we've got work to do. >> fired up and ready to go has become take off your bedroom slippers. >> over the weekend, president obama was fired up. >> take off your bedroom slippers. put on your marching shoes. shake it off. >> i don't know who the president was talking to. >> how is that going over? >> i'm going to press on for jobs. i'm going to press on for equality. >> we've had 18 straight months of job growth. >> we don't have time to complain. i'm going to press on. i expect all of you to march with me and press on. >> which party do we want to lead the united states? >> a florida vote shows republicans are not fired up and ready to go for the republican front-runners. >> protest voting. >> it's not a protest vote. >> they didn't come and vote for him at the straw poll. >> they perform a flaming belly flop in florida. >> they voted for herman kaine. >> i don't think anyone should count herman kaine out completely yet. >> i love the "snl" spoof. both of me.

i would deliver. >> there's a lot of energy not to nominate romney. >> reminder to chris christi, it's wind open, buddy. >> a front-runner. >> just saying. >> and the current front-runner continues to sink. >> some people who watch closely enough may have gotten a glimpse of debris from -- >> rick perry on the ropes. >> the guy is stepping on body parts every week. >> perry really did throw up all over himself in the debate. >> this is when you normally get tired and confused. >> rick perry is no barack obama. >> mr. nixon, would you like to comment on that statement? >> i have no comment. former pizza magnate herman cane's victory set off a call for somebody else, anybody else to enter the republican primary race. today the rupert murdoch owned "new york post" had an editorial

pleading for chris christie. some of the republican party's most influential leaders clearly troubled by the failure of anyone in the current field to stir broad enthusiastic support are pressing christie, whom they believe can successfully lead the party against an increasingly vulnerable barack obama. mitt romney and rick perry used their speeches at the conference friday to attack each other's conservative credentials, yet when 2,600 cast their vote, both finished far behind herman cain. cain won 37% of the vote. perry second with 15%. romney in third with 14%. rick santorum and ron paul rounded out the top five with 11% and 10%. romney has the excuse of not

actively competing in the straw poll. although romney has essentially been running for president in florida for five years. perry has no excuse for his failure to appeal to florida republican voters. today mitt romney courted donald trump in new york city. we would show you pictures, but romney was wise enough to not want the meeting captured on camera. so we'll show you our favorite picture of donald trump instead. nbc news political director chuck todd reported on twitter, "looks like romney avoided cameras recording any sort of trump/romney meet and greet." trump/romney, folks, were at odds over photo op. of course trump's people wanted a photo of the meeting because they knee we'd use this photo if they didn't provide us with a photo of today's meeting. herman cain did an interview with yahoo! news at the peak of his euphoria.

asked about the president's assertion that raising taxes on the wealthy is not class warfare, cain responded, "can i be blunt?" as if he's never been blunt before. "that's a lie. you're not supposed to call the president a liar. well, if you're not supposed to call a president a liar, he shouldn't tell a lie. if it's not class warfare, it's highway robbery. he wants us to believe it's not class warfare. pick my pockets because that's what he's doing. all this bull crap that he's talking about, fairness and balanced approach to get this economy going." joining me now is adam smith, the multi-century bestseller author of "the wealth of nations." oh, no, wait, it's the political editor for "the st. petersburg times." he wrote a great piece about the presidential candidates.

thanks for joining me tonight, adam. >> thanks for having me. >> it must be a murder carrying that name around in this world. >> it's been all downhill since 1776. >> i can imagine. i loved your list of ten things that we learned about the -- as a result of the straw poll. number one, the idea of rick perry is a lot stronger than the reality of rick perry. number two, conservatives are as hungry as ever for romney alternative. number three, electability matters. debates matter. number four, voters demand specifics. number five, it's too late for another viable candidate. number six, perry made romney a better candidate. number seven, illegal immigration is toxic among republican primary voters. number eight, michele bachmann is no longer relevant. number nine, republicans are energized. and number ten, florida matters. let's go right over to number five. because the news of the day is the begging, the repeated begging of chris christie to get

in this. number five, you say it's too late for another viable candidate. why? >> well, you can talk to the people that are working with perry and it's very, very difficult to get him prepared for the debates, to come up with a platform to meet and greet with the major fund-raisers and bundlers then at the same time make time for actual political events. it's very tough. he's very lucky he has three or four weeks before the next debate. >> let's listen to who herman cain said on his victory lap on the "today" show. >> it's not a protest vote. first of all, the voice of the people is more powerful than the voice of the media. secondly, message is more powerful than money. >> message is more powerful than money. so let's deal with both those, adam. is it a protest vote? what was it? >> you know, at a straw poll, which is a sort of an artificial themed message, maybe

occasionally more powerful than money. this was partly a protest, partly a none of the above. when we went in there right before the debate, perry looked very, very strong. after the debate you could feel the air disappear as people were flocking nervously and looking for an alternative. >> now, what about the 9-9-9 specifics of herman cain? i read some specifics that it helped him he has this specific thing, republican voters can remember and they were rewarding to some extent that specificity. >> you know, he's kind of benefited because everybody's ignored him and not seen him as a threat so he's gotten a pass in the debates. so he stands up there and relentlessly talks about 9-9-9. this is what i'm going to do to turn the economy around. a lot of hardcore activists appreciated that instead of the bickering and back and forth and promises for vague change and promises that they'll get their jobs plan out eventually. >> and in the romney versus

perry isolated camera on those two, what did we learn about those two in florida this weekend? perry did compete for this and came out badly. romney has that excuse, if i didn't really compete for this. how do you interpret that? >> it is an excuse because he's been building a big network in florida for five or six years. every single person at the event knew him. there were supporters of his that were courting delegates. he had a shot of win over disenchanted perry voters. he was competing. he may not have given a speech on saturday, but the fact this guy has been in florida so much, got less than 14% got about 14% of the vote, that's pretty alarming. >> adam smith, political editor for the "st. petersburg times." keep those important books coming, adam. >> i will. i will. >> joining me now, national affairs editor at "new york" magazine. john, what do you make of florida? >> i make i'm not the creator of the invisible hand.

i'm the second best guest. >> you're the john heilman doing the first important john heilman books. >> look at the result in florida. you can't take any of the straw polls that seriously. the last big straw poll was the iowa straw poll. michele bachmann won that then promptly disappeared from view. she's now considered complete irrelevance in the campaign. herman cain is not going to be the nominee. adam pointed out, it tells you what we've known for a year. this field is a field that is still unsettled. we tried to force this into a box. now we have a two-person race. it's perry and romney. the truth is there are a lot of doubts among conservatives about whether rick perry is ready and showing over and over again he might not be. there have been problems with mitt romney. he has problems with the donor class which doesn't think he can beat barack obama. that's why you see the donor class primaily rising up in unison trying to get chris christie in the race. >> it was as good a weekend in florida as president obama could ask for i think.

you have herman cain giving new life. he's going to stay on the debate stage for the rest of time. he's not leaving until you get to the convention. he's one of the candidates who can sit there and take wicked shots at the front-runners, not worrying at all, as is michele bachmann and so those candidacies remain alive. and the republican party looks completely confused. they look directionless. it looks like they don't have a leader. if you have a romney surge and win and grabbing of the straw poll, that would be bad news for the president. >> very bad news and it would have come right on top of the polling from last week that showed the president is far -- has slipped very badly in florida which is obviously a must win state for him. he's polling behind mitt romney in heads to heads in florida. adam is correct. florida -- the order of importance for mitt romney. new hampshire is the most important thing. the second most important thing is florida. he devoted a lot of effort, resources and energy over the course of the last five years. if he won the straw poll on top

of the polling, people would have said, mitt romney is beginning to take control, gain the upper hand in the republican race and give barack obama a lot of things to worry about. >> the president is ahead of the republican front-runners in national polling. we have a cnn poll showing the president beats rick perry 51% to 46%. the president versus mitt romney, he's up by one point which is not being up at all. it's 49%, 48%. that's essentially a tie. certainly romney's electability argument is strengthened by the cnn poll. >> yes. i think national polls at this point are largely meaningless. the truth is, the country, though mitt romney is a well known commodity, the country doesn't know rick perry. don't look at the head to heads against these republicans. look at what the president's favorability rating is, what the right track, wrong track ratings are. when he sees his approval rating in the low 40s and the wrong track number in the 70s, if he doesn't turn those numbers

around by next fall, he'll lose. >> someone has to beat him. bill clinton was astonishingly vulnerable and had the great luck of running against bob dole who couldn't take it away from him in re-election. romney is clearly by most republicans' view is the stronger of the two candidates going against barack obama. let's look at what "red state" founder erick erickson wrote today about romney's vulnerability. "romney remains without a natural constituency. outside of the beltway crowd and the republican base holds him in almost as much contempt as they do president obama." so that's a problem going into a general election, too. >> well, it is. i mean, look, the bottom line is that mitt romney committed a cardinal sin back in 2008 which was he tried to run away from his record. he tried to pander to conservatives and conservatives, no matter what you want to think about them, they're not dummies.

they know when someone flip-flops to court their vote. it doesn't accomplish the thing you're trying to accomplish it. people see through it. now to see romney running more or less, what he kind of wanted -- he should have run as in 2008, it increased the problem of the phoniness thing for grassroots conservatives. they look at him and say, we don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. >> i don't know about the not dummies thing. they voted more michele bachmann and herman cain. >> that's your opinion. you're always consistent on that point. >> john heilman of "new york" magazine. thanks for joining me tonight. coming up, the president's question time with lady gaga. that isn't the only run maxine waters thought the president got carried away. there was a terrible weapon in use during the wall street protests this weekend, one that the police considers so dangerous they have to pepper spray and arrest the users of that weapon.

that weapon is the video camera. that's in the "rewrite."

coming up, a president obama the antichrist? he's not the first american president who some evangelicals believe is the antichrist. and he surely won't be the last. and police lost control this weekend and attacked a group that was protesting wall street greed. why wall street and the police know they can get away with abusing the american people.

i don't have time to complain. i'm going to press on. i expect all of you to march with me and press on. take off your bedroom slippers. put on your marching shoes. shake it off. stop complaining. stop grumbling. stop crying. we are going to press on. we've got work to do. cbc. >> that was president obama this weekend at the congressional black caucus dinner where 2008's fired up and ready to go became 2011's please stop complaining and take off your slippers. some in the audience were perplexed. >> i don't know who the president was talking to. and he certainly could not have been talking to the unemployed people. they're not just grumbling. they're asking for help. i think he got carried away. got off script and got a little bit, you know, beside himself. but i certainly don't believe

that he thinks that the congressional black caucus is sitting around and house slippers or bed slippers or whatever the things are. i don't own them and i don't understand the image that was being described there. >> the president is obviously discovering that the rhetoric of a re-election campaign is more complicated than the inspirational rhetoric of his historical 2008 campaign. joining me now to discuss how this newly energized barack obama is really doing among his base is eugene robinson, associate editor and columnist for "washington post" and msnbc political analyst. thanks for joining me tonight, jean. >> great to be here, lawrence. >> gene, it looked like he went off script there and maybe got a little carried away. i can understand how that happens. i get maxine water's reaction, too. what exactly did he mean? >> well, i'm not sure. he clearly veered off course with bedroom slippers, okay? he's got to drop that line from the next time he speaks to that

audience. the rest of the speech, though, really i think was basically what he has to say. he needs to fire up african-american voters. it's not that they're going to defect no matter who the democratic candidate is. that candidate will be able to count on 80%, 85%, whatever, of the african-american vote. the question for the president is maximizing that african-american vote, getting as many black voters to the polls as possible which will make all the difference in a city like philadelphia, for example, which will make all the difference in a state like pennsylvania which he's got to win. >> yeah, to be fair, we just excerpted the one and only section of the president's speech that had any kind of odd ring to it at all. it was, in fact, a very successful speech to that audience. but it's tough, gene, when you're running as the incumbent president. unemployment in the black community well over 16%. unemployment among workers in

the younger ages in the 20 to 25 age group also over 16%. it's very difficult to come up with the inspirational rhetoric when you have the burden of incumbency. isn't it? >> it is really hard. it's much harder than, as sarah palin would call it, that hopey changey stuff he so successfully used last time around. again, the challenge really is motivating voters and how else is he going to do it except try to fire them up? you can't credibly promise that the day after the election everything's going to be you can't credibly promise that the day after the election everything's going to be different. you have to establish a contrast and be the guy that's fighting for the audience. fighting for black americans. he's fighting for young people. he's fighting for new voters. and as opposed to the republicans, draw the contrast and see if you can boost the turnout. >> let's listen to what he said at a town hall meeting today in california.

>> what would be your statement of encouragement for those who are looking for work today? >> the encouraging thing for you is that when the economy gets back on track in the ways that it should, you are going to be prepared to be successful. the challenge is making sure you hang in between now and then. >> gene, that is going to be the toughest question the president is going to be faced with throughout the campaign, what do you say to the unemployed, what do you do, what can they look forward to? he has to expand on it beyond that answer, doesn't he? >> he does. he has to say more than, well, just hang on for a while. as he, himself, has pointed out, people don't particularly feel they can wait 14 months or two years or however long it is. i think he has to give some sense of movement, some sense of movement toward fuller employment, if not absolutely full employment.

and give people a sense that they're moving toward a job rather than just marking time until the economy gets better. >> and gene, i want to get your reaction to what i can only call the confusion in florida this weekend. the triumphant victory of herman cain. that looks like to me a very good weekend for the president politically with the republicans in that kind of disarray and kind of shocking surprise outcome. >> could hardly have been better for the president, i think. the longer this confusion persist, the better for him. it's clear that republican base does not warm to mitt romney and may never warm to mitt romney. and rick perry has been a real disappointment to that base. and the result of which there's now this huge clamber for chris christie. as long as they're in this flavor of the month mode, bring in more, bring in the next guy, then that's all good for the

president. >> msnbc political analyst,robinson, thank you for joining me tonight. >> good to be here, lawrence. coming up, why evangelicals, some evangelicals believe president obama is the antichrist and why they believe in the antichrist at all. and protests on wall street result in violent behavior from some of those who are supposed to serve and protect.

still to come tonight, why the antichrist and who fills that role is so important to our particular type of evangelical and why it matters in our politics. the author of a must-read op-ped in this morning's "new york times" joins me. and a few people caused a lot of trouble on wall street this weekend. they weren't the protesters. i don't want healthy skin for a day. i want healthy skin for life. [ female announcer ] don't just moisturize, improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula goes beyond 24-hour moisture. it's clinically proven to improve your skin's health in one day,

with significant improvement in 2 weeks. for healthy, beautiful skin that lasts. i found a moisturizer for life. [ female announcer ] aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. and for healthy, beautiful hair, try nourish plus haircare. only from aveeno.

in the spotlight tonight is barack obama the antichrist? today's "new york times" says for some evangelicals president obama is troubling. the specious theories about his place of birth, his internationalist tendencies, measured support or israel and nobel peace prize fit their long held expectations about the antichrist. so does his commitment to expanding the reach of government in areas like health

care. that's from an op-ped in today's "new york times" entitled "why the antichrist matters in politics." the piece says "not since roosevelt have we had a president of charisma and global popularity who so perfectly fits the evangelicals' antichrist mold." joining me now, the author of that piece, matt sutton, an associate professor of history at washington state university and author of "aimee simple mcpherson and rez resurrection of christian america." matt, could you first of all review to us the definition of antichrist? what is the antichrist? not all of our viewers know this. >> sure. well, it's a biblical notion and for conservative christians they've developed this notion of the antichrist out of the reading of the bible in a couple different places. mostly the old testament but also the book of revelation.

they believe the world is getting worse and worse and worse and going to end in this great cataclysm and what's going to happen is first all true christians are going to be raptured, they're going to disappear and a new world leader is going to come forward offering peace and security and he's the antichrist and seven years later jesus is going to return, the second coming and battle the antichrist in a literal place in the middle east, the battle of armageddon then jesus will restore a new heaven and new earth and things will be better at that point. >> here's the part i don't quite understand. you deal with this a little bit in your op-ped pieces. if you're one of these christians who sees it this way, you actually want this to happen? and yet, so you need to have an antichrist in order to have all this prophecy fulfilled and yet they somehow at the same time oppose the rise of the antichrist? >> yeah. it is sort of paradoxical. outsiders never understand this. it's something the

fundamentalists -- i'm a historian. i come at this from a historical perspective. the fundamentalists in the 1920s and and '30s explained it and evangelicals in the '70s and '80s say, the one hand, looking forward to christ's second coming but told them to occupy until he comes, continue to do what god calls you to do, be prepared to come but he may not come for another two generations or three generations. >> these suspicions and theories surrounded fdr in his time. why? >> right. that's who drew me to this project. i'm doing research more on the pre-world war ii period but seeing so much relevance and residence with what's happening today. roosevelt represented and identified with so many of the characteristics fundamentalists had been expected, that there would be a world leader, that democracy would solely fade. more and more power would become

infused into central governments and there would be greater international activity. that nations would start to work together and all this would set the stage for the coming of the antichrist. so for fundamentalists in the '30s they look at mumussolini, hitler, stollen. roosevelt runs for four terms, tries to back the supreme court, congress is a rubber stamp. for the fundamentalists there was a lot to think it wasn't mussolini they should be afraid of but roosevelt as well. >> in your op-ped piece, you made me reconsider an ad john mccain ran in the 2008 presidential campaign against barack obama. i want to show it now. we'll talk about it after we see it. >> it should be known in 2008 the world will be blessed. they will call him the one. and the world shall receive his blessings. >> this is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to fold and our planet began to heal.

>> behold his mighty hand. >> barack obama may be the one, but is he ready to lead? >> now, matt, when i saw that ad, i just thought they were playing on the idea that obama is an egomaniac and his followers are just kind of crazy messianic type followers. you saw something else? >> right. i did. in other evangelicals and analysts in 2008 saw it as well. it's exactly as you describe. it's playing to obama as celebrity, obama as superstar and the teenagers who are in love with him. it's also saying something else, he really is a 21st century kind of leader which raises certain suspicions among a certain group of the population. people who are, again, afraid of government authority, afraid of government power and especially international authority and international power. so for them i think obama, well

for mccain was really tapping into this fear of what was coming next. >> matthew sutton, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. coming up, harry gets the last word on our politics tonight. and this weekend, why the occupied wall street protests turned violent. it wasn't the protesters' fault. that's in tonight's "rewrite."

"saturday night live" is back just in time for silly season and the republican presidential campaign. and harry shearer will join me to explore what's funny and what's deadly serious about the presidential campaign so far. in the "rewrite" we'll see how the police lost control of themselves and turned a peaceful protest into something else this weekend. time for tonight's

time for tonight's "rewrite." this weekend a few troublemakers turned a peaceful protest against wall street greed into a violent burst of chaos. the troublemakers carried pepper spray and guns and were wearing badges. >> get in there and help. >> we're not doing anything.

you heard the woman say that as the police were grabbing people for absolutely no reason, crushing them on the pavement and arresting them. we're not doing anything. we will post all of the video that we have on this protest on our blog and you won't find anyone doing anything that is legal grounds for arrest. >> [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> let's take another look at that unprovoked police brutality. the reason that man is being assaulted by the police is

because of what he has in his hand. he's holding a professional-grade videocamera. since the rodney king beating was caught on an amateur videocamera, american police officers have known videocameras are their worst enemies. they will do anything they can to stop you from legally videotaping how they handle their responsibility to serve and protect you. so this police commander has decided that the correct response to that man shooting video is to grab him and smash his head into a parked volvo. the commanders are recognizable by their white shirts. the white shirts indicate a rank of lieutenant or above. here's another courageous commander showing his men how to control the citizenry. his target for showing how tough he is was an unarmed woman who

he had to reach across the police security line to grab. >> [ bleep ]. >> get up. >> no, no. stop it. stop it. >> [ bleep ]. >> and there was at least one unprovoked use of pepper spray. >> pepper spray. pepper spray for what? >> uslaw.com posted a slow motion version of the pepper spray incident which of course

shows there is no conceivable justification for the use of the pepper spray.

[ screaming ] >> as is usually the case in these situations, most of the police officers on the scene carried out their duties calmly and nonviolently, like this one. >> guys, back, please. thank you. back, please, ma'am. thank you. >> that's how you do it. stand back, thank you. you respect those people. as usual, police department is defending its troublemakers as having done absolutely nothing wrong. the department insists that the pepper spray was used appropriately. the department may be forced to conduct an investigation of the police conduct if police brutality complaints are filed, but police investigations of this sort are always a sham, designed from the start to the

finish to defend the police conduct. the police department is already defending the inexcusable use of the pepper spray which you just saw. they're defending it knowing there is videotape proving that it was unjustified, that the police department can do this because the police department knows that this story is going to go away. this kind of story always goes away. someone would have to have been killed or very seriously injured in order for the press to stay interested in this story. and for the police to do even a half serious investigation into it. this is just a story of a few cops being tougher than they had to be, and, yeah, technically breaking some laws. and cops know they can always get away with that. american police know that no mayor and no police chief is ever going to call them on just being what they think of as a little too tough.

now, i haven't bothered to mention where this took place or what police department was involved because this is an american police work that we're watching. it's an american police work story. in fact, it involved one of the best police departments in america. every day in america police are too tough. every day in america police cross the line and abuse citizens. every day in america police get away with that. white america was shocked at what they saw police doing to rodney king. black america would have loved to have been shocked by what they saw police do to rodney king. but black america only could have been shocked if what the police did to rodney king was something completely alien to their community experience, was something they couldn't imagine the police doing in their community. there's a rodney king every day in this country, and black

america has always known that. everything those cops did this weekend to those protesters they've done to someone else when there were no videocameras rolling. they've done it and they've gotten away with it. they know just how much assault and battery their department will let them commit. they know just how many false arrests their department will let them do. they know just how much latitude their department gives them on abusing citizens. they do it because they know they can. they do it because they know, they know they will get away with it. none of the officers who crossed the line this weekend will be disciplined in any way. none of them will be charged with the assaults and batteries that they committed. none of them will be charged with the false arrests. none of them will lose a day's pay. the police department doesn't need an investigation to figure out what happened this weekend. the department has already said

the officers acted appropriately, case closed, that's it. if the department does by some miracle, by some chance discipline anyone, anyone for what happened this weekend, i will immediately rewrite what would then be my mistaken presumption tonight that american police have once again gotten away with another crime against the american people they are sworn to serve and protect. look, every day we're using more and more energy.

the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this. it's a smart way to go. ♪

"saturday night live" returned for its 37th season this weekend and not a moment

too soon. catching up with the republican presidential candidates during last week's debate on fox news. >> i believe we need to build a fence to keep the illegals out. however, should any illegals get through and have children here, i think we should open our hearts and pay for their education. do-over. do-over. jesus christ and rachel maddow. no? >> mitt romney might not be the perfect candidate but he's the perfect candidate in comparison to the other candidates. next to rick perry, i'm a centrist. next to michele bachmann, i'm a private sector businessman. next to newt gingrich, i have a normal human sized head. next to ron paul, i'm the fonz. and next to herman cain -- >> mr. cain, your only experience is serving as ceo of godfather pizza.

how does running a pizza chain equate to running a country? >> if you order it, pizza will come. pizza will come, pizza will most definitely come, and if you vote for me, america, i promise you that i will deliver. >> joining me now, a distinguished graduate of "saturday night live," the writer and director of "the big uneasy," a documentary about the flooding and aftermath of hurricane ka katrina and host of the radio show "the show." harry shearer. it doesn't get weirder than this weekend in politics. herman cain? there have been two sets of votes cast in straw polls. michele bachmann wins the first one. herman cain the second one. where are we going? >> i want to be the first person to say on national television that herman cain's -- i have the explanation for herman cain's tax plan. >> 9-9-9.

i've been trying to follow that. >> it's a carefully coded message from satan. >> okay. >> flip it, baby. >> oh. >> see what i'm saying? apropos of your previous guest. >> we should have had you together. analyze that together. >> i think the next candidate to win in a republican straw poll is likely to be hugo chaves at this rate. >> it's unpredictable. it's wacky. >> it's weird. >> no one paid more attention to the aftermath of hurricane katrina than harry shearer. your documentary is about that. i'm thinking about that when i look at the arguments going on in washington today about disaster relief and, no, no, no, wait a minute, we have to figure out where we're going to take the money from in the budget. can you imagine in the aftermath of katrina which had enough madness to deal with if washington was trying to figure out how to cut other things in the budget to pay for this? >> robbing peter to pay paul has biblical roots, hence the names. i mean, i think we have watched enough sausage being made in the

last year and a half to put us off sausage for life i think. you know, the congressional process is not pretty at its best. you and i have both worked, you for a much longer time than i. i worked in the state legislature in sacramento. i got tired of it after a year. you stuck it out for a while. it's not meant for public view. it's like many other basic human functions. >> there are some republican members of louisiana's congressional delegation who are part of this slowdown relief, disaster relief money until we can find a way to pay for it. aren't they under pressure? >> you know, it's remarkable. my film deals with the cause of the flooding, but what's well known in louisiana is that fema relief money was slow walked and knotted up to a great extent after katrina. and one of the few good things you'll hear anybody in louisiana say about the obama administration is the appointment of craig fugate as fema administrator.

he cut the red tape and the money has finally started flowing and now this. so were it not for the fact fema suddenly discovered they have $1 million to tide them through friday and this is all going to go away and nothing to see her, i think people would be kind of looking -- >> we of course have moved on to other disasters. especially this year's disasters and media coverage and all that. but the aftermath of katrina is by no means complete nor has the disaster relief effort been complete. >> oh, god, no. a lot of the fema money was for infrastructure, uh-oh, there's that terrible word, that was destroyed by the flood. the sewers, the water systems. really disastrously effected. fema money was mainly going to relieve that. that has just really started at this point. >> where do you see the president going in his re-election campaign? you saw the thing about the slippers which you have to have caught, the unscripted moment of

the obama -- is he struggling to find that re-election rhetoric being very different from the 2008 rhetoric and where is he going to end up? >> mitt romney's going to be the republican nominee and presidents don't get re-elected with 9% unemployment. >> you heard it here first. the gloomy word from harry shearer. i think he can beat mitt romney. we'll find out. harry shearer, director of the film "the big uneasy." have "the last word online." follow my tweets @lawrence. the rachel maddow show is up next. good evening, thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. happy monday. in the summer of 1992, a texas businessman named ross perot was taking the country by storm.