you've given millions of americans a great show every week, and we thank you for it. i think i speak for every viewer. >> thank you so much. >> you're not bad yourself. >> we're very honored to be here on your last season. >> larry: i'm honored to have you. the cast of "modern family" and we hope sarah gets well real soon. >> bye, sarah. >> larry: night, sarah. good evening. i'm kathleen parker. >> i'm eliot spitzer. welcome to the program. kathleen, amazing show. does google know where we are, where we've been and thinking? a scary thought but that's what

the ceo of google said. we'll talk to him later in the show. but first, my guess, the first latino president of the united states, the reverend sam rodriguez, when you listen to him, see why i make the bold claim and before that, juan williams, the scandal striking at the heart of npr's credibility. why did they fire him? i have no idea. it was a mistake, just feeds the flames of the right. >> you have given money to npr, haven't you? >> i have. >> i love to make fun of the way they talk but -- >> come on. they make fun of the way we tack. >> i'm sure they do. it was outrageous, completely out of proportion to what -- whatever his offense was which was saying what he thinks and he is another victim of the thought police. >> too careful too often in limiting what people say and i hate to say it. it raises for me the easy issue is should he have been fired? of course not. the tougher issue raised by the right, why does npr get federal money? i believe in separation of the media and government.

why the government funds a media outlet happens to be one i listen to and like but it is clearly left of center. why do tax dollars go to them? i'm not sure they should. >> a concern i have, greater concern is, you know, this is a conversation we should be having. you would never get past the fears if you don't acknowledge them and then a freedom to talk about them in an open way. i'm afraid we'll miss the thoughts of our less careful thoughts. >> absolutely, absolutely. >> let's continue the conversation. let's go into "the arena." >> joining us, media founder and president, dan abrams. let's remind viewers of what williams said monday night that got him fired and his explanation last night. let's take a look. >> i'm not a bigot. the books i have written about the civil rights movement in this country but when i get on a plane, if i see people who are in muslim garb and i think they're identifying themselves

first and foremost as muslims i get worried. i get nervous. they take it out of context and forget the fact i'm engaging you bill o'reilly, right? >> right. >> having an honest discussion. this is what america should be. having a real debate. you pointed out rightly. this is what i felt. >> dan, most people seem to agree with juan williams at this point think he shouldn't have been fired. why do you think he was fired? >> i don't think he should have been fired. it was the first comment he made. coming into the segment. all right? now, i don't think he should have been fired. not that big of a deal but not the strongest argument to say it was taken out of contest text. it was a thought. >> what's the strongest argument? >> so what? i said this. this is what i was thinking and how i feel. and i was saying it, his argument i think is, parent

thetically to say, look, i agree with you on this but -- and then get to the main point telling o'reilly we need to separate out muslim but muslims extremists. >> this is why he claimed it was taken out of context going to say we have got to differentiate between extremists and all muslims and why he said tagging him as someone saying -- generalizing was unfair. >> he is right. >> a legal question. >> yes. >> i want the public to understand. is this a 1st amendment issue or employment contract issue? >> he can say what he wants. the government isn't saying you can't speak this. you are not imprisoned for saying this, not sued for saying this. bottom line is, an employer saying we don't want associated with you for this reason. now, getting back to your question about why would npr have fired him? it is not just a wrong move on npr's part. it is a really bad strategic move for npr, meaning this is a media entity that for years has been dogged by allegations of being too liberal.

so you would think that they would at least be particularly sensitive to making decisions that will allow them to be targets. and this allowed them -- who's become a bigger target than npr because of this? >> not to mention the fact we have to talk about things. how do we get to the next level of awareness and enlightenment if we don't admit to the fears and discuss it? do you think putting this out in the open the way we have and condemning juan williams chilled the conversation? >> i don't think so. i think that media commentators, hosts, the two of you have a higher standard. meaning, there is a higher -- we all of us going on television have to endure a more strict i think that media commentators, hosts, the two of you have a higher standard. meaning, there is a higher -- we all of us going on television have to endure a more strict standard of what we say. meaning, we can say something at a cocktail party but if someone's taping it and put it out there, we have to live by those words and that puts news a different category. you have to be careful. >> i'm a fan of npr. my family's contributed to it. why do they get federal money?

i believe in the 1st amendment and separation of government and media. why should tax dollars go to a media outlet that is clearly a left of center -- >> well, you could make an argument and a lot of people do. i'm sure you've dealt with this. people don't think the arts should get any federal funding. in general, this is a thing that drives people nuts hearing about the amount of dollars. what they're supposed to be doing, right, is supposed to be doing programming that's good for the public. meaning, programming that wouldn't necessarily be commercial and it wouldn't succeed on networks because -- because we at the networks live and die based on advertising dollars and ratings, et cetera. the goal to have a place you can go where they can do -- they can do programming that's good for the country and good for people that -- where they don't have to be concerned with commercial interests. >> doesn't this thwart our ability to have interesting conversations and what do you think's driving all of that? >> well look.

i think what's driving this, i think that this is a political choice. that they made. and i think it was a bad one for the reasons we have already talked about. do i think that broadly in sort of stifling discussion and debate? no. i think that if this had been bill o'reilly, right, that made the comment instead of juan williams, fox will support bill. cnn would support eliot spitzer. >> bill on "the view" made a comment probably as edgy to most people listening to it. there the debate was who walked off the set. >> he said muslims attacked us on 9/11. >> right. the same as juan williams, differentiating between muslims and extremists. >> i think one was personal. >> one wasn't objective. >> juan is talking about how he feels every day. again, he is making a passing comment i think many americans

-- >> that makes it more defensible. he is honest enough to say this is how he as a commentator feels, the emotional agony and dealing with what he understands -- >> let's move on. >> honesty doesn't protect you. how honest you are doesn't -- >> most people said how can you fire him for telling you what he believes and i think that's why they're in the vice grip right now. >> yeah, but look. you can say things you believe and reprehensible and get you fired. >> do you check out your fellow passengers getting on an airplane? >> of course. >> what are you looking for? >> when i see someone in muslim garb, i'm thinking they can't be a terrorist. >> they would change their clothes, clearly. >> no way that any one in like full muslim garb is a terrorist. >> wearing j. crew sweaters, we know that. >> they're wearing something and look like every other passenger. >> not anymore. >> npr said what's crazy and

said that his states his own opinion sort of injured his capacity to be an analyst. >> yeah. >> i mean this -- i thought they had -- >> ever watched him before? >> do you want an analyst that doesn't have an opinion? >> i didn't even understand their words. >> have they watched him before? they had a policy laid out with the sort of legal language about the ethics policy saying they can't express opinions that encourage whatever it was, opinions and et cetera. >> right. >> i mean, what is he -- he's been on bill o'reilly's show for a long time expressing opinions. >> it is a problem for him to be on fox news. right? npr audience probably hates that. >> but here's where they got him. right? i mean, this was the gotcha moment. this is -- let's be clear. this is good for juan. >> best thing that ever happened to juan. >> put aside the fact that fox news increased his -- renewed the contract. more money. it is a great thing for him. >> driving the conversation that needs to take place and so that's a big bonus on the side. >> are you saying he did it intentionally now? >> no, no.

yeah, yeah, yeah. the conspiracy theorists will say, oh yeah. i don't think he did it on purpose. >> dan abrams, thank you very much for being here. we'll return for an entirely different take. back in 60 seconds. what we see happening is media outlets becoming targets by homosexuals every time that someone stands up and talks about traditional morality and marriage. that media becomes a target for allowing somebody to spew hate speech and so on and so forth. . because that's the first day you can switch your medicare part d plan. we're ready, and we can't wait to switch. [ male announcer ] make the switch to an aarp medicarerx plan, insured through unitedhealthcare. call now for a free information kit. discover why these part d plans are so popular with over 4.3 million members. [ man ] what i wanted was simple. the most value for my dollar. so now that it's time, we're making the move to a plan

that really works for us. plus, we'll be covered at like 60,000 pharmacies. [ male announcer ] call now and get predictable copays with no annual deductible, which means you could start saving with your first prescription. aarp medicarerx plans include nearly all the drugs covered by medicare part d. so, why wait? call now. november 15th is coming. i'm glad we're switching. [ male announcer ] get the plan that gives you all this and more. aarp medicarerx plans. insured through unitedhealthcare. call today. ♪ our next guest says npr's decision to fire juan williams is run amock. tony, thank you so much for being with us. >> good evening. >> pleasure to have you mere. now, i think there's a general consensus npr's actions were

wrong and whether it's political correctness or not, we have to sort out in due course but i want to go back a month to a statement you made at the moment of the pastor in florida going to burn the koran, also rejected by many including you and you also said that islam is evil. and i have the quotation right here in front of me if you want me to give you more of it. do you stand by that, islam is evil, perspective? >> i think when you look at the teachings of islam and those who have taken it and its literal interpretation, they have perpetrated great evils upon society. now, not every muslim is evil and not every muslim is a terrorist but if you look at what's happened in our nation in the last ten years going back, the terrorists attacks that have been perpetrated against our country have been by muslims. >> but i'm asking you, you individually, if you stand by the notion that islam, the entire religion is evil which is

what you said here as opposed to the notion that there are certain individuals within who are practitioners who may be extreme and they're evil. are you saying that about the entire religion? >> the teachings of islam, when they're taken as i just said -- restate myself. when the teachings of islam are taken literally, it is not like christianity to love your neighbor. you are to bring your neighbor into subjection and in those that have literally carried out the teachings of islam, a great evil has been perpetrated on society. >> i think we would agree one can interpret any religion in a way that could be construed as evil if you exercise those things in literal terms. but let's shift gears a minute and you want to talk about gays in the military? do you think that's a threat to the national security to have gays openly serving in the military? >> what i have said on that was that the ruling by judge virginia phillips in california who overstepped a district level

judge who ignored the four service chiefs that said don't change that policy, overstepped congress and forced the military to begin allowing homosexuality openly in the military, yes, allowing judicial activism at that level is a threat to national security. the military chiefs have said is that they're concerned about what that would do and compromising the military's mission. >> well, let's continue that one step beyond because i think you would agree the likelihood is that the chiefs are going to recommend unless the issue is resolved before then that, in fact, the military repeal and exceed to congress' request saying don't ask, don't tell should be -- >> i don't agree to that. the four service chiefs resolute saying this is not the time in midst of two wars to use the military for a social

experiment. we have too much on the plate. too much is at risk. so i don't think the chiefs will say that. >> we'll wait and see. i think the chairman of the joint chiefs taken a different view and seems to be -- >> he is a political appointee. >> well, no. he speaks for the military. i think the military is likely through its senior commander is going to probably say, we should, in fact, do away with don't ask, don't tell. once he says that -- >> the difference -- >> will you be happy to go along with the repeal of that policy? >> no. the difference is he doesn't have operational control of the military. the four service chiefs are responsible for overseeing the men and women serving in uniform. those four said now's not the time to change the policy. others said don't change it, especially those with front line responsibility. you have admiral mullens and the secretary of state and secretary of defense gates who have agreed -- >> i'm sorry. wasn't there the same hesitancy when the military was

desegregated. >> totally different issue. >> you needed to do this. >> no. totally different issue. what you have here is you interject into a small unit environment a sexual tension. we saw congress had a hearing last year on sexual assaults in the military. and amazingly, what the data showed was that the homosexuals were three times more likely to be involved in these sexual assaults even though they represent a very small portion of the military. >> look. i'm not familiar with that data you were simply referring to but in every other context in society where we have seen people more willing to be open and forthright about their sexual preference what it's led to is an easing of tensioning -- >> it's a different environment. >> we'll go over the numbers some other time and hope you'll join us again. thank you for being here.

>> there's a reason why private thoughts were invented by generations before us and the fact that teenagers blog every known internal thought that's retained on the internet for the rest of their lives, not a good thing and society's as a whole we have to think about that. pancakes! ♪ from dawn 'til sunset, i'll never walk away ♪ ♪ blueberry pancakes are so good ♪ [ male announcer ] bisquick. pancake lovers unite.

now it is time for the headliner. there are 2 billion searches on google every day. we know what it tells us what does it tell google? meet the man that knows more about you than anybody ever has. >> google chair and ceo says we know where you are, we know where you've been and what you're thinking about. i want to know, what do you know about me? do you know what prescription i filled last week? can you read my e-mail? i have a g-mail account. >> we don't know what prescription you had or your e-mail. we keep the searches that you do for roughly a year, year and a half and then we forget them. >> you say that but i mean can somebody come to you saying we need information on kathleen parker? >> under a federal court order properly delivered to us, maybe. >> does that happen? >> very rarely.

if it's not formally delivered, then we'll fight it. >> you say you keep stuff for a year or a year and a half, who decides? >> european government require us to keep it for a certain amount and the public safety sometimes wants to be able to look at the information. >> my experience as a prosecutor was that nothing is ever really eliminated from a computer. >> it really is eliminated from our computers because we actually rewrite the information so that you cannot check in. >> if the nsc says we want something that's 18 months and a day you could not get it? >> we could not. >> you say you have 4,200 subpoenas or government requests over 6 months and 9,000 a year. >> sure. >> those come from state and federal authorities? >> any legitimate -- >> any legitimate -- >> -- got authority. >> if somebody serves you with a subpoena, you would then be obligated to turn over her entire search history? >> if it's a well-formed

subpoena and in our opinion it's legal we have to comply with u.s. law. >> right. >> there have been a couple of cases where there were subpoenas that were overbroad. typical example is somebody phishing and violate people's privacy and that's not okay. >> as you know i was attorney general so we served many subpoenas and won the many litigations and most authorities believe if they give you a subpoena you would have to divulge the entirety of kathleen's search history. >> we typically refuse to do something unless it's narrow. >> virtually everything about us is accessible through a search of one form or another. >> see, i would argue that this -- what we learned from this is privacy is more important, not less important and that people have a right of privacy and a right of private behavior and respect that as a society. >> i think you would also have to acknowledge once of the

consequences of the ubiquity of the ability to data search is there's less and less privacy. >> i would say that undervalues privacy. privacy needs to be seen more important than how we're treating it today on online. >> what do you mean by that? >> there's a reason why private thoughts were invented by generations before us and teenagers blog every known internal thought that's now retained on the internet for the rest of their lives and not good thing. we have to think about that as a society as a whole. the internet with a sort of perfect memory remembers these things and things not true. one of the problems people have is often the first fact they encounter they think is true and not leading to a proper in my view understanding of what real facts are. >> let's pivot for a moment to the economy. you have been one of president obama's closest advisers, certainly within the rank of ceos. i think objectively stating the economy is not where anybody wants it to be. 30 million jobs needed. unemployment at 9.6 or high teens depending on how you count it.

what is your prescription? if you sit down with the president saying here's three things to do to get the economy moving, what would they do be? >> these are seven-year cycles. this is the third or four year cycle of a deleveraging going on. looks like a tough few years for people unemployed. this whole thing started with the housing bubble and the credit bubble and now this problem of recovery. so you have a bunch of things. you have to increase sort of certainty of the way business will operate. things like the questions and details of health care. you have to figure out how to get the concerns of foreclosures a ten issues and the terrible tragedies occurring now. you have to get them addressed and quickly and do something about spending investing in markets which are going to create jobs. a targeted loan guarantees or other programs where you could help strategically important parts of the industry and figure out jobs to be created. we have an unemployment problem in america and it's going to get worse. >> okay.

that's where i want to -- >> in order to do that, for example, changing the economics around hiring so that you can hire -- makes it easier to hire people, various forms of payroll tax credits. what the government always wants to do is spend money on the incumbencies that are there so who speaks for the unemployed person that can't get a job? the goal for the program for a couple of years to reduce the marginal unemployment and increase employment even if the jobs are not particularly good because it gets people going and improves the state. >> as you know the conversation about eliminating the tax cuts under bush and people over 250,000 have to pay taxes. you and google's taken advantage of some great tax shelters by, you know, by funneling money through various country's -- completely legally. >> you're not the only one. corporations do it all the time and seemings unpatriotic to me.

>> you want us to pay more taxes to the u.s. government? >> i would like for you -- >> how would you like us to give? >> a lot so i don't have to pay more. >> i'll take it. the american capitalist system creates the incentives that we operate you should and we have sharings for shareholders. if the government changes the law, we'll pay them in taxes. >> okay. we have got you on the record then. thank you. >> we follow the tax laws of america. >> one last question, what government spending would you cut? >> i have always felt since one half of the world's defense spending is in america, we could do just fine with a little bit less there. the real -- that's a comment. the real issues around costs are all in the entitlements and the fact of the matter is we have had an economic change that people are now living much longer and that the entitlements are unaffordable. the only solution to think of is delay the onset, increase the number of years people have to

work, address health care costs. the president's proposal does, in fact, that was passed does have a health care cost containment part. could have gone further. of course, increases retirement age and so forth are needed no matter what. every country in the western world is facing this and by the way china will, as well. >> nonpoliticians say what you're saying and politicians are unwilling to commit. >> remember, you're a former politician here. the politicians respond to the incumbencies and they have lobbyists. the laws written by the lobbyists and we have to transcend the dialogue. we have to get jobs and make america strong enough to do the kind of things we want to. without that strength, we won't be a very strong country. >> thank you. fascinating discussion.t e ideal mills big g cereals. they put a white check on the top of every box to let people know that their cereals

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now it's time for onstitution avenue" where we go behind the scenes in politics and meet the man considerrd to be the karl rove of the hispanic evangelical community. >> a man taking the message to the political arena. samuel rodriguez represents 16 million hispanic christians and 30,000 churches. welcome. thank you for being here. >> honor to be here. thank you. >> what is your message to the voting bloc, enormous voting bloc that you lead and represent? >> hispanics must vote. this is this absurd notion out there and even a call for latinos to boycott the elections. and definitely not to support a republican party that's embracing an anti-immigration rhetoric. stay home. absolutely not. we have to deliver.

john mccain once told me, how do you influence washington? the constituency. >> you have said -- you're clearly disappointed with the way immigration reform has gone. you say between arizona and amnesty. how do you see it? >> just immigration strategy. arizona, that's an exercise in futility. absurd. again, i speak to republican party. if you're hijacked by that sort of rhetoric, you are never going to win 2012. may win 2010. try to win white house without latinos. good luck. not going to happen. it's just a party of lincoln and ronald reagan or pat buchanan? you have to determine that. short term viability or long term sustainability sustainability? latino vote will determine that. get rid of the bad guys. the gang bangers, drug traffickers. why are we paying them through the taxpayer money and funding

them actually in prison right now across the union? let's deport the bad guys. address the other 98% who came here illegally mind you. let's prompt them to go to the back of the line and learn english. pay fines. respect the rule of law. understand what it is to be an american. civics 101. that's just integration. we need to address the issue of integration and not the extremes. >> you have laid out something that's sensible, right in the middle, seems that everybody not just playing to a political side would say that makes sense. why did that not have traction in washington and what president obama is pushing and why do you fault him for not succeeding? >> i don't agree with him in a number of public policy issues but respect to immigration, i agree whole heartedly. i don't blame president obama. i blame congress. congress is playing volleyball

with the hispanic american electorate. if the first year of the obama administration, we'll pass immigration reform. we are two years into immigration reform and we have arizona. >> are latinos getting more liberal? they seem to be natural for the republicans given the social conservatism of the catholics, is there a movement away from the catholic church to the evangelical church? >> 44% latinos voted for bush in 2004 and inclined to vote in the numbers even with karl rove over 50% in 2006 is not for immigration reform. are they becoming more liberal? no. are we frustrated? yes. we have a party, the republican party, that is with social values, life and marriage and others resonates with our cultural dna. we have a party that looks like us that doesn't want us or seems not to want us and the democratic party with the social values way beyond where we're at but they want us. so we're caught between the rock

and the hard place. the republicans look like us or want -- they don't want us. we're confused. we are in limbo. >> i agree with you and said repeatedly that president obama will be re-elected primarily because of the impact of the hispanic vote. is there any republican, potential candidate saying i can't win without you, we have to bridge the chasm? >> i don't want to surrender any information that may at the end of the day -- >> nobody's listening. >> prompt a number of facebook messages. that would be troubling to my family. notwithstanding, yes, there's candidate that is resonate. again, in full disclosure, not saying i have had these talks with these individuals, maybe, maybe not. governor huckabee responds with the faith community. just who he is, what he stands for. so forth and so son. the governor of minnesota, tim pawlenty. wonderful, wonderful gentleman. committed to a value system that resonates with the community.

there are others. newt gingrich. some of the major republican leaders understand you can't win a national election without engaging the latino vote. i look at the republican party. why in the world are you tolerating sort of nativist rhetoric and the tea party idea. a party about chips and salsa is no party at all. that's my message to the tea party. you're going to have to diversify the tea party. seeing 100,000 white people in washington, d.c. and ask, where are the brown faces? and is there legitimate cause for a tea party? absolutely. frustration, overreach of government. we don't want to see hugo chavez in america. we would love to see a couple of chips, salsa. whatever it takes to diversify the union. >> exactly.

>> we need diversity in the republican party and then the democratic party to move toward the center on social issues and pass immigration reform. >> you must feel like the most popular young man at the dance. who's come to you? >> i don't think -- i don't think it's about sam rodriguez. i'm not playing the super humble card but a constituency we serve but from both sides. democrats and republicans and some of the presidential candidates. you have read and, yes, they have courted us. they want a conversation. >> well, that worries me, too. listen me. thank you for joining us. wonderful to meet you. >> honor to be here. >> thank you so much. >> we'll be right back.

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it is time for "political party," a conversation with people with strong opinions and a whole range of issues. jacob weissman, author of

"bushisms and palinisms. >> karen hanrity for the national republican committee. will king is the host of "off the page" at national review.com. welcome to the party. >> all right. wall street is code for evil these days in the political arena. and you know, if i were a kinder person i would ask you to say something nice about wall street. i can't find it in myself to do it. what's your most paranoid theory of wall street? >> i'm not paranoid. >> i know you are. >> but the group think on wall street is such that they don't need to conspire about anything because they think the same thing on any given day anyway and the thing is we start to pull out of the crisis and look back on it is the unwillingness to take responsibility, the own up to their role.

it is everyone on wall street you talk to thinks either it was nobody's fault or it was someone else's fault or the government's fault and yet to run into anyone that takes a deep look and says, you know, this was terrible and based on mistakes we made and avoidable. >> they're not doing god's work. it is just an amoral enterprise. it is not there to make the world better. you know, we don't need a bunch of corporate righteous activists trying to make wall street better. it is what it is. it is there to make money. the bottom line. it is numbers and i think if you can just come to terms with that -- >> when wall street's making money at the expense of their own investors and betting against their investors that seems not just unethical but immoral. >> the pursuit of profit is a moral goal. the problem is what you started to say, kathleen, who are you making money for?

here's my paranoid theory and i'm right, by the way. >> we knew that. >> wall street is a big fee generation skimming business and most of the guys despite the harvard degrees do little better than a no-load index fund. so they're making money for themselves. 1%, 2% dings and not for the investors. >> we agree on this. he is from the far right. they accuse me of the far left. one big ponzi scheme. all they saw was the bottom line, the fees. it was outrageous. >> before we celebrate our agreement and dance down the halls holding hands, let me ask you this. when you're starting to say wall street you actually mean capitalism. >> no, no, no. oh no, no, no. see, that's where we deliver. i said if you take a bet at least be responsible for whether it turns out well or not. get the upside and the down side. this is a party. >> we'll never get wall street once we get eliot started on this so let's talk about karl

rove. he's used to be demonizing from the left and now by the right. people like rush limbaugh and sarah palin called him an establishment dinosaur. are we too hard on karl? >> no. it's fair. guys should celebrate this like eliot. karl found himself on the wrong side of too many ideas. >> such as? >> tell us. you know, what? the constitution doesn't separate church and state? which of christine o'donnell's -- >> he's been in charge for eight to ten years, a time seeing one of the biggest expansions of federal government and spending. invaded two countries. not exactly the ideals of small government conservatism. >> you can go far with karl rove. i think rove was the most overrated man in politics for the bush years. he was not the genius he was made out to be. this is the guy whose idea for the leadoff of the second term agenda was privatize social security. it crippled the president.

in 2000, he was guilty of gross malpractice by spending money and sending bush to california in the closing days of the election. if they lost by 500 votes instead of winning by 500 votes in the supreme court, karl rove would have been the goat of american politics and a habit in political analysis where the guy who wins is a genius because the other guy handed it to him and i think karl rove sees the threat of the tea party movement poses to its party and i have agreed with him more in the last couple of months than ever before but i have a low opinion of his political accumen. >> the media named him a genius. he was a genius of getting people nominated. namely george w. bush. >> there you go. didn't mean that -- >> long-term strategy for the republican party. and i think that's a frustration and if you look at a lot of state parties around the country, the frustration with the bush white house over eight years, a lot directly to karl

rove having one interest and that was george bush and it was never about the bigger party. >> let's squeeze in another quick question. jacob in your book you define "ism" as a funny misstatement. what is your favorite so far? >> classic bush-ism is i know how hard to put food on your family. >> especially when they're wearing clothes. >> exactly. and i think my favorite palin-ism, a lot to choose from but, you know, speaking in canada, she said, you know, when i was a kid, we used to hustle across the border to get health care in canada. isn't that ironic? >> all right. thanks to jacob, karen and will for joining us. we're throwing a party every night at this time on "parker spitzer" and we'll be right back. we treat teachers like widgets the same and the same worker for everything. we reward the good ones and

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i'm joe johns. first the latest. breaking news. the pentagon says a new document dump by wikileaks put u.s. troops in iraq in even greater danger. the whistle-blower website released almost 400,000 classified documents. the "the new york times" says it shows the vast majority of slain civilians in iraq were killed by other iraqis. the documents also reportedly contain the names of iraqi civilians who have cooperated with the united states and describe iran's role in supporting iraqi militants. a british newspaper "the guardian" says the documents show u.s. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by iraqi police and soldiers.

in haiti, a fast-moving cholera outbreak killed at least 138 people and sickened more than 1,500. that outbreak began after heavy rains caused a river to overflow and flood an area north of port-au-prince. coming up, politicians who rail against government spending but also want their share of the very stimulus plan they're attacking and asking washington to show them the money. more with "parker spitzer" right now.

now for tonight's best idea. once in a while a great documentary can shine a light on an issue that leads to real

substantive change. that's what happened with "an inconvenient truth" and now the attention is turned to the public education system. >> the latest "waiting for superman" follows kids waiting for a slot at a charter school. let's take a look at a clip. >> since the 1970s, u.s. schools have failed to keep pace with the rest of the world. among 30 developed countries, we rank 25th in math, 21st in science. the top 5% of the students are a very best rank 23rd out of 29 developed countries. almost every category we've fallen behind except one. the same study looked at math skills and found in eight countries, the usa ranked last but when researchers asked the students how they felt they had done, did i get good marks in mathematics, kids from the usa ranked number one in confidence.

♪ don't want to be an american idiot ♪ at the end of the 2009, the unemployment rate was almost 10% but the high-tech industry could not find qualified people to fill their jobs but had to recruit the engineers and programmers they needed from around the world. >> pretty powerful stuff. the people that made the film just stopped by the studios and asked them what we should take away from "waiting for superman." >> we are thinking that we can take care of our own kids but now it's everyone and what happens to the kids in the movie affects all of us. >> leslie, what about you? what did you take from the movie? >> i taught for a while, a long time ago in japan and had an experience where i was really respected as a teacher and all of my students paid attention and i was a new teacher so it wasn't because i was an amazing

but there was a cultural shift and in the top countries, the country as a whole really values the teaching profession and i knew that but everybody we talked to in the examples we saw of the amazing schools they had fantastic teachers. and that it's so simple, yet not everybody gets that. >> how do you create good teachers? what's the answer there? >> in some of the top countries, they recruit from the top third and then like finland the top 10% and train them for a long time. they evaluate them and they reward the really good teachers. i think that's really important in addition to the cultural shift, we have to support them. we have to evaluate and we have to reward. >> we treat our teachers like they're all the same. we go they don't do any of the things she's talking about. >> you raise the issue of teacher recruitment, the best kids in certain colleges to go into teaching and failed to do in this nation. how can we change that? money? >> prestige deficit.

we treat teachers the same, then that's what it becomes. you are basically the same worker for everybody. starting to reward the good ones, start to develop the good ones and collaborate, that's when we start -- teachers start to feel like they're part of something special. >> i have to raise a question about family structure because i had a friend in washington who taught in one of the public schools and 25 to 30 students in the class, not a one had a father at home. if you have the most -- best structure, these kids are not going to do well if the families are disintegrated. >> we hear that in screenings we go to. you found parents in the movie that care. these parents are fighting for their cares. the truth is that there is actually no aspiration difference between poor and rich families. poor families don't have the skills or the access but my feeling and teachers tell you they have these problems in low-income schools, you are right.

it's an extra struggle but what the high performing schools are proving you can reach 90% of the kids and send them to college and i think it's the only way you're going to reverse the downward spiral in these tough neighborhoods. >> let me -- in the movie and studying academia and education, there's heroes. michelle rhee, jeffrey -- are they the model and brought to scale and kind of a term -- how do you build a thousand people like that? >> charters will never go fully to scale but what they're great -- the way i look at them, plenty of charters that don't do well. one in five do exceptionally well. they're like incubators for innovation. you want to look at the high performing charter schools and a lot of them in different cities. take the ingredients and put them in district schools and to do that the ingredients aren't that hard but to you have to relax the union contracts and relax these district rules