the driver failed to stay in his lane. no word yet on his condition. the police officer was not seriously injured. and that's it for us. we will see you back here at 10:00 eastern. >> keep it here. "smerconish" starts right now. this has been an extraordinary news week and there are new angles on all of the big stories. first t hack heard round the world. the u.s. says north korea is guilty even as they are now threatening sony with more cyber devastation. i'll talk to a smart guy, the former secretary of homeland security tom ridge. and what if big hollywood stars were sent a petition about the movie in question but nobody signed? that has george clooney fighting mad and lashing out at his showbiz colleagues. is it possible we'll see another bush in the white house? we might. if jeb bush is conservative

enough for fox news and rush limbaugh. my dinner. six hours i'll never forget. you won't believe what he said and didn't say about osama bin laden. that and much more so stick around. the fbi says that north korea is behind the massive hack of sony pictures. and it's all about seth rogen and his latest movie "the interview," the movie about a comedy about a cia plot to kill north korea's kim jong-un. what has happened in the last few days is deadly serious. there has been another e-mail threat against sony promising more cyber devastation if every trace of the movie isn't taken down. yesterday the president said sony was wrong. >> sony's a corporation, it suffered significant damage. there were threats against its

employees. i am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. having said all that, yes, i think they made a mistake. we cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the united states. because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary they don't like or news reports that they don't like. or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self censorship because they don't

want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. >> sony's ceo michael lynton responded to the president in a sit down with fareed zakaria. here is what he had to say. >> the president says sony made a mistake in pulling the film. did you make a mistake? >> no. i think actually the unfortunate part is in this instance the president, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened. we do not own movie theaters. we cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters. so, to sort of rehearse for a moment the sequence of events. we experienced the worst cyber attack in american history, and

persevered for 3 1/2 weeks under enormous stress and enormous difficulty, and all with the effort of trying to keep our business up and running and get this movie out into the public. when it came to the crucial moment when a threat came out from what was called the g.o.p. at the time, threatening audiences who would go to the movie theaters, the movie theaters came to us, one by one, over the course of a very short period of time, we were completely surprised by it, and announced that they would not carry the movie. at that point in time we had no alternative but to not proceed with the theatric release on the 25th of december. that's all we did. >> so you have not caved. >> we have not caved. we have not given in. we have not backed down. we have always had every desire

to have the american public see this movie. >> you can see more of fareed zakaria's interview at 10:00 a.m. sunday here on cnn. the feds say they know who hacked sony. the question is what should the united states do? it's a complex question. the cyber attack strikes at the heart of something we hold dear, freedom of speech. but make no mistake this was an attack, and it begs for a counter attack. the president says the u.s. will act. >> they caused a lot of damage. and we will respond. we will respond proportionally and will respond in a place and time and manner that we choose. it's not something that i will announce here today in a press conference. >> my view, we should give the north koreans a touch of their own medicine. the u.s. has a robust cyber warfare capability. let's use it. remember the virus that was let loose on the iranian facility

that produces you rain yam. we should use that against the north koreans, that's my opinion. tom ridge knows much more about this subject than i. he's the former governor of the great state of pennsylvania and served as the nation's first secretary of homeland security. governor, thanks for being here. what should be the response? >> i think you raise a couple of interesting points. let's take the unique relationship we have with the u.n., a diplomatic response. it's a dead end. economic response, no relationships. another dead end. certainly not a kinetic response. we're not going to launch a military attack to respond. we're really left to a cyber response, so i think give at any unique place that north korea is in the world and our estranged relationship with them, i would be i think the president's options are limited. and i think it has to be a cyber response but again, we'll just see what it is. i think there is a much bigger issue, frankly, that at some

point in time we have to say to ourselves we're going to do everything we can to protect and defend the country, but do we as a country now begin to draw a red line in the sand and say this is a new era of warfare, cyber war going on every day. if we can hold you -- if we can attribute an attack we want to hold you accountable so what are the consequences, not only to north korea but what's the doctrine, the strategy, what's the red line that we tell the rest of the world, the united states will not tolerate those digital attacks, digital incursions into the united states of america be it toward our government enterprise or private enterprise. >> i'm not surprised to hear you say that this demands a firm response, both because i know you but also because of annie say you wrote it's time to shake off shadow of neville chamberlain and confront the bully s. this the situation where the u.s. you expect will take some action but never announce what it was and

frankly, never even acknowledge that they did it, much like the israelis? >> i think that's a possibility. i do think that the president's options are quite limited. it's not as if economic sanctions would work. we're certainly not going to the u.n. and complain. he's limited to some kind of cyber response. and whether or not he chooses to announce that i'll leave that up to the discretion of the president. but i think his options are limited. more importantly whatever they are he has to use one and it has to be significant. there have to be consequences to this direct brutal attack against private enterprise in the u.s. of america if they were offended by our freedom of speech so be it. if you are easily offended we understand but it doesn't warrant this kind of destruction of our intellectual property and in a -- the internet may not have borders but we do. we have a value system. you controls our borders and try to undermine our value system we respond. >> knowing what you know of the global picture is it your hunch

that the north koreans acted alone or had snans. >> it's interesting that you ask that. my first reaction michael, was this had to be an insider. i can't believe any country would be so thin skinned to be offended by what a comedy. i don't know how theread a comedic situation but somebody thought it was a good idea but again, this is unusual because the government itself has attributed the attack to another government. often we have revelations where private sector is called in by other entities, trace the digital network back to an offender and name a nation. my recollection we don't normally call out another country. in this instance we did. and since we called them throughout have to be consequences. >> the president said on friday he thinks that sony made a mistake. tom ridge think that sony made a mistake? >> i agree. they should have shown it whether the theaters, whether they were packed or -- they had

to remain open. i happen to agree. i think that if we are going to blink because someone threatens us because they don't like a point of view that we have expressed, then they have already won. it's a terrorist attack f. they intimidated us by a threat then it's a terrorist attack and they achieved the consequences that they sought initially and we don't sol rate that in the united states. we're more resill yanlt, bigger, stronger and i'm hopeful that the thopt he may have limited options uses one with the consequences are dire because it's not only a signal to north korea but we need to send a signal to our digital adversaries around globe. we'll do everything we can to protect and defend ourselves. that's our first instinct, our first mission. we also understand that we'll never be fail-safe. that there will be attacks and attackers that penetrate even the most sophisticated machine. under those circumstances there

needs to be an approach, a red line that says if this is what you do to us, and the consequences are such and such, you be prepared for responsive action. >> final question. i ask you this given that you were the first secretary of the department of homeland security. for a long time you've been sounding the alarm tryingsound the alarm about vulnerability to cyber attack. okay. in this instance it's the movie industry. what other sector of american life, government or private sector, does tom ridge most worry about? >> i think we've got multiple sectors but i think you do worry about the financial services sector, energy, telecommunications, transportation. they are all vital to us. at the end of the day you can imagine the disruption of the financial payment system, attacks on the grid, so they are all potentially vulnerable in the digital. the digital sun is never going to set. the heat's going to get stronger and hotter in the years and the

decades ahead so and it's going to be more complex, the adversaries are getting more sophisticated. that's all the more reason for this president to send a message not only to north korea but the broader global community. you attack us, we can attribute to you, there will be consequences. hopefully the consequences strong enough it will be a deterrent to future attacks. >> governor ridge, thank you as always for your time. >> great pleasure. nice being with you. >> what is north korea trying to accomplish with this mother of a all hacks and willing to expose themselves to the retribution of the most powerful nation on earth. my next guest, gordon change the author of nuclear showdown. north korea takes on the worldment he is also a columnist for the daily beast. good to have you. "30 rock," team america, all examples of north korea being butt of jokes that didn't draw this reaction.

what is it about a stoner movie, a seth rogen film, that you think so incensed the north koreans? >> a couple things at work. if irs i think north korean regime is more insecure than it was in the past. something is going to get their attention. it was "the interview." this is a story about the assassination of the north korean leader and this, if it were known in north korea this were possible, might inspire people. >> copy cats. >> certainly copy cats. what they were worried about was not the release in the u.s. because north koreans don't go to an amc in omaha, but south korean activists were talking about taking dvds, putting them in balloons, lofting those across the demilitarized zone and then having north korean citizens watch them. i think that was something that at this time of insecurity, that is what got their attention.

>> that assumes capability on the foort have a dvr player to be able to watch it. i want to ask gordon something else. the level of sophistication of this attack really surprised me. i don't mean the technical aspects, i mean the street smarts for lack of a better description, for whoever was responsible to know okay, they got this treasure-trove of e-ma e-mail, to know what to release, that would get the most attention in the american media and around the globe. did you think about that? >> there are two things. i think that is something important and one of the things here is that the north koreans are very bold. and so i think that they have a good handle on us. we say that this is an isolated hermit kingdom. they are clued in. they see us as their primary adversary. they want to know what makes us tick. i'm not surprised in a sense they knew that. there was a technical expertise beyond what most thought north korea could do. the northh korean, there is

evidence that the chinese were involved on attacks on season sew clearly the north koreans were up to speed and doing state of the art work. >> an example of what i'm thinking of. the art of war aspect of this. clooney said that he thinks that the racially tinged e-mails were the first to be released, so that there wouldn't be folks rushing to the support of sony once this issue got out. nobody wanted to be associated with that so why are we going to speak in support. do you think that they were so sophisticated. the north koreans that said okay, we've got this, what are we going to drop first. go with the race card. >> i think so. north koreans talk about race. they say they are the purest race, and this is very important for them. they understand our race relations to a greater extent than we think they do. as i said i'm not surprised that they were able to take the most inflammatory portions of the e-mail and release that.

they are very good at this. remember, propaganda is really been the forte of the kim family. from 1948 since the founding of the north korean state. >> are we limited because we know so little about them, because dennis rodman is the only american we can rely on for insights about this guy? >> i don't think we're limited. i think there are a number of things we can do beyond a cyber attack. we know that the north korean regime depends on flows of money. if we cut them off we've seen what happens. in 2005 when the bush administration put financial sanctions in place it affected the regime. there are things. we are not without tools in this area. and especially with regard to the sale of ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons technology, that the north koreans sell to the iranians with china's help. we cut that off that would have a big effect on the ejeem. then the ruler wouldn't have the support of the other people. >> final question. i asked this of secretary ridge,

i'll ask it of gordon change. the chinese, think they were vofrled? >> definitely were involved. those were routed tli chinese ip addresses. china has the great fire wall t most sophisticated controls nobody could have been able to do this without china's knowledge. got to remember that north korea's most sophisticated cyber attackers are not in north korea, they are in the chinese city of schenn yong. some think that they were involved. so china one way or another was complicit. >> nice to have had you here. i had you on the radio. thanks for your expertise. >> thank you. >> we'll take a short break. if the north koreans did this to sony what else can they do? a former fbi cyber security expert joins me next. the holiday season is here,

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cyber terrorism it's a scary word particularly the terrorism part. finding the people responsible and stopping them is no easy task. when it comes to the cyber part, it's even harder. one man who knows how hard it is is sean hennry, the president of crowd strike services and a former fbi executive assistant director who oversaw computer crime investigations all over the world. shawn, do you think the north koreans have the capability to do this themselves? >> well, i think they do, only because i don't know that these types of attacks are as complicated as many people seem to believe that they are. we see lots of organizations, i worked -- when i was in the bureau overseeing thousands of hacks into major organizations, i worked in hundreds of them with crowd strike. it's not that hard to get into many of these networks.

because they are so broad, so vast, the adversaries are developing new capabilities but a government like north korea, they have got training, they have resources, they have got intent and when they are developing their skills, as they are as other nation states are attacks like this are not that difficult. >> is there an element of this that is reminiscent of the nuclear era, the cold war era of mushlly assured destruction, mad, that if competing powers start releasing information against one another and maybe not the north koreans, maybe they don't give a damn but the chinese t russians f we all started playing this game we could take one another down, therefore we don't do it. >> i think you are absolutely right. i think that we need to look at this as a weapon of mass destruction or nuclear deterrence, that type of issue where nation states need to sit down and discuss with each other what's acceptable and what's not. you know, the networks that we're talking about, the entire

globe benefits from the value of that technology. the effectiveness and the value that it's brought to our lives. it's at risk quite honestly. the networks are fragile and if there is this perception that it's okay to target networks, to take them down, disrupt them, destroy them, that will pretty quickly i think escalate to a point of no return. i've got some concerns about that. >> this is a private sector attempt, private sector successful attempt at hacking, is the government generally speaking the american government, more or less prepared than major u.s. corporations to deal with something like this? i ask you because shawn, i'm saying if it could happen to sony could it happen to the defense department, to the transportation department, could it happen to the white house? >> honestly it does. there are many u.s. government agencies that have been breached over the years, and it is a concern shared by all infrastructure. i think the government has different capabilities in terms of intelligence that they collected that enables them to

perhaps better protect their network but this is a shared responsibility. the private sector and the government have got to work together in a collaborative way to protect the networks. the private sector owns the majority of the networks and the government honestly is not in a position, i don't know most understand, they are not blocking traffic. they are not filtering out malicious traffic so the private sector, the responsibility falls to them. they are obligated to protect their networks because the government's not in position right now to actually filter that out. >> final question. how good could we be if we wanted to be in doing the same thing? >> well, you know, the u.s. government has technical capabilities for sure. i think this is an area where we've got to be talking to nation states like china, like russia, and having candid discussion what is those red lines are. if you cross this is what the reper suggestions are going to be. we have to do it now. >> sean hennry, thanks for your

expertise. a quick break. when we come back with the cancellation of "the interview" are we americans letting north korea's dictator decide what movies we're going to watch? if so the real loser is the concept of freedom of speech. and for many, it's a struggle to keep your a1c down. so imagine, what if there was a new class of medicine that works differently to lower blood sugar? imagine, loving your numbers. introducing once-daily invokana®.

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the cyber attack on sony takes us into unchartered waters. we're familiar with hacks against businesses, target, jpmorgan chase and others. those were criminal attacks looking for credit card information and putting it up for sale. the chinese are reported to have hacked looking for commercial and military information, but this sony attack is different. it's really blackmail. aimed at silencing someone or something. this time the target is a movie, a comedy premised on assassination plot for north korean leader kim jong-un. i question the green lighting of a movie based on the assassination after sitting world leader even a dictator, but having produced the film, sony should have released it and defied the hacker. george clooney sent out a petition to the powerful people in hollywood saying they were standing with sony but nobody would sign it.

clooney is furious over the cyber attack. we cannot be told we can't see something by kim june an of all f-ing people. i want to talk about this with jeff greenfield, a pbs contributor and joins me from california. george clooney also said that the press had abdicated its responsibility in covering this issue thus far. you agree with that? >> i think the hollywood industry, i think the government, i think the press in its initial coverage, missed the fundamental point that this was a disastrous attack. and i'm not usually given to overstatement but in its own way this was the cyber version of 9/11, both in the completely out of the blue nature of what happened, and more significant to me in the fear that it engendered, not just in sony but among the hollywood industry and

i think beyond. i think the fact that not one person would sign that petition that george clooney and a colleague signaled is an indication of the same kind of response in the first days after 9/11. if this could happen anything could happen. if it could happen in new york, it could happen anywhere in america. and i think we're still living with the consequences of 9/11. and i think in this case, the ability of i guess we now are pretty sure north korea, to strip every element of privacy and every element of confidentiality out of a major global corporation should have been met with a response of cyber equivalent, i think the entire hollywood community should have signed on to co-distribute this movie. it should have been on demand everywhere, it could have been on demand, and i also think we should have tried to figure out apart from a variation some way assuming anybody in north korea has a television to boom this into north korea. i think this had to be met with

a firmest possible response and i think instead it was look at these funny e-mail, these embarrassing disclosures. i think we're going to pay for this unless there is a relatively rapid and really firm response. >> nerpds, we got caught we in the needia got caught up in the details of this, without recognizing the big picture harm that it posed. >> absolutely. look. we live in an age, and i think we have for a very long time, it gets more obvious with every new kind of media, that people love this stuff. we like to see important people, powerful people, famous people, brought low. and there is nothing that i don't think by the way there is much anybody can do about this because there are no gate keepers. we don't -- we're decades away from a time if a certain number of people in the press say we're not going to run this it never was seen.

that's long in the past. but yeah, i think the way you put it is right. this is fun, and it's only dawning on us in the last day or two that far from being fun, this is a threat to everybody. i don't think people have read deeply enough into what was hacked. it isn't just embarrassing e-mail, it's the most intimate medical records of sony staffers and officials, things that their children were going through that were leaked. if that's the world we're going to be living in, it's going to be a much less free and less civilized world. that's why i think this had to be met in the strongest possible terms where the response said no, we're not only going to exceed, we are going to make it worse. make sure that five times as many people see what seems to be a fairly silly movie than would have in the first place. >> let me ask you a question of ongoing media ethics. what should the media now do

about information gleaned from the stolen correspondence. have i three examples in mind. the first is that it was reported that angelina jolie was defamed by someone relative to her talent. i'm sure you and i would agree that's a matter of gossip. that should not have entered the public lexicon. but what of the two other examples. the racially tinged e-mails, is there an argument that says if they are about the head of a big corporation, you've got to publish that. what about the report that came out this week that at the state department they viewed this movie in the summer and quote unquote cleared it. when there are matters of public concern but we know about them only because they were in stolen e-mails, should we in the media discuss them? >> anybody who says they have a text book answer to your question i think is either lying or delusional. these are never decided -- these are never decided in broad categories. i think the examples you gave are telling.

donald sterling was strip of the clippers ownership because a girlfriend of his i believe i'm right, taped a phone call. chris rock -- chris rock, who is emerging as one of the smartest social commentators and the funniest made the point of that was a free speech problem. but it was important, what overrode that the idea of an nba owner harboring racist sentiments that's in the public due main. the problem i have is not with your category. it's just that it's -- you're being king kanut here. there is no way to say to the world that includes defamer and gawker and i don't even -- tmz and all of the others, that angelina jolie's -- >> is off limits. >> whatever. is not going to get out there. if people you know, if you learn, i don't mean you personally, if people learn that there are hacked photos, nooud

photos of celebrities, you think that to a man and woman people are going to say well, i could get that with a click but it's unworthy of me. >> right. tough calls. >> i wish we lived in that worldment we don't. >> me too. jeff, thank you as always. appreciate you being here. >> okay, michael. >> lots more still ahead. jeb bush exploring a presidential bid f. he does run, where will he stand with republican party base and how would he likely fare in the crucial iowa caucuses? plus, what i learned about fidel castro when i met him. it's help immediate form an opinion about president obama's decision to resume full diplomatic relations with cuba. . thank you for being my hero and my dad. military families are uniquely thankful for many things, the legacy of usaa auto insurance could be one of them. if you're a current or former military member or their family,

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...guaranteed! ♪ sleep train ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪ like it or not the 2016 presidential race is under way. jeb bush the former governor of florida took everybody by surprise announcing he is exploring a run for the white house. other potential republican candidates such as kentucky senator rand paul, new jersey governor chris christie made it clear they are seriously considering a presidential bid but for the past few months bush seemed to hem and haw leaving many to wonder if he had the fire in the belly to take a crack at the gop nomination. he put those doubts to rest. i think it's a smart move with regard to the timing. and i'm glad he's got a full foot in the water. jeb bush caught everybody off

guard sending a message that he would be a serious candidate. that could position him well to get the support of establishment republicans, who have seen their party hijacked to the far right and fearful that the white house will be out of reach if the gop doesn't start fielding more mainstream candidates. i think he could be a formidable candidate in a general election. the big question of course could bush survive the long primary season. robert costa is the national political reporter for "the washington post." robert, could someone supportive of common core and immigration reform capture the gop nomination? >> i think there certainly is a possibility that jeb bush, even with his problems with the republican base, could find a path to nomination. i was in iowa this week, and i sat down with conservatives, with moderates and party officials, and they said bush may not win a place like iowa but he could win, place or show and do well in new hampshire and other states where they are looking for a winner in the general election. >> what is his announcement, it

wasn't announcement but warming to the idea of running. what does it mean for chris christie and mitt romney? >> the timing of governor bush's announcement is significant. in a political sense it boxes out governor christie, and governor romney who need to props shorten their timeline and make decisions. jeb bush is moving fast with donors. he had meetings in chicago and florida. starting to put together an operati operation. that's going to put pressure on all contenders especially those looking for the same establishment money. >> nate silver did something interesting. i'm going to put it up in two parts. he tried to fit jeb bush into an ideal ojle spectrum. in fact there you can see page 1 may be on your screen. chris christie he pins as the most moderate of the entire field, he's got jeb somewhere between george herbert walker bush and suzannea martinez.

at the other end of the spectrum if we go to page two you see ronald reagan in the middle, robert. and then barry goldwater furthest to the right with rand paul, michele bachmann and scott walker. my question for robert costa. do we know enough about jeb to know where he would fit on an ideallogical spectrum? >> you look at that you have to look really at what he did as governor of florida. it's easy to look at governor bush's mild manner, his temperament and cast him as a moderate. when it comes to how he approaches his rhetoric he has more of a moderate temperament. he was a deeply conservative governor of florida, a popular person with home schooler, education reform with charter schools, did a lot to be pro business. that's what his camp are trying to remind conservatives of. he was a conservative when he was governor. even nouf if he doesn't have the ted cruz personality. >> a blank slate on foreign policy.

a governor. >> he is. he is closely associated on a personal level with former secretary of state rice. he consults with her. beyond that he is a blank slate. that's one area he has to define himself 18 party at war now, between the hawks and doves t rand paul wing, where does push fit. >> robert, as always thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> who was the mystery man who carried to his grave the story of his generosity to the most desperate. we'll tell you next.

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81 years ago this week the week before christmas, 1933. it was the depth of the great depression in canton, ohio, unemployment at 50%. when folks looked in the local paper they saw an unusual ad offering modest help to people in need. those in despair were encouraged to write to a benefactor. hundreds of requests poured in. some sought money for themselves and their family.

now her family making 40 cents and added we're in debt. the they had four children, quote, they all need shoes and clothes and charles who was 7, needs an overcoat. she mentioned that her spouse would not permit her to seek assistance for clothes hence her p.s., i decided to write without telling my husband. others sought assistance for friends, some wanted only loans. a few admitted brushes with the law. the mystery man then sent 150 checks for $5 each, about $90 by today standards and many then wrote beautiful thank yous. he carried his identity to his grave. enter ted guff, a professor and formerly investigative reporter for "the washington post." he is also the author of "the secret gift" and joins us from boston. ted, who was the donor? >> the donor turns out was my

grandfather, and the name beaver dott was a combination of his three daughters' names. barbara, virginia, my mother, and dots or dorothy. the three girls and my grant father combined to come up with this anonymous donor. >> how did you become aware of this entire act of friendship and generosity? >> my mother had her 80th birthday and we surprised her, took her to dinner and after she said she had a gift for me. it was an old suit case. she took me to her attic and hand immediate this beat up suit case. she had no idea what was in it except old papers. so i took it and several days later opened it. i found hundreds of letters all of them dated december 18th, 1933, all of them addressed to beaver dot. i had no idea what i was looking at. and i put them away and a few days later i looked again and eventually i found a newspaper

clipping from the canton resuppository identifying this gift and i put it together that the anonymous beaver dot was my grandfather, sam stone. >> sam stone was jewish, this was a christian community and he chose to do this in the christmas season. why? >> very good question, michael. i think he did it for several reasons, one is although everyone in the community assumed that this was a good christian, the secret santa, he was the son of orthodox jews, he had escaped romania and 1933 as you'll remember was the year that adolf hitler came to power. i think that having walked out of romania with the clothes on his back and rejected by country after country, and having witnessed what was going on in the old world in germany, i think that he felt enormous debt of gratitude to his christian

neighbors for welcoming him to this new land. >> the secret zbift a fascinating story, a great book. you have done him a mitzfah for writing it. when we come back my time with fidel castro. talking about osama bin laden and his offer to help the victims of 9/11. stick around. wagesign-then-drive event. right now, for practically just your signature, you could drive home for the holidays in a new volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta and the precisely engineered passat tdi. ah, the gift of clean diesel. for the new volkswagen on your list this year, just about all you need, is a pen. festive, isn't it? get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on select new volkswagen models. sea captain: there's a narratorstorm cominhe storm narrator: that whipped through the turbine which poured... surplus energy into the plant

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welcome back to the program. this week of course president obama announced the reestablishment of relations with a country that's been our enemy for half a century. and i thought to myself, it's about time. i have long believed this was the right thing to do ever since i went to cuba and participated in a formal meeting and dinner with fidel castro. the year was 2002, i was a columnist for the philadelphia daily news and i got a call from the late senator arlen specter who said to me, m-m michael, how would you like to go with me to cuba and meet fidel castro. which is how i find mous four

months after 9/11 asking castro to publicly condemn the terror attack against the united states. he launched into the ten minute discourse and ultimately condemned who was responsible. and then made a statement that was a approximate bit offensive. cuba made the first statement against any terrorism. he said that america never acknowledged his offers. but he didn't condemn bin laden, claiming not to know definitively who was responsible. and when i countered that bin laden had taken credit on a video, he said i can't judge a person based upon a videotape. i asked about the al qaeda prisoners at guantanamo bay and he said we're willing to cooperate with americans on relevant measures. it was the one time i saw him refer to a preferred statement. later in the evening he crossed had room to seek me out and ask

if he'd given a satisfactory answer to my bin laden question. i made clear he hadn't. at wasn't point senator specter asked why cuba didn't have free and fair election. and he replied oh you mean like you had in the year 2,000. he fully understood that anyone running for president needed to court florida, and to do so meant appealing to the then monolithic cuban american voters. and he acknowledged how the embargo was a unifier among his people. he criticized the embargo and claimed he wanted it dismantled but i wasn't so sure. i believe then and still posit that it provided him with a ready answer to any complaint about cuban life, namely it was the fault of the americans and their foreign policy. beyond the substance there were plenty of surprises like the christmas tree in our hotel loeb

lobby. the coca-cola in the mini bar. and cnn in the rooms. i did not find castro to be a central casting communist. he spoke with conviction, but not slogans and ideology and the surrounded by a kcadre of young. i peeked through the i do into his private office and noted had presence of a desk top computer. and later watched him thumb through a stack of 300 pages of the news clips published that day in america all concerning cuba. i viewed the evening as the once in a lifetime opportunity survey a world leader but my takeaway would be better served without

him at the helm. cubance enjoyed a third world existence just ninety miles from florida. this they would be best served by new cuban leadership has never been a question for me at least it's been 14 years but finally an american president who faces no more elections has taken the appropriate initiative. in the process he's removed from the castro brothers their boogeyman. it will be interesting to see how this plays out. but one thing is certain. it can't be more of a failure than we've had for the last 54 years. my special moment with another guy, stephen colbert. and all the other people sharing the love as he moves from the colbert report to the late show. >> the average person will probably drink something that is acidic on a daily basis. the acids may over time ware the e nominal

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is it shmer or just smer. >> smerconish. it's phonetic. >> hey so what is in a name anyway? that was a special moment for me. and i'm always remember what he said to me before the show. he took the pressure off me saying hey i'm the village idiot. so you don't have to be. it was fun.

and congratulations to what you have done and what you are about to bring to late night television. all the best. and thank you for joining me. don't forget you can follow on twitter if you can spell smerconish. north korea says we were framed. now the secretive nation is blaming america after that sony hack attack. that you are bizarre new attack and to the u.s. >> and you think you have been an rough lights. wait until you see the week of wild rides in the sky. ooh.