like...rapids? look, i'm going through the rapids. ok. i'll take it. new offers in new places so you can try new things. sync your american express card with facebook, foursquare, and twitter to find savings. that's the membership effect of american express. there's a lot going on. we have to start, because we always start somewhere weird. we have to start in 1968. a former member of congress, a former united states senator, a former vice president of the united states, an experienced nationally known sober steady republican named richard nix on is running for president. he wins in 1968. he wins re-election in 1972. he never makes it to the end of the second term because of a little complication called watergate. in 1968 he was at the height of his appeal and he was a communist.

see his campaign slogan, forward together. this is from the republican national committee archives. see the slogan at the bottom. bushy haired richard nixon communist. the reason you know that slogan indicates he's a communist because today's conservatives say so. i thought this was debunked already but conservatives even know, this is from last night on glenn beck's internet tv show, conservatives are still stuck on this. president obama's web video that came out ended with this slogan forward. the right just went nuts that the word forward was the obama campaign's way of signaling that it is marxist. it seems to impose the economic system by karl marx on america.

that president obama is a communist, that the word forward is communist. richard nixon forward together, communist. also the washington, d.c. metro system is cois this jewish daily newspaper in new york city, communist. and jewish, whoa, i know, deep, right? and the state of wisconsin which has an awesome flag has the word wiscn makes it easy to pick out of a crowd of flags. the little banner over the very frankly communist arm with hammer and little firearm and stuff has the state slogan on it, and the state slogan is forward. obviously, wisconsin is communist. here is the state slogan on the state quarter with some cheese and some corn and a cow wearing a bell. forward. communist. is president obama and the obama re-election campaign a communist enterprise? they are as communist as richard nixon was and that cow on the corner.

the word communist is a politic political epiteth now. it's easy to forget the word communist isn't just a term you call anybody to the left of you. it's a real thing. actual countries are run by actual communists. it's not just cuba and north korea. the most populous country on earth is run by the communist party. for real. it's not an insult. it is a description. china is run by the communist party of china thchlt. this is their emblem. they have real departments of propaganda. they are state run media all over the world. in china, newspapers are run out of the propaganda department of

the communist party. in the washington post reported that four of the communist party controlled propaganda directed newspapers in the city of beijing have been attacking america's ambassador to china. they are going after gary locke. he's the former governor of washington state. he arrived after jon huntsman quit the job to run for the presidency. famously jon huntsman dad said that had china been able to vote for u.s. president, they definitely would have picked jon huntsman. the chinese people loved him as america's ambassador to china. the chinese people liked gary locke too. for some of the same reasons they liked jon huntsman. in a country that's increasingly disgusted with the arrogance consumption on the part of its elite, jon huntsman riding his

bike around and locke wearing backpack, waiting in line, paying for his own caffeinated treat. those went a long way to win over chinese opinion for the ambassador past and presence. in the midst of this crisis that the united states is in with china, these propaganda state-controlled newspapers have been attacking ambassador gary locke. the beijing daily translates to the clumsy performance of american politician. the paper goes onto say it's all an act. this whole flying economy class, carrying his own backpack, buying coffee with coupons. they say it's an act. putting on a cha raid of a regular guy. it's a standard issue american politician who goes out of his way to stir up conflict. this propaganda pile on is the

latest development in the huge international controversy around this man. he's a human rights activist and lawyer. he's been blind since infancy. it's why you always see him wearing sunglasses. in china you're not allowed to go to law school if you're blind. he's a lawyer but he's a self-taught lawyer. he audited law classes. he was not allowed to take them properly. what he did with his self-taught education is he sued the government over that one child policy and other human rights abuses. the response from the government was imprisonment for four years and harsh house imprisonment. those are the circumstances, house arrest, from which he made a daring, middle of the night, did i mention blind escape 12 days ago. he made his way to the american embassy. first he told u.s. officials that he wanted to stay in china.

u.s. officials worked out a deal where he wouldn't be under house arre arrest anymore, he could stay in china. he would study at a university in a different part of the university. that was the initial deal. the deal fell apart after he was admitted to a hospital to treat a broken foot, injuries he sustained in his middle of the night escape. he's in the hospital changed his mind about not wanting to leave china. he decided his life was in danger and his family and he made a request to leave china. he said he wanted to go to the united states. he said he would like to leave china with hillary clinton on her plane. she's there for unrelated business. she's there for high level meetings. she's with secretary geithner. as we reported last night he phoned into an emergency congressional hearing that was called to discuss his case. he reiterated in the phone call that he wanted help from

secretary clinton. it's all very dramatic. right? last night when we left this story it was totally up in the air as to what would happen on this today. the clock is ticking. today there does seem to be progress toward a new deal that could get him out of china and to the united states in way that did not escalate this any further. apparently he's now been offered a fellowship at nyu's law school. china said they will consider his request to become a student or a visiting lecturer. the u.s. government say they expect the request to be expedited. this is happening in the shadow of hillary clinton being in china. secretary clinton is expected to depart beijing on saturday, local time but beijing is 12 hours ahead of the east coast. she will be leaving momentarily. she will be leaving at some point in the next several hours our time here in the united states. in the middle of this diplomatic

super high stakes all but super power stand off between the most powerful country in the world and the biggest country in the world, china, the biggest country in the world is run by communists who have propaganda departments they are piling on our u.s. ambassador. the washington post reporting today, this is fascinating, that the pile on is generating 2 opposite intended reaction among the chinese people. the attacks drew a ferocious response from china's internet users who bombarded the website with thousands of comments defending the ambassador. the comments were so numerous and vicious by evening, beijing daily had become a banned search term on china's version of twitter. this is functioning at the human

level, this is functioning at the level of one sort of heroic human rights activists. you've got this operating at the highest level which is two giant powerful countries dealing with this as a high level diplomatic matter. people at the highest levels of government involved making decisions on it while they are physically in the proximity of the crisis. it's also a media and man on the street issue. whose people don't really always seem to feel that way. complicated that here at home in the united states, the republican candidate for president is also attacking the american government as if he, too, works for "beijing daily." >> it's also apparent according to these reports that our embassy failed to put in place the kind of verifiable measures that would assure the safety of mr. chen and his family. if the reports are true, this is

a dark day for freedom and a day of shame for the obama administration. >> mitt romney stating clearly that he doesn't know if any of this information is accurate but he wants you to know it's a day of shame for the obama administration. he said this yesterday. really. you're not sure if it's accurate. you don't know if you should believe the reports, you don't know what's going on but it's day of shame. this is kind of a sensitive matter. a sensitive ongoing matter that is yet to be resolved. are you sure you want to weigh in here? >> to inject yourself in the middle of it when there's all kind of negotiations going on and a fast moving target i think is foolish. he still has not -- they are trying to transition sfr a primary campaign mode to general election mode. santorum said something stupid, hit him right now. there's no need to butt into a fast moving story where the secretary of state is in beijing with delicate negotiations and say it's day of shame.

hillary clinton is waking upright now. let's see if she can pull it off in the next 12 hours or not. >> william crystal obviously a communist. kidding. the 12 hours that he was talking about yesterday when he said that or last night are just about up now. this is a fast, fast moving crisis. the politics around this will continue to reverberate. in terms of understanding the resolution to this, we are turning to a man that's been involved in many crisises like these is a former ambassador and vkt vis. he's former new mexico governor bill richardson. we feel lucky to have you with us. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> you've been a part of negotiations around human rights activists, hostage negotiation, prisoner releases. once mr. chen was inside the u.s. embassy in beijing, what do you think was the best possible

outcome for the u.s. and for him? what were the choices that the u.s. had? >> well, the best outcome could be what's possibly going to happen that he and his family protected can go to the united states at an american university where he will have a platform, where his family is safe. that is the best outcome. what i see is the administration, i think, courageously put him in the u.s. embassy. negotiated at the highest level. when you have the secretary of state involved, assistant secretary of state, the american ambassador, the state department. by the way, two of those, the state department lawyer and the american ak bass dor, chinese-americans negotiating on behalf of this individual says the obama administration really put the human rights front and

center. if the outcome will be the dispersal or the travel to the united states to pursue a human rights career where he'll have a platform, it's good. it also shows that backfired criticism of ambassador locke is backfiring. it shows maybe they are maturing in their attitude on human rights and saying we want this issue resolved. the american-chinese relationship is too important. we've got north korea. we've got iran. we have the global economic recovery. we have serious security council resolutions. let's get this issue resolved. in a way, maybe this outcome is best for everybody and it's best for the world that a human rights activist is basically going to get what he wants for him and his family. >> in terms of understanding the various, i guess the various motivations for the people that are on sides of the negotiation, one thing that gets described is

this nyu fellowship, the posting for the activist involved here might be a way for the chinese government to save face. a way for this to be resolved that doesn't cost anybody politically at home. is that how you see it? there's hundreds of thousands of chinese students that come to the united states every year. does this neutralize it from their perspective in terms of it being a pride issue for the government? >> this fellowship, this offer of going to the united states on a student visa is a face saver for the chinese government. they have many chinese students going to the united states. it allows them to say, the chinese, if he satisfies all requirements, he can get a visa, a student visa. he still has to get a passport. check does not have a passport.

there's still a little bit of a hurdle. the fact that the foreign ministry said they will issue the visa is very positive. you have a admire chen. i mean the guy has excellent political operative credentials. he calls a congressional hearing. he talks to the press. he says he wants to go on the secretary of state plane. this guy, politically, is very adept. that's good. i'm also proud that the administration, this is the first time i've seen an american administration stand up so much for human rights to get this guy out, to know it could damage the relationship and the best part is the chinese government may be saying in the past we've been tough on human rights activists. we put him in jail. this time they appear to want to resolve a diplomatic crisis and that's good for all sides. >> bill richardson, the former governor of new mexico.

ambassador to the united nations in the clinton administration. thanks for talking to us. >> thank you. it's friday. that means it's a cocktail moment. also we're going to be breaking news about mitt romney's campaign national finance co-chair. it's a story we started covering back in february. it's continued to unfold. tonight it really unfolds in an unexpected way. that's an exclusive story, that's ahead. if you made a list of countries from around the world... ...with the best math scores. ...the united states would be on that list. in 25th place. let's raise academic standards across the nation.

let's get back to the head of the class. let's solve this.

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republicans like to present themselves as the party of small government. they say democrats are the party of big government and small government is better and small government is republican. that idea, i'm sure focus groups very well. it's not true. look at this. this charts the economy under the last three terms of republican presidents. it's the first three years of the last three terms that we had under republican presidents. they are all named bush by it's two different bush residencies. two terms of george w. bush and one of poppy bush. both had modest but some job growth in the private sector. private sector that bluish line. the growth in government jobs was more pronounced than in the private sector. check this out. these are the last three terms of democratic presidents. this is on the democratic side.

there's clinton terms and president obama's first term. we're looking at the first three years of the last three democratic terms. you see pretty big private sector job gains under clinton. modest gains under president obama. even those republicans like to say they are be party of big government, democrats do not appear to be the party of big government. look at government jobs under the last three democratic presidential terms. with president obama, the current president, you see government jobs dropping like a stone through water. right? that's called austerity. austerity is the thing keeping economic recovery slow and fragile. private sector growth under president obama has been pretty remarkable. "the new york times" noting the private sector grew faster in the first three years of the obama administration than it did in both the george w. bush

administration as well as a the first three years of the gorge h.w. bush administration. only bill clinton had faster growth. the private sector is growing and growing and growing. the reason the recovery is still slow overall is frankly because of ever shrinking numbers of government jobs. the most serious weight on the job market according to the man who is john mccain's economic advisor in 2008 is not jobs in the private sector, it's government jobs. specifically, state and local government jobs. that's the drag on hiring. public sector jobs and public sector jobs are, in fact, jobs. jobs which democrats would like to fund more of but republicans say must be slashed. on tuesday of this week the republican party's nominee took a break from criticizing obama for noting the anniversary of osama bin laden's death. he took break so he could take some time to note the anniversary of osama bin laden's death. mitt romney joined rudy giuliani to campaign at a new york city fire station on the anniversary of killing bin laden.

at that photo op event mr. romney got to talking with firefighters and they explained what it means in economic terms to work as a new york city firefighter these days. after he left new york mr. romney felt compelled to share the story of these struggling hard working firefighters. he felt compelled to share the story with the high dollar donors at the ritz carlton. he told the audience full of people that paid $2,500. i spoke with a fireman yesterday and he has a one bedroom apartment and his wife is pregnant and he can't afford a second bedroom. i asked the firefighters i was meeting with, about 15 of them, how many had to take another job to make ends meet. almost every one of them had. shocking. shocking. relating to these campaign donors that you might think the moral of story is mitt romney wants the firefighters to be paid more.

he doesn't want them to be paid more. >> then there was the stimulus itself. $787 billion of borrowing. it protected people in the governmental sector, which is probably the sector that should be shrinking. >> we will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the very taxpayers they serve. >> lousy government workers getting paid too much like those new york city firefighters and their unfairly large salaries that have them taking second jobs about which you're telling tales to your donors. his core economic decision is to rail against the government, government jobs and pay and growth. he wrote an open letter to president obama. he said quote, undoing the damage you've done will be a daunting challenge. i have learned a thing or two about how government policies can stifle job creation.

i have a plan to get government out of the way. he says he would return the country to the principles of limited government. he said quote and bluntly, our government is too big. lousy government full of those lousy overpaid government jobs. these horrible people working for the government. they are the problem in america. that is the core economic message of a campaign that sees economic. firefighters great for a photo op but after all they are what's wrong with the country. for a hot dog cart. my mother said, "well, maybe we ought to buy this hot dog cart and set it up someplace." so my parents went to bank of america. they met with the branch manager and they said, "look, we've got this little hot dog cart, and it's on a really good corner. let's see if we can buy the property." and the branch manager said, "all right, i will take a chance with the two of you." and we've been loyal to bank of america for the last 71 years. it means opportunity it means anybody can attain whatever they want to do

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may the force be with you.

>> hey, luke, may the force be with you. >> what's today? today is the 4th of may. may 4th. may the fourth. may the fourth be with you. today is international star wars day. this year, may the fourth be with you falls on a friday. on fridays on this show we do cocktails moment. banthamilk. it's the blue milk. bantha milk comes from this creature, the bantha. as appealing as it sounds, i think it might have been our second best cocktail moment for the day. our first idea will be coming up at the end of the show. >> we spent the decade of 9/11 investing in a war against terrorism. our competitors arnds the globe

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okay. 1999 all over the state of idaho, this billboard turns up on roadsides across the state. should public television promote the homosexual lifestyle to your children? think about it. never put a billboard with a message that provocative that

ends with a question mark and has a lot of blank white space on it. this is what happened, i think, in idaho falls. somewhere in idaho, somebody answered the question in spray paint in a way the billboard founders didn't want. should public television promote the homosexual lifestyle to your children? yes. an unauthorized spray paint addition there. that was 1999. the man who helped pay for those billboards in 1999 is now a co-chair for mitt romney.ber whg the republican congressman who got caught with the wide stance in that airport bathroom. >> let me be clear. i am not gay. i never have been gay. >> larry craig not gay. left the united states senate any way and was replaced by another idaho republican named james rich.

he rented the private jet of frank van der sloot to fly around the state in his successful campaign to replace larry craig in the senate. he comes up a lot in idaho politics. he's not only a co-chair, he's also directly held fund-raisers for mr. romney. he's donated to the super pac. as well as to the romney for president campaign. a few years after he helped finance the homosexual lifestyle billboards around idaho. he also got very, very involved in an award winning investigative series published by a small newspaper. it was called the post register. the paper published evidence that boy scout officials and mormon church officials had been warned about child molesters in local boy scout troops.

they had known about it and kept them in the organization and facilitated their further access to kids. it was a brutal and disturbing investigation that went right at the most powerful pillars of that community. for that reporting, the howard foundation awarded the newspaper their award for distinguished service to the first amendment. the reporter on the story, a young man named peter zuckerman won. they recognize the best journalists under the age of 35. part of the response to that reporting from that little newspaper in idaho falls was this. as you can see it's sort of typeset to make it look like it was part of the newspaper but this is an ad. it was a full page ad run by frank van der sloot, now a national finance co-chair of the romney campaign. the ad was placed to criticize the newspaper for running the story. it and others like it were published in the newspaper that aired it in the first place.

this particular version went on about the fact that the reporter is gay. it described him as a declared homosexual and described him as individually biassed as a reporter. we covered this story a few months ago back in february for a couple of reasons. first, biggest picture here. while there's always been campaign donors the and politically influential donors, we're in a new phase in american politics where they can give unlimited amounts of money to support candidates. that unlimited spending creates a whole new category of rich person in politics like we've never had before. now, in this post citizens united world, getting to know your candidates, in many cases means getting to know your candidates gazillionaires.

more interesting than just frank van der sloot's politics is how he functions as a political actor which is mostly up until this point been in idaho but it's starting feel like it may be nationwide. it's a basic truth of politics that when you start behaving as a political actor you discussed in a political context. if you're involved in putting up billboards and taking out full page ads attacking the reporting of local newspapers and become a national finance co-chair, you've made yourself a political figure. people discussing politics will be discussing you. that basic diad is something that frank van der sloot deals with differently than most other people who have chosen to become political public figures. it's not just that young reporter at that local newspaper in idaho. when people have blogged about mr. van der sloot they have

found themselves facing copyright infringement lawsuits for posting the photo of him that's publicly displayed on his company's websit in 2007 this leftie leaning idaho blog posted a blog entry critical of mr. van der sloot. the blog said they received a letter from his lawyers telling them to take the blog post down within 24 hours or they would find themselves sued. they did take down the post. they did not want to be sued. when they posted a copy of the lawyer's letter in order to explain why they had taken down the blog post, mr. van der sloot sued them. sued them for copyright infringement for posting the letter. when we reported on him in february, when we reported on him and his politics and his role, surprise. we got contacted by him and his lawyers. first they requested that we take down the web version of the

segment that we did. they asked that we remove it from the internet. no. they also tried to insist their written communications to nbc news about this matter were confidential and not for publication. of course, we didn't enter into any confidentiality agreement with them. you're writing a letter to a news organization. with awe due respect, we can do anything we want with that. that's the whole part of the free part of the free press. ultimately the specific thing they wanted to criticize about our coverage is they say when they published that ad about that young reporter at that idaho newspaper and went on at length about him being gay, they say it was not outing him as we described it in our broadcast because of the fact that the reporter is gay had previously been discussed on an idaho radio station and in a blog post that he had previously written. that is true. it should be noted that for most people that read this local

newspaper but didn't listen to that one radio show, frank van der sloot was the person breaking the news by printing it in that paper in that ad. in this back and forth between mitt romney's national finance co-chair and his lawyers, we do have some news to break which is that he is apologizing. i have the statement right here. joining us for the interview is the monoto whom he is apologizing, peter zuckerman. he's an independent journalist. he has a new book called "buried in the sky." that will be out soon. thank you for joining us. let me read you this statement. i'm a strong supporter of the argument that gay and lesbian people -- this is the wrong statement. this is the wrong statement. we've got it here. here we go. quote.

we believe that he's a good man who did a poor job reporting the facts on an important story in 2005. the entire community was buzzing about mr. zuckerman's sexual orientation after a local radio talk show had talked about it for days. we came to his defense. we chastised the talk show for bringing his sexual orientation into the debate. i apologize for any personal pain because of our involvement. that was not our intent. that statement ended with an apology. there is a lot in that. let me ask your reaction to that statement, first. >> wow. it's a start. it doesn't ring true to my experience. >> what was the impact in your life when he ran the full page ads in your newspaper in idaho talking about the fact that you were gay and attacking your reporting? >> there was a tremendous impact on me personally and professionally. personally, it was really hard

when my boyfriend, at the time, came home and said i don't have my job anymore. they know i'm gay. they know about my relationship with you. they don't want me there anymore. it was hard for him. he got sick soon afterwards and was in bed for a month. i didn't know how we were going to pay the bills. it was hard when people started leaving notes on my doorstep when somebody kept calling in the middle of the night threatening to rape me with his handgun. that was really terrible. professionally it became much harder to do my job because idaho falls was buzzing about my sexual orientation. when i tried to talk to people they would say things like i can't talk to you. you're a homosexual. we don't associate with that. >> did all of this happen because you were being discussed

on a local radio show or did this happen not until your name appeared on the ad? >> this did not happen until my name appeared in the ad. >> when he says he wasn't outing you, everybody knew already, you dispute that contention? >> i absolutely dispute that contention. the idaho falls register was the place i worked. it was my colleagues i worked with. it was the people on my beat. yeah, a handful of people knew i'm gay. my boyfriend knew i was gay. my parents and boss knew i was gay. i hadn't told anybody on my beat that i'm gay and for good reason, because i felt they wouldn't talk to me. i feel like the worse part isn't so much that i was harassed. this was really important story that needed to get out there. this was a story about child molesters in the boy scouts. it was about trying to protect

kids from these kind of pedophiles. by making it so hard for me to gather information, it really limited the story. there's a lot more to that story that i was not able to get. this was a major contributor for one of reasons i couldn't get it. >> mr. van der sloot is a political figure of national importance now. national finance co-chair for mitt romney's presidential campaign. having been in idaho, how would you describe his political role? his political presence in the community and do you think it's reasonable to try to extrapolate that to national level? >> absolutely reasonable. he is probably the wealthiest person in idaho. certainly the wealthiest person in eastern idaho. he's had his hands in a lot of campaigns often times as a donor. i don't know how active he is in deciding what the message is.

he is also a pretty well-respected person in idaho falls among people that are really extremely conservative. what does it say about romney, i think, this isn't a story about being gay or straight. it's about who the president leans on when he needs money. who the president seeks advice from. it's about who does the president hire because who you hire is one of most important things a president does, and we need to know who he's hiring as his national finance co-chair. >> in the reporting that you did in idaho, in any of the report thag you have done, have you ever dealt with somebody who is as interventionist in terms of trying to control the coverage that a publication that you were involved in was standing behind?

>> not quite like this. i've never had somebody run paid ads in the newspaper i'm working at as trying to discredit me as a person. >> peter zuckerman. i will say as way of thanking you for being here is you have a new book coming out. it is called "buried in the sky." it has nothing to do with the subject but congratulations on that. >> thank you. i worked very hard. >> i appreciate it. we invited frank van der sloot to join us a number of times, he declined. he did speak with members of my stap off the record, but would not agree to speak on the record or come on the air. mr. van der sloot provided us one other statement regarding his involvement in the homo sexual ads. you can find it posted at our blog. mr. van der sloot, if you are

watching you are still very, very well congresswoman to con on this show. you have my number. cocktail moment coming up. time for "your business" entrepreneurs of the week. they own whitings food that run food concessions on the santa cruz board walk. they employ hundreds of employees. managing this generation means you have to speak their language. watch "your business" sunday morning on msnbc. [ male announcer ] with six indulgently layered desserts, all at 150 calories or less, there's definitely a temptations for you. unless you're one of those people who doesn't like delicious stuff. temptations. it's the first jell-o that's just for adults. aspirin? i don't really know what it's for. isn't aspirin like a vague pain reliever? aspirin is just old school. people will have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. that's why we developed

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this weekend, there will be arraignments for five men accused of master minding and pull off the 9/11 attacks. the most famous is khalid

moham mohamed. after years in custody looks like this. this was going to be held in criminal court. a federal court in manhattan was going to be the venue. after a political uproar of how awful it would be to try them in real u.s. courts, they reversed courts. it will be held at guantanamo. it will not be a real trial, it will be a military try bunal. they have produced results more lenient than those tried in real american courts. the fear of trying an important terrorism case in new york is such that they will be held offshore, they will be held in cuba. this week, there was a conviction in what law enforcement says was the most serious terrorist plot on u.s. soil since 9/11. a real plot by real al qaeda

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happy friday. cocktail moment, before we all go to prison. there are three main things we associate with the kentucky derby, right? number one, horses. as in these fellas. they will be running for the roses tomorrow with very, very tiny strong men on top of them. number two, we think of women in

big, fancy hats. three, we think of a very, very specific preparation of boos. >> well now, we are at the derby. you have a have a drink. >> you have to. >> hard truth time here on the rachel maddow show. hard truth. most people don't like the drink. i don't mean to offend. i personally love them. i like whiskey straight from the bottle. it's a really, really strong drink. it's cold bourbon. if you are not a practiced drinker, your first time out you are not going to like your first one, if it is made properly. especially if it is made properly. many things massacquerade them. people end up filling it up with

southern comfort to make it more palettable. ahead of the kentucky derby, rather than showing you how to make the drink, which is an acquired taste, i'm going to show you how to acquire the taste for it. this is how you train yourself to like the taste of a mint drink if you don't already like one. it has the added benefit of being the great old mandrin k of all time. it's called 2 stinger. is there an old man in your life? ask if he likes it stinger. the stinger is, it's one of those drinks that has slightly different proportions, depending on your taste. depending on how much of a sweet tooth you have. the way i make it is 2 1/4 ounces of cognac and brandy. creme de mint.

you want white, not green. you want 3/4 ounce of that. less if you have less of a sweet tooth. that's it. any drink with just spirits, not fruit juice or mint, you stir, not shake. with the stinger, you shake this one. it's cognac. it's crazy. this is the way you have to train yourself in order to be able to drink it. it's sweetened, minty whiskey. start with sweetened minty, brandy cognac. the thing that makes it palettable is make it just absolutely frigid. it's why you shake it with ice even though it's only spirits and pour it over ice. it's a lot of ice. it's a very, very cold drink. and it is also an acquired