no two people have the same financial goals. pnc investments works with you to understand yours and helps plan for your retirement. talk to a pnc investments financial advisor today. ♪ never thought that something like that -- you'd be in that kind of situation. all of a sudden you're literally trapped. >> good saturday afternoon. i'm craig melvin. developing right now, colorado's historic flooding. walls of water cutting off entire communities. so far, four people dead, thousands are homeless. more than 170 are unaccounted for. we are live on the ground as more rain heads their way. there can be no games, no room for avoidance or anything

less than full compliance by the assad regime. >> diplomatic deal, from a certain strike to asking congress for permission to strike to, hey, we're going to secure syria's chemical weapons. i'll look at the agreement and what happens if syria does not deliver. and come hell or high haert, the jersey shore has survived both now. we're live with the investigation into the boardwalk inferno that is still smoldering today. all those stories in just a moment. but we start with developing news in colorado at this hour where the death toll from that historic flooding is now at four. the latest victim was a woman whose body was found friday. water swamped her car, swept her away. that was north of boulder. today, the national guard is back in the town of lyons, northwest of boulder. guardsmen there are helping residents get out. officials have urged the entire

town of 2,500 to leave. >> an hour ago, that road was there and passable. >> but several small remote towns in colorado's front range are still cut off because of washed-out roads like this one inside the big thompson canyon. >> you know, it's a sinking feeling when you realize that if someone above -- or someone in the area calls 911, we are not going to be able to help them. that's a very difficult position as a sheriff, as a government official to be in. but that's been the reality the last several days. >> nbc's joe friar is in boulder, colorado, for us this afternoon where the floodwaters have dropped some, i understand. but it remains a very dangerous situation. joe, police said this morning that there were still roughly 170 unaccounted for. but i understand that there's a big asterisk there. can you explain that for us?

>> reporter: yeah, right now, it's actually i think hovering around 200, the number of people who are considered unaccounted for. the sheriff says those people aren't missing but just people they have not been able to hear from at all possibly because they don't have any power or any phone service. it could be that some of them have gotten to higher ground but haven't been in touch with loved ones. but the sheriff says there's a high possibility that some of these could turn into fatalities. we're getting the first few drops of right we've had all day. it's been largely clear. that gives us an opportunity to show you we haven't seen much of and that's the mountains and hills that surround boulder here. so much of the rain that they saw in the past week accumulated there and has been running down into the creeks and streams down below here in boulder. you see the boulder creek still running at a good pace although the level's gone down quite

considerably in just the last day, especially day. the dry weather today has given the national guard an opportunity to fly in for the second consecutive day using helicopters to jamestown, rescuing hundreds of people who have been trapped there since the floods began. they're also still going into the town of lyons using tall vehicles able to access the flooded roads and as many as 2,500 people need to be rescued from there. >> joe fryer for us on the ground in boulder, colorado, jim, thank you. from that historic flooding there in colorado to a punch in the gut fire on the jersey shore. right now, firefighters are still closely watching what remains of the boardwalk at seaside heights. there have been reports of some small flare-ups overnight. but officials say they expected that. this fire happened on the same stretch of boardwalk, the same stretch that was wrecked by hurricane sandy less than a year ago. nbc's michelle franzen is live

in seaside heights, new jersey, for us. how dangerous are the flare-ups that i was just talking about? >> reporter: those flare-ups are still occurring, those hot spots smoldering. they're expected to continue here for the next couple of days. it just gives you an idea of just how much of an inferno this was that raced through this boardwalk. as crews get in there, as investigators in there, as they start shifting around and moving some of that debris to try and sort of investigate the cause of this blaze which is still unknown, they put air into those pockets that are still smoldering and that feeds it. they expect that to happen for the next few days. there's a lot there that would have burned, still left to burn, still very hot from that day. as i mentioned, no cause yet known in that investigation. they continue their efforts. they're going to sift from that section of the boardwalk all the way over to this point that you see here. from this point on forward, about 20% of the boardwalk is

still relatively unscathed with just little pockets here and there. and some of the businesses remain open, craig, at this hour. there's been a lot of speculation as to what exactly investigators will be looking for. we've got arson investigators. the atf here, that is standard procedure, we are told. with a fire of this magnitude, they say it will be a process of elimination. it's standard procedure and they're going to make sure they cover both possibilities of arson all the way to just an accident being fueled by those 30-mile-an-hour winds the other night. >> just four months after that stretch of boardwalk reopened after superstorm sandy. michelle franzen, a big thank you to you. i'll talk to the mayor of seaside heights in the next hour. new hope today in the stand-off with syria. more on that in just a moment. first, though, a look and listen at the last 14 days. remember when secretary of state john kerry made the moral case for war two fridays ago?

we need to ask, what is the risk of doing nothing? he said that. then this -- >> it matters because if we choose to live in a world where a thug and a murderer like bashar al assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity, even after the united states and our allies said "no," and then the world does nothing about it, there will be no end to the test of our resolve. >> so just a day later, his boss, president obama, said essentially, we should hit assad. but i hear you, war weary people. so i'm going to go to congress and ask permission. then they put out videos like this one. women and children, victims of a chemical weapons strike. now this, word a few hours ago that the united states and russia have agreed on a tentative deal and a time frame for syria to turn over its chemical weapons. in geneva this morning, once

again, secretary of state john kerry -- >> we said at the outset that to accomplish our goal, this plan had to produce transparency, accountability, timeliness and enforceability. it must be credible and verifiable. if fully implemented, we believe it can meet these standards. >> what a difference two weeks makes. gail lamond joins us and edward santorum. gail, once this plan is approved, it calls for, among other things, syria to provide an inventory of its chemical weapons stock within one week, international inspections to start by november, chemical weapons should be destroyed or removed by the middle of 2014. how likely is it that syria will agree to the plan and actually comply with the terms of the plan?

>> i think those are two separate questions. how likely are they to agree to it? probably more likely than they are to comply with it. that's what you hear from a lot of people who have just been following this policy whipsaw. your set-up was perfect. we've gone from doing just enough to saying, enough is enough in two weeks. and then in another two-week period, we've gone from calling assad a thug and a murderer to ostensibly negotiating with him. it is incredibly telling that we are talking about a deal in geneva rather than a trial at the hague while all these atrocities continue to go forward. >> how did we get here? what do we know about precisely what happened behind the scenes that led us to this moment? >> i've been doing a lot of reporting and having a lot of conversations on this. and there are three realities that have always been very hard to square. first, the president didn't want to get into this war. secondly, he'd also said assad had to go as early as 2011.

and third, america is not a country that likes to watch citizens get butchered in real time as we have in syria. so i think there has been an on-again, off-again just-and-time foreign policy where they've tried to do as much as they could within those three parameters that are almost impossible to square with one another. >> this is a major turnaround for the obama administration in just a couple of weeks. how do you think that this particular plan that we're just hearing some details about for the first time, how is this plan going to be greeted on capitol hill? >> on capitol hill, this was not a place for people who wanted to join obama's war. we saw going forward over the past few weeks when obama talked about going to congress, most people on capitol hill didn't want to do it. he wasn't going to get the congressional permission he wanted to go to war in the first place. there's been some criticism so far from capitol hill of obama and how he sort of maybe changed positions and moved around. but the end result is the war that congress didn't want isn't

happening -- it looks like. and the war the america people didn't want isn't happening and the war that obama seemed reticent about isn't happening either. so the white house is definitely thinking this is a victory. we've already seen today obama called john kerry and congratulated him on the deal. we saw white house official ben rhodes, spokesperson for the national security council -- or foreign policy talking about it being a great and tireless work by kerry. the white house feels pretty good about this. it is the result that a lot of people in congress were saying that they wanted, which is not to have military action happen. >> and we should note here, the white house released a statement a short time ago as well applauding the plan. but the president did add, quote, if diplomacy fails, the united states remains prepared to act. at this point, gayle, how real do we think congress is taking the president's threat to use military action? >> or how real is syria taking the president's threat? if it were hard to get the hill to go forward -- i totally agree

with that -- in the shadow of people being gassed to death, can you imagine several months down the road? you talk to people who have been working on this for months and there is enormous frustration that nobody is talking about the killing and the atrocities and the shelling that goes on even today. in damascus and while people are having conversations about chemical weapons -- i think that that is where you've seen a real narrowing of the scope of how americans want to get involved in this war. >> evan, is the prevailing sense there inside the beltway that this is a victory for president putin, not so much a victory for president obama? >> the interesting thing about the putin thing, i think putin's been a galvanizing force in the president's favor. you've seen -- obviously he put his op ed out in "the new york times" that caused a lot of controversy. obviously russia helped to broker this deal that's happening in geneva today. but on capitol hill, people who were not such a big fan of what

obama's been doing. when they saw that putin op ed, they got kind of fired up. putin saying, you guys aren't so exceptional, stop talking about how great you are, basically, really galvanized a lot of people. i think in the long run, if you see a deal fall apart and the white house can pin that on russia, which the white house is trying to do, that could actually help obama and the white house get military action to occur if they wanted it to happen. >> the result being far more important than the process. gayle and evan, a big thanks to both of you on a saturday afternoon. always appreciate your insight. it's not just syria. why are parts of the middle east always in chaos? using an old character, a new book gets to the heart of the conflicts that have been fought for decades. the author of "lawrence in ar arab arabia" joins me live.

and has personal privacy become virtually obsolete. also ahead, ladies, are you absolutely sick of those unwanted cat calls and whistles? there's a woman who's fighting back in a very unique way. it's today's big idea. has it's ups and downs.

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as we look at the complex crisis in the middle east, a lot of folks are asking, how did we get here this time? why does it seem there's never calm and peace in the region? the politics of the modern middle east can be traced back to agreements made by france and britain at the end of the first world war. there's a new book and it traces many of today's conflicts back to those roots through the focus of one man, britain's t.e. lawrence. scott anderson is a veteran war

correspondent and also the author of "lawrence in arabia" war, deceit, imperial folly. it's a fantastic read and a b t bestseller as well. . the e. lawrence, maybe the best-known figure of that time. americans know him from the epic film "lawrence of arabia." how big a role did he play in the agreements creating the map of the modern middle east? >> he was hugely influential. he played a private equitital role during world war one in the middle east. he was the chief british liaison officer to the arab rebels who allied with the british. he got put off to the side at the paris peace conference afterwards, however. >> the 20th century, most middle east countries we're familiar with were part of the ottoman impeer.

but the united states did have some input. >> right. >> what role did the united states play in creating this post-ottoman middle east? >> well, they had an opportunity, that's probably a better way to put it, of heading off the carving of the partition of the middle east between the british and the french. woodrow wilson at the paris peace conference famously came with the idea that people had the right to self-determination and it was going to be a continuation of the imperial a era. however, he ended up acquiescing to the british and french carving up the region. >> did western control -- did it doom prospects for peace from the very beginning, then? >> it probably did. the idea of arab nations, arab peoples and muslim peoples going under christian and european control seems pretty unlikely.

and it proved very unlikely right from the get-go. >> what if anything could western powers have done in those early years that might have stabilized the region? >> probably to divide the area along the sort of ethnic and sectarian lines that always existed. this was a system that the ottomans had where they gave individual tribes, clans, sectarian groups a huge degree of autonomy. so the idea of joining these different disparate groups together and calling it a nation like iraq was a recipe for disaster. >> "lawrence in arabia" by scott anderson, it's a bestseller now. fantastic read. it's a very unique way to tell an important story and very timely now as well. thank you so much for stopping by. >> thank you. pope francis is putting the pedal to the metal in a brand-new used car, much to dismay of his security detail. the pope says he fully intends

to drive the vintage 1984 renault. recently gifted to him by an italian priest. there it is right there. pushing his down-to-earth papal reputation. he's even started making personal calls to unassuming faithfuls, earning him the nickname the cold call pope. ♪ ♪ you make me, make me, make me go crazy ♪ ♪ you make me, make me, make me go crazy. ♪ it's delicious. so now we've turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i'm janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. [ robert ] we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams.

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no two people have the same financial goals. pnc investments works with you to understand yours and helps plan for your retirement. talk to a pnc investments financial advisor today. ♪ hey, sonny. b bye, sonny. your daddy doesn't even like going there. >> a rare behind-the-scenes look at the white house press corps's new favorite member of the obama administration. that kicks off our political playground on this saturday. that, of course, that's sonny. he just moved into the executive mansion a few weeks ago.

she already knows enough to stay out of the briefing room. gets a little rough in there and it smells a little funny, i'm told, just ask jay carney. politics is a contact sport and one player who's been in the game a long time, john mccain. arizona senior senator hinted that his current term in the senate could be his last. he said, quote, i don't want to be one of those guys that hashod have shoved off. if he decides to stay, he would be up for reelection for a sixth term. and a very busy hillary clinton. monday, she was in philadelphia accepting an award from jeb bush. friday, she went to scotland to accept an honorary degree from st. andrews university. the once and perhaps future presidential candidate is also being courted for a possible

position at harvard's kennedy school of government. meanwhile, back in gotham, new york city mayoral candidate and his family rolled out all the right moves to celebrate his democratic primary win. look. >> my daughter did a weird gymnastic move that brought a huge roar from the crowd. >> adopt me? ♪ 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. ♪

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and get this -- more rain is headed their way. we're going to go live to colorado again in just a few moments. i'm craig melvin. good saturday to you. here's a quick look at the other top stories making news on this saturday morning. investigators in ohio are trying to figure out precisely what caused a greyhound bus to crash, injuring dozens. it happened early this morning. according to local officials, the bus went off the side of the road, hit a tree and a chain-link fence before flipping over and landing in a cornfield. 37 people including the bus driver were taken to local hospitals. we are told that they are going to be okay. the injuries are nonlife-threatening. south of the border, violent clashes between riot police and schoolteachers in mexico city. police used tear gas to forcibly evict thousands of people who have been protesting for more than a month now. they're opposing, among other things, new education reforms that would require teachers to be evaluated on a regular basis.

and united airlines says it is going to honor all of those free tickets that it accidentally sold this week. as for what caused the giant discount? united says it was human error, not a technical glitch, that led to the zero dollar tickets in many cases. the anniversary of september 11th and the current middle east conflict drew the attention of cyber warriors this week. they claimed responsibility for taking down some twitter accounts affiliated with fox television. according to data breach, planned september 11th attacks against banking institutions and governmental agencies turned out to be uneventful, with no evidence of any of the sites being disrupted. kevin is a former world renown hacker. he spent nearly five years in prison for computer-related crimes.

he's a senior partner at flashpoint global partners and shane harris is a senior writer on cyber security at "foreign policy" magazine. evan, let me start with you. in broad terms, are we at all overplaying the political and terror threat that's being posed by these shadow wi online groups or is our concern legitimate? >> depends what you mean. are there cases where there are individuals who claim or suggest they're going to carry out a far-reaching attack and it doesn't pan out? yeah, it happens all the time. a guy the other day called him the al qaeda electronic army who threatened to take out air traffic control systems and didn't come close. for every one or two of these guys, there's a range of other actors who are capable and interested in doing this. we're seeing an escalation. we saw an iranian-backed group launching service attacks. now more sophisticated attacks

by the syrian electronic army. and the e request is, what's beyond that? >> shane, you did some interviews with the syrian electronic army. what was your impression of them and their capabilities? >> well, i think that right now, their capabilities are still what we might call fairly low level, they call themselves vandals in effect. defacing websites, hijacking twitter accounts. experts say they've gotten a lot better in their techniques recently and have wondered whether there was some outside assistance involved there. the person i interviewed said, no, we don't have any outside help. we've gotten pretty good at this on our own but they didn't seem to indicate that they had plans to escalate their attacks beyond what we've seen so far, some of these acts of basically online vandalism. my impression was that they felt that a really devastating attack or cyber warfare, that they didn't have the resources to do something like this. >> kevin, i understand you are in moscow at an internet security conference, insert joke

here. but how concerned are professionals there about cyber terrorism in general? >> well, with the syrian electronic army, i believe they have moderate skill level. what they did is used what we call a social engineering attack to trick one of the isps that had access to the domain server system. when you put in disney.com it comes back with an i.p. address because that's what the computers understand. they were able to manipulate and basically hijack the domain. it wasn't really that sophisticated. i wouldn't call it cyber warfare. i would call it some teenagers or young adults out there basically doing hacktivism-type activities. >> what's happening at that

conference that you're attending in moscow? >> i was hired keynote conference a couple of days ago here in moscow on computer security. and they were interested on how their businesses and enterprises could be attacked and what they could do to mitigate the risk, especially in relation to social engineering attacks, which is exactly what the syrian army used to hijack twitters and twitt twitter's domain. >> let's talk about domestically here what our lawmakers can and cannot do and have and have not done. congress hasn't been able to pass a comprehensive cyber security people. you have various committees and subcommittees that have jurisdiction over various aspects of cyber security. is this a case of congress not willing to do enough on cyber security or is this a case of

congress not knowing precisely what to do about cyber security? >> he's a lack of motivation and also probably a lack of knowledge. a lot of people out there don't realize how dire the situation has become and how major u.s. corporations feel now that they are under siege by adversary that is they can't touch or see and they don't know who they are. it's also potentially a lack of knowledge. it's fair to say as well that most lawmakers are not internet security experts. and they're relying on people underneath them to feed them the right information. if they don't get that information, if they're not aware of how serious this problem is and how the mechanics work and where these groups are and how they're proliferating it at a relatively rapid pace, you can guess where we go from there. >> shane, we continue to hear new revelations of the extent of the national security agency's massive eavesdropping program as well. you wrote something this week in "foreign policy" i want to put on the screen. the nsa has spent billions of dollars on a secret campaign to

foil encryption technologies that individuals, corporations and governments around the world had long thought protected the privacy of their communications from u.s. intelligence agencies. does the government seem to have a focused plan to use all this information without violating the privacy of american citizens? >> i think their plan has been to collect as much information as they can and to try and do it within the law. but to focus more on collecting the information first. the piece that i wrote in "foreign policy" about general alexander, the director of the nsa, a number of people i spoke to had very strong criticism for him saying they felt he was pushing up against the limits of privacy law. and in many cases doing things that may be legal but may not be necessarily advisable. the nsa has pushed, we saw it with the encryption story, to really foil encryption around the world, to try to collect as much data as they possibly can. i don't think there's been so much of a strategy on how to

make sense of all that information. what we're seeing now is really just how very massive that surveillance net has been. the questions we should be asking now are, is it working? is it actually keeping us safer or sit becoming a potentially huge threat to privacy and civil liberties simply because most of it's secret and the powers that the agency has amassed are extraordinary and unprecedented? we haven't had an opportunity to debate that and what the limits should be. >> kevin, i want to talk to you about how businesses are handling customers' personal information. this week, the state of connecticut reached a settlement with citibank for about $55,000, a drop in the bucket for a company like that. credit card information of more than 360,000 customers nationwide was accessed by hackers in a 2011 security breach. only connecticut and california have taken citi to court over the breach. how would you characterize how corporations are handling their responsibility to protect customers' private information?

>> with respect to credit card information, companies are supposed to be what they call pci compliant. they have to follow these rules, they have to get tested. they have to meet these 12 requirements. but companies hire me all the time to actually break in their systems using technical exploits by social engineering, by employees, by gaining access to their company's facilities. in a lot of these cases, as an ethical tester, we're able to breach the client's network and get access to credit card information even though the client is encrypting it in the database. you know why? >> are you able to do it with relative ease? >> we're able to get legal access to it because we're doing a test. that's because the clients are keeping the encryption keys in places where we can gain access to it. they're doing it sloppily, which now if a real blackhead hacker

group breaches that client, now they can get access to everything. >> i want to talk about something else here, evan colem coleman, that got a lot of people excited. apple announcing its new iphone is going to be using fingerprint encryption -- this fingerprint thing instead of a password. is this going to be a game -- in addition to it being really cool, is it going to be a game changer for privacy protection? >> it's more about theft, basic theft. the problem is there's an entire market for apple picking. people grabbing iphones off the secret. by employing these additional protections, you're seeing a better ability for users to prevent their iphones from being stolen and expropriated. but we'll see whether or not that has implications for online security as well. >> evan, shane, kevin, thank you, gentlemen. appreciate your time on this

saturday. >> thanks. the nfl controversy that will not go away. the commissioner's warning, some new ads from native americans and gameday protests now. also, fighting street harassment one poster at a time. meet the woman behind today's big idea next. ♪ [ male announcer ] 1.21 gigawatts. today, that's easy. ge is revolutionizing power. supercharging turbines with advanced hardware and innovative software. using data predictively to help power entire cities. so the turbines of today... will power us all... into the future. ♪ his day of coaching begins with knee pain, when... [ man ] hey, brad, want to trade the all-day relief of two aleve for six tylenol? what's the catch? there's no catch. you want me to give up my two aleve for six tylenol? no. for my knee pain, nothing beats my aleve.

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this is the creamy chicken corn chowder. i mean, look at it. so indulgent. did i tell you i am on the... [ both ] chicken pot pie diet! me too! [ male announcer ] so indulgent, you'll never believe they're light. 100-calorie progresso light soups. i can hear you. the rest of the world hears you. and the people -- [ cheers and applause ] >> and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon! [ cheers and applause ] >> flashback to this very day in 2001 when president george bush gave that rousing speech standing on the rubble at ground zero. 12 years later, i had the chance to talk to the director of the 9/11 memorial museum about how important -- precisely how important that museum is going

to be for children born after that world-changing day. >> teaching is really critical, understanding that there are children in grade school now who weren't alive when 9/11 happened. for them, it's history. now to today's big idea where one woman is responding to street harassment in a very unique way. brooklyn artist tatiana has decided that she is fed up with the cat calls and whistles. so now she is speaking directly to offenders with paintings like this. it's public art project that she's calling "stop telling women to smile." it's a fascinating project that got our attention. good to see you. >> thank you. >> what inspired this? how did this come about? >> street harassment inspired it. it's something that i experience all the time and have for years now. and i wanted to address it with my artwork. >> and this is the unique way

that you came up with to address it? >> yes. >> and how was that born? >> well, i'm an artist and recently i started working in public art. so the idea to address the situation where it happens outside in the street made the most sense to me. >> instead of monju, you use real women who have been victimized on the street. what have they told you about how this project has impacted them? >> a lot of their experiences are the same as mine. we all experience street harassment. a lot of their stories are what inspired the captions that are on the posters. they appreciate it. they proficient having their faces and voices actually outside in the street talking to men. >> my name is not "baby." that was my favorite one. i think a lot of folks, especially guys, they hear about this and they're like, really? this goes on? this is commonplace? you see it in movies or tv shows, construction sites,

things like that. but this is a real problem. >> it's a real problem. i'm glad people are realizing it's a real problem. a lot of people have said, why is that street harassment? so this project is bringing that to their attention, that this is real stuff that real women go through. >> critics of your work say you're overreacting, that you're being uptight. what do you say to those critics? >> i would say that i am not. this is something i experience every single day. how it affects my day and how i feel about it, no one can tell me that i'm overreacting over something like this. >> and telling a woman to smile is probably on the milder side of some of the things, i would imagine, that women hear when they walk down the street. why call this project "stop telling women to smile"? >> because it brings you in. if you don't think that stopping telling women to smile is a form of street harassment, then you question it and it forces you to look at the rest of the series. telling women to smell is one perspective on street harassment

that i personally do not like at all and i don't appreciate. that's why i wanted that to be a part of it. >> your installation is being displayed in new york right now. what's next? >> to travel with it. i want to recreate the project in different cities across the country, possibly internationally. i'd like to learn how street harassment affects other women in other regions of the country. to travel with it is the next part. >> what's been the reception so far, on the whole? >> on the whole, i've generally been getting a good reception. a lot of women e-mail me, message me telling me that they appreciate this, thanking me for it and telling me their stories of street harassment. i really didn't realize that so many people were passionate about it, that so many people experienced what i experienced until i started doing this. >> it really is fascinating. thank you so much for swinging by to share a little bit more about it. tatiana, thank you so much for forgiving me -- did i butcher the last name? did i get it? what is it? >> you're leaving out some

letters. >> pronounce the last name for me properly. i tried so hard. tatiana, thank you so much. appreciate you swinging by. do you have a big idea that's making a difference? do you know of a big idea that's making a difference out there? we'd love to hear from you because we love highlighting these big ideas on saturdays and sundays. there's the e-mail address right there on your screen. take a look at this. one frog got the ride of a lifetime earlier this month, maybe even the ride that ended his life. we're not sure. a better camera than yours and mine caught this airborne frog when nasa's spacecraft lifted off in virginia this week. according to nasa, that frog is real. it was captured in a single frame by one of their cameras used to record the launches. and we know what you're wondering. nasa says that the frog's condition is unknown.

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"the washington post's" editorial board weighed in. we hope, too, that mr. snyder, finally understands that the team's name, no matter it's storied tradition or importance to many fans, is a racial slur of native americans so offensive that it should no longer be tolerated. that editorial was a direct response to the man that runs the league, roger goodell, who changed his tune a bit this week saying, quote, if we are offending one person, we need to be listening and making sure that we're doing the right thing to try to address that. meanwhile, this weekend, one of the groups trying to get the team to change its name is running this radio ad. >> it is the insult native american parents heard as their children were taken and sadly it is the racial slur the nfl

continues to use to describe the team that represents our nation's capital. >> dave is a sports editor for "the nation" magazine. always good to see you. roger goodell, "the washington post," several noted sportswriters now. the list of people for the redskins to change their name, that list is growing. are we at a tipping point now? is there change afoot? >> we're certainly reaching a tipping point. let's talk about why we're reaching that tipping point. the number one reason is that native american voices themselves are finally part of this discussion. you mentioned the united nation radio ads. they're going to be picketing at lambeau field this weekend and they're going to bring banners and signs inside the stadium as well. when roger goodell says if this is offending even one person, we need to take it seriously and you have people stepping forward and saying, you know what, actually, it does offend me that

on the highest possible cultural platform, an nfl team is named after a racial slur, that is going to create the kind of atmosphere that could lead to the changing of the name. >> dan snyder, the team's owner, quoted as saying, never, you can use caps, closed quote. what if anything would motivate snyder to seriously consider changing a name? and is there a compromise at all? >> i don't think there's a compromise on this particular issue. i think perhaps you could have a compromise where the team still sales merchandise that has the redskins' name on it while selling something new. that could maybe be pitched to dan snyder as a way of saying, you're not going to lose money by giving up your lucrative brand, you'll make money. if there's one thing dan snyder has shown himself good at, it is making that money.

this is somebody who had people selling beers inside the bathrooms at fedex field which some might say shortens the distance by which you have to process that. but that breaks every health cold violation and still dan snyder did it until it was shut down. this is not somebody who likes to lose money. if it could be pitched in a way where he can make money, that's the only thing i think that could make the change in his mind. >> the other big controversy, that "sports illustrated" story dealing the use and abuse of money, sex, drugs around the oklahoma state university football program. here's the question. how surprised should people really be that money, that sex, that drugs are involved in major college football programs? >> two issues to unpack here. if this was a sherlock holmes novel it would be called "the scandal that wouldn't bark."

a lot of people are telling me this is being greeted with a big yawn. why? because talk about passing a tipping point. we're at a point right now where in the ncaa and college football, they've signed a $6 billion contract with espn. they destroyed all the traditional rivalries in college football for realignment to make more money. for a lot of folks, it's just, of course this is going to happen. the entire system at this point is so recognized that it's rife with corruption. the only people who believe in amateurism at this point are people are believe in unicorns and a flat earth society. i want to make this point. the part of the story that deals with the using of women as a way to entice people, using sex as a way to entice 17-year-old young men to go to schools needs to be discussed much more because i think that kind of connective tissue between the using and abusing of women, of thingafying

women and the instances of rape culture we've seen in football needs to be much more discussion and i hope we don't paper over that. >> dave, one of my favorite sportswriters out there. always enjoy your time, sir. thank you. >> my privilege. up next, today's receding waters are revealing even more damage from colorado's historic flooding. right now, at this moment, rescuers are searching for unaccounted residents. also new evacuations are under way. we are live on the other side of this break. you want to get an m. 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 and focusing on what you need to know so you can get a degree at your pace. and graduate at the speed of you. flexpath from capella university learn more at capella.edu

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[ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? [ crows ] now where's the snooze button? her busy saturday begins with back pain, when... hey pam, you should take advil. why? you can take four advil for all day relief. so i should give up my two aleve for more pills with advil? you're joking right? for my back pain, i want my aleve. good saturday afternoon. i'm craig melvin. you're watching msnbc. here's what's developing right now. >> you can appreciate what the force of the water is because i'm standing in a trench here, which is knee-deep. and in fact has eaten its way through about three layers of asphalt. >> state of emergency. death, destruction and dozens unaccounted for in colorado. we are live as rescuers continue

to search for more than 170 people. the united states and russia are committed to the elimination of syrian chemical weapons in the soonest and safest manner. >> a done deal? just weeks after imminent strikes on syria, the united states and russia reach a plan to secure syria's chemical weapons. president obama will not take military action off the table. we'll go to geneva for the latest on that. we built this business from nothing and now we're back to having nothing. >> the jersey shore rebounded after superstorm sandy. now they're vowing to rise this time from the ashes. we are live as that community tries to climb out of disaster for the second time in less than a year. we want to start, though, with that developing news in colorado as the death toll following the historic flooding there now stands at four. we just got some amazing video

in from the town of glen haven. you can see from that video, see how the rushing waters have laid waste to the town. that town's about 45 miles north of boulder. that gives you some idea of the scope of the disaster. just how much of an area it's affected there. meanwhile, in boulder, the floodwaters are actually starting to recede a bit, at least enough to clean up some of the mess that's been left behind. right now, officials in boulder county are saying that there are around 170 people unaccounted for. we want to note here, though, that does not mean necessarily that they are missing. they may just be out of communication. jeffrey saturn is the police commander in nearby longmont, colorado. commander, good to see you, sir. i want to start with that number there. is the thinking at this point that the 170, the lion's share of those folks you guys just

haven't been able to contact them? is that the thinking? >> longmont does not have that many. we have three unaccounted for. but it's the same theory. we believe they've gone somewhere and we just can't reach them at this point. >> how did your town fare during the floods? >> we had significant flooding that damaged many of our bridges in our city. right now, we have only been able to return three of the bridges out of about eight. it effectively cut our city in half. >> what at this point, sir, has been the most challenging part of dealing with this disaster? >> i think for us it was the split city, getting around in our community with our emergency personnel engineers. that's been the most challenging. we were split by the river and we had operations on both sides

of that river. >> 700,000 folks evacuated there -- 7,000, excuse me. >> yes, we evacuated 7,000 homes. we have since returned all but about 1,500. we still have about 1,500 active evacuations in place. >> how many rescues? >> we've done a lot of rescues. fortunately we got ahead of this early because of the way the river is flowing. so we started our evacuations very early. so those were minimized. we did have to do a number of rescues from homes for people that had mobility issues. but those were accomplished without any injury. >> what's been the primary focus today? >> today we are monitoring the river. we just had rain a few moments ago.

we're closely watching, we're expecting rain in the mountains. so we're closely watching the rain and monitoring the river. >> the threat of more rain, i know that was the concern a few hours ago. how real is that threat right now? >> it's still very real. we're cautiously optimistic. but any additional rain with these flowing rivers right now is going to have a significant impact in our community. we'll have resources ready. we're going to be staffing our eoc center throughout the evening and we'll be prepared for evacuations at any time during the night. >> jeffrey satur, police commander in longmont, we'll let you get back to it. thank you for your time, sir. >> thank you. >> as we just mentioned, the national guard is now back in the town of lyons, it's northwest of boulder. guardsmen are helping residents get out. officials have urged the entire

town of 2,500 to leave. darren overstreet is with the colorado national guard. he joins us by phone right now from their command center outside denver. darren, what's the latest right now? how many rescues have we had today and how many are we in the process of conducting? >> hi, craig. thanks for having me on. we have rescued 800 people over the past couple of days. and we're going to continue on as the local authorities need. one of the problems, i know in new york, you guys are very familiar with flooding effects from hurricane sandy. and here, unfortunately, we don't have a shoreline for this to rush off into. so it keeps rushing downstream. unfortunately we're afraid that we may be going into more and more communities as this continues to rush downstream.

but we're ready to help our citizens as we need. >> darin, these folks that you're rescues, are these folks that didn't heed the evacuation orders? >> this game on very quickly. to be honest, from those municipalities, i can't speak to the evacuation orders that went out. that's more the sheriffs. but just having been here and as a citizen, this came on very quickly. i don't know how much warning we really had about the possible impacts that this could have. >> we were told a short time ago that it's realistic to expect that the death toll in that area is going to rise at some point from four to who knows how many. is that also what you're hearing? can we expect the death toll to rise or can we expect to rescue all the missing and the folks

who are stranded? >> as the national guard, we are more of the response capabilities. so we'll respond to the taskings that come to us from the sheriffs and the lieutenant commanders. we're not necessarily really tracking projection figures such as that. >> sure. darin overstreet, colorado national guard, we'll let you get back to it, sir. thank you. >> thank you so much. from that historic flooding in colorado to the punch in the gut fire on the jersey shore. right now, firefighters continue to closely watch what remains of the boardwalk at seaside heights on this saturday because there have been reports of some small flare-ups once again. officials are saying that they expected that would happen. a short time ago, new jersey governor chris christie met with business leaders in seaside heights. >> some people are telling me how sad they were for all of this.

i said, time for sadness is over with. it's legitimately a sad thing. a couple of days to mourn, now we have to move on to get to work. >> michelle franzen live for us in seaside heights, new jersey. let's start with those flare-ups, michelle. how dangerous are those? >> reporter: well, the dangerous flare-ups could be dangerous if the wind starts picking up again. but for the most part, like you said, they're expecting those hot spots to continue for the next few days. that's just because they are getting in there for the first time in a real way to move some of that debris to start their investigation to try and pinpoint exactly where this fire started and why. they still don't know. they are not speculating at this hour. they say everything is still on the table. it will be a process of elimination in terms of whether they rule out arson, whether it was an accident and the whole spectrum that they will be looking at during this time. as you mentioned, the governor a short time ago meeting with the business owners. 30 to 40 of them that in this

area back here, this stretch, 80% of this boardwalk that lost their businesses to that inferno several days ago, a little bit of tough love that you heard from him. there's also a lot of determination going forward. but admittedly many of those owners say they don't know the path of how they would rebuild, even if they get that chance. they know that they want that chance. craig? >> michelle franzen for us, seaside heights, new jersey, michelle, thank you so much. back from the brink, just two weeks after the threat of imminent military action, the united states and russia strike a plan to secure syria's chemical weapons. but what if syria doesn't meet the deadline? we'll talk about that. also, politics from the pulp pulpit. how the catholic church is taking action when congress will not. do some good somewhere, anywhere in the world. >> lawrence, chillax, buddy. dial it down a second.

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so have they really sealed the deal? today, secretary of state john kerry announced he had struck a tentative agreement with russia that would force syria to turn over its chemical weapons. once approved, among other things, the plan calls for syria to provide an inventory of its chemical weapons stock within one week. the plan also calls for international inspections to begin by november and for the destruction or removal of chemical weapons by the middle of 2014. secretary kerry said the syrians would have to show results soon.

>> the united states and russia are committed to the elimination of syrian chemical weapons in the soonest and safest manner. we agreed that syria must submit within a week, not in 30 days, but in one week, a comprehensive listing and additional details will be addressed regarding that in the coming days. >> as part of these negotiations, syria has agreed to sign onto the international treaty banning chemical weapons. just moments ago, u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon announced that syria has made its formal request to join that accord. nbc's ian williams now with the very latest from geneva. >> reporter: good day, craig. u.s. officials are feeling pretty happy with themselves tonight. one saying they got most of what mattered in this agreement. but it is a hugely ambitious undertaking. and while it's more of a roadmap

really, an outline, a framework, as they put it, there's a lot of details still to be added. now, we do know there are time lines, quite aggressive time lines. the syrians have to come up with a full list of their chemical stockpile within a week. by the beginning of november, they have to allowed unfettered access by arms inspectors. also by the middle of next year, that's the deadline they've set for the weapons to either be handed over or destroyed. that is hugely ambitious. and it assumes a degree of cooperation from the syrian side. now, there was a shared assessment today from russia and the u.s. that there are 1,000 metric tons of chemical weapons or other materials in the control of the syrian government. and that is spread, according to the americans, across 45 different sites. now, getting to those sites will be a big undertaking and will need the cooperation of the syrians and take a lot of

verification. as of today, there hasn't been a response from the syrians to this meeting. the russians did say they hadn't been in contact. but clearly next week's deadline for listing all those chemical weapons will be a key test of syria's attitude towards this agreement. craig? >> ian williams for us in geneva, ian, thank you. one beauty queen has all the qualifications to be crowned miss world except one very crucial thing -- a country. this 18-year-old claims to be miss uzbekistan. but the country says they have absolutely no idea who that woman is. they add, they don't even hold a miss uzbekistan contest. ♪ i love having a free checked bag

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rain. >> it was the beginning of a time in our marriage that was very difficult. >> you're disgusting. >> takes one to know one, [ bleep ]. >> do some good, somewhere, anywhere in the world, in the bronx, anywhere. >> lawrence. >> where you didn't make money. >> chillax, buddy. dial it down a second. >> is huma still working on the campaign? >> she's helping out every day. >> it took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy. >> do you know what your role in hillary's 2016 campaign will be? >> i do. >> what's it going to be? >> i'm not telling you. >> and you're a perfect person. you're my judge. >> i didn't do what you did. >> down here, florida, these are my constituents moving every day from florida down here. we had the best ideas. sadly, i was an imperfect messenger. ♪ ♪ i hope you had the time of your life ♪ le announcer ] a doctor running late for a medical convention loses his computer,

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you are looking at new pictures from colorado where they have a state of emergency in place. major flooding there. major flooding has already killed four people. right now, rescuers searching for at least 170 who are unaccounted for. thousands more are homeless. the national guard is even helping people evacuate from especially hard-hit areas. there is some good news on this saturday afternoon, though. the weather channel's mike seidel tells us that the boulder creek area where we have seen some of the worst flooding has dropped nearly five feet since cresting on friday. the boulder county sheriff says he's starting to feel a little bit better about the situation as well. >> we are actively rescuing people, actively pulling people out of those communities. for the first time in a number of days, we feel like we're making progress. here's a quick look at the other top stories making news

right now. tropical storm ingrid is bringing heavy rains and major flooding to mexico's gulf coast today. according to the national hurricane center, ingrid is getting stronger and could become a hurricane before the weekend's out. a recipe for disaster in hawaii where hundreds of thousands of gallons of molasses are spilling into the sea from a storage pipeline. the thick, sticky substance is coating the ocean floor, sucking the oxygen out of the water. it's also killing lots of fish as well. officials are still trying to figure out just how to clean up that mess. and is george zimmerman a ticking time bomb? apparently the police chief in lake mary, florida, where zimmerman lives thinks so. in an e-mail exchange published by the website think progress, the chief wrote that zimmerman is a, quote, sandy hook or aurora waiting to happen. back in june, zimmerman was found not guilty of

second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of trayvon martin. earlier this week, though, zimmerman was questioned, then later released for allegedly threatening his wife. back to politics now, though syria seems to be occupying the president's full attention right now, many thought that immigration reform would be topping his agenda this summer. this is president obama's weekly address from back in june. >> smarter enforcement, a pathway to earn citizenship, improvements to the legal immigration system. they're all commonsense steps. they have broad support, from democrats and republicans, law enforcement and clergy. so there's no reason that congress can't work together to send a bill to my desk by the end of the summer. >> summer's almost over. that bill's not on the president's desk. there's one group that's taking matters into their own hands. the roman catholic church, believe it or not.

the u.s. conference of catholic bishops is now urging its priests to advocate for immigration reform from the pulpit and tell congregants to call their congressman. joining me is father thomas reese, senior analyst for the national catholic reporter. father, always good to have a father on the show. >> thanks, craig. >> why is immigration an issue for the catholic church to take up? >> well, immigration is an issue for the catholic church because it's an issue of human dignity. it's an issue of protecting families. we're for family values. and here we have families being split up, being torn apart because -- and children being separated from their parents because they're being pulled out and sent back to their countries. this is a question of human dignity for us. it's a question of respect, of love for our brothers and

sisters. and we feel that they should be treated better. >> the issue has been somewhat taken off the front burner in washington right now. do you think that that is something that has helped or hurt immigration reform advocates? >> well, i think that the bishops wanted to launch this campaign. they knew it was not going to be a campaign of one weekend. this is going to be a campaign that's going to go on for the rest of this year and maybe even into next year because this is something that's got to be done. we have around 11 million undocumented people in the united states. lots of these families have children in them, 3 million children that are living in homes where one or other of the parents is undocumented. and three-quarters of these children, almost, are american citizens. we've got to be concerned about these. the american people want a path

to citizenship. the problem is it's just not a big priority in washington. and what the bishops want to do is have the catholic people write their congressman and say, this needs to be a priority. >> i want to talk about motivation for a second. there was a piece talking about the catholic church's involvement in immigration. they raised an explanation, quote, one possible reason why the catholic church is keen to cultivate hispanic immigrants could be that if some of the immigrants or many socially conservative, their voices could become louder on topics like contraception. how much does this push for immigration reform? how much does it help the church on other political issues as well, perhaps? >> this is a real stretch. one-third of the catholics in the united states are hispanic. we're very concerned about these people. the catholic church is made up

of immigrants who came to an immigrant nation. we remember when the italians came, when the irish came, when the pols came and how they were discriminated against just like the hispanics are discriminated against today. you don't have to have some conspiracy theory to explain why the catholic church is concerned about these people. the bible tells us that we should be -- we should have justice for immigrants, we should reach out to strangers in a stranger land. the prophets in the old testament said this to the jewish people, remember how you were immigrants in egypt. the holy family were refugees in egypt. our whole biblical tradition is about immigrants and refugees. this comes from our concern for people, our theology, our love of neighbor and just plain justice.

>> father thomas reese, thank you, sir. i feel like i don't even have to go to church tomorrow as well. thank you for your time on this saturday afternoon. >> thank you, craig. let's take it to the brain trust. christine niedermayer runs a blog, goldie taylor and keaton dawson is the former chair of the south con gop. christine, let's talk about immigration for a second here. this idea that it's -- it's just one of these domestic issues that really has been pushed off the front burner as the obama administration deals with the crisis in syria. immigration advocates have been very clear from the beginning that they would to move forward. 100 protesters were arrested outside the capitol thursday.

does the president have enough political juice left to get congress back on the immigration reform track? >> he does, but this has been the story of this year for him because his agenda has been to deal with a number of different issues. and every time he tries to deal with that, something comes up like nsa or the irs or the egyptian turmoil and then recently we have the difficulties with syria. what's going to happen, i think, it's going to happen for two reasons. the republicans know they need the hispanic vote next year and they cannot go through the next election without this measure going through. number two, there is some concern that the president may decide to take action unilaterally to deal with some of the deportation issues and other immigration issues. so it needs to happen. but what's happening in congress is i think there is some hope on the republican side. there was a memorandum just this past week that eric cantor sent out to the republicans in the house indicating that they needed to deal with this bill by november 1st.

they probably won't but they'll probably deal with something and then get resolved in a conference committee down the row. >> "washington post" this week reporting is that through the end of june, 43 states and the district of columbia have passed a total of 377 laws and resolutions related to immigration. why aren't states creating legislation that in the end may conflict with federal legislation once it's passed? >> those voters are always close to home. you're getting ready to get into the 2014 election cycle. primaries are around the corner. much like you saw the colorado vote, politicians are taking a look at this. it's a core issue they're going to be very careful with. i want immigration addressed. the republicans have an opportunity to do probably the right thing. but at the end of the day, when you start talking abortion, gun control, immigration and then you mix that with primaries that are coming up, a senate in play

and a president whose political capital is unaring out, it's a dicey mix. >> is immigration reform dead? if it is, who killed it and who gets blamed for its death? >> it's dead on arrival in a comprehensive way. we see executive action take a step forward in terms of guest worker programs and other things that he can do by executive order, maybe. but will we see a comprehensive bill come out of this congress that looks at stemming the tide of immigrants coming across the border illegally, giving a pathway for citizenship for those here already, i don't think we're going to see that kind of legislation. i've got to tell you this. i'm here in the south. i'm an evangelical. my jesus was an immigrant. he lived and worked in a land foreign to his own. if you are moving from a christian tradition, you ought

to be about humanity. about giving people a refuge where they seek one. i think it's good for us really as a country to make sure that this happens. but i'm not so certain that those tea party based republicans are going to let something like this see the light of day. >> i definitely don't have to go to church tomorrow. here's the question i want to pose. if comprehensive immigration reform does not happen, people will say, oh, it was syria, oh, it was egypt. but at the end of the day, you have to wonder even if those things hadn't happened, would we have gotten comprehensive immigration reform or do we now have an excuse? is there going to be a political excuse as to why it did not happen? >> certainly in the house, which is where the ball is now, the senate passed their bill in june. it's sitting in the house. there's a big split in the house over this bill because some of the republicans on the judiciary committee want to enforce against immigrants first before they pass a bill.

i don't think it will be the excuse but it may delay it into next year. and if it gets to a conference committee and a stronger senate bill next year, they can say that's what -- >> when we come back from the break, we're going to talk about politically what the battle over syria has done to this white house. what if anything it's done to the white house. there are a lot of conflicting opinions out there. many of those opinions right here on the brain trust. come back, right after this. you really love, what would you do?" ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪

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have friends left on capitol hill? is he diminished or is this a classic case of folks overstating? >> bob corker is one of those people who called himself the president's friend. if he can my friend, i'd check around to see where my enemies were really hiding. maybe spend a little more time with them. this president has really not had a very strong relationship with this congress for any number of reasons. but i don't think that having or not having a charm offensive is a reason. i don't think his capacity with this congress has diminished in any way. i believe it's always been this way. did we have an opportunity to see a continuing resolution, an opportunity not to have them fight against obama care, which is the law of the land? did we see an opportunity for comprehensive immigration reform? i saw none of that coming to growth in this legislative agenda. and it really has less to do with what this president is able to do and more to do with what this congress needs to be able

to tell its constituents back home in their very red districts. >> you brought something up a second ago. you mentioned what happened in colorado this week. that's a story that's been glossed over to a certain extent. another state where you've got a state acting on its own with regards to gun control. colorado earlier this year passing tough new restrictions on gun control. this week, two colorado legislators who spearheaded that legislation, ousted in a recall election. first time that's ever happened there in colorado. what we saw happen out there in colorado, is that essentially enough to effectively kill gun control efforts nationwide, you think? >> it's enough to have politicians back off from it. once you take a look at -- i understand only 17 states have recall legislative language there. but it's enough to make a politician say, do i really want to fight this fight? is it one that's worthy? and it was an overreach. when you look at the poll

numbers, background checks are universally understood by the public both democrats and republicans. the monumental thing, it was a small vote turnout but they were in districts where the president won 19% and 21% of the vote. these are colorodans who said they thought it was an overreach on the legislation. what it means now is the president's base has become less. john kerry, joe biden and barack obama advocating a military strike of war, that's what the president's lost is a really solid base that's been for him the whole time, not in congress but out in america and 2014 is bearing down on them. >> they're not advocating a call to war right now. >> it's a stretch but that's what it was earlier. >> christine, you wanted to chime? >> i was going to say, i think this colorado vote, you could read too much in it. i'm a former state legislator. the unique thing about this, single voters have had an impact in election over time.

they have much more impact in this election because it was a special recall instead of a general election. therefore the voter turnout was lower and the chances of the impact of the anti-gun votes was greater. a lot of money was poured in from each side. but i think members of congress already know the nra is a powerful force. i'm not sure it changes the dynamic that much. >> goldie, gun control, immigration reform, syria, president obama stuck his neck out on each of those. he made very public appeals for action and so far, nada on all three. whatever happened to the power of the bully pulpit? >> i don't know that the power of the bully pulpit really works if you don't have a congregation out there willing to move with your language. so he didn't really have a strong congregation to begin with. the other thing is this president is not up for reelection. that means if you were a progressive, if you were a democrat of any stripe and you disagreed with this president on a piece of policy and you

couldn't do it before, you can do it now and you can do it more loudly. we've seen a lot more of that. what i've said is that both parties have some work to do before 2014, the republicans have their own level of complex fractures going on that they need to heal. but democrats particularly, we've seen this play itself out in this current legislative agenda. they've got some fractures themselves. and i have got to wonder if they're going to be able to pull it back together by the time 2014 rolls out or even 2016 and heal as one party again. up next, political redemption rejected. >> sadly, we did not win this time. but i could not be more proud of the campaign that we ran. >> i say to the public, all of us should serve, participate. i tend to do so in different ways. >> turns out new york city voters were not willing to forgive and forget after all. what that means for other scandal-scarred politicians.

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the brain trust is back. christine, straight scoop policies. goldy taylor. dawson taylor. let's start with what happened here in gotham this week. anthony weiner. eliot spitzer. for a while they looked like shoe-ins. for those of you west of the hudson, by the way, former new york governor spitzer lost his job after a prostitution scandal. weiner lost his job after inappropriate pictures were public and then he didn't stop when he said -- so anyway, that's the primer for those of you not following the story. you would expect new york city voters to be more forgiving. >> you would but they're ripped up in the tabloid for weeks. their situation is so different than mark sanford's.

>> she doesn't waste any time. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. look at. the infidelity rate in the country is pretty high and recent poll back in may said 28% of americans don't hold -- hold that against their politicians. only 28%. so the difference you have here is that you have infidelity with another marriage for sanford and you have the sexting and the prostitutes and i think it went beyond the pale of what the american public was willing to accept. and then, you had the issue of trust saying he had stopped and then still continued the conduct. >> the campaign went on. he started to become a complete caricature of himself. it really was just one sideshow after another. i mean, is it that simple? is it just -- were those the only differences between weiner and spitzer and sanford and david it haver in louisiana, as sfwhel. >> they all took their clothes off or forced the wrong people at the same time.

and that's the mistake to the american public holding it against them. i'm like you. it's the way they ran their campaigns. and the new yorkers saw it for what it was. mark sanford's a different story. he spent a year asking for forgiveness, did the forgiveness. >> he was also running in the same district. >> he was. >> same base of people. >> ran against lulu bush. it was entertaining but let me tell you. he's a better politician than those two. >> goldy taylor, i don't want to open a can of worms here but also one of the things we discovered this week, if you are to believe several of the newspapers it also looks like in addition to losing an election, they are going to lose their wives, as well. what message can we draw from this? >> well, i think there are a couple of things. number one, i think if you have some fidelity in the marriage, you will have problems in the context of your relationship with yourself and voter. running around on your wife or

husband you run around on the voter. whether or not somebody can, you know, get themselves together, to get out on a one to one tour and really talk to people from the goodness of their heart and talk about rebuilding that line of trust between them and the voter, i think they do deserve a second shot, absolutely. but the idea that a man and woman who are in for all practical purposes a marital and divorce after things like this is not surprising to me. those marriages tend to be built on the public life and when the public life falls apart for good, then suddenly you see the marriages following suit. you know, i find it unfortunate that it is happening to anybody. but i don't know that it is our place to say or remark about it or say that it says anything more or less about the candidates on their wives. >> i have always wondered, especially in the case of eliot spitzer, here's a guy that, i mean, really put his wife and

family through hell and then all of a sudden you emerge and you decide you want to do it again. it really does baffle me. lawrence o'donnell got to the heart of it. public service is a noble effort when done well. but you would think that some people would stay away from public service if they don't have their own house in order. >> no. i think the satisfaction having served myself in office and having worked in the house and the senate in washington, i think there's a motivation. self adulation, the ability to get stuff done on issues, al truistically and pulls them back in and then what's he do, spitz we are a short-term stent. >> you have to keep your -- >> on television and didn't get the juices going so -- >> you know what? goldie taylor, i said this before. i think this is one of the true marks of our society and how far we have come when there's a

woman that pulls a stunt like the stunts we have seen and she manages to pull through unscathed politically, as well. do you think that that will ever happen? or women just smarter than that? >> i don't know that women are any smarter, less smarter about these kinds of things. i understand by some psychology women and men have fidelity issues for different reasons and motivations and are we going to see a time of a woman in public office with a fall from grace due to these kinds of reasons? that's inevitable. we are all human beings with our own different pieces of fault. does that mean that she won't have, you know, the same kind of ability to have that second bite at the apple? >> yeah. >> that remains to be seen. given what we understand about, you know, gender politics today, i don't know that she's going to have that same opportunity that some men are having coming back again and again. >> all right. we are out of time. katon, you can't talk about gender politics on this saturday afternoon.

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[ male announcer ] from the last day of school, back to the first. they're gonna create a ton of research papers and important projects. so make sure they've got a safe place to keep them all. this week only get 16 gig flash drives for $7.87. staples has it. staples. that was easy. thanks for disrupting your saturday afternoon. i'm karen finney. two weeks ago we seemed to be on the verge of war. today, a stunning breakthrough. could some of that goodwill rub off on congress? nah. >> talks reach a major turning point. >> marathon three days of negotiations. >> john kerry and sergey lavrov have come to a deal. >> united states and russia are committed to the elimination of syrian chemical weapons. >> emerged with a credible threat of military action. >> only two weeks ago this morning that the