right now on "andrea mitchell reports" just when you hoped washington learned its lesson on the debt fight, a new political firestorm over outlook. president obama and speaker boehner lock horns over the timi of the president's jobs speech to a joint session of congress. white house communications director dan pfeiffer on the daily rundown this morning tried to diffuse the talk. >> the whole thing is silly. it's probably fitting it's the last day of august, sort of washington, d.c. august obsession. we'll always look at this and figure out how we can do things better. >> but is the damage already done? at a time when voters are fed up with gridlock in washington, could this possibly be the message the white house and congress really wanted to send? and what about job creation? what does president obama have to say in his speech next week?

and the disaster zone. new jersey in the midst of intense cleanup and recovery from hurricane irene. president obama heads there this weekend. new jersey governor chris christie fires off about the standoff over fema disaster aid. >> we don't have time to wait for folks in congress to figure out how they want to offset this stuff with other budget cuts. our people are suffering now. they need support now. >> there's only one person that mentioned the word offset, eric cantor. there you go. chris christie versus eric cantor. good day. i'm chuck todd live in washington. the show goes on in the capitol. we're not just talking about speeches. the latest partisan dust-up over the president's address to congress next week raising new concerns about washington's apparent inability to put aside party loyalty at any moment in time and get down to brass tacks. for the millions of americans that would like to see some jobs

created. we talked about sort of this protocol issue and this and that. it looks like everybody today from boehner's office to the white house, they all are wishing they got a do-over. they're not talking about it today. >> reporter: it's evolved into another he said/he said. the stakes could not be more petty. it's the shape of the table kind of conversation. you're talking about something on the eve of yet another jobs report and it's not expected to be all that great news again tomorrow. it's become sort of a ritual at 8:30, first friday of every month, we get the previous month's jobs report. obviously went down from 9.2% to 9.1% last month. still way too high both for the 14 million people who are out of a job in this country and for the president's political prospects. all eyes are going to be on that. look, the venue could not be any more conspicuous. as you know, a prime time address in the house chamber before a joint session of congress, a la the state of the union, there was a lot of

chatter among people like us about whether the president is going to go big and go for something really huge like something akin to a stimulus package that has become sort of the "s" word in washington. people think that's out of the question. or whether he will go more small bore. you got to believe given the venue, given the setting, this is not going to be the economic and jobs version of school uniforms. you would assume he's going to have to go big. the expectation bar is that much higher. let's talk about what we know, what the president himself has talked about, some of the proposals. infrastructure investment particularly in schools, traditional things like bridges, roads, things of that nature. tax credits for employers, especially for those who hire currently unemployed workers. the president has also talked in the past about a payroll tax cut, not only extending the one for employees but extending one for employers as well, and job training for the long term unemployed. again, we don't know a lot of the details so we're very anxiously awaiting some of those. the president this weekend goes to patterson, new jersey, home

of chris christie or at least the state of chris christie, to look at some of that storm damage that happened in patterson, but you got to believe they're going to be focusing very much over the course of the next several days in the white house preparing this proposal for next thursday night, not wednesday night. >> that's right. the white house says everything is paid for in their proposals. all right. thank you very much, mike. let's bring in jennifer palmieri, senior vice president of communications for the center for american progress. somebody who has been around the west wing. and kevin madden, republican strategist who served as the national press secretary for mitt romney's 2008 campaign. is not a paid romney person now but a supporter. >> probably wouldn't mind being in the west wing. >> we'll see. >> all right. jennifer, i want to start with you. you were in the clinton white house. you know what it's like when you have to have this communication with congress and you're trying to do a joint session speech that isn't a scheduled one a la the state of the union. your assessment on how the white

house handled this? >> i think that weirdly in the end, i think dan pfeiffer is right, it's not like voters are going to care about this. i guess the one thing i would say is they probably should have anticipated that the press would have a big reaction to going the same night as the republican presidential debate even if they hadn't intended that, that there would be a lot of speculation about is this a political speech, you know, people would have gotten distracted on it, and i understand once you decide you're going to go to congress, you only got two nights to deal with so i can understand trying to push the first night. but knowing that they don't need any distractions right now, you would have wanted to work this out more in advance. >> were you surprised that in all the tick-tock, the best the white house can tell us the first time a conversation was held with speaker boehner was when bill daly called him yesterday morning, that was the first time they had dropped this idea when according to my reporting they have been thinking about this for the last few weeks? >> i can understand you decide when you decide, then you make the call to boehner.

but i think you want to have had it worked out. there's an argument for not going in front of congress at all. there's an argument for going to give the speech in the country. you could have done that. >> but if they wanted prime time, that would have been a tough ask for a political speech. >> i mean -- >> easier for the president. >> joint session in front of congress, but you know, there's an argument to be made to go some place else, not go back into the dysfunctional -- >> cauldron of dysfunction. let me ask you this. speaker boehner could have not liked how the protocol was handled, but said all right, i'll take the high road, i'll give you your wednesday night. he chose not to do that. was that a mistake? >> i think that you have to look at the way the average voter looks at this. i think i would agree with jennifer it's sort of a pox on both houses. i think it is sort of emblematic of a lot of frustrations voters have with washington which is they feel like even something as important as this, there is

still petty bickering that takes place. ultimately, i think the tick-tock is not really going to matter as it relates to john boehner. i don't think the stakes are as high for john. ultimately the bigger pressure politically is placed on the president. maybe, i think the answer to your question would be maybe. >> he should have, ironically, politically, might have been better for his party to be a total political cynic here as you were just pointing out, you want to go into congress and at the same time, politicize the speech even more by having it be -- >> i think what happened was just by picking that date, i think the president and the white house, they had an unforced error here. they guaranteed this was going to be politicized. many up on capitol hill look at the economic exasperation that the american public is going through right now, they feel they were actually affording the president a big moment to do something big, to have some sort of big progress on the economy, and that this really did trivialize it and make it much more politically than it had to be. >> let me ask you this. kevin, i will start with you.

we know we're in campaign mode. no doubt about it, on one hand. on the other hand, if washington, the president puts out there what seems to be, and none of these seem to be large expensive ideas, they seem to be stuff that normally does get some bipartisan support. what is the risk for republicans if they fight him on a lot of these deals, because they don't want to give the president a victory? >> i think that's right. i think what the white house is looking to do which is sort of become masters of the unobjectionable, and that's -- >> that seems to be the plan for what they want to introduce. >> lot of pablum, lot of heavily poll-tested items that will look really nice, almost kind of like micro-targeting their way through this election, using microtrends which is very -- >> guarantee you this white house will never use -- >> then you are also going to have a race by many of the congressional candidates, republicans that are running local districts, not nationally, looking to embrace, in many

ways, they will embrace some of the more unobjectionable items. i think again, the pressure's still much more focused on the president here. >> the ultimate consideration is still the unemployment rate. does it get it done? >> then it's big. okay. the idea now has to fit the venue. >> i don't think it's going to be micro-targeting. i think it can be big ideas and it can be things that are going to create actual direct jobs without being partisan because there's enough history of republicans having supported this stuff in the past. i think that you see them teeing this up, saying things that republicans have been supporting. that doesn't mean it's not going to be big. i think they actually are going to create real -- >> i would disagree on one point there which is the partisan nature of it. i think this white house finds it -- they cannot resist the partisan -- the partisan -- the attacks. >> i think the white house could say the same thing, eric cantor can't ever risk going right back on these things. >> candidate obama in '08 was

very successful, ran as somebody who was post-partisan. i think the last three years, that brand has been diminished. >> i mean, he would love nothing more than to be post-partisan. it's pretty hard to do when the other guy won't dance with you. >> agree to disagree. >> yet again. >> you guys wrapped it up for me. thank you both. we need to move on. 42 years to the day, today, 42 years to the day, moammar gadhafi seized power in libya, the nation's de facto government is meeting with world leaders to chart a future without him. we are live in london with the latest. jim, one of the most shocking things i read yesterday was this bizarre report that said there were negotiations to see if gadhafi could actually have a role in the new transitional government. i thought i was reading an onion article. >> reporter: maybe it was an onion article. no, it's true. there is a massive disconnect between gadhafi and his family, at least some members of his

family, and reality. you mentioned the 42nd anniversary of him taking over when he downed the king back in 1969. that obviously is not a coincidence. this is a first today, this meeting in paris. you've got the two top leaders of the rebels' political wing, called the national transitional council, ntc, it's popping up a lot as an acronym. they have gathered with 60 world leaders and envoys including secretary of state hillary clinton. it's going to be a short meeting, but it's all about symbolism here. it also gives the ntc a chance to lay out its ideas, lay out its road map, if you will, including plans for a new constitution and elections now apparently within 18 months. the top priority is humanitarian. a lot of talk today about how to pay for food, clean water, medicine, et cetera. a lot of talk about defreezing

the frozen libyan assets. we'll hear more about that, i'm sure, in statements after this meeting. but true to form, chuck, today even as the rebels extended the cease-fire, to try to get those fighters who are resisting to surrender peacefully, there he was, the brother leader, moammar gadhafi himself, broadcasting yet another defiant message on syrian-owned tv with the usual rhetoric, we're going to engulf libya in flames, keep fighting, we will not give up, quote, we are not women and we will fight on. back to you. >> okay, then. jim maceda in london with the latest on just some bizarre rhetoric coming out of gadhafi. thanks very much. well, the flood waters are starting to recede in areas devastated by hurricane irene, but many areas in new jersey and vermont are still under water. live in that disaster zone as damage estimates are adding up. a super-secret iphone prototype, ready for this, again

left behind in a bar. didn't we already hear this once? this is "andrea mitchell reports."

when president obama heads out sunday to see the damage done by hurricane irene, he will come to patterson, new jersey, which is still inundated with several feet of water. on wednesday, the president declared the state a disaster area, paving the way for the badly needed emergency assistance and governor chris christie warned congress not to let the budget debate stand in the way of dollars to the garden state. >> you want to figure out budgets cuts, that's fine. you going to turn into a fiasco like that debt limit thing where you were fighting with each other for eight or nine weeks and you expect the citizens of my state to wait? they're not going to wait. i'm going to fight to make sure that they don't. >> nbc's michelle franzen is

live for us in patterson, new jersey. it seemed to me those comments were almost directed right at the house republican leader, fellow republican of chris christie, eric cantor. just shows you this stuff gets personal when it comes to disaster aid. >> reporter: absolutely. as you know, governor christie has been zigzagging through new jersey ever since irene zigzagged through new jersey leaving behind all those swollen rivers. take a look. the passaic river, as you mentioned, receding but still so much water to deal with, chuck. it's going at a pretty good pace. this is a privately maintained bridge here leading over to an industrial area, but it gives you a sense of what the damage that this raging river has caused here. beyond that, neighborhoods still flooded and it's going to take some time before people can get back into their homes. of course, there's things to deal with, alarm boxes, fuse boxes, electricity to restore in this area. of course, you see a flag that's tattered there. i'm sure that will also be replaced as soon as people can

reach it. here in patterson, they have also, we talked with the mayor earlier today and he says that since fema has paved the way here for some federal aid, they're getting ready to set up the disaster area which will be located in patterson. so that is helpful to the many residents here who will need to work through that red tape, that process that many of them for the first time after these flood waters destroyed or damaged their homes. so traffic, of course, is a big concern in this area and just getting around. that will be helpful, but the next process begins for many of these folks once these waters recede. >> michelle, how are we on the power front there? >> reporter: there's still several thousand that are without power here in patterson, and it's a long process. as i mentioned, even though the water may be receding in some of those neighborhoods, they're having to sort of go door-to-door and block-to-block to check some of these fuse boxes or the central areas where

the control centers for these boxes, before they can turn the power on, before they can even get a lot of the residents in these blocks back up and running. even then, people aren't able to go back to their homes. it's going to be awhile. they're thinking at least through the weekend, that they could still have power outages in new jersey, state-wide, as i understand it, at least from this morning, the latest figures were that about 170,000 were still without power but that could have improved a little bit today. >> michelle franzen in patterson, new jersey for us. thanks very much. now to vermont. look at these new satellite photos, showing the extent of the damage at the peco mountain ski resort in killington. at the same time makeshift roads and aid deliveries are finally linking communities to the outside world again, after days of isolation. the headline in the "burlington free press" says it all. reconnected. nbc's ron mott is live for us in killington, vermont. ron, i saw your reporting last night. the good news, i feel like we get more good news out of

vermont every day, in the last couple days, than we have out of new jersey. >> reporter: yeah. hey, chuck. the good news here is that they hopefully will be able to get a second lane here. they are playing really car dodge here, cars going eastbound, cars wanting to come westbound, you got service vehicles coming in and out. this is a very critical intersection right now, especially for communities up on killington mountain. but those two are east, like woodstock where there's still a lot of power outages but they're working hard. there's a lot of heavy equipment in southern vermont, there are so many roads washed out here. we got stuck, i got stuck on killington mountain last night, had to go back and get my clothes at another hotel off the mountain last night. it's just tough getting around. but we're standing at a place where a piece of vermont history was lost on sunday. there was a house for sale here. these folks were apparently close to signing the deal to move into another buyer and the house was washed away. it stood somewhere right over here, a house that was built in 1826, a very historic piece of vermont real estate here.

it's nowhere to be seen. the folks who owned it, i'm not sure they know where their house is. their house was actually lodged up against this bridge. it may in fact have saved the bridge. had that bridge been washed out, these communities back to our east and those up here on killington would not have had access to get off this mountain this way for quite some time. it will be a long summer of recovery here just getting the infrastructure put back together here. >> i saw that picture and i just was visualizing, it was just hard to imagine. ron mott in killington, vermont, thanks very much. could the white house have avoided this big skirmish over the jobs speech? the politico briefing is next. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." [ ticking ]

[ grunts ] we are! got it. [ male announcer ] don't be the last to know. get it faster with 4g. it's the network of possibilities. at&t.

the last thing that the white house needed was to appear to cave in to the speaker and that's what happened. the last thing that congress needed and the white house was to have a spat that looks like they couldn't resolve anything. there might be a good explanation for how this came down. i haven't heard it.

>> washington's weaknesses have been on full display in the last 24 hours. the white house apparently decided to pick a fight for the president before they knew he would win, failed to consult with congress on congress' home turf or house republicans were petty. it's all ugly. glenn, the tick-tock on this makes nobody look any better. >> yeah. thanks for bringing me on for the petty and ugly segment there, chuck. >> you need the cover, buddy. we all need the cover right now. >> this is pathetic. you know this. the question that i have is when they were sitting around the white house and they decided to have or a request from boehner, this time in the house coinciding with the republican debate, did anybody bother to ask what happens if boehner decides to turn us down? you just got to wonder what kind of advice the president was getting on this.

this just turned into a total debacle and as you know, a metaphor for what's wrong on both sides. >> glenn, what this was all supposed to be about is this jobs speech. everybody has been trying to figure out what's in it, what are they going to do in this plan, and it seems to me that the white house, on one hand, they raised expectations for the speech by asking for the big venue. on the other hand, they're saying we're not going to talk about the debt, not going to talk about tax reform in detail. we may not even talk about housing. this is solely focused on job creation. seems tough that they have to leave that other stuff basically out. >> well, it also seems like they're ceding that end of the conversation to the opposition. look, the president has taken an enormous amount of heat from the left and also from the congressional black caucus for not dealing with the jobs situation, and really, we saw a new poll out today, i forgot who did it, showing that his approval is less than a third on economic stuff. that's jobs, jobs, jobs.

so i think i can understand from their perspective why they want to talk solely about employment, but it's a 180 from where they've been since the november midterms. if they wanted to talk about jobs, i think it's a legitimate question to ask the president, his team, bill daly, why it was they did this hard pivot to the deficit last november when they could have continued to talk about jobs. >> it's a question i think that's going to dog them for the next couple of months. thanks very much, glenn. see you back in the white house briefing room. don't miss the nbc news politico republican debate at the reagan library, next wednesday, september 7th at 8:00 p.m. eastern. moderated by nbc's brian williams and politico editor in chief, john harris. well, next, a decade of disaster. how the choices made after 9/11 changed america's standing abroad. an exclusive first look at the national journal's special 9/11 anniversary issue. it's a very sobering piece.

[ male announcer ] redesigned power e-trade pro.

it's like hardwiring the market right into my desktop. launch my watchlist -- a popping stock catches my eye. pull up the price chart. see what the analysts say. as i jump back, cnbc confirms what i thought. pull the trigger -- done. i can even do most of this on my smartphone. really, it's incredible. like nothing i've ever experienced. unleash your investing and trade free for 60 days with e-trade.

topping the headlines right now on "andrea mitchell reports," a raging wildfire that has destroyed nearly 40 homes outside of ft. worth, texas, and burned more than 6,000 acres. firefighters are hoping for cooler weather this weekend, since they've only contained 25% of the flames. been a tough summer in texas. meanwhile, windy conditions are strengthening a separate wildfire in oklahoma city. more than three dozen homes have been destroyed across the state there, and last night, parkways were closed because of heavy smoke. now look at this. hurricane katia is gaining steam across the atlantic, but forecasters say it's still too early to know if it will hit land. the national weather service center expects katia to be a major hurricane later this week or early next. apple is on the hunt for an iphone 5 prototype that one of its employees lost in a san francisco restaurant this time. maybe not a bar like the last

one, right? the unreleased model went missing in july. apple employees are frantic this will reduce profits and let competitors in on its secrets. maybe they ought to stop letting these people leave apple's offices with these prototypes. all right. the august monthly jobs numbers are set to be released tomorrow and while the markets will surely react one way or the other, the real test will come next week when the president presents his jobs plan to congress. we're joined by ron insana, senior analyst at cnbc. ron, let me start with you. we know we're expecting nothing but a lukewarm report tomorrow. let's talk about next week. will the markets believe that what the president proposes is something that can work? >> well, chuck, i think they doubt anything substantive can be passed given the current state of affairs between the white house and the congressional republicans. i think the big surprise would be if there were an executive order, as was suggested by the

"new york times" last week that would allow for some sort of refinancing of existing mortgages, regardless of whether people are under water or in the money on their mortgages, and refinance them at 4% across the board. that would be a much bigger jolt, positive jolt, to the economy than i think some of the things we've seen in the paper that might be proposed by the white house, roads and bridge construction and things like that. we either need something really, really big on the jobs front or we need a big refinancing of existing mortgages to get some real cash out there in the economy. >> what ron brings up, this housing thing, it's been made somewhat clear to me, don't go too far out on a limb on this reporting that we might do a big thing on housing. this speech is about jobs. that doesn't mean they're not going to do housing later this fall, but that's not what this speech is about. so what is it exactly that maybe corporate america would like to see in this speech? >> i think corporate america wants to see some sign that washington is going to be able to do something. i think at this point, given

what happened with the debt ceiling, i think they're really just looking for some indication that the president has confidence that he can get anything done, whether that would be something unilateral like an executive order to do financing, whether or not that might be some other not quite a stimulus package like we saw before, but some package of, you know, more focused reforms around creating jobs via infrastructure, doing something with alternative energy. just something to indicate that washington realizes that the fed isn't going to be able to help much anymore. their balance sheet is as big as they're going to make it. the focus is turning to fiscal stimulus, to lawmakers, what can they do. >> ron, we now know that speaker boehner is going to do his own jobs plan speech on september 15th. the measure of that may very well be, you know, what he says in it that's similar to the president, at least that will maybe send the message to the markets, send a message to the business community, okay, this is what will get done first.

>> yeah. i think that's what everybody is hoping for at best. i think what's interesting here, i'm not sure, i'm not sure i agree that the fed is out of bullets. i think the fed may be coming with more stimulants for the economy, even though ben bernanke at the jackson hole conference last week suggested the onus really is on fiscal policy makers to come up with -- >> let me stop you there. do you think he did that, do you think he said that almost on purpose, sort of like they know they have some bullets, they'll use them, but they would like to see congress act first, maybe threaten them to think maybe we won't act? >> well, i think what they're trying to say is look, monetary policy can only go so far. there are fiscal policies that can create some certainty for businesses to move forward. they could create tax credits for businesses that hire people. that's something the fed can't do. the fed has done a lot. it can do more. but what it can't do is change laws that would create opportunities for businesses to take advantage of tax breaks to

hire people or to repatriate profits or things like that. the fed was putting the onus on the white house and congress to do more but i don't think they're out of bullets yet. >> teles, how important is corporate tax reform to the business community? the reason i ask that, because if that's the case, if they're really sitting on all this money because they don't know what's coming next and they want to wait for the super committee, then doesn't that mean the super committee has to do tax reform? >> i think the biggest issue with taxes is still and has been for awhile the question of what to do with earnings made overseas, the repatriation of these enormous cash hoardes that are currently sitting in companies, subsidiaries in europe or parts of the developing world. i think some kind of tax holiday like they had a couple years ago, however, economists have looked at that and there's nothing conclusive to say that lowering the rate on repatriating those taxes did end up creating that much more investment. >> what would this mean? instead of sitting on $2

trillion of investment, they would be sitting on $3 trillion? >> i think the hope is that they would be able to sort of put some of that money to work here in the u.s. and what we've been seeing them doing with their cash currently, though, has not been that encouraging. we have been seeing a lot of corporate share buy-backs which might be good for shareholders but doesn't necessarily indicate much confidence in the economy. we've seen a lot of companies simply raise more debt to kind of refinance old debt. we just haven't seen the companies are seeing opportunities but don't have the money to do it. they've got the money and of course, many of them would like to say they would like more to do so, if they had a bigger cash cushion because they could repatriate, that would allow them to spend more. >> when the bush administration tried this back in 2003, the repatriation was not specifically linked to hiring. there has to be some, i'll use this term in a different way than it's accustomed to being used in washington, there has to be money earmarked for hiring people directly in order to qualify for the tax credit. >> i've heard that's the way it

has to be. i got to leave it there. ron insana, good friend at cnbc. teles, thank you both. >> thank you. >> thanks. this morning on "morning joe" former vice president dick cheney promoting his new memoir defended the bush administration's decision to go to war in iraq against saddam hussein. >> it's very clear that he had preserved the capacity to produce, he had the people and the technical know-how, he had the feed stocks and he had the intent, once the sanctions were lifted, to go back into the business again and convinced all of his senior people that he did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction. >> by the way, yesterday, former secretary of state condoleezza rice, who cheney in his book says tearfully admitted that he had been right about not issuing a public apology about the botched iraq intelligence, is firing back. she told reuters in an interview it certainly doesn't sound like me, now, does it. she also ripped cheney for claiming she misled president

bush on nuclear talks with the north koreans, saying quote, you can talk about policy differences without suggesting that your colleague somehow misled the president, you know. i don't appreciate the attack on my integrity that that implies. on fox today, president bush was sanguine about the squabbling. >> powell, rice, talking about dick cheney. this is like your family. does it bother you? >> no. i'm glad members of my family are giving their version of what it was like to serve our country. i did the same thing. i put my version out there. eventually, objective historians will analyze our administration and will draw objective conclusions. >> version of events and then he uses objective conclusions. that doesn't sound like somebody who is very pleased with what vice president cheney wrote. next weekend, president george w. bush will join president obama at a 9/11 memorial ceremony where the twin towers stood. together they have led america

through a decade that the national journal calls a decade of disaster. michael hirsh is chief correspondent for national journal and author of the cover story. michael, it was a depressing cover story that i read. i read it a couple hours ago. it essentially makes the case that this has been a policy disaster on the national security front for the last ten years, that our response was a mistake. >> yeah. well, it was a depressing decade. i felt that a depressing story -- >> why not. >> -- was appropriate. i believe, it wasn't just my views. i went back and talked to some of the leading skeptics of the iraq war in particular, but for the whole direction of the war against al qaeda was going in after 9/11, like the former centcom commander, brent scowcroft, former national security advisor, and revisited a lot of these questions with people who were more prescient than others about the potential pitfalls of diverting to iraq at

a moment when the job against al qaeda in afghanistan was unfinished. i think when we look back on that now ten years on, particularly with the quagmire we're faced with in afghanistan, we realize that that's what happened. >> there seem to be two large points that were made. one is making the case that it was a catastrophic mistake to go to war in iraq. explain. >> i think this should be looked at on the scale of huge mistakes made by great leaders throughout history. in fact, i went back to barbara tuckman's book when she goes all the way back to troy, the trojan horse being entered into the gates and i talked with people like chuck hagel, former senator from nebraska, bob graham, former senator from florida, who believes this is on a scale of when the athenians lost their empire. i really think you need to look at it in those terms because on the eve of 9/11, we were at the pinnacle of our power and

prestige as a country. the cold war was over. if anything, we were even more powerful than we had been in 1991 when the cold war ended. you have to raise the question, how did we get here ten years later, still engulfed in two wasting wars, all this debt, a substantial portion of which, possibly as much as half of the total national debt related either to the wars or the credit crisis that also came of a lot of feckless policy in the last administration. in order to accumulate all the debt that was needed to underwrite the wars. i think if you look at it, not monday morning quarterbacking but in terms of what was known at the time about the wmd, about the links with al qaeda that really didn't exist in terms of going into iraq, you have to conclude that this was a huge strategic error. >> another conclusion that i felt like i drew from reading this piece is a lot of the folks you talked to, looking back, wonders did we elevate al qaeda too much as an enemy, making them, you know, something of an equal the way russia was an equal, the soviet union in the cold war.

>> look, for example, tony zinney believes in some ways this was even worse than vietnam. at least when we went into vietnam, we acknowledged it was a mistake. during the cold war, there was a threat to the united states from the cold war, from the soviet union, during that period. this was a band of perhaps 1,000 radicals, mostly housed in afghanistan, pakistan, and i would argue that in fact, we did elevate them and in fact, we rejuvenated them in many ways by going into iraq, because according to the islamist ideology, the united states was sort of the far enemy and the regimes they didn't like, saudi arabia, egypt, were the near enemy. most jihadis pre9/11 were fighting the near enemy. we became a new force of enmity that the jihadis were opposed to. recruitment went up. >> cover story of "national journal." it's a sobering piece. an excellent read.

it will be online for everybody to read or behind the firewall? >> i think it will be online. >> check it out. thank you. tonight on msnbc, rachel maddow and nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel take a look at how 9/11 changed our world. first half of "day of destruction decade of war" premiers at 9:00 eastern on msnbc.

we're centurylink...a new kind of broadband company committed to providing honest, personal service from real people... 5-year price-lock guarantees... consistently fast speeds... and more ways to customize your technology. and form a layer called biofilm so strong it survives brushing. thankfully, there's listerine® antiseptic. its triple-action formula penetrates biofilm, kills germs and protects your mouth for hours. fight biofilm with listerine®. i'm a dad, coach, and i was a longtime smoker. in my heart i knew for the longest time that did not want to be a smoker. and the fact that i failed before. i think i was discouraged for a very long time.

♪ knowing that i could smoke during the first week was really important to me. [ male announcer ] chantix is a non-nicotine pill proven to help people quit smoking. [ jeff ] chantix reduced my urge to smoke, and personally that's what i knew i needed. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these, stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some of these can be life-threatening. if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, tell your doctor if you have new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack. dosing may be different if you have kidney problems. until you know how chantix affects you, use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea,

trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. ♪ these are the reasons i quit smoking. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about chantix. over 7 million people have gotten a prescription. learn how you can save money and get terms and conditions at chantix.com. jobs may be getting the headlines this week but they're not the only thing of concern for the u.s. economy. the volatile stock markets have become the new norm in an economy many said would improve in the second half of 2011 hasn't yet. david is the incoming washington bureau chief. you have some good people there happy to hear about getting promotions. let me start with what we're going to expect the next month here in september. it's going to be an unbelievable sort of whiplash of washington action. the question is how much action is going to happen, what do you

expect to come out of congress? >> i think at this point on jobs, we're not going to see much come out of congress. you never know for sure. but there's a pretty clear philosophical divide between what the president wants and what the republicans want to do. i don't think the how good a speech he gives or what he does after the speech is going to change the fundamental dynamics that we're not going to get much out of congress. there's just not enough that they agree on. i think we could see some things. the payroll tax is set to expire at the end of the year. i think there's a decent chance that some version of it will be extended although that's by no means for sure. but we're not going to see big new stuff. >> we do have some breaking news coming out of the white house. two months late, the midsession review and economic forecasts are coming out from the budget department there, and they're pretty grim. economic growth, 1.6% for 2011, 2.9% for 2012. assuming no changes. those kind of anemic numbers

almost go, you would think that would almost force lawmakers to have to do something. >> you might think that, but i certainly think economists would like to see washington do something. you hear a lot from economists about this need to mix some short-term action to help the economy with some combination of short-term tax cuts and spending, with long-term deficit reduction. but if at the end of the day the two parties can't agree on that, and the fact that the republicans are pretty resistant to any major ideas on short-term tax cuts or short-term spending, particularly short-term spending, it's just hard to see what exactly we're going to have, even if the situation seems like it calls for action of some kind. you still need, you still need two to tango. you still need some kind of action that both the president wants and the republicans want. >> and the balance of what -- are we in the last 60 days of policy that could get done before november 2012 essentially, before the campaign

basically comes a year-long run starting just after thanksgiving? >> well, they're still beyond the next 60 days, the chance to influence the economy. the fed's actions take somewhere between three, six, 12 months to have an effect so they could still influence the economy. some congressional actions can have an effect relatively quickly but i agree that once we get out of the early part of this fall, even apart from the economic question of will it take effect in time to affect the economy, is the question an economic question of will it take effect in time to affect the economy is a question of realistically what is congress doing once you get beyond the window? so in terms of the substantial policy to affect the election, i think that we are in the late days of it. i think that for the most part, although we could still be surprised on the upside and we could certainly be surprised on the downside of something like europe collapses, and if the eu or the euro collapses, europe,

itself, collapses, and i think that for the most part, the economy we will have is an economy that most people hope improving modestly, but just still feels really, really sick. >> thank you david lionhart, and the incoming bureau chief for the washington times, and good luck to you and your fellow colleagues in the fall. >> thank you, chuck. what so stories will be mak political headlines is next on "andrea mitchell reports."

purina cat chow helps you well-being. we're all striving for it. nurture it in your cat with a full family of excellent nutrition and helpful resources. purina cat chow. share a better life. look better and feel softer. how 'bout we start with the guaranteed low price on the carpet... the pad, and installation. let's get peace of mind for a lifetime. it all adds up to better carpet at a better price and a great-looking room transformed. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get 10% off or 24 months special financing on your first purchase of $599 or more when you open a new home depot credit card account.

well, which political story will be making headlines in the nextt 24 hours? the contributing editor for postpolitics.com chris cillizza is joining us now. we know about the economy, and that is a story, but we know what is going on. in the political world, i just over the last hour, our campaign enbed in new hampshire noted another huntsman departure and when you tell me that huntsman is losing the head of the new hampshire campaign, i am raising

my eyebrows and going, hey, this thing is problems? >> well, chuck, it is like you said. last month we saw earlier this month the main national campaign manager moving on and no big deal, but new hampshire is the place he has to win or at least move, because we know it won't happen in iowa, so when you lose the new hampshire campaign manager and they are i sag itnt is a personnel move, but if he wants to do well anywhere and a top staffer, it is in new hampshire, because it is important. and it feels like he can't get off of the ground and this is less than 24 hours after he announced the jobs plan in the state, and spending five days in the state. we haven't seen him move. any time in a national poll when you are behind gary johnson, the former governor of new mexico, that is not a great place to be. >> and chris, i heard him making the argument, it is early and nobody is paying attention. that is not true. >> no. >> a lot more people are paying attention. >> and chuck, it is true of a national audience, right.

if you are not in an early state, but in iowa or new hampshire or south carolina, you are absolute lie paying attention and groomed to pay attention to these thengs every four years. >> okay. thank you, chris cillizza, and we will see you here on the other side of the camera a lot tomorrow. thanks, buddy. >> thanks, chuck. all right. i'm chuck todd and that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." my colleague craig melvin has a look at what is next on "newsnation." take itway. >> thank you, chuck. appreciate that. any minute, we are expecting to hear new comments from jay carney about the president's plan on jobs that he is set to announce next week. i'll also talk to a small business owner, and woman who has been out of work for three years now. we will talk to them about what they hope to hear from president obama. and we are also keeping an eye on new disturbances forming in the gulf of mexico, and the latest on hurricane katia, that is right, hurricane katia. "newsnation" is minutes away. e.

no problem -- i can match that right here. oops -- i don't have the ad. you don't need it. oh, what about a coupon for these pens? yeah. easy. why does the glue not stick to the glue stick? well, it's very complicated, but it has to do with oxygen. i knew that. [ male announcer ] we're so confident in our low prices every day on everything for back to school, we back it with our easy ad match guarantee. get this graphing calculator for just $95. save money. live better. walmart. there's another way to minimize litter box odor: purina tidy cats. tidy cats premium line of litters now works harder to help neutralize odors in multiple-cat homes. and our improved formula also helps eliminate dust. so it's easier than ever to keep your house smelling just the way you want it. purina tidy cats. keep your home smelling like home. i opened the first sammy's back sammin 1966. box.

my employees are like family. and, i want people that work for me to feel that they're sharing in my success. we purchase as much as we can on the american express open gold card. so we can accumulate as many points as possible. i pass on these points to my employees to go on trips with their families. when my employees are happy, my customers are happy. vo: earn points for the things you're already buying. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business.

an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, available only from liberty mutual insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money to buy a car that's one model-year newer... with 15,000 fewer miles on it. there's no other auto insurance product like it. better car replacement, available only from liberty mutual. it's a better policy that gets you a better car. call... or visit one of our local offices today, and we'll provide the coverage you need at the right price. liberty mutual auto insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy?