiful job laying out the principles. there was no therefore. there was no follow lines. almost everything he announced especially with regard to the middle east countries and north africa was a continuation of where we have been. >> what is the domestic political impact of this speech? the president now since the killing of bin laden has a new surge am of respect in terms of his handling of foreign policy. does this diminish because people will say, ah, this is reversion to the pre-bin laden obama where really he doesn't advance the ball, there is no

grand architecture to what we're doing? >> eliot, my sense is that he avoided taking on the -- the jewish community on this. they're going to come out of this, i think, okay, we can live with it. he could have had them up in arms, and i think that was one of the debates within the administration. how far are we going to go on the israeli-palestinian given the fact that 2012 elections are right around the corner now, and he clearly, i think -- a lot of critics will say 2012 was heavily on his mind as he worked this through. but i also feel that because he didn't break a lot of new ground, this is a speech that's not going to have a long shelf life here in the united states, at least in terms of its operational impact. that people are going to say, listen, can we please come back here and get focus on jobs and deficits, which people really care about in this country, and really the president of the united states spending as much

time as he is on these problems that seem to have complicate and we don't seem to have really good answers. >> i think this will disappear into the ether because there is nothing to hang your hat on other than the very nice statement to principles. it doesn't move the neegdz in libya. it doesn't move the needle in syria. the middle east talks will go nowhere, unfortunately, for the next couple of months. afghanistan is a quagmire, and so, as you say, jobs, jobs, jobs, it is the economy stupid, and pretty soon that's what we're going to be talking about. >> those two things are looming. the speech may have -- people may look back upon this some years from now and say it was the foundation for a shift in american foreign policy. the principles of much more forth right support of democratic movements in that region of the country, but i think operationally right now i am not sure that this speech is going to generate much excitement in arab countries, and it's certainly not going to generate much excitement back

here. >> you know, i would agree with you with one footnote. maybe it's a big footnote. it's hearted to soo sea this as a big shift towards democratic supported principle whz the nation there which is the largest oil exporter to us simply wasn't mentioned. saudi arabia was notably absent from the spooet speech, so at that point in our foreign policy where there's the most dwen direct clash between principles and interest, really the president punted. there really is in a way a good statement to principles, but a status quo speech. >> well, i -- but i'll come back to you on one aspect of this. i would think of all the people in the middle east that would be unhappy in the speech it would be the saudis. he was -- i thought he was very tough on the bahrainian government which the saudis have come to support, and he basically i think for the gulf states this didn't offer an awful lot of sense of sympathy for what they're facing, and the iranian challenge that they face just across the water.

i don't think he helped himself very much on those relationships. >> that is true. he was tough on the bahraini government. lfs no next step. >> no next step. >> yeah. >> i don't understand that, and i wasn't quite sure given all that why we had the drumbeat and why this came up as sort of cairo 2. i wasn't quite sure in retrospect. i wasn't sure what was it they were trying to do here? what was the administration trying to accomplish in a speech? i couldn't quite get it. >> i think the answer is that the drumbeat began before the speech was written and after the speech was written, they said, oops, the drumbeat is too cloud, anyway. david, always enjoying chatting with you, and enjoy next time we're going to be talking about deficits, jobs, and the economic issues here at home. >> thank you. >> thanks a lot, david. all right. it was, indeed, a fascinating speech to listen to, and great rhetoric and wonderful principles, but the amazing thing is i don't think any of us sitting here today who watched it and have been watching the response to the speech know anything more today about what we will do in our foreign policy in libya, in syria, in even

yemen, or bahrain or certainly saudi arabia, so a speech that was brilliant in terms of putting a marker in the ground in terms of principles that guide our foreign policy, but i don't think we know yet how we're going to displace either assad or qadhafi. we'll be right back to have that conversation.