00 >> this week on the journal editorial report. it's all over, but the finger pointing. bipartisan super committee goes bust. what happens now. plus, the g.o.p. candidates take on obama and each other over foreign policy. how important will national security be in the coming election? and the world's population surpasses 7 billion. rekindling an age old debate. the are there too many of us on the planet? ♪ >> although congress has not come to an agreement yet. nothing prevents them from coming up with an agreement in the days ahead. as i have from the beginning, i stand ready and willing to work with anybody that's ready to engage in that effort, to

create a balanced plan for deficit reduction. >> paul: welcome to the journal, editorial report, i'm paul gigot. that was president obama reacting to the failure of the bipartisan deficit reduction committee failing to reach an agreement. calling on members of congress to call for a compromise before 1.42 trillion dollars in automatic spending cuts take effect in a little over a year. how likely is any bipartisan agreement before the 2012 elections? let's ask, wall street journal columnist and washington columnist kim strassel. this week, barney frank, i know your favorite congressman. >> absolutely. >> paul: said that the failure of this super committee is good for democrats, will make it easier for them to retake the house. is he right? >> well, look, this was what this was really about is the election, okay? what we have realized not just

what it says on the super committee, but with the debt limit negotiations that preceded them, this is about a different, fundamental difference in the philosophy of government. democrats believe that all of the spending is fabulous and all you need to do is raise taxes and the republicans have come to understand that this government growth is unsustainable and they want to do spending cuts and entitlement reform. those differences, there's no middle ground. so what you have to have is an election and that's what they're fighting over. the republicans think if they had agreed to taxes as part of this, it would have fundamentally hurt them in the election and they have a better shot having stuck to their principles. >> kim ydo democrats think this is good for them. why did barney frank want it to fail? >> because they can come out and say, look, we want to preserve-- they're going to run this year on medicare reform, suggesting that republicans are trying to cut entitlements, never going to agree to a deal because

this is their election strategy so they've now come out of this saying that they preserved these programs and they'll be able to climb the republicans are the ones that wanted to cut them. >> okay, jay. >> and president obama will no real stake in this committee succeeding and would interfere with his reelection campaign theme which is going to be to run against the sort of do nothing congress, congress that succeeded in this as a super committee had succeeded it would have upset that. >> how do you run against a do nothing senate that's a democratic senate? >> and also, how do you do that when for the first two years of your presidency your party had control of both the house and the senate and hoping that americans have short memories. >> square this circle for me, dan, politically. did democrat want this to fail and obama want this to fail. >> i think so, they wanted to run against the republican party as obstructionist. as far as i can tell, the party's entire campaign platform run against obstructionist republicans. >> but, doesn't he need independence and wouldn't it

help if they got some, like if he showed, look, we're making some progress on this, this problem. >> you know, you're asking me to explain barack obama's political strategy, and that's hard to do going all the way back to obama care, which is now one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation that has ever been passed so i can't quite explain barack obama. he has-- i've said many times he has his principles and he wanted those taxes raised on the rich and that was his line in the sand and he wasn't going to get it and now he's going to run on that. >> he promised a veto in october of any deal that didn't include the trillion dollars of new tax revenue increases and he must have known, jason that republicans couldn't possibly raise taxes by that much a year after they ran and won the the house, saying we won't raise taxes. >> and remember the fallback position, which is across the board. >> automatic spending, not until after the election, and we know politicians can't

think past the next election for the most part. his more immediate concerns here, the super committee was a side show as far as the white house is concerned. president obama's immediate concern extension of payroll tax cuts and those are coming down the pipe right now and he's much more concerned about that. >> paul: kim, what about the concern, a lot of republicans have over dense again cuts. half of the automatic spending reductions would hit homeland security, pretty severely, so much so even president's oba obama, leon panetta would call it devastating. could they put together something for these cuts? >> two things here, when you look at the big issue shall the big numbers over ten years, those defense cuts seem quite large. when you look at a one year thing, what it would take before they could get into office if they were to win the white house, that number is a mistake. what they're going to to try

to do, bring the democrats along and say do you want the defense cuts and leon panetta says, no, the president is threatening to veto that. go ahead and do that, let's have a debate about the need to fund our military. >> will those cuts ever happen, dan. >> with strong presidential leadership, they will. i'm very much for this sequester and really, we've supported it in the past and it's the only way that washington is going to cut that budget. >> look ma, no hands, no-- >> now. >> the automatic slice and dice. >> we went through this in 1990 with president george h.w. bush led by the budget chief. the majority leader with the democratic senator george mitchell. they went out to andrews air force base. remember the summit. ground through the he question of a 5 1/2% sequester and they hunted and president bush pulled back and they passed excise taxes and there was no sequester. you need a strong president. if barack obama is president

in january 2013, it's not going to happen. >> it won't go on. >> no. >> when we come back, the republican candidates tackle iran, israel and immigration in a national security debate. how vulnerable is president obama on foreign policy and will it be a major issue in the election?

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>> the g.o.p. presidential candidates squared off this week in a debate devoted exclusively to foreign policy on afghanistan, immigration and other issues, but just how important will national security be in the the upcoming election. we're back with dan henninger and jason riley and joining the panel, wall street journal foreign affairs columnist bret stevens, let's show john huntsman and mitt romney.

>> are you suggesting governor that he we take our troops out next week or what's your proposal. >> did you hear what i just said. draw down from 100,000, we don't need 100,000 troops. >> many of them across the wire, we need a presence on the ground that's more akin to 10 or 15,000 and that will serve our interest in terms of intelligence gathering and special forces response capability. >> i stand with the commandners this regard and have no information pulling our troops out faster than that would do anything, but put at great peril the extraordinary sacrifice that's been made. this is not time for american to cut and run. >> who got the better of that debate? >> i think that mitt romney clearly did. john huntsman plan is essentially identical to what joe he biden was proposing a couple of years ago so maybe the governor is still working for the administration. look, you talk to generals pan especially people at the kernel level who have been deployed to afghanistan and they tell you the counterterrorism, the counterterrorism strategy can't work unless you also have a counter-insurgencesy

strategy. if you can't secure large provinces like kandahar, like hellman, you're going to find a vulnerable population and it's going to be susceptible to taliban reprizeals and it's not going to cooperate with your forces. >> jason, politically john huntsman must feel that this has resonance, even among republican primary voters, is that working for him. >> among primary voters it might. in the general election, i'm not sure. the fact of the matter is, obama has done some good things on the policy and continued a lot of the bush administration policies and the drone strikes and we've gotten bin laden. as a political strategy i'm not sure this is the way to go for the republican candidates. >> the only other candidate pushing that line is ron paul though a much more extreme version. >> he'd pull everybody back from everywhere and that's not going to work politically, but is huntsman on to something here politically?

>> i think there's fatigue in the country over afghanistan as there was with iraq and previously, mitt romney was over where huntsman was about pulling back from afghanistan and he seems to have moved himself. i'll tell you, paul, if opinion polling suggests that huntsman is in the wrong direction and ramally has been doing opinion polling, then that means that the polls are saying, don't pull out of afghanistan. 'cause miss where the polls are. >> paul: the essential here and debaters focused on it, is iran. that's where president obama's legacy on foreign policy is going to stand or fall and that is where he's most vulnerable. >> absolutely where he's most vulnerable. where he's weakest in the face of the gravest important policy. jason is right. obama's record on foreign policy is not entirely dismal. he's essentially grated containment strategy with china and massively increased the drone program. >> the drone program.

but this is the issue where either the united states will remain a-- the preponderance presence in the middle east or forced out with mullahs with nuclear weapons. >> this debate, in terms of who was a serious command ner chief contender. among the top tier contenders, you saw substantial of discussion between mitt romney and john hutsman. he's not a top tier candidate, but they can speak substantive will foreign policy. when rick perry and herman cain got involved they were out of their depth quickly and that's why the debate was useful, i think. >> paul: let's have another clip here, this on immigration from newt gingrich responding to an attack by michele bachmann. >> i don't see any reason to punish somebody who came here at three years of age and wants to serve the united states of america and i specifically did not say we'd make 11 million people illegal. i do suggest if you go back to your district, and you find people who have been here 25

years and have two generations of family and have been paying taxes and are in a local church, as somebody who believes strongly in family, your you'll have a hard time explaining why that particular subset is broken up and forced to leave given they've been law abiding citizens for 25 years. >> paul: jason the chatter is after this debate, a fatal blunder by newt gingrich going to hurt him with primary voters because he showed some support for even if down the line, for making illegal immigrants citizens. >> i thought it was newt gingrich's finest hour frankly. it may hurt him in the short-term, but the reality is the next president is not going to order the deportation of 12 million people. >> even one million. >> american people won't stand for it.

a or draconian laws that force people to leave. and newt gingrich should have credit for wanting an adult discussion for this and not an applause line. >> and a candidate looking beyond the primaries to a general election where the republicans will need some hispanic support in order to defeat barack obama and if newt gingrich seems to be the only one who realizes, dan. >> and that can be said about the national security issues as well. obama has not been horrible on 0 national security. he had bob gates as defense secretary and leon panetta as ceo and replaced him with david petraeus and continued the drone wars and i think what romney is doing is positioning, as well as gingrich, positioning themselves at this point. first of all, it looks like they're going to be the two candidates and they're beginning to position themselves to run against the president in a general election. if republican primary voters don't recognize that, their candidate is going to be in trouble. >> paul: okay, dan, when he we come back, the world's

population hits 7 billion and an old debate

>> the world marked a major milestone with the birth of what the united nations says is 7 billionth person and hand wringing from the suspects who say growing population leads to poverty, misery and environmental calamity. is 7 billion too many. >> the entire world's population could be housed in the state of texas, in single whoms and the state would be left crowded as the bronx is right now. the world did an enormous. the planet is enormous in size and these limit theories drives there's some sort of

trade off between population growth and economic prosperity, but the facts don't bear that out. >> paul: would you want to live in that texas? >> we live in new york city. (laughter) >> i'm up in the suburbs, no, i wouldn't, frankly, but the point is that 75% of the u.s. population lives on less than 4% of the land. so, we have an enormous amount of space here, but the point is that the trade off that people who worry about population growth don't have the facts to back them up on this, and some of the most sparsely populated regions of the earth are some of the poorest, such as sub saharan, africa. and some of the populated are richest, no correlation here. >> paul: dan. >> two issues to this issue and one called taiwan and the other is south korea. both countries after world war ii were full of people and in poor and put in place the right economic policies and

they have boomed and people have grown in prosperity and wflt, but there are a lot of them in those two countries. i think the criticism from the united nations and development agencies and some of the other people is based on the fact that their economic policies by and large do not produce the economic growth at that picks people out of poverty. >> those are based on the state control and redistribution. >> exactly. when that result occurs and they're left with all of the people. their default is attack the people. now, argue population control. family planning and the rest of it. >> what about the increase in food prices, commodity prices, and corn has been at a record now for almost a year or close to it. the suggestion is that that's increasing demand and we aren't able to meet that supply, that's a sign we're running out of resources. >> well, not a sign that we're running out of resources, it's a sign of monetary policy and a sign of huge investment in biofuels which takes lands previously used to cultivate the food and-- >> corner for energy, that's

again another example of a policy, but there's a deeper sort of intellectual failure at work here. now, they think of human beings as essentially consumer of resources-- >> define that for people. >> and late, early 19th century philosopher who thought the population would outgrow the ability to feed itself. this discourse for 200 years and has been wrong. truth of the last 200 years, human beings are creators. look at a guy who created the green revolution, first in mexico and then brought it to india. india is able to feed hits self. you don't hear about famines in india or china anymore, that's a testament to our ability to reinvent resources around us. >> paul: jason, on the flip side of this, this population argument is what you see in europe and japan and maybe ten, 20 years in china which

is that they aren't producing enough babies to be able to replace their current population. >> and these are places turning into giant retirement communities, and they're in trouble, particularly because of the large welfare states and a shortage of workers to continue funding those retirees and smaller populations mean smaller work forces, less productivity. fewer consumers, therefore less capital investments. it's not the route america wants to go. >> china could be in 20, 30 years because of its one child policy, could be the first developing country in history that is actually aging rapidly. >> there's one right behind it called russia. russia's work force is dying at a greater rate than india's, over the next 20 years, it's working age population, 15 to 64 is projected to decline by 20%. and two great powers here, the populations are going to fall and put them into a position of both relative weakness, but

probability tension over that weakness. >> paul: want to know one of the main reasons the united states isn't in the same predicament. >> immigration. >> paul: immigration. that's right. and one more break and when we

♪ fare thee well ♪ farewell ♪ mr. gloom be on your way ♪ ♪ though you haven't any money you can still be bright and sunny ♪ ♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪

♪ hah

>> time for hits and misses of the week. kim, first to you. >> for a hundred years, whiskey maker, jack daniels in moore county, tennessee. the county's largest employer, and provides a third of the tax base, and brings more than 200,000 people to the county in the year and got the citizens and politicians thinking it would be swell to impose another 5 million dollars in taxes on the whiskey maker it will it became clear one of the solutions for jack daniels to leave the state and they've killed that proposal so here is a toes on a holiday weekend and jack daniels reminding

them the tax barrel is not bottomless. >> when you mention the name haqqani in connection with pakistan you think haqqani is responsible for the death of many americans soldiers and support of intelligence service and lately an ambassador who say haqqani, who has been a tireless opponent of extremism in his country. he serves with distinction and diplomate. just fired by the pakistani government, i think, the pakistanis need to get their haqqanis in the right order. >> paul: all right, dan. >> ted forsman, philanthropist, amid the occupy protests and president saying the rich should pay more, he gave hundreds of millions of dollars to cultural institutions as does the 1% this this country. they support a vast array of such things. if the choice is between the government and barack obama choosing who should get that

money and dead forsmc -- ted fo, i'm take ted forsman. that's it for the panel, i'm paul gigot. we'll see you here next week. >> jon: on fox news watch, the presidential election more than one year away. and the first contest in iowa, how has the press painted political candidates. who is on top, who is not and how does the coverage stack up the g.o.p. frontrunners versus the pop democrats? >> good evening, and good morning. >> on the broadcast tonight. >> this as world news tonights. >> getting your daily dose of news has gotten easier, lots of options, lots of outlets and lots of concern about what you can trust. and whose news do you use. >> and is it solid? the today show, good morning america, and the the early show. what do these programs have in common when it comes to talking politics and covering

the g.o.p. field? the holiday shopping season is off and running, will negative media coverage scrooge your holiday spirit? >> three, um, um.... >> and the politicians are making late night television a must-see campaign stop. on the panel this week, writer and fox news contributor judy miller. radio talk show host monica crowley. jim pinkerton, contributor editor the american conservative magazine and bureau chief of talk radio news service, ellen ratner, i'm jon scott, fox news watch is on right now. >> let's start off looking at polls. four months ago mitt romney in front for the presidential nomination by 9 points,

michele bachmann in seconds. a month later, rick perry has the top spot in a cnn poll, knocking romney down a notch and newt gingrich shows up in the top group. in a usa today poll, from september, perry is on top. gingrich in second, ron paul in third. no sign of newt. and then in october, an msn bchmsnbc wall street journal poll, herman cain in the top spot. romney two, ron paul, no perry, no gingrich. this month, a fox news poll has newt gingrich on top, romney tight second and followed by herman cain and then ron paul. what are we to make of all of these polls. we in the media love them. do the viewers? >> probably. we know the media love them. they're cheap and give awe automatic story and you could go on tv and i could go on tv. here is a story. who ahead and who is behind. don't have to interview anybody or--

>> make hire somebody else and make a bunch of phone calls and it's, it gives you an automatic quote for your story and makes it so-- >> does it give the -- does it affect the outcome, i think, of the races? >> well, we're a long way away from that and what is interesting and consistent is the search within this republican base for anybody, but romney. romney hangs in there, 20%, hard to get over 25. and all of the other candidates, and contenders rise and fall. after an oops moment. but romney is solidly there without any enthusiasm, but there. >> when you look at these results, and the things we just ready about, you know, the way that the polls shifted over time, it leaves people wondering if it depends which organization is doing the polling. >> that's number one, but number two, depends whether they're polling based on sort of the television polls or as one article pointed out.

and ron paul is the winner of the blog primary and i don't have to say that on jim's point about, you know, who is going to win this. the daily beast, they were looking for a story when they said did the republicans overreach? you can tell, guys, know they have to reach a deadline. >> jon: you worked for richard nixon and know something about media targets. >> for sure. (laughter) >> does the guy on top of the next poll become the target. >> anybody who emerges as a front runner at any given time in a presidential race receives the front runner status and scrutiny and it's happening to newt. one thing that's clear and true over the last few decades we've had mass media, mass media loves a horse race and judy is right when she points out the republican field is awash in indecision and a lot of republican voters don't know what way they're going to go and that's why we've seen the back p and forth.

what happens is you get a poll and you get a snapshot at one moment in time and indicates a trend and then of course the media establishes that as the current story line and then creates an impression and perpetuates itself. >> and also, i mean, gingrich at the bottom and all of a sudden toward the polls, do the polls mean anything a month ago. the polls are fine and the people are watching and why the news service does them. there's a limit how valuable they are for reporters, for example, if the polls show romney plus somebody, they love that. and that's the media temp plats they're looking to. the bloomberg poll this month, they don't want to have cain and paul head they want romney plus one. so the bloom berg poll got little attention despite the poll showing gingrich spiking. they want what they want. >> jon: could that be a media mean? >> it's a filter, the filter

the media, there's mean, template. there's narrative. it three or four buzz words we use here. >> jon: as we head for the iowa caucuses what's the media mean for the caucuses? >> oh, we have to wait and see about that. i still just totally focus on romney and the fact that most republicans say that they have not yet made up their minds, so, this could go in any one of a number one-- >> the media like news max did a story how anybody could beat obama basically and it was a politico gw poll and they choose and pick the polls going into their mean to write about. >> jon: well, and that's an interesting, i mean, what's the media treatment going to be of the president, as, you know,s a the republican field winnowed down and it's going to be winnowed down after iowa. >> certainly, i think what we saw in the last go round in 2008, that the media was totally in the tank for barack obama, they were cheerleading him to no end and that of course is going to continue

and once there is a republican nominee for president and then you'll he see the coverage switch to much more positive coverage on barack obama and his presidency and his campaign, less so on the republican side. >> he has referred to himself as an underdog. will the media permit him to maintain that? >> well, i certainly hope not. there's one statistic that should really trouble barack obama's camp and that is that right track, wrong track, country moving in the wrong direction, 75% again and again and again, it's very, very tough. >> if that's the case, then we wouldn't have a congress, because i mean, look how-- >> and they're running, too. >> real quickly, about when it comes to treatment, fair treatment in some of these republican debates, michele bachmann is complaining about the treatment she got at the hands of cbs a while ago in that debate and there was an e-mail that surfaced inadvertently sent to her campaign from the political director, the new political

director at cbs saying okay, let's keep it loose though, she's not going to get many questions and she's nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else, fair, ellen. >> i don't think that was fair, but they're taking polls who is ahead and who is not. why not ask the people who listen to the debate whether or not people ought to get equal time. do a poll of those people. >> there's not a single republican or voters who's voted in any of the primaries yet. for the media to be picking and choosing which candidates based on the polls are going to get maximum attention and which aren't i think is grossly unfair. we have to take a break, first if you want to keep up on media stories during the week, watch the daily bias batch and check out the hot topics. >> jon: lots of place toss get your news these days, but can you trust them? . >> when it comes to getting your news, the options are endless. but, when it comes to the coverage of big and important

stories, do you trust the source of that news? answers next. @xóx

>> a couple of weeks ago we talked about how some members of the press, didn't support the comments benjamin netanyahu and our own president, growing to keep that under wraps and we talked about the child rape scandal on the campus of penn state and it was in the local papers nearly eight months before it erupted in national headlines. fox news was out in front with the coverage of the failed fast and furious gun running and deaths tied to the border control agent. what eric holder knew and when he knew it. and the media barely touched

it. and the green banner, and suddenly failed solyndra, after receiving more than half million dollars in government loans and igniting investigations. that story pretty much ignored by the media in the early going, all examples of the failures of the mainstream and liberal press, which is why we may be showing polls like these and unfavorable opinions of institutions. only the federal government fails more. pew research center thinks that the american media get it wrong more often than they get it right. your reaction to those poll numbers, jim? >> well, i think that they-- that the same pew data showed an enormous change over the last quarter century, they were saying that according to the pew center poll released in september a number of people think the media is unaccurate from 34 to 66. bias 53 to 77 and influenced

by the poll, 53-80. a serious case of mistrust for the media. in my mind justified. >> there are so many sources for news these days, ellen. shouldn't people be happy and-- >> if you look at number of hits that people take, on various websites or watch fox news channel or whatever. they're concentrated and so, yes, people can get the news from a lot of different sources, look, you can go and see every newspaper pretty much front page in the country. and that doesn't mean that people will take the time to look at it. i think that people are reacting to the very few news sources that are consumed. >> every new website has a chance to skew the news. >> certainly, it's directed toward a niche and people have a tendency to go seek out a validation of their own views, so, conservatives will go to conservative websites and liberals will go to liberal websites, but it used to be decades ago. and decades can go, walter

cronkite was known as the most trusted man in america and i think that over time as news unfolded, vietnam war, watergate, investigative journalism and the rise of institutions like fox news, news organizations that give you the other side in a fair and balanced way, i think it's opened a lot of people's minds to the fact that what they've been said for decades is slanted and biased. >> whoa, whoa, whoa, you said in the beginning mainstream media bus the liberals. some of us who are liberal don't think that the press is very liberal, i just want to say that. >> i found despite the numbers and declining assessments of credibility of the news media, people mistrust news they get from the government or from business or from other sources even more. so, yes, they trust us less, on the other hand they don't seem to trust anybody very much, trust, but terrify may be a good motto for every news source. >> there was one particular case that caught our arey

eye recently, it was natasha leonard new york times, pretty much into the gutter for good when she wrote this piece for the left wing salon magazine, why i quit the mainstream immediate yeah, she wrote. journalism must break the chains of objectivity and report truth and the occupy movement led me to do just that. that was her report. >> well, i'm glad she's found truth, as she defines it and let the american people decide what they wish to watch and hear and trust. >> but, i don't know, interesting if you can't report for the new york times in a way that, i guess, makes you feel like you-- >> again, it's always better when they say, flat out i'm giving ip on objectivity. that's at least a useful signal to the rest of us i can turn this away. >> and whose. >> and we're all inherently

without views to shape our opinion in a way to cover our news and emphasize the quote that we pick to write about or broadcast, that's clearly reflects that point of view. >> jon: time for another break, if you see something you think shows evidence of media bias. e-mail us at fox news watch.com. up next, are the media playing scrooge this holiday season? . >> the holiday shopping season is off and running, a chance to spend some cash. the are they suffering due to a humbug

>> just over a month to go until the iowa caucuses. and the candidates are

becoming regulars on the big three network morning shows. do the producers and anchors of the programs have an agenda against the republican field? one conservative media watch dog group, the media research center examined 723 campaign related segments, including 101 interviews from this past year. and here are the results. according to the study, republicans were asked to respond to questions with a liberal agenda. 82% of the time. and questions about their conservative agendas were asked only 18% of the time. compare those results to 2007 when democrats were asked about liberal agenda items, 72% of the time, but on conservative issues only 28% of the time. and jim, what's going on here. >> i think it might be be a liberal bias. and i hate to throw-- >> and i hate to-- and here is one that's hard to argue with, that is according to the same data. they identified republicans as quote, conservatives 49 times, and whereas they've--

and they identified president obama as a liberal one time and they've identified him as a candidate back in 2007 one time and whatever you want to say about the nature of the question to simply use that, automatically and cut you way from a lot of the votes from nonliberals and conservative and to labor somebody as one, it puts them in a box and tries to keep it there. is the immediate research study is correct and i read it just like you guys did, okay, they have a point, but i want to see how they really tag it because i'm not so sure if i were sitting there watching the same clips with the same kind of questions and even the liberal conservatives, i want to sit there with them. >> in fact, define liberal and conservative and how do they define it and how do they do it and-- >> it's required for both of you, using the word. >> i want to sit with them and see what else they're not missing, if they have a media bias and the way that they did this study. >> i'm sherry they'd he love to have you come over. >> and the other point, too, the use of the terminology

among the networks, jim, what you're saying they use the word conservative, but they mean it in a derrogatory way and the l-word, liberal word carries a negative connotation and less likely to use it. wings, left wing, right wing, saying the right wing candidate michele bachmann, but not the left wing president barack obama. >> and that's why liberals are preferring to refer to themselves as conservatives-- as progressives, there is sort after negative attached to that term. >> the gallup poll, 40% of the country is conservative and the rest are modern, that's a gallop and steady data. anytime you label somebody below 50 and everybody who is not a liberal. moderate whatever you are, you and tag nice and do it. >> it's a grand media conservative, jim. >> and the data right here. >> you guys, let's move on to an interesting topic for a media watch show, holiday shopping, there has always

been media hype, surrounding black friday and cyber monday, giving consumers lots of opportunities to spend money. and right between both, but also been a lot of negative news about the state of our economy, has that put the brakes on those who want to help boost the economy and find a good sale as well? what do you think. >> i don't think so. i think that people understand whether or not they're hurting and making calculations whether or not they're going to the stores after thanksgiving, based on a lot of other things, and i don't believe that what the super committee does or doesn't do is going to quote, spook them as one of these articles suggested. i do think that there's a great deal at stake here and this is 20% of all the year's retail sales, but i'm not sure we can-- >> with the marked headlines, holiday sales growing at a lackluster or expected to grow at a lackluster 3%, what's wrong with a 3% growth. it's down 7% from last year, it's growth, guys. 3% over a period of ten years,

a lot of growth. >> and forbes that same week reported that retailers were expecting sales to only increase 1.6%, so the numbers are sort of all over the map and nobody is really gotten out there except for this weekend, probably on holiday shopping. >> jon: we have to take one more break. when we come back, a new stop on the campaign trail. >> hey, listen, you try concentrating with mitt romney smiling at you, that's one handsome dude. >> political candidates making time for late night laughs, in a highly charged campaign season. season. is it helping or hurting the season. is it helping or hurting the diabetes testing? it's all the same. nothing changes. then try this. freestyle lite® blood glucose test strip. sure, but it's not gonna--

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>> jon: is it good when politics and comedy collide. they have always used politicians as fodder for jokes. what effect does it when they go toe to toe with the likes of letterman and kimmel. >> it was fantastic, the whole presidential thing doesn't work out. i think it's generally always good for politicians to go out and show a more human side. laugh at the audience. they are reaching a different audience. >> jon: and president has done it. >> this president has done it, bill clinton was a complete bomb at the democratic convention went on the talk shows and was president four years later. so if you can laugh it off and do a good job.