begins tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. of course, followed by "the ed show." 4:00 p.m., the best time of day. michael smerconish is in for chris matthews this afternoon. and he'll pick things up right now. i spy. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm michael smerconish in new york for chris matthews. let's begin tonight with this classic american debate. it's the tug-of-war between the national security and personal privacy. but what makes this fight so unusual is that even as we learn that washington is keeping tabs on who has phoned whom and when, we're reminded that this is a government headed by a liberal democratic president who's made a virtue of transparency. today, the story got even richer. today we learned that washington has been collecting information

overseas on foreigners using web-based companies like google and facebook and apple. is the invasion of personal privacy too high a price to pay for the increased security against terrorism that it's supposed to bring? or is it all worth it? especially in a society where personal privacy is diminished every day? easy pass tags and metro cards track our every move. private companies know what cars we drive, what magazines we read, what websites we click upon. president obama gave a forceful defense of the program and that's where we begin tonight. michelle richardson is with the aclu. and michael o'hanlon, senior fellow at the brookings institution. the latest revelation courtesy of the "washington post" involves an nsa program known as prism. e-mails. americans were not directly targeted, the "post" reported, but while going after foreign targets the program did

routinely correct a great deal of american content as well. the revelation about this new program comes a day after "the guardian" broke the news the nsa was collecting telephone information on domestic and international calls. today the president addressed criticism about these programs. he said that he came into office with a healthy skepticism about them, but after evaluating their effecti effectiveness, he was convinced they were necessary. >> my assessment, and my team's assessment, was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks. and the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers or duration without a name attached and not looking at content, that on, you know, net it was worth

us doing. some other folks may have a different assessment of that, but i think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100% security and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. >> michelle richardson, of what significance to you that the president says, hey, it works? >> well, we would absolutely disagree that this is just a modest encroachment. the news this week confirmed that the nsa is daily getting downloads of every american's phone records from all the major companies in the united states. that is a significant encroachment and it really reflects our associations, where we go, what we do and who we know. >> michael o'hanlon, is this is a significant encroachment where none of your phone conversations

are being listened to? >> michael, you know, i agree with a lot of michelle's concerns, but i also agree with the president that we need to be able to look for associations. not the content being monitored. we need to know, frankly, who's talking to terrorists. and wie need to be able to sift through a lot of data to establish those patterns. what i'm more concerned about is establishing clear oversight so you can't have political vendettas or other such things that happen out of this. for example, let's say in the tracking of all of this we find out that somebody goes to a porn sight. some married man or something. then the government decides they're going to use that against him because some future richard nixon decides that he doesn't like somebody and he's going to embarrass him publicly. that's the kind of thing that the personal infringement, embarrassment, vendetta i think we need to figure out how to prevent. i'm less worried about just the very fact the government looks at who's talking to whom. i think we need to do that to stop terrorism.

we need strong safeguards so there can not be future abuses of power by a government that decides to target people and use potentially embarrassing nfr ii information we should never. >> god forbid there was some kind of attack, that this metadata, had we analyzed it properly, could have prevented. that's what we're all seeking to stop, no? >> well, there's no evidence that these sorts of metadata collection programs actually work in the terrorism context. we've been collecting this information for over a decade now in the post-9/11 world. neither the past administration or this one has been able to give a single example of how this information has caught a terrorist attack before it happens. >> when you have disparate interests like mike rogers and dianne feinstein both telling the american people, in fact, i'll show it to you. yesterday congressman mike rogers who's the chair of the house intelligence committee put it frankly. he said these programs are necessary and, in fact, are responsible for thwarting a terrorist attack. here it is. >> that within the last few

years this program was used to stop a program, excuse me, stop a terrorist attack in the united states. we know that. it's important. it fills in a little seam that we have. >> so respectfully when you say that there's no evidence that they've been successful, you can listen to senator feinstein. you can listen to congressman rogers. these are the folks who are getting the information and they say it's worked it. >> right. you can also listen to senator wyden and senator udall who have said in the last couple of days that even though they sit on the senate intelligence committee, they haven't seen the evidence. you know, the other question is, could we also catch these sorts of terrorists threats through far less intrusive methods? this is really only one tool that the government has. there are many ways for the government to get the same sort of information, but do it on a way that is suspicion-based. that goes through courts. that gets meaningful review and doesn't sweep up a lot of innocent americans in the meantime. really that's the problem here.

not that the government is spying on suspected terrorists, but they're spying on the rest of us in the meantime. >> michael o'hanlon, is the concern where this might lead as compared to where we are with this particular program or this particular pair of programs? >> that's my concern. obviously michelle has a slightly different bar or threshold where she's concerned. i'm concerned, as i mentioned before, about people being somehow politically or legally punished for, let's say, tax fraud, for example. or whatever. or, you know, the kind of crimes that may be crimes but are selectively prosecuted and sometimes people do relatively minor things wrong. but then government decides it's going to undertake a vendetta against someone it doesn't like, and it happens to have this information already at its disposal because of these advanced surveillance methods. that's the kind of abuse that i'm worried about. i'm not of the view that we can just let people, you know, talk to whomever and have the government totally stay out of any kind of monitoring of what the connections are. because i disagree with

michelle, this is the way in which we usually find terrorists. it's by establishing connections. networks. pictures. spider webs. of who's talking to whom. you've got to be able to do that. you've also got to prevent future abuses and vendettas. i don't see the safeguards yet being strong enough or well enough explained. >> the "washington post" today quotes a career intelligence officer who provided them with information about the program. the officer said the program was a gross intrusion on privacy. "they quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type." but, michelle, i was struck by this comment which was posted by a blogger on the "post" website. and it reads as follows, "shortly after watching those extraordinary people leap to their deaths on 9/11, i decided i was willing to forfeit my absolute rights to absolute privacy if it would help the government protect this country from any further disasters. so far, the federal government has been, for the most part, pretty effective in thwarting foreign terrorists on our soil.

and the anti-terrorism brigade hasn't interfered with the quality of my life in any way. despite their efforts to collect and co-late information from phone calls and the internet. just pass a law, pronto, that explicitly limits the use of such eavesdropping to anti-terrorism prosecutions and nothing else. beyond that, if cyber monitoring and telephone snooping is the price i have to pay in the fight against view hajihadists, so be" would you disagree with the blogger that up until this moment in time there's been no disruption of any americans' day-to-day life by virtue of surrendering any of the privacy that we're talking about? >> i don't think so, and i don't think many people would actually assert these programs are directly preventing these sorts of attacks. look, that commenter absolutely can forfeit his privacy, but he's not in the place to forfeit mine or yours or anybody else's. that's the beauty of our constitution. our rights are our rights, and

people don't get to waive them for each other. >> michael o'hanlon, do you evaluate this debate in the context of what transspired on september 11th, like the blogger, with an image in your head of the folks jumping out of the twin towers? >> to some extend tent. more how we found terrorists largely around the world. michelle is right, there may not have been many plots stopped here, may have been a couple. the way we've found terrorists around the world is by establishing connections, listening, looking at who's talk to whom. trying to see what the phone records are. these are often cases in which the same civil liberties protections don't apply, of course. they're not necessarily american citizens or there may be probable cause. this is how we have established a knowledge base on who is a terrorist or who might be a terrorist. it's by seeing who talks with whom. who associates with known terrorists. you have to be able to do this in a world of huge amounts of data and huge numbers of potential threats from all sorts of different directions that you can't see coming. so i think of it more in terms

of all the stuff we've done since 9/11 where we've had a lot of success over the years if trying to find some of the al qaeda operatives and others if places like afghanistan, iraq, pakistan and so forth. bringing the debate back home, again, we're talking about american citizens, i do agree strongly with michelle on at least one point. we need to protect people's rights from abuse of government. i don't think the abuses have happened yet, but i think they could. the safeguards are not yet clear enough. the rules are not yet clear enough. that's where the obama administration has to direct its attention. >> michael o'hanlon, michelle richardson. thank you both very much. coming up, where's the outrage over all this government snooping? this is an unusual republican story. republicans are praising the program as are most democrats. that has some on the left frustrated. also, republicans are trying to kill obama care in the crib. in fact, its limited popularity is slipping under an assault of negative ads. today president obama made his case for the law and argued it's already working. and you stay classy,

newseum. yes, newseum, honoring the most famous anchorman since ted baxter. ron burgundy. it's in anticipation of the new movie, "anchorman 2: the legend continues." sorry to see michele bachmann go? don't worry. the republican running for her seat is proving to be pretty entertaining, himself. this is "hardball." the place for politics. i'm so glad you called. thank you. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working around the clock to help protect your money and financial information. here's your temporary card. welcome back. how was london? [ female announcer ] when people talk, great things happen. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before.

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bedfellows, sometimes. that axiom is never truer than when it comes to national security issues. when "the new york times" editorial bashes the president, and the "wall street journal" editorial defends him, you can be excused for wondering what's going on. the "times" today, wrote, "the administration has now lost all correct on this issue. mr. obama is proving that truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it." the "wall street journal," no friend of the president wrote this. "there seems to be little here that is scandalous. the critics nonetheless say the nsa program is a violation of privacy or illegal or unconstitutional or all of the above. but nobody's civil liberties are violated by tech companies or banks that constantly run the same kinds of data analysis." meanwhile, here's frequent obama critic, senator lindsey graham, defending the nsa programs. >> i'm a verizon customer.

it doesn't bother me one bit for the national security administration to have my phone number because what they're trying to do is find out what terrorist groups we know about and individuals and who the hell they're calling. >> democratic congressman elijah cummings, however, told "politico," "the president said i must return to my authentic self, and i think the president needs to go back and read his own speeches." so what does it mean that some of the strongest criticism of the president is coming from the left? i'm joined by senator angus king of maine. senator, what do you say to people who fear their privacy is being violated with this intelligence gathering? >> well, i think it's important, first, to understand exactly what the program is, and when i was reading those first stories that came out, the impression was created that the government was listening in on phone conversations. we now have established that's not the case. what they have are when calls were made, who they were made to. michael, this is a classic argument that's been going on

for thousands of years. who will guard the guardians? how do we produce and create a government that's strong enough to protect us, but not so strong that it can abuse us? i think there's some areas here where we need to ask some hard questions and say, are there ways to achieve the same level of security with less intrusion? for example, it makes me nervous that the government has this huge database of all the phone numbers. i understand in other parts of the world quite often the data is left with the telephone company. if the government needs to go after, you know, tamerlan's cell use, they then would get what amounts to a warrant, go into that database which resides at the company, and get the same information. i'm with your prior guest. it's not a question of do we need to do this? i think we do. the question is, are there ways that we can do it that will give us a higher level of protection? and it shouldn't matter who's in charge. >> senator -- >> that's important, i think.

>> i'm not privy, obviously, to the intelligence that you see, but it's interesting that you bring up the tsarnaev case, because i was thinking intuitively that it's an example of why you should have a program like this because once you know who's responsible for the bombing of the boston marathon and have a phone number for that person, and you'll remember for a while we were searching for the younger brother. you would instantly be able to see with whom that phone number has connected and with whom that phone number or group of phone numbers have connected. and you would instantly have a matrix that could tell you potentially is there a terror cell in the united states? my concern is -- >> absolutely, and that was the key question. if you'll recall, our question, the first question was who did it? >> right. >> but within minutes of finding these guys, the next question is, are they in league with other people? is something going to happen in new york or los angeles? and that's why this is an important program. my only -- the point i'm trying to make is where does this big database reside? and should it -- does it have to be in the government vault, if

you will? or can it be left at the companies? and those are kinds of technical questions that i'm going to be asking and pursuing because, you know, again, if you create a situation, eventually there's going to be at least the temptation for abuse. that's why i think we need to think of structural solutions, not depending upon the goodwill of the people that are in charge. that's why it's important. >> senator, is the president deserving of criticism for a lack of transparency? >> you know, it's a little funny to talk about transparency when you're talking about programs which by their very nature need to be somewhat covert. you know, you don't want to go on television and say, well, okay, mr. terrorist, today we're going to be checking the e-mail on google. it's got to be done, i mean, if you want it to be effective. and there have been debates about this. now, i just came to the senate this winter, so i've only been on the committee for four or

five months. my understanding is this was pretty thoroughly debated over the last four, five years in the congress and people did understand what the implications are. i think the challenge for us, as it always is, is to find the right balance. but, you know, i mentioned this to someone this morning. put your -- you know, put your journalist hat on, and what if the headline this morning instead of "obama searches records" had been "obama canceled program which could have prevented nuclear attack on miami." >> that's a great point. senator angus king, it's a great point. >> we would have articles of impeachment already drawn up. >> that's true. >> we've got to do this. the question is, how do we minimize the impact on our citizens? >> thank you for your observations, senator angus king. david corn is the washington bureau chief of "mother jones" and an msnbc political analyst. i need a scorecard to keep track of who's on what side because there are some unusual alliances. break it down for me, david. >> well, you sure do. on issues like this, we often

see it not fitting into the typical "d," "r," left/right mode. on the right, you have karl rove saying he's in favor of these surveillance programs, but you have glenn beck thinks the black helicopters are coming next. and on the democratic side, you have democrats who support the president, and then others like ron wyden, senator from oregon, and mark udall, senator from colorado, for years have been talking about this stuff the best they can saying there's a program out there, it's problematic, we just can't tell you the details. but now we can. so that's why i don't think this is really a political crisis for the president or a political controversy because it doesn't cut along political lines. it's a policy matter. a very important one. and i think, you know, senator king got into this a little bit. we have secret government. we have the cia, the nsa and 12 or 13 other intelligence agencies that do things

supposedly to protect us. we allow this to happen under the assumption that there is really good oversight and judicial review. >> but, david -- >> i don't think people are confident that's what's happening and thus we're not sure whether any of this stuff really is being done properly. >> how about the role of the private sector? take a look at how some of the tech companies named in the report are responding to this thus far with their statements. for example, there seems to be an underlying theme here. here's the response from facebook. "we do not provide any government organization with direct access to facebook servers." then apple said, "we do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order." then yahoo!'s response, "yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. we do not provide the government with direct access." what's with the semantics of this direct access? >> it depends on what the meaning of is is and meaning of

direct access is. so they use a third party tw go-between. i don't know. in a lot of the cases when the government comes to the companies with national security letters or other court orders, it prohibits the companies from talking about it and in some cases, as written about in the last day or two, it allows the companies to lie. so ultimately, i don't hold them at fault here. if the government comes to you and says, you must do this, maybe they can fight it in secret courts and so on. but it really is a matter of policy, and it's really the action from the government from the executive branch here that should get the attention and which should get the scrutiny and the oversight that we need. and i think one thing that's -- you and i have talked about this in the past. with the intensity of political polarization in this country, it's really hard to foresee a situation where a majority of public would trust any congressional committee, any president saying i vetted this, and believe me, i'm doing it the

best i can. one side's going to raise a fuss no matter who's in there. >> david, i have said these first amendment issues, these privacy issues as well, fourth amendment, they demand consistency. you can't decide whether you like or dislike president obama. >> right. >> then rule accordingly because there will come a day when it's president clinton or president rubio or president corn. who knows. david corn. >> i don't think that will happen. >> thank you. >> that's why we need to have good practices in place to build confidence. i don't know if we have those yet. >> thank you for your observations. >> thank you, michael. a reminder, catch me every day an sirius xm's radio podus channel 124 weekdays at 9:00 eastern. up next, michele bachmann brags she's the champion of repealing obama care. could someone please tell her obama care is still around? that's in the sideshow which is next. this is "hardball." the place for pliolitics. ♪

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ha! >> back to "hardball." now to the sideshow. first, stephen colbert's immemoriam video about michele bachmann's time in politics might have been premature. here she is on fox last night prefle preflekting on her time in congress and what's in store for the future. >> i feel like i've done a lot in the eight years that i've been there. redeemed the time. i was a very strong voice. taking on my own party. i pushed back on the bailout. i was the champion of get repealing obama care. and also dealing with this issue of the irs, i've been involved in that as a former irs attorney. on issue after issue, dealing with the rise of islamic jihad. i've been there. i'm not quitting my public involvement. in fact, i may run for another public office. that could happen. but for right now i think i'm going to find a different perch in order to be able to weigh in on these matters. >> is she really the champion of repealing obama care? if after 37 attempts at repeal, obama care is still on the

books? we also found out this week republican tom emmer, former minnesota state rep will run to fill bachmann's seat. now, if you were hoping for someone a bit more progressive than bachmann on things like gay marriage, don't look to emmer. during his run for governor back in 2010, emmer pushed for legislation that would have lowered the minimum wage for waiters and waitresses. someone stopped by one of his town halls with a tip. >> i played hockey for a lot of years and that guy actually got me to jump a little bit. i love that. >> the minnesota squt star tribune" reported there were 2,000 pennies in that bag. this could get interesting. next, are we reaching the point where we might need to add a 51st star to the american flag? turns out people in several rural republican dominated counties in colorado aren't

satisfied with recent laws passed in their state. things like gun control and new regulations on oil and gas production. some county officials are ready to split off entirely and form a new state, the state of north colorado. >> we said we've got some ideas, do you want to listen to them? a petition to create a new state. and that new state would be the state of northern colorado. >> some will call it extreme. maybe aggressive. i would say, absolutely. i think extreme times call for extreme actions. >> what i would say to those folks in denver that say, oh this doesn't have any chance, we're not going to take this seriously, beware. >> north colorado seems like a long shot. if it did come to fruition, though, it would be the least populated state in the country and among the reddest. next the republican nominee for virginia's lieutenant governor has been a sideshow regular these past couple of weeks. bishop e.w. jackson has a history of controversial comments, to say the least. comparing planned parenthood to

the kkk, calling gay people icky. this week, comments from his 2008 book that took the cake. the subject, yoga. "the purpose of such meditation is to empty one's self. satan is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. that's why people serve satan without ever knowing it or deciding to." that didn't sit so well with a founder of a yoga franchise in washington who responded "we have over 30,000 students in the d.c. area. thousands of them are practicing with us every day. they're very kind. they don't have a demonic nature. i can attest for them and for me that satan is not in the vacuum of their soul." up next, the real reason why americans haven't yet embraced obama care. you're watching "hardball." the place for politics. this day calls you.

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i'm jackie deangelis with your cnbc market wrap. stocks rally on wall street. the dow surging 207 points. s&p adding 20. the nasdaq climbing 45. the labor department is saying employers added 175,000 jobs in may. that was better than expected. however, unemployment rose a tenth of a percent to 7.6% last month. and mega retailer walmart announcing plans today to repurchase $15 billion in shares. that's it from cnbc. first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." during president obama's visit to california today, he wound up bombarded with questions about nsa surveillance, but the intent of his trip was to extol the virtues of obama care, a name

he's embraced, by the way, which goes into effect in less than seven months and which polls show is not popular with voters. the president tried to drown out the political noise with some facts about the benefits of the health care law. here he is. >> so the bottom line is you can listen to a bunch of political talk out there, negative ads and fear mongering geared toward the next election, or alternatively you can actually look what's happening in states like california right now. and the fact of the matter is through these exchanges, not only are the 85% of people who already have health insurance getting better protections and receiving rebates and being able to keep their kids on their health insurance until they're 26 and getting free preventative care, but if you don't have health insurance and you're trying to get it through the individual market and it's too expensive, or it's too restricted, you now have these marketplaces where they're going to offer you a better deal because of choice and

competition. >> joy reid's the managing editor of the grio and msnbc contributor. a.b. stoddard is associate editor and columnist for "the hill" newspaper. a.b., let me start with you. he's never closed this deal. he's never been able to successfully sell it to the american people. you think he'll be able to do so now as it garners implementation? >> well, he's obviously distracted. there are lots of things that are in the news and consuming the congress and the media, as you knows, not only the three so-called scandals but now the news that our every communication is being tracked by the government. so president obama was supposed to be spending this time trying to resell the health care law. democrats do not talk about this publicly, michael, but as you know, they'll tell you privately that they're panicked about pushing the administration and the president in particular to sell this right this time. they're going into the third election in a row having to defend obama care. it's never been less popular. it is popular with people who have no insurance, but it's

unpopular with people who have insurance because they don't believe they'll be able to keep it. unless he brings those uninsured into the pools, everybody pays more, he's got to change minds about this before november of '14 when democrats are on the ballot. >> a.b. says he has to sell it right this time. selling it as a matter of personal responsibility. if you have health insurance and i don't and i use an e.r. as a primary care practice, that's not right. i should be paying my fair share. he's never made that pitch effectively. >> and ironically that used to be the republican case. that used to be the bob dole case for doing the individual mandate. was that basically otherwise you'd get free riders. meaning people show up at the e.r. and all the rest of us pay for their care. i think that the white house would admit to the fact when the law was first passed, democrats sort of passed it then ran the other way. >> right. >> it was never sold the first time so you could do a poll that says good idea/bad idea/no idea. most people have no idea what it is. they have no idea what it does. how to get it.

they just have this vague idea that it's a bad idea. >> when you explain it in personal responsibility terms, because i've done this on the air, or when you say, a.b., that these exchanges are supposed to be the orbits of health care, it's sort of an ah-ha moment for folks, like, oh, wow, i didn't really recognize what he was trying to do. >> right. what they're also hearing from their neighbors and small businessmen in their communities, they're afraid they're not going to be able to employ all their employees due to the costs of obama care. that they're either laying off workers or demoting them from full time to part time to comply. this is a really bad story line for obama care, and as i said, unless these exchanges, by the way, more than 30 of which the federal government has to have up and running less than four months from now on october 1st, unless they end up appealing to a broad swath of people, attracting new healthy young patients, again, everybody's prices go up. and so you see the obama

administration, i think, shrewdly using this campaign of microtargeting, of really working hard in election-style campaign to persuade the persuadable uninsured people to get out and join the exchange. >> on the politics of this, already ads are targeting senators running for re-election for their vote in support of obama care. joy, here are a few. >> when senator pryor was the deciding vote for obama care, it was a huge letdown for the state of arkansas. and people haven't forgotten that. >> jeanne shaheen cast the deciding vote for obama care. now employers may cut your weekly work hours from 40 to 29 to avoid the new taxes and penalties. >> jeanne shaheen is 1 of 60. all 60 cast a deciding vote. opponents of president obama's health care reform law are vastly outspending supporters of the law on ads. this chart from kantar media compares ad spending in races for the senate and house and the presidency. in senate races, that's the bar on the left, more than $150

million has been spent, and as you can see in red, all but a fraction of that has been spent on anti-obama care ads. same for the house where the anti-obama care ad spending dwarfs that of the law's supporters. and in the presidential race, the law's critics outspent its supporters by a margin of more than 5-1. so naturally with all that ad spending it's the anti-obama care message getting through. as a.b. pointed out, he doesn't have the support of his own party. >> they understand those kinds of ads only work if people don't know what's in the bill, don't know what it is and have a vague idea. i want to push back on one thing a.b. said. businesses like papa johns and other companies that threatened to lay people off over health reform, they've got the bad press. tremendous pushback from their customers when they do that. more cases than not, they pull back on that idea because it really isn't quite true. the other issue is this. the president has got a bill that is historic, right? we've been trying to get universal health care in this country for something like 100

years before he was able to get it done. medicare had this same problem when it was first -- the idea was first brought up, it was called socialism, the end of democracy as you know it by ronald reagan. >> right. >> once people actually have health care, once they've actually got it, you're going to see people saying, you're not taking away my obama care the same way you have with medicare. people have to have it, experience it for themselves, and/or democrats have to advertise what is in the bill. >> your point's a great point. it might win the democrats an election in 2022. what's going to happen in 2014 is a dimpbts story. thank you, joy reid, a.b. stoddard. america's anchorman, ron burgundy, takes on the capitol. stay classy. this is "hardball." the place for politics. a programmable thermostat, very smart, saves money. ♪ cash money sorry. i see you have allstate claim free rewards, for every year you don't have a claim, you'll get money off your home insurance policy. put it towards...

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in a clinical study, over 80% of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. androgel 1.62%. in the age when the dinosaurs' roar greeted the dawn and apes rode the winged horse across the valley of eli, there was a loan stranger who offered comfort, wisdom. it was said he would one day return with, that day has come. >> hey, america. did you miss my hot breath in your ear? >> welcome back to "hardball." yes, he's back. in a mere six months, ron burgundy returns in "anchorman: the legend continues." this time around, burgundy will be celebrated with anchorman: the exhibit at washington, d.c.'s, exhibit devoted to the

news, the newseum. unless you think a visit to "the anchorman" exhibit is an excuse to vicariously wall low in an politically incorrect newsroom. "the exhibit explores the reality behind the humor of "anchorman" and tracks the rise of personality-driven news formats in the '70s." as you probably know, the original "anchorman" spoofed that 1970s newsroom culture. >> what in the hell's diversity? >> well, i could be wrong, but i believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship that was used during the civil war era. >> ron, i would be surprised if the affiliates were concerned about the lack of an old, old wooden ship, but nice try. >> joining me now, the "washington post's" catherine boyle who wrote about the "anchorman" exhibit this week in the paper's style section. and former chicago anchor bill curtis who actually provided the narration for "anchorman." bill, you've had an accomplished career. do you find, though, that that

voice is now forever associated with this movie? >> it is. you can kiss the rest of my career good-bye because everybody will remember the "anchorman" movie. but, you know, it's a new becaue will remember the "anchorman" movie. >> katherine, i thought this was a guy's flick. what you wrote for the "style" section, i'll thrilled to hear women loved it, too. what's the appeal of this movie, of this character? >> well, for one thing, it's a really funny character. i think everyone loves a good satire. there's a huge women's narrative in this film, the way women came up in the news media, the culture at the time, so i think women really appreciate a film that is mocking a time that was definitely hard for women to be working in the workforce. >> bill, you've lived the life. how much truth in jest? >> well, the suit was true. how did they get ahold of our

suits? the director happened to be in chicago when i was anchoring. there's a lot of truth but, of course, it's an entertainment film. i'd glad to see ron getting the recognition that he deserves. >> you know, "anchorman" took great joy in spoofing local news teams in the '70s, like this. >> well, well, well, ron burgundy and the channel 4 news team. >> hello, evening news team. >> nice clothes, gentlemen. i didn't know the salvation army was having a sale. >> come on, am i right? look at these guys. >> hey, where did you get those clothes? at the toilet store? >> katherine, how about the museum as a venue for this exhibit? it reminds me of some sir couple

specs when the national constitution in my home town of philadelphia had a spring teen exhibition a few weeks ago. does it fit? >> i actually think it does fit. it's going to bring in a lot of people. the museum is in dire straits in terms of finances. most museums in washington are free and they have a $22 admission fee. so i think they need to do something buzzy, they need to do something that brings in the next generation of museum goers and this is going to be it. it's not going to take over their bottom line and be a game changer that they are hoping in a lot of ways but it's going to bring in a lot of people and it's definitely caught the attention of people in the news media, that's for sure. >> bill, how representative of the era is this movie? >> well, not only is it representative of the era, it's creating its own era because there are local teams across the country that are for charity that are establishing fights

amongst themselves. the sad thing is, now when young people hear the word "anchorman," probably the first image they think of is ron burgundy. >> i think they think of ron burg gun dee and ted baxter. >> it's definitely a thing that comes to the minds of young people. it's a good satire. i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for people to think about. >> listen, i loved ron burgundy "anchor man" all three times that i saw it. thank you. we'll come right back to "hardball." i like to call... wrong. take metamucil. sure it helps keep you regular but it doesn't stop there. metamucil has psyllium, which helps lower cholesterol, promotes digestive health, and helps maintain healthy blood sugar levels. it can multi-multitask... look at it, it's doing

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let me finish tonight with this. in a week of nsa and dn a&m lb, a 10-year-old girl has captured national and world attention. sarah is dying of sis stick fine broe sis in the philadelphia hospital. she's been waiting for a lung transplant for a year and a half and now they say she has a week or two left, if that. she's been waiting to are a transparent from a pediatric donor, of which there are few. her parents requested that sarah be placed on the adult lung transplant list. that was declined and an online petition was launched calling for federal officials to make an

exceptional ruling on the part of the child. sadly, secretary sebelius called the casinge agonizing. midweek, a federal judge ruled that sarah is eligible to receive a lung from the adult donor list. the judge ordered secretary sebelius to suspend the donor rules for at least ten days and a hearing has been set for june 14. with that door open, the family of 11-year-old javier acosta has been granted a temporary injunction to waive the rule. my thoughts are with the families and this raises a bigger question about organ donation in the united states. if the issue is not enough lungs and hearts and kidneys and corneas? how do we get more? two words, opt out. see, opt in is the current national u.s. policy. it requires explicit consent from the donor, given through a

donor card administered by the dmv for from relatives if the donor failed to indicate desire during her lifetime. let's reverse that. a national opt out system would presume consent of the deceased to have their organs harvested unless they opted out. nobody's going to be taking your organs without consent but if you say nothing, you'll be presumed to have opted in. i'm not just guessing here. the system's been tested in europe as of 2010, 24 european countries have some form of opt out, which some call presumed consent. spain, austria, and belgian yielding high donor rates. art is head of the medical ethics and he agrees, telling me, quote, your organs aren't going to do you much good when you're dead. i think we'd get much more donors if we just shifted the responsibility to say what you want to do about donation from saying i want to do it from having to say, i don't want to do it. most people say they do want to donate. so why don't we make that the

default position? opt out? why not indeed? that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "politicsnation" with al sharpton starts right now. thanks, michael, and thanks to you for turning in. tonight's lead, republicans trying to create scandals while president obama is creating jobs. a new jobs report out today shows that president obama has created 1.4 million jobs since his re-election. that's why the american people voted him back into office. that's what they are focused on. outside the beltway bubble and the gop scandal machine, americans are focused on getting people back to work. and so is the president. >> others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by but the middle class will always be my number