from speaker gingrich. we came to florida and gingrich didn't have two good debates. i did. we responded. we responded to the attack that were coming from us. if you're attacked, i'm going to fight back and fight back hard. did note that in the suffolk university poll they asked the people in florida who has run the most negative campaign in florida, they said newt gingrich. he can't whine about negative campaigning when he launched a negative campaign in south carolina. >> mitt romney speaking to reporters about the tones of the ads in florida. next will be nevada, a key caucus state for the candidates. rick santorum already in nevada. ron paul campaigning in that state as well. again, most states have the por portional delegate count, if you come in second or third you'll still garner some of the delegates leading up to the

convention in august. the florida primary is a winner take all. the votes will go to mitt romney or newt gingrich. >> nevada families lost everything in the housing crisis, newt gingrich cashed in. gingrich was paid over $1.6 million by the agency that helped create the crisis. >> i offered advice. a historian really? sanctioned for ethics violation, he resigned from congress by disgrace. if newt wins, this guy would be very happy. >> i'm mitt romney and i approve this message. >> the lastest from the nevada caucus, a reminder that we'll have live coverage and a chance to call in at 8:00 p.m. eastern. a smul cast on c-span and on the radio. you're listening to "washington today." let's turn our attention to

syria and action by secretary of state hillary clinton who traveled to new york telling the u.n. security council to end the violence in syria, it doesn't compare to nato efforts in libya, the u.s. working with our allies trying to craft a resolution that all u.n. security council members that russia would support. here's more with secretary of state clinton. >> in the past few dais, the regimes have intensified their force. this weekend, the arab league suspended its monitoring mission, pointing to the regime's intransients and the mounting civilian casualties, so why is the arab league here before this security council? because, they are seeking the support of the international community. for a negotiated peaceful

political solution to this crisis. and a responsible democratic transition in syria. and we all have a choice. stand with the people of syria. and the region. or become come police it in the continuing violence there. the united states urges the security council to back the arab league's demands that the syria government immediately stop all attacks against civilians. and guarantee the freedom of peaceful demonstrations. in accordance with the arab league's plans, syria must also release all arbitrarily detained citizens. return its military and security forces to their barracks. allow full and unhindered access to monitors and journalists.

we urge the supreme court council for a political process to effectively address for the aspirations and the concerns of syria's people. countried in an environment free from violence, fear, intimidation and extremism. now, i know that some members here, may be concerned that the security council could be headed toward another libya. that is a false analogy. syria is a unique situation. that requires its own approach. tailored to the specific circumstances occurring there. and that is exactly what the arab league has proposed. a path for a political transition that would preserve syria's unity and institutions. now, this may not be exactly the

plan that any of us ourselves would have designed, i know that many nations feel that way. but it represents the best effects and efforts of syria's neighbors to chart a way guard and it deserves a chance to work. i think it would be a mistake to minimize or understate the magnitude of the challenge that syrians face in trying to build the rule of law and civil society on the ruins of a brutal and failed dictatorship. this will be hard. the results are far from certain. success is far from guaranteed. but the alternative, more of assad's brutal rule is no alternative at all. >> taking the rare move of traveling to new york to represent the u.s. the comments of secretary of state hillary clinton as she urges the u.n. security council to pass a

resolution taking aim at the assad regime in syria. a professor and a senior fellow at the washington institute for near east policy. and he's also the author of a new book "in the lion's den." >> the resolution that's on offer, put forth by more roocco. it enshrines the arab league plan for a transition in syria which dialogue has to take place within two weeks. a national unity government is formed within two months and then authorities handed over by president assad to his deputy which is the vice president. receive that tranls situation towards a democratic system in syria. for fair and free elections. it's a big project.

unfortunately until now, russia has indicated that it will veto that measure. >> one indicate thatd the country is facing the brink of civil war, would you put it in those terms? >> i think that definitely you have a direction in number of part of the kuns. whether it's full-blown civil war, it's closer in the areas where you have different communities fighting each other. but it's not there yet. and we're heading in that direction. if the regimes crack down on the protesters and the opposition continues and i think that's the reason you have seen this strong of force. >> let me ask you about the politics of the united nations. up until this point, russia has opposed this resolution. secretary of state clinton

working with spain and france trying to craft a resolution that moscow would not block, what do we have to do in order to get moscow, russia, onboard? >> i think what you saw today was an effort at diplomatic shaming and perhaps, indirectly arm twisting. by saying that the security council needs to attack action by endorsing a plan by a regional body. the head of the arab league emphasized this. but of course, there's another way that you can get the russians to move, it won't happen this time but you trade with them on an issue. what would we be willing to trade and what would they be willing to trade? this is "washington today" coming up in just a couple of

minutes, more politics. special election in oregon. voting under way in florida and the caucuses this saturday in nevada. on february 28th, the u.s. supreme court hearse the oral argument in mohammad, can case about the whether the torture victim protection act allows lawsuits by torture victims against organizations. you'll hear a caisse cited saturday. on radio. from 2004. the consolidated case, sosa and the united states petitioners, versus roberto alvarez and others. respondents. >> if i can use by way of example the individual who's the convicted killer in the cia killings, this is an inindividual who was arrested by fbi agents in pakistan in 1997. under the ninth circuit approach, obviously, this individual could not be arrested by fbi agents as a categorical

matter. but under the approach of respondent, the federal governments would have to inquire specifically into the whether the government of pakistan consented to the arrest by fbi agents in pakistan in 1997. >> what the government and petitioner sosa want the court to believe but having grown through the trouble of expressing to the world, in terms of -- that we would as nation enforce the laws of nation, then the congress just didn't did it. basically, congress didn't do anything else to force the torts and violations of the laws of the nation. >> sosa and the u.s. versus alvarez et al. welcome back to "washington today" here. primary day in florida. caucuses taking place this

saturday in nevada. we want to get perspectives on this. so, explain the political demographics of nevada and what we can expect saturdayened what the candidates are doing leading up to the caucuses in your state? >> you sort of three segments in the republican coalition here in nevada. you have the establishment folks, that largely correlate with mitt romney's base, the mormons here, a strong contingency of ron paul's folks. and then you have the sort of activist, tea party, part of the party here and they have been sort of undecided as to who they're going to vote for, that's where you have santorum and gingrich trying to leverage those organizations to help them with the ground game come saturday. >> and we have been talking about the winner take all versus

the proportion delegate count. is it proportional in nevada? >> yes. >> we covered the caucuses in iowa, they all started at the same time. they lasted about an hour. what are the ground rules in nevada? >> a lot of back and forth to tell you the truth. they finally settled they're going to be starting at 9:00 a.m. on saturday. they were originally going to do some staggered starts. the only exception to that they'll will be a caucus saturday night after sundown for members of the jewish faith. >> what will that mean in terms of the returns? and those caucuses that start after sundown. how will that affect the count? >> that's a great question. this just got dropped in last week, that they decided to do

this. a source of some concern. they're going to be tweeting all of the caucus results live as they come into the party headquarters there. ultimately you'll have to wait until night time to see how the vote comes out. >> what do you think the turnout is going to be? >> well, four years ago, with a sort of nonbinding straw poll, the gop had 34,000 turnout. numbers of 60,000 to 70,000 this time. >> let's talk about what's happening in your state economically, because it is a key swing state the president is hoping to win nevada in the general elections, the unemployment rate is higher compared to the rest of the country. we know what's been happening with the housing industry, many homes in your state returned water. >> not just under water, we have this huge backlog of foreclosures as well. this unfortunately is nothing

new for us. we have been floating along the bottom. we're starting to see some positive upticks. some of the unemployment numbers are coming down. attempts by the attorney general to mediate some of the disputes over the foreclosures. that seems to slow that process. you see home values are dropping. the problem for nevada, a lot of the programs that the federal government set up -- we see things like strategic default. people stop paying their mortgage. it may take a couple of years. >> only a handful of caucuses in february. some are calling it the february intermission. some important states, michigan, colorado, arizona at the end of the month, super tuesday. how much activity have you seen in nevada and how critical will

the nevada caucuses be to rick santorum and ron paul who are not competing in florida? >> you know, it's just really in the last couple of days you're starting to see a little bit more activity here. romney and gingrich have been on tv for a week and a half so or so. gingrich don't have any activity. sort of been, nevada is supposed to be the third event. got pushed out of the way by new hampshire and florida. what i think is going to happen, assuming that romney's victory holds up today, a chance to have back to back wins in key demographics. this is also a big state for ron paul. he's trying to use his grassroots and his sort of organic organization to sort of make inroads and pick up delegates. >> and david, can you touch on

what the president is going to be doing in nevada in the fall? >> well, he was here last week. he stopped in after the state of the union address, to promote some energy policies here. but, the democrats actually held their caucus here a couple of weekends ago, as a way to say, this is our organizational strength. so, nevada will be a battle ground here. we'll see a lot of visits from the president and the surrogates as well as the republicans once they get their field settled. in addition, we'll have a competitive senate race here and a couple of competitive house races as well. >> david damore, professor of political science at unlv. this is "washington today". the chill newspaper taking a look back at what happened 15 years ago, a story first reported by the hill newspaper

and it rocked washington d.c., newt gingrich was facing an ouster within his own party. the headline the gop coupe, the talk of the 2008 p-- 2002 primary. it's sparked debate 15 years ago. topic of conversation today in this 2012 race. the story of the secret plot in 1997 was something that impacted newt gingrich, it did name him politically, he was out of office just a year later. this morning, bob cusack sharing his insights. >> you report that leadership had split with newt gingrich a month before the coup over the issue of how to deal with it.

were there also policies debates? >> yes, there was. that was the problem, most of the problem was policy oriented. that kind of -- in a similar way with republicans now in congress, they're frustrated that they have had to compromise so much with president obama, they were frustrated that the republican congress had to find common ground with bill clinton, so there were -- the small bills that started to show that gingrich's hold on leadership was starting to crack and it started in the spring with the legislative branch bill that funded the government that's when the rank and file members bolted and took that bill down and later an emergency disaster relief bill that's where gingrich and his lieutenants split and that was really just a precursor to the high profile effort to get rid of him. gingrich eventually found out

about this coup attempt. it didn't work. in retrospective, people are saying it wasn't well thought of. but it weakened him significantly. following the election he was gone from congress. he resigned as speaker. >> as you describe this coup attempt, a specific moment in time and you take through why it perhaps failed and one of your sources calls it a keystone cops type of moment. >> yeah, yeah. you're going to try to take down the speaker, you have to have a very well thought out plan. the majors players involved in leadership that time, tom delay, dick army, they were leading the charge at the leadership level. they did put together a very effective plan and you know the other interesting thing, another reason we looked at it to take a

look at the role of john boehner, john boehner was the number was the number four republican. what we found out was that -- and going back to 1997, hume was the one who broke the story and his reporting really stands up after 15 years. consistent with what we found. john boehner was aware with what was going on, but he was not leading the charge. that is something that a lot of sources told us. >> you report that of the 81 republican lawmakers who served from gingrich and are still in congress, only two have endorsed him for president. 22 are backing romney and the now speaker, mr. boehner, who remained neutral in the presidential primary, last month denied he was part of the group of the republican stars to try to remove gingrich from his post. has speaker boehner stayed removed from the debate and the

campaign at large? >> it is an awkward position for speaker boehner as gingrich was surging. gingrich could be the nominee. he would be the top republican in the house. that would be a bit awkward. so, he is trying to distance himself from that event. saying that was a rumor. just speculation that he was involved. but, he was well aware of it because he was in these leadership meetings plotting it. once again, he was not leading the charge, however, he was in the meetings discussing how to get rid of newt gingrich. >> bob cusack, thanks so much. >> just a portion of "washington journal." you can hear it every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span radio and live on c-span television. all of our programming and interviews are on our web site.

part of the growing archives at c-span.org. after the primary in florida, it is a gingrich and romney race. rick santorum and ron paul vowing to stay in the race. gingrich will stay through the republican convention in late august this year. what does this mean for the gop? senator mcconnell was asked about that. >> senator, it looks like whatever the results are, the contest may go on for a while. newt gingrich would like to go all the way to the convention. how concerned are you doing something like that might hurt the senate republicans' efforts to gain some momentum? >> i don't think the primary voters out in the presidential contest need any advice from me, certainly, about who to support or how quickly to end it. it will end when it ends. at that point, we will have a nominee who is very competitive. i think we have an excellent

chance to have a new president next year. we're all watching like you are the drama associated with this contest. it is reminisce sent between the contest of obama and bush in 2008. i don't think this contest is going to do us any harm. thank you. >> senator mitch mcconnell weighing in on the 2012 republican race. the polls closing in a couple of minutes in some parts of florida at 8:00 eastern time. that is when c-span will begin the live coverages and results and speeches by newt gingrich and mitt romney. a special house election seat. it will determine whether a republican can win in a democratic district. the two parties going head-to-head in the november election. the republican candidate is rob

cornelious. he has been emphasizing his business background. the democratic candidate is suzanne. they are running against david wu. a democrat who resigned last august after admitting in an unwanted sexual affair with an 18-year-old girl. this is oregon's first congressional district. here are some of the ads now on the air. >> the same people who covered up for david wu are now deceiving you because suzanne is wrong on the issues. she has no record of job creation. we need a fresh start. >> as the only job creator in the race, all work for bipartisan solutions that create oregon jobs. i will protect social security and medicare. i'm rob cornilles. i approve this message. i ask for your vote. >> rob cornilles is attacking u

suzanne bonamici? fails to pay taxes, but attacks his opponent on taxes. that is rob cornilles. >> i'm suzanne bonamici, i approve this message. >> this is a district the president received 61% of the vote in 2008. during the mid-term elections, david wu won by 36% points over rob cornilles. this is "washington today" on c-span radio. alan fruman is retiring after 20

years. he first took the job in 1989. we have an interview posting on c-span.org. the leaders of the senate paying tribute on the senate floor. >> mr. president, for a few weeks in march, 2010, alan was one of the most talked about men in the entire city of washington. the senate was poised to send a historic healthcare reform bill to president obama's desk for him to sign. but the usual procedure hurdles stood in the way. health care policy staffers were camped out in his office studying senate procedure and precedent. but despite the pressure and national spotlight, mr. fruman remained calm through one of the most intense moments of his career. for a very few weeks, every capitol hill reporter knew his name for sure.

his face was on every political news blog. every political science professor talked about him. even a few folks outside the beltway learn what had on earth was a senate parliamentarian. he was briefly a washington celebrity. but for those of us who work in the senate, alan fruman has always been a star, even when few of us knew what job he did. it did not take us long to learn that quickly. alan has served since 1977 in the secretary of the state. his 18 years as chief parliamentarian, he made decisions with composure. he has knowledge of completion rules that certainly would be deemed to be extraordinary. these are rules that are convoluted and the procedures

are somewhat unique, but he understands every one of them. he is above all, impartial to a fault. mr. president, i have been upset at alan for a few times when i wish he weren't to impartial. he has always been impartial. that's why he's the only parliamentarian to be hired by a democrat and republican leaders to serve in the role. he was retained in his position despite a change of control by five majority leaders. one cannot be an effective parliamentarian without being judicious. he brings a willingness to hear both sides of the issue. he has pay sentienpatience. i never heard him raise his voice. i never saw him to be agitated. he is always calm and cool and what a wonderful example he is

for all of us. the truth is, senate parliamenta parliamentarians are not appointed. they grow into the job. senate mcdonough will succeed him. elizabeth will be the sixth person to hold the job since 1935 when it was created and the first woman. she steps into very large shoes. i'll miss alan's guidance, but i wish him all the best in his retirement. he will really not retire. he will continue to edit senate procedures and the official book of senate procedure. no one is more qualified than alan to do this. congratulations, alan. thank you very much for your service. >> mr. president. >> the republican leader. >> let me add some words about alan fruman. for those who are not aware of at