baseball from ernie harwell. a broadcasting legend in detroit to a pasting legend in los angeles. >> larry: i am honored to receive these. i thank you, michael. >> i thank you for everything you've done and you will be sorely missed. >> larry: michael moore who has swung a large bat himself. i like that. good evening. i'm kathleen parker. >> i'm eliot spitzer. welcome to the program. >> the big news of the day was of course president obama's disastrous trip to asia. i think we can say it was an unmitigated disaster. >> no question about it. >> you know, it was nothing more than a global rebuke of the president. >> indeed. in fact, we'll have david gergen here later in the show to talk about that. david gervin has been in the white house advising multiple presidents of both parties. we'll talk about what they should have done differently to step aside. >> call david.

>> no question about it. before we get there, last night on the show john ziegler, an ultraconservative radio host claimed the liberal conspiratorial media destroyed sarah palin intentionally. they didn't like her. the funny thing is -- >> yeah, yeah, yeah. that was hilarious. >> -- it led to quite a ruckus on the show. let's take a look to see what happened last night. >> -- targeting of sarah palin. you essentially took part in the assassination of sarah palin 1.0. that person is dead. she doesn't exist anymore. >> actually, i did not take part in it. i led it. let's get our facts straight. >> you led the assassination. >> on september 26th, 2008 -- >> have the blood out of your clothes yet? >> i said she was out of her league and i have rested my case so many times i don't need to bring that up again. >> right. >> i will agree that some people in the media came after her in a vicious, cruel, and unfair way. i was not one of them.

okay? >> okay. >> i'm not. >> as an alleged conservative who is the first -- >> did you come here to attack me or do you want an interview? >> i really truly want to understand how someone as smart as you can be duped like you were by the media into believing obama was a moderate and not a socialist and that sarah palin, the vice presidential candidate, was not in her league, as you say. >> every column i write is a true essay in that moment. and i change my mind. and i will say if i change my mind. but i have not changed my mind about whether sarah palin was ready to be vice president. and i hold john mccain accountable for bringing her into the national arena before she was ready because i think she could have been great. wow. that's what i'm talking about. seriously -- >> that was fun to watch. >> i realize i said i led the charge. obviously the liberal media led the charge against sarah palin. but i was the first i think conservative writer to step forward and say what was obvious after the katie couric interview.

and i actually wrote columns in advance of that one on september 26th, 2008, which i remember because it was on my birthday and i got 20,000 hate mails. it was a memorable moment. hard to forget. but i was initially very pro pail-pay lin. when i wrote that column, it was with great disappointment and i didn't shred her to pieces. i just said, you know, i'm sorry this -- it's become apparent she's not quite ready. >> you said she's paper thin, unqualified for the job, a quitter -- >> i did not say that. i didn't love it. i hated it. i was sorry. >> the edge kind of dripping out of the article. you loved every minute of it. you were right. >> no, i didn't. i hated it. are you kidding? >> you led the effort on the part of conservatives to tell the truth about -- >> here's what i did. i liberated -- i hate leading every sentence with -- >> yeah. >> it was liberating to me because once everybody turned on me i thought, that's the way it is, i get it, because the truth is if you are a republican you are never supposed to say

anything negative about another republican and if you do you will be banished into outer darkness. >> that was president reagan's 11th commandment. >> yeah. >> to talk more about the media's relationship with sarah palin, let's go into the arena. dan abrams, welcome. >> good to be back with you. >> welcome. you saw the exchange from last night. >> i did. >> did the media assassinate palin? >> i think they've put bullets into palin. the question is whether these were self-inflicted wounds. >> that is the question. >> that's the real question because i think palin had an enormous opportunity to become a media darling. when she was first nominated, when they first announced her name, everyone started looking and saw, wow, straight speaking, attractive, from alaska, and so people -- >> that's what i wrote in my first column about her. absolutely. >> and her first speech. >> they loved it. >> the public ate it up. >> the notion the minute she came onto this scene that the media was beating her up is a fall fallacy.

she was offered the opportunity to become a media darling. like everyone, once people get to know you, they figure out the things they don't like about the person. >> really. >> but no question in this case, no question in this case, though, that a lot of what has happened -- here's what drives the media crazy about sarah palin. she revels in ignorance at times. she's proud of the fact that she doesn't know certain things. >> sarah palin is what she is in large part because of the media. i mean, the media are her greatest gift, right? every time she turns around we show up, we talk about her, we write about her, and, you know -- >> and you would know this as well as anyone. i would think that that drives a lot of republicans crazy, the fact that she's become the voice in many ways of the republican party. >> no doubt about it. >> look, i have to disagree. she isn't where she is because of the media. the civil rights movement didn't become the civil rights movement because of the media or --

>> oh, come on. >> listen, people become leaders of movements because they touch a nerve and the people congregate -- yes, the media -- >> she was chosen as the vice presidential candidate. that's why she became -- >> that wasn't the media. >> but i think it's fair to say that she's getting a lot more attention than geraldine ferraro is right now. >> there you go. yeah. >> because sarah palin speaks in a way that touches a nerve in the public. you know i don't agree with her on that much of anything. whether you blame or praise the media for her is to misplace the credit. >> what is she saying that's touching the nerve? what she's saying is the media awful. >> say that again. i'm sorry. >> i think one of the most important things that sarah palin is saying that is touching a nerve, that's getting people to really support her is that this idea of using the the media as the villain. >> i do believe media went after her in a way that they didn't go after other candidates and were -- and i think treated her cruelly in some instances in

part because she's a woman. she's a unique character in our history. we've never had a woman that played up her femininity and flirted her way, you know, through the crowds the way she has. >> let's look at the interview. that's instructive. >> well, i was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand -- >> i read most of them, again, with a great appreciation for the press, for the media. >> like what ones specifically? i'm curious. >> all of them. any of them that have been in front of me over all these years. >> can you name any? >> i have a vast variety of sources where we get our news. alaska isn't a foreign country where it's kind of suggested it seems like, wow, how could you keep in touch with the rest of washington, d.c., may be thinking and doing when you live in alaska? sneeze are not "gotcha" questions.

there has to be some sort of factual analysis of why we've gotten to where we are with sarah palin. for palin to simply say, you know, the media is just against me, whatever they say, the bottom line is the media, i do think, has come to view sarah palin as not very smart. and i think that that's reflect reflected in the coverage of sarah palin. >> i think that is the case. can we switch gears for a moment? one of the issues we were we debating last night is whether the media is biased. and my perspective on this is that the media of course is biased. every writer brings a bias to every story and to think otherwise is to live in a world that doesn't exist. and the public should understand it. and that's why the more media there are the better. let them all be heard. >> but i think leading up to 2008 there's no question that the media as this sort of broad entity fell in love with barack obama. all right? >> that's right. >> i think that hurt hillary clinton a lot. >> no question about it. >> is the media coverage -- they came to life.

and part of it may be because it's politics, but part of it is a bias towards something different and something interesting. and the media does have this -- they like conflict. the media like something new. they love the idea of being able to say for the first time an african-american -- that's news. it's a bias towards news. hillary clinton wasn't news. >> well, yeah, that's for sure. >> but think back to bill clinton. bill clinton got the benefit of this, the comeback kid, when he came in, what, second or third in new hampshire and yet he got all the headlines and he became the train that everybody wanted to hop on in his '92 presidential campaign. so i think candidates see both the upside and the downside of this and to say, therefore, this was unique to the race with president obama i think is wrong. there's always this argument. >> i want to go back to sarah palin for a minute because, you know, there is -- what we can't ignore is the fact that after we had seen her in these interviews and realized that she had no

real depth of knowledge in certain areas that one would expect for someone at that high level of government, people didn't go after her to destroy her, to assassinate her. they went after her because she was a heartbeat away from the presidency and john mccain just celebrated his 72nd birthday. this is not irrational, mad assassination tactic. this is -- we have to talk to this person. >> that's why you have to separate out bias, right? bias suggests the reason you're going after sarah palin is because you don't like her politics versus the way of -- the media treats someone like sarah palin, which may be in part bias but also in part simply based on what she said. that's not bias. >> right. >> it's not a bias to want to attack someone because they don't get their facts straight. >> right. >> that may be the media's bias towards wanting facts. >> right. >> but i don't think of that classically as bias. >> the way you go after people in interviews sometimes, drilling down, pushing forward, going to that next question, the

follow-up question, follow-up question, there's no way sarah palin would survive that kind of interview. i wouldn't either, by the way, but i'm not running for president. >> well, dan, fascinating conversation. thank you for joining us. >> good to see you. >> we'll be right back. >> the people in the trenches and people up and down the chain of command, the cia and the state department, were shouting at the top of their lungs to the people in the administration that there was no solid evidence for wmds in iraq. and the white house just continually ignored that. let me tell you about a very important phone call i made. when i got my medicare card, i realized i needed an aarp... medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65, but it doesn't cover everything. in fact, it only pays up to 80% of your part b expenses. if you're already on or eligible for medicare, call now to find out how an aarp... medicare supplement insurance plan, welcome back. not paid by medicare part b.

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welcome back. we'll have a fascinating conversation with the director of the "bourn identity" and "mr. and mrs. smith," blockbuster movies. now he's come out with "fair game" that makes the case that president bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the iraq war. >> and the movie is about valerie plame, the cia agent whose identity was leaked by the

bush white house in that run-up. we have a clip from the film that shows valerie plame played by naomi watts talking to plame's cia boss. >> i know it's not easy but i want you to know how much the agency appreciates your silence in the light of this matter. we can't afford to have this knife fight go on any longer. >> i get death threats every day. people threaten to kill my husband, hurt my children. i went to the agency and i requested security to protect my family. i was declined because, quote, my circumstances fall outside the budget protocols. if this is a knife fight, sir, right now we're fighting it alone. >> wilson versus the white house, huh? i feel as a friend i should tell you that those men, those few men in that building over there are the most powerful men in the history of the world. >> the movie's director joins us here today.

welcome welcome, doug. the movie is the story of wmd and the white house effort to perpetuate the myth that there were weapons of mass destruction was powerful. in the book, president bush's memoirs, he says the single sentence in my -- he's talking about his state of the union speech. it was not a major point in the case against saddam. he's trying to say this transaction that valerie plame and joe wilson debunked, said it never happened, now he's claiming it didn't even matter. do you buy that? >> well, he actually only made a few claims to justify the invasion of iraq. one of them was that saddam had tried to seek uranium from niger, and what's incredible in his memoir is that as soon as -- because you remember joe wilson was the one who was sent to africa to investigate this claim and came back and said it could not have happened. what's incredible is as soon as

he published his op-ed piece, the white house the next day retracted the statement, said it was a mistake for that uranium claim to have ended up in the state of the union address. and yet suddenly in his memoir he's -- seems to be contradicting his own administration from a couple years ago. >> that 16-word statement came from a british report at the time. >> yeah. >> and, you know, we've all acknowledged there was some very bad intelligence from all directions during that period. but yours maybe advances the idea that they actually knew this was faulty intelligence and were insistent on pushing forward in ordero justify the war. >> seeing the story from the point of view of valerie plame and joe wilson, such an interest interesting lens to investigate this chapter in our history because the people in the trenches and people up and down the chain of command, the cia and state department, were shouting at the top of their lungs to the people in the administration that there was no solid evidence for wmds in iraq. and the white house just continually ignored that.

and obviously i have very good sources in this. i mean, valerie plame, who personally led the cover team in georgia that seized the aluminum tubes that dick cheney went on to talk about as did nush his state of the union address. these were the people in the trenches screaming at the top of their lungs this is not solid intelligence. >> what is the message, the take away from this movie? what do you want somebody walking out to have learned based on this story? >> i think, you know, this film, again, is not really about valerie plame. it's about abuse of power by the white house. and this is not the first time the white house in our country's history has abused power. in this particular case, it involved a decision to go to war. there really is no more serious decision the president of the united states makes than to go to war. so to have abused the power of the white house and to manipulate the country to the extent which they did for a

decision that's as solemn as going to war, that's the story that i want to tell. >> the deception about wmd i think we all now appreciate and understand. the question that i have is what did the white house gain by outing valerie plame? what was the -- sort of the political game, or was it just retribution retribution? was it venom? i don't see their political purpose there. >> i don't know, and unlike other hollywood filmmakers who might make up a scene, you know, and just make up a scene in the white house, i stuck to scenes that actually took place. you'd appreciate it as a lawyer that i actually used court transcripts. and the words that you see being uttered in the scenes that do take place in the white house are actually pulled verbatim from court transcripts. and there were no court transcripts involving -- there was a meeting that took place in which valerie plame's name comes up and karl rove let that slip in his memoir, even though it

contradicts his actual grand jury testimony, and we don't know what happened in that meeting. >> to come back to what you said was one of sort of the most trenchant point for you, which is what happens when there's abuse of power. let's look at it from the other side. they stood up to power and did what was right. what has happened to them as a consequence? >> well, it's probably the reason i chose to make this movie, because i am a hollywood filmmaker. i don't make documentaries. and, you know, a husband and wife standing up to the most powerful man in the history of the world makes for a good story. and they weren't just an ordinary husband and wife. he's the former ambassador who, when he was in iraq, the last american official to meet with saddam hussein and actually threaten saddam hussein back, and, you know, valerie plame seems like a suburban housewife, investment banker, beautiful blond, little did the neighbors know after she's done dropping the kids off at school she's going to langley where it turns out she's a top cia operative on

weapons proliferation, nuclear weapons proliferation. >> her husband didn't know where she was going. >> no. and the human side of what it's like to be married to a spy was infinitely fascinating to me. that's what drew me to the story. >> the film is "fair game." doug liman, thanks. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. >> one of the my favorite things about your show is you would bring people on who would not necessarily go together, like the interesting dinner party. >> yes. >> was that intentional or -- >> of course it was. >> sometimes that was a good idea. but was it a good idea? >> it was a wonderful idea. stelara® helps control moderate or severe plaque psoriasis with 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. in a medical study, 7 out of 10 stelara® patients saw at least 75% clearer skin at 12 weeks. and 6 out of 10 patients had their plaque psoriasis rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections

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tonight's person of interest for years hosted the most famous personalities on his talk show, from john lennon to katharine hepburn to norman mailer, dick cavitt, achieved what few hosts could, candid and engaging conversation. >> wait. we're not done yet. >> we'll send you a tape. >> i'm new to tv. which of you is which? >> this is parker and i'm spitzer. >> you're supposed to be

interviewed. you started asking questions. >> this is fantastic. we were going to promote your book. dick cavett has just written a book. i find it very intimidating to be interviewing you because not only have i been a huge fan of yours from the beginning when you had the show back in the late '60s and early '70s, but i've also been reading your book and i've learned that i've done everything wrong so far. one of the thins you say is don't ask questions q & a style. i have a script here and i'll show you what i'm going to do with it. >> you do that all the time. >> off script now. >> they say exactly what you mean. but just before i began doing a talk show i had worked for seemingly all the big people who did them. >> wait. a different generation. jack and john. >> i forgot you're a kid.

>> not me. i'm not quite that young. >> we're trying to get the youth demographic so we have to explain things. >> jack parr, johnny carson, merv griffin, and for two glorious weeks groucho marx when he host hosted for two weeks. the strangest things groucho said. i had him in the back seat of a rented car in hollywood with the great harry rupey and i heard groucho say to harry, stop for a light where somewhere in beverly hills, that's where your son lives in that building right there. and harry said no, it isn't. groucho said, yes, it is. that's the building. ruby said no, no, he lives over on wilshire. and groucho said, well, that's funny, i ran into him the other day and he never mentioned not living here. >> that's great. >> that's a weird curve, isn't it? >> the thing i love about your

speech, the way you talk and the conversational tone of your show is it's that. it's not this sort of wild and crazy thing that we've all merged into. >> the best advice i got was from jack, who said kid, don't do interviews. that's clipboards and david frost, what's your favorite color, you know, and pet peeve, for god's sake. make it a conversation. >> right. >> that's what jack did. >> that's a lost art. >> well, you know, you must know yourselves that when it gets going into real talk and not here's number one and let me ask you this and let me ask you that, that's when it flows and that's when it feels good and when it's fun to watch. >> you write two columns a week now. is that right? >> actually, i started doing two a week and i found that easy for the first two and then penal servitude for the next -- my life is over, i have no more to say. three years later i'm now doing it every other week, pretty much. you know, i got in trouble and it said cavett criticizes

stewart and colbert saying they weren't very manly. now, what i had said was it took real men to do late night in those days because i did 90 minutes five times a week and these guys only do two hours. well, that became my big question of their masculinity and it alienated them and so on and so forth. >> in your book you tell wonderful stories. you said two of the people you wished you could interview and did not were cary grant and frank sinatra. >> both would have been fun. sinatra was wary somehow, i don't know why. i once might have called him a goon who said frank's in the -- blah, blah. and cary grant on the phone i think he was close.

i think i should have tried harder. he got so far as saying, well, if i did it, they'd find out how dumb i am. >> well, you know, i've had that thought myself. you know? it's better -- >> about you not cary grant. >> about me. >> never tried to convince him he could come off so badly. how do you do that? >> if you had a show today and i personally wish you did -- >> okay. >> so -- >> do you know anybody? >> who would come on the first week? >> you know, i don't know. i try not to think in those terms because i can get frustrated. >> i want to bring up something. >> he said not to do that. >> no, no, you comment on politics. >> i do. >> you made harsh comments about sarah palin, who for better or worse, worse, in my view, is all the rage. what what do you make of it? >> palin, is it? >> yeah. >> the thing that the readers

seem to like most in their responses, which you get to read after your column when it appears, was the line that she seemed to have no first language. >> well, they used to say that george w. bush spoke english as though it were his second language. right? so sarah has no first language whatsoever. >> so it seemed to me. my guess is that 25 years from now this will be seen as a period when america had lost its mind for a while and mercifully one hopes recovered it. >> one of my favorite things about your show is you would bring people on who would not necessarily go together. you know, it was sort of like the interesting dinner party. >> intentional or was this -- >> of course it was. >> sometimes that was a good idea, but was it a good idea, do you think? >> wonderful. did you not have grace kelly and alice cooper on together once? >> no. >> no. >> no. >> did i make that up? >> i'll tell you one more astonishing. >> i've been telling people that for years. >> what would you guess -- well -- >> who were your most interesting --

>> governor lester maddox of segregation fame. >> down yonder. >> along with james brown, the football player. >> nice. >> mountain of brick, telephone booth of a man. >> dirty dozen. >> and truman capote. >> perfect. perfect. >> looking good. well, this was -- >> a rumble? what happened? >> it was dynamite. the governor got upset. he said i had to apologize to the people of georgia because i had called them bigots. and i wish we had a clip from this. it was quite exciting. >> oh, me too. >> i said, no, i didn't, governor. i said the bigots voted for you -- >> he said the only bigots -- and apologize -- looked at his time exand stood up and gave me one minute to apologize. luckily i thought to say, all right, if i called anyone a

bigot who isn't a bigot, i apologize. the governor saw through that, the audience roared with applause and the governor hauled -- walked off the stage. >> what was the last half of that? >> he hauled his considerable weight into the arms of his trooper, who was standing back there. actually, lester came back on the show some months back and the hatchet was buried. >> reformed. >> yeah. really as a professional politician, knowing the value of television time, he knew to walk off a scant 88 minutes into the show. >> the book is "talk show," thank you so much. when elliott goes on vacation, warm the chair? >> and next time you have a party, say to the hostess, i had a wonderful evening but this wasn't it. >> thank you so much. all right. we'll be right back.

>> what we have here is something deeper and bigger. this is not just about president obama and what may have been mishandling or misplanning his trip. i think what was more fundamental here is a growing sense that america itself especially in relationship to others in the world is no longer the leader that it once was.

it would appear president obama's asian trip was a total disaster. he failed to achieve any of his objectives for the trip -- no trade deal with south korea, no currency deal with china, a rebuke of global proportions. >> cnn senior analyst david gergen has written a provocative editorial about the trip. welcome. >> thank you. >> you have been in the white house multiple administrations, democratic as well as

republican. it seems inconceivable that president would go overseas without having at least the certainty of a trade deal with south korea. how could they not have had that locked up and done to ensure at least one success when they went over to asia? >> elliott, that will be a big surprise to a lot of people who worked at white houses over the years. i go back to nixon and planning trips to china and i can tell you on every one of these foreign trips the president and his advisers put a lot of story in what kind of headlines are we going to get around the world from this trip. are we going to have a triumph or not? it's very important to the prestige both of the presidency and to the united states. so when you wake up as we did this morning with "the new york times" and the front page of "the new york times," the top two columns, headline, "obama's economic view is rejected on world stage," that's a terrible headline, very disappointing.

to be fair to the president, he did have a good grip to india and indonesia before this, but this was a really bad day for him because these were, as you say, you know, basically he went into this trip to south korea wanting a trade deal with the south koreans and saying he would have it by the time. and it fell through because they resisted his demands. he wanted a deal from the chinese on currency manipulation. they rejected that. he wanted a deal from the other nations on basic trade imbalances. they rejected that. and he got criticized by the chooeds, the germans, the brazilians and the brits for the united states engaging in its own currency manipulation. >> david, with hindsight, it looks clear that the president made a strategic mistake making this trip right after the elections and then of course without any sort of real assurances that he could accomplish what his mission was. but he couldn't really cancel another trip to indonesia, could he? he's already canceled twice.

don't you think that would have been a huge mistake? >> a couple things. no, he couldn't have canceled it. he could have put the trip off for a few days in order to -- frankly, what i think he wanted to do back here in the united states was to frame the election in a way that strengthened his hand as much as possible, you know, and damage control. but by leaving the states to others, he went abroad looking like a weakened president, and now the weakness of his own presidency at home plays into this story about failures in south korea. and you get this sort of narrative that's built up, he's weak at home and abroad, and that's exactly what you don't want a president to do. >> david, it seems to me that had the message been sent to the south koreans, the president is not coming unless he has a treaty, that was the ultimate persuasive argument to get the deal done. so that's what they should have said to the south koreans. >> this is not just about president obama.

and what may have been mishandling or misplanning his trip. i think what was more fundamental here is a growing sense that america itself, especially in relationship to others in the world, is no longer the leader that it once was. >> unfortunately, you know, he went over the asia with diminished stature and coming back here with yet another, sort of a double whammy. the problems aren't over for president obama. once he gets back to washington, he has to face this debt commission report. can he lead? is he going to be able to lead a bipartisan commission and convince americans that they've got to make all these sacrifices in order to not only put our economy back on track but to regain our stature in the world? >> jackpot questions, kathleen. he has two questions to deal with when he gets back on the economic front. one is what does the obama administration believe about these extensions of bush tax cuts? we've gotten mixed signals.

he has to come back and resolve it and lead to an answer that i think is bipartisan in nature. but the second and more difficult issue is the one you pointed out. what is he going to do about the big 800-pound gorilla just waiting for him next year, and that is these deficits? is he going to take the lead or sit on the sidelines. i think his presidency is going to live hang on the economic performance not only on the united states and jobs but what we do about these deficits in the next couple years. >> david, i want to go back to what you were saying before about the relative position of the united states in the world. i want to quote something in your very persuasive article posted on cnn.com. >> thank you. >> it says either we get our economic house in order or we will lose much of our ins influence and our leadership on the world stage. the question i have is, even if we get our economic house in order, as you look out over the next 10 or 15 years, do d -- many people are saying that it's

inevitable that we have a diminished role in the world as was evidenced at the most recent g-20 conference. is that the path we followed? >> i think it's inevitable, elliott, that more players will be at the table of power over the next 20 years, that china, india, brazil and others are going to be at that table. the question remains is the united states still at the table and where do we sit? are we one more player or at the head of the table helping to shape things? it makes a big difference whether the united states sits at that table and whether we, in fact, have a respectable place at that table. >> couldn't agree more, david. one last question. has the white house called you yet to see if you're available? >> i think that's the last thing they're going to do or probably should do. but thank you. >> we think they should. you've got our vote. >> i'm happy right here talking to you folks. great fun. thank you. >> david gergen, thank you. we'll be right back. presidents don't have friends. friends are people you can

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welcome to our "political party," where guests often speak before they think, the way we like it. will cane is a columnist for national review online and the editor at large at salon.com. and gail, a shrink. we're happy to have you here because we all need one. and charles, "new york times" visual op-ed columnist. president barack obama says that the midterm election results have displayed nothing ideological whatsoever. is he delusional? >> wish fulfillment. >> wish fulfillment. >> he wants it to be so. and he may even be right in the sense that people have varying thoughts of, you know, some of their thoughts are republicans, some democrat. but when it comes to voting, the mind says needs to line up and i'm only going to hear what's on one side.

that's what happened. >> i think you've got it right. he's right and wrong. 40% of the e electorate -- >> you're bipolar. >> 40% call themselves conservative. 20% call themselves liberal. that's ideolodge cap. then you have incumbents. then you get the confused people. they don't carry around the ideological card he talked about. let me say this. here's where he's wrong. this was an ideological election. he was an ideological president that pushed an ideological agenda and the voters happened to not be as left ideologically as him. >> the biggest myth is you have this big group of independents and maybe they're confused or on the fringe. only 10% of independents, political science has shown, can be classified as true, pure independents. the rest are people who are functionally members of either the republican party or the democratic party. they vote republican steadily

and democrat steadily but label themselves independent. >> this year when the independent group was huge, they all voted republican. they take away from that isn't that you become an ideologue after you look at your economic situation. economics drives ideology, not vice versa. if the economy comes back, they fly back the other direction. it's not ideology. it's jobs, jobs, jobs. >> we can draw the same conclusions about the a midterm election from the opposite standpoint when ronald reagan was president. when he had his first midterm it was a disaster for the republicans and the left said it was ideological overreach. it was in response to double-digit unemployment. we have the highest unemployment now since reagan was president. >> you and i are in alignment but we'll tolerate the others. gail, since we e don't often have a shrink at the table, we want to take full advantage and you're not going to send the bill. we'll debate that later.

the person who needs some help, the president had a bad day on election day, midterms. he goes overseas it gets worse. he has no friends. you look at pictures, you hear it's bad. when he comes home, if he walked into your office, laid down on your sofa, couch, whatever, what do you say to him? >> presidents don't have friends. friends are people you can trust, who trust you, that you share your secrets with, that have your back. i mean, there are many adjectives we would all use to describe friends. and at the end of the day leaders can't really afford to have friends. you know, i hate to sound so machiavellian but -- >> tv anchors don't have friends either. >> to some degree, right? you know, you keep your enemies closer. better to be feared than loved. i think that it's very difficult for any president to really have friends. >> did he know that going in? was he trying to be loved and not feared? is that part of the problem?

>> i think it is. that's been a big problem for the democrats in general. they're often trying to be loved. they need to be more feared. they need to be more aggressive. and that i think has a lot to do with the current election, quite honestly. >> you don't think republicans need to be loved? >> republicans have used aggression to motivate their elections, and that works. loving elections, they don't work. it doesn't stimulate people so much. >> different constituencies completely. the vitriol works on people who lean right. but -- >> explain yourself. >> absolutely it's true. i mean, the people yesterday basically saying how democrats and republicans see their leaders completely differently. democrats want you to get along. they pride people who compromise. asking republicans the same question, they prize people who will not compromise. >> tough. >> they want a tougher -- democrats really want, you know,

somebody to move towards the middle. >> you made the point that the democrats as a whole want people to move to the middle and republicans want somebody who's going to fight more. what that's a function of is republicans as a whole are an ideologically cohesive lot. the democrats are a much broader party. >> part of the reason for that is that the mind of many republicans has to do with i see things in black and quite. i see -- this is right, this is wrong. liberals tend to see things -- ice more mushy, mushy. >> one at a time. >> -- republicans are a sweat lodge. >> wow. >> that's the way it works. >> let me make this point. it plays into the liberal hand to laud compromise. government moves in one direction, getting bigger. you compromise in the direction of getting bigger. the reason the republicans are cohesive, it's the only way to keep the government from growing. >> hold on. quick break. more with our party.

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we have time for one more question. news broke today that several secs of george bush's memoir are apparently plagiarized from other sources including previously published books by his own subordinates. the question is when you have a ghostwriter who plagiarizes, who gets the credit for the book? >> or who gets the blame from the plagiarism? >> the commander in chief, right? if somebody under your -- does something it's on you. but i don't think this is that surprising because i think that it's tough to be the president and not have some i guess i'll call it fungible superego, a little bit of, like, this is

okay and, you know, i can make this okay. and to feel that everything that has gone on is somehow really in your wheelhouse, right? you're the president. so that you might report on things that you weren't exactly at but feel a sense of ownership. >> i would suspect he doesn't necessarily know. if he's got some researcher doing most of the writing and he does research online as most of us do and cutting and pasting and, you know, the president -- it looks familiar. >> this is true. >> this just gets, you know, to the idea that are we really surprised a president or politician who makes his living reading the words that somebody else has written for him in every speech he ever delivers -- >> john f. kennedy "profiles in courage," ted sorensen wrote it. we all know this, of course, and sorensen would never publicly own up to it until recently in history. >> it does bother me. it's true. you know, there's -- you know, if he is saying people said things to him that they actually said to reporters, that's -- that bothers me.