and why mitt romney, a candidate who would never attend a tea party meeting in his life, will be the last man standing. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for watching. "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" starts right now. okay. if you're shocked by the things herman cain says, wait until you hear the man sing. >> ladies and gentlemen, here he is. the president of godfather's pizza, herman cain. ♪ imagine eating pizza each and every day ♪ >> herman cain is not a one-hit wonder. >> gop presidential favorite herman cain. >> 15 minutes of fame for herman cain. >> easy to remember 9-9-9 plan. >> 9-9-9.

>> who will pay more? >> some people will pay more. >> who will pay more? >> the people who spend more money. >> that "meet the press" interview had we throwing things at the television. >> you think those people are going to rally around tax reform where the wealthy pay less? >> oh, yes. i never thought i would be taken seriously. >> 9-9-9, 6-6-6? >> black walnut. it tastes goods all the time. >> if we don't run chris christie, romney will be the nominee on the loose. >> republicans want you to believe global economic protests are just a show. >> do you stand by that comment about mobs? >> i think more important effort to blame others. >> too big to ignore. >> occupy wall street. >> those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change. >> full-scale takeover of a lower manhattan park. and bill clinton goes gaga. >> i just thought we all would get caught up in a little bill

romance. ♪ i want your love and i want your revenge ♪ ♪ i want your love i don't want to be friends ♪ ♪ i don't want to be friends a new poll out today has republican presidential candidate herman cain in a virtual tie with willard m. romney. romney comes in at 26%. followed by cain at 25%. with a five. point margin on error in the poll. rick perry pulls up a distant third at 13%. ron paul holds steady at 9%. followed by the irrelevant newt gingrich at 8% and the now even more irrelevant michele bachmann at 6%. the poll indicates that none of

the candidates are on solid ground yet. with 67% of republican voters saying they might change their minds. herman cain is the latest beneficiary of republicans changing their minds, but his front-runner status has not inhibited his rhetoric on the campaign trail. here he is in tennessee on saturday explaining how he would stop illegal immigration. >> we'll have a real fence. 20 feet high with barbed wire, electri electrified with a sign on the other side that says, it can kill you. >> when asked about that statement less than 24 hours later, here was candidate cain's reply. >> that's a joke, david. >> it's a joke. >> it's a joke. that's a joke. >> that's not a serious plan? >> that's not a serious plan. no, it's not. >> you got a big laugh. that's not what you'd do. >> that's a joke.

i said america needs to get a sense of humor. that was a joke. >> herman cain has been campaigning to preserve america's sense of humor. since this performance in 1991 at the omaha press club when he was still the ceo of godfather's pizza. >> here he is, the president of godfather's pizza, herman cain. >> ladies and gentlemen, would you please give a round of applause for the very lovely and delectable godfather's girls. we have so many freedoms that it is easy to sometimes take them for granted. so it is helpful at times to try and imagine what it's like if we were to lose some of those freedoms.

♪ imagine there's no pizza ♪ i couldn't if i tried eating only tacos or kentucky fried ♪ ♪ imagine only burgers is frightening and sad ♪ ♪ you're lucky you have pizza to feed your kids ♪ ♪ no defrosting or cooking and no dishes you must do ♪

♪ imagine eating pizza each and every day ♪ ♪ you may sorry that is not food but to me it's so much more ♪ ♪ it gives my life its meaning and it pays a lot of dough ♪ >> joining me now is jonathan capehart, "washington post" editorial writer and msnbc contributor. okay, jonathan. follow that. >> i can't, lawrence. my head was going to explode. did you see the movie "mars attacks" when the aliens' heads

would pop in the helmets. that was almost me a second ago. >> you were in the open talking about during his "meet the press" interview you wanted to throw stuff at the tv. what was the biggest throw stuff at the tv moment for you during his "meet the press interview"? we're going to come back to his singing. don't worry. >> the thing is when he said the 9% national sales tax only applied to, quote new goods. new goods. not used goods but new goods. which if you go earlier in the interview, he's talking about how with the 9% national sales tax, always taxes would be transparent and that would lead to, say, for i think it was a loaf of bread that prices would ultimately go down because of increased competition. i called it head scratchering. but the idea you would have -- you were going to try to convince people their taxes aren't going to go up because if

they buy used goods, the 9% national sales tax doesn't apply to them, so what do you say to everyone, particularly poor middle class people who spend a bigger share of their income on food and medicine and other necessities of life, that they're going to get kicked with a big tax increase. >> yeah. the power to tax is the power to destroy, as we have learned at many times. the democrats many years ago wrote a luxury tax into the tax code on cars above a certain price, on aircraft and very importantly on boats. and the tax applied only to new boats which should be a lesson for herman cain. because what we did by having a luxury tax on new boats was completely destroy the boat building industry in the united states. in maine and rhode island and those places. and it collected zero money. because everyone just bought used instead. this would destroy the sale of new automobiles. it would just destroy those

companies. it would destroy new home building. there's so much wrong with that tax. he was also caught up in that talking with david gregory how it would be additive in effect to all the state sales taxes that are already in place. >> right. >> so in some places you'd be paying 17%, 18% in sales taxes. >> right. you know, in new hampshire where there is no sales tax, suddenly the citizens of the state with the first of the nation primary are going to be hit with a 9% tax that they've never had before. i just, i don't understand how someone who is clever enough to come up with a slogan like 9-9-9 isn't equally clever in explaining how it's going to work or quite frankly i'm not even sure he knows exactly how it will work. >> well, he never seems to be thinking about what happen next. so, for example, on the weekend on saturday when he said that thing about, you know, have that fence and electrify it and electrocute people trying to get into this country, he then when

he was asked about it at a national interview, he then backs up and says, oh, it was a joke. let me read to you, jonathan, from his book, where this idea also appears. he says he was giving a speech and told his audience, "remember when the president joked during a discussion about illegal immigration, what do the republicans want? do they want a mote with alligators? i said to the crowd, yes, bring on the alligators and make it a real big mote. i heard a liberal reporter saying that's so uncompassionate. i said, i don't think it's uncompassionate. if they can get into that mote and get over my fence, which is going to be 20 feet high, they can outswim the alligators, i'd give them a job. it wasn't compassionate when they killed some of our agents on the borders. it's not compassionate when they kill ranchers on the border. it's not compassionate when you sue arizona. they ought to be giving arizona a prize. stay tuned for herman's mote." now, after that paragraph, there is nothing in herman's book that says this is a joke.

>> right. >> this is very clearly what he thinks. >> right. this is the problem herman cain now has. no one was really paying attention to him before until he started rising in the polls. so he didn't really have to be accountable to anyone. he could be clever at the debates then go on about his business selling his book. but now that he is the front-runner poll wise, he now is accountable for what he says. the idea that he can say something as inflammatory as he did on saturday and then just brush it aside by saying, oh, it was just a joke, sorry, mr. cain, you're on the presidential stage and the lights burn really, really hot. your margin for error is very small. there are no rooms for jokes, no room for jokes that aren't really jokes. >> we can't leave this segment on this subject without noting that we live in a country that is so great and so attractive that people cross our southern borders and die in the process of doing it.

trying to get into this country. every year. men, women and, yes, children die trying to get across that border trying to get into this country to find their better life in this country. and for him to look at it exclusively from this side of the border with absolutely no compassion to what it is those people are coming here to try to get, and noting that they are actually already dying crossing that border. >> yeah. yeah. this is -- herman cain is remarkably, what's the word i'm looking for? it's not tone deaf. you know, to talk about his compassion i think is a little too easy. i don't know how much time we have left, lawrence, but speaking of compassion, his answer on abortion rights i thought was appalling. he's against -- he's against abortion rights even in the case of rape and incest. when he was pushed on whether, you know, whether the life of the mother was in danger, he said, but that would be up to

the family to decide. go figure that. i can't. >> yeah, it's impossible to follow, but you can say what you might about him, jonathan. we cannot say he is tone deaf. the man is the best singer to run for president in my lifetime. >> you know, i think you might be right. >> no question about it. jonathan capehart of the "washington post," thank you for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. thank you. coming up, as republicans campaign for his job, president obama continues to campaign for his jobs bill. and i will hand over tonight's "rewrite" to one of the occupy wall street protesters. the protester the nypd did not try to silence. look, every day we're using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪

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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. ♪ coming up, a man who marched with martin luther king will

show us the link between the protests dr. king led and the occupy wall street movement. and an occupy wall street protester takes a brave and eloquent stand against police brutality telling the police to their faces that there's nothing tough about attacking unarmed peaceful citizens. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta can help you get there, like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day,

have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions, such as tongue or throat swelling, occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then get lunesta for $0 at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. one poll found that 63% of americans support the ideas in this jobs bill. so 63% of americans support the

jobs bill that i put forward. 100% of republicans in the senate voted against it. essentially they said no to you. >> that was president obama kicking off a bus tour at the asheville, north carolina, regional airport which would receive funding for runway repairs if the president's jobs bill had become law. senate republicans effectively killed the president's bill last week when they voted unanimously to prevent debate on the bill, but the president is not ready to take no for an answer. >> we're going to give them another chance to do their jobs by looking after your jobs. so this week i'm asking members of congress to vote -- what we're going to do is break up my jobs bill. maybe they just couldn't understand the whole thing all at once. so we're going to break it into up bite-sized pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation. >> the republicans still don't

have a jobs plan, but they now realize they have to pretend to have one. so they released an outline of a plan last week which did not escape the president's attention. >> it turns out that the republicans have a plan, too. i want to be fair. they call -- they put forward this plan last week. they called it the real american jobs act. the real one. that's what they called it. just in case you were wondering. so let's take a look at what the republican american jobs act looks like. turns out the republican plan boils down to a few basic ideas. they want to gut regulations, they want to let wall street do whatever it wants. they want to drill more and they want to repeal health care reform. that's their jobs plan.

>> as you just heard, the republican plan is simply a compilation of bills that many republicans have already proposed, none of which were proposed as jobs bills. bills to create a balanced budget amendment. bills to repeal health care reform. repeal financial reform. allow more offshore drilling and it includes a grab bag of tax cuts. >> if they support the republican plan, if they support the republican plan, then they'll have to explain to you why they'd rather deny health care to millions of americans and let corporations and banks write their own rules instead of supporting proposals we know will create jobs right now. >> joining me now, joe connison, . thank you for being with me, joe. so far it's the man with the plan, president obama. we're not suppressing any video of republicans with jobs plans.

you know, there just isn't anything there. i minean, you look at the plan they took out. old tax ideas of theirs, drilling. >> they oppose the preserfedera reserve trying to great employment which is part of their job. they're against jobs plans or jobs creation. >> what about the politics of what we can now call the politics of the 63% according to polls, anyway? a very, very substantial governing majority of this country of its citizens in favor of the obama approach versus the republican approach. >> well, lawrence, as you know, the senate doesn't really work that way. the senate is state by state. and kind of unbalanced in favor of the republicans by the very nature of how we elect senators. so the fact a big majority of people is for a fairer tax system, wants something done about unemployment right now, doesn't necessarily get you very far in the senate. it also unfortunately doesn't seem to get you any further in

the house which ought to be more responsive. and i think it's because they're in election mode. they're in election mode. they're pandering to their base. they think this will keep them from, for example, getting a tea party primary in many cases. certainly in the senate. from their colleague jim demint and his committee, you know, the senate ultraconservative pac or whatever it's called. so that's the mindset they're in. also, you know, it's in their interest for the economy to continue to slide or to stagnate. why, why do they want to help obama from their point of view improve the employment situation which remained so bad for so long? >> this used to be part of the political dynamics, incumbent parties which can be more than one. incumbent parties had an interest in the economy doing well. it was never thought that you could be running the republican

house of representatives and get yourself re-elected in a bad economy. there was bad for all of the elected officials. >> they may find out that that's still the case. i mean, no, and we'll see next year. but i think they seem to be betting that they can do this, that they can get away with this and if the numbers are bad enough, you know -- as you know, next year they have an imbalance in their favor in the number of seat the that are up. more democratic seats are up. more democrats have retired. so they're just betting, hey, if we keep things bad, it will be good for us. and bad for him. >> now, there's a -- the polling for the president isn't great. his favorability stuff isn't good. but the place where it gets strong for him is when you go into one-on-one matchups with republican candidates. the president beats mitt romney 46% to 44%. the president beats herman cain 49% to 38%. as of today. the president beats rick perry best of all 51% to 39%. at the same time, you have other polls come out where it's just a

generic republican candidate without a name, the president can lose in some of these polls to the republican without a name. as soon as you put a name on the republican, the president wins. >> yes, well, quite clearly the republicans, let alone the rest of the country, doesn't want to eat the dog food, right? they're not interested in any of what they see, with the possible of exception of romney. the number you cited there, a two-point lead. it's margin of error. he has a shot. there's no question. he's the most dangerous candidate for the president. but as for the others, i mean, they're sort of entertainment candidates. >> the white house is rooting for the others. they would like to go against that. >> they were hoping chris christie might go, too, just to see sthem tethem tear each othe. i think, you know, the president has an argument to be made on his behalf. i which i could see him go out and do it more. the clips you showed, great. i am happy when that guy shows up. he needs to show up more. >> that's the guy who's been showing up lately.

joe conason, editor in chief of "the national memo." >> thank you. coming up, bill clinton and lady gaga together again for the first time. just how inappropriate did it get? we'll show you the video. and in the "rewrite" tonight, an iraq war veteran goes toe to toe with the nypd and tells them there's no honor of police brulety against unarmed citizens. the powerful eloquence of sergeant shamar thomas is in the "rewrite." ... ... with intuit websites. choose a style, customize, publish and get found... from just $7.99 a month. get a 30-day free trial... at intuit.com.

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still to come in this hour, you all know chris rock. you all know bill cosby. most of you remember richard pryor. the man who paved the way for all of them is dick gregory. he was the first nationally famous african-american comedian of the television age. he marched with martin luther king and got arrested with martin luther going and he eventually gave up show business at the peak of his fame to become a lecturer and activist for peace and justice. dick gregory has been marching for the 99% longer than most of us have known how to march. my personal hero, dick gregory, joins me next.

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♪ cruise like a norwegian ♪ like many chefs today,ian i feel the best approach to food is to keep it whole for better nutrition. and that's what they do with great grains cereal. see the seam on the wheat grain? same as on the flake. because great grains steams and bakes the actual whole grain. now check out the other guy's flake. hello, no seam. because it's more processed. now, which do you suppose has better nutrition for you? mmm. great grains. the whole whole grain cereal. on sunday morning, president obama closed the dedication ceremony of the martin luther

king jr. memorial with a speech that highlighted the civil rights leader's struggles and obstacles the nation currently faces. >> if he were alive today, i believe he would remind us the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of wall street without demonizing all who work there. those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change as divisive. they'll say any challenge to the existing arrangements are unwise and destabilizing. dr. king understood that peace without justice was no peace at all. >> thousands of people gathered on the national mall to honor the legacy of the assassinated leader and to dedicate the granite monument which is situated on the line of leadership between the lincoln and jefferson memorials. dr. king's daughter, burniece king, spoke about her father's

legacy and what he would think about the recent occupy wall street protests happening around the country. >> we should never adjust to the 1% controlling more than 40% of the wealth. i hear my father saying we must have a radical revolution of values and a reordering of our priorities in this nation. >> over the same weekend, dr. king's family and civil rights leaders gathered to dedicate the monument, the occupy wall street protests grew even larger. over 6,000 people marched to times square where several were arrested for taking down police barriers. in chicago, 175 people were arrested earlier sunday after refusing to take down their tents in grant park. protesters in london clarified their demands while police and protesters clashed in rome. today marks the one-month anniversary of the occupy wall

street protest and their calls for social and economic justice for the 9 %. joining me now, author and civil rights activist, dick gregory who attended the martin luther king memorial dedication on sunday. thank you very much for joining me tonight, dick. it's a great honor to have you here. >> thank you, my brother. peace and love to you. what a festivity. >> dick, you march with martin luther king and you heard what for you is a young president on sunday. >> yes. >> saying if he were here today. what are your thoughts of what dr. king would have to tell us if he were here today? >> he would say the same thing the president said, but it don't work. remember, white folks is born in america with 300 years of white privilege, so you don't deal with that the same way you deal with people that come out of the sla

slaves. you have a different dna out there today and this is where america is making a mistake. they don't realize that they're dealing with -- their children escalated in the civil rights movement. do you know white folks are not going to put hoses on their children and beat them down under the ground? i live in a country that praises for being nonviolent. if we decided we were going to the war during the draft, we're going to jail. it's okay when you're dealing with me. so i would just say we won the greatest movement in the history of the planet. that 1960 civil rights movement. but remember, we wasn't the ones that got lbj out there. it was those white kids. they didn't know you can't go up and shoot white children like you can shoot mexicans and black folks. isn't, you know, it's the whole thing, it's different. that's how king, 100 years from

now, this planet, if we survive this, and i got my doubts if this country can survive this, because i don't think they know what they're dealing with. they look at the book and they think they're dealing with ordinary demonstrations. look, they asked the same questions, just different, that they said about us. they call them stinky, they don't know what they want, this and that. and the whole -- just like obama. they call him everything but they can't call him dumb. one thing they can't call him. but everything else. so now they're going to start treating those children the way they treated negroes and it's not going to work. they know what they want. we want it all to change. and it will change. it's the mistake we're making with herman cain. 9-9-9. you can laugh at it if you want to and you can listen to all your acedemia and talking about

this and talking about that. that works okay when you're sitting around the table at harvard or m.i.t. or morehouse but it don't work with my grandmother. you know what's interesting, i'm listening to people react to herman cain, especially in the black community, that the black folks reacted to obama. most of them didn't think he could win. most of them thought he was a joke. and then they found out -- they need to explain some stuff to me about last week. we all went to bed last week and woke up herman cain was number one. i say, wait a minute, somebody need to explain that. i mean, as good as he did that night, he should stay in bed. >> we're all trying to figure out how he got to number one. dick, i want to read something to you from your 1964 autobiography, whose title i cannot say on television, but we will put it up on the screen for people to see so they can find

it. it's still in print, still in bookstores. i read this in high school. there was no book that influenced me more, changed more of my thinking than your book when i read it in high school. i want to read you this one passage from your autobiography. you say "in 1952, i was a welfare case and in 1963 i was on a list of famous men. in america with all its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. but we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting in our country." how do you feel about that passage today, dick? is the sun rising or setting? >> it's setting. america is less than one-fifth of the world's population. 94% of all the hard drugs on the planet is consumed by us americans. that's not counting alcohol, nicotine, snuff and all the other stuff. there's something wrong with the

nation that calls themselves the most christian, the most god-fearing nation in the world and need that type of drugs to hold up. that's kind of sad. that's what our children are telling us. they're telling us something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. it's like you get a headache. any time your head hurt and you didn't get hit in your head, that's the universal guide telling you something's malfunctioning. so we sit up, we have a country here that mix up capitalism with democracy. and then all at once when the money -- let me tell you something, the hard story, don't compare these economic times with the depression, the great depression. why? because during the great depression white folk didn't have nothing. okay? in 1950, 71% of white folks in america didn't own a car. i dare you to teach me how to ride a bicycle and then try to

unteach me how to ride a bicycle. that's important. and the only reason we survived 1936, that great depression, because roosevelt had the wisdom to know that when you start changing the economic -- when you start mass production, you have mass layoffs and the only way you can save it is you have to create mass consumption. the wpa paid me to dig a hole that didn't need to be dug. my cousin came out that night and fill it up. we got that check and said we worked for our living. he was clever enough. you older folks out there, remember the fireside chat? he didn't talk about how bad the economy was. when he come in that living room on the radio, he said, you have two chickens. he didn't say he was going to put it there. there's something that when you talk to me and i trust you and i feel you, then things change.

and so when we realize that this is a whole new ball game, it's a whole new economic -- and the tea parties, people say, well, they're racist. they might have been, but that's not what brought them into the street. what brought them into the street is they're scared. fear. and god do not occupy the same space. the sooner we know that -- we sit around and talk to the military people, we talk -- what you need to do is bring in some of the ftop minds on this plane that understands the whole social structure of human beings and sit down. you can't solve a problem with me. the democrats and republicans. i get hit by a car when i leave this studio tonight and everybody is sitting around arguing about am i hurt? no, just help me. that's all. i just want to hear a nice, kind voice and we're not hearing that. >> dick gregory. i can't thank you enough for joining me tonight. i have to tell you that your book starting with your autobiography and your rewrites

of american history is rewritten my understanding of the history of this country and our common experience. dick, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you, my brother. love you. peace. coming up, a marine sergeant reminds the police what they are there to do. to protect the people. his message is next in the "rewrite." in in jellyfish, impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing.

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time for tonight's "rewrite." the occupy wall street protesters moved into times square during a march on saturday, this is what some of the protesters encountered. >> [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> hey! hey! >> there was one protester who made the nypd -- the nypd made no attempt to contain. an iraq war veteran who shamed the brutalizers among the police as no one else could. >> this is not a war zone. this is not a war zone. these are unarmed people. it doesn't make you tough to hurt these people. it doesn't make you tough to hurt these people. it doesn't. it does not make you tough to hurt these people. there's nothing tough about it.

nothing. you want to go fight, go to iraq and afghanistan. leave these people alone. they're u.s. citizens. u.s. citizens. u.s. citizens. u.s. it does not make you tough to do this to them. it doesn't. stop hurting these people, man. why are you all doing this to our people? i've been to iraq 14 months. they don't have guns. they don't have guns. they don't. why are you hurting these people? it doesn't make any sense. it doesn't make any sense. how do you sleep at night? there's no honor in this. there is no honor in this. there is no honor in this, man. there's no honor in this [ bleep ]. there is no honor in this [ bleep ]. there is no honor in what you're doing to these people. no honor.

you're here to protect us. you're here to protect us. protect us. why are you hurting u.s. citizens? this is the united states of america. why are you hurting people? if you want to go kill or hurt people, go to iraq. why are you hurting u.s. citizens? why? do you get honor out of this? do you get honor hitting people with batons? is that what you get? there's no honor in hurting unarmed civilians. my mom, my father, everybody has served in iraq, afghanistan, 14 months in iraq. my father was in afghanistan. my mother did a year in iraq. we fought for this country. i don't come home -- i'm in new york city. i am from new york city. these cops are hurting people that i fought to protect. there's no reason for this. there's no -- there's no honor to hurt unarmed civilians. i don't let it happen. have a good night. >> what's your name? what's your name?

>> sergeant shamar thomas. >> shamar thomas later posted this statement online. "i am not anti-nypd. i am anti-police brutality. there is an obvious problem in the country and peaceful people should be allowed to protest without brutality. i was involved in a riot in iraq in 2004 and we did not treat the iraqi citizens like they are treating the unarmed civilians in our own country. no one was brutalized because our mission was to win the hearts and minds. why should i expect anything less in my own country?" [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you

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bill clinton celebrated his 65th birthday quietly at home in chappaq chappaqua, new york. that wasn't good enough for the attention starved former president. two months later he celebrated his birthday again with a weekend-long party in hollywood this weekend. he got things started at a friday night party at the hollywood paladium and kept partying right through saturday night with a concert at the hollywood bowl featuring performances by bono, kenny chesney, stevie wonder, usher and lady gaga. it was impossible to keep track of the double and taun dras in lady gaga's performance. she chose to serenade the only president forced to testify under oath about romance gone bad with a personalized version of the greatest of her greatest hits, "bad romance." >> i just thought we all would

get caught up in a little bill romance. ♪ caught in a bill romance ♪ caught in a bill romance put your hands up for bill. ♪ i don't want to be friends i love you. bill, i'm having my first real marilyn moment. tonight i'm on the edge with you. ♪ i got reason that you should take me home tonight ♪ i wish you were playing sax with me tonight, baby. >> when it was his turn to take the stage, bill clinton did nothing to distract attention from some uncomfortable parallels. >> i mean, how cool is it to be

65 and you get lady gaga? come on. she said she was going to have a marilyn moment. i thought, my god, i get lady gaga and i will have a heart attack celebrating my 65th birthday. >> joining me now, "bloomberg view" columnist and msnbc political analyst jonathan alter. thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> hey, lawrence. >> i don't know where to begin. doesn't get weirder than that. there's former first lady, current secretary of state, hillary clinton. who we all know has had these very difficult discussions with her husband while president about his bad romance choices. >> it was a long time ago. >> but what's the statute of limitations on the public memory of these kinds of associations? >> well first of all, there's no statute of limitations on what this was based on which was marilyn monroe singing a very sexy version of "happy birthday mr. president" to john f. kennedy in 1962.

>> let's finish it for the kids out there. is it to your satisfaction documented marilyn monroe was in fact having an affair with president kennedy? >> no. >> but it's off -- it's like presumed. it's awfully close. >> look, you can be thankful it wasn't monica lewinsky, herself, out there doing a number. this is america. this is what happens in america. i think you have to put it in a little bit of perspective, which is, has he been a good ex-president or not? and even if he has these, you know, moments of what could be considered rogueish behavior, tackiness, whatever you want to call it, this was for charity. he's raising hundreds of millions of dollars for good causes and he and jimmy carter have dominated, you know, all of the assessments of ex-presidents because they're actually using their celebrity to bring people together and do something. >> jimmy carter has never had a

birthday party like that. jimmy carter does not party in hollywood for two nights in a row. two months after his birthday. >> i was a wet blanket on these things. i was a little bit of a prude in the '90s when he was president of the united states. and, you know, he was talking about intimate details of his sex life in depositions that ran on television. that was humiliating for this country. this is not. this is just -- >> how hard is it to steer clear of these references and these echos and instead of standing on a stage and laughing about these echos? >> you know, i guess i can't get too worked up about it, but i do think that it is helpful to remind people that this guy was impeached for things that people really dis approved of at the time. there's been some publicity lately. i think it's actually inaccurate that there are folks in the

obama white house who worked for bill clinton who long for the days of bill clinton. that's simply untrue based on my reporting. because he was -- it was misery for them for much of the second term because of the lewinsky scandal and impeachment battle. there is a tendency to forget this. so when he stepped into a situation like this and those memories come flooding back, it can make people think, you know, maybe things aren't quite as bad in the white house as we've been hearing lately. >> this was a fund-raiser for charity. if you want to get people there and sell tickets, no one can do that better than lady gaga. >> she does it pretty damn well. you know, we don't give enough publicity to what the clinton foundation and the clinton global initiative are doing around the world. these are important projects. >> in his speech he talked about that and thanked people around the world. thousands of people who worked for the initiative and his foundation. we've chos