>> schieffer: welcome back to "face the nation" on this cold sunday. joining us for some analysis, peggy noonan a columnist for the "wall street journal." david ignatious, david sanger and own political director john dickerson. john, harry reid came out both barrels blazing this morning. if anybody was talking about a new attitude in congress, i didn't really see that. >> had one target that was the republicans in congress, must have said it five different times. he had his talking points ready. 2014 is not going to be a happy year. why? let's look at the senate, let's just look at elections in the senate. the republicans need to take six seats to take harry reid's job away from him. in seven of the seats that democrats are in danger they are

in states where mitt romney won the election. we've seen over the last 20 years correlation between volters in a state vote for republican president they're likely toe vote for republican senator. democrats have a tough year with the elections so harry reid begins a tough election year starting with tough words about republicans. >> schieffer: does the roll out of obamacare make it tougher for these democrats? i asked harry reid the question, he didn't really answer it. are they going to be run as proud sponsors of obamacare or run away from it. >> it does for a few reasons. just a distraction. every minute democrat is talking about obamacare it's not a minute they can talk about unemployment insurance, minimum wage or whatever else it is. that's just basic level democrats are on their heels a little bit. also, it rules up republican voters in mid term election the people who vote tend to be base voters and the people who tend to vote, there's only been one election since 1958 in which the president's party gained seats y. is that?

because party that's out of power in the white house is more riled up. the affordable care act rules up those republicans. in those tough races where are all in red states those are riled up republicans with issue that they don't like, affordable care act and every republican i talk to this is what we're going to talk about this year. not only on the stump but oversight hearings in the house and every opportunity they can find. >> schieffer: let me go to peggy. republicans, a lot of people thought republicans had really hurt themselves when they led the drive to shut down the government in 2013. publicity about the roll out of obamacare kind of blunted that to some extent. but do you think we'll now see a battle over the debt controlling to let the government default on the bills that -- for things on money they already spent. as you heard this morning, harry reid doesn't seem in a mood to put anything -- may any kind of

compromises on that. anything to get republican votes to -- >> he thinks the government shut down would be really terrible. i think he would love it. it would not be -- >> schieffer: why? >> it would not be good for the republicans and i think they would try hard, actually, to see that that didn't happen but i thought the big thing about the reid interview it was not full of reaching out and we can do this together with the republicans. it was, those bad republicans and that terrible historically bad tea party. i consider that quite suggestive of maybe a bit of a freeze in 2014. >> schieffer: you're nodding your head. >> i feel the same way that peggy does. last year ended with scenes of come in bipartisanship you had

paul ryan and patty murray put together a budget deal that had john bane tore clear independence from a tea party in amazing press conference. they lost all credibility. you wouldn't have been crazy to think that this year would begin with someone like harry reid offering a more gentle tone and reaching out to boehner, saying, he's come some distance. what was surprising this morning was that rather than try to see if legislating, which appears to be popular with the public, might be a strategy. i heard harry reid saying, no, going to be more of the same. polarized bipartisan politics, i'm surprised. >> schieffer: david, you cover foreign policy, you cover national security and things like that, just step back from that interview how did you take it? >> i thought there were two interesting things across the three interviews. first was, you didn't hear a broad vision from any of the

three who you interviewed for an american resurgence out of this. for president obama i think that is troublesome because obamacare has really led to the question, can these guys execute the way that president obama had really promised when he came to office in 2009. i think that was the most harmful part of obamacare. but the second thing that president obama and i think harry reid and the other democrats who are leading the party tried to grab in 2009 was a vision of where the country was going. you heard a very down in the weaves, what kind of advance can we make as far as february and getting passed the next budget hurdle. i'm not sure right now heading in to elections that's really their best strategy. because you see a hunger for the question of american resurgence then the question of whether or not the u.s. is leaving power vacuum around the world in many of the places we're seeing

erupt. >> schieffer: in domestic context i think the larger argument democrats want to make that we are the party that compares about you. that's what minimum sage about. that's what extending unemployment benefits is about. we care about you and working hard for these people hand the those mean republicans don't. in the middle of the affordable care act launch pad disaster when it launched so poorly when the website wasn't working. talking to democrats in the house and senn apt we need a new fight. we need a budget fight. even if it's a little issue like minimum wage that's priority, question of are you for the little guy or the companies. that's a fight where democrats are comfortable, part of their long time hymnal they can all sing together. and so their larger national narrative for domestic politics which is going to rule in these elections, who cares about you. and they will find every little tiny thing to make that argument that's what the fight about minimum wage then unemployment.

>> schieffer: president is talking about income inequality. we get word from hawaii that's what he's coming back to washington to talk about. what does that mean to you, peggy? >> what it means to me that he does not want to talk about obamacare. it is widely assumed that in 2014 the december locations, the lost coverage, the price hikes, the premium hikes, et cetera. that all of this will continue. it's not the website. the website is the old story. it is the program. it will unvail over the next two years and it's going to be problematic, the president does thought want to talk about it. the democrats do not want to talk about it. there for income equality, minimum wage, et cetera. then you need to change the -- >> schieffer: how did this go so wrong? when you stop and think about it, the fact that people ought to have health insurance, if poor people can't afford it they

ought to be able to get some relief on that. that would she'll to be a universal truth. >> corporate america was -- >> schieffer: most tangled up. i've never seen anything like the way -- >> historians will write memorable books about how this got so messed up. how the president left the details to people who couldn't execute them is the biggest mystery of all. there was a consensus back in tuwaitha something needed to be done about the delivery of health care services. what we monkeyed with how health care is finance chad i think was a mistake. and i think you look back on debate in 2009, president really didn't have the votes, he had to jam it through with some legislative maneuvers because the congress wasn't quite ready. we're living with the after affects of that. thinking about this year ahead, election of new mayor in new york, very liberal replacing

the defining figure of centrism, i wonder whether we see liberal themes even obamacare. minimum wage, income and equality will move to the front for democrats and for the country. >> got an opportunity in that regard because ended the year with the stock market at incredible high. and with this termination of some of the unemployment benefits. that's quite a division that the president can sort of run through when he gets to the state of the union. now whether or not he manages to do that without further polarizing an already polarized system that's the hard question. >> that's right. income equality is a big issue not like he's off finding some phony side issue. what will be interesting is what the solution is. if republicans and democrats can agree that inequality is the problem, the question is how do you fix it. one interesting figure is in the course of healthcare and the fight over affordable health care now gallup says 56% of the

country doesn't believe everybody should have insurance. that used to be majority opinion. the question is, is everybody thinks inequality is a problem, how does once we get through this big fight, who wins the argument of what the solution is and does that warp and change the way people think about inequality. people do feel like things have gotten out of whack. the question is, the president will frame one way, republicans will be saying this is about jobs. >> the funny thing about inequality is as if everybody has just discovered this problem of the rich are really rich and the poor are really poor and the middle is not -- >> schieffer: argument that they're getting more so. rich are getting a lot richer. >> normally this administration used to brag how well the stock market was going and in a way it's almost the negative side of one argument. but the answer so far to inequality is being presented now even in new york, brand new mayor, progressive, what he's

saying is, the old -- >> schieffer: former sandanesta? >> sorry. former enthusiasts of political movement in nicaragua. what he's saying is the old play book, not the old play book. inequality, i will raise your taxes and i will raise spending. there's nothing revolutionary about. that that's the old play book. >> that's why obama people are nervous saying on unemployment and minimum wage has economic growth benefits. you hear them talk about number of jobs and gdp that's say spaying this is about growth, business and shrinking the deficit not about redistribution. >> schieffer: let's take a little break here we'll come back talk about united states overseas and what's going on. [ male announcer ] this is the story

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. >> i want to talk to david sanger about this. i thought one of the saddest pieces of news last week was what's happening in iraq now, where in fallujah, this is a place, anbar province where one-third of the americans who were called in the iraq war lost their lives in that province, now looks like it's in the hands of anti-government forces, if not will soon be. what's happened? >> it is. what's happened here is as america left iraq and leaving afghanistan and as many perceive the u.s. to be pulling back some from the middle east, something i think contention that john kerry would argue with, you have seen a power vacuum develop. and power vacuums get filled in that region by extremist groups and in this case the extremist group is islamic state in iraq

and syria which is an al qaeda-sunni affiliate that wants to not only take back ramadi and fallujah but the erase the border between iraq and syria. make the syrian conflict in to a trans-national one. the big question is, what could president obama have done differently. we went in to iraq with the concept that we would somehow change the state, we've all concluded that there was a fair bit of hubris to that. when president obama came out his view was that lightfoot print strategy could keep fighting back against al qaeda and affiliates. i think what we're seeing now is that the lightfoot print which is basically the use of special forces, of drones, of cyber, these weapons that don't involve americans to go in on the ground very much or stay very long that's running out of gas. >> schieffer: david, what

happens now? what can we do, what should we do? >> well, someone, some group of people is going to have to take on al qaeda in the euphrates valley in syria and iraq both. and dangers that we've had coalesceness of al qaeda forces that's being done now by the malaki of baghdad. in syria it's been done to the extent at all by the the government and president, elements of the opposition we've been trying to back. while i understand what david's point about the big themes of american decline, as i look at the story, i see little mistakes, it wasn't inevitable or essential people to stop paying the sons of iraq in fallujah which was just overwhelmed this week. in ramadi in these cities to stand up against al qaeda that

happened because malaki led it happen. same thing in syria. secretary clinton, general petraeus, secretary panetta all of our top national security officials in mid 2012 we've got to get started backing rebels. we'll have a huge problem. the president decided not to do it. it wasn't a huge mistakes, it was a small mistake but today that's what we're living with. and there's going to be a new war against al qaeda in that part of the world. >> schieffer: well, will the united states go back to iraq? >> not as david said in the large footprint way, we're already providing -- iraq is only country nag for nsa surveillance technology. we're providing every kind of tool we can give them to help them go after al qaeda, find out who they are. >> schieffer: will that be enough? >> that's the big question. every time that president obama has chosen this method of trying

a small arm shipments, whether it's syria or whether it's in iraq, it's proven not to be up to the job. and the problem that he faces right now is that in president malaki in iraq he has allied himself or stuck with somebody who has not been willing to make any kind of compromise or concession that opened this up sunni-shia divide. we haven't done whole lot better with president karzai. i think the big question, if you don't have leaders on the ground who you can trust to take this on and do it in a small way, what do do you short of re-engaging. there is no way that president obama is going to send back american forces on the ground in to places that he states his presidency. >> one of the bright spots he hopes for him is being able to celebrate the return of troops from afghanistan even though some are taking, 7-10,000 he's

going to champion that 40,000 that's a promise. >> schieffer: is the afghan government going to sign off on the agreements that will allow us to keep 7,000 there? because i can't imagine we're going to keep american troops there if they are subject to being arrested and prosecuted by afghan forces if the afghan somehow say they committed some sort of crime. that's one of the issues here. we'll not put our troops in that position. >> we would not. my guess this will be finessed. the position is the agreement is signed, karzai will go along with it and he will get pushed from every political direction. afghans do not want to see theist leaving. they know what is ahead which is another civil war. >> schieffer: peggy? >> it's all so sad and

repetitive and i think once again we go back or we will go back to debating the question what is in america's strategic interest in this part of the world as it struggles through the mess it is in. second question, i keep wondering who is going to -- what's going on in iraq and syria spill over in to lebanon which would be -- i mean in a big way. that would be really something. >> schieffer: david, let me just, if i could shift quickly because i meant to ask you this earlier, the "new york times" really, your newspaper saying your responsible for everything in there. glad to have you here today. your newspaper said that edward snow depend should somehow be given some sort of amnesty they called him a whistle blower not a traitor. what is going on here? >> this was editorial in the "times" and you point out i'm on the news side not the editorial side. but i thought the editorial was interesting both the "times" and

"the guardian" came out to the basically the same position was that the united states should either offer an amnesty or some kind of deal to get snowden back. what i found interesting was it was echoing something that had been said on "60 minutes" by the man at the nsa who has been trying to track down what it was that snowden left with. he was raising the possibility, which his boss immediately shot down, that snowden might be offered a deal so that you could recover what it is that he has stolen. i'm not sure at this point it's recoverable, we don't know where all the copies of it are. what i find interesting, inside the white house, there is absolutely no appetite for this at all. their view is, snowden broke the law, broke his own agreement and there will be no deal. >> schieffer: do you think, john, that the president will though call for the national

security agency to be reined in in some way? >> he will. at the end of the year, the balance has been struck and i'm confident there's been no abuses. but -- then he said because of the snowden releases and people's worries about this, reforms need to be put in place some are being considered, having all of this metadata, phone numbers, tracking be held by third party not by the government. the other is having some kind of advocate so if all of that information is in a box somewhere with a key that you have a tougher process for getting the key to get in to the box. that those are some safeguards to make sure this isn't abused but the president is not going to admit that it's abused. what will be interesting whether he tries to make a larger strategic argument where we are more than ten years after 9/11. >> schieffer: i want to thank all of you. we'll be back with a look back at one of the most notorious guests ever to appear in this 60 years of "face the nation."

so you can see like right here i can just... you know, check my policy here, add a car, ah speak to customer service, check on a claim...you know, all with the ah, tap of my geico app. oh, that's so cool. well, i would disagree with you but, ah, that would make me a liar. no dude, you're on the jumbotron!

whoa. ah...yeah, pretty much walked into that one. geico anywhere anytime. just a tap away on the geico app. at subway! [ male announcer ] footlong fans are feeling good because january is now januany. ♪ januany, any [ male announcer ] and any regular footlong is now a $5 footlong. even low-fat subs, like the sweet onion chicken teriyaki and the ham, turkey, roast-beef-packed subway club. ♪ five ♪ $5 ♪ $5 footlong [ male announcer ] nothing stacks up to subway footlongs. with $5 footlongs all januany. all day, every day. [ male announcer ] subway. eat fresh. >> schieffer: of all the guests who have appeared on "face the nation" over the past 60 years, none got here under more bizarre circumstances than fidel castro who appeared on this broadcast 55 years ago on

january 11th, 1959. just weeks after he and a group of young revolutionaries overthrew cuba's dictator that is our "face the nation" flashback. when a cbs news crew got word that castro agreed to the interview they flew to havana only to learn they had been scooped by of all people, cbs entertainment star, ed sullivan who had flown in ahead of them and end material viewed castro in a jungle town. sullivan felt, i'm not making this up that if he got a big interview, cbs news chief ed murrah would be impressed invite him to be on the end of the year correspondents' roundtable. when castro finally showed up for "face the nation" interview it was a wild scene. 200 armed men came with him. two of whom kept guns pointed at

producer ted ayeres throughout the broadcast. once the interview got underway castro made series of deck la rakes and promises none of whichever came true. >> as a lawyer, as one who has spoken very eloquently about the civil rights that must be guaranteed to the cuban people how do you explain -- not communist. i will never be against any right. >> will all political parties be able to run candidates in these elections? >> yes, of course. >> all political parties including the directorial. >> of course, if we don't give free -- we're not democratic country. we've fought for. >> schieffer: as interviews go that one stands alone in that almost nothing castro said proved correct.

and one footnote. since "face the nation" aired before ed sullivan's sunday night prime time show the "face the nation" interview was the first on american television. and as you might guess, a furious edward r.murroh never in vied sullivan to be on any cbs news program. fighting constipation by eating healthier, drinking plenty of water, but still not getting relief? try dulcolax laxative tablets. dulcolax is comfort-coated for gentle, over-night relief. dulcolax. predictable over-night relief you can count on. female announcer: sleep train thanks

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>> schieffer: that's it nor today. before we go a little shout out to our graphic artist debra hasselmark what has been designing and redesigning our special 60 years of "face the nation" graphics for months now. thanks, web. be sure to tune in tomorrow for latest on this freezing winter weather on cbs this morning. ross for "face the nation" we'll be back here next sunday, see you then. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ,, ,,,,,,,,

one of the coldest playoff s in n-f-l history comes down to the last 2 seconds.h that field ca [cheers and applause] it is good. yep. just like that. one of the calmest games in the nfl playoffs. field gold the 49ers n and advance to play carolina next weekend. good evening. going back and forth and once again it was kaepernick's legs that carried 49ers passed the packers it. >> vern glen joins us. that was one big finish. >> yes. that will test your blood pressure. now, 49ers getting it over in green bay. 5 degrees at kick off. the team's leading rusher with 98 yards. this is pl