and if you can't get laughs doing dick jokes, get out. you're awful. for all who love freedom and peace, the world without saddam hussein is a better and safer place. >> the war may be officially over, but the violence rages on. >> congress must no longer follow him deeper into the quagmire in iraq. >> president bush fired an election year shot. he cited an urgent lead for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. >> hurricane katrina is now bearing down on louisiana. >> where is the federal government? where are the troops? >> shame on bush! shame on bush! >> signs the economy is in trouble just keep on coming. >> i see a great day coming for our country, and i'm eager for the work ahead. god bless you.

and may god bless america. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ cheers and applause ] my fellow americans, major

combat operations in iraq have ended. in the battle of iraq the united states and our allies have prevailed. >> today there's a total of 147,000 american troops throughout iraq. 42,000 in baghdad alone. that's 50% more than the entire u.s. force it took to fight and win the wore. but critics claim it's still not enough troops to win the peace. >> while the administration had thought about getting rid of zam, there had been very little thinking about what to do after he was removed. >> seven weeks after the war the u.s. military has still not been able to restore law and order to many areas of war-torn iraq.

>> there was a sense that all we had to do was take a hammer and smash the totalitarian state and out of that democracy would suddenly bloom out of the soil. that did not happen. >> there really wasn't much of a plan for phase 4. i remember asking in fact, after we take down baghdad what happens, and the answer was you just get us to baghdad, dave, and we'll take it from there. >> like a presidential candidate on an early primary swing the new american administrator of iraq posed with local officials. >> paul bremer was an experienced foreign service officer, tough-minded, capable. but some of the early decisions were to me predictly bad. >> he's made the tough and risky decision to fire all senior members of zamsaddam's baath pa, which could further paralyze the infrastructure here. >> for the ordinary iraqi if you weren't a member of the baath party there was no way really to

have not just a comfortable life, almost any kind of life, because baath party membership made it possible for you to be an elementary school teacher, to give a civil service job, to be in the military. and when all that was taken away, people who'd previously been running the country were now excluded from it. >> at least saddam hussein fed us, says this man, an iraqi soldier who hasn't been paid for three months. >> there is no job, there is no money, there is no food. what is the problem? >> within iraq there are very bitter tensions between the shia and the sunni that had been contained under a strong dictator, but once that dictator is gone the infighting begins. >> the sunnis had been on top under saddam. suddenly we invade vad, get rid of saddam, and they're on the bottom. you've got millions and millions of pissed off sunnis, some of whom are going to join the insurgency. >> we are not followers of saddam hussein, says this man. we are sons of iraq and reject the american occupation of our

country. >> when you end up fighting insurgents among the population not wearing uniforms with improvised explosive devices, ambushes, guerrilla tactics, that's a very, very different task. >> militant cells each have about eight to ten core members. they're hard to catch because they often hire pool villagers to pull the triggers. >> the united states military was caught pretty flat-footed by this insurgency that was gathering steam, and the policy makers wouldn't admit it was an insurgency. >> are we in the quicksand? is this going to be another quagmire? well, time will tell. >> it is very early in the morning, but there is very interesting news afoot. the rumors are getting very strong, the reports are becoming much more numerous, that saddam hussein is in custody, that saddam hussein has been captured. >> ladies and gentlemen, we got him. >> there was a quick celebration in the streets of many iraqi

cities and certainly in the administrative offices of the bush administration and the american government. this is a real victory for u.s. forces in iraq and for president bush. >> you will not have to fear the rule of saddam hussein ever again. all iraqis who take the side of freedom have taken the winning side. >> it was a dis-oriented and bewildered saddam hussein who was captured near tikrit, his hometown. he was hauled out of a hole like a dazed animal. >> the capture of saddam hussein of course was something we saw as a victory. but from the perspective of sunnis he had been their leader. and for many of them their protector. >> while many in the arab world may have been quietly relieved at saddam's capture, for others the image of an arab champion sheepishly submitting to a humiliating medical exam was taken as an insult to arab pride. >> we look at it as triumph, but

when they look at it on al jazeera it has a totally different meaning. it's a meaning of humiliation. and that definitely feed into the idea of radicalization. >> last mott the u.s. army announced 17 soldiers in iraq including a brigadier general had been removed from duty after charges of mistreating iraqi prisoners. but the details of what happened have been kept secret until now. >> the photographs were shot at the abu ghraib prison, where saddam hussein subjected prisoners to hideous torture. >> these pictures are reprehensible, abhorrent. this really reminds me of what saddam used to do. >> the myth is that america's the great liberating force and democratic and that our soldiers are more disciplined than anybody else's soldiers, and there's a lot of truth to that myth, but of course it's partly a myth. human nature being what it is, there are excesses and there are

abuses. >> they are saying we came here to free you, but in order to do that we will torture you. what democracy he is talking about? >> we handed islamists a recruiting video. you couldn't have had a better way of encouraging young iraqis to join the jihad against the united states. still nervous about finding a new apartment? yeah... but popping these things really helps me...relax. please don't, i'm saving those for later. at least you don't have to worry about renters insurance. just go to geico.com. geico helps with renters insurance? good to know. been doing it for years. that's really good to know. i'll check 'em out. get to know geico.

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republican convention ever held in new york city. the choice of the city was no accident. it's much about image, the image of president bush at ground zero as commander in chief in a war on terror. that is the picture he wants voters to remember. but that image is competing with this one, the massive weekend protest here against president bush's policies and the war in iraq. >> many observers are thinking that 2004 might go poorly for president bush. >> where are the weapons of mass destruction? >> where are the weapons of mass destruction? >> you had inspectors scrambling and they couldn't find what had been one of the primary justifications for the war. >> it turns out we were all wrong probably in my judgment. and that is most disturbing. >> i concluded that there were no weapons of mass destruction. we'd gone to war on that basis. while others in the

administration continued into sift they existed. so charles golfer was offered the job after i resigned and he confirmed the exact same conclusion. >> chief weapons inspector charles duffeler issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of david kay that iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed there were. >> it was an embarrassment to the bush administration. and so democrats are feeling that there is an opportunity for a different direction. >> i'm john kerry, and i'm reporting for duty. [ cheers and applause ] >> john kerry seemed to solve a problem for the democratic party. the democratic party at that time was seen in political slang as the mommy party while the republicans were the daddy party. the daddy party goes out and fights the war, the mommy party is softer and as some people saw it weaker. and the democrats had to show they were more war-like, let's

get a war hero. >> i defended our country as a young man, and i will defend it as president of the united states of america. >> he was able to use his vietnam service as a weapon really against george w. bush. he's able to say when the bell rang in vietnam i said send me. i won a silver star. i won a bronze star. i won three purple hearts. >> there was a time when john kerry's war record seemed untouchable. but in just two weeks a small veterans group has managed to put the senator on the defensive. >> i served with john kerry. >> i served with john kerry. >> john kerry has not been honest about what happened in vietnam. >> he is lying about his record. >> so tough even some top republicans have come out against it. >> i condemn the ads as dishonest and dishonorable. and i think it's very, very wrong. >> this group of swift boat veterans came up and made it seem like he had exaggerated his exploits. >> the public face of swift boat veterans for truth is that of a

salty band of vietnam vets who served at the same time as kerry. but a closer look shows the group has the support of big money republicans in texas, with direct ties to the bush white house and the president's political adviser karl rove. >> the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. instead he watches as a republican-funded attack group does just that. >> it was unfair. it was untrue. but it worked. and kerry lost some altitude because of those swift boat veteran attacks. >> good evening, everyone. we're going to begin tonight with that ever-contentious subject in america today, same-sex marriage. >> if there's any doubt, it's gone now. gay marriage will be an issue in the election campaigns ahead. the supreme court in massachusetts pretty much sealed that deal today. >> by the power vested in me by the commonwealth of massachusetts -- [ cheers and applause ] >> with this ring i thee wed. >> i now pronounce you legally

married. >> in 2004 no one's really thinking that much about gay marriage, but then it becomes legal in massachusetts. and that's enough to agitate a lot of people. so suddenly the republicans see this great opportunity. >> today i call upon the congress to promptly pass and to send to the states for ratification an amendment to our constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman, as husband and wife. >> president bush had at his right hand one of the great political masterminds of his era, karl rove was very good at exploiting the vulnerability of the american middle classes who were unsure about the world in which they lived. >> what two men do when they t together, what two women do when they get together is perverting the human body. >> you don't know about god. you don't know about love. >> republican operatives managed to get referenda about same-sex

marriage on the ballot in stakes that would matter for w. and the goal was to get evangelicals so riled up that they'd go to vote and while they voted against same-sex marriage they would vote for president bush. >> you had the republicans using same-sex marriage as a wedge issue. but dick cheney's daughter, mary-s a lesbian. >> do you believe homosexuality is a choice? >> we're all god's children, bob, and i think if you were to talk to dick cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. she's being who she was born as. i think if you talk to anybody it's not choice. >> john kerry tried to show the hypocrisy of the bush campaign with regard to the lgbt

community. but it backfired. >> this is not a good man. what a cheap and tawdry political trick. >> it just looked like he was dragging the private lives of vice presidential families into a campaign, and americans don't like that. >> 12 full hours after the last poll closings of election 2004 there's now an undisputed win r winner. >> despite all the problems that had emerged in 2003 and 2004, still the power of national security as a theme in america after 9/11 and the use of wedge issues all added up to a successful political mix. >> ladies and gentlemen, i give you the president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ]

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their way through the city of fallujah in an effort to eliminate about 2,000 to 5,000 insurgency. >> fallujah was lost by the middle of 2004. it was an insurgency-held city, and it essentially became a giant bomb factory that was just driving the violence. >> fallujah is not just the biggest hotbed of resistance in iraq. it's also believed to be the base of operations for abu musab al zarqawi, a jordanian militant who the u.s. hopes to capture or kill if he's there. >> when the americans bombed afghanistan, zarqawi was still an obscure terrorist leader looking for a new fight. he found one in iraq. >> zarqawi and bin laden were very different men. bin laden was an international businessman, and zarqawi was a street thug. he was covered with tattoos. when he got religion, he took a knife and cut them off his arm. >> u.s. officials say they can't allow zarqawi and others to use violence to keep the predominantly sunni muslim town from voting in iraq's january

elections. >> zarqawi wanted to create a sectarian civil war because he felt that will deprive the united states of establishing any government in iraq that can be pro u.s. >> this town's being held hostage by mugs, thugs, murderers, and intimidators. all they need is for us to give them the opportunity to break the back of that intimidatioint. >> these guys have been hitting us and hitting us in this town for the past eight months to a year. and they don't even know what's coming. hell's coming. >> the battle for fallujah has begun in earnest. more than 10,000 u.s. and iraqi troops who surround the city have begun to squeeze it. >> all around tanks hammered away at the insurgents trying halt the advance deep into the city. marines dodged in and out of streets and alleyways, taking

cover behind their armored vehicles. >> this was the most intense warfare the marines had faced since the vietnam war, since the battle of wei. al qaeda in iraq was extremely well dug in. they booby-trapped a lot of buildings. they knew the city very well. >> where is he? >> hey, he's in the garage. >> right here? >> yeah! we've got friendlies on the roof. >> as the marines moved closer to the center of the city they're meeting more and more resistance. it's very hard in these narrow alleyways to find out where exactly the firing's coming from. [ gunfire ] >> watch out! >> i can't remember any fighting that was comparable to what took place in fallujah. >> everybody spread out! >> go, go, go, go. >> it was a real reminder of how hard city fighting is, having to clear every room, every alley, every road. >> moving house to house, they found weapons caches and booby-trapped, mutilated bodies. >> you'd go into a room, and

they call the doorway the fatal funnel. the idea was get as many marines into the fatal funnel as you can to overwhelm your enemy who was sitting in this room. >> go! >> what i saw wrt 19, 20-year-old lance corporals who got up every single day and walked through those doorways. >> there they are! >> u.s. military officials in iraq say they have won a major battle. the city of fallujah, they say, has been seized. >> americans say they have captured nearly 1,000 insurgents and killed more than 1,200. they found no sign, however, of alleged insurgent leader abu musab al zarqawi. >> tactically, we seized the city and the insurgency in iraq no longer had that as a safe haven. unfortunately, the cost of telegraphing our moves in fallujah was that most of the al qaeda leadership just headed up north. so the insurgency just continued on and on and on.

>> suicide bombers driving cars and trucks loaded with explosives left a trail of death across baghdad today as iraqi insurgents stepped up their campaign to disrupt nationwide elections now just 11 days away. >> america will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. our government instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way. >> it is election day in iraq. a critical day in that troubled nation's history. perhaps as critical a day in u.s. foreign policy. sqult first iraqi election was very meaningful to many iraqis who participated. and it was very meaningful to people here in the united states to sell them the iraq war as a grand success. >> officials estimate that turnout was about 60% of the nation's 14 million eligible voters. >> the iraqis seemed to be

energized by the opportunity to determine their own fate. and i remember feeling that, you know, i think we've got a shot at this, i think this just might work. >> it was this really exciting moment. but actually, what it was was a census of the shia population in iraq because the sunnis boycotted the election. >> most iraqis are shiite. they voted in overwhelming numbers, hoping to take back power after generations of being relegated to the sidelines. >> i was always skeptical that this was going to turn out well, that the occupation and the remaking of the middle east in the image of vermont was somewhat beyond the capacity of the united states. >> what this may mean for the future of iraq, for u.s. policy here, and for the possibility of some early withdrawals of u.s. troops is just too soon to say. music: "other side" by nvdes

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there's nothing quite like a looming storm, no matter how many you've been through, and katrina is now a full-fledged hurricane. >> when you live in the gulf stou south, the hurricane belt, you pay attention when you hear there's a tropical storm coming. so everybody in new orleans and the mississippi gulf coast was

eyeing this storm. you might have to board up a window, you might have to move inland a little bit. but everybody in new orleans had a big easy attitude, the big one's never going hit us. >> the big concern, the big easy, the low-lying city of new orleans deeply vulnerable to a direct hit. >> katrina expose this is city's worst nightmare. the very waterways on which new orleans has lived and worked and thrived for centuries now threaten to drown it. the city center surrounded by protective levees could fill up like a bathtub with storm surge. >> ladies and gentlemen, i wish i had better news for you, but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. a mandatory evacuation order is hereby called for all of the parish of orleans. >> this storm is now the size of the state of florida. it will be in the top five in terms of strength to ever hit the united states. >> by the time the mayor declared an evacuation, it was

too late. >> thousands of people have been in line for hours here at the superdome, where 30,000 people may end up spending the night inside this giant shelter that officials are confident will hold up. >> hurricane katrina, the category 4 storm is now bearing down on louisiana. >> this is what everyone feared. the storm surge. >> it is very threatening. conditions are just getting worse minute by minute. >> new orleans has lost power and the roof is leaking at the louisiana superdome. >> new orleans is no longer safe to live in. it is that simple and that stark. more than a day after katrina hit, things should be getting

better, but they have gotten worse. a major breach in a levee overnight sent more water pouring into an already flooded city. residents are being urged to find higher ground as soon as possible to get out. >> new orleans has essentially been swept off the map. not even on 9/11 did i remember seeing a dead body that closely. i'd never seen a dead body just floating in the street of a major city on roofs. >> there are like bodies floating past my front door. you know? bodies floating past my front door. >> you can't find your wife? >> i tried. i hold her hand tightly. and she told me you can't hold me. she said take care of the kids and the grandkids. >> it looked like a great american city was about to disappear right before our eyes.

and george bush was made to seem indifferent. >> he doesn't actually go to new orleans in the beginning. he flies above it. and that was a metaphor for a president who was out of touch. >> the challenges we face on the ground are unprecedented. but there's no doubt in my mind we're going to succeed. >> there have been some complaints i've heard from on the ground down there that they expected the federal government to come earlier. does it apair that the government now has this situation under control and is actively coordinating the effort? >> absolutely not. i think the question to that, george, is an unequivocal no. >> person after person came up to me today and they were angry and they're saying where is the federal government, where are the troops? where's the national guard? where's the army? people are desperate. >> the bush administration was caught asleep at the switch.

instead of immediately responding, sending in the troops, it took a few days. >> i'm peter mayer in washington. president bush leaves for the disaster zone an hour from now. but one louisiana official says the federal recovery effort is a national disgrace. >> we can't take this. we've been out here for three days. >> i don't want to die like this. >> on the television like they care so much. where are they at? look around you. >> because we conceived of the post-9/11 world as a war, america's entire apparatus from intelligence to emergency managers to police was geared towards one goal, stopping 19 guys from getting on four airplanes again. in that process fema was put within the department of homeland security. it had no funding. it did not have the expertise or the professional group of people that it once had. it was in many ways an orphan of the entire homeland security apparatus. and it was fema that failed so

miserably. >> we're going to make absolutely certain that the devastation that has been wreaked upon these people is taken care of and that we get their lives back in order. >> mr. brown, some of these people are dead. they're beyond your help. >> the people they put in place, brownie, for instance, this guy had been head of an organization that dealt with arabian horses. >> brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. the fema director's working 24 -- [ applause ] >> they tell us they've got 500 buses coming. we've been here five days. >> we're seeing an american city essentially being left to rot, with mostly black people in it. you can't disassociate the reality of the visual. >> the destruction of the spirit of the people of southern louisiana and mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all. >> george bush doesn't care about black people. >> to say president bush doesn't care about black people is one thing, but i think what kanye

west was saying and the way it was translated is america doesn't care about black people. katrina is a symptom of a much larger disease, and we've got to eradicate racism if we're ever going to have equity. >> some of the comments that have been namade, there was a racial component to some of the people that have been left behind and left without hope. >> my attitude is this. the storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort. >> i don't think it's true that the president was racially motivated. but i do think that he was clueless. >> the cavalry is and will continue to arrive. there are those, however, who will complain and have complained that it is too late. >> this is an administration that pride tdsed itself after 9t anticipating problems, and yet katrina proved that was all false. >> shame on bush. shame on bush. shame on bush.

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dr. scholl's. born to move. our work in iraq is difficult because our enemy is brutal. but that brutality has not stopped the dramatic progress of a new democracy. i am confident in our plan for victory. i am confident in the will of the iraqi people. i am confident in the skill and spirit of our military fellow citizens. we are winning. [ applause ]

>> good evening. as we come on the air back here in new york tonight, we begin with a tense and violent situation half a world away. >> as bad as the situation was in iraq, things certainly took a turn for the far worse following the bombing of the golden mosque in samarra. >> until this morning there was a glittering golden dome over the 1,200-year-old al askariyah mosque. now this is all that remains. >> this is like the vatican of shiism. that's the level of anger that it engendered. >> abu musab zarqawi understood that by attacking one of the most sacred shrines to the shia people that he would succeed in tipping iraq into a civil war. >> the anger and rage of the shia crowd soon turned into bloody retaliation. >> throughout the country at least 100 sunni sites have come under attack. >> it's hard to describe how bad it got. every day you'd bake up in baghdad and there would be 100

bodies on the street. >> iraq was indeed enmeshed in the civil war zarqawi always wanted. and the prospects of ever stabilizing the country seemed completely lost. >> abu musab al zarqawi, the leader of al qaeda in iraq, is dead. a tremendous boost in morale for those who tracked him, for troops in iraq, and perhaps for the u.s. as a whole. >> zarqawi was killed by an american air strike. but by that time the movement had started to get completely out of hand. >> zarqawi created something that was essentially unkillable. it didn't need commanders because it just had cells and the cells essentially weren't really connected to each other. so that if you'd kill one of the leaders the rest of it keeps going. >> now you've got an iraq war that has gone bad. you've got a katrina response that is considered inadequate. and the voters responded.

>> why all the glum faces? yesterday the people went to the polls. and they cast their vote for a new direction in the house of representatives. and while the ballots are still being counted in the senate it's clear the democrat party had a good night last night. >> and so we have a divided government. democrats running congress, a republican in the white house. that portends battles ahead. >> after that election many republicans are concluding that iraq is their vietnam and that this war is going to have a big political cost and bush needs to do something. >> congress must no longer follow him deeper into the quagmire in iraq. >> but then he takes one of the most unexpected steps you could imagine. he says there's going to be a surge of troops in iraq. >> on capitol hill president bush faced more skeptical, even hostile reaction to his plan to send more than 21,000 additional troops to iraq. >> 20,000 to 30,000 troops.

we did that before. >> one senior official today in the building summing it up. he said it's not about the number of troops we have, he said, but it's about the number of troops that are dying in iraq. >> they could try to stop me from doing it. but i've made my decision and we're going forward. >> whatever else you thought about the war, whatever else you thought about president bush, i thought it was one of the braver more courageous presidential decisions because he probably didn't have 10% of the country with him at this time. >> are you still willing to follow a path that seems to be in opposition to the will of the american people? >> i'm willing to follow a path that leads to victory. >> the bush administration had to reverse the situation. otherwise, the failure in iraq would be its lasting legacy. >> there's a new american in charge tonight. general david petraeus formally took over as head of all coalition forces, and he's facing some major challenges. >> the surge, especially under

the command of general david petraeus, proved remarkably effective. >> what mattered most was not the additional forces. it was the change in strategy. instead of continuing to consolidate on big bases, we realized that we had to live with the people. that was the number one insight, to live with the people to secure them and securing and serving the people is our paramount mission. >> in counterinsurgency soldiers, marines, they have a rifle in one hand and a wrench in the other. when they go out of their compound each day they're ready fire handshake or a hand grenade, and they can deal with either. >> the observation of david petraeus and others was that sunnis were terrified and they were angry. so they were gravitating to al qaeda. but they also were victimized by al qaeda. >> what we set out to do was to declare peace with sunni tribes that just wanted to take back control of their own neighborhoods from these abusive

al qaeda figures. >> this market is the most important statement of an economy coming back to life. it won't happen if there's not security, and it won't happen if there's not some money to be spent. >> part of the secrets of many people joining terrorist groups wasn't that they were necessarily religiously fanatical. they needed a source of income to feed their families. so this was a way of weaning away people who were joining underground organizations by giving them a salary, giving them a role, and also giving them a stake in the future of iraq. >> as a new year begins, overall violence is falling and hope seems to be rising. >> one of the key lessons that we learned is that you really ought to understand a country in a very granular, detailed way before you invade it. >> in order to win wars you have to know your enemy. understanding where they come from, what makes them tick, what makes them blow themselves up. it's not only about winning

hearts and minds. you have to dismantle an ideology. al qaeda and bin laden were not just an organization. it's an idea. >> some say the gains we are making in iraq come too late. they are iraq come too late. they are mistaken. it is never too late to deal a blow to al qaeda. it is never too late to advance freedom. and it is never too late to support our troops in a fight they can win. if you spit blood when you brush or floss you may have gum problems, and could be on the journey to much worse. try parodontax toothpaste. it's clinically proven to remove plaque, the main cause of bleeding gums. for healthy gums and strong teeth. leave bleeding gums behind with parodontax toothpaste.

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why let it keep you from enjoying... life! stella artois. joie de biere.

breaking news on wall street tonight, it is a, quote, "once in a century financial crisis" according to to alan greenspan. that's what he said yesterday, and then today it got even worse. the dow had its worst point drop since the markets reopened after the 9/11 attacks. lehman brothers has filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history. and merill lynch is being taken over. >> the largest financial disaster in decades and perhaps the end of an era in american business. >> what happened in september of 2008 was of a scale i had never seen before.

>> you really did think, oh, my god, the financial world could collapse. >> confidence in our financial system and in its institutions is essential to the smooth operation of our economy. and recently that confidence has been shaken. >> after a tumultuous two terms, president bush's dealing with the financial crisis that could be devastating to the nation. >> fear has taken hold of the financial market. >> this is irrational panic. people are selling first and asking questions later. and bush and his team decide that the answer's going to be government. >> i faced a choice, to step in with dramatic government action, or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all. under our proposal the federal government would put up to $700 billion taxpayer dollars on the line to purchase troubled assets clogging the financial system.

>> the troubled asset relief program shows you, i think, just how much resistance there was. >> this bill offends my principles. it is simply wrong. it's irresponsible. >> new york city fat cats expect joe six pack to buck it up. >> their idea was, we need the government to have access to a huge amount of money that we can then use to shore up banks. >> how many times do we have to dig in our pockets? >> a lot of people hated it, obviously. the taxpayers were handing money over to the bankers. that seems and sounds terrible. and yet, had we not done that, i'm not sure where we'd be today. >> the motion is adopted. >> we're rescued. >> we have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on wall street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country. >> even though it's not conservative orthodoxy, i think

what they did in 2008 was the right thing to do to save the economy, and i think they probably did prevent a wipeout of a tremendous number of people and a second great depression. >> good evening, i'm dan harris. president bush made his final trip to iraq today, one last opportunity to thank the troops and meet with iraqi leaders. while the president was cheered by u.s. forces, the trip will almost surely be remembered for these pictures of an iraqi reporter throwing his shoes at the president. >> this is the worst thing you can do to a human being in the arab world. shoes are the dirtiest thing. i think it's just an indication of how so many iraqis felt. >> there was evidence all over the arab world of what low regard they had for him. this is a man who, in his heart, really wanted to improve the

conditions of arabs by bringing democracy. but unfortunately we tried to bring it in the wrong manner. >> the financial crisis has drived the president's approval rating to a record low, just 24%. >> the combination of the long-range disaster that was the iraq war, with the manifest incompetence that was katrina, with the huge global catastrophe that was the financial crisis leaves him utterly tattered as a historical figure when he walks out of office. >> i suspected there would be a good-size crowd once the word got out about my hanging. >> i think history will be far kinder to george bush than americans were toward the close of his term. was he perfect? far from it. did he get us through it? did we endure? we absolutely did.

and for that, i think historians will be kind in evaluating his leadership. >> bush was a good man with a good heart. the people that suggested to him that we go into iraq gave him some of the worst advice any american president ever got. it is his fault for listening to them. but i think he was led into iraq for good intentions. and of course we know where good intentions often lead. >> he did his best. he's not a great president. he's not a transformative president. he done his damnedest. i think that's the legacy of george bush. >> there were some good days, and there were some tough days. but every day was an honor to be your president. history will be the judge of my decisions, but when i walked out of the oval office this morning, i left with the same values that i took to washington eight years ago. when i get home tonight and look

in the mirror, i'm not going to regret what i see. except maybe some gray hair. sketch comedy, what is it? >> the great thing about sketch comedy is that it's instant gratification. >> you kick the door in, guns blazing, whatever happens, happens. >> he's got my hand. >> stretches are a fun way to >> stretches are a fun way to totalk about the culture with a quick turnaround. >> in a sketch you're satirizing life. >> my brain hurts. >> when you know people are improvising, you're on the edge of your seats.