playing the guitar. join the largest band ever, 10,000 of them. they'll rehearse from noon to 2:00 and then all bets are off. that will do it for us. i am dylan ratigan, and ith chr kicks off right now. obama gets osama republican snarl. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, bin laden is dead, gm is alive. how do you like them apples? the other side is saying president obama shouldn't take credit for the successful attack on america's number one enemy. they say it's unfair to claim it as a victory, but remember george w. pransing across that aircraft carrier? remember that large mission accomplished banner? remember giuliani repeating one

thing after another that included a noun, a verb and the trays 2011. remember all the hoogt and hollering about the great decider who took us into the sands of iraq. maybe the reason his rivals don't like him marking his success over bin laden was because they had eight years to do it and couldn't. also tonight, the political marriage of the 21st century, barack obama and bill clinton. president obama is hoping some of that clinton mojo and money can rub off on him. last night the incumbent and the ex were fundraising with the big dog -- that's bill clinton -- warning that mitt romney would take us back to failed economic policies on steroids. this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. plus, dirty, angry money. tonight we begin our series on the hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into this election without any accountability. money that's destroyed without naming the candidate behind it.

you probably heard about president obama at the correspondents' dinner saturday night. what you probably didn't hear was how he used the dinner for his campaign to needle. the romney campaign is now trying to take credit for saving detroit. you can check on that. up-down logic is in the side show where it belongs. we begin with outrage of president presideobama and the f bin laden. the author of "showdown," i have it here in my hand, and ron reagan is here from seattle. both are msnbc political analysts. i guess hutzpah is a word that comes to mind, david corn. the republicans say, you shouldn't take credit for what you did a year ago. we wouldn't do something like that. your thoughts, david. >> you know from reading the book, chris, that chapter 10 is

all about the decision to launch the raid, and i have to say that whole episode is a test case in presidential decision making. and for mitt romney to come out there and say, of course, i would do that, anybody would do that shows -- he has to read the book, of course, but he doesn't understand what was involved in this, that it wasn't just a matter of saying go or don't go. barack obama had to make several very difficult decisions against the advice of his top aides. you know the secretary of defense bob gates and vice president joe biden both advised that barack obama not launch the aid until there was more definitive intelligence. most of his advisers actually were not in favor of the raid. they either wanted a missile strike or something else or not do anything. so it wasn't a slam dunk no-brainer, and for mitt romney to suggest that it was indicates that maybe he doesn't understand the job. >> what does he know? mitt romney tried to diminish

his ability to take out osama bin laden. let's hear what he said when he was asked about it today. let's listen to the republican candidate. ♪ >> you would have given the order, governor? >> well, of course. even jimmy carter would have given that order. >> you know, i don't know. sometimes ron reagan, i have to restrain myself from the words i want to use now, and i will restrain myself, because for him to mock jimmy carter on this front. you can argue about jimmy carter, anything you want, but he said those helicopters in the desert and some of those men were at a tremendous risk and a tremendous risk to the president politically. it did not make him look good that he tried that. and for this guy -- i will not use the obvious words that come to mind here -- to mock that, he was chuckling when he said it.

who is this guy? is he a grown-up? >> it's hard to know. it was an odd comment to make, and it reminds everybody, at the very least, that jimmy carter made a gutsy call that didn't pan out and obama made a gutsy call that did pan out. the republicans would desperately like to take the whole bin laden killing off the table. they would like to make it so toxic that barack obama can't even mention the fact that he, not the republicans in eight years, but he in his first term actually got bin laden. in a weird way, it's the same kind of thing that's happened to mitt romney under other circumstances. his signal accomplishment as governor of massachusetts, his health care plan e can't mention it. they would like to mention it so obama can't mention his signature bin laden accomplishment. >> ron, you know watching this,

everybody in the world watching this knows that president w., if he had caught the guy blowing up the world trade center, cheney would be up there on a scaffolding trying to carve w.'s face in it in the middle of the night. last night the campaign released a video featuring bill clinton talking about the raid and its success. the video contrasted with what romney has said in the past on this topic. let's watch it. it's good. >> the down side would have been horrible for him. but he reasoned, i cannot in good conscience do nothing. he took the harder and more honorable path. >> it's not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one peor osama bin laden. what did he mean by that, because it's generated a little controversy given osama bin laden's role in killing, what, 3,000 americans on 9/11.

>> he had to decide. and that's what you hire the president to do. you hire the president to make the calls when no one else can do it. >> david, i never heard wolf blitzer in that music before. it really works for me. i don't know about you guys. >> we don't hear the music down here, but, you know, the point president clinton makes is sort of dead on here. this whole episode showed obama being both deliberative and decisi decisive, and it was a hard call because he didn't have everybody on his side. before he made the decision on a friday morning before the sunday raid, the cia came and told him, you know, we told you there was an 80% chance that this guy is bin laden. no, we've downgratedded it to 4.

so the team was going in the wrong direction. as everybody knows that if this had gone badly as it did for jimmy carter, barack obama's presidency would probably, in all likelieihoolikelihood, be o. he's putting his own presidency on the line. for mitt romney and republicans to diminish the nature of this call shows again they don't quite understand what it takes to be president. >> not all the people criticizing obama for taking credit for this. and democrats in this campaign are doing it. one republican was john mccain. john mccain says it diminishes the memory -- shame on barack obama for diminishing the memory of september 11 and the killing of osama bin laden by turning it into a cheap political attack. well, i do respect mccain, but here's a pr flakery comment. this is pure partisan flackery by one of the people during the

day just spewing partisan nonsense. here he is. >> this is one of the reasons president obama has become one of the most divisive presidents in american history. he took something that was a unifying event for all americans, something mitt romney congratulated him and the military and the analysts and our government in terms of completing the mission for killing osama bin laden, and he's managed to turn it into a divisive, partisan, political attack that former defense secretary frank carlucci for president reagan called sad, it was called shameful. i think they will see it as a sign of a desperate campaign. >> sometimes we have to put on another point of view even if it's nonsense. i think most people are very proud of this country not because they killed bin laden but because we did what had to get done. i mean, if you get all these people killed in your home country by a terrorist attack aimed at the civilians, you have to do something about it to end

it, to make the statement, the moral statement, this must not be done again. we finally did that under this president. and then to go around and say, there's something wrong with taking credit for that, it baffles me. oh, well. go ahead, ron. >> i was just going to say you know why they're doing it, and, you know, i just don't think -- they lose because it's reminding everybody, too, of what obama did. so i don't think this is going to be a winner. >> the other thing, too, about positi politicizing this, cheney came out saying obama cares more about terrorists than americans. if it was all about democrats, you'll be hit again by terrorists. so they've been politicizing this for decades, and turning the act of terrorism into a

political matter? it doesn't pass the lap test. this is the warm side of the pill. here's president bush. he certainly was no stranger to using national security as a political issue. look at this ad from 2004, his reelection campaign that does mention 9/11 quite well here. let's watch this ad. well, that wasn't political, was it? anyway, here's vice president cheney trying to scare americans in that same year. warning, if they vote the wrong way, america could be attacked again. this wasn't political. let's watch this one from cheney. >> it's absolutely essential that two weeks from today, november 2nd, we make the right choice. if we make a wrong choice, the danger is that we'll get hit

again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating for the united states. >> the guy made the wrong choice. scooter libby was covering for this guy and taking the hit for him so he could skitter away free. if they had done the job they wouldn't have to go through these machinations that got this poor guy in trouble. >> in pretenses they waved the 9/11 flag over and over again, and then we had elections, which could have been the key issue, they were demagogued. president cheney continued to do that throughout the obama presidency. if they want to talk about terrorism, if they want to talk about what's best to be done, and of course, as you know, chris, in the beginning of the bush years, they said, no, no, no, the real problem is saddam hussein. they did that to try to cover up

that past. >> just to pounce on the grave of this insanity we're hearing, please watch this picture right now. this reminds us all of never using politics, never using war, never using the guts and the sacrifice of our servicemen for political gain. never do this. there he is with his mission accomplished banner up on that carrier. we didn't catch him in the flight suit there. that was an earlier portrait he gave us that day. but i tell you, this is politics, and there he is using our sailors. anyway, thank you, ron reagan, for joining us and making it clear that both sides take credit for victory. there's nothing wrong with that -- there he is in his costume. i mean, unbelievable. there's the costume. he would never play politics, nor would any republican. ron reagan, thank you, sir. thank you, david corn. on this wednesday, brian williams takes on inside the situation room for the first time in television history following the killing of bin laden. coming up, the obama-clinton

alliance. this is rich politics which i love. this is what i love about politics. when you get together for common goals, bury the hatchet, do the right thing and win elections. let's get into it. why this relationship is so important for both of these two guys here. this is "hardball." it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk. the teacher that comes to mind for me is my high school math teacher, dr. gilmore. i mean he could teach. he was there for us, even if we needed him in college. you could call him, you had his phone number. he was just focused on making sure we were gonna be successful. he would never give up on any of us.

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back to "hardball." a strategic alliance may be forming between president obama and former president bill clinton. we just saw it friday when the obama campaign rolled out a web ad touting obama's strength.

we showed that to you. and also resolved in taking out osama bin laden. last night clinton introduced obama at a fundraiser in virginia, the first time they appeared together at an event. he started out saying, you guys get two presidents for one at this event, which is a pretty good deal. a democratic source described last night's event as kind of a first date, if you will, between clinton and obama. former mayor of philadelphia, msnbc political analyst mark penn. he was the chief strategist of hillary clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. i always look to you, governor rendell, for anything to do with the clintons. you are their guy. you're close. it's a relationship. it's not transactional, it's for life. so here's the question. is this a good marriage? will it last through november, which is all that matters? >> absolutely, yeah. it's a marriage borne of a lot of things. number one, president obama's

belief that president clinton did the best he could and that going back to the bush policies would be a disaster. and also a real respect for president obama and how he's handled president clinton. they have a mutual respect and admiration and even general friendship. i think president clinton has been enormously impressed with that. i think this is all out, 100%, n not leaving anything out on the table. >> i'd like you to go over that. it has been -- you have a close relationship with the former president. it's his feeling about the personal and professional respect between the president and the secretary of state which has endeared him politically at least to obama. >> i think absolutely. i mean, the president has given hillary clinton the ability to go out there and create a persona for herself, and she's

done a great job with the american people, love what hillary clinton has done, and i think president clinton is very appreciative of the way president obama is handling it. >> it's amazing, mark, you're a political strategist, but i had no idea watching this -- all i do is watch politics -- well, i do other things, but i do it -- that hillary clinton would be so smart, and i'm sure she made the decision along with her husband, from what you hear -- to take that. she should have been the loudmouth, if you will, senator from new york, being the lightning rod. she could like ted kennedy was all those years. but she chose to join the team and become the major personality beside the president, and it's made her grow as a global figure. i've never seen that. >> i always thought that was a great decision on her part. >> from the beginning. >> absolutely. it gave her a chance to get out and speak for the united states of america for four years, to not be not only in politics but

to be the core substance of managing our global relations. she's done a magnificent job as we all knew she would. >> here's my question about the politics, because it also allows her -- again, i'm just trying to anticipate what you're going to say, governor. she's allowed to be not necessarily to the right or left of the president, but she can be in a strong forward position whereas if she were senator from new york, the national politics of new york would have her most of the time on the left of the president, which is nowhere you want to position yourself if you have the option of president next time. you don't want to get to the left of obama, do you? you're holding back here, but is this a smart thing for her? >> no, no, i think you're absolutely right. you're absolutely right, it gives her the ability to do exactly that. the question is does she want to run again? i hope for one that she does. i'm ready to be the co-chair with hildebrand, but i don't

know if she wants to right now. if clinton gets to step down and get a little rest, i think she'll think about 2016 seriously again. i for one hope she does. >> you're smiling now because you're primarily a clinton guide, mark. that's why we have you on. almost exclusively a clinton guy. how does this help clinton get elected? >> i think it's a great decision by the president because it gives him a second vp out there. you need really strong, great surrogates and he and president clinton can go out to ohio, kentucky and talk about health care. all the things he specialized in as president of the united states to support obama. i think it's a great decision. i think it will help the obama campaign. i don't think kerry made a smart

decision with clinton, but obama just did. >> i'm thinking of northwestern penn, those difficult areas to reach for a moderate democrat where bill seems to have an appeal to working white people. i'm not knocking anybody else, but just normally he has such a great appeal with working class whites that that has to help in those states. >> no question about it. there is no better messenger. and by the way, bill clinton told why al gore should be president better have al gore did. so i think he'll be key in those places in ohio, and second is clinton's ability to raise money for fundraising. >> i want to know this question. is it better for hillary clinton if she runs for president for obama to get reelected?

i want a yes or no. is it better for hillary clinton if she -- >> yes, absolutely. >> not a smile. >> not a question about it. >> there's no question. you agree that there's no other number that could possibly be going on here where it's harder to run for an extra four years once a party has been in office for eight, which is historically difficult, or is it harder to run against an incumbent mitt romney? >> you want the open seat. you don't want to run against any incumbent. >> absolutely. i think the governor has it absolutely right. >> so it's a positive for both sides. let's look at some of the -- out of time. you guys are great. you guys are really good, guys. you want the president to get reelected, mark, sflright? >> no question. >> and i know you do. >> no question. >> the woman who got the president elected the first

time. she'll probably get him elected the second time. up next, mitt romney famously wrote a bit "let detroit go bankrupt." how is he going to walk away from that? now they're trying to make him the success of the auto bailout. they're trying to spin it around and they can't do it. that's coming up in the side show. you're watching "hardball."

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back to "hardball" for the side show. first up, we all know president obama's go-to sport is basketball, right? tough to forget that three-pointer when he was visiting kuwait. swish. governor brown has been pressing for a face-off.

it looks like it could be quite a match. take a look at this feat from senator brown at a community center. he earned the nickname downtown scott brown for his ability to sink the shots. president obama went after republicans this morning at the a afl-cio. the president got to reminiscing on his visit at john boehner's home in ohio. notice the background, a bridge in need of repair. here's the president today. >> over the last year, i sent congress a whole series of jobs bills to put people to work, to put your members back to work. time after time, the republicans had gotten together and they said no. i went to the speaker's hometown, stood under a bridge that was crumbling. maybe he doesn't drive anymore! maybe he didn't notice how messed up it was.

there are bridges between kentucky and ohio where some of the key republican leadership come from, where folks are having to do detours an extra hour, hour and a half drive every day. >> they have to keep talking jobs. mitch mcconnell is against everything. finally, much of president obama's pitch for reelection hinges, of course, on the success of the auto industry bailout, saving gm and chrysler from going under. get this, eric furstrom, one of romney's aides, says the come-back in the auto industry is all from advice from mitt romney. this was on saturday. >> mitt romney wrote to the "new york times" when george bush was still president. he said, look, if you want to save the auto industry, don't just write checks. they need to go through a managed bankruptcy process.

they went through the managed bankruptcy process. it's exactly what mitt romney told them to do. so consider that, the crown jewel, the only economic success president obama has had is because he followed mitt romney's advice. >> it looks like a support group. anyway, they say there's no one in the private sector willing or able to loan detroit that $80 billion that was needed to get the car companies back on their feet, so they took credit for something that could not have happened under their leadership. if mitt romney had had his way, the american auto industry and the millions of jobs it supports would cease to exist. dishonesty and distortions are nothing new for the romney campaign, but they can't change this simple fact. up next, dirty, range money. we begin our reporting tonight on the billions of dollars actually being spent to destroy candidates for political office. and find out why we should all

fear the influx of big money in politics. it's millions, it's not billions yet. you're watching "hardball." i've been crisscrossing the gulf for the past two years now. i can tell you, down here, people measure commitment by what's getting done. i'm mike utsler, and it's my job to make sure we keep making progress in the gulf. the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. another fourteen billion dollars has been spent on response and cleanup. long-term, bp's made a five hundred million dollar

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now it's back to "hardball." tonight we're kicking off a new series, "dirty, angry money," looking at superpac money just this year. someday we'll look back on this race where people with billions of dollars were able to just throw it at the campaign. a lot it have has come from pers can keep their fingertips off the pacs. the obama campaign raised double what the romney campaign has raised, but the superpac crossroads dwarfed what priorities u.s. took in. and that's only part of the story. when you combine it with its

sister, the non-profit arm, they raised an astounding $100 million, and they're expected to raise $240 billion before november. klein writes a powerful column. he's an msnbc contributor. i read your column the other day. let me just read from your column because i think it makes a point no one else has thought about. it's about the influence of superpacs on the local congressional race. just as youth is wasted on the young, money is wasted on the rich. money is least useful in contests where news coverage is most intense and opinions are most entrenched. how many people do you know who still aren't sure what they think of obama or are undecided about romney? probably not many. but how many people do you know

with a strong opinion on their representative in congress? or on his or her challanger? do you even have a strong opinion on your representative? that's the kind of low information race where money can have a big impact. how you can scare congress into a crooked little break on taxes, for example, just by scaring him or her you're going to run $2 billion of ads in the campaign. >> one is whether voters know a lot about the two candidates. if they do, they don't care what the ads say. voters aren't dumb. is there a lot of money there? if a candidate has a lot of money and a superpac comes in and dumps another million bucks, then the candidate just spends another million bucks. in the presidential race, people know the candidates and both candidates have a lot of money. if congress when you're dealing

with, in the third district in arizona, when people don't know the challanger, a superpac can make a big difference because people don't know the challanger and the challanger doesn't have a lot of money, and they can come in at the end of the race like they are doing and just spending $1.2 million. that be being enough to flip an entire race. number two, it can mean senators on the hill are more afraid of superpacs. you can imagine a superpac run by hedge fund managers who don't want to lose the tax break and they let them get taxed at 5% instead of 18%. if they spend on which candidate is going to oppose keeping that tax break? it's not a big deal. most candidates don't know much about it, most voters aren't following. it's best not to get yourself in that kind of trouble. >> and it's bad enough, chris, when there are these esoteric

votes that only the people who benefit know about it. now you have the tremendous cannon you can bring in and make the guy, good government guy or woman, who really tries to go the right way says, wait a minute. do i really want to lose my congressional seat on this wrinkle in the tax law when no one gives me credit for it and they're just going to gun me down for it. >> what's interesting to watch is we've already seen this happen. we saw it happen last cycle with a couple big members, dave obey, for instance, and you see -- i wrote about this last month, and i asked people, are we going to see congressional superpacs come to the levels that we saw in the presidential? the answer, even from the people raising the money for the superpacs is, no, because the president takes so much air out of the room. it's not as sexy of a race and we're getting our feet wet here for congressional superpacs. it does have the bigger impact, but i think it's going to be

difficult for them to really attract those big donors because everybody wants the sexiness of the white house. >> i think they're going to look around where they can knock off a democrat, for example, who is narrowly being elected in the big district. let's look at this ad. it's a new superpac down in florida that's backing u.s. congressman connie mac. it takes on her opponent for being too cozy with president obama. let's watch it. >> president obama said no to the keystone xl pipeline. that's saying no to lower gas prices, no to more jobs, no to greater energy security. senator bill nelson chose to side with president obama over the people of florida. now you have a choice. connie mack supports xl. he has a strong message of standing up for peace and prosperity. say no to bill nelson and choose connie mack.

connie mack is responsible for this advertising. >> i love the sort of grainy pictures they show in these ads with that grim, forbidding voice. i wish everybody would just pray to themselves, i will not be influenced by any ad that shows black and white pictures that ends up being sort of a sub ver subversive in these ads. they work, don't they? >> they do work. the funny thing about these ads, too, and this is their up side. they are issue ards. one thing about negative ads, they tend to have more issue content in studies than non-negative. nevertheless, the key point there was right at the end, paid for by freedom pack. who is freedom pack? what do they want, who is funding them? that's what citizens united

ended up doing here. congress could reverse it. citizens said corporations can spend as much as they want, but congress could pass a law saying they have to disclose who is funding them. we could van ad saying paid for by freedom pack, but they block that bill. >> i'm afraid for november, what could happen in october where one of these guys could go out there and spend a zillion dollars and turn an election, which i think is going to be close between president obama and mitt romney, turn it by a point or so with huge spending of money totally negative on obama, just sheer oil money, the coke brothers, they all could get together and each spend $100 million at a party somewhere. we're all going to spend a bunch of money and put the bucks down on the table at the end. we're warning the voters. i'm not sure it's going to work but it's something we have to do. thanks for coming on, chris. thank you so much. by the way, i'll be at brown

university tomorrow night at providence. i'll be talking about "jack kennedy," my book, but i'll be focusing on the cuban missile crisis. up next, the white house correspondents dinner gave president obama the perfect chance to do what he wanted to do, tweak mitt romney for putting his dog on the roof of his car. that's ahead. this is "hardball." with better car replacement, if your car is totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. liberty mutual auto insurance. how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical, he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards. that's where the interest in engineering came from.

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as i mentioned, it's been nearly a year for that s.e.a.l. raid that killed osama bin laden and nearly 11 years since the attacks. construction is almost done on the tallest building in new york city. look at it up there, higher than the empire state building. construction won't be completed until next year when the tower will top the old sears tower in chicago as the tallest building in the country and the third tallest in the world. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] imagine facing the day with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help.

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and thankfully we've all agreed families are off limits. dogs are apparently fair game. >> fair game. there's a phrase i know. we're back, and that was president obama at saturday night's white house correspondents dinner invoking the famous romney dog on the roof story as he referred to it, the dog eats dog story. they seized a page from president obama's memoir where he writes a dog growing up in indonesia. president obama got the latest word on the war on dogs where he queued up an ad with regard to the romney move. >> what about barack obama? under his failed leadership, man's best friend has been forced into government-controlled automobiles. just imagine the european style dog socialism obama has planned for the next four years. more government handouts.

a life of government dependency. indoctrinating our children. a left left-wing social agenda. leading from behind. >>. ♪ in the arms of the angels >> america's dogs can't afford four more years of obama, for them, that's 28 years. our dogs need leadership now. ♪ who let the dogs out >> this guy. we need to help romney this september. i'm a dog and i ride outside. >> you have the dog on the roof. i have alex wagner with us, host of the very impressive now that comes on at noon here, and gene, i have to start with you,

rival -- there's a dog food right there, rival dog food. the old -- here we go with a weird ad making fun of the president's as a ruvulnerabilit because he ate dog meat? >> is anybody really vulnerable on the dog issue. i know it's rough out there, but does it really hurt either candidate. being six years old in indonesia and eating dog meat will only turn off the people that already think he is a muslim and socialist. but putting a dog on the roof of the car -- >> a guy that likes firing people and putting dogs on the

roof -- this has gotten contorted so much. romney says how much he loved the roof, and the president with a big happy dog in the car, and i noticed presidents like big dogs, your thoughts on this conversation. >> look, i think as all great comedy and satire does, it pokes holes in heavy handed political theories. this was a masterful stroke by the president that it reinforces the fact that president obama is funny. he has a great character, also, undermines these ridiculous notions that he's a socialist, a swede, he wants to turn the country to denmark, whatever it is. and it secures mitt romney on the character thing, which is

what kind of guy puts man's best friend on a roof for six hours when the dog was sick. i heard that the white house loves this because they're less worried about obama eating doing, and romney's decision is creepy, or speaks to a certain coldness, and reinforce that's he is wooden and cannot connect with our inner humanity. >> i love the comment when he said to the president, cover your ears if you're possible. making a joke about a physical characteristic. president obama was dishing it out, but he could take some heat. he turned to tables, making fun of himself for having eating dog meat in indonesia as a child. let's watch him talk about this. >> even sarah palin is getting back into the game.

what's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? a pit bull is delicious. that went right over my head, you know, i watched that, and he's making jokes about eating pit bulls, it's such a disgusting idea -- yuck. >> you choose to get into the subject, how do you get into it. i don't see how anyone wins big or loses big -- >> here is jimmy kimmel talking about dogs, let's watch the last one. >> if mitt romney ever invites you to go for a ride, call shotgun, and if the president tries to butter you, run. >> no thoughts about that one, if he tries to butter you, run,

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let me finish tonight with this. i understand why some of the president's critics are going after him after his successful mission against bin laden.

the republican party champions the civil war in this country and took credit for it for generations. they went together like a horse and car rage. general grant was elected president because he was the best president in the war. republicans do it, so why can't a democratic president do it. if george w. bush had gotten him, he would still be shooting con fety out of cannons, don't you think? history and the voters know the difference between success and sour grapes. true victory by the man in the are than in a a cheer from the cheap seats. if was it was that easy, everybody knows that w. would have done it