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president obama back in washington will have consent of the congress of the united states to launch a military strike against syria or if congress will just say no. we'll start today by taking a step back and laying out the road map for you. these are steps that have to be taken. all of the conditions that will have to be met for the president to get what he wants. first step was taken by obama exactly six days and 19 hours ago. last saturday afternoon in the rose garden. >> i have long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military mite but i will seek authorization for the use of force from the american people's representatives in congress. >> at that moment the question of what, if anything, the united states should do in syria became an issue first and foremost of congressional politics. in the immediate aftermath of that surprising announcement was very encouraging for the white house.

nancy pelosi and harry reid, top democrats on capitol hill got onboard and so did house speaker john boehner and john mccain which brings us to wednesday when the senate foreign relations committee voted for a resolution approving the use of force. the vote was 10-7-1. john mccain, jeff flake, bob corker from tennessee voted for. you can see chris murphy from connecticut and tom from new mexico voted no. there was also one democrat, ed markey who said he'll make up his mind later. the resolution put in limits. no ground troops. 90-day limit with one possible 30-day extension. that was step two on the path to a military strike. it takes us into this weekend. it takes us to where we are right now. yesterday harry reid formally filed the resolution for the full senate to consider. that was a simple procedural step and it sets up a series of critical senate votes next week. also next week on tuesday,

president obama will address the nation likely in prime time to build pressure on members of congress to vote with him or lessen the pressure on those members of congress to vote against him. this sets up step three which will come next wednesday in the senate. the question there is will there be a filibuster? will opponents of military action try to block the resolution from coming to a vote? rand paul, the same rand paul who waged a symbolic filibuster against jack brennan's cia nomination earlier this year flirted with a filibuster but then he backed off. there is time between now and wednesday if you look at that 10-7-1 committee vote we just had. there's at least some potential for mischief here. if there's not a filibuster, we'll move to the next step which is a full senate vote coming at the end of next week.

based on the committee vote, there are 50 votes to get resolution through. if public opinion keeps building against an attack, all bets are off. if you notice here the house is holding back at all, that's no accident. it's because they are waiting for the senate to make the first move. there are a lot of members of the house who do not want to go on record on this and there's a chance they won't have to. not if the senate kills it first. if it does clear the senate, then that moves us to step five. that would be a vote by the house foreign affairs committee. the panel actually held hearings this week. secretary of state john kerry, defense secretary chuck hagel and martin dempsey made the administration's case and here's a taste of what they came up against. >> soldiers coming home deformed and limbless and sometimes in a body bag is why i can't vote for this. >> the panel is controlled by republicans and republicans are

more opposeded ed ted t ed tee plan than democrats. if the resolution is breathing will go to the full house of representatives. that's step six in our road map to an attack. what we do know right now from posturing we're hearing is the white house has an impossible task or next to impossible task based on the posturing when it comes to the house. this is the current whip count. this is the current whip count from "the washington post." there are a lot of whip counts like this floating around right now. what they don't measure is what will happen after the administration makes its full-court press. that's intense pressure on members, more briefings, obama's speech next tuesday. we don't know if that will move any of the numbers. what we do know is the few house members in either party seem no reason to be in favor of an attack. they may not budge. that could change. this is a huge if, if this resolution does get through the house, then and only then will

we be on a verge of an attack on syria. only outstanding question at that point is whether there are differences between the senate and house versions that have to be reconciled but that will be a formality. if it clears both chambers, rest assured it won't be long until the bombs start falling. if not, that's the million dollar question, and we'll take it up with our panel. for that i want to bring in msnbc contributor victoria, a fellow at lbj school of public affairs at ufniversity of texas and josh and we also have maggie from politico.com. this is the house whip count from "the washington post." everyone has their whip count these days. there's no such thing when they have a vote in the house in lean against or lean in favor. politics of this right now behooved every member who says i have concern and questions and

not sure even if they vote yes. there's a big wild card in all of this. as i look at it, victoria, it's getting harder and harder for me to see in the house specifically when you say 225 against or lean against and magic number is 218 could kill it right there, that's the majority, is there anything obama can do at this point to overcome that? >> it's an uphill battle. earlier this week the jobs numbers came out. slight uptick from 7.3% unemployment. down to 7.3% unemployment. so folks are not only war weary but we're war weary within a sluggish economy. we are looking at interventions in afghanistan and iraq that are close to 3 trillion. 5 trillion in long-term and when we look at the cost of war, representatives and voters, we're not thinking about what will happen in the next couple months. what will happen to all of those veterans when they come back? what about medical costs? disability? human lives lost.

it's a longer term calculation that has to be met. that being said, there's potential for rallying effect. we see public opinion on the side of not going into syria. but once the speech is made on tuesday, the bully pulpit could rally the american public and give motivation to members of congress. >> the question of what the affect of the speech will be overall on public opinion but then there's the specific question of party politics. we have republicans right now -- this is striking in the house. you look at in favor. people who have come out in favor. very few. there are eight republicans who said they're in favor. those who said they are against or leaning against, 164 republicans. it's overwhelming on the republican side in the house right now. so from the president's standpoint, at the very least, he's got to get his own party in line on this. do you think appeals to party loyalty when it comes to democratic members of the house and democratic members of the senate, basic appeals to i'm a democrat, you're a democrat, i'm the president. do you think that will buy him anything here? >> i don't. it's not historically bought him

a lot. he used what capital he had on that front on other fights and it's eroding as time has gone on. there are some votes he'll get that way but i don't know if it will be near enough. one of the interesting dynamics in the house to me is that john boehner is supportive of this but also not doing anything to move it and that really tells you a lot of what you need to know about the way congress works right now, number one. number two, if he's not actively trying to move his members, it is hard for me to see people getting there. i don't think public opinion is going to move on tuesday after his speech. the public really is against this. the majority of both parties in terms of public opinion are against this. they have been growing against such an intervention if not this specifically, this kind of intervention. it's very hard for me to see what the president is going to say especially because i think a lot of people took from his statement about i'm going to do this and i'm going to do this but i'm going to seek congress'

approval. the tick tock that came out which was 45-minute stroll with denn dennis and then changed his mind and decided to go to congress. until he can do this, i don't see this changing. >> look at the republican side of it, josh. maggie talks about john boehner. he said he's in favor but he's not pushing hard. i wonder if john boehner was pushing hard if he would have clout with house republicans. when it comes to republicans, the story of the four plus last year if obama's name is on it, they vote no. if you look at the house even if every democrat voted yes, you would need republicans. what could administration say or do to get 50, 75 republicans onboard for this? >> there's probably not very much they can do. there are two factors. one as identified they want to oppose things the president supports. the other is the strength of pro war forces in the republican party is massively diminished over the last few years. you have a few voices in the camp in the party saying we need

to review it. national review is in favor of it. bill crystal has been saying we need this attack and then we should authorize an attack on iran right afterward. there are those voices in the party. they don't have nearly the power they did ten years ago. people are afraid if they opposed authorization of the iraq war they would lose primaries on the republican side and on the democratic side they were afraid of losing general elections. there was real popularity for that. here it's not just that the war is unpopular. i think these members of congress are looking forward to how people might react to a war after it happens. it's easy to imagine a situation where we attack syria and some unforeseen consequences happen and everybody regrets it and people lose elections over it. it's hard to imagine a situation where you vote against syria authorization and we go in and people say it worked well and you lose an election over there. you can say you had your various good reasons for opposing that and congress is driven by their own self-interest. hard to see how the president can make a plausible argument to

republicans. >> it reminds me of kosovo. so much criticism against bill clinton where it worked and they got a resolution and nobody paid a price. >> better economic time. bill clinton has come out and said, well, barack obama should ultimately do what he needs to. he can see further down the road. public opinion will catch up. when times were good, it's easy to say that. you already have a bad economy and intervention in syria doesn't go well and it's not going to be a pretty sight for the president. >> we'll talk to a democrat who will have a vote on all this who says he's leaning toward opposing military intervention. this is the kind of democrat that the the needs on his side. that's coming up right after this. o get an mba. but going back to school is hard... because you work. now, capella university offers a revolutionary new way to get your degree. it's called flexpath and it's the most direct path, leveraging what you've learned on the job

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to get his way on syria, he needs help from his own party in congress. he needs a lot of it. so far the help has not materialized. our next guest personifies the member that president obama needs. he's not persuaded by president obama's case. at this point you are officially undecided on this. you have made some critical comments. i would say you are officially undecided? >> good to be with you. i always found it good policy not to announce what my vote is going to be before i know what the vote is. >> fair enough. >> so what's working through at least if we look at what got through the senate this week, what got through senate committee this week, unclear if it will get through the senate, 60-day limit, possible 30-day extension. mccain language that it becomes the policy of the united states to get to a settlement with assad regime. what concerns do you have and what do you think of what got through the senate committee this week?

>> of course there are lots of questions and i've had meetings and the white house knowing that i'm not on their side or not yet on their side has asked me for lots of conversations. so i have a lot of questions. i start with the basic point of military force should be used very sparingly and it's hard to see how that's going to help us advance political ends here. they say what we're aiming for is a negotiated political settlement, peace in this civil war, but intervention in a civil war is something that is rarely justified. the only possible justification and the administration has introduced several justifications and they keep shifting is reminiscent of iraq now in that. the only possible justified intervention is to enforce international norms of what's

acceptable behavior and what's beyond the pale. use of chemical weapons is considered unacceptable in the 21st century. how will military intervention, particularly that is seen to be unilateral, now maybe they can make it seem international but so far it seems unilateral, one nation against another nation, how can that enforce international norms. >> the counter to that would be traditional way of making it international is to go to the united nations. russia will block any action from that standpoint. if you have evidence that the assad regime used chemical weapons against its people, it violated this international norm, do you just stand by and you do nothing? >> that's what the president keeps saying. you have to do something. you have to do something. he's evidently doing something. it's not clear this is well thought through. >> but what i'm asking is does that bother you the idea that if congress votes no on this or

president looks and says we're not going have votes. we're not going to do this. what message does that then send to assad and what message does that send to other leaders maybe like assad who would think about launching chemical weapons on their own people. we did it and president of the united states started posturing and nothing came of it and we got away with it. >> that is actually the point. this administration has to do a lot more, i think, at least has to convince me that they're doing a lot more to work with the international community. convene all of the nations of the chemical weapons treaty. really get the arab league onboard. work with iran. there's no nation in the world that should have more interest in enforcing international prohibition against future use of chemical weapons than iran that has felt the greatest

effect of nuclear weapons in recent times. you know, are we really using them? they have close connections with syria. their involvement could be very important in this. >> i wonder if you can tell us about your colleagues, conversations you've had with your colleagues and with democrats in the house. we put whip counts on the screen and trying to figure out how much they are worth. no matter which whip count you look at, not many democrats and few republicans are for this right now. a lot say undecided and a lot say against it or leaning against it. what is your sense when you talk specifically to democratic colleagues? how flexible is that? how much room to maneuver does the white house have right here? how many democrats can be persuaded into that for column? >> we don't know. we haven't been in session for the last few weeks. so only a few members, maybe it's been reported maybe a third of the members, republicans and democrats, have had classified briefings on this. there will be a lot of meeting

starting this weekend. so i'm not sure where all of my colleagues are. speaking for myself, i think most would agree, on matters of war and peace, party takes second place. much as i want to support the president on lots of things and i do, on something like this, you have to make a decision independent of party and you see that in the numbers. the republicans and democrats are all over the place on this. i think the president is going to have a hard time getting a positive vote on the kind of military action that he seems to be talking about here. >> do you find that members are coming out of those classified briefings more supportive of military action? are people being convinced by those? >> the intelligence is on who did what to whom is moderately convincing. nobody is using the phrase slam dunk and they better not because it's not that good.

it's good. there is strong intelligence but, you know, all of the world knows american intelligence is fallible. we had a reminder of that ten years ago. >> so the focus of the briefings is purely on the nature of the chemical attack and who is behind it? are briefings addressing the question of how will the attack actually advance u.s. interests and improve the situation in syria? >> that's more of a political than intelligence question of how it will advance the political interest. we also talk about, okay, what might be targeted and the administration will say that is changing day by day. the intelligence also talks about what other countries -- where they are on this and again that seems to be changing day by day. but it's not shaping up in the view of the world to be an international operation. i should make the point, the view of the world is what

counts. if the purpose of this is to enforce international standards of acceptable behavior, it's not so much what congress thinks. it's not so much even what the american people think. it is what the world community thinks because it's the world community ultimately that determines whether this enforcement of acceptable world standards is being carried out. by that measure, we're not getting there. there were 10 of the 20 nations in russia that signed onto something that sounded pretty tough but it still doesn't make it sound like the security council undertaking, doesn't sound like arab league is really onboard or make it sound like the signatories to chemical weapons -- >> i see maggie is waiting. >> i'm just processing. i guess i'm just wondering without getting into their

specific reactions but generally from your colleagues, what's the response that you've heard from the fact that the president decided to go this route in the first place. he says simultaneously i have authority to do with without congress but is this something where they feel he is hoisting responsibility on them. >> please understand congress' role on this is not advisory. >> right. >> i don't think the president is approaching it that way. >> you don't expect to see -- >> i think a lot of members of congress are puzzled. is he looking for cover or is he actually looking to bolster his case or is he looking for a way out if congress says no, you know, he might be able to say this box he got himself into by announcing a red line he can get out of by putting it on congress.

>> let me pick that up. >> most members of congress are not happy to be put in this situation. particularly when as you all have mentioned, the word from back home, i mean, i think probably in every congressional district, certainly in mine, the overwhelming public sentiment is against military action in syria. getting involved in a civil war that might lead to a quagmire. >> what happens if this fails in congress and it fails with democrats voting no and the president cannot get the attack he wants, the question is what does that do to his larger domestic agenda? we spent the rest of the summer talking about fiscal battles coming up. immigration coming up this fall when congress comes back. if a president can't win on a vote like this, are there implications on domestic fights? >> sure there are. any time the president has to go to the nation to present a case,

this is important and a lot at stake and reputation is part of what's at stake here. reputation and, you know, effectiveness working with congress. working with congress has not been a strength of the obama administration. and this doesn't necessarily -- >> you say not just republicans, you say democrats too? >> democrats too. this doesn't necessarily make it worse but it doesn't help the situation. >> i had a question in terms of the briefings. you're not convinced. you don't see a slam dunk. what about contingency plans. if we go in a syria and assad stays, assad goes down, what are the scenarios? are you feeling confident how those are being drawn out for you? >> no. no. i mean, you know, everybody is saying what about day two, day three, day four. even if we know -- or day ten. even if we know what will be struck with no boots on the

ground cruise missile strike, okay, what can we expect syria to do and the other parties to do whether it's the rebels or iran or russia or lebanon or hezbollah and then what will the other nations -- what will israel and iran and russia and others do in response to the response? this is pretty tough to game out. that part of the world is always complicated. and this is particularly complicated. and briefings aren't going to help us much on that. >> this is the problem that the white house faces right now because you are somebody they desperately need. huge democratic support in the house and they need to win people like you over. thank you for sharing your thoughts. we appreciate it. what do you say about syria when you don't want to say anything but you have to say something? we'll show you how it's done. that's coming up.

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national public figure and ambitious and an explosive issue comes up. politics of it aren't obvious whatever position you take there's a chance you'll end up getting burned. your instinct is to say nothing and wait for it to go away. that's not an option. everyone is asking you to speak up. demanding that you say something. what do you do if you're a major nationally ambitious politician in a situation like this. you do something like this. secretary clinton supports the president's efforts to enlist the congress in pursuing a strong and targeted response to the assad regime's horrific use of chemical weapons. the aide was not given permission to speak publicly. that's the closest we'll get to hillary clinton going on the record about syria. carefully worded statement sent to the press by an unnamed aide. if you have to do something, this really is the least you can

get away with doing. looks like clinton is siding with president obama but there's an all wful lot of wiggle room maintained here. the conventional wisdom is hillary learned from iraq from the price she paid in 2008 for voting for president bush's war in 2002 and doesn't want to answer questions from angry democrats in 2016 about why she was a cheerleader in the disastrous action. there's only part of the story here. there's back story to the statement. it takes us back to january of 1991. in washington that month, congress was debating whether to b give the first president bush power to remove saddam hussein.

the last thing clinton wanted to do was to weigh in on what to do about saddam hussein in kuwait. we look back at the '91 gulf wore as a triumph with few american tragedies and quick withdraw as our men and women came home safe. in the run-up to the war when vote was pending in congress, there was deep fear it is would turn into a kwquagmire. barely 15 years since the last troops left vietnam. hadn't we learned eed anything? opposition to the war was high. 18% of democrats voted for it in the senate. in the house, 32%. bill clinton had another consideration. his plan was to run in 1992 as a different kind of democrat. a moderate who wouldn't fit the mcgovern caricature of attacks. politics were blurry and no one knew how the military operation would go so instead of speaking

up, bill clinton stayed silent. all through the fall of 1990 as american troops masked in the desert, he said nothing. congress debated and voted and by a slim margin gave bush his authorization and clinton ignored the question until finally on january 14th, 1991, on the eve of the deadline president bush said for saddam hussein to leave kuwait, a reporter asked how would you vote on the war? he said i would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. i agree with the arguments the minority made. it's what you say what you have to say something but you don't want to say anything at all. of course when 1992 finally rolled around, the war was over and everyone agreed that it had been a rousing success at which point it wasn't heard to get clinton to speak up on the subject. >> i thought that congress should approve the u.n. resolution and the position that gave the president the authority to go to war.

>> when she was in the senate in 2002, hillary clinton didn't have the luxury her husband had. george w. bush wanted a war with iraq and she had to cast an actual vote. she ended up paying for it. now all of these years later, she does have that luxury. as we saw this week, she's more than happy to take advantage of it. we'll talk about this position she finds herself in and we'll do that coming up next. building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. the timing, the actions, the reactions. everything has to synch up. my expenses are no different. receipt match from american express synchronizes your business expenses. just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. i'm john kaplan and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does.

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we're constantly innovating to advance the front line in the cyber battle, wherever it takes us. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. this week hillary clinton weighed in on a strategic way on president obama's plan for intervention in syria. back at the table to discuss what it means, we have maggie who reported on hillary's dilemma with regard to syria and msnbc contributor victoria and josh of businessinsider.com. maggie, you wrote about hillary clinton and syria this week. it struck me as i said in the last segment as the least you can do when you have to do

something. is that sort of the plan here? >> to their credit, they did recognize they had to do something and recognized it quickly. they didn't drag it on for a week. i think what is absent in terms of this is what we hear for now, she's giving a policy address next week. first of a fall series she announced at the american bar association a couple weeks ago originally expected to ed to by about the nsa. i don't think that will be what it is now. it will be fluid. hard to imagine she doesn't talk about syria in her own words in that speech. i think she'll have to go a bit further than that blind quote statement. it's also worth noting she'll be talking about the same time the president is. she's speaking on tuesday evening. it's shortly before the president addresses the nation. that sets up a weird dynamic in and of itself. i agree she has the benefit that her husband had of not having to weigh in and not having to take a vote. that's always preferable. her iraq war vote in 2002 seemed

like smart politics and it was also overwhelmingly where congress was at that point. it's not like she was some standout. >> it was lesson learned. we talked about '91 gulf war where democrats were against it and it looked easy and everyone said how can you be against it and that set the stage for '02. >> also in terms of a different circumstance. 9/11, ground zero was still burning literally at the point where they took that vote. you can still see smoke coming out. it's really important to remember how different the circumstances were. also why the circumstances are different for hillary here. it's hard for a former secretary of state who was known to have endorsed a more aggressive policy in terms of arming some of the rebels that didn't mean boots on the ground. that's not why she was but she and general petraeus backed a plan that the white house ultimately rejected soon before she left the state department to arm some of the rebels and work with them and get them and train them. white house was afraid of weapons getting into the wrong hands and afraid of getting

further drawn in. it's hard for her and joe biden if he ends up running to run a smoke and mirrors foreign policy campaign. the idea that she's going to be able to not talk about this i think is hard to see. >> it's not the same. i look at john kerry in the last two weeks who has become the face of the administration. he's the secretary of state. the administration that wants this and it seems john kerry believes he's not being forced to do this. let's say john kerry had future presidential aspirations and wanted to run again in 2016. this is the kind of thing he's so exposed that for better or worse whatever happens in syria, he'll answer for it as a candidate. hillary clinton doesn't have to be attached to it. >> there's a difference between this and iraq. the president is a democrat. if you imagine a 2016 primary after a syria attack gone wrong, there will be candidates who oppose the attack and put that out there as a plus for them. they won't be able to go as

viciously after it as they could into 2008 against president bush's war. that helps insulate hillary. i can't see martin o'malley or someone else really going very negative on hillary over this because you would be going after the sitting democratic president unless there's a complete political collapse of the obama administration and approval rating in the 20s or something like that which i think is not the likely outcome even if syria goes south. >> when the vote was taken in 2002, who would have guessed that six years later in iowa, new hampshire, pennsylvania, all of these states, everyone would talk about that vote. in the same way, who knows that syria vote if there is going to be one, syria vote in 2013, is even on the radar in 2016. if it's like kosovo, that was forgotten within a couple years. >> maggie, you broke the story that former president clinton was strongly in favor of going into syria. in looking at 2016, will we see bad cop, good cop dynamic

between clintons where this way they are hedging? >> i think we all tend to assume or the vast majority of people tend to assume everything clintons do is calculated and we go too far on that. this is bill clinton speaking with somebody he liked, john mccain. this was a room with no reporters. it's very easy sometimes for former presidents to convince themselves that we're among friends this hundred of us with a tape recorder. how is anyone ever going to hear this. again, i can't read his mind and i can't completely psycho analyze him but bill clinton does have a tendency toward sort of agreeing with whoever his host is and so i think while i do think that he does favor a more muscular approach, his wife favored a more muscular approach, mccain is the toughest hawk there is. no point during what he said to bill clinton and i say what you are suggesting exactly what you are suggesting, john mccain, is what we should do. i agree with you we ought to do

more. it wasn't part of the c calibrati calibration. it didn't occur what he was saying which was sort of hypothetical about if i had done x, y, z i would have looked like a fool and blamed them that it was going sound as if he was talking about president obama. his aides say he was taken out of context. it wasn't a good cop/bad cop thing. bill clinton doesn't remember there's a tape recorder on at all times. >> what drove the democratic base nuts was in 1993 they raised taxes on the rich. a huge controversial vote. cost a lot of democrats in congress their job. in later years it looked better than it did politically at that point. a year after clinton got this thing through and year after democrats lost their seat because of it, went to a room of wealthy donors and said a lot of people in this room think i rose

taxes too much. it might surprise you to know that i think i rose your taxes too much. if you don't like what this president says, wait ten minutes. >> you will have to wait more than ten minutes to hear him say something about syria. if he does do anything, it then will be a very sort of prepared statement. i think he would have thought it through. that wasn't part of any kind of a wink and nod and i certainly don't think that they meant to get ahead of the president. some of the speculation afterwards was he was trying to help the president by getting in front of him and i think that's a bridge too far. >> very quickly. you have written so much about the clintons. looking to the timetable in summer of 2013, invisible primary for 2016, hillary clinton saying few public policy pronouncements. what's the timetable for her to announce what she's going to do? >> it's a really good question. she's very out there. one of the things that her folks have sort of given up on is

saying she's not out there. she's just trying to go live her life or whatever because she clearly wants to be part of the conversation. i think some of it is that she wants to be part of the conversation. i think these are issues she cares about. she's been in public life for a very long time and policy making for a long time. i also think that to some extent there's some muscle memory in knowing if you don't protect your turf, people crowd in on it. supporters say she doesn't have to make a decision until late next year until 2014. that's wishful thinking. donors are going to put pressure on that she needs to make a decision. if she's not running and she makes a decision let's say next december, 2014, you are leaving the democratic field that will play catchup, tier b, tier c, 12 months to raise money and get name out and republicans will have a huge jump and democratic donors don't want that. >> joe biden is going crazy

saying tier b, tier c. john mccain was caught this week playing video poker on the job. a few things to say about that in a minute but first jon stewart had advice for the senator. >> hey, man, is this interrupting your video poker time? mccain, you've been hawking syria for a year. now this is your time to shine and you can't be bothered because you're a river card away from crushing stash man underscore 42? you know what, senator? go. there's a rascal scooter and bucket of quarters with your name on it over golden nugget. play all of the video poker you want instead of playing pretend poker in the actual senate go to a casino and pretend you know what the government should do. how about that? ready to run your lines?

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on tuesday, a "the

washington post" photographer caught john mccain playing a poker game on his cell phone during a foreign relations committee hearing on syria. a reminder that mccain is known as one of the biggest gambling enthusiasts in congress and members of the senate and house can get bored during their wo workday as we can sitting in our cubicals. maybe this is one where if you are bored, you want to pretend your paying attention. it reminds me when i saw this story this week, i covered congressman roll call. i had a seat in the balcony looking over the entire house. i wasn't paying too much attention to the speech because i had the script and i could read it later. i was interested in seeing who among members was paying attention and who was in their own world. i won't say his name because i can't confirm this by 100%. 95% certain was a democratic from california who was sleeping during it. there was one who never, i mean never, looked up from his

blackberry the entire time. his name is anthony weiner. >> that sounds right. >> i don't blame mccain. when you watch these hearings, it's mostly the other senators on the panel grandstanding about their opinions and they have classified briefings. this is not their key source of information to decide whether or not we should invade syria. to the extent it is just for show, they might as well play poker. >> of all of the sins somebody could commit politically and legislatively and who we're talking about, mccain is such a vocal person on syria for so long, most people don't assume he is not aware of the facts. most people don't assume he'll be swayed by this hearing generally speaking. optics is not great. >> that's the sin against politics right there. >> i think that -- >> i'm a professor. if i caught one of my students during my three-hour seminars some may say boring at times playing poker, i would ask them

to leave. >> he's not a student at a seminar. >> but even more important, we're talking about syria and lives on the line. if you're bored, doodle, think about other things. don't pull out your poker game. >> if he was caught doodling like figures of him drawing poker, people would think that was weird too. i don't think it's a huge thing. >> i talked to a college class a year and a half ago. a class of 60 kids everyone was on their ipad or laptop. two looking up. i have freedom to say anything i want because they're not listening. we showed you the clip earlier. why, when and how the south turned into a republican haven. the discussion that kevin williamson and i started on "morning joe" a few weeks ago continues next.

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reliably republican region today. look at this this way. from 1912 to 1964, that's a span of 13 presidential elections -- 1960 actually. a span of 13 presidential elections. here's a total of electoral votes won by each party in the south. democrats, 1,355. republicans just 231. and now here are numbers for the next 13 presidential elections. this is from 1964 through last fall. it's a complete reverse. democrats at 423. republicans at 1,359. george wallace who ran as an independent in 1968. i say that what happened in 1964, that is when a democratic president broke the south's filibuster and signed the civil rights act they nominated barry

goldwater and that had a lot to do with the shift we have seen. when i said it a few weeks ago on "morning joe," it didn't go over so well. >> no republican presidential candidates won the black vote since hoover. so the idea that this stuff happens as a result of what happened in middle 1960s -- >> '64 is a critical year. >> if '64 the critical year, the realignment wouldn't have happened. eisenhower got a stronger share of the southern vote then goldwater did. >> williamson argues that african-americans had already switched over to the democratic party during fdr's new deal and the new deal policies and southern development and not civil rights politics explain why the south turned away from the democrats and embraced gop. we got about 90 seconds to hash this out on "morning joe" which wasn't enough so here to pick up the conversation of where we left off is kevin williamson of national review. thanks for coming in.

the coffee is not as good but pastries are better so help yourself to that if you want. >> i thought we would play video poker instead. >> i left my iphone upstairs. >> hash it out that way. >> we heard people raise the point that you raised. i would say your position that this is not the majority of political historians that look at the evolution of the modern democratic and republican parties. i look at it and say you cannot avoid making the civil rights movement and civil rights politics and making race a central part in the republican party's shift that occurred around the 1960s. not exclusively but around the 1960s and accelerated that. how do you not make race and civil rights a part of that? >> it didn't accelerate necessarily in '64 as i pointed out and you deny but i bring the numbers here. in 1956, eisenhower got larger share of the southern vote than goldwater would get in '64. 49.8% 49 for goldwater. weighs the first republican to

ever win a plurality since reconstruction. you are talking about a set of changes among black voters and white voters under way well before 1964 and in fact republicans were setback in many ways. eisenhower won a number of southern states that the goldwater didn't in '56. he won louisiana by 53, which is a pretty good number for a republican back then. if you look at the way people are voting in the south and in the rest of the country and if you look at where the republican party and democrats are on civil rights in that time, you won't see much of a correlation. you see changes start really in the 1920s as some white southerners start voting republican mostly suburbanites and upper middle class people. by 1946 election, the majority of already democrats at that point and at that point the democratic party is still nasty segregationist organization. you have got lyndon johnson

fighting anti-lynching bills and so my thinking is the thing that explains the move more than anything else is the new deal which is kind of the earthquake in 20th century domestic politics. >> i'm trying to figure out where to start with this. i would say it's this. the tale of the democratic party, the story of the democratic party around that era, you are focusing on one wing of it i would say and that's the southern wing. the southern conservative white segregationist wing of the democratic party. a huge part of the democratic party for many years basically for generations from reconstruction and again i would say through the civil rights era. there was a second democratic party of that era. it was northern, liberal and as you say black voters in the north where they had the vote and be clear in the south, blacks did not have the vote in the era we're talking about. in the north, black voters were increasingly voted with the democratic party. the democratic party in the north was pushing for civil rights. i look at this and i say there were two key dates. one was 1948 when democratic party pushed by hubert humphrey,

put a civil rights plank into its platform. that southern wing, the southern segregationists bolted. strom thurmond ran. that's when lbj who had this horrible segregationist past and pushed through the civil rights act at the same time republicans nominated barry goldwater part of that filibuster. strom thurmond bolted again. he was the father of the modern republican party left the democratic party -- >> good god, no. okay. first of all, go back to an earlier point. the idea that the segregationists were somehow located exclusively in the south and it was a southern thing, i think that's really not historically very accurate. jack kennedy who is not a

southerner, voted against the civil rights act in 1957. the idea that lyndon johnson was overcoming his past in 1964, it was hardly even the past at that point. >> it didn't do nearly enough. it was water down to accommodate the southern -- >> watered down by who? >> by lyndon johnson. >> this is my point. i'm not forgiving or dismissing or ignoring the fact there was a southern segregationist democratic party and democratic party for years through 1936 -- >> southern segregationist democratic party that included a guy from massachusetts. you take 1946 -- >> hang on that point for a moment. a northern liberal who looked at the civil rights bill said this thing means nothing from a civil rights standpoint, i wouldn't lump that person in with segregationists because they make the point the bill should go farther. >> kennedy did nothing. in 1946 you have taft

introducing a sweeping set of civil rights reform going forward as they did in 1964 who kills in. northern liberals. unions kill it. they don't want oversight of their racial hiring practices by the federal government. if you look at the actual history of this, why do people start going in the south to the republicans in 1920s and 1930s? is it because suddenly republicans have done an about-face? the only about-face comes in 1964 when lyndon johnson who is a dedicated consistent foe of everything from anti-lynching laws to civil rights acts, ad t adopted in 1957 and 1960 wakes up one morning and finds jesus and turns around on this issue. i'm curious about your theory about why did lyndon johnson after a career of running against the interest of african-americans suddenly turn around and become mr. civil rights. >> he was no longer running to represent the democratic party in a segregationist part of the

country. >> the house was not -- >> i want to pick this up for a second. the point you make about south switching in 1920s and 1930s. i do think there's a separate story about the evolution of the south. there's a separate story that doesn't have much to do with race. i don't think it's overwhelming story in this period in history. you are saying 1920s and 1930s. 1936 presidential election when south carolina gave 98% of its votes to franklin roosevelt. that tells you the state of the republican party. it was very -- it was not what it is today by any stretch of the imagination. again, what i ask is this. how do you grapple with what happened in 1948 with a democratic party at the national level sort of renouncing its segregationist wing saying we're the civil rights party nationally and then a rump party called states right party headed up by future republican named

strom thurmond who takes a bunch of southern states. they vote for that. then 16 years later in 1964, the year that civil rights passes, the republican party nationally nominates somebody who was part of that filibuster. >> and lyndon johnson gets 52% of the vote in the south. >> here's an interesting story. you have a southern vote that's very closely divided in terms of the popular votes. 52-49. you have the electoral -- >> 52 to 49, what are you talking about? >> johnson wins the popular vote. >> smaller margin. >> you have closely divided electorate but this dramatic electoral map. boom, boom, boom, goldwater, goldwater, goldwater but you have a dramatic map in '72. you have a -- >> you had a dramatic event in '72 and '84. ronald reagan in 1984 won 49 states.

richard nixon won 49 states. lbj victory in 1964 would have been like that if it wasn't for pick regional concerns in the south where segregationists and conservative democrats wouldn't vote for the party. 38% of the vote nationally. barry goldwater had 87% of the vote in mississippi. 87%. >> one state doesn't tell the story of the south. >> alabama, 70%. >> he loses the popular vote in overall south. >> by .5% which was one of the best showings republicans ever had in one of the worst years. the context matters here. >> of course context matters. it matters that it's happening in the context of an electorate changing for years and years. goldwater's performance in the south wasn't as good as eisenhower's was. >> eisenhower won with nearly 60% of the vote nationally. goldwater got 38%. still managed to match eisenhower in the south. >> regional variation brought

but by a backlash against the movement. >> there's regional variation in the '50s and '40s. >> huge dramatic swing -- >> that's not brought about in '64 if you look at the numbers of the votes. if there was a huge dramatic swing, you would look at congressional elections in 1962, the republicans are at 33% of the vote in the south. in 1964, the year of this great landslide, they are down from that. down at 32%. so there's no huge swing toward the republicans that year. >> they are still running -- the first republican to win in the south, the first republican to break through and win a statewide election in the south was in 1961. his name was john tower. republican. he voted against the civil rights act in 1964. he opposed civil rights. that was the first republican senator to get elected in the south. i'll give you last word.

>> if you look at the electoral maps and you don't see sustained republican victories in presidential elections until the 1980s. carter wins big. but those happened in the context of which republicans are winning the rest of the country. republicans in elections have done well in the south mostly years when they have done well in the rest of the country. you look at any electoral map and you won't see it concentrated in the south. you'll see west and southwest and in case of reagan victories you can all of it. 97% of the country was oniboard with reagan, that isn't the case. >> nine minutes wasn't enough. maybe we'll do it again. thank kevin williamson. appreciate you coming in. coming up, the clock is ticking. t minus 69 hours until the polls open in the big apple. we'll find out if i'm going to win a bet next.

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less than 72 hours from now, polls in america's biggest cities will open. we'll have answers to key questions in new york like will bill deblasio win nomination for mayor on the spot or will his opponents trigger a runoff? if there is a runoff, who will he face? bill thompson? nearly knocked off michael bloomberg four years ago or christine quinn who started this year as front runner and now in a battle for political survival. also, will anthony weiner get into a loud argument with anyone during his concession speech? joining us to talk about everything happening on tuesday,

we have josh benson, co-editor of capitalnewyork.com and we have maggie with us from politico and josh, i should point out was once my editor in a former life and saved me from making a bigger fool of myself on numerous occasions. i appreciate you joining us today. let's talk about bill. this has been the story of the last month. if you took a poll, he might have been in high single digits. now we're talking about this guy could win the democratic nomination for mayor on the spot on tuesday. what has been behind this? they say it's a national progressive revival. is that the story or is there more to it than that? >> there are a couple of local dynamics that are key to this. one was very visible and one was less so. the very visible was anthony weiner who served more than anything i think to mask the

potential of the de blasio candidacy. he was making a case for a change from bloomberg. we can see a clear correlation in the polls for whatever it is worth when weiner collapsed pretty thoroughly, de blasio rose. that was a huge thing. that helped him because the other campaigns didn't see him coming as ridiculous as it seems now. hindsight is always 20/20. they really didn't see him coming because the story of the day was always anthony weiner, the guy that may blow up at someone during his concession speech. not a bad prediction. de blasio has won a smart campaign. message is clear and easy to understand compared to his chief rivals. >> looking at -- first of all,

what do you think the likelihood of him clearing the 42% on tuesday and winning on the spot and if he doesn't, who do you think the opponent is most likely to be for the runoff? >> i have -- you know, the numbers say that he's got a real crack at it. he might. that would require both christine quinn and bill thompson to do shockingly badly. so that's tough. i think the thompson campaign makes an argument, it's spin but it's compelling spin, the polls are underpredicting his support because there's a history of that happening to him in particular and also to credible african-american candidates we don't need to go into that but i think there's a very good chance that he could do better than what the polls are showing which would be a crushing disappointment for him. quinn has had structural problems for a while. high negatives surprisingly high

negatives and uncommitted support. at the same time, we shouldn't forget the reason that people once considered her at the very least a lock for the runoff, which is putting aside the history making potential for candidacy and fact that she was seen as having a very good chance of being the first woman mayor and first lesbian mayor of new york. she's been the second most powerful figure in the city for a long time and has a high profile and has decent amount of structural institutional union support and so it would be shocking if both thompson and quinn collapsed that de blasio won it outright. >> this is the latest poll from quinnipiac. that's why we talk about 40%. maggie, you wrote about this today. looking at christine quinn who started as front runner would be the first female mayor and first openly gay mayor if elected and

yet i am astounded when i look at the inside of the polls of negatives around her. when they do this in that same poll when they do perspective runoffs and put her against de blasio she's behind by 40%. there's resistance to her that i'm confused by because she's not that far away from where the democratic party is. >> i'm not surprised by it. i've been saying for a long time that i didn't think she would be the nominee. i did think she would get into the runoff but not out of the runoff. that would be my caveat. i'm not that surprised. so a couple of things. one thing i didn't talk about in my piece this morning but is an important point and josh would agree with this, city council speaker is a high profile platform. it's not a good platform from which to become mayor. it has not been historically. you can ask mayor miller the same question from 2005 and miller finished fourth if i remember correctly. i don't think quinn will finish

fourth but i think that they did not play out the historic nature of her candidacy at all until recently and more in terms of the woman aspect of it. last night very openly embracing the potential first gay mayor with a rally at stonewall. that was an interesting rally to see. it was the kind of thing you looked at and thought if they did it earlier, it might have been a risky gamble but the only play they had. she couldn't decide to embrace bloomberg or separate from bloomberg. what happened is because she was so instrumental in the third term, bloomberg's allies and quinn's team and there is overlap there, ended up thinking that because bloomberg's numbers were right side up, he still had a favorable rating overall, that that was going to somehow transfer over to her and people didn't. there was never a compelling case made that she was an extension of bloomberg. it's now become clear in the democratic primary, people don't

want -- people want a new direction among the democratic primary voters. one thing josh mentioned that was key for de blasio, stop and frisk ruling in federal court in manhattan was incredibly important in terms of timing for him. it crystallized what has been a latent feeling of racial hostility that's not been overt during the bloomberg years but encapsulated by nypd stops. not what we have seen during rudy giuliani certainly. the message dovetailed with that decision. critical of stop and frisk. quinn had been all over the place. she was going to keep ray kelly as police commissioner and then fire ray kelly as commissioner if he didn't get stops down. you don't want to dance on somebody's grave, we're not at tuesday yet, but she has not run a good campaign. >> almost no time left. josh, yes or no answer. i have a bet with someone on

this other race on tuesday. scott stringer versus eliot spitzer. i took stringer a while ago. will i win my bet? >> it's looking good. >> good answer. josh benson, we'll have you back sometime. we're not forgetting about the republicans in this race. next saturday we will talk to the likely republican nominee. thank you, josh benson. the most liberal member of the supreme court making liberals nervous these days. we'll look at why. that's ahead. ♪ we go, go, we don't have to go solo ♪ ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪ her busy saturday begins with back pain, when...

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named john roberts marrying the president of the kennedy center. that's the kind of job with the kind of juice it seems you would need to have to get a supreme court justice to marry you. whatever the explanation, this makes justice ginsburg the first member of the supreme court to officiate at the same-sex wedding there are many hoping that ginsburg doesn't break another record as being the oldest person to serve on the court. at 80 years old, justice ginsburg is the oldest current member of the court making it not at all unreasonable to ask if maybe if she could in the near future think of retiring. while there is still a democrat in the white house who could replace her with another democrat. not to mention a senate with a democratic majority through which that nominee would have an actual chance of being confirmed. when it was broached with justice ginsburg recently, this is how they answered it. she said there will be a president after this one and i'm

hopeful that president will be a fine president. ginsburg has made some concessions to age by giving up water skiing. i want to talk about how crucial ginsburg has been to the roberts court and how crucial if she would be replaced by a republican pick. let's bring in linda greenhouse covering the supreme court for 30 years at "the new york times" winning pulitzer prize in 1998 and teaches now at yale law school. it was an interview with adam recently where ginsburg addressed the issue of retirement. i wonder, you observed her for years. do you have a sense of where she sort of -- where she sort of is in her career right now. voice of the minority wing of the court. is she in a certain way thriving in that role? >> she is. she's the senior associate justice on the liberal wing of

the court. she takes that role very seriously. if you look at her performance in the last week of the court term in which the court not only invalidated the voters right act but issued two labor decisions under title 7 of the civil rights act that justice ginsburg found completely wrong headed. she announced her dissent from the bench in a strong voice. she is thriving. she rather be in the majority but she's making the most of her position as a spokesperson for the minority. >> what do you make of the argument of the case that she should retire. this is randall kennedy. this is from two years ago. harvard law professor called for not just ginsburg but also breyer to retire as concessions to age and getting a younger member in with a democratic president and announce retirements this spring.

those who admire their service might find it hard to hope they will leave the court but service comes in many forms including making way for others. what do you make of that argument? the reality is she's still 80 years old. she's had cancer twice. there is a democrat in the white house now. there is a democratic senate. you don't know how long that will last. how do you think about that? >> i remember when randy kennedy wrote that essay. i find it odd for a life tenured university professor to be calling for a life tenured supreme court justice to take a bullet for the country and give it up. you can argue this in many ways. actually, i think the argument that she ought to step down is kind of demeaning and kind of sexist. she's the oldest member of the court but she's not the only member of the court who gets social security. anthony scalia is 77. others of the conservatives are creeping up on him. everybody is getting older by

the day. you know, i think from her point of view to try to game the system in that way is -- it demeans the court and one might argue nobody has made this argument but it's a valid one that if at the time of the next presidential election in 2016 she's still on the court and it's clear that she and maybe justice scalia and justice breyer, whoever, would be in a position to retire in the next four years, for once we could have a real discussion within the context of a presidential election about the impact of the white house on the court. that's a discussion that everybody says we ought to have and we never have it. >> let's have it here. let's say ginsburg or any of the other members from her wing of the court, if they were to leave tomorrow and let's say tomorrow because there's a democratic president but leave in a couple years with say a republican president, if one of the members of the liberal wing are the court were replaced by a republican pick, what affect would that have on the court?

>> the court is now 5-4 on everything that sort of matters to most people. now, sometimes it's 5-4 one way as in justice kennedy's majority opinion in june that struck down the defense of marriage act. that was a liberal outcome. kennedy joined four liberals on that. the court is hanging by a thread although it is swinging pretty notably to the right on many issues so every vacancy matters. there's a great fear on the right because i follow the right wing blogosphere with great interest and on the right there's fear that my gosh, you know, if we don't get the presidency back in 2016, it's our vacancancies that will occu and it swings both ways. >> if i was a betting woman but i'm not but looking at the 2016 and the demographics of this count are you, the executive will most likely be filled by a

democrat unless the republican party does a 180, which could happen, but i doubt it. when she said i expect the president next will be a fine president, to me that was almost code like i expect the next president will be a democratic president. so don't worry when i leave, more likely than not, another democrat -- >> if there is that calculation, that's a heck of a -- i could look at demographics like anybody else and say 55% democratic president but that 45 or 40% that could be republican is a lot to leave out there. >> let me ask you what you think would happen if there were a supreme court vacancy tomorrow? president obama in the middle of what you're discussing earlier on the show this morning, the whole syria mess, last thing this president needs is a supreme court vacancy. i'm not sure that we could sit here and say it will go well because we have a democratic president. >> the case would be that the closer you get to 2016, the harder it will get. let's see she or one of the

liberals retired in february of 2016, then the calculation from republicans could be can we spring this out for the rest of 2016 without doing anything. if it is still in 2013, harder for them to do that. >> that's true. i think what this conversation indicates is that it's really hard to bet the future on these things. the notion that she should be the one to kind of just wrap it up for the good of everybody, i just find that a little strange. >> i don't know what else we expect her to say. there's still more than three years of president obama's second term left. if she's intending to retire at the beginning of 2015 that would leave margin before the next presidential election, why tip her hand to that now in any of these sorts of jobs you don't want so symbolize you're a lame duck. if she is intending to retire, i wouldn't expect her to review that announcement until she's ready to do it. >> i can appreciate the

position. she's completely engaged in the work of the court. she's reading dissents from the bench. it has to be insulting at some level for anybody that gets that question, what am i doing wrong day-to-day in my job to have you ask that question to me. i want to say thanks to linda greenhouse. 40 years ago john kerry was the face of vietnam opposition and now leading voice for intervention in syria. how did he get from there to here? that's next. and now, there's a plan that lets you experience that "new" phone thrill again and again. and again. can you close your new phone box? we're picking up some feedback. introducing verizon edge. the plan that lets you upgrade to a new verizon 4glte phone when you want to. having what you want on the network you rely on. that's powerful. verizon. upgrade to the new droid ultra by motorola with zero down payment.

>> senator chuck hagel when he was a senator, we opposed the president's decision to go into iraq but we know how that evidence was used to persuade all of us that authority ought to be given. i can guarantee you i'm not imprisoned by my memories of or experience of vietnam. i'm informed by it. i'm not imprisoned by my memory of how that evidence was used. i'm informed by it.

>> that was secretary of state john kerry thursday night making the case for an attack on syria. it was striking that he invoked both vietnam and iraq, two conflicts looming largely over american history and two conflicts to kerry as own political story. he was a decorated 27-year-old veteran that kerry came home and testified against the war and then one year later launchede e a campaign for congress. decades later as he geared up to run for president, kerry voted for authorization in the invasion of iraq. a vote he struggled to explain on the campaign trail in 2004 when public opinion in his own party began turning on the war. now here he is nine years after that serving as the public face of the white house's push for intervention in syria. unlikely role for a man whose political roots are in the anti-war movement and for a

politician whose relevance a few years ago was in term cinal decline. here to talk about john kerry is a presidential biographer spent 16 years covering kerry for "the boston globe" and contributed to a biography about kerry. thank you for being part of the show today. i guess i want to see if you can talk a little bit as someone who has watched kerry through the years to this evolution. he cites being informed by vietnam and being informed by iraq. at the beginning of his career he was anti-war. middle of the career was against the 1991 gulf wore in in the last 20 years voted for iraq war in 2002 and is now as we say the face of the administration's push for syria. how do you reconcile that entire career when you look at it? >> one thing is he sort of symbolizes the whole problem the american left has had since vietnam. vietnam was such a searing experience particularly for the

left, searing experience for the whole country and left had hard time coming to grips with americ america's duty to use force around the word. back to vietnam days when he came back and he was a leader for vietnam veterans against the war, he called himself in that famous testimony you showed a picture of on the screen, a winter soldier. that's from tom payne's crisis and it's the guys that stick by the country in hard times. i think john has a great sense of duty. i think what he's doing right now is trying to be a winter soldier in a very, very difficult decision. >> there's also an interesting story here just personally about where john kerry is right now in his career. he's almost 70 years old. we talk about how he ran for president in 2004. so much of his career was about that presidential race. that moment. he didn't get there. and then you can remember the few years after that he was positioning himself wanting to run again in 2008. his party clearly didn't want him to. he had a botched joke at the end

of the 2006 mid terms and whole party turned on him and delivering a message like we don't want you out there for us anymore. then he was able to sort of come back and get himself in position to be secretary of the state. can you talk about recent redemption of john kerry? >> foreign affairs has always been his strong suit since he appeared before the senate foreign relations committee back in the 1970s. when he finally got to chair that committee, he began to show really some depth. previous to that as a senator he had been one of those investigators like richard nixon or jack kennedy who really doesn't do an awful lot behind the scenes passing legislation but does those big televised hearings that everyone pays attention to. as chairman of the senate foreign relation committees particularly under a democratic president, as a democrat, you have to do substantive work. that's the way he positioned himself. he kept his shoulder to the

wheel and worked hard and traveled around the world and traveled to syria and took a very respectful position with the obama administration while not totally looking like he was in their pocket and gained a lot of respect among his colleagues. >> i want to play -- this was rand paul posing a question for john kerry at the committee hearings on syria and he turned kerry's famous line from his opposition to the vietnam war against him. i want to play that for a second. >> what i would ask john kerry is he's famous for saying how can you ask a man to be a last one to die for a mistake. i would ask john kerry how can you ask a man to be the first one to die for a mistake. >> it wasn't the hearing. that was "meet the press." that was kerry's famous words now being turned against him by sort of the face of opposition to the war on the republican side now. >> well, it's been almost a century since the world decided that with the full array and

full armory of hideous weaponry, poison gas is the one thing we'll try not to use. that's something of an accomplishment for a very savage human race. i think that so much right now is being talked about, did obama handle this right? what are we going to do about syria? the larger picture is lost and i think the larger picture which is taking a stance against this hideous use of a vicious, dangero dangerous weapons of mass destruction is within kerry belief and mainstream belief even though a large part of the party is deserting the president and kerry right now. >> this is josh. what do you think this means for john kerry's legacy? he's remembered for opposition starting with the vietnam war and large number of other military conflicts. if we go into syria, is this really what john kerry will be remembered for in the history books or a smaller chapter in his history? >> i guarantee you that if we go into syria, if you mean that if we invade syria that he will be

remembered for that. i don't think he'll be remembered for a brief limited strike. i think that if in the next three years he and obama manage to do anything positive anythin sector of the world, they'll be remembered as miracle makers. it's just a hideously tough problem. it's william rogers, henry kissinger, cy vance. the secretaries of states have been trying to hand this one for decades. so i don't think that he's going to be judged one way or another on his legacy as what happens in the middle east, unless something really good and big does happen, in which case both kerry and obama will come out looking like miracle workers. >> john, one more question here. before he ran for president in 2004, one of john kerry's best friends in washington, and certainly his best friend on the republican side, was john kerry. there was sort of this unlikely partnership with them on the issue of vietnam veterans. it was clear that john kerry was not happy how john kerry had

treated him publicly during the 2004 campaign with john mccain trying to get back in the good graces of the republican party. was that relationship destroyed by 2004, has it been mended. do you have a sense of what's going on there? >> not at all. these are big boys, these are tough guys. and the ties they have going back to their vietnam experience, and then to the key role they played in the 1990s during the clinton administration for american recognition of vietnam, i think that those bonds are much stronger than the problems of the 2004 campaign would show. and i think that no doubt part of kerry's enthusiasm about syria right now, or speaking on behalf of the use of force, comes from the conversations that he's had with john mccain, who has been a leading advocate of force. >> all right. i want to thank john alowitch, author of a great biography of tip o'neill, a great book about

a great american character. what do we know now that we didn't know last week? we've got your answers right after this. ♪ [ crashing ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum tums! [ female announcer ] at 100 calories, not all food choices add up. some are giant. some not so giant.

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all right. it's time to find out what our guests know now that they did not know when the week began. we'll start with you, victoria. >> we all know the jobs numbers came out and saw a slight dip, still very sluggish economy. but when we disaggregate, that's what's very interesting. african-american unemployment went up by nearly one point. latino the unemployment is still at the same, which is at 9%. we need to break down the picture when we get those job numbers. >> josh? >> what we also know from the jobs report, we created 74,000 fewer jobs in june and july than we thought we did. and it's not actually that the job situation is getting worse. we're creating jobs at a pace about 2 million jobs a year for the last three years. the problem is the job situation is not getting better if for a while, it was looking like finally the pace was improving. the federal reserve was going to back off its easing efforts because it looked like the

economy was starting to build on itself. now it looks like we'll be into the next decade until we're at full unemployment. >> now we know that probably eliot spitzer went survive tuesday night's primary election and i think we'll end up with different outcomes than people anticipated for a while. >> which means that we know my stress this year, nonfinancial bet earlier in this campaign. >> that scott stringer would defeat eliot spitzer. my thanks to victoria, josh, and maggie. thank you all for getting up. and thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow, sunday morning at 8:00. democratic congressman steve israel will be our guest. coming up next on "melissa harris-perry," one simple question, how much do we really know about syria? plus, the pushback from walmart. the retail giant dismisses this week's protest as little more than ants on an elephant. but should the walton family be worried? stick around, nerdland is next. we'll see you right here the tomorrow at 8:00. thanks for getting up. wait a sec!

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♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪ this morning, my question. would you pay more at walmart if it meant your cashier wouldn't need food stamps? plus, the secretary of explaining stuff takes center stage on health care. and my message to little black girls when people try to make you ashamed of your hair. but first, the more we hear about syria, the less we actually know. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. you, dear viewer, are not