people. they called it an act of self-defense but for nearly three years, israel and turkey, two of america's closest allies, have been in a war of words. that is, until today. in an unexpected move of sheer diplomacy, the president orchestrated a ten-minute phone call on the tarmac in tel-aviv. israel prime minister benjamin netanyahu called turkey's prime minister and apologized for that deadly raid, apologized for nine deaths and vowed to pay their family. at one point mr. obama, just before leaving for jordan, got on the phone with both leaders and they spoke. one senior american official said, this is obama diplomacy at work. the leaders agreed to restore normal relations. so that is real, tangible success and it shows the success of the trip. but then there are symbolic

successes. today he went to former israeli prim minister's grave. he was assassinated by an extremist. as is customary in a jewish tradition, he placed a stone on the grave but this stone had powerful symbolism. it came from the martin luther king memorial in washington. the president, connecting one civil rights and human rights leader to another, it's the melting of history, disconnection, the connection of the civil rights movement. that's the president brought throughout his trip. >> the story of the exodus was perhaps the central story, the most powerful image about emerging from the grip of bondage to reach for liberty and human dignity, carried from

slavery through the civil rights movement into today. >> african-americans and jewish americans march with rabbis carrying as they walked. they boarded buses for freedom rights together. they bled together, gave their lives together. >> this is our obligation, not simply to bear witness but to act. for us, in our time, this means confronting bigotry and hatred in all of its forms. >> confronting it in all of its forms all over the world. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. shameless. let's play "hardball". ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. i hated the iraq war, said so

when i saw it coming. have said so since. the only time i held back from that early criticism which began when i saw the run up coming was in the early days and when it looked like our forces were being well received when i had no real choice, but to root that the forces that suffered already were being justified. who in this country would not have held that hope especially since it was too late to do anything else? i would much rather america succeed, by the way and be wrong than the other way around. anyway, but here we are, the other way around. it turns out in my opposition to the iraq war was well considered. the war didn't liberate people. it did what anyone could have predicted and it put the shia in power, took the sunni out of power and removed the buffer from iran. gave iran an ally and did nothing to bring peace to the middle east which is why the shamelessness of the hawks is so obnoxious today. the people who took us into this ruthless propaganda now slink

back into quiet, proud, i don't know what to think of a better word for it than shamelessness. they never come clean in selling the war. they will never come clean in admitting how naft they succeeded in it. you will know the height to which they rose and the depths that they descended to hiding their guilt. he's opposed it from the beginning and ron susskin has won a pulitzer prize and author of " confidence men." recently appeared about a showtime document about life and legacy and says he doesn't have any regrets. let's watch cheney. >> i did what i did. it's all on the public record, and i feel very good about it. if i had to do it all over again, i'd do it in a minute. >> cheney's right about one thing. it is all in the public record and what would that record show?

what it shows is an unbelievable string lies, distortions and inept analysis on the part of him, the former v.p. take a look. >> regime change in iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. when the gravest of threats are eliminated the freedom-loving peoples of the region would have the chance to promote values that could bring lasting peace. >> simply stated, there is no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us. >> do you think the american people are prepared for a long, costly and bloody battle with a significant american casualties? >> i don't -- i don't think it's likely to unfold that way, tim, because i think we will be greeted as liberators. >> i remember at the time it showed a modest majority of americans that opposed the war that would bring a significant level of casualty. the selling of the war announced not just that the war was

justified and would have a limited cost. an insignificant level of casualties by americans and look what happened. your thoughts? >> you know, this was not either a war of choice nor a war of necessity as tim russert said. it was a war of will. simply the will of cheney, bush and the team. it was a matter of how to do it, find me a way to do this and 9/11 provided that excuse. what's interesting is when you look at the whole chain of events, is how many lies there were. this was not a question of them wondering about wmd. it is a question of building a case that they knew would be hollow and figuring out once they were successful and once the troops were in there and on the ground, no one would care about the rationale that just caused, so to speak, for what gets us into iraq. ultimately, it shows itself to be a lie that was cynical and one that was pre-ordained and premeditated from the start of

the administration. >> you know, i attribute it to something grander than evidence. it's my experience of dealing with cheney over the years. his brain soup. certain people are hawks and some people tend to be sadistic about it. sadistic. cheney strikes me as a guy who wants to rub out his enemies politically. any enemy. >> what you -- >> david first. >> what you see in the clip that you just showed in the showtime fill p film by l.j. cutler was a complete absence of self-reflection. no regrets. no we could have done it better. if we could do it all, i might have done this. >> do you think he enjoys this stuff? >> i think he believes and this may be psychotic on his part that eventually he will be redeemed and justified, but lawrence wilkinson in the documentary -- >> the chief of staff to colin powell. >> that will be on later tonight had a great word for this. he describes very simply what ron just said. he called it a hoax, and when you sell a hoax you've got two things.

you've got to want it to happen and you have to believe it a little bit and you have to have somewhat of a psychological imperative and maybe a psychotic personality to make it work. >> you're thought, ron? >> you know, when you have a big lie, you've got to have a big denial to follow it and the denial's got to be resilient. one of this size is the type that people go to the grave with, and it's hard to watch cheney, and the whole gang of neocons smiling at the camera saying now what do we do? next syria, next iran because the fundamental principle of this whole gang is one they still believe in preemptive war that the united states is the lone super power in the world and has a right to invade any country for any reason we decide. we don't even have to give the reason. that's the notion of preemptive war and they thought iraq would be a demonstration model and of course, it's a demonstration model of the very opposite of

the limits of u.s. power when we strip ourselves was fundamental principles that have defined us as a nation, but right now, we just will look at the camera and not flinch because the fact is that they've left themselves little choice and it's hard to listen to at this moment, chris, because a real discussion about these ideas about preemption which is their big concept, their big domino theory actually would be good for the american people, but they won't do it. >> they're never going to oppose the idea of aggressive war because this is aggressive war and we're part of it now. in the run-up to the war in iraq nobody was a bigger hawk than richard pearl, a real intellectual, a member of the pentagon's defense policy board. he repeatedly asserted that saddam hussein had ties to osama bin laden and was feverishly working to acquire a nuclear bomb and he promised, richard pearl did, that the war would be over in a matter of months. this week he was asked a very important question. i think it's a good question. his nonanswer is informative. let's listen. >> ten years later, nearly 5,000 american troops dead, thousands more with wounds, hundreds of

thousands of iraqis dead or wounded, when you think about this, was it worth it? >> i've got to say i think that is not a reasonable question. what we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation. you can't, a decade later go back and say we shouldn't have done that. >> so don't ask whether he should have gone in or not. another unrepentant war hawk. he was deputy secretary of the defense at the time of the invasion and here's what he wrote on fox news' website this week. as a strictly military matter if the war in iraq had ended when we got to baghdad it would have been victory. the point is the war went sour after the occupation began. if only someone had thought about that what happened after we invaded the country. back in 2003 he didn't seem too concerned about that. take a listen. >> there's been a good deal of comments and some of it quite

outlandish about what our post-war requirements in iran. some of the higher end predictions such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand u.s. troops to provide stability in post-saddam iraq are wildly off the mark. first, it's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-saddam iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure saddam's security forces in his army. hard to imagine. >> you know -- >> i've never mastered the ability to speak as if every word of opinion i offer is a fact that's been received. it's already done and there's been a verdict cast. these neo-cons and many of them can be charming people. perle certainly is, and they're great to have dinner and they're fine, but they speak in a manner with total, absolute conviction

or salesmanship, if you will, translates that it sounds like that's true when they argue things that they haven't been established and they deny they can go in there easy and it will be an easy war and we'll get the cheap oil and everything will be great and hardly anybody will get killed and they say it as if they're god. how do you explain that, ron. >> well, it's the notion of ideology. we have history's big idea. we may go to our grave not having the proof that we desire, but we will not flinch. we will stick to the script and remember, this is a gang of guys that have been together for a very long time, chris. they've got to scrape down and they don't want to be challenged what richard perle says don't ask why. did those young people die in vain, and that's the question that crushes them and that's why they're running right now as best they can. >> i wish in a way it would crush them because i don't see that crushing. i was driving in the car two days ago with my 13-year-old daughter when i heard that

interview with richard perle. she looked at me when she said that's not a reasonable question and says who is this man? >> and what did you say? >> he's one of the people who gave us this war. >> i mean, to say that it's not a reasonable question to look at the cost of your action afterward to see if it justifies it and when paul wolfowitz says the only problem is that, you know, the war went on after we reached baghdad otherwise it had been great up until then is almost like saying if we had an arm of a million giant flying robots things would have turned out better. it's denying reality and to ron's point, you ask them how can they think this way, they're not concerned with the real world, with expertise, with measuring cost and benefits because they think they're above it. they don't pay the costs. this is all a giant lab experiment for them and they know better than the intelligence people, they know better than the -- >> it's a stupid answer, though. because admiral yamamoto who is not a bad guy, he didn't want to

attack us at pearl harbor, he'd he would have said, if it had stopped at pearl harbor, it would have been a good war for us. from the time we arrived in baghdad, the war was over. no, it just began! >> your last thought, ryan. >> they ran an experiment on the whole globe and it failed and at this point that's why you have truth and reconciliation commissions. give everyone immunity, but at least get the truth out so we can have reconciliation before these guys leave the stage. >> thank you. i think that's a good idea. i wouldn't mind some water boarding along the way and get some information on these guys. >> it's not torture. >> it's not torture. hey, mr. cheney, you don't think this is torture and how about trying out this machine and maybe we'll get truth out of you. just kidding. >> we don't believe in that stuff, do we? >> you were a great reporter and a great author. thank you for coming on. >> my pleasure. >> as was said here and promotion here as well, we'll

re-air the terrific document and the highest-rated show in the history of this network was this program tonight. if you didn't see it, see it tonight. friday night. "hubris" based orn the book by mr. david corn about the fraudulent case for the iraq war and right after that we'll have a discussion. i'll be part of that panel to talk about how the bush administration misled the country into this costly war. is certainly was a destructive war. give it two hours and you'll know an awful lot by 11:00 eastern and of course, it will be at 9:00 and then at 10:00 those two parts. coming up, welcome to the new gop, the part where reasonable people can't say reasonable things. we have evidence of that and an example just the other day. ohio governor john kasich said he's in civil unions. one day later the staffer said the governor didn't mean that. what? he did mean it. he wasn't allowed to say it. in today's gop, if you're not far right, you're wrong. also, we learned that newt

gingrich and rick santorum secretly talked about forming a massive ticket to topple mitt romney. what happened? big surprise. they couldn't agree on who was going to be president and who was going to be vice president. tonight, a great story of political mating and eventually cold feet. plus, it's hard for michele bachmann to top herself but she's done it not once but twice this week, including that obama care, love this word, is killing people. remember the death squads and death panels. she's back with them again. michele bachmann pants on fire fact check coming later in the show. let me talk about the fringe right to know even a smidgen of history. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ bop ] [ bop ] [ bop ] yan all you want, i don't like v8 juice.

[ male announcer ] how about v8 v-fusion. a full serving of vegetables, a full serving of fruit. but what you taste is the fruit. so even you... could've had a v8. has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy. next week the supreme court hears arguments on the two big cases about same-sex marriage. what a week it's going to be and people are lining up right now in front of the supreme court already ensuring they'll get a chance to watch the arguments live in that building. anyway, on tuesday the court will hear challenges to

california's same-sex marriage ban known as prop 8. on wednesday the justices will hear arguments challenging the federal defense of marriage act, doma. what a week. the line began forming last night as our own justice department correspondent pete williams points out it may be the earliest we've ever seen a crowd form up there at the supreme court. we'll be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] from the way the bristles move to the way they clean, once you try an oral-b deep sweep power brush, you'll never go back to a regular manual brush. its three cleaning zones with dynamic power bristles reach between teeth with more brush movements to remove up to 100% more plaque than a regular manual brush. and even 76% more plaque than sonicare flexcare in hard to reach areas. oral-b deep sweep 5000 power brush. life opens up when you do.

welcome back to "hardball." the republican party has moved so far right that any time a hint of reasonableness creeps into a republican's comments especially comments from an elected republican that person is quickly snapped back into line. that's what happened this week when ohio governor john kasich who i liked changed his position on gay civil unions. let's watch what he said. >> rob portman made news this past week with his position on gay marriage and changing it because of his son coming out. could you ever see a position, a time when you yourself might change your position?

>> i really can't see one. i mean, i talked to rob and encouraged him, and, you know, if people want to have civil unions and have some way to transfer the resources i'm for that. i just think marriage is between a man and a woman, but if you want to have a civil union, that's fine with me. >> twice he said that one answer it's okay to have civil unions and gay marriage and civil unions are no small matter in ohio. in 2004, a ballot measure out in the general election amending the ohio constitution to outright ban gay marriage and civil unions and that was with the evangelical vote, and that's w.'s favor and winning him the presidential election with john customer k kerry. it was a huge issue in 2004 and it was against gay marriage and civil unions. the cleveland playing dealer was all over kasich's comment reporting that ohio governor john kasich saying he supports civil unions for same-sex couples and went on to quote the spokesperson, this is a staple

from the spokesperson, the governor's position is unchanged. he opposes gay marriage and opposes changing ohio's constitution to allow for civil unions. well, so much for that. and he's far from the first republican to feel the heat from the fringe. joining me right now is msnbc contributor ron reagan and errol lewis. first, i'll comment on that one. kasich is a fine guy, a bit of a maverick and he's had a tough life in many ways and he says what comes to mind and he's thinking out loud and he says you know what? i'm not ready to go all of the way on my position, but civil union, i can live with that and civil you know knows and he said it again and within hours his flack comes out with a written statement to make sure it's getting picked up saying he

didn't say what we heard him just say, ron. what's going on here? >> he gave is straight. he seemed to demonstrate that on the one hand he doesn't really have a position that he is susceptible to pressure from the right and he also demonstrated and this is relevant to the republican party as a whole that he's way behind the curve of history now. the public, as a whole is moving in a pretty clear wye this issue and mr. kasich seems to be moving and the republicans in the opposite direction. this is a recipe to end up in the ash can of history. >> you know, it's unfortunate when somebody won't stand up and fight for their principles which appears to be the case on some level with the governor. more important, though, is the party and the conservative forces that maybe made him backtrack because it's the governors who are sort of the secret weapon of the republican party, if they ever want to get back into national power in the way that they'd hoped. >> why are they? >> they are the ones who deal with practical matters and somebody like a chris christie

in new jersey or nikki haley in south carolina and rick perry in texas and ideally maybe even governor romney in massachusetts. they deal across the aisle and they deal with the practical issues and they can help the party sort of see where the country's going and move ahead in a practical matter and take credit for it if the party is smart enough to take advantage of that. >> practicality, bipartisan thinking and nonideological thinking is the reason why people liked republican governors so easily. they don't like to make a big ideological choice and giving a reasonable bipartisan, nonideological answer. i haven't thought much about it and it sounds fine to me. it's a reasonable answer as a gi that doesn't give much thought to something and even if you're a governor. >> anyway, here's another example. on monday morning at a press conference to review the rnc's 2012 autopsy, the chairman of

the party, reince priebus, had kind words for senator rob portman who came out in favor of gay marriage. let's listen. >> how do you rein in the anti-gay and anti-women sentiments and bring these voters into the fold and who in the political arena do you think are the rising stars to accomplish this? >> i think senator portman made pretty big inroads last week. but i think it's about being decent. i think it's about dignity and respect that nobody deserves to have their dignity diminished and people don't deserve to be disrespected. >> later in that same day in the national review article to rnc, don't be pandering idiots. ralph reid cautioned against any softening on opposition to gay rights saying if the republican party tries to retreat from being a pro-marriage, pro-family party the big tent will become a pop very fast, and by the time priebus was on this network on wednesday he was back towing the party line. let's listen after he was snapped back into line here.

>> i know what our principles are and i know our party believes marriage is between one man and one woman, but i also know that we have a party that's going to be inclusive and is going to listen to people and will allow differences of opinion in our party. >> let me go back to you, ron, n on th what does that mean? in other words, if you're against gay couples who were together, women or men who were together five years, ten years and have better relationships than a lot of people who are straight, perhaps, in some cases and want to make that official legally and they've established the fact that they'll live together and have relations and they just want to be recognized and to some extent, appreciated by society. that isn't exactly wild living and that's not encouraging a lifestyle choice. that's recognizing love, to be a little bit romantic about it and recognizing reality, too. >> priebus digs himself a deeper hole here because he brings up principle, there is no principle here involved with marriage

being a man and a woman. that's a preference. i'll give you an example of a principle, though. equality under the law. mr. priebus and the republican party appear to be prepared to throw equality under the law under the bus in order to pander to people who are bigoted. i don't think that's a recipe for success for the future. >> you've got to feel for reince priebus a little bit. he's a guy that knows how to count votes and he's trying to explain to the rest of his party that the votes aren't going to be looking like they are not going in their favor if they don't change some of this stuff. he's trying to move people forward and he's having quite a time of it. let me throw out a shocker for you. in utah, salt lake city went for barack obama. i don't know how many wake-up calls the party will have to get before they realize they'll need to make some changes. >> that's why i started working

in campaigns out there and there are reasonable people in salt lake city, i shouldn't say that. there are a lot of reasonable people in salt lake city. thank you, ron reagan and thank you, errol lewis. up next, chris christie meets the press. the third grade press. literally. the third grad press. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ what are you doing? licking the cream off these oreo cookies. that's stupid. you're wasting the best part. shuh, says the man without a helicopter. wait, don't go! [ male announcer ] choose your side at oreo.com.

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back to "hardball." now the "sideshow." first the week with chris christie and new jersey younger generation. it's not unusual on whether christie will get questions on whether he'll run for president and not usually from someone who won't be able to vote in 2016. >> i'm a third grader at the elementary school. um, you've done a great job here in new jersey, and i was wondering if you were thinking about running for the president. >> do you work for msnbc? i'm not thinking about running

for president right now because i've got a job to do here, and i've got an obligation to all these folks. you can't worry about fourth grade until you finish third grade, you know? i can't worry about this until i do this job. >> earlier in the week christie took on an even younger crowd. a class of kindergartners. >> did you come here in a limo? >> no, i came here in something even better. i came in in a helicopter. >> whoa! >> it landed on your field over there. what was i doing? >> nothing. >> nothing? that's pretty usual. probably just talking, right? that's what this job is about, a lot of talking. >> was the president's wife enchanting? >> was the president's wife ent chanting? yes, actually, she was. she's very smart and she's very nice. >> good hit as we say in politics. next, if nothing else,

georgia republican saxby chambliss leads the week with comments that leaves you thinking, what's that supposed to mean? on whether he would change his position on gay marriage. chambliss says i'm not gay, so i'm not going to marry one. chambliss is not alone in making a situation based on his own person situation. first former senator john kyl of arizona. in '09 he wanted to cut out the part that required employers to cover basic maternity care because it made everyone's insurance more expensive. >> i don't need maternity care, and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that i don't need and will make the policy more expensive. >> that's big thinking. anyway, a colleague of his later pointed out that kyl's mother likely needed some services at one point and then there was the fiasco overstates affected by hurricane sandy.

back in january, 67 house republicans voted against providing flood insurance for sandy victims and it turns out that 37 of them have a history of supporting aid after natural disasters when their own states were affected. missouri congressman sam graves was one of them, and here's what he said in 2011 when his state was dealing with a severe flood damage. i urge the president to approve this assistance without delay. many communities along the river have been stretched to the limit preparing for and fighting this unprecedented flood. finally, oklahoma senator jim inhofe in 2006 had this to say during a debate on gay marriage again. >> as you see here, and i think this maybe is the most important prop that we'll have during the entire debate. >> my wife and i have been married 47 years. we have 20 kids and grandkids. i'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family we've never had a divorce or any kind of a homosexual relationship. >> so, mr. inhofe lives in a world of straight, marital perfection.

la dee da. but in this statement of self-celebration had to do with debate on same-sex marriage? it's anyone's guess. up next, we learned today that newt gingrich and rick santorum secretly wanted to form a ticket last year, never happened because they couldn't figure out who should be at the top of the ticket and who should be vice president and president. we broke it tonight. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. gins with yo. venus embrace. every five-bladed stroke gives you 360 degrees of smooth revealing goddess skin you can feel and feel. only from venus embrace. also in disposables.

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i'm craig melvin. here's what's happening right now. president obama says his administration and congress are working to provide $200 million in additional aid to jordan. that money will help humanitarian assistance to hundreds and thousands of

refugees within the borders. the faa says it will close about 150 traffic control towers because of budget cuts. and investigators are working to determine whether the man killed at a texas shootout is related to the killing of colorado's prison chief and two others. back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." allow your mind to wander back to 2012, the republican primaries, and imagine mitt romney facing a right wing duo or duet of newt gingrich and rick santorum running together on anyone but romney ticket. could could he have won with that crowd double-teaming him? they actually held tucks together about joining forces and running on a ticket.

they couldn't decide, this is the funny part on who would be the presidential candidate and the vice presidential candidate. so then the idea fell apart. one thing is for sure, a gingrich/santorum duet would have been a ser ren nad to obama headquarters in chicago. josh green broke this story at bloomberg businessweek this week and michael covers politics for "time." >> congratulations, john. i thought we had gleaned every iota of ruby fun out of the 2012 election and you found this morsel. tell me how you got it it, if you can, and tell me what it means. >> sure. i was interviewing newt last friday for "businessweek" and i'd heard rumors of this and i asked him about it and yeah, they'd done it and from there it was about putting together the pieces and re-creating this special chapter of the 2012 campaign. >> for the nugget of fun, did he really think, knowing newt's brilliant ego, did he really think there was a chance he could have convinced rick santorum, the leader of the

cultural religious right, to take number two on his ticket because he must have thought that because he didn't go into this thing thinking he'd be number two. >> oh, he absolutely thought that. that's why it fell apart and even when his campaign was losing steam and santorum was winning, he still envisioned himself as the top dog on the ticket. >> as it was told to me, gingrich gave a long, historical soliloquy how in the part when the party couldn't rally on a sickle nominee in the convention the party elders would go for the senior statesman and gingrich regarded himself as that senior statesman and thought that -- and thought that santorum ought to defer to him. >> is everybody a senior statesman? >> i don't think -- just because you've been around a while. he was dumped as speaker of the house. he's not sam raburn. >> let's not dwell on details. he had lost florida when the

talks began and his own campaign had collapsed from within. it's a bit like saying you're tab and rc cola and if we combine forces we can take on coca-cola. >> it would taste terrible. by the way, gingrich would have been great in this business. he is a great pundit. he's fun, he's conceptual, he's a terrible candidate. and likes to go to the zoo, apparently, a lot. he told us simply, i'd like to have santorum drop out and he'd have like mead to drop out. of course, that's obvious. a month before their negotiations he'd been referring to the former senator as a junior partner in the trail in new hampshire. take a listen. >> i would say in term of -- of -- if you think of us as partners, he would clearly in historical experience have been the junior partner. he's not a bad person. i want to be clear on this. but i don't know that he has any track record of being able to organize a large-scale campaign that i'm describing or being

able to then govern on a large scale. and i think that's important. i don't think you just want to hire someone to get through the election. you want to hire someone to change washington. >> josh, again back to the ego of that guy. he never held an executive position in his life. he was elected speaker and then dumped as speaker. they wanted to get rid of him and they held a majority and here is a party which manages to get back to speakership in the majority position and thanks in part to newt's amazing campaign skills. he can't govern. they dump him and he comes out and brags and at least i can be an executive. >> explain. >> well, look, he's always viewed himself as an executive, as this kind of grand figure, historical figure who, you know, led his party to the majority and can do so once again. and i think he viewed at the time -- he viewed santorum as a junior partner and even when he was losing badly i think he still viewed santorum as a

junior partner and in fairness you have to get up and look in the mirror and think you can be president or else you can't get out on the campaign trail day after day after day doing what these guys do. >> the primary campaigns did revolve around trashing romney. republicans called another these days, a moderate. that was a big knock on him. here was santorum at last year's cpac. >> we're not going to win this election, ladies and gentlemen, because the republican candidate has the most money to beat up their opponent and win the election. we won in 2010 because conservatives rallied. they were excited about the contrasts. we always talk about how are we going to get the moderates? why would an undecided voter vote for the candidate of a party who the party is not excited about? >> you know, i think it does go back to that and now we're on to this thing, and do you think a party of conscious conservatism

could have beaten this duet had a chance of beating romney because he wasn't that authentic. he was a terrible candidate and if you look at santorum and gingrich won that went into the mississippi river and the south. there wasn't a lot of pull for either of them in big states like new york or california and it would have been a long shot run and the interesting part of this thought experiment was if they had beaten romney and then gotten thumped which they most likely would have, and it was a race about the economy and it was not a race about social issues and it's not a race about the various flaws that gingrich has. would the republican party be in a different position now? the republican party is fast moving away from what santorum said. we don't need to tell ourselves that we're great if we stay more conservative. the republican party as an institution is trying desperately to expand itself beyond that and while conservatives are saying what santorum is saying, if only we had been more pure in 2012.

>> how can he go to the center at the same time you want to go right? there's a struggle, but if -- my hunch is they are going to go right because they'll see it coming up and they'll say we're not going to be there and let's have some fun. great reporting and great scoop. michael sheer, thank you, as well. >> up next, michele bachmann has a knack for stretching the truth and she does and he's back at it this week. our bachmann pants on fire fact check. this is "hardball," the place for politics. well, technically i work for one. that company, the united states postal service® works for thousands of home businesses. because at usps.com® you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. i can even drop off free boxes. i wear a lot of hats. well, technically i wear one. the u.s. postal service®, no business too small.

republican seblt secretary of state from michigan supports the current win or take all system to a hybrid one to divide the votes proportionately and helps republican candidates running for president. meanwhile, delegates approved a resolution to change the system and another republican state lawmaker is still pushing a plan to allocate the vote by congressional district. michigan hasn't voted for a republican for president since 1988. we'll be right back. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! ♪ wow. [ buzz ] delicious, right? yeah. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... ♪ well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? bee happy. bee healthy.

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lap of luxury with lots of staffing. into the white house for a white house tour. that isn't caring. >> you can think that through and judge it the way i judge it. the washington post pointed out that there is no doubt that the bachmann's 1.4 million figure and the person that walks bo is

the white house grounds keeper that walked every presidential dog since nixon. congresswoman bachmann warned of the dangers of obama care. >> the american people, especially vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens, now get to pay more and they get less. that's why we're here. because we're saying, let's repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills women, kills senior citizens. >> it's all pretty loopy. liz is co-creator of the daily show, what a brain you have and ken vogu -- what is it -- i'm going to be careful here but this is a factor here. you go after president and things like dog walking and this ridiculous five chefs on air force 1, like you can't have that because you're from your background. i don't want it call her racist but we ush usually dent talk

about presidents and their lifestyles normally. why is she bringing up these things now? i think it is nasty stuff. that's what i think it is. >> it is nasty. and i think that michele bachmann takes literally, that if you see something, say something. anything that goes into her brain, she spouts it out without a filter an it t is astounding and more people are wondering where michele bachmann gets one penny do her job than the president -- >> i think she is more discriminating than that. i think if she saw that the first lady had a garden out back, a humbling thing, sweating, digging, planting stuff, she wouldn't mention it. she today go after the dog walking. >> you don't think? >> oh, i'm just kidding, and so are you. >> ken, we got to get this out,

get this out, talking about the anti-american attitudes and congress, this mccarthy stuff and we can't stand this president getting that kind of perk, if he ever did. >> yeah. what she found is there is a constituency for this stuff within the fever swamps of the internet. at cpac, and it tests the bounds of how far you can go with this constituency. she was riding high in the polls of the gop presidential primary at one point in 2012. she is raising a ton of money. she still raisees a ton of money on-line. there is a limit to it. she dropped out of the race after placing poorly in iowa. she barely won reelection and heavily republican district. she won by like 4,300 votes and the guy who trael challenged her, democrat is is running again. and so they are pulling back, playing lower profile but it is

almost like she can't help herself and you give her the mic and spotlight and way she goes. >> i know is all zany. congresswoman bachmann's cpac speech is not the first time her numbers were a bit sketchy when referring to president obama's expenses. in 2010 while on cnn, bachmann claimed obama's trip to india came with an astounding price tag. let's listen to her claim then. >> within a day or so, the president of the united states will be taking a trip over to india that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day, taking 2,000 people with him. he will be renting out over 870 rooms in india an these are five-star hotel rooms at taat t taj mahal palace hotel. >> kennedy flew to florida, california and every place. nixon flew to florida all the time. we considered that a reasonable perk of the toughest job in the country and goes with the elevation of the office. i go back to this, i think

there's a feature here, why is she trashing the first african-american president for living like a president. and that's what i think she is doing. >> i was born and raised in minnesota and when she was in the state house, she does great comments from her aboutterry schiavo. she has consistently been off. the one thing, and i'm normally one of those people that is very wary of that and is this a race thing and with her i literally think she is absolutely -- she thinks she called from god to do this. whatever is coming out of her is through god. it is init's inkplikable really. >> she thinks she is the oracle. maybe she is blessed, but it is no excuse. ignorance of the law and morality is to excuse. thank you, lynn winston.

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