i don't want to look like i'm patting myself on the back. >> um, i do think it is obviously a hot topic. and modern family serves as a cultural touch stone. it does play a part in that. i think it is a save in for a lot of people. >> you making that joke with hash tag politics. there is this thing with politics and then there is this think of life. it makes it somehow less threatening. >> and our writers are smart in the way that they do it. the character like my father is not comfortable with it but he's learning. some people attach themselves to that and they are going through the process and that is okay. >> the culture of hollywood gets attention in pop culture at large.

and you are in los angeles. i'm curious. it seems like it is a tolerant culture and it has been on the culture. and it seems like a sexist culture and there is a lot of anger about the jokes that seth mcfarland made at the oscars. >> i think a lot of it is because social media is out there. i think it is just a lot of people and i'm guilty of it too. and it goes viral. and i think that is the main driving force of it. it is a tough city. i was not thrilled to move here. >> thank you so much. >> you can see my show up every weekend morning at 9:00 am.

showdown. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. my kingdom for a horse. how does barack obama escape this frightening ax coming down sharp and brutally on his presidency? how does he avoid personal harm when the country rises up in anger, when the army and naval bases stop writing checks? when people stop shopping because they don't have salaries? when the airports seize up because the air-traffic controllers are cut? when the bitching and yelping reaches up to the white house gates themselves? what will he do when the government shuts down because congress won't authorize another nickel of spending? i have my suspicions. not everyone fears this. to the tea party, this is a party. giant slashes in government spending like it already is going on now. to the republican regulars like

speaker john boehner, this could work. it will make the right winger squirrelies in my party happy. feeding time at the zoo. and the democrats and president obama, how about this? would you rather have them take some hits at the pentagon and federal programs you can blame the republicans for or would you rather go out and sign onto a cut in medicare that hurts every one of your people, ticks off most of your party? makes you look like you have given the store away. if you're a barack obama politician, maybe you're thinking maybe i can dig the sequester after all, and this is the problem. everyone says they hate sequestration. everybody would rather have it than have to do something they really, really don't want to do. i'm joined by "the nation's" john nichols and michael scherer with "time." the reason we're probably going to have sequestration, we're probably going to have all kinds of problems is because it's better than having to do what you don't want to do. republicans don't want to raise taxes. democrats don't want to touch the entitlements. >> i agree with that, but i

think it's better in short term. the republicans and the white house have calculated, and only one will be right, if they let this happen, they will be in a stronger position in two weeks going into a government shutdown which is the next thing that happens at the end of the march. one of them is going to be right, and one is going to be wrong. the pressure is going to slowly build of outrage in the country. if we get to a point where nonessential services are also shut down, the pressure will get greater. at that point, at some point they are going to have to deal with this. the idea of sequestration staying as it's designed, not just the top line number of cuts, but as its designed now through the end of september in which you're going to have all the horrible -- >> let me -- you're saying it's going to get so bad, there's going to be so much yelping and complaining that one of the two sides will have to break and say, okay, i'm saying uncle. republicans, i'm raising revenues. do you think it will get so bad republicans will say i'm willing to raise revenues? >> i think there are 60 votes in the senate to raise revenues to you get enough -- >> but you don't raise revenues in the senate, the house has to do it. >> but to come to a deal that would then go to the house to

replace sequestration, what happened is the senate would pass something laying out where they want to be on revenues, where they want to be on budget. it would go to the house. it would be at that point. if obama is willing to go far enough, lindsey graham has already come out and said if he's willing to go far enough on entitlements, i'm willing to talk about revenues. i think -- >> okay. you think obama will buckle, too, and do entitlements? social security, medicare -- >> yeah. we're going back to some version of the grand bargain. >> john, the same question. i'm making the hard argument. let me phrase it right. both sides would rather put up with cuts in defense spending, cuts in health care and nih and head start and all those things people care about if it means they don't have to cut things like social security, medicare, medicaid if you're a democrat and don't have to raise taxes if you're a republican. what do you think is sort of the rule here of what they think is most and least likely to happen and least likable? >> well, look, what the republicans would love is to have barack obama do the job for them, and mitch mcconnell even

indicated that in recent days. this idea that they would hand the problem over to obama and if he wanted to make the cuts in a couple weeks, they'd let him do it. that's a little bit like saying that we've got to take lunch money away from the kids. we can do it across the board or we could send you out to find the kids to take it from. it's a bad deal, and there's clearly an effort here to put the blame on one side -- >> i know that, john. we know that, but my question to you is what is the cutting edge? when does the president decide or the republicans, one side buckles and says, i can't stand the sequestration, i can't stand this government shutdown. therefore, i'm willing to do what i don't want to do. when is that going to happen for the democratic side? when is it going to happen for the republican side? which one first? >> well, i think it happens probably for the republican side first, and i'll tell you why. >> okay. >> this is an internal republican battle, and it is a fight between the washington rationalists and a portion of their base.

now, the fact of the matter is that boehner has already blinked in a situation like this and allowed for the washington rationalists to vote with the democrats to make changes. that happened in december. and we're going to be looking at a similar situation i think pretty quickly, and i believe air travel will be the center of this thing. if you start to see two-hour lines at the airports, you aren't going to have to wait three weeks for people to get very, very angry. that will come in a couple days. >> yeah. my question then, the president has to be careful not to be seen as having his hand in this. he can't be seen as saying put pressure on the air-traffic controllers. >> in fact, chris, it's even more than that. i think the president has to be a hands-on figure looking and actually genuinely trying to solve problems, trying to avoid crises. >> yeah. >> if the image is that he is gaming this thing for political

advantage, that can blow up both ways. so i don't think the president can play a game here. he should be trying to make things work. he should also be outside of washington sharing the pain. he should be where people are and talking to republican governors where possible, doing whatever he can to seem highly and to, in fact, be highly engaged. >> quick yes or no, michael, i know you're a straight reporter, you can't have an opinion of passion here, but i think that john made a good point. he thinks the republicans will crack first. they would rather go with some kind of tax reform, revenue increase, rather than take this pain. is it your sense the president has the high hand here, the strong hand? >> i think in the next three weeks, he probably has the stronger hand. >> let's look at today's "washington post." david ignatius, somewhat of a centrist reporter, maybe a little liberal sometimes, makes a great analogy. quote, we have a political system that is the equivalent of a drunk driver. the primary culprits are the house republicans. they are so intoxicated with their own ideology that they are ready to drive the nation's car

off the road. in my analogy, the president should take the steering wheel firmly in hand and drive the car toward the destination where most maps show we need to be heading, namely, a balanced program in cuts in social security and medicare and modest increases in revenue. instead, obama has chosen to be co-dependent as psychologists describe those who foster the destructive behavior of others rather than stepping up to leadership. since being re-elected, he has triple dared the gop hotheads. an interesting analysis of saying it's the republicans' problem they keep screwing around with this. they seem to love the government shutdowns, the fiscal cliffs, all this stuff, debt ceilings. they love this stuff because it gives them leverage, but the president, according to david ignatius, again, i think a very moderate progressive, says the president has got to grab the steering wheel. can he grab the steering wheel and say, okay, i'll do some of these things if you will do other things, we'll avoid this crack up. >> that's a terrible game. that's a situation where you say

somebody can throw a tantrum big enough, and then the president of the united states to calm things down has to make moves that he has expressed clearly he doesn't think are good ideas. this is a president re-elected on a platform protecting social security, medicare, and medicaid. to suddenly start bargaining on that because the other side is screaming is a very dangerous game -- >> i thought he was bargaining. i thought he's been say -- hasn't he been saying if you guys do revenue reform, i'll do social program reform? hasn't he been saying that all through this discussion? isn't it the backstory here? >> he has, and it's been very discomforting to a lot of his base. he's got -- >> but what does he do if you don't do that, john? what does he do if he doesn't deal? >> he can -- he should be out campaigning. he should be -- >> to do what? for what? what's -- >> -- where the money is. when he talks about loopholes, when he talks about -- >> you mean that's the only solution? okay. is your position -- >> it's a good solution. >> fair enough. is your position that some of the democrats are taking no

changes in social security, medicare, medicaid, none of that, it's all going to have to be revenues? >> my position is you should improve medicare and medicaid and social security, and there are certainly ways that you can get more revenues for them. but it is absurd to me to suggest that we need to cut social security benefits, to say to a retiree we're going to cut your c.o.l.a. because the republicans in congress are throwing a tantrum. >> but i'm not going to push you much more than this one more time. if you're the president of the united states and you have the house of representatives which controls all revenue and entitlement programs primarily, how do you deal with them if you don't deal with them? >> well, you have to deal with them at the end of the day, but what you have to do is find that rational base within -- there are -- there do look to be 50 to 60 republicans that are willing to look at these issues in a way that i think most democrats do or at least reasonably. they're terrified of their own base. the challenge for barack obama is he can't remake the

republican party -- >> you have one big problem, the speaker of the house sets the schedule and the 50 or 60 people -- suppose the speaker says we're not going to bring it up. it's not going to be a vote. i worked up there. the speaker has a lot of power, john. your thoughts are valuable, but i think there's a problem there. >> the senate moves first. i think what john is saying is an important thing. both sides are arguing now that we can do this and not hurt anybody, and the reality of this conversation is this is about pain. this is about raising -- >> if you're going to reduce the debt. >> -- or cutting things people need. the obama line that we'll just take away corporate jet loopholes and -- >> or carried interest. >> or the republican line we're just going to get rid of boondoggles in vegas and stop certain research programs into video games, we'll be fine, both of them are false, and the american people are going to come to terms with the fact that the reality of the situation is that you can figure out the mix, you can figure out when it starts, how long it goes, the reality is they are going to lose something. >> here is one of the great oddities of this debate. take a good look at this map,

the united states. shown in green are the ones that pay more into federal taxes than they get back. the givers. and then look, with the exception of texas, all these states vote democratic actually. the states in yellow, the ones that get more from government than they pay. the yellow ones, the lawmakers there regularly rail against the federal government. john, here is your shot. the weirdness of this whole thing is that the conservatives out there, the people that really don't like the federal government, since andrew jackson's day, yet they benefit. when we have this big sequestration that goes after naval bases, army bases, usually tilts to the south. >> it takes us back to the debates back in the summer of 2011 when people showed up at tea party events and said, you know, i don't want the government messing with my medicare. the fact of the matter is that we have a real problem, and it is stoked, it is stoked by a group of players who operate within the republican party. what we desperately need right now is, frankly, a ronald reagan

or a barry goldwater, william f. buckley, somebody who will stand up to the irrational section of that party and say, look, i'm a big conservative, but we have got to be big kids. we have to operate in the real world. >> i think we need john wayne for this one. i'd say john wayne and the panama canal. i think you need somebody to say we got to get a lot bigger in our thinking. great having you on, john nichols and michael scherer of "time." this party is not big enough for two of us. that's basically what cpac said. they said chris christie, the one republican who actually looked good last year who doesn't turn off voters in the rest of the country -- as i have said before, keep it up guys, you're doing a great job. also tonight on "hardball," the pope and change. the catholic church needs to fix its problems. the celibate priesthood, is it working? the role of women? are they really getting a big enough role?

and the issue of birth control. and, of course, the priest scandals. as we've seen, no one has a solution to the sequester silliness, but everyone has their lines of attack ready just as we had them in previous crises. >> dealing with the white house is like dealing with a bowl of jell-o. >> i don't think they're kicking the can down the road. they're nudging the potato across the table with their nose. >> well, that's in the "sideshow." a lot of metaphors. let me finish with my hope that the college of cardinals selects someone who can embrace the future, not cling to the past. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios

she can't always move the way she wants. now you can. with stayfree ultra thins. flexible layers move with your body while thermocontrol wicks moisture away. keep moving. stayfree. it may be happening again. the republican party is one step closer to running a far right candidate for what could have been, maybe what will still be, a winnable senate seat. tom latham of iowa has decided not to run for the seat of tom harkin, potentially clearing the way for fellow congressman steve king who is far right. king is the guy who suggested president obama's parents may

have telegramed his birth announcement from kenya. but progressives shouldn't celebrate yet. while king could not win statewide in a presidential election, he may have a shot in the midterm election where fewer people vote, mostly republicans show up. so stay tuned. could be tricky. be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." the one big lesson in the republican -- the one they took away from the 2012 spanking was that it's time to broaden its base you'd think, but if they want to appeal to more people, then why would the conservative political action conference, cpac, not invite new jersey governor chris christie to speak at their annual meeting coming up? governor christie may be one of the few republicans who can nab votes from democrats and independents. a democrat state that hasn't gone republican in a presidential year since 1988. well, the head of american conservative union, al cardenas, defended the decision to snub christie saying, quote, governor

christie was invited to cpac last year because he did a great job in nj. this past year he strongly advocated for the passage of a 60-plus billion dollar pork barrel bill, and he signed up with the federal government to expand medicaid at a time when his state can ill afford it. so he was not invited back to speak. christie responded to the noninvitation in typical christie fashion. here he is. >> i didn't know that i hadn't been invited to cpac until like two days ago when i saw it in the news. so, yeah, apparently i haven't been invited. i wish them all the best. they will have their conference, a bunch of people speaking there. they don't want to invite me, that's their call. it's their organization, it's their business. and they get to decide who they want to have come and not come. it's not like i'm lacking for invitations to speak both here and around the country. it's not like i have a whole lot of openings in my schedule. i can't sweat the small stuff. i got a state to rebuild.

>> well, i can't sweat the small stuff. i got a state to rebuild. he had this one ready. i don't think he thought of that one on the spur of the moment. roger simon is chief political columnist for the great politico. michelle goldberg is a contributor for the daily beast. you know, i have to say, michelle, you're up in new york -- where are you? >> i'm in new york. >> in that whole metropolitan area as i have been able to figure, just like in the days when ed koch was popular, you sort of share the media market. it's the biggest media market in the country. 11% of the people watching now are in new york basically. he's big. he's big in connecticut. he's big in jersey. i assume he's huge in pennsylvania. they're all in those media markets up there. they like the style of the guy. why would you say we don't want your kind, which is really what they're saying, at our convention? why are they doing this? >> because he deviated from republican orthodoxy. what's funny is it was just last year you will remember when republicans, including very conservative republicans, were basically begging christie to save them from the moderate squish mitt romney. now romney is speaking at cpac, christie is not invited, and

it's because you said before that republicans agree that they need to expand their tent. i'm not sure that all conservatives do agree with that. i think that there's a lot of conservatives who take the lesson from this election that they take from every lost election, which is that their candidate lost because he wasn't conservative enough, and so rather than expand the tent, they're kind of getting even more ideologically pure. you know, they're also not allowing go proud, the conservative gay group, to participate in cpac. >> i know that part. let's stick to christie. i agree with that. that's a weird thing. like there's no gay conservatives. let's go with pork barrel spending. in other words, not only adding insult to injury, they're going -- they're saying we're not going to invite christie, by the way, helping save new jersey and places like staten island and new york and rockaways and breezy point, saving them is pork barrel. why does he talk like this? >> it's ridiculous on two levels. first of all, accusing a governor of liking pork barrel is like accusing a ballerina of

-- >> how about emergency relief? >> getting pork is what politicians do. secondly, christie wanted relief -- >> was that a shot at the fact he's a big guy? pork barrel? was that a little shot at him? i wonder. >> you want relief for people devastated by a hurricane. we gave relief to people on the gulf coast and in new orleans devastated -- >> we give relief to bali. >> so why not people in new jersey? >> i think pork barrel -- let's take a look at the polling on this guy, michelle. and i think most politicians today are lucky and the president is doing decently well right now, he's lucky to get a 50% in our numbers this week. a 50%, just basically half the country likes me. well, look at this guy. three-quarters of the state in new jersey, that includes a hell of a lot of deep down regular democrat voters, democratic voters in a state that has a good chunk of minorities and all the liberal reasons to be big urban liberals and look at the numbers he's pulling. he's getting almost every imaginable vote.

>> part of the reason he's popular is because he's not the kind of conservative that cpac embraces. cpac would never -- a candidate who spoke only to cpac audiences would never be so successful in deep blue new jersey. because he has a reputation as an independent, because he has a reputation as someone who will -- who will put the state's welfare above the kind of conservative orthodoxy, you know, that's why he's beloved right now, but that's also why the party is angry at him. >> let me tell you about my home crowd, which includes some conservative catholics. you know why they like him? he's pro-life. he's not going to mess around with the constitution, but he's pro-life. he has the right values by their standards. he's a regular family guy. italian, part irish. he fits that mold of reagan democrat. the kind of people that switched to the republican party under ronald reagan. >> but michelle has put her finger on it. the republican party now is suspicious of anybody who is popular with the bulk of americans. >> you're being sarcastic.

you don't mean that. you mean they don't like people that win? >> cpac figures this guy is popular, there's got to be something wrong with him. >> when did that start, that new dispensation? reagan -- >> it started when ideology began driving the party rather than getting somebody elected to office. >> yeah. must be something. i was going to do the groucho marx line, but i can't fit it in here. some on the right don't agree with the decision not to invite christie to speak. here is charles krauthammer, a pretty conservative guy, on fox on tuesday. >> i think this is a vast overreaction, it's a mistake. he's a leading republican. he's obviously presidential timbre. he's got the highest popularity of any governor, and he's in a blue state. look, i wasn't very happy with what he did at sandy. i thought he deserved three months in quarantine. the three months is up. and i let him out. i have him at cpac. we should have a wide tent. >> good old charles. i thought he was going to be kind for a second.

but he said after you have put him in the stocks for three months and whipped him a few times, then you can let him show up at your little meeting over at harbor place. what do you think of that? your last thought from michelle? isn't that amazing the way charles gives his knife kisses? >> that's about as nice as they're going to get. what i think is that the republican party is still kind of in the process of imploding, and the problem isn't so much that he's not invited to cpac, it's that there's no counterweight to cpac. there's no republican equivalent of the democratic leadership committee, no republican engine of reformation. >> i will leave one thought as a tv guy now, that picture of them working together on the shores of jersey was the one happy note that the american public got to see in this whole election. the one time they were proud to be americans. they said this is what it should look like. they're not the best friends on the planet, but they worked together. >> you know who wins presidential elections?

the most likable candidates. chris christie is a likable guy. >> my god, i love it when we have occam's razor right here. michelle goldberg and roger simon. thank you both. up next, this week's spending cuts showdown is the fifth fiscal crisis since republicans took over the house of representatives, and since then we have heard wild analogies and colorful language from both sides. that's coming up on "hardball." and this is "hardball," the place for politics. so, this board gives me rates for progressive direct and other car insurance companies? yes.

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back to "hardball." now to the "sideshow." we're inching closer to the deadline when the massive overhaul of spending cuts goes into effect. it looks like those in congress are not at all close to a deal, and the blame game has reached a climax. you may have noticed with all the budget negotiations we've seen over the past few years from the debt ceiling to the fiscal cliff and now to the spending cuts, people on both sides get inventive with their lines of attack during the final

showdown. vegetables, baloney, satan, we've heard it all. let's take a look back. >> dealing with the white house is like dealing with a bowl of jell-o. >> we might as well do it now. pull off the band-aid. eat our peas. >> several trains have left the station. it's a decision about which train we'll be riding when we get to the next station. >> you have been quoted as calling this agreement a sugar coated satan sandwich. was that indeed your quote? is that the how you feel about this deal? >> it's a very accurate quote. what i'm saying is if you lift the bun, what you see is antithetical to everything the great religions of the world teach. until we see the details, we're going to be extremely noncommitted, but on the surface it looks like a satan sandwich. >> our plan "b" would protect american taxpayers who make $1 million or less. >> plan "b"? i would call it plan befuddled. it's really hard to imagine why they even came up with it. >> if congress allowed this meat cleaver approach to take place. >> our military chiefs don't have the ability to place those

cuts thoughtfully. they have to go through in a baloney slice way and cut across the board. >> wake up. use your brain for god's sake. >> i don't think they're kicking the can down the road. i think they're nudging the potato across the table with their nose. >> everybody knows you don't like each other, and you're trying to pretend you do. go see the movie "lincoln." >> this is not a cliff, but it is a tumble downward. >> we have a deadline facing us. we're practically becoming a drive-by congress. >> we should not have to move a third bill before the senate gets off their ass and begins to do something. >> i think he should understand who is sitting on their posterior. >> we may have reached a new low when variations on the word backside have entered the equation. up next, pope benedict has officially stepped down, and the search can begin for his successor, but the church is in crisis, and it needs the next pope to right the ship, and that's ahead, and this is "hardball," the place for politics.

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♪ we're back. 85-year-old pope benedict, the

former joseph ratzinger, made history today when he left the vatican in a helicopter from rome to the papal summer home, castel gandolfo, for the first phase of his retirement. in his final tweet as pope he said, quote, thank you for your love and support. may you always experience the joy that comes from putting christ at the center of your lives. his departure ushers in a new era for the church and the more than 1 billion catholics worldwide, and soon more than 100 cardinals will meet in conclave to select a new pope and decide the future of the faith. george weigel is our nbc news vatican analyst, and tom roberts is managing editor of "the national catholic reporter" and author of "the emerging catholic church." george, you know, in american presidential politics, we always try to correct for the latest president. you know, we had truman who had too much of a kansas city problem, so we brought in mr. clean eisenhower. we had nixon and ford, so we brought in a guy who had never been involved in politics or been to washington, carter. and we brought in reagan because he was seen as strong, and carter was seen as weak. what will they try to correct in

history in this conclave? >> well, chris, i don't think conclaves work quite the way american politics works, which is probably good news for all of us. i think the cardinals are looking for a charismatic, missionary, evangelical pastor, someone with real experience with people, someone who can present the church's proposal to the world with confidence and good humor, and i think they're also looking for a man who can hire someone, an effective cardinal secretary of state, to take a grip on the vatican, to take a good look at reforming the roman curia. at the present moment it's not functioning very well at all. so i think that's the package deal that people may be looking for here. the charismatic pastor out front and mr. inside to clean up business here in rome. >> tom, let me ask you, tom roberts, the same question.

will they go for a ceo or chairman of the board sort of figure and then hoping or believing he would be the right person to pick a tough operating officer who would clean up the problems? >> well, in this case i agree with george. i think that they do need a pastor -- i think all the qualifications george laid out would mean jesus would have to be in the conclave running for pope, but i think somewhere short of that they need a good pastor and someone who can convince the world, but i think a deeper problem that the people in the conclave -- the cardinals in the conclave will confront is the question about themselves. how do they become credible religious leaders at a time when the church is really, i think, besieged by the scandal. how do they regain authenticity, how do they regain the trust of the community? i think it's going to be a central -- it's an underlying question, and one that's more reflective than what kind of manager and what kind of, you know, internal management do you need, but i think that's a central question to it.

>> george, do you think that -- let's just talk practical. the members of the college of cardinals, do they think that the church's challenge is to re-examine the very concept of a celibate priesthood? are they in the mood or in the condition now to think, you know, these scandals are not accidental. they have something to do with the challenge we put before the men who become priests, to give up sex for life, and is that discipline workable today? are they going to get to that kind of question, which obviously has something to do with the scandals? >> chris, i don't think so. the celibate priesthood is a 2,000-year-old tradition in the latin rite church, and, moreover, i don't think anyone ought to think of marriage as a remedy for sexually immature people. marriage is not a crime prevention program. the enormous problem of sexual abuse of clergy, which has scarred the church throughout

the world, is fundamentally a problem of faith. it's men who have not understood and internalized the faith of the church, made that the center of their lives, and since we know from all of the sociological studies that the sexual abuse of the young is a societal-wide plague and happens most prominently and most disturbingly within families, it's very hard for anyone to say that a married clergy helps solve that problem. >> well, frank bruni the other day in "the new york times," i know he's a liberal, but, tom, i want to ask you, he said the problem is the very nature of the celibate priesthood is unreasonable, that very few men are willing to give up sex for life whether they're heterosexual or gay or whatever, that they're willing to -- and mean it and be able to act on it, and that's why you had situations like keith o'brien who was the chief -- head of the catholic church in the united kingdom. wasn't going after kids.

he was making overtures to other priests, young priests. so the question obtains. do they have a challenge they're going to face or are they going to move onto the question of salesmanship and management rather than to central discipline questions? like the priesthood which is the celibacy issues and discipline issue, it's not a matter of doctrine? >> yeah. i think the celibacy issue will -- i don't think it's going to be part of the conclave discussion. i also -- i would agree with george that a married clergy is not going to solve that problem because sexual abuse does occur everywhere. the distinction in the church and the thing that's not been addressed is the fact that bishops could send priests to any number of diocese, from parish to parish, even to other countries, and the missing link in all the church has done to try to solve this problem is there's no accountability on the part of bishops. i'm sitting here in kansas city,

missouri, today where there's a bishop who is criminally convicted of a count of endangering children for not reporting a priest, and he's still a bishop. there's nothing being done about it. so i think that the question of celibacy is far more complex than the thing -- the way that mr. bruni talked about it. i also think that we have married priests from other traditions, and it's not a 2,000-year-old tradition. it's about 600 years old, but the point is i think the sex abuse problem is far more complex and far more involving the leadership of the church than the individual accounts. >> let me ask you, george, about this question of cardinal timothy -- cardinal dolan of new york. he's a very attractive guy in so many ways, and he's very american and regular, if you will. a guy's guy, if you will. i'm wondering, does he have a shot or is this just american home cooking thinking he does at the papacy? >> chris, i think what we used to call the super power veto, the notion that you couldn't have an american pope because

the united states was the hyperpower as the french foreign minister once called us, i think that's gone. >> wow. >> there is no overwhelming super power of the sort that was the case immediately after the cold war, and i have said on several of our broadcasts during the day and indeed during this previous week, i don't think a north american pope is out of the question. >> you mean the quebec archbishop may have a better shot? >> cardinal ouellet. i think a number of north american cardinals are going to get a look in this conclave, and that's something really quite striking. on the other hand, chris, it probably shouldn't be that surprising because given the very difficult circumstances of the catholic church in europe, it's really falling through the floorboards in a number of places. the catholic church in the united states looks like a pretty vital and vibrant place. all sorts of problems, all sorts

of contentions. my friend tom roberts and i have been arguing about these things for years. but it's still a vital, vibrant catholicism, and that's going to be attractive. >> it's great to hear from you and great to hear that. george weigel, tom roberts, thank you for joining us. i'll be getting over there when we see that white smoke. up next, a big question about the way we live in this country. should people be able to work from home at home? it's a hot debate at a very well-known company, and you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

bloomberg reports that carolyn kennedy, the daughter of president john f. kennedy, is the leading candidate to become president obama's pick as ambassador to japan. bloomberg reports that the president signed off on this, but the vetting process isn't yet complete. caroline kennedy along with her uncle, the late senator ted kennedy, were early supporters of president obama's campaign for president. you remember that high profile campaign event in january of 2008 at american university here in washington. the symbolic passing of the torch from the kennedys to obama. there it is. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." this week one of the most high profile leaders in u.s. business, marissa mayer of yahoo!, who just happens to be a 37-year-old new mother, made a bold decision to turn around her troubled company. she wants employees who work remotely usually from home to come back to work.

to be physically present in the office. the decision set off a nationwide debate and struck a nerve with some. some say she's the boss, and if she wants her employees in the office, that's her call. others say it's a step back in the evolution of work and life accommodation and puts an extra burden on workers, male and female, who simply can't afford child care or the luxury of a nursery adjacent to where they work as mayer has. joining me is lauren ashburn and bonnie fuller, president and editor in chief of celebrity website hollywoodlife.com and also a former editor of such popular magazines as "cosmo" and "marie claire." let me start with you, lauren. should you be allowed to work at home? is that as productive and useful for the office -- >> yes, of course it is. of course it is. and i'd quit if marissa mayer came to me and said you have to be in the office every day. look, as a working mother, i have a lot of different things pulling on me and so do other

working mothers and fathers, and i am a much better employee -- or i was until i quit because of flexibility issues -- but i was a much better employee when i could be flexible. it's not right for everyone to be working outside of the office, and it's not right for everyone to be working in the office. is it her actual call? of course it's her call. she can do whatever she wants. it's yahoo!, but i would quit. >> where does the best work get done, bonnie? best work? home or at the office? >> i'm a mother also, and i am also a boss. i have a great team at hollywoodlife.com. i have always found it's been best for all of us to gather in the office, to be able to put our heads together, to be able to exchange ideas and be able to do that at any time, and when new developments come up, when news comes up, when there's any sort of emergency, hey, we're all there, and we can work it out together. so i completely understand what

marissa mayer is trying to do. plus, she's got a company that needs to be driven forward. she's there to make change. so she has to do what's necessary. >> but, bonnie, don't you think, though, that she's going to be losing really good talent because of a decision that is inflexible? there has to be some sort of middle ground at companies. it's not right for everyone. but you're going to lose a lot of women and men. >> well, what we don't know is if it is totally inflexible. i'm sure that, yahoo will make accommodations for excellent employees who need to sometimes work at home or perhaps need to stay working at home. and i'm sure if they prove themselves and prove that they're productive, they'll be able to do so. >> it doesn't say that right now. >> look at these excerpts from the actual memo that was sent out from the yahoo human resources head. yahoo, proprietary and confidential information.

do not forward. it goes onto say that beginning in june, all yahoo employees with work-from-home arrangements will be required to come into the office. speed and quality are often sacrificed when working if home. we need to be one yahoo. it extends beyond just the work-from-home types. please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration. so that gets to the question -- i want to go back to lauren. i've got family members with very high i.q.s who do a lot of work that's pretty sophisticated work -- >> and your wife, don't forget your wife. >> but she doesn't work from home. they've got to either pick them up or get them off. they have the cable guy coming, they have to intersperse work for their families.

it seems that that's the way they work and maybe they'll go back to the office full time later. you don't want to say get on the mommy track. skip 15 years of work like the good wife does and then finally get back in the law firm when you're 45 and people think it will be all right. >> it's not going to be that way. women are women's worst enemy. marissa happens to be beautiful, young, rich, hundred million dollar package. she can do that kind of thing. but a lot of other women absolutely can't. and women are much more successful. if you give them some leeway to take care of their children and to work. i would get up at 6:00 in the morning, do some work, get the kids out and then i would take them and, you know, you need to have that in order to be productive. >> okay. go ahead. >> but, listen. would we even really be having this big of a discussion if marissa mayer wasn't a woman? let's not forget she was

pregnant and she took a lot of heat because she took the job when she was five months preg nant and then she only two two weeks of maternity leave. would we be having this discussion if she was a male ceo who took these orders? >> absolutely not. >> explain to me. >> most companies do have a policy where employees are expected tocome into work. i think it was a more unusual policy to have hundreds who weren't there. >> the media loved to build people up and then they love to tear them down. >> okay. this is being generalized too much. let me go back to this. one of them said if a male had done this, it wouldn't be an issue. what do you mean by that? just explain that. >> a male isn't normally the care giver of thechildren. traditionally. that is changing. but here we have a woman. a young woman. who just had a baby who, don't

forget, built a nursery next to her office. and now she's telling other people that they can't take care of their children in a way that works best for them and their job? >> okay, thank you, lauren ashburn. thank you very much to somebody really rich, as you pointed out. a hundred million dollar person a year can probably take the shot. thank you from both sides. when we return, let me tell you my hopes for the next pope. he's going to need to be strong, young and, yes, liberal. [ male announcer ] this is the opposite of subliminal advertising... there's no subtext... just tacos. yeah, it's our job to make you want it. but honestly... it's not that hard. old el paso. when you gotta have mexican.