now. thank you so much. >> my pleasure, thank you, ed. >> appreciate it. >> i love the show. >> thank you for being here. that is "the ed show." tomorrow night primary coverage here on "the ed show" live at 8:00 eastern. you can follow me on twitter at ed show. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now, good evening rachel. >> i have a special favor to ask you. >> yes. >> i think that interview was amazing and totally newsworthy and cool and i would like your permission for to us post it at my blog. >> i'm a team player, whatever -- absolutely. >> all right. i know it's weird putting you on the spot i would love to let people know about it. >> i think that janet is very brave to come out. >> yes. >> and speak. her family has been attacked unwarrantedly, it's horrifying. >> to see her standing up in the way she did is moving. thank you for doing that.

>> thanks, rachel. >> thanks for staying with us for the next hour, that will be on our blog, soon. nicolle wallace one of the central characters of the movie "game change" is here tonight. the return of best new thing in the world at the end of the show. looking forward to that. we'll talk also about newfound competition for the title governor ultrasound. all planned for this hour, it will be a great show. we have to start tonight nine years ago. nine years ago this week, then president george w. bush issued an ultimatum against iraq. he told saddam hussein and his sons they needed to leave their country or face an imminent u.s. military attack. he called it a moment of truth for the world. that was nine years ago this week. eight years ago this week, eight years ago today, in fact, that war that president bush ultimately launched was approaching the first birthday, that same president was running against a democratic senator, a highly decorated viet nam

veteran. at this point in that campaign, eight years ago, the first attack ad from the george bush reelection campaign was launched against senator kerry, was an attack ad for being against the iraq war. >> he wanted to delay defending america until the united nations approve. >> the first anti-john kerry attack ad of the 2004 campaign was about iraq, the phantom menace, that we needed to defend america from. thank god we started that war. it seems crazy, it wasn't that long ago. if you look at public opinion at the time, the president's reelection campaign knew an argument like that would be well-received. at least it would be well-received among republicans. look at how people felt about the iraq war in 2004 during that campaign. your opinion on the iraq war, look, in -- like there is a

mirror in the middle. your opinion on the iraq war in 2004, whether you were for it or against it was entirely determined by which party you belonged to. if you were republican, you liked that war. if you were a democrat you did not like that war. full stop, that is how it was in 2004. that is not of course how it is now. president obama ended the iraq war in december, and americans are very happy that he did so. overwhelmingly in large numbers in a not very stratified way, there is a con census it's good it's over. the numbers are not as partisan as the eye iraq war. majority of the country says the afghanistan war was not worth fighting, majority of the country wants troops home now, troops home now faster than president obama's 2014 time line. this is not one of those things there is a big partisan split.

democrats have been and still are more against the afghanistan war than republicans are, but republicans are really rapidly catching up. look at that, this is just the republicans. 27 point drop in support for the afghanistan war among republicans since president obama took office in 2009. the american people are against the war in afghanistan. the numbers on the afghanistan war right now look roughly the same as the numbers on iraq. the only difference is that the afghanistan war is a war that is still going on. yesterday in southern afghanistan a staff sergeant is said to have gone in the middle of the night from house-to-house, on his own, searching for and shooting civilians. he wounded five civilians, killed 16. 16 afghan civilians killed in their homes including three adult women, four adult men, and nine children. the killer then set fire to some of the bodies, and then walked back toward his u.s. base and surrendered himself, he's in

custody and will face criminal charges. the shootings came two days after nato helicopters shot and killed four civilians in eastern afghanistan. more than 1000 afghans marched in the province in protest on saturday. last month, afghan workers at a nato base found partially burned qurans, they had been accidentally burned by u.s. forces. the discovery touched off days of rioting and reprisals that killed 40 people. of course in january of this year, there was the public surfacing of a video showing four marines urinating on the corpses of dead taliban fighters. even though that is being reported as a response to the quran burning, these kind of pseudo fraggings were happening before.

in january, four french soldiers killed by an afghan soldier. an albanian soldier was shot by officers he thought he was working with. two u.s. soldiers killed by an afghan soldier in the eastern part of the country. then two ranking u.s. officers were killed by an afghan worker at interior ministry while those officers were inside their own office at that ministry. that was a lieutenant and major. on march 1st, a man hired to teach soldiers how to read killed u.s. troops and wounded a third in kandahar province. not far from the massacre. last week an afghan policeman in a unit set up and armed by and trained by u.s. special forces, deliberately let taliban insurgents sneak in his own compound to kill nine other police officers as they slept in their beds. a lot of troops being killed and

wounded are doing the things we imagine them to be doing when they are in most danger, out on patrol and frontier fire bases, dealing with the dangers of ied's, confronting enemy fighters. but at this point something like one in five nato fatalities in afghanistan this year, one in five are at the hands of what is supposed to be our own side. the afghan forces that we are arming and training as the core justification for our continued presence in the country. nobody was under the illusion there were not horrible costs to this war as there are to any war. but this news this weekend out, coming out of the accumulated horrors, makes it crystal clear how long the human cost continues to be. and therefore, have solid, how worth while the justification has to be for staying. given this enormous cost. when you talk to policy makers about issues of war and peace, they never admit there is

anything other than pure military calculation behind their decisions but in the real world, we all understand that politics play a role. politics can push you to do the right thing. politics can also make it costly for you to do the right thing. right now without anybody talking about it too much, i think something remarkable has happened in american politics and american war and peace. we seem to have arrived at a relatively non-partisan moment in war politics. here is the view on afghanistan for the republican front-runner for the republican presidential nomination. >> it's time for to us bring the troops home as soon as we possibly can, consistent with the word from our generals. only the afghanis can win independence from the taliban. >> that was mitt romney speaking back in june. you think of ron paul as being the anti-war candidate among the republicans, right? it is not just ron paul who has

been speaking out against the afghanistan war, among the republican candidates. frankly, even the crowds, the audience at the republican debates, they have been applauding candidates when they say we ought to get out of afghanistan. war politics do not necessarily have a partisan divide. >> forget about the border of pack i san and afghanistan and deal with our border, put them on this border. >> i think 10 years later, we look at the situation, and we say we have 100,000 troops in afghanistan, this is not about nation building, in afghanistan. this is about nation building at home. our core is broken, we are weak, we have got to strengthen ourselves, i say we have to bring those troops home. >> i think it will get substantially worse, not better, and i think we are risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may not be doable. >> are you saying the u.s. needs

to we fought, bravely and with all good intent, for more than 10 years is it time to just say enough? >> i think it's very likely we have lost tragically lost the lives and suffered injuries to a considerable number of young americans on a mission that we will discover is not doable. >> any time you have such a shocking development, i think it's important to take a look and see what the situation is, whether it's possible to continue on. given all these additional problems, we have to either make the decision to make a full commitment, which this president has not done, or we have to decide to get out and probably get out sooner, given the president's decision to get out in 2014. >> the other candidates there being straightforward about saying it's time to get out of afghanistan, rick santorum simultaneously suggests he wants to get out of afghanistan and

saying that when president obama tripled the number of troops there, that showed insufficient commitment to the afghan war cause. what triple wasn't enough? if it's not quadruple it's nothing. even rick santorum knows where he has to land on "hey we ought to come home now "everybody knows it affects war and peace. there is political breathing room to end america's longest war. and yes, there are a few john mccain's out there who want more afghanistan war as much as they can get. john mccain also wishes the iraq war was still going on, that has become a rump minority view even in his own party. >> it's time for us to bring the troops home as soon as we possibly can. >> i think we're risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may frankly not be doable. >> any time you have such a

shocking development i think it's important to take a look and see what the situation is and whether it's possible to continue on. >> so this doesn't make you more inclined to move us out faster? >> well, it makes me more determined to make sure we're getting the troops home. it's been a decade, frankly, now that we've gotten bin laden and weakened al qaeda, we are knee a stronger position to transition than we would have been two or three years ago. >> it's time. it's been a decade and now we've gotten bin laden and weakened al qaeda we're in a stronger position to transition than we would have been two or three years ago. plans made two or three year ago may be sped up. politics are different than first glance would have you think they are. josh rogin covers national security issues, writes "the cab bell" the man who lindsey graham said that maybe it's time to

"pull the plug" on the afghanistan war. josh, thank you for being with us tonight. >> great to be with you, as always. >> lindsey graham did tell you maybe it's time to pull the plug on the afghanistan war, didn't he take it back after he told you that? >> so interesting, you played the clip of mitt romney last june, if you listen to his comments, he has come full circle after being for it, now back around to the same position hey it's time to get the heck out of there, the difference between this time and last june, people like lindsey graham are not willing to hammer mitt romney for calling for an extended period of troop presence in afghanistan, and lindsey graham's issues are with the karzai government and they are playing with negotiations over an agreement with the united states. there is so many things wrong with this afghanistan war, a lack of trust at the local level, a lack of the trust at political level, and so many

people are frustrate and in so many ways it's harder for any republican to stand up and defend intervention. the bottom line obama made the decision, we're getting out. now the debate is how much should we do until we leave, how much can we do, how many more lives should be lost in the effort to do as much as we can, and that is a much smaller and narrower debate than the debate we were having this time last year. >> listening to -- thinking about lindsey graham making that inflammatory -- exclamation point worthy comment to you and dialing it back, looking at the clips of the various candidates, making comments on this, one of the intangibles, not of the comments are ready for prime time. this is not the thing republicans are getting briefed on and prepped on, and coming up with pointy ways of phrasing it and bumper worthy phrases of describing it. i guess my question is whether you think it ever will be or the

issues from here on out will never be worthy of that partisan fight. >> we're witnessing here the internal struggle in the republican party to resume its national security identity, republicans are supposed to be the tough party, the party willing to make sacrifices on behalf of defending freedom. the wars in libya, afghanistan, drone wars, these are all divided the republican party and there are people on both sides and they are confused and there is no messaging, nor do they feel it's in their direct political advantage to take a stance one way or the other less the war go badly or one way or the other and they are forced to change it over and over again. the basic stance is avoid these issues in the republican primary debate, as long as possible, hoping that the american people are not really tuned in to what is going on in syria, afghanistan, pakistan, that is an untenable position in the long run, when we get to the general election i hope, i

think, i believe they have to come to a party position on what we should do in all these foreign interventions and what that means for identity of the party an candidate but we're not there yet. until more people start to demand that the republicans come to a unified position on these things, then they are going to avoid it as much as possible. i think that is a lot of what we're seeing. >> briefly, josh, in terms of this recent incident this weekend, i think it should be seen in context, a lot of horrible things have happened on all sides of this war and more than a decade an you can do an atrocity list in terms of civilians being impact and crimes committed on the battlefield in addition just to the horribleness of war, you could go on and on. the latest atrocity in southern afghanistan, it's so awful, and the description of it is so -- gets so much worse the more detail you read about it. do you think it will have an impact on how washington looks at the war? >> this is the latest in a long string of incidents, it shows a

lack of confidence and the boys and girls we sent over there to protect them. president obama says this justifies our withdrawing quickly. hillary clinton said that we're not going to change anything in the way we're doing things. the bottom line that is the afghan people know we're leaving taliban know we're leaving, hamid karzai knows we're leaving. the argument we will be there to protect them and shape the future of afghanistan gets less and less believable and credible as that date approaches. >> josh rogin, foreign policy magazine, thanks for your help. always. >> here in america what is worse, the government forcing women to get an unnecessary medical procedure for political reasons? or a comic strip that points that out? one that turns out is easier to stop than the other. that is coming up next. later on the best new thing in the world returns, with a special republican romance edition. please stay with us.

it has been almost two months since rick perry announced he was dropping out of

it has been almost two months since rick perry announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing newt gingrich. been almost two months since rick perry came within shouting distance of a national news headlines. suddenly things are turning around for rick perry. he's all over the news. making headlines for a couple of reasons. the first big new rick perry is back in the news headlines started at fox news last night. with reporting from sources close to the gingrich campaign, saying that what if conversations were underway and a newt gingrich-rick perry

ticket could be announced before the republican convention in august. today the gingrich and perry camps are denying official talks but headlines about a gingrich-perry ticket abound. losing big and exiting stage right in january, rick perry is back in the news as potential vice presidential candidate. he's also in the news forcing vaginal ultrasounds. this is doonesbury. a woman is told by her doctor on behalf of governor rick perry may i welcome you to your compulsory trans vaginal exam. with so much attention on bob mcdonnell and the anti-abortion ultrasound bill he signed in last week after hemmin and hawing, it was easy to overlook, rick perry signed his ultrasound bill in law last may.

forced vaginal probing is the law of the land in texas and the law is in effect. anybody who didn't know that about texas and governor rick perry, will know that by the end of the week. the great gary trudeau chose the topic because it was in the news, thanks to virginia governor bob "ultrasound" mcdonnell and relevance to the battle. the governor has chosen 2012 to relitigate freedom. why rick santorum, rush limbaugh, etal, thought it would be a good time to declare war on have the electorate. to ignore it would have been comedy malpractice. he may have been inspired. the series set to run through saturday is specifically set in texas. where arguably the strictest ultrasound law in the country is

in law and is already being enforced. this panel i showed you before, this one specifically invoking governor perry by name, that panel will be running later this week, here is today's strip. a woman at a clinic asking if this is where she gets the sonogram. fill out the form, take a seat in the shaming room. the new trend in conservative state policy of mandating vaginal penetrations has cause quite a stir in the funny pages. some newspapers decided not to publish it at all, a handful made the kaul last week. some carried and transplanted it to the opinion pages or online only. the houston chronicle fell in that middle ground, they moved

it saying the topic is more appropriate for the editorial page. one newspaper the athens, georgia banner herald decided not to run the series because the editor thought readers might confuse the texas anti-abortion story, that is featured in the strip with anti-abortion legislation that is pending right now in georgia. no, really, that is what he said. that is how he explained it. given the georgia general assembly is considering which would hoe hib bit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, quite simply i thought this was a possibility that readers might confuse the topic of this week's doonesbury with georgia's proposed legislation, wouldn't want the hurt the chances for the legislation. if all the newspapers and all the states with super extreme anti-abortion measures decided not to run the trans vaginal ultrasound strip to avoid

confusion with their own state's anti-abortion bills, this strip would have been seen by practically no one. as it is, the strip is run all over the place. censorship tends to have that effect, gets you more attention than you would have had if you published it in the first place, like you weren't cowardly. rick perry, because this strip and new attention to it, is becoming fame us for his vaginal probe ultrasound law. bob mcdonnell did not want to be fame us for his ultrasound law because as people started asking him about vaginal probing in the great state of virginia they stopped asking about his prospects as potential vice presidential nominee. this used to be bob mcdonnell's life, right? >> i could be looking at the next running mate here. >> some people say the guy sitting across from me would be a good number two on the ticket. >> you would be open to it. >> if someone called appeared said you could help our country or ticket, anybody of us would think about it. >> that used to be what it was

like to be bob mcdonnell. here what is it is now. >> i have to ask you about the red hot story gotten so much ink, so many women fired up. >> you were here, you were in favor of the trans vaginal ultrasound. >> virginia drew national attention -- >> did they? >> you backed an abortion bill that included a very invasive procedure as part of the ultrasound that the state would have required. then you backed off of that. were you wrong to support that initially or did you simply back off because the political heat got turned up? >> if you were educating yourself on this bill did i not mandate -- >> it wasn't my procedure. >> this wasn't my bill. >> this wasn't my bill. i just signed it in law. clearly bob mcdonnell does not want to be governor ultrasound. he wants to be governor vice president. but what about rick perry? i think rick perry does the math differently here.

governor perry is in the headlines as potential vice presidential pick and new governor vaginal probe on the same day. and should be noted governor perry was enthusiastic about getting down to business with the texas vaginal probe idea. he announced plans to fast track the legislation, he a announced it that to roaring applause. here is what he said during a signing of the bill in may of last year. >> very proud to sign this piece of legislation today. this house bill 15 requires a physician to perform a sonogram a on woman before an abortion. for many that are dealing with this issue, dealing with an unexpected pregnancy, the concept of choice can really be a fallacy, because you can't make the right choice without knowing the true impact of what you're deciding. >> a lot of women getting abortions don't have any idea

they are pregnant. that is why -- rick perry could not wait to sign the mandatory vaginal probe ultrasound in law in texas to tell women the concept of choice can be a fallacy unless you're making the choice he personally agrees with. today rick perry press secretary denounced this week's doonesbury strip. the decision toned life is not funny, there is nothing comic about this legislation we passed in texas to make sure women have all the facts when making a life-ending decision. who knows, we have been thinking bob mcdonnell will be governor vaginal probe vice president pick, he doesn't want to be known. i think it's possible rick perry wants to be known as governor vaginal probe. i'm not sure he would see that as a bad thing. let's say newt gingrich goss awesome and before you know it we will look at newt gingrich vp vp rick perry ticket.

stranger things have happened. even in the last couple days in republican politics.

>> almost as soon as they picked her in 2008, the john mccain for president campaign realized that choosing sarah palin as john mccain's running mate was a disaster. the book "game change" about the campaign is more about that but the movie is all about that. >> why do we have to do katie couric?

>> are you there, are you listen to me? >> yes, governor, i'm here. it was a logical choice, she was fair to us this entire campaign >> you call that interview fair? >> i do. >> she was out to get me from the get-go. >> the interview sucked because you didn't try. >> what do you mean i didn't try? >> you didn't fight back, when you didn't know the answers, you clawed back. >> nicolle it wasn't my fault i wasn't properly prepped. >> you wouldn't listen to us. you never listen to your advisors. >> because you're overwhelming me with too much information. i don't want to do these interviews. i want to do what i want to do. >> we're just trying to help you get through this governor all we want is for you to succeed. >> you're not helping you're screwing me up, telling me what to say, what to wear, how to talk. i am not your puppet.

>> yeah, because you're just like hillary. >> you have ruined me. you have ruined my reputation. i am ruined in alaska. >> this is steve schmitt, leave a message. >> steve it's nicolle, i will gladly resign if you want to blame me for couric, if you want me to stay i'm back on the bus tomorrow because i never want to deal with that woman again. >> the popularity and huge roll out of "game change" will cement forever the narrative that frankly was not the consensus view while the mccain-palin campaign was under way but was the truth learned the hard way by nicolle wallace and steve schmitt during the campaign. john mccain's first presidency

level decision, the choice of his party's vice presidential nominee was a disaster and nightmare. in real life after the campaign, sarah palin wrote a book with her tell-all version how awful the campaign had been. and in real life, after the campaign, the advisor, nicolle wallace wrote a novel about a republican woman who becomes president and makes a terrible, terrible choice for vice president. the advisor who you saw her calling in this scene, steve schmitt is now an analyst for msnbc. >> what would either of you say to sarah palin getting in the race. i have a feeling neither of you would support her. >> further i on don't think she on would take either of our calls. >> no. >> i think if she were to step back in the i arena she would have to play by normal conventions, but that would enrage her supporters. my advice for anyone but particularly for her, and she

has a whole nest of problems that would -- she would have to confront the first one to resist her most partisan and polarizing instincts, that would make her the wrong candidate for the moment. >> does she have anything to offer beyond that? >> look, i was inspired by her to write about someone cuckoo for cocoa puffs. >> her book is about a vice presidential nominee. nicolle wallace is here to talk about what she learned, and now that everybody agrees it was a debacle, what today's republican party has learned from that. that is when we get back.

can we try to get through just a few questions? i know you're upset, governor. so why don't you get a good night's sleep i will come back first thing in the morning to prep you when you're feeling better.

i'm going to leave this for you. to look over. just another great day at the office for nicolle wallace, senior advisor to the mccain-palin campaign an author of couple terrific novels, "18 acres" and what if sarah palin was elected vice president, "it's classified" thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> let me just ask you with this huge roll out for "game change" you knew what was in the book and what happened, has the impact of the movie changed your life? has it been weird? >> it hasn't changed my life and not a movie about staffers, it's a movie about -- as you have said you're the first person to die what i wrote about it in a fictional sense to what i experienced in real life, it's a

movie about how close we came to having somebody one heartbeat away from the presidency, who was so fundamentally unprepared and unsuited for the job. and there are a lot of people throwing around this term ptsd and it's really inappropriate at a time when there are so many people coming back from war in ptsd. in a political sense this is about the trau matting refuse -- traumatic revelation to realize you were working whether or not she was fit to serve. i didn't think she was, i talked about it last fall, that it inspired this exploration in a creative sense to write about what might have happened. >> i think that there has been a change in beltway common wisdom about palin on the campaign, i think with the roll out of the movie this cemented a new common

wisdom the choice of palin was a disaster. i don't think that was a consensus narrative, i think you and steve schmitt were talking about some of the real problems but not sure republicans by and large believed you before and they do now. >> there was a question about loyalty and in politics, loyalty means keeping the secrets of the people that you serve of. but i think that when loyalty and honesty collide, and when loyalty means keeping secrets such as the ones about how fundamentally off base the decision was to pick someone about whom we knew nothing, i think it just -- it's different than -- washington is a town where there is a new tell-all out once a month. and there is very little appetite for turncoats or people

who have this privilege, like i had, for many years of having a front row to history and then spilling the beans about it. but it's something totally different when you are part of something dysfunctional, and then you walk away from politics and leave the lessons on the table for others to learn, that what is happened here, and i think it's interesting that she has been to use one of her words, unshackled from what she considered her moronic advisors and has not gone on to use the national and international platform tossed a advance issues. she has not become a leading voice in the country for energy independence. she has not taken on policy positions. she has not advanced the party. it's probably an open question as to the damage she has done to the republican party. so i think there is now a larger body of her actions and her

impact to the party and to the country for people to chew on than the ten weeks i with witnessed her as a candidate. >> in terms of the lessons left on the table, do you think that the republican party will approach the selection of a vice presidential nominee this year in a way that is informed by what went wrong last time? >> i think both parties will forever avoid a palin choice. she has forever changed the equation on picking -- there is always pressure to pick someone outside the box. it's not just on a campaign, when supreme court, there is always a conversation inside the white house or inside a campaign to do something outside the box to shake things up, to change your narrative. very few opportunities in politics to reshuffle the deck. a narrative gets set, like romney is dealing with now, narrative that says he is dorky and the media can find something of him -- >> his football and yesterday

grits. >> friends with football team owners. >> once you're snuck in a narrative, you want to be bold and shake things up, this high risk high reward, the people that come up with the ideas they go they are celebrated, people write books, lee atwater, karl rove, they come up outside the box ideas that go well and deliver political wins for their politicians are heroes in politics. but i think that palin will forever make picking someone unvetted something that campaigns will avoid doing. >> the -- i am fascinated by the vetting process in that there was an idea five days and no trip to alaska would be doable for her. obviously it was made in pressure of time. thank you for talking about this. thank you for talking about this and being here tonight, but in your decision to sort of bare your heart about this and be

hope what you think went wrong you were part of i think it a very noble thing you have done and respect you for it. >> thank you. >> nicolle wallace, author of "18 acres" and "it's classified" and the advisor trying to prep sarah palin for debates and interviews. how perfect is this, right after the show on the last word, guess who lawrence o'donnell's guest will be? steve schmitt, we mention him and he appears. the segment we were going to call in newterloo lands you word neuter, still no title but combined of newt and waterloo is next.

this weekend there were caucuses in the u.s. virgin islands and in guam and in the northern mariana islands and in kansas. this year it all matters. the republican race is still not decided. so it matters that rick santorum won kansas and mitt romney won all the other places i just mentioned. there are two things you should understand about those results. first, in the u.s. virgin islands, ron paul got the most votes, but mitt romney is getting the most delegates. no, it makes no sense to me either, but that is how the delegate math works out in the virgin islands.

so mitt romney wins there by losing to ron paul. the other interesting result is the one out of kansas where rick santorum not only won, but he won by 30 points. 30? at the start of an election season, you look at the calendar to plan your coverage, right? there's certain dates that leap off the page. obviously iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, florida, super tuesday is a big deal. you know what the highlights are going to be. i don't think anybody in the planning of the election season ever thought we'd be talking about the delegate math of the vote in the virgin islands or about the fact that the alabama and mississippi primary is a week after super tuesday were going to be determinative, very relevant. they are in part relevant because the most recent polling in those two states is essentially tied right now. it's not just tied between romney and santorum, it's tied between romney and santorum and gingrich who spent the past couple of weeks saying that alabama and mississippi were must-win states.

this is the exchange between gingrich's spokesman and a "wall street journal" reporter last week. question, does he have to win alabama and mississippi to remain a credible candidate? answer, yes, he has to win. yes. thus setting up mr. gingrich to end his campaign if he didn't win either alabama or mississippi. so alabama and mississippi, hugely important this year. as long as newt gingrich and rick santorum are both in the race, it seems clear that neither of them can beat mitt romney. but if gingrich loses alabama or mississippi and thereby gets out tomorrow, then therefore santorum can beat romney. or maybe there's some reason for santorum to get out. it's fascinating. of course, now gingrich itself is saying he'll never get out. he said that on friday, and he said it again over the weekend. you've got a little competition shaping up in alabama and mississippi. are these must-win states for you, mr. speaker? >> well, they're states i want to win. i'm committed to going all the way to tampa.

>> one of the best indicators that a candidate will soon drop out of the race is that candidate's strongly worded vow that he will not drop out of the race. like in mid-january rick perry made an ad out of not quitting. the ad was called the champion, and the whole point was ad was that he would never, ever quit. >> i've never quit a day in my life. i have never quit in the face of adversity, and i'm not just about to quit on the future of america. >> but, in fact, a week later he did quit on the future of america. here's a google activity you can try at home. it's not dangerous to your computer like googling santorum. pick any gop candidate, say michele bachmann, google their name with the words "vows to stay in the race." vows to stay in the race. how about herman cain, vows to stay in the race. they all vow to stay in the race, right?

until they're not in the race anymore, right up until the moment they drop out, what you're supposed to do is vow to stay in the race. tomorrow we have primaries and caucuses in hawaii and samoa. all the candidates have vowed to stay in the race which usually means somebody's about to quit. it's going to be a fascinating night to watch. we'll be right back.

in american political history when you want to talk about a politician's odiousness, you rate him according to richard nixon. the i'm not a crook guy, that means it is not illegal guy. knowing that, prepare to fall in love with richard nixon. listen to this. somehow on tuesday there was something electric in the usually almost stifling air of whittier, and now i know an irish gypsy who radiates all that is happy and beautiful was there. she left behind a note addressed with a struggling barister who looks from a window and dreams. he found sunshine and flowers and a great spirit. he knew why he felt so many fine

things for this girl he had learned to know and though he is a prosaiic person, his heart was filled with that grand poetic music, which makes us wish for those we love. and though he knew he should not bore her with those thoughts displaying, when the winds blow and the rains fall and the sun shines through the clouds as it is now, he still resolves as he did then that nothing so fine ever happened to him or anyone else as falling in love with thee, my dearest heart. these letters do not erase some of the bleakest episodes of modern political history, but look at this postscript. someday let me see you again? in september? maybe? you're pretty swell regardless. if i can get misty-eyed about richard nixon's sweetheartiness, anything is humanly possible between americans who disagree. best new thing in the world today.