the defense's strongest witness takes the stand. let's play hardball. good evening. i'm michael smerconish in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, it was a big day for the defense in the george zimmerman trial with a key medical expert backing up zimmerman's account of the shooting. vincent di maio is a forensic pathologist hired by the defense. today he testified that the physical evidence was consistent with zimmerman's account that martin was leaning over him when the shot was fired. that's important, since zimmerman said he shot the unarmed teenager in self-defense, and the self-defense has argued that zimmerman's wounds mean he could have sustained head trauma.

the defense may be winding down its case. how important was today's testimony in establishing reasonable doubt. msnbc's craig melvin has been keeping an eye on all of today's proceedings and he joins us live from the florida courthouse. craig? >> michael, good evening to you. two to four inches, two to four inches. that's the distance that di maio was from martin. that was one of his highlights from the testimony today. he went on to say that the gun was against the clothing, not pressed against the skin. he ultimately said the medical evidence that he was presented is consistent with george zimmerman's story. injuries from his head, according to dr. di maio, came from some serious blows. perhaps concrete. he also, as you indicated said

there are at least six injuries. there were at least six injuries to george zimmerman's head. meanwhile, on cross-examination, bernie de la rionda, in some of his most animated cross examining could not testify as to who started the fight, couldn't testify as to who threw the first punch and also couldn't testify whether trayvon martin at any point was actually grabbed the gun as have been said. they also wonder how the medical examiner has handled the clothes. as you indicated, dr. di maio, the star witness today as you indicated, also as you indicated mark o'mara saying, giving every impression, the last witness that we saw, the neighbor, one of george zimmerman's neighbors,

eloise dilligard would be the last witness for the defense. right now inside the courtroom they're wrapping up a hearing, a hearing that started this morning. this is a hearing about whether this specific animation is going to do be admitted. the defense spent two hours this morning arguing for this animation to be admitted into evidence. and this is an animation that essentially depicts how the altercation started, how the fight went down, and it is based largely on witness accounts, defense witness accounts, it's based on police reports as well. an earlier version of this animation actually showed trayvon martin on top, punching george zimmerman. the state argued successfully to have that portion of it tossed out. the animation at this particular point is essentially a series of still photos. nonetheless, the state says that

the entire animation should not be allowed. but, again, going back to the timetable, michael, at this particular point, it appears as if, appears being the operative word, that the defense could very well rest its case tomorrow and start closing arguments. >> craig, last night you broke news here when you told us there had been an effort by the defense successful to bring in toxicology information. interestingly, they got the green light, and at least today, they didn't do it. >> yeah, you know what, michael? that was quite interesting, to say the least. yesterday at about this time, after a pretty extensive petitioning by the defense to allow this toxicology report, this toxicology report that showed trayvon martin had a trace amount of marijuana in his system, they argued to have this toxicology report admitted and for whatever reason, we got word today that the defense had decided that they did not want to introduce that toxicology report. just as interesting, perhaps, mike, no reason given other than to say we just decided we don't want to introduce it. >> so it sounds as if they get the animation video in, that could be the concluding bit of evidence put forth by the defense. if they don't get the animation in, then this may be at an end

in terms of evidence having been presented by the prosecution and the defense. >> that is -- that's spot on, spot on. and this animation, again, we thought the hearing to get this animation admitted, the judge, judge nelson started at 8:30 this morning. we expected it might take 30 minutes, it might take an hour. but after, you know, 30 minutes or an hour went by, an hour and a half went by, it has become quite clear that this particular animation is a cornerstone of the defense's strategy. this particular animation. we haven't seen it, obviously. judge nelson saw it this morning. the attorneys for the state saw it as well. jurors obviously have not seen it. no one else in the courtroom saw it for that matter. but this, is this particular animation, this is how they would like to end their case to the jury. >> craig melvin, thanks for your report, as always. >> thank you, sir. >> for more on today's testimony, i'm joined by msnbc legal analyst lisa bloom, former florida circuit court judge alex ferrer, and paul henderson, a

veteran prosecutor. let's take a look at how dr. di maio describes how the gun was in relation to trayvon martin's body. >> it's my opinion that the muzzle of the gun in this case was two to four inches away from the skin. so the barrel of the gun was against the clothing, the muzzle of the gun was against the clothing, but the clothing itself had to be two to four inches away from the body at the time mr. martin was shot. >> now, according to di maio, that's consistent with zimmerman's account that martin was over him at the time of the shooting. >> if you lean over somebody, you would notice that the clothing tends to fall away from the chest. if instead you're lying on your back and somebody shoots you,

the clothing is going to be against your chest. so that the fact that we know the clothing was 2 to 4 inches away is consistent with somebody leaning over leaning over the person doing the shooting. >> lisa, i don't know how it played in the courtroom, but i can tell you watching on television on msnbc, i thought he was a pretty effective witness for the defense. what was your reading of the tea leaves? >> on style, he is an a-plus. he speaks in plain english. he is very understandable. he is completely the opposite of dr. bao. but i have a lot more questions for him, because i think what he established is that trayvon martin's clothing was two to four inches away from his body. he was not asked every possible explanation, like these are baggy sweatshirts. when he demonstrates right there in his fitted shirt, the shirt doesn't really move forward when he goes forward, and it stays

against him when he goes back. when you're wearing a baggy sweatshirt, two of them, it's a completely different situation. trayvon martin's shoulders could have been hunched forward. that could have explained it. he could have been down and in the scuffle the clothing bunched. really, what he established was the clothing -- two inches is not very much. two to four inches away from trayvon martin's body at the time he was shot. that does not prove that trayvon martin was on top. it is consistent with that theory, but it does not prove it. >> judge alex, you told us last night on "hardball" that this was going to be an important witness for the defense. how do you think he played? >> i think he played amazingly. this is the kind of medical examiner testimony you want. the prosecution didn't get it. the defense did. i disagree. i think it does establish. when you think about the other evidence, the grass stains and the wet back that george zimmerman had, the grass stains on the knees of trayvon martin, john good who described that zimmerman was on the bottom and trayvon on top, and then you have this medical examiner who gives a scientific angle on top of which we know he had that bottle of the drink in his pocket which would add weight to pull it over, to pull it down. in addition to that, he scored

points on the key point i thought that was a question in everybody's mind, he pointed out that you probably would not have -- you don't necessarily have bruising on nuck. s from hitting somebody, but especially when you have lost blood pressure, when he was shot in the heart, his blood pressure dropped and he said basically that you need blood pressure for blood to get pumped to that area for bruises to start. he said you never see bruising on people that have been killed. >> in other words, people have been asking, and i think it's a great question. where is the bruising on trayvon martin's hands, if in fact he is administering this mma-style beating to george zimmerman. dr. di maio said essentially in lay terms that the blood flow would have ended and that would have explained the lack of bruising. paul, let me ask you this. another important point for the defense is that it is possible to sustain head trauma without leaving a major visible mark. take a look at this exchange about the visible wounds on zimmerman's head. >> yes. >> so the presence of the injury

on the outside are you saying doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't additional impact or that the impact itself was minor? >> okay. what i'm saying is that you can get severe head trauma, but actually without any marks on the head, or you can get marks, lacerations and contusions and have had trauma. they're not necessarily -- more commonly, when you get severe head trauma, you have some injury to the scalp. but you can get severe head trauma without a mark on the scalp too. >> paul henderson, that head trauma, the wounds on the back of george zimmerman's head, a very important aspect of this case. how do you interpret that testimony? >> look, it still didn't get me to interpreting that at the end of the day that he was facing a deadly injury. it still looks like de minimis injuries to me and just scrapes and some little bruising there. i don't feel like the testimony, as good as it was, moved the jury beyond an explanation that

put zimmerman in fear of his life because of the injuries. i know that that was the purpose of trying to get him to address that. but it didn't feel like it to me, that his explanation that that was possible is translating to that's what happened. >> you are the prosecutor among us, the former prosecutor among us. so i want to ask you about this. on cross-examination, prosecutor bernie de la rionda tried to play down the significance of what dr. di maio had testified. here it is. >> you can't testify as to who threw the first punch. >> that's correct, sir. >> in fact, you can't really testify whether there was a first punch thrown. >> that's correct, sir. >> and you can't say whether it was trayvon martin defending himself or george zimmerman defending himself, in terms of

when this first started? >> when it first started? that's correct, sir. >> so paul henderson, he could not establish, could not offer expert testimony as to whom the initiator was, but he did offer pretty compelling testimony in terms of how the final act was committed. do you disagree with that? >> i don't disagree. look, this was a good witness for the defense, and he was very credible and informative it almost felt like a class in forensics when he was explaining his thoughts and his ideas about what he knew. an it was quiet in the courtroom. everyone was paying attention. thought the prosecution did an outstanding job of standing up and getting that same witness to admit that he had no information and was not giving an opinion about the issues in contention and the different versions telephone story that zimmerman had as it related to the fight. they also got him to admit that he did not talk about and could not talk about who may have initiated the fight. and then finally, the third thing that they did that i thought was good with this witness from the prosecution's perspective was to get him to admit that he relied on his opinion based on their previous witness' report.

i think that's what you have to do with an expert like that that comes across so credibly, you have to put him in a box and make sure that the jury understands that his credibility is only limited to a very small part of this picture. >> judge alex, do you give the prosecution the high marks that paul henderson is for doing what they were able to do with dr. di maio? >> no, not even close. honestly, the prosecution stood up there and said you can't say who threw the first punch. sadly, that's not the defense's burden. that's the prosecution's burden. they can't say who threw the first punch. the only evidence they have of who threw the first punch is george zimmerman saying trayvon threw the first punch. so the prosecution gets up after he -- after the doctor testifies about trayvon's being on top is consistent, and the prosecution gets up and says, well, it would be consistent with trayvon standing up and zimmerman

standing up and zimmerman shooting him. and the doctor points out, no, that's not true. the clothes would be hanging down and it would not be consistent. immediately, the prosecution says well, then it would be consistent with trayvon backing away like stopping the confrontation. and the message i think that sends to the jury is we the prosecutors are willing to throw out there any theory that may stick here, but that's not what they're supposed to do. they're supposed to have a theory. and they don't. and that is the big problem with this case. the defense has a theory that is being supported by forensic evidence, and the prosecution is in the role that the defense is usually in, trying to throw up stuff and make it stick. >> thank you, lisa bloom, thank you, alex ferrer, thank you paul henderson as well. coming up, republican opponents of abortion are changing tactics. they have moved from trying make abortion illegal to trying to make it unavailable. the latest fronts in this war texas, north carolina and wisconsin. but supporters are fighting back. plus, we now know how osama bin laden lived and escaped capture for so long while hiding in pakistan. a new inside report on the decade leading up to "zero dark thirty." also, there was a time when a sex scandal would kill a political career. not anymore. just ask mark sanford, david vitter, anthony weiner and now maybe eliot spitzer.

and let me finish with the case yes for legalized prostitution. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

democrat cory booker seems to be cruising toward that open new jersey senate seat. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. according to new quinnipiac poll, the new york mayor leads the field with support from 52% of new jersey democratic voters. he's got a 5-1 lead over his closest rivals, congressman frank pallone and rush holt. and in a general election matchup, booker is leading again by a wide margin. we'll be right back.

for over 60,000 california foster children, having necessary school supplies can mean the difference between success and failure. the day i start, i'm already behind. i never know what i'm gonna need. new school, new classes, new kids. it's hard starting over. to help, sleep train is collecting school supplies for local foster children. bring your gift to any sleep train, and help a foster child start the school year right. not everyone can be a foster parent, but anyone can help a foster child. welcome back to "hardball." the state capital of texas has become ground zero in the abortion debate. today is day two of a special session of the texas legislature where a bill is on the fast track that would make abortions illegal after 20 weeks, require

abortion facilities to upgrade to ambulatory surgical centers, and require abortion clinic doctors to gain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. the net effect, the state of texas would be left with just five clinics that could provide abortion services. not surprisingly, austin has become a magnet for politicians who oppose a woman's right to choose an abortion. last night former arkansas governor and presidential candidate mike huckabee spoke out. >> no such thing as a life that is so insignificant, so worthless so unwanted, so unnecessary that any of us would choose and believe that we are so god-like that we would singularly have the right to extinguish that which god created. >> today former pennsylvania senator and presidential candidate rick santorum announced via a press release

from his pac that he too will be in austin on thursday to show his support for the texas abortion bill. and texas isn't the only place the abortion rights fight is being fought. last week, the north carolina state senate approved abortion restrictions that could leave the state with just one abortion clinic. yesterday in the state capitol, 64 people protesting the restrictions were arrested. in wisconsin, governor scott walker signed legislation limiting abortion access in his state on friday. but by last night, a federal judge had granted a temporary restraining order on that law. this state shows where the new abortion restrictions are being proposed which in various ways would make it harder for a woman seeking an abortion to access one. ilyse hogue is president of naral pro-choice america. sylvia garcia is a democratic state senator from texas. senator garcia, let me begin with you. i don't get it. my reading of roe versus wade says that the standard is set based on viability. at 20 weeks, we're not talking viability. it would seem that on its face, this bill would be unconstitutional. so why go through all the effort

if that is in fact going to be the holding of a court some day? >> well, we've actually been asking ourselves that same question here in texas. i agree with you. i think on its face it appears that it would be unconstitutional, but ultimately, of course, it will be up to the courts to decide. as you stated earlier, wisconsin yesterday, of course, a federal court there has already put an injunction on implementation of their actions, so i think the same thing will happen here in texas. i think we're on a path to litigation in the courts, ultimately, with this bill if it passes. >> ilyse, it seems to me you may as well say one week after conception we're going to ban all abortion because that would have the same constitutional standing as would the 20-week measure. >> well, i actually think that that is the goal of these radical ideologues who are driving this demonstration. their goal has remained the same. that's to outlaw abortion as well as limit women's other

reproductive choices. what's more interesting is how they're resorting to doing it. these politicians in texas and north carolina, and i'm from texas as well, know that they don't have popular support on their side. and so they're resorting to cheating, changing the rules, doing these things under the dark of night because they know that there is a political price to pay. there is a health price to pay, there is a political price to pay, there is a financial price to pay when these things go to court, and yet they are so beholden to their base that they're doing this anyway. >> in all the states i referenced in introducing this conversation, do you attribute to it a reading, perhaps a misreading of what that gosnell trial in my hometown of philadelphia was all about? >> well, i think what -- to me it seems to be sort of an agenda nationally by -- by -- by -- as was stated earlier, the medical

right, the extremists who just want to make it harder and harder for women to have access to reproductive health care, to have any kind of real access to health care generally. i think that it's part of a national agenda and they're trying to chip away. and i totally agree. i think it's just a back doorway to try to ban all abortions in this country. >> i'm wondering if there is a strategy that is now going to be employed by pro-choice forces of getting women who have had abortions to tell their stories, almost in the same way that when people recognized individuals within their family or their social orbit who were homosexual or lesbian, all of the sudden it opened an awareness that people previously had not had. ilyse, is that a strategy in i'm thinking in part of an op-ed where i read over the weekend where a woman wrote very effectively about her mother having had an abortion. >> i think it's not so much a strategy as a reality. look, women who have had

abortions, our daughters, our mothers, our sisters, our friends, they're everywhere. it's one in three american women. and so we are all around. it's also important to recognize that we've got to take away the shame. the shame doesn't start and end with abortion, but it's very acute there. women are ashamed for exercising their reproductive rights, they're ashamed when they're raped, as we saw in steubenville, and this is part of an anti-woman agenda that wants to make us ashamed of being real women leading real lives today. and i think women have had enough. that's what we're seeing in texas and north carolina and all around this country. we're getting calls from national members everywhere saying what can i do? this is it. this is enough. we will support texas. we will support north carolina. but we will get these folks out of office who are driving these extreme policies that are bad for women, bad for our families. >> ilyse hogue, thank you very much. state senator sylvia garcia, we appreciate you being here. up next, last night on "hardball," eliot spitzer told

me he is used to being the butt of jokes. and now that he is running, well, here comes some more. and a reminder, you can listen to my radio programs weekdays at 9:00 eastern at potus 124. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

back to "hardball." now to the sideshow. call it a coincidence, but eliot spitzer's entry into new york city's comptroller race means that he joins a field of candidates that includes kristen davis, a woman who ran a prostitution ring implicated in the very same 2008 investigation. the self-described manhattan madam, who has received the nomination of the libertarian party, is already running a no holds barred campaign. and judging by her long shot run for governor in 2010, she won't shy away from her controversial past. here is a taste of her more colorful sound bites from that race.

>> the key difference between the mta and my former escort agency is that i operated one set of books, and my former agency delivered on-time and reliable service. the career politicians in albany are the biggest whores in this state. i might be the only person sit thong stage with the right experience to deal with them. >> new yorkers are forgiving, but with davis around to remind them of spitzer's past, it may be harder for them to forget. here was jay leno's take on spitzer versus davis on "the tonight show" last night. >> there is a tough choice for the voters, huh? i mean one is involved in the most degrading profession of all time, and the other ran a whore house, jeez. >> leno isn't the first to equate politics with prostitution. ronald reagan famously remarked, quote, that politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. i have come to realize it bears

a very close resemblance to the first. next up, it's american history through beer goggle lenses there is a series premiering on comedy central tonight about american history, but with a new spin that will surely appeal to the college fraternity demographic. it's called drunk history, and it illustrates america's storied past through the account of an inebriated narrater whose impaired functions often blur the line between fact and fabrication. here is their version of the lincoln assassination. >> john wilkes boothçomes into their box and shoots lincoln in the head. after he shot lincoln, he jumped from the balcony, breaking his ankle. ow, ow, ow. and raising his knife in the air, he said ti pluribus unum -- i don't remember. i wish i remembered. wait, wait. teremis tempest, no more tyranny, basically.

>> what will they think of next? up next, mark sanford in congress, anthony weiner at or near the top of the polls in new york, and now eliot spitzer making a comeback, is sex dead as a political career killer? you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

it was very painful situation. the rash was on my right hip, going all the way down my leg. i'm very athletic and i swim in the ocean. shingles forced me out of the water. the doctor asked me

"did you have chickenpox when you were a child?" the pain level was so high, it became unbearable.

i refuse to submit my family and my friends and innocent people and myself to further rumors and gossip. it's simply an intolerable situation. i believe i would have been a successful candidate, and i know i could have been a very good president, particularly for these times. but apparently now we'll never know. >> welcome back to "hardball" that was gary hart in 1987 after a sex scandal derailed his campaign for president. but now the political sex scandal may not be the career-ender that it was for hart. take some recent examples. in the summer of 2007, senator larry craig was arrested at the minneapolis airport. he was accused of soliciting sex

from an undercover male police officer. craig plead guilty to a misdemeanor of disorderly conduct and served out the remainder of his senate term. that same summer, his republican colleague, louisiana senator david vitter was caught in a scandal involving prostitutes when his phone number was published by the notorious d.c. madam. vitter stood by his wife and asked for forgiveness. he remained in office and won reelection in 2010 with 57% of the vote. this spring, mark sanford, the former disgraced governor of south carolina who left the state on taxpayer funds to travel to average 15 tina to visit his mistress in 2009 won election to the house. former congressman anthony weiner resigned congress in 2011 after tweeting pictures of his genitals to female followers. two years later, weiner now finds himself tied for leading the race for mayor of new york city. and now former governor eliot spitzer, who appeared with me on this program last night, is launching what he hopes will become a second political act

and seeking the public forgiveness for his transgressions with prostitutes. so are sex scandals no longer career killers for politicians? i'm joined by "the washington post's" chris cillizza and michael steele. what is your answer to that question? >> a good sex scandal isn't what it used to be, that's for sure. i mean, you know, it shows the timeline, the arc of time and how it's changed from the days of bill clinton and gary hart to right now where these things aren't as devastating. the bottom line is politicians today have figured out how to apologize. they figured out how to go for that sort of kumbahyah, gee, i'm sorry, won't you give me another try kind of approach versus what you saw with both clinton and gary hart, which started off really defiant, really kind of pushing back against the public, really kind of saying i'm bigger than this, and you can't touch me. now humble is the meal of the day for a lot of these politicians in this kind of scandal. >> it is that they figured out how to apologize, or is it that the public came to some recognition or realization maybe based on clinton among others that each if the guy is screwing around in his personal life, i

just want him to make the trains run on time. >> hard times will do that. hard times will take your attention away from those types of things that at the end of the day really don't matter, and you want to know whether or not you're getting the trains to run on time and you're getting the job done. so i think there is some truth to, that michael, that there is sort of a peeling back away from sort of the puritanical approach we have on our politics of certainly lifting these guys above us on that pedestal to recognize at the end of the day, if you got the trains running, what you do in your bedroom and your own time is your business. it's a slippery slope. >> as politics changed or has our culture changed? >> i think -- let me take a third way in honor of bill clinton, michael. i think that the way we perceive our politics has changed. i would actually argue that the american public now, and this is relatively new in terms of how

negatively they view politicians. it's incredibly negatively. congress, virtually every institution. so i think there is sort of a sense, i guess, among the electorate that all these guys and gals are bad, right? and so they think at least this guy kind of owned up to it. and now we know, this is the key to the political comeback. sanford used it really well. now we know he or she isn't beholden to anyone. the establishment, which by the way the public hates, the establishment doesn't want this guy or woman to run. but now they're running. and because of the thing that happened to them and they were forced to sort of be humble, now they're sort of the last honest person. everybody is flawed, but they have been flawed in public, and now they don't owe anybody anything. if you go and watch the campaign mark sanford ran, look, i've been an outsider all my life. all these people are lining up against me.

but i'm the guy telling you the truth. it's a fascinating sort of psychological experiment. >> gary hart was a path creator. bill clinton in the same respect. look at these amazing numbers. through what many consider to be the worst days of his presidency, bill clinton received high marks from the public when it came to his overall job performance, despite what they may have thought about his personal behavior. for example, march of '98, six weeks after clinton famously denied, quote, having sex with that woman, ms. lewinsky. he stood at 66% job approval according to the nbc/wall street journal poll. three days after clinton told the nation that he had lied about his relationship with lewinsky, he held a 69% job approval rating. on the day the u.s. house of representatives voted to impeach president clinton, his job approval 72%. and nearly five weeks after being acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges by the senate, he now had a 66% approval rating.

just before leaving office, january of 2001, he maintained a job performance approval of 66%. and just to give everybody an idea of how high those numbers are, president obama's current job approval rating stands at 48% approval. 47% disapproval, according to the latest nbc news/wall street journal poll from june of 2013. so michael steele, based on that data, maybe we should not be surprised based in the last decade or so there have been any number of political resurrections after political escapades that involved sex. >> i think that's true. it begs the question, the classic religious questions, is it faith or good works that gets you in to heaven, or it is faith that the voters have in you or the good works that you do that keep you in their good stead. i would say that if you look at the economy, what the president was pursuing, welfare reform and other agenda items while this was going on, people latched on to that. people had greater faith in that, in his ability to get it done, to do the good work. and that helped push those numbers up. when bill clinton came out of the gates, michael, you know,

belligerent, you know, wagging his finger and pushing back against the voters, that's when the numbers show the voters are like you know what? you may be protesting a little too much, and i'm suspicious. but then he got to work, put his head down and focused on the mea culpa opportunity in combination with the good works, the voters responded. >> hey, chris cillizza, i think eliot spitzer is smart to be running for comptroller. i think that shows some penitence on his part. he is running for a row office in new york city. can he win this thing? >> yes. i honestly think one of his biggest challenges at this point, michael, he's got to get almost 4,000 signatures. >> by thursday. >> later this week, which is not easy. if he gets it, he has two things going for him. everyone knows his name, which in down ballot races everywhere, that matters and helps you. even if people know you for not the greatest reasons. and number two, don't forget, he has a tremendous amount of personal wealth, can fund the campaign, says he is going outside of public financing. if he qualifies for ballots and that's an if.

it's not a sure thing, i think he has a 50-50 chance. i agree with you, by the way. we like second chances in this country. >> we love that. >> look at josh hamilton in baseball. but you have to humble yourself first. we love spitzer humbling himself saying i don't want to be mayor. >> chris cillizza, as always, thank you. michael steele, good to see you. up next, the report from pakistan on how osama bin laden managed to escape capture for so long. that's ahead. this is "hardball," the place for politics. hey, buddy? oh, hey, flo. you want to see something cool? snapshot, from progressive. my insurance company told me not to talk to people like you. you always do what they tell you? no... try it, and see what your good driving can save you. you don't even have to switch. unless you're scared. i'm not scared, it's... you know we can still see you. no, you can't. pretty sure we can... try snapshot today -- no pressure.

when it comes to where americans get their news, tv is still king. a new gallup poll finds 51% of americans say they get their news about current events from television. 21% say the internet is their primary news source. 9% say newspaper, and 6% say radio. we'll be right back.

we're back. an exhaustive bin laden report compiled by a panel of pakistani officials and kept secret by the government has been exposed. the 300-plus-page document contains a remarkably detailed

account of bin laden's life after 9/11 when he sought and found refuge in pakistan and chronicles incompetence on behalf of the government officials who allowed the criminal mastermind to live undetected in their country for nine years. then to top it all off, fail to detect and respond to a u.s. raid on its own soil that killed him. the report calls it a case of government implosion syndrome, to put it mildly. exposed by journalists at al jazeera, it gives us a fascinating account of how bin laden lived in secret for all those years. for instance, to avoid detection, he at one point shaved off his world-famous beard and bought his compound using a fake national i.d. card and occupants paid no taxes. when venturing outside, he liked to wear a wide-brimmed cowboy hat to avoid aerial detection. a tidbit that london's "daily mail" had fun with to create this photo shopped picture of bin laden in a stetson, a black one before.

his wife posed as a deaf mute when they went to the hospital to deliver their children. let's bring in roger cressey, counterterrorism official in the white house, and phillip mud, whose intelligence career spans decades with the fbi and cia. phillip, we've always wanted to know were the pakistanis complicit? if you buy their own report, their own investigation, the answer is no. >> i don't think they were. look, there's a difference between hollywood and reality. people want to build complicated complicity stories. somebody must have known if he'd been there for nine years. the reality as we saw in the leaked report is incompetence is the explanation for why he went free, not a vast conspiracy theory we see in the movies. >> roger, the report seemed like a blazing indictment of the pakistanis. i guess the stressing aspect is left to their own devices, that great investigation would have stayed secret, but for al jazeera bringing it to light. >> exactly right, michael. for good reason. isi, military and upper reaches

of the pakistani government would not want this report to be read by the pakistani people because the indictment that it portrays on how the government doesn't work. i mean, you had fundamental mistakes and just dysfunction at every single level within the pakistani government over an extended period of years. any pakistani citizen that read that, frankly, would not be in the interest of the pakistani government for them to do that. >> phillip, we lost him at tora bora in december of '01 and reemerges at abbottabad. let's look at bin laden's movements within pakistan. according to the report he reached the country in mid 2002. he traveled throughout northwest pakistan for several years around the swat valley and travel to haripur, and in '05 moved his extended family to abbottabad. does this come as news to u.s. sources that we're trying to smoke him out? in other words, are there surprises in that? we always expected he'd be in

the tribal areas. >> the surprise is in effect the pakistani military and counterinsurgency operations kept bin laden out of the tribal areas. i think he thought the tribal areas were too hot because military and drone activity was too extensive. so he chose to go in areas that turned out to be riskier, cities or settled areas which is eventually where he was killed. >> the report had harsh words for the government and the military for missing bin laden since he was in hiding in plain sight, about a half mile from pakistani's equivalent of west point. for example, the report says "how the entire neighborhood, local officials, police and security and intelligence officials all missed the size, strange shape, barbed wire, lack of cars and visitors, beggars belief." it also says "the bin laden house was enumerated in a government house survey with the comments that it was uninhabited since august of '05.

there were never less than 5 people living in it. the extent of incompetence to put it mildly was astounding if not unbelievable." roger, the pakistanis didn't want those revelations coming to light. >> yeah, for very clear reasons because your jaw drops when you read this text and realize the extent of incompetence on the part of the pakistani at the state and local level. but what bin laden did to a certain degree was he practiced good operational security. he maintained a very small security footprint, relied on his family for a lot of different things. that all said, when he moved into the complex in abbottabad, the fact it did not trigger anybody to say anything to anybody in office is the real big question. i believe it also reflects a cultural issue which is there are a lot of folks on the street who saw something out of the ordinary. they weren't -- they weren't trained. they weren't prepared to two to

talk to people. so that's one of the reasons why he was able to live there so successfully for so long. >> you know, in it weren't so serious, phillip, it would almost be an "snl" skit. apparently there's an automobile stopped, bin laden's in the car. somehow the driver negotiates with whom made the stop and he gets off where, perhaps, we would have had him. >> you know, i think we have to recognize two things here. first, i've been to pakistan. many of my colleagues has. this is not the united states. it's a chaotic third-world country where the state apparatus is not as pervasive, not as effective as what you're going to find in washington, d.c., or new york. the second and final thing is, let's give the pakistanis a bit of credit. they're not a great intelligence service. in terms of putting the military and paramilitary forces in pakistan up in the tribal areas in a civil war in pakistan that's now a decade long, losing thousands of their own people. they've shed a lot of blood in this fight so we might ridicule them for mistakes in this report, but they've also been in other respects in this fight with us. >> i was thinking pervez musharraf will be thrilled to see the result because many suspected perhaps he had some awareness. thank you, roger cressey,

phillip mud. when i return, let me finish with case of legalized prostitution. people join angie's list for all kinds of reasons. i go to angie's list to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we're expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie's list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i've found on angie's list actually have blown me away. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust.

let me finish tonight with this. yesterday eliot spitzer was my guest right here. i told him when he cheated on his wife with a hooker, his wife should have thrown his clothes into central park. but as far as the public was concerned, it was really none of our business. he violated the law.

that wasn't right. we should have an adult conversation about the laws that he violated. i would argue that it's time to bring the world's oldest profession above board in communities willing to allow it, clean up the trade, clamp down on exploitation. let government share in the revenue, but otherwise, stay out of the private affairs of consenting adults. beyond the role of the tax man, prostitution doesn't warrant the involvement of federal authorities. instructive to me has always been the way in which spitzer was caught. since september 11th, the financial world has been required to alert the feds when evidence arises of conduct that could be linked to terrorism. spitzer's suspicious money transfers were the thread that led to his discovery. some functionary or other recognized this was a case of itlation, not terrorism, and yet nevertheless committed the resources that brought about spitzer's public crash. what a waste of time, expertise and the people's money. allen dershowitz once taught eliot spitzer at harvard law and spitzer worked for him as a

research assistant. with regard to the investigation, dershowitz once told me, "they used 5,000 wiretaps, intercepted 6,000 e-mails. every hour spent on going after prostitution is an hour that could have been spent on going after terrorists and people who victimize." which is not to say spitzer shouldn't have emerged from his escapades unscathed, but the discipline should have come from within his own family. there's another argument. some among us are never going to find companionship for a variety of reasons. their solitary existence, the constant barrage of sexual stimulation we see every day on television, on billboards, in our mailboxes and the form of fashion catalogs. it can't be healthy for some people to feel the amassed pressure of such images and have their personal expectations go unfulfilled. yesterday when i asked spitzer

whether he believed we should legalize prostitution, he demured, i won't, we should. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening, from new york. i'm chris hayes. thank you for joining us. and tonight, on "all in", the republicans' all-out war on abortion rights is raging on, spreading to statehouses across the country and each fight seems dirtier than the last. we will take you to texas and north carolina. also, an american city, a great iconic truly american city is tonight on the verge of total financial collapse. what can be done for the city of detroit? plus, tonight, we will introduce you, and this is really a fun one, to the southern avenger. a wild and wacky character who thinks poor john wilkes booth was misunderstood and happens to work for a united states senator. that is coming up.