first time the faa has ever allowed a drone to be used for news gathering. i think it is significant because television cameras and reporters played such a pivotal role on that bridge on that bloody sunday. they were truly the eyes and ears for the country, truly bearing witness and forcing you at home to bear witness, too. pictures matter and what we do in pictures matters as well. now i'm out of time now. but stay tuned. "state of the union" starts right now. chaos and confusion on mh flight 370 and heavy blowback over hillary clinton's e-mails. this is "state of the union." >> this is cnn breaking news. good morning from washington. i'm michael smerconish. coming up, i have the first television interview with a u.s. ambassador who thinks he was fired, in part, for doing what hillary clinton did. but first, breaking news on malaysia airline flight 370 which vanished exactly one year ago today. richard quest, a report has just been issued.

please give us the very latest. >> reporter: this is the report, michael. there are hundreds of pages in it. no major new revelations. nothing that will necessarily tell us what happened in the cockpit or, indeed, where the plane for certain actually is, but we do know, for instance, that they are more satisfied that the pilot, the captain involved have no mental instability. he was not anxious. he had no family or domestic problems. so that rules out that as a potential cause. we also know that on the night there was an enormous amount of radar confusion between the different areas, between ho chi minh city and kuala lumpur. and finally, michael, we are starting to see just how long this search and rescue took to get under way as a result of people going backwards and forwards, an inability to locate the plane or to, indeed, realize they were watching the plane fly

back across malaysia. chaos and confusion in many cases. certainly it could have been done better. >> one follow-up. cnn viewers will remember when a year ago it seemed that the search was triangulated by pings that were being heard by searchers. is the assumption today that none of those sounds were actually coming from mh-370's black boxes? >> reporter: the so-called underwater beacons, the pings, they tell us according to the paperwork, the batteries on one of them, the flight data recorder, had actually expired. that might have been a technicality and may not be true but it shows the recordkeeping on that was poor. but to the gem of your question, or the germ of it, yes. we don't know why. they've never said why they actually thought it was the pings and what it really was, but it was a complete wild goose chase. it was not the pings. >> thank you, richard quest.

and now was a u.s. ambassador fired when, like hillary clinton, he used a private e-mail service? as hillary clinton looks set to make a 2016 run for the white house, she's facing growing questions about why she may have broken government rules by using her personal e-mail for official business while she was secretary of state. the controversy is being further fueled by new scrutiny of the firing of america's former ambassador to kenya, scott gration. he's a retired air force general. his support of barack obama's in 2008 was among the campaign's important endorsements. a report by the state department inspector general in 2012 cited gration using a private e-mail account for government business as one of many criticisms that rs forred him to resign from the job, all on hillary clinton's watch. that report said in part "the ambassador has lost the respect and confidence of the staff to lead the mission."

ambassador gration joins me from nairobi, kenya. mr. ambassador given that which has now been revealed about secretary clinton's use of a private e-mail account, in retrospect do you believe your firing represents a double standard? >> as i look back, it may have. as i was going through it i did not perceive that it was a double standard because i did not know of secretary clinton's use of a commercial e-mail account. but as i've reflected on it in the last couple of days, it does appear like there was a different standard that was used in my case and that has been used in hers. >> it occurs to me as i read the inspector general report pertaining to your tenure in office, and there was much more in this report than just e-mail, but there's also language that speaks to you being reluctant to accept clear-cut u.s. government decisions pertaining to, quote, the non-use of commercial e-mail for official government business. that's language that seemingly would apply to what she has

done. >> that's true. the language should apply to all of us since we're all in the state department. but i need to correct something. first of all, i would say that i was complying. i used the open net at work and in my residence, but at the same time i questioned some of the policy and tried to get some of it changed. and so i wasn't avoiding it. i wasn't flouting it. i wasn't being in non-compliance. but i did raise some serious questions about the use of commercial accounts because i thought that they were helpful to me in the course of my duties as the ambassador to kenya. >> and, again, what i'm trying to do, sir, is understand the parallels and differences between your case and secretary clinton's case. it occurs to me that the chief of staff for the department of state, cheryl mills, is the individual who fired you, again,

in part because of your use of a private e-mail account. do you presume that ms. mills would have known at the time she fired you that secretary clinton was herself using a private e-mail account? >> in the end we'll have to ask cheryl mills that question, but i would assume that she knew. secretary clinton and cheryl mills were in very close dialogue on all issues, and i know that in my view that she would have known that secretary clinton was not using the open net. so i do find it sort of unusual that she stated this was one of the reasons why i had to move on. and as i look back, it seems a bit unfair. >> let me just drill down on that one step further. presumably the secretary of state would have e-mail. secretary clinton would have e-mailed the chief of staff for the department of state, and to the extent such e-mails would

have taken place, then ms. mills would have seen she's communicating with me via a private e-mail account, not our department server. >> i see it the same way, but i was not there and these are questions that we'll have to ask cheryl mills, but certainly one could make that assumption and it seems very, very logical. >> finally, sir, you've had such a distinguished career, a career i should point out that included flying 274 combat missions in iraq. that public career has come to an end because of this issue and some other things, i've made that very clear. how does it make you feel to watch the news unfold with regard to secretary clinton knowing that this brought a stop to your public career? >> for me this is a dream job. it was a job where i felt i was making a significant difference in light of america's interests, what we were trying to do here, to protect americans. and to have that terminated over

some allegations that were in the end proven to be false, and i was exonerated. these claims were dismissed. to see this dream job of mine come to an end was very disappointing to me. and to now find out that in reality, other people in the department, to include my supervisors, were doing things differently and were looking the other way, i think that's hard. i didn't break any laws willfully. if i made mistakes, i apologize for those, but i don't believe i did anything wrong. and i can't speak the same for secretary clinton. other people have to make that decision. she'll have to work that out herself. >> mr. ambassador, thank you so much for joining us from nairobi. >> thank you very much, mike. i appreciate the opportunity. we invited the state department to send a representative to this program, they declined. we also contacted hillary clinton for reaction to mr.

gration's comments. a spokesman for her had this response. "all of the many reasons the department took their actions are well-documented in the department of state's inspector general report." i want to turn to bill schiff and republican congressman darrell issa, past chair of the house oversight committee. congressman issa, react to what you've just heard. >> well, i think that this double standard is worrisome, but more importantly, in his firing when they talked about confidence, integrity, ambassador records are seldom foia'd. seldom does the press and other groups under the freedom of information act ask for specific information. in this case in addition to the benghazi investigation which clearly would have wanted some of these communications,

countless freedom of information act requests, a lot of which have gone to the federal court, a lot of those documents have gotten into the public domain and we may never get many of them because we don't know what we don't know when it's on a server where the click of a button can delete records forever. >> ambassador gration, congressman schif, was fired for a number of issues. his firing was because of nonuse of commercial e-mail for official government business. here's an ambassador under the umbrella of the secretary herself, he gets canned for this. >> i want to be fair to the ambassador, but it's clear he was urged to resign for a number of reasons, most significantly his management style and the fact that the embassy staff lost confidence and it lacked cohesion. i think that was really the grav

min ofgrav gravemin of why he was let go. . if they want to make an issue of this, they can do it. the democratic national committee can make an issue out of jeb bush's use of a public personal server. whether it is consistent for him to criticize hillary clinton over that. what's not appropriate is for a taxpayer government committee, which is what we are, to be using our power, our subpoena to become an arm of the republican national committee. that's what happened this week and that is deeply disturbing. michael, we have the secretary's e-mails. she provided 55,000 pages of them to the state department. they provided the 900 pages relative to benghazi to us. we have looked at those. there is nothing at all corroborative of any of these conspiracy theories, any of the stand-down orders that mr. issa claims were issued. there's no evidence of that. and that i think is what we don't want to lose sight of. >> but congressman, isn't this a problem of control? in other words, you have that which she gave you so the decision has now been made further upstream in terms of what's being released to your committee as compared to a scenario where she would have

maintained two accounts, two phones, one to plan chelsea's wedding and to set up dental visits and the other for all her official business. when you make a request, here you go. it simply gets handed over. >> as a matter of law we have moved as of last year to a requirement that official e-mails be used for official business. we have to evaluate and consider the secretary under the law at the time. the law at the time was she could use her personal e-mail as long as she preserved it. given the fact that she provided 55,000 pages, she clearly did preserve her e-mails. in my view this was not provided in response to "the new york times" article or anything else. this was provided last year when a request went out from the state department to all former secretaries and she has given more records than any other prior secretary of state so she followed the law in place at the time and that's, i think, the relevant point. >> congressman issa, doesn't he have a point when he says jeb bush was using an account like that, colin powell was using an account like that. one other point if i might. yesterday i interviewed the

former head of litigation for the national archives, he said while he finds this extraordinary and highly unusual, there were no laws broken that he can see. >> well, the requirement to preserve is a requirement and expectation to preserve in government hands, not in your own hands. hillary clinton's statement that she met the requirement of preserving would be like somebody paying their income taxes five years late and saying but i kept the money on hand for that eventuality. the fact is that the ordinary practice a practice that goes back many many years, is that if you use a non-government e-mail you forward it to your official account or you print it out and that preserves them and it's left in government hands. she left office with her documents. that's not preserving for freedom of information discovery. the fact is, there were three subpoenas issued while i was chairman. some of these documents were clearly responsive to it. they were never produced.

2 1/2 years ago four brave men died in benghazi and in fact adam schiff is talking about spending money. one of the reasons there's a select committee is that we got doubletalk and false statements for years from this administration and the existence of these e-mails was hidden throughout the rest of her tenure and beyond. so did she comply with the public integrity requirement? no, she didn't. did she break a law for which there is a penalty? not really. but there's a difference between being open, transparent, honest and having public integrity and only when you get caught do you turn in documents. >> let me address this. >> finish up. >> we only have -- we only have the documents she gave us. that's not the basis. normally an inspector general searches through all documents to find which ones are appropriate. you don't necessarily -- >> let me allow congressman schiff to respond. as part of your response,

address this. hasn't this unforced error now allowed the, quote, benghazi issue to be transformed from something that only appeals to paths partisans, that is something that will dog her all the way through the 2016 race? >> first of all, to my colleague's point, the fact is from all prior secretaries of state from clinton back have maintained personal e-mail accounts. she was the first to submit them to the state department. let's not hold this secretary to a different standard than the other secretaries. colin powell has acknowledged that he used his personal e-mails. second, in terms of the benghazi investigation, we knew as of last summer that the secretary used the private e-mail account. this is not something new. we knew also that she was cooperating, she was giving us everything we asked for. nothing changed except that the pressure on the republican members of the committee this week became too great for them to resist from the stop hillary

pac people and the rnc people. they issued a subpoena for records we already have. now the secretary has called for those records to be made public. why isn't the chairman doing that? why aren't we doing that? the reason is, we've read them. there's nothing in them. now my colleague says how do we know we have them all? the reality is, if this secretary or anyone else e-mailed a stand-down order, as this mythical claim exists out there, there would be several people on the receiving end of that e-mail. there would be people at the pentagon, there would be people in the field who would have to receive that order. >> congressman -- >> there's no evidence. >> it makes me wonder. congressman issa, quickly, you can have the final word. it makes me wonder who is doing the screening. if you have 50,000 pages. she's not sitting there with the former president in the rec room going through everything. who are these people? what kind of clearance do they have? there are a whole host of questions. take a quick final comment? >> trey gowdy the chairman and

adam schiff have two things in common. they served in the u.s. attorney's office. a subpoena which trey gowdy issued is so that in fact it will be a crime if she knowingly withholds documents pursuant to subpoena. he needed to do that because she wasn't forthcoming 2 1/2 years ago. she, in fact, hid the very existence of this until she was caught. the fact that they knew in august -- >> michael, quick rebuttal -- >> there's no more time. >> no need to issue a subpoena last year. >> there was every need for a subpoena. >> no need because she has provided the documents we asked for. the only reason to give a subpoena for documents you have if you want to politically grandstand or make a political presidential issue. that's the only reason to do that with her cooperation. >> adam, i'd love to see your history of that. >> i wish we had more time. thank you. when we come back, does the e-mail controversy spell trouble for hillary clinton and the

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you know, our constitution is being shredded. we know about the secret wiretaps. we know about the secret military tribunals. the secret e-mail accounts. >> that was hillary clinton in 2007 slamming members of the bush administration for their use of a private internet domain. with me now, lanny davis, white house special counsel during the clinton administration and s.e. cupp cnn political commentator. i want to put up the tweet that

was september out by secretary clinton pertaining to this controversy. i want the public to see my e-mail. i asked state to release them. they said they will review them for release as soon as possible. i am convinced -- you may have attended the yale law school with her, but she never read your book because your book was all about telling it early, telling it all, telling it yourself. she's not doing in he of that. >> i could have added better late than never though. this is the right move. she could have done it in 2013 and no one would be talking about it today. but she is the first secretary of state. others have used private e-mails e-mails, but she is the first one to say i want the public to read it. and she's ready for that to happen. so i think it is a good move. if it had been done earlier it would have followed my advice. >> you told me yesterday when i asked you the why question, you said convenience. did your phone ring last night? were you asked to rein that in or is that the answer? >> so i'm glad you reminded everyone that i'm a friend of hillary clinton's for a large number of years. since law school. and i i am speaking for myself.

but i have an observation it was for convenience. the same reason why -- i'm not saying it is the same thing -- that jeb bush for eight years used his private e-mail account and server. nothing wrong with what he did. colin powell. i think it is convenience. i think it is wanting to preserve some access to your own e-mails and be able to know who's going to be looking at it or not. but right now she's completely exposed. it will have to be verified at the state department. they say you gave us 55,000, we want to see what else is there. she's now open to complete verification so the issue of whether it can be trusted or not i think she's now said i want everybody to read what i've given you. of course, the state department can ask for more. >> how will we know what she hasn't given us? that's the problem. >> is it the glass half empty analysis? this isn't about convenience, it's about control. >> sure. >> she's in the complete power seat of deciding what's going to come out. >> exactly. it makes you wonder -- it makes you question the way government responds to hillary clinton, right? no one at the state department,

no one in her inner circle, no one in the white house said even just to spare yourself a future headache get yourself a dot gov e-mail address. it makes you wonder if maybe she's become a little bit too big, a little too powerful if no one says maybe you're getting in your own way. maybe this will come back to haunt you. >> it's a very fair point, s.e., and i don't say they're the same, but you have too wonder after eight years and 3 million e-mails why jeb bush kept his wonder after eight years and 3 million e-mails why jeb bush kept his own server and why they didn't say the same thing to him? he has cherry-picked what he's distributed. >> agreed. >> i agree with both of you, she has to now be subject to verification. no one can take her word or her staff's word. she's now open to that. the subpoenas have already been issued. she will have no choice but to respond. the state department might ask for more. verification transparency is the end of what is a legal -- we

both agreed yesterday with the expert. she -- everything she did was legal. she followed the regulations. the law changed in 2014. now it's a crisis management. >> the optics are terrible. s.e., i want to show everybody what you wrote in your "new york daily news" column. let lanny see this as well. you said there are two possibilities, either clinton was told these were bad ideas and she ignored the advice or no one around her had the temerity to tell her the truth. either way, this is very, very bad not only for hillary's presidential aspirations but for her to be an effective public servant answerable to all rather than accountable to none. when i read that, the worst critic of the clintons would have to admire their intellect. they are very bright individuals. i'm sure this was done with a great deal of thinking and your point is that somebody should have reined them in saying you're making a bad mistake. >> for her own good. right. to preserve her future potential as a candidate. the problem is she's become too big to fail. she's become an institution with

so many investors who want her to succeed. over 30 years that no one's telling her, this is going to be bad for you. i'm on your side. help yourself. >> we got the guy to ask. is there an emperor has no clothes problem with her? >> no. >> people say, this is goofy. why are you doing this? >> i think wisdom is in hindsight. honestly i know i won't be surprising you that this is much ado about nothing. we had a lot of headlines and a lot of feckless comments with all due respect, such as yours, with something called white water. three years later, $70 million, nothing. this is a big nothing. >> this is a problem when people like lanny or david brock or her friends tell you that the sky is green or when you can see that the sky is blue, this does her no favors. to pretend that she is the victim of a republican smear campaign or the media, let that sink in for a minute. i think that does her a huge

disservice. that will be the campaign mantra for her presidential campaign any time somebody asks a valid question? bad news for her. >> i didn't say that and i don't agree it is a smear campaign but i do think it is analogous to white water. >> thank you both for being here. appreciate your time as always. fallout from israeli prime minister netanyahu's speech to congress. i'll ask israel's ambassador to the u.s. if the u.s./israeli relationship is being redrawn along politically partisan lines. how ya doing buddy? ...portland! what are you doing down here in san francisco? lets get you back home, huh. hi, i brought your dog back. oh, they just moved to san francisco last week. san francisco! the jetta tdi clean diesel with up to 667 highway miles per tank. hurry in and you can get a $1,000 volkswagen credit bonus on a 2015 jetta tdi clean diesel. visit vw.com today.

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the reviews of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's speech to congress about iran this past week depend on whom you asked. republicans uniformly praised his address while president obama and some democrats in congress were critical of the prime minister's remarks. ron dermer the israeli ambassador to the united states thank you so much for being here. do you wish in retrospect when speaker boehner extended this invitation to you for the prime minister that you said to him, hey, i think we better loop in the white house? >> hindsight is 20/20. we regret very much that there was a perception of partisanship before the speech. that was the last thing we wanted to do was inject israel into your partisan political

debate. israel has always been above politics. it's important for the u.s./israeli alliance that it remain clear. >> was the invitation speaker boehner's idea or your idea? >> speaker boehner called me and i assumed that he was going to inform the white house. he did, but he did it only a couple hours before. i hope that now we can get beyond the protocol, beyond the politics and we can talk a little bit about the substance because it's a serious issue. >> we will do that. one other question. i watched the footage of this protest in tel aviv yesterday. it seemed like tens of thousands of people came together in opposition to the government. do you worry that prime minister netanyahu may lose his position because of the blowback to this visit? >> look, we have a vibrant democracy in israel. we'll have an election in ten days. there are rallies on all sides. like any healthy democracy has. we'll allow the israeli voters to vote ten days from now. it's a right that we have in israel that unfortunately many of our neighbors do not have. >> some have noted that the prime minister did not use the word zero in his comments to the

congress, his comments, perhaps leaving open the door that he's willing to find acceptable some number of centrifuges. are we reading the speech too carefully if we come to that conclusion or is that fair? >> we're not in the negotiating room. the leading powers of the world are the ones who are negotiating with iran. israel does not have a vote. we do have a voice. the prime minister used that voice very effectively on tuesday. what he was telling the leading powers of the world, he said, look, the deal that's currently on the table is a very bad deal. in order to make that deal a better deal you have to extend the break outtime which means to leave iran with less infrastructure. the second thing is you have to link the removal of restrictions on iran's nuclear program to a change in iran's behavior. they have to stop their aggression in the region, stop terrorism around the world and stop threatening to destroy israel. if you link that together then we can be sure that when those restrictions are removed iran is a different country and won't

won't be the same country as it is today. >> at the end of his remarks, the prime minister said that paraphrasing the days of israeli passivity are over and that israel is prepared to stand alone. i watched and i wondered -- is he saying that if a deal is negotiated that he personally finds unacceptable that israel will launch a first strike against an iranian nuclear capability? >> what he's saying is israel always reserves the right to defend itself. we have in iran a regime that threatens israel with annihilation and that works every day in order to destroy israel. they have surrounded israel with three terror tentacles in the north in lebanon through hezbollah, on the syrian golan they have a couple of thousand of iranians who are there now through hamas and islamic jihad. in gaza. you have these three terror tentacles around israel and iran is vowing to annihilate israel and we cannot accept a situation where iran would develop a nuclear weapon to achieve that goal.

understand, it's not just a threat to israel, it's a threat to the region and it's a threat to the world. what's interesting, michael, is israelis and arabs are on exactly the same page when it comes to the issue. when israelis and arabs are on the same page, people should pay attention. that happens been once a century. >> thank you very much. we appreciate you being here. up next, a new justice department report offers new disturbing details about racism in ferguson, missouri's police department. former attorney general alberto gonzalez on the government's blistering findings and what it can do to make ferguson right. that's next.

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don't be old fashioned. xfinity customers add xfinity home for $29.95 a month for 12 months. plus for a limited time, get a free security camera call 1800 xfinity or visit comcast.com/xfinityhome. the subject of race in america came full circle this week with the 50th anniversary of the selma march for voting rights and a scathing new justice department report on ferguson. joining me now is alberto gonzalez who served as president george w. bush's attorney general and is now the dean of the belmont university law school. first off, great to see your boss in selma yesterday with the former first lady. i thought that was appropriate. >> i do, too. president bush is really someone who believes very strongly in building relations with the people in this very, very diverse country.

i think that sent a very powerful message to have him there as well. >> general, with regard to ferguson, we've all seen the data. i want to put it up on the screen for the cnn audience if we might, how 67% of ferguson is comprised of african-americans yet 85% who are pulled over for car stops are african-american, 93% arrested are african-american. another data set, 95% of those african-americans who have a citation are charged with walking in the roadway. 94% of those charged with a failure to comply are african-american. here's my question for you, is there any benign, nondiscriminatory explanation for this data, such as economics? >> not to the percentage that we're seeing here, that's why the numbers are very troubling to me, and i believe that the department of justice was correct in raising this as a civil rights violation system

wide in the police department and in municipal courts in ferguson. so i believe that this is something that needs to be -- has been identified as a major problem and now a corrective action needs to take place. >> do you wonder, general, if we went to police department anywhere, u.s.a., if we would find a similar finding? >> i would hope not quite honestly. we obviously made significant progress in race relations since selma, and there are a number of -- i don't want us to paint with such a broad brush in terms of what happened in ferguson that we ignore the very positive work that's being done by police departments and community leaders all across the nation, but we still have racial problems in this country. that's why we have civil rights laws, that's why we have a civil rights department at the department of justice to address these kinds of issues. it's important for people to understand that our laws can't change people's hearts. our laws can't change people's behavior. it's going to take grace, communication and understanding before we change people's hearts.

i'm hopeful we can do that soon. we're making progress. i'm hopeful this country will have a leadership to take us there. >> how do you rate attorney general holder's response to the situation in ferguson and his handling of this case? >> i think he received some criticism from the fact that he went there and raised hopes about civil rights prosecution. the department of justice, the feds were invited into that community after the shooting of michael brown occurred and i think his presence there, general holder's presence there sent a soothing message to all of the very raw feelings in that community. i don't fault him for that. the only concern i might have is, again, acknowledgment that all around the country every day police officers put their lives on the line irrespective of the color of the victim and the person that may be involved in committing the crime. we need to acknowledge the fine work that is ongoing but we need to understand that more work needs to be done. >> i agree with you.

an irony of this particular case. but for the shooting and killing of mike brown, we wouldn't know what we know about ferguson and yet in that particular instance, police officer darren wilson will not be charged by virtue of the conclusion reached by the attorney general's office. >> not only by the attorney general's office, but also by the grand jury there on the ground. so obviously going in, my understanding was based upon the civil rights laws and the expectations that we have in the department of justice, that's a very tough hurdle to try to meet. now the facts have been looked at and now we need to see what we can do to address system wide problems in ferguson. >> general, let's also talk more about the parallel between ferguson and what we saw yesterday at the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the march from montgomery to selma. president obama spoke passionately about inclusion and voting rights but also briefly made reference to recent racial tensions across the country. >> together we can raise the level of mutual trust that policing is built on, the idea that police officers are members

of the community they risk their lives to protect and citizens in ferguson and new york and cleveland, they just want the same thing young people here marched for 50 years ago. the protection of the law. >> i want to bring into the discussion, cnn contributor l.z. granderson. the point that i just made to the general, that but for the mike brown incident be we wouldn't know what we do know about ferguson. do you fear there are many fergusons out there and that ferguson might be typical of what you might find if the spotlight is shown? >> i don't know if it's typical but certainly you will find some racial behavior. i think it has some semblance of what you saw in ferguson. if you look at what happened in cleveland, tamir rice, if the department of justice went in there twice in the past ten years to criticize that department about the behavior that it was doing. then look at what's going on in chicago. just two weeks ago there was a report about the so-called black sights where police officers are taking suspects and hiding them for two days while interrogating them off the books. when you start looking on what's been going on in major cities, certainly you can think of

smaller towns in the south, there are some fergusons, maybe not to the extent but certainly some of the elements there. >> in the build-up to the march in selma, john lewis made the point that he worries lessons of nonviolence and nonviolent protests are being lost on america's youth. >> we saw that in ferguson. that is very unfortunate. there are ways to get the message out, having your voices heard. i think john lewis is the exactly right messenger to try to educate our youth about how do we make change? how do we achieve change in this country. >> i was thinking, l.z., as i watched the footage from selma that john lewis was billy clubbed for the right of people to go exercise the franchise. many of whom aren't carrying that out. >> i always kind of bristle a little bit of this notion of non-violent protests. even when dr. king was fighting

for non-violent protests there were violent, bloody presence. we shouldn't villainize all of the police departments, but when we talk about what happens, is there violence happening on the other end? if so, how are we shining a light so it doesn't happen again? buy didn't solve it 50 years ago. i was in ferguson. i was tear gassed. it didn't happen last summer either. >> i guess i'd link all of this together for the obvious reason that you look at the population statistics. 67% african-american and yet i think only four black police officers out of a force of 50 or so. you wonder, well, how can that be? presumably it's because people aren't exercising the franchise. only 12% came out to vote before the mike brown incident. they've got to exercise that right in order to have power in the system. >> no question about it. people have to participate. that's not solely true with the black community. >> all communities. >> hispanic community. no question about it. you think about a black individual and looking at that police force, they're not going

to be encouraged to join when they look at the numbers, to be one of just a few. i think the department and the city needs to do a much better job in sort of welcoming black recruits. there is much more that the community can do, that the police department can do to make progress in that community. >> gentlemen, it is a great conversation. i wish we had more time. attorney general aellberto gonzalez l.z. granderson. ergranderson.

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it's red, white and blue. log on to learn more. ♪ there's something happening here ♪ ♪ what it is ain't exactly clear ♪ >> today marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the first combat troops in vietnam. america's involvement in the southeastern asian country would go on more than a decade cost more than 50,000 american lives and end in military defeat for the united states. fast forward today in the fight against isis with some 1 00 american advisors on the ground in iraq is the u.s. on the path to another vietnam? joining me now former senator bob kerrey. he fought in vietnam as a navy s.e.a.l. and was awarded medal

of honor for heroism in combat and journalist and author david mar requirement nes who wrote a book and anti-war backlash entitled "they marched through sunlight war and peace, vietnam, and america." so david, today, 50 years ago 3500 american marines landed in vietnam. why don't we seem to note the milestones of that conflict the way that we do with our others? >> vietnam is apart from most of the other conflicts in american history partly because america lost that battle, but also because divisions of vietnam are still with us 50 years later in so many different ways. not just the soldiers who endured the fighting, which is always something to remember that goes on for decades after a war is supposedly over but so many ideological and cultural ways. vietnam will be with us as long as my generation and senator

kerrey's generation is alive. >> some will look back and attribute the lack of success to lack of american resolve. was it ever winnable? >> obviously the cost-benefit ratio was decidedly against a victory. it would have taken tactics i think that would have been unacceptable to american people. moreover, we voted to cut off military assistance after we left. it's not the first time we tire of a war. abraham lincoln would not have won in 1864 if it were not for schemppen taking atlanta. americans get tired of war in a hurry. >> david, let me ask you about the battle on the home front. in the book you wrote, you juxtaposed what was going on in a bloody battle in vietnam with protest movement in 1967 at home in madison, wisconsin. my question is this. would the protest movement have been as potent at home absent the draft?

>> i doubt it. i think the draft fueled so much of the fire of the anti-war movement. all movements are a combination of ideology or idealism, i should say, and self-interest. the idealism was there, too, no doubt about it. people were firmly against this particular war but the self-interest also made it such that every young man my age, their girlfriends, their parents, everyone had to talk about and deal with the war in some way or another, were you going to fight within would you enlist, would you join the rotc would you go to canada. all of that was fuel for the discussion which made it much more intense than anything going on today. >> it's not just the war going on in 1967. i'm sure you've seen "selma" or heard controversy about "selma." five days after johnson signed voting rights in august of 1965 we had watts. there was this substantial backlash. there was a cultural war going

on a civil rights war going on there were other things going on besides the war in vietnam. >> senator kerrey, the nation is at war today, yet there's an absence of any protest movement. do we care less as a country when it's a volunteer force? >> no, i don't think we do. i do think there is a big gap between the non-military civilian population and the military population. and it is a concern. i think the all-volunteer forces i think would produce an prochlt but improvement but you do have the divide. americans care much more today about men and women serving. >> that's one of the lessons everyone has learned from vietnam. you can oppose the policy but you don't oppose the soldiers. i think we didn't know that 50 years ago but that's something i think everyone agrees on now. >> gentlemen, some are saying there are parallels between the current situation with regard to isis and what we went through in the '60s. argument goes something like thr. a handsome young, democratic harvard educated president is

leading us into a military quagmire. david, respond to that. >> i think the parallels are more neatly fit with ten years ago with the iraq war. i think that's the point. i think isis is a separate issue. i'm not sure if it's going into a war or not. but ten years ago you had a america fighting in a place where the soldiers didn't know the language or the culture, where there were no front lines. there were questions about why the war started, how it would end, what the role of patriotism and dissent were in american life. all of that seemed hauntingly familiar. isis, in my opinion, just my opinion, i think it's in a separate category. >> senator kerrey? >> i agree with that. you've got a handsome harvard graduate who was maybe traumatized by the war in iraq and is not using military force in the way it ought to be. we passed on fighting a battle in syria. we pulled our troops out of eye

i rack iraq, i think too fast. his unwillingness to use conventional forces, put boots on the ground, common vernacular, i think in some ways a trauma of vietnam, more the trauma of iraq. >> david, senator kerrey, thank you so much for being here. >> you're welcome. >> thank you, michael. >> we'll be right back. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis like me and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira giving me new perspective. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers including lymphoma have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb hepatitis b, are prone to infections,

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>> thank you for watching "state of the union." i'm michael smerconish. you can follow me on twitter if you can spell smerconish. "fareed zakaria gps" starts right now. this is gps, the global public scare. >> welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. this week mr. netanyahu went to washington. russia reeled from the murder of a top opposition leader. and the question was raised are america and iran working together in iraq. should they? we have a terrific panel to talk about it all.