>> as a writer i know that what matters are the words you choose and the way you string them together because that's what reveals something about you. so i don't like the ghostwriter business at all. all right. well, this was a great party as usual. thank you all for coming. please come back. and you all, because it is a party, we gave you permission to have a real hug. we urge you to. stay with us. we'll be right back. >> larry: tonight -- michael moore. fed up or fired up? he calls the election a day of reckoning and why he thinks the democratic loss was really a win. bush now? and what do oprah and tom hanks have to do with it? find out because michael moore is here for the hour next on "larry king live."

good evening. program note before we start. general colin powell will be here monday night. our senior executive producer, wendy walker, on tuesday. president h.w. bush and barbara bush on wednesday. dolly parton thursday. and russell brand one week from tonight. but tonight's guest is old friend michael moore, the academy award-winning documentary filmmaker and the best-selling author, all of us happy to welcome him to "larry king live." the democrats took a pounding in the election. was this angering democrats embracing republicans general anger or i've had enough? >> i think it's more i've had enough. i think people are upset at democrats and republicans. democrats are in power. unemployment rate unofficially

is close to 10%, probably unofficially closer to 20%. 53% of the population according to the "washington post" this week said that every month they worry about whether or not they're going to be able to afford the mortgage or the rent. that's the mood of the country. so the democrats were there and that's what happened. >> why didn't they sell something? an extraordinary health care bill, whatever you think of it as, the first one in a hundred year, and i think 85% of the population got a tax decrease. >> mm-hmm. >> larry: what was the anger? >> the -- well, first of all, the health care bill, and there are many good things about that bill though it didn't go nearly as far as i wish it had gone. >> larry: better than before. >> absolutely better because if you have a kid that's 25 years old, they can still be on your health insurance plan, et cetera. too much of the new health care bill doesn't take effect until 2014, so people didn't feel the immediate impact in these last few months before the election, so not that anybody went to the polls thinking our health care problem is solved, my personal

health care problems are solved, that's not the mood of the country. they put it off. >> larry: he gave a tax decrease to the middle class. >> and put it in what he called the stimulus bill. it was, like, you know -- that's part of the democrats' problem. i'm not the first person to say that. why would you call it a stimulus, a jobs creation and tax cut bill? they don't do that. here's honestly how i think the people see this. the government is like this giant frat house and for the last eight years a very rich frat boy and his frat boyfriends essentially destroyed the house. imagine if you were, say, the landlord of that house and after eight years they completely destroyed the house. you bounce them, you get them out of there and you hire a guy to come in and fix the house that they messed up. that's what the american people did. they hired president obama to do that. say you went off on a cruise or around-the-world trip for a couple years and you came back and the house is still in the same frigging mess that you left it in.

would you be mad still at the frat boys who had the house for eight years or would you be mad at the guy you hired and had two years to fix something and fix your house? >> larry: does obama share the blame for the shellacking? >> well, yes, because he didn't come out of the gate fast enough, hard enough, strong enough for the things the people elected him to do. he came out wanting to compromise. he would start compromising before anybody even asked him to compromise. instead of just -- on the public option with the health care bill, instead of let's just -- here's what i believe in and just fight for it, he goes in with a compromise. and i think that -- i think -- i'm sure you agree with this. most americans, they're not ideologue ideologues. they don't think of themselves as left or right or democrats or republicans. what they do like is someone who's strong, someone who's principled, somebody who has the courage of their convictions. and --

>> larry: you could be all those three things and a wacko. >> yes, we've had those. >> larry: you could with a dictator. >> yes, you could be, or you could be franklin roosevelt. right? >> larry: right. >> or you could be franklin roosevelt. and had he made the decision to come into office and act like roosevelt, i don't think that would have been as rough as it was in last week's elections. >> larry: do you think he gets it now? >> well, i think he gets it, but i think the part that he doesn't get is he can't -- he can't -- he can't keep operating in this let's all get along mode when the other side doesn't want to get along. i mean, he's got to say -- he's got to get out of the rut, and i think people watching the show and who supported him, i mean, a lot of people, friends, people who voted for him, everybody's a little down and depressed this week. but it's like, okay, come on, snap out of it. we still have the white house, we still control the senate. you know, the majority of americans still agree with us on the basic issues in terms of,

you know, jobs, the environment, we should bring the troops home, all that. the majority of americans take the democratic position. they're just upset at what's going on. so why don't we start fighting instead of this kind of mickey mouse approach that the democrats have -- >> larry: how weak is ne on the world stage? he's at the g-20 now in asia. the headline today is his economic view is rejected by the world. >> well, yeah. i think -- i think first of all the world has seen us with our giant credit card going into debt and specifically with this war -- this war -- these two wars are going to cost us eventually about $3 trillion. that is a huge debt. we rarely talk about the impact of the war on the debt. and these other countries who didn't support this war and don't understand why, i mean, we have a military right now, larry, where our military budget plus the wars is greater than i

think something like the next 25 countries' militaries combined. i mean, what are we doing with our money? why are we spending it this way? we're reckless. i don't think other countries appreciate that. and i feel bad for them. he's there and -- >> larry: what's ahead? gridlock, compromise, or what now, next two years? >> well, the republicans are going to continue to do what they've been doing, which is stop everything from happening. now they've got one house so they're going to do that. that doesn't mean he has to stop. for instance right now there's a lame-duck session that's going to take place. there are about 270 bills that the house has already passed that are sitting there waiting for the senate to pass. he still has and will have the senate. pass those 270 bills before this session of congress ends or pass three of them. pass the one -- there's the elderly abuse victims act. there's a child food nutrition act.

there's a veterans act. i mean, there are some really good things that the public wouldn't go, what's he trying to do pushing this through on a lame-duck session? pass some of these things in the senate that the house has already passed. i also want to point out, i think there's a silver lining for the democrats in this election. the blue-dog democrats, the conservative democrats, lost by a huge margin, the majority of them, in fact, were thrown out of office last week. that's a good thing for the democrats. that's good because so much of what the democratic caucuses had to do is to sort of placate these conservative democrats and they water down these bills so they'll be happy. well, they ear gone now. the progressive caucus is about 80 members in congress, only three of them lost election -- lost the election last week. so it's going to be actually a more liberal democratic group, more progressive group -- >> larry: but smaller. >> smaller, but they'll be able to cohesively -- well, look what the republicans were able to do with the small minority they had. >> larry: we'll be back.

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there are no sick days. vicks dayquil defeats 5 cold and flu symptoms. ♪ >> larry: michael moore is our special guest. you have written if the democrats don't get their acts together, as you put it, we'll find alternative candidates to run against them. inside the party? challenged, you think?

>> i don't know if that's going to happen, but i do think -- i mean, you sort of had a preview of it in the illinois senate race where the democrats lost that seat, the obama seat, to the republicans because the green party there, i can't remember what the exact number was last week, somewhere i think between 3% and 5% -- >> larry: costing the election. >> cost them the election. there's your coming attraction for 2012. if president obama continues down the road that he's on, if he doesn't put the restraints on wall street that need to go on them, if we have another crash in these next two years because he didn't put the clamp on these guys, if he expands this war or doesn't end it, there will be a challenge from the left. there's no doubt about that. >> larry: you've even suggested that democrats might want to run candidates like tom hanks or oprah. how about george clooney? >> well, yeah, i've said this for a long time that the republicans, for as much as they attack hollywood, they really do love hollywood because they love

to run candidates from hollywood -- ronald reagan, fred thompson, gopher from the love boat, sonny bono. i mean, they've actually done quite well when they run hollywood. >> larry: george murphy. >> yes. exactly. i'm wondering why don't the democrats run hollywood, too? i mean, we have beloved figures on our side of the political -- >> larry: thought about it for a while. >> he thought about it. he's beloved. tom hanks, obviously. who doesn't like tom hanks? >> larry: oprah. >> again, oprah, this wouldn't actually -- i don't know if this would be a lateral move or a step down to go from oprah to be president oprah. >> larry: does obama get back all those young people who voted for him and the blacks who did not turn out a couple weeks ago? >> well, this is -- this is, i think, what i thought was the real news of last week's election, that 23 million people voted for him in the 2008 election. 23 million. how many showed up last week? 9 million.

14 million didn't show up. what was the difference last week between the republicans and democrats, number of votes? about 5 million 5 million. 14 million young people didn't show up who voted for him. all they needed was 5 million to show up and we wouldn't have the disaster we have. why didn't they show up? he basically forgot about them. they were the core of his campaign. i don't know if you remember the statistic but the 18- to 29-year-old demographic was the only white demographic that obama won in '08. he lost the white vote in every age group after 29 years old. that's how many young people voted in '08 to put him over the top when they were the only white demographic. and what has he done with him? i mean, they had a mailing list, e-mail list, all those texts, phone numbers. they did all that great work during the campaign. i would have set up a room somewhere in the annex just devoted to social networking, to creating youtube videos, to getting young people involved, having campus organizations,

high schools and colleges. i would have done so many things if i were him to keep that enthusiasm going. and instead it's like they didn't exist. and, you know, they're young people. they've got other things to do. >> larry: are you concerned about the new speaker, baner? >> mr. boehner. yes. he will obstruct everything good that obama and the senate wants to do. i mean, that's exactly what's going to happen there. so get ready for nothing to happen for the next couple of years. but remember, just because he can obstruct, that's just the house of representatives. president obama's the chief executive of the other -- this important branch of government. there's a lot of things he can do, larry, in terms of regulations. he can do a lot through the epa that he doesn't have to get a bill passed in congress to start clamping down on environmental laws and things like that. there are many things he can do. >> larry: should the democrats retain pelosi as minority leader? >> well, i mean, i think --

>> larry: they vote in secret. >> yeah. i think -- yes, compared to who she's going to be running against in that vote, she's probably the better person to do that. and she's done -- i mean, it's funny how if -- i don't want to just sort of say it's because she's a woman and that, but it's just -- it really seems to me if she were a man -- she did a lot of things. that's right. congress did a lot in spite of what was in front of them and made a lot of things happen. that was under her leadership. i think that the republicans, as they are often wont to do, play off prejudices that exist in the general population. so it was easy for them to make her the villain. >> larry: her personally also grated a lot of people, didn't it? >> again, if she were a man -- >> larry: i get you. >> you know what i'm saying, larry? i think that's just -- you know what i'm trying to say? >> larry: i got you. michael moore is our guest.

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>> larry: we're back with michael moore. will the republicans be able to slow back health care reform? >> of course not. >> larry: they can't override a veto.

>> they can't override a veto, they only have one house. what are you going to say to american people once their kids can stay on their health care until they're 26 years old or their kids can't get health care because they have a pre-existing condition? how are they going to tell the american people, no, we're going back to the old, ancient way we used to do it p? no. that's not going to happen. we need to push faster forward toward a better system than we have. >> larry: despite all the president's proclamations about those making $250,000 a year or more, about 1.5% of the population, and their tax cuts that he would get them back on the right path, does it appear they're going to capitulate, that those tax cuts will stick? >> it appears they'll capitulate. >> larry: why? >> why? >> larry: i'm asking you why. >> why do the democrats constantly give into this? why don't they just go to the american people and say that the wealthy, if they paid a fair

share of the tacks like they used to for most of our adult lives -- they paid much more -- that would help so much with the deficit, with the things that we need to fund. if we cut back on the war, if he we bring the troops home, if we cut the pentagon budget, bring that down, we're going to have the money to do the things we need do. but but this country is crumbling right now. there are some basic things -- and, again, president obama tried to deal with this. they put a lot of money into public works, and it was -- the attacks on him i just have not -- i read this thing last week where it was an article called "how obama saved capitalism." i mean, here's a guy who voted for the bailouts, supported -- everything -- you know, put the wall street bos buoys in, summers and geithner and these guys that people in wall street wanted, saved the auto companies for the auto companies, not so much for the workers but for the

auto companies. he's done a lot of what they wanted him to do. if you had $100,000 on the day he was inaugurated, larry, and you just invested it in the nasdaq average, just put it in for the last almost two years now, that $100,000 would be $177,000. you'd have a 77% -- that's -- that's what obama's done for the wealthy, for capitalism. and what's he got in return from them? set a record. more money than they ever have in trying to defeat the people. >> larry: and the obvious question is why, if they're doing so well, do they want him out? >> they're that greedy. >> larry: they want more? >> they want -- yes. because they're afraid that they may have to pay 3% more in taxes or they're afraid that they may have to pay the same flat rate of social security tax that every other -- everybody watching the show right now pays somewhere about 7% of their income that goes, you know, your

fica and all that, but after i think like $110 thoushg, if you make more than $110,000, you know what your phi kashgs your social security tax rate is in zero. zero. so a flat tax on you or i, say, because you and i make more than $100,000 a year, so a flat tax on us, that's a great deal because 7% out of us -- out of -- >> larry: sure. >> you know, compared to the -- if a person is making $40,000, $50,000 a year, and 7% of that has got to go -- that's a big chunk for them. my point is we wouldn't be worrying act social security so much if we paid, if everybody who makes more than $100,000 a year, pays more than the $40,000 a year guy makes we'd have enough social security till about 2075. >> larry: that's another source of concern to the republicans is the tea party. many of the old-guard republican party, and it's shown already in the fight over who gets a break here and who doesn't, over the

tea party and the establishment. could that hurt the gop? >> oh, absolutely. i think it already -- it cost them the senate, didn't it? i mean, really, because -- because the tea party was successful -- >> larry: raises the -- >> miller and -- the delaware woman. >> larry: yeah. >> i mean, they might have -- >> larry: nevada. >> huh? >> larry: nevada. >> yes. they're going to have essentially a republican in alaska. yes, they would have -- they might have been -- >> larry: a republican. >> yeah. they might have been able to control the senate. they're not going to be able to do that now. yes, they're going to have their civil war, and i would think it's not -- wouldn't be -- i wouldn't put it past them if a more traditional republican gets the nomination, say a mitt romney, that the tea par si the just going to go nuts and say we'll have to run our independent candidate and you're going to have perhaps a sarah palin or rand paul or whatever running. >> larry: mitt romney, whose health plan in massachusetts is what recently passed. we'll be right back with michael moore. don't go away. my pipes might leak

compromise what i like to do. i take care with vesicare, because i have better places to visit than just the bathroom. ( announcer ) once-daily vesicare can help control your bladder muscle, and is proven to treat overactive bladder with symptoms of frequent urges and leaks, day and night. if you have certain stomach or glaucoma problems, or trouble emptying your bladder, do not take vesicare. vesicare may cause allergic reactions that may be serious. if you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, stop taking vesicare and get emergency help. tell your doctor right away if you have severe abdominal pain or become constipated for three or more days. vesicare may cause blurred vision, so use caution while driving or doing unsafe tasks. common side effects are dry mouth, constipation, and indigestion. ( woman ) you have better things to join than always a line for the bathroom. so, pipe up and ask your doctor today about taking care with vesicare.

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don't see a very bright future. so the tea party, i think, has appealed to at least a legit legitimate feeling that exists. i live in the midwest and as you know it turned very republican here in the elections, lost all the governorships except for illinois in those great lakes states. and -- but, i mean, then there are those people in the tea party that are, you know, a little -- >> larry: off the deep end, maybe. >> off the deep end, maybe. >> larry: but that's a minority. >> well, i don't know. i think -- i still think that we live in a fairly liberal country, liberal in the sense that -- that -- that people want to move forward, they don't really -- they don't want to go back to the old way. you know, eventually, you know, things do get better in this country. women get the right to vote. we've passed civil rights legislation.

gays will be able to marry. this will happen. you can see where the wave is going. the wave isn't going the other way. so i done -- and i don't think the tea party -- i hope -- isn't going to take us in that direction. >> larry: in 1932, norman thomas ran on the socialist ticket. he had a 20-point plank. 19 are now law. >> right. right. >> larry: some think that that drubbing -- >> by the way, thank you for mentioning norman thomas. this is going to be one of the really sad things about your leaving the show, is that your history, your -- i mean, what you bring to this, your knowledge, you've lived through so much of this, this is gone, you know. when you're gone, that's gone. that won't -- i mean, there's good people on tv. i'm not saying that. but i'm just saying that you bring this -- >> larry: it's called aging. >> well, or wisdom. right? huh? >> larry: okay. i'll take your word for it. >> i mean, if young people, anyone watching tonight who's in their 20s will go and google

norman thomas -- >> larry: they'll learn a lot. >> they'll learn something. yes. >> larry: our friend president clinton was knocked around in '94, came back, won big in '96. can obama come back? >> oh, i think with some of the people who have been elected, i mean, just look what happened this past day or two with the congressman in florida who was going to have as his chief of staff the crazy talk show lady. there's enough -- >> larry: she wanted to shoot -- >> yes. >> larry: on site. >> she won't be the last one, by the way. you'll see more of that sort of thing with the new congress. i think with some of the people that have been elected, president obama's approval ratings will start to rise within the next three or four months as people become aware of what the tea party and the republicans are really up to. here's the mistake that he shouldn't make as far as what clinton did uz wuz he thought i have to move more to the right and be more pro business. that's when clinton started the deregulation of wall street and the banks.

that's when he -- all those -- and his secretary of the treasury, mr. larry summers, started to put into place what eventually became, once bush got into office, that he took what clinton started and put steroids it into, and then we ended up with the crash in '08. we hope that obama -- that's not the lesson that he's learned from this. i hope that the lesson to learn is to see the more liberal you were, if you were a member of congress, in last week's election, the more likely it was that you got re-elected. the conservative democrats, the majority of them were booted out. the liberals won. he should take this country in the progressive direction he was elected to take it in. >> larry: they'll have a stalemate because the house is going to turn them down. >> but let the -- that's what i'm saying, though. he's afraid to even put it up in front of the people. say some of these bills that he could push through the senate right now, the disabled veterans bill, the elderly abuse act. >> larry: who's against that? >> yeah. and if the republicans -- but the republicans have held this up in the senate.

these bills that have already been passed, make them filibuster. make them stand there and read from the phone book for three days, four days. shut the senate down and let the american people say why have they shut down the senate? they don't want to help elderly people who are abuse victims. they don't want to help out these veterans. he's afraid for some reason to just call on it. because i tell you what, trust me, if the shoe was on the other foot, if there was a lame-duck session ha the republicans had right now and they had a couple hundred bills, they'd be ramming those babies through every single day. >> larry: we're back with michael moore. lots of people are still having ♪ a phone that gets you to the stuff you love faster. only from at&t. rethink possible.

>> larry: we're back with michael moore. lots of people are still having mortgage and foreclosure problems. michael dealt with this in his film "capitalism: a love story." in this clip, you'll hear from congresswoman marcie captor. watch. >> don't leave your home, because you know what? when those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his finger or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage. and you're going to find they can't find the paper up there on wall street. so i say to the american people, you be squatters in your own homes. don't you leave. in ohio and michigan and indiana and illinois and all these other place where is our people are being treated like chattel. and this congress is stymied. >> larry: i know a lot of people are doing just that. >> some people are starting to do that and they should do it because the banks don't have the paper. they've split it all up.

they've bundled it, sold it off as securities. pieces of paper all over the world. they can't come into court with your mortgage. they can't come into court with your mortgage. you should stay in that house and you should fight it. she's great. actually, she's a good example of what i was just saying. she's the congresswoman from toledo, ohio, a state that just elected a republican governor, a republican senator, and yet she's one of the most liberal members of congress from a hard-hit place, toledo, ohio. and yet she won by an overwhelming margin again in toledo. the democrats have got to start -- again -- >> larry: you're telling people don't pay your mortgage? >> no. i'm saying -- no. i'm saying that you should not -- these banks are evicting people. they're not being given the break or the chance -- first of all, many of them were sold fraudulent mortgages. and the fbi has come out and said that 80% of the mortgage fraud that has taken place during this crisis was committed

by the banks, not the people -- >> larry: what's a fraudulent mortgage? >> well, they sell -- they sell these mortgages to people who -- well -- >> larry: they can sell the paper to whomever they want, can't they? >> well, they can, but what they do is they then -- once they've sold -- this is the real crime of what the banks have done and nobody's gone to jail for this, is they knew they were selling homes to people that probably couldn't afford those homes in many cases. >> larry: right. >> okay? and they were selling them at inflated prices, these homes now, to come back down probably to closer what they were actually worth. the whole market was out of control. but the banks -- here's the thing, larry. the banks knew that there would be all of this foreclosing going on. they knew that it would -- and yet they still sold them to people. you know, here, they bundled them as security, sold them, and then -- and then these wall street banks started placing bets against those very mortgages that they knew had a

very good chance of bombing. they then -- they took a bet out saying that -- they're betting that these mortgages are going to fail. and they made money on that. it is so absolutely -- if a casino did that, i mean, they'd be brought in on charges. >> larry: we'll get into other areas of politics. bob woodward wrote in his latest book if obama could switch from biden to hillary, make them switch jobs. you buy that? >> well, if it could happen. i don't think it needs to happen, but i think his problems are bigger in terms of -- if he wants to win re-election, he needs -- he needs to -- i mean, we just had this deaf sit commission thing here yesterday. >> larry: right. >> and it's, like, that's the first commission that you put together, president obama, to -- let's reduce the deficit. we've got 10% unemployment. the first commission should have been a jobs commission. how are we going to create jobs? what are we going do -- that's the only thing that's going to turn this economy around, when people have middle-class job

where is they're making good money and they can survive. >> larry: the writer and economist ben stein is a frequent guest. and one thing about ben is you never know where he's going to go politically. he thinks that nobody has the answer to the jobs question. there is no definitive answer. you pin any republican or democrat down and they can't tell you. what would you do? >> well, i'll give you a couple of ideas. right now you and i own about 61% of general motors. next week, the government now wants to sell off about 20% of our share. so we'll only own 40% of it. and i know -- i mean, obviously something about this because this is where i'm from, and i've seen people suffer as a result of losing these auto jobs. as the owners of general motors, why aren't we taking that company in a 2 1st century direction? why aren't we having this company build mass transit, build bullet trains, build the things that we need to move ourselves around the country? >> larry: congress has to

appropriate the money. they'll be able to form jobs, but where is it going to come from? >> well, they -- well, first of all, you change the tax structure so that the wealthy are paying their fair share, not getting away -- i mean, last year exxonmobil, total amount of taxes ta they paid, zero. zero dollars. there's a whole list of corporations, you can read it on the internet, of -- that get away with paying absolutely no taxes, companies that have moved their corporate headquarters to the cayman islands or to dubai. i mean, this has been one scam after another so that the wealthy have just gotten wealth wealthier, that 1% now that makes almost a quarter of all income in america is made by 1% of the people. that's absolutely -- you're right, we won't have real jobs as long as that kind of disparity continues. ims ] ...with...stage presence. ♪ a new phone with dolby surround sound speakers. only from at&t. rethink possible.

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>> larry: we're back with michael moore. obama could be a one term president, then. could be. as you see things. >> well, he could be, but i also think that there's a chance for four candidates on the 2012. >> larry: would the -- four candidates. >> four candidates. >> larry: would michael be one of them? >> he could be. he could be. yeah. or like i said earlier the left is so fed up with what the -- obama and the democrats have done, they, like they did in illinois last week, they may run somebody, and so you're going to have an independent candidate on the left, you're going to have president obama, if the republicans nominate the tea party doesn't like, they're going to run an independent.

and then of course then you have sort of the bloomberg thing. i guess you could have -- i mean, this has only happened a couple times in our history. abraham lincoln, there were four candidates on the ballot. i think he won with 39% of the vote. and harry truman, there was -- >> larry: why is a two-party system better? >> it isn't better. it's not. we have 300 million people. >> larry: the constitution never mentioned it. >> that's right. this ultimately has to change because two political parties cannot represent the broad spectrum of political thought that exists amongst 300 million people. our neighbors to the north, canada, you know, there's five legitimate parties on the ballot. when they have their debate, you see five candidates standing there on tv all, you know, presenting their position. but of course they have a parliamentary system, which we don't have, and in which in some ways seems like a fairer system because let's say you are a green party person but you're only 10% of the country, well, you should have 10% of congress. if you're libertarian and -- >> larry: have a voice.

>> 5% of congress is libertarian. everybody then has a voice. it does seem like a fairer system. >> larry: but big money lost, too. meg whitman, over $140 million. she lost. spent $140 million of her own money. >> yeah. >> larry: money doesn't buy everything. >> that's right. well, there's a lot of examples of rich candidates who run and they don't make it. in my state, in michigan, though, the former ceo of gateway computers is our new governor. republican. >> larry: do you like him? >> i don't know. he -- you know, in michigan, republicans tend to be a little more liberal than other parts of the country. romney. martin luther king. and even before that, the republican party was founded in michigan in the 1850s. michigan was the first state to not have a death penalty and much of that is a republican legacy in the state of michigan. did i just say something nice about republicans?

>> larry: well -- mark that down. keep date handy. back with michael moore. we'll ask him about sarah palin. dermatologist recommended ] aveeno has an oat formula, now proven to build a moisture reserve, so skin can replenish itself. that's healthy skin for life. only from aveeno.

>> larry: michael, you're talking about five candidates in canada. if there are nine candidates running in republican primaries, sarah palin could be the nominee, could she not? >> oh, easily. yeah. absolutely. >> larry: would the democrats like that? >> well, i think some people would. i think people think, well, that's going to be a no-brainer. but i wouldn't -- geez. i wouldn't be dancing the happy dance if suddenly she was the candidate. >> larry: why? >> because i think that, you know, we had a president for eight years who probably proclaimed that he was a "c" student and there's something he understood about his fellow americans or at least a certain chunk of them, that that was something to -- that was cool. it's cool not to be too smart. and so, she appeals to that, and the best news for democrats is

if they don't get it together and they fight each other and she runs against the traditional republican as an independent or maybe she wins the nomination but then a traditional republican or a bloomberg decides to run, then, you know, there you go. what do i know? i've got a a high school education, larry. >> larry: have you read george w. bush's memoir? >> i have. >> larry: "decision points," i hear it's very well written. >> okay. yes. it seems to have nouns and verbs and adjectives and periods. i -- look. i don't know if you -- i actually went right to, because somebody told me that he trashed me in the book. so i went to that first, just to see what he said. >> larry: how did he trash you? >> he basically compared me to osama bin laden. from what i've read so far, the worst slur against any american citizen that he has rendered in

this tomme of his. he said osama had released a say or something before the 2004 election and he said the two of these guys sound just alike, michael more and osama bin laden. >> larry: how did you react to that? >> well, you know, he -- he said that his worst moment was when

what is st plan now, is she goupg to hold a ral whether i or meet with government officials? do we know what she plans to do? >> she won't meet with government officials. the first thing she is going to do is move to her party's headquarters the national league for democracy. it's only a couple kilometers from her. party officials say they expect the party to start becoming politically active.

they knlt tell whether or not the impact here. her lawyers told us that she would rather stay under housz arrest than accept conditions for her release. we are not exactly sure what will happen. the first thing she might do is return to party headquarters. there are several hundred people at the party headquarters for democracy as well. >> the question is, if she does take the reigns of the nld, how effective will that be as an opposition party in the wake of the elections where most countries are condemned as being a sham. how effective will she be as the opposition leader in burma? >> it's certainly going to be quite difficult. ahead of the elections, they di-

solve. it boycotted the election. it's why the party is weakened. what did happen is several smaller opposition parties formed for the election. therefore, you can say there is somewhat of a divide within the opposition, which was weak to begin with. referred from people close to the democracy. the party is really losing strength by the day simply because it's not able to participate in opposition capaci capacity. however, you are not going to finds another person here in myanmar who will attract hundreds of people saying i stand by suu kyi. she is the most powerful person. she makes the military rulers very, very nervous. she gets people very, very afraid to come out and voice

their opinion under the threat of heavy repression. >> we are not naming our reporter on the ground for security reasons. cnn along with other international news agencies as well have been banned from entering into myanmar. we have a reporter there. we are keeping their identity secret now. we are getting another word from another reporter who can physically see them. after 21 years, 15 years of those under deessential in some form. the prodemocracy leader has been released from her house arrest there at university avenue. she has now been physically released. we are speaking with a reporter on the ground who is telling us the situation.

now, we understand she will leave from her house, will head to the headquarters of her party, the nld, which boycotted those elections last week. but, still effectively remains the only real opposition there in myanmar, a country which was once known as burma or also known as burma. the question, though, is that if she puts out a call for people to take to the streets, is she likely to be followed given the 2007 crackdown? they made it perfectly clear that the kind of decent we saw, essentially in 2007 and before that in 1990 will not be tolerated, again. >> reporter: they certainly have. we were able to speak to opposition monks in hiding after

the revolution. they said at that time, they were too weak. again, when you see the scenes going on outside her house, we are not heard from our reporter from the ground that she has emerged. people are in front of their house. it's one of the things the military is concerned with. just a couple days ago, there was no indication anyone was going to come out into the streets. there was no i understand indication anyone would stand-up and stand by her. now these crowds of people at uc and the crowds of people that went to her house. we drove past that play. the posture became more and more threatening from standing around yielding rifles as more and more people showed up.

someone able to mobilize people like that. someone like that is someone where she might be able to get the opposition going, again, to unify the opposition. it's someone other opposition party people have told us here. this is certainly something the military is worried about. now, we have to say, john, the opposition in the country has been weakened, especially after the last election. there are some people who believe the timing of her release right now is something that was carefully orchestrated by this country's military. all right, we have had the elections. your party did not participate. now, we have a parliament. there's an air of legitimacy. certainly, it is a very difficult situation that they find themselves in. john. >> there was a lot of expectation that she may have