check out "years of living dangerously" sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on showtime. huge thanks to alex wagner and steve kornacki for filling in for me while i was away with my newborn child. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> it is great to have you back. what you did was really sweet. >> now you have me weepy. you can see the protest sign guy on the left, the guy in the front and then the two guys walking behind him. but if you look closely at this you can also see a little bit of color on the photo, right? it's a black and white photo but you can see discoloration, some red lines coming into the frame and then in the margins you can

see it's one, two, three, someone has drawn on this old photo in red pen. they've numbered the people in this picture. and then there's this other part here at the bougttom, this blue/green tab. and that shows that they have figured out who these people are. one, two, three. they haven't figured out the name of the first guy, the guy with the protest sign. they only have a hometown listed for him but they have names and hometowns for number two and number three, the other two guys in the photo. and you'll see it's the same thing here. people marching, some kind of protest. but then scrawled on the photo in a marker one, two, three. cataloging and indexes the individual are marchers in this photo. these photos are not somebody documenting these marches and protests just to show they happened. this is not journalistic work. you can tell by the annotations on these photos that this is actually the work of an investigation. after the supreme court ordered the end of segregation in schools, after the landmark

supreme court ruling in the state of mississippi they established by law something they called the mississippi state sovereignty commission. in 1956 the legislature in mississippi passed and then governor j.p. coleman signed a law creating the sovereignty commission for the purpose of defying the federal government and specifically of preserving racial segregation in mississippi. the sovereignty commission's work included spying on the citizens of mississippi and on outside activists who joined them in pushing for civil rights in the state. they collected their photographs and they found out their names and they compiled intelligence reports on the people of mississippi. and this secret work went on for a very long time, long enough to go from grainy black and white photos like these to full color, long enough to capture thousands of images of people who we don't necessarily know and also images of people like martin luther king jr. this is one of dr. king's mug shots as found in the files of the mississippi state sofrpt

commission. mississippi sovereignty commission kept on with this work until 1973. the state officially dispanneded in 1977 the of the and accord ing to the official history by that time mississippi with the state agency had collected enough intel on its own citizens to fill six filing cabinets along with, quote, two unsealed paste board boxes, two separate folders in a manila envelope and a bound volume of minutes. they locked the records away and ordered them kept under seal until the year 2027. now the fight to get the state to open up the records earlier started the same year they locked them up, in 1977. and that fight was a long fought fight. it took a long time. a lot of stages in that fight. but the reason we've got those f photos i just showed you is that these photos and records are finally now all online. as of 2002 you can see everything in the collection.

some day i myself am planning a long field trip to sit in the archives of the mississippi sovereignty commission to go through these records in hand in part because they are filled with incredible photographs. also some very, very telling memos like this one. which was written in early 1965. so it was written between the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965. and this is absolutely lly ama. a state document. quote, it's necessary we remove from the files any reports of investigators which might in any way be construed to mean the sovereignty commission has interfered in any way with voter registration drives or demonstrations. this would include reports that mention contact with the registrars as to the number of applications received or the number who passed the voting test. it planes those reports which lists the names of applicants for voter registration tests. these reports will be removed from the file and kept available for future disposal. the a later decision on the disposal will be forthcoming from the director. all future reports of

investigators must clearly show the purpose of such investigation is to ascertain the names of any subversives or professional agitators and that it is no concern of the sovereignty commission as to how many colored residents of the state of mississippi make application to vote. and all of our records we show otherwise we have to take those out. it was hard fought to get them to do it, but to mississippi's credit where you will find this incredibly damning memo is on a mississippi state website. this is no longer secret stuff. they are being open about what they did. for mississippi making these archives public is part of reckoning with the past. so is this. mississippi's building a new civil rights museum reckoning with its past in a public and official way. it's the state that is opening this museum. it's the state that is paying for it with public money. and so now curators for the state are traveling around the state, visiting people who have

stories to tell and artifacts to share about the war in mississippi and for the people who had to fight the state for their civil rights, you have to think it must be a leap of faith, right? handing over stuff to the same state, to the state of mississippi, which they fought for so long for their rights. trusting the state to handle these precious artifacts and to do right by them. the family of vernon dahmer who was firebombed and then shot to death in hattiesburg, mississippi, in 1966 when he was the local naacp president. his family says they are willing to loan the state the wreckage of his firebombed truck with the bullet holes in it but they are not willing to give the state the truck outright because the family does not yet have complete faith in the state running this new museum. the people who are be planning this new telling of history say that that's not going to be white washed. they're going to tell all sides of the story, the story of the people who fought for civil rights but also the much more

uncomfortable story of the people who fought against it. including the state itself. i mean, this memo came from a state agency. it came from the mississippi state sovereignty commission. the memo is cc'd to the governor's office. the memo that says let's hide the part in our files that shows that we were interfering with black people's right to vote in this state. that's part of what we did. let's hide that part of the files. cc the governor. they broke ground on the museum in mississippi in october. everybody was there for the groundbreaking. governor phil bryant, you see there on the left. he gave a big speech. almost hidden by the flag on the right is the widow of the civil rights martyr medgar evers. among the items you'll be able to consider in the new museum is the gun, the hunting rifle, that was use d to kill her husband. this is very difficult stuff. but they are going ahead in mississip mississippi.

you can see in this photo from the jackson free press that ms. he was really is nearly hidden by the confederate emblem that's part of the mississippi flag. the old confederacy lives on in the mississippi state flag, the rebel flag takes up much of the territory of what is the flag of the state and, yes, in a way it's a leftover but also it's not. this is not a historic picture of mrs. evers. this is now and that is still the mississippi state flag. and sometimes just visually it is hard to tell the difference between what used to be and what still is. the local mississippi chapter of the sons of confederate veterans like to buy billboards wishing happy birthday to confederate heroes to celebrate the war of southern independence. quote, southerners have less reason to be loyal to the collective enterprise of the united states than does any group of citizens. the south was invaded, laid waste and hunkered when it tried to uphold the original and correct understanding of the declaration of independence and the constitution. you would think its vestigial

past, it's still here, is an uncomfortable thing. it's an uncomfortable political thing about the guy giving the incumbent republican u.s. senator from mississippi a run for his money right now. chris mcdaniels challenge for that u.s. seat held by thad cochrane. the challenge has been dogged by reports of his having been a featured guest at a sons of confederate veterans nae o neoconfederate event. he said if they pass reparations for slavery he will stop paying his taxes. and so on. interestingly, though, chris mcdaniel and his campaign said they weren't worried about it. the campaign said there will be no consequences for the republican party in mississippi even if a pseudo neoconfederate guy like thad cochrane don't worry about it. his campaign tells nbc tonight,

quote, it is impossible for a democrat to win in mississippi. even if the republican is a guy like that. why is that? this year is the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act of 1964. the president today not only lauding it as an american achievement but trying to get very gritty and detailed and realistic and unroe mantic about what it cost to do the civil rights act of 1964. the president today praising lyndon b. johnson. talking about how hard it was to get it passed. >> he knew he had a unique capacity as the most powerful white politician in the south to not only challenge the convention that had crushed the draems of so many but to

dismantle for good the structures of legal segregation. he's the only guy who could do it. and he knew there would be a cost. famously saying democratic party may have lost the south for a generation. >> between the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 196 are 5 democrats knew told each other the story they would lose the south for a generation. yep. and now according to republicans in the south and nobody's contesting them, it is metaphysically impossible for a democrat to win statewide office in mississippi even as the state reckons with its own culpability for the recent past, even as mr. antebellum ball is a republican nominee for the united states senate this year. commemorations like the ones today at the johnson library,

they are for the heroes, right? they are for the people who were right and who were brave and who we remember as heroes, but the reason we keep living through it again is in part we forget what the heroes had to be brave about and brave against. it is one thing to tell the story of the people who were right. part of understanding why it is such a big deal that they were right is remembering who was wrong. we forget to remember who was wrong not just who was right. joining us now is nbc news presidential historian. thank you so much for being here. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> let me ask you about what president obama said today in this long and complicated and sort of passionate speech when he talked about the legacy of president johnson and democrats, political consequences for supporting civil rights. was he right and what should we understand about that? >> he was right and what he was

quoting johnson saying probably after both the civil rights act and the voting rights act in 1965 that the cost of this would be to lose the south to the democrats. 19 1968 the union that wept for john kennedy by more than any other was georgia, upwards of 60%. and those were white voters who were voting for kennedy because they wanted segregation. that's how big a change this was. so the result was that johnson knew that, yes, the democrats would lose the south. he said for a generation, it's still going on as you said tonight. he was probably overly optimistic. johnson hoped that the result of the voting rights act you would get so many voteers that ultimately they would help to overcome that and the democrats would be on equal turf in the south and that hasn't happened yet. >> how did lbj himself react to the aspects of backlash that

happened during his political life? when he could see what he had pr predicted happening happened? >> it happened in a much more d dramatic way. the voting rights act was passed, as you know, in the summer of 1965. he went down to celebrate at the lbj ranch late that summer of the that was the time that the riots occurred. thousands of rioters, 20 people were dead. the police chief in los angeles, william parker, made this incendiary remark. he said that's what happens when you get people civil rights and tell them they have been abused by the law. they develop this kind of disrespect for the law. a lot of people agreed, even johnson's old aunt, a woman named bailey who lived on the lbj ranch told lbj he had gone too far. it went even further in 1966 the democrats lost 47 seats in the house. it was attributed very directly to white backlash and the interesting thing is right after watts, johnson who politically

could see around corners said one of the people who is going to benefit from this backlash, this conservative movement against not only civil rights but my whole great so ciety is candidate in california for governor by the name of ronald reagan. >> wow. president obama speaking at length today about lyndon johnson. it was remarkable not just because of the and veniversary g celebrated and because the president gave such an important speech but president obama has not talked very much about president johnson before. do you have a theory or any explanation as to why that is? >> i can only speculate, you know, he gave his acceptance speech in denver in 2008. the first time, the day after lyndon johnson's 100th birthday you'd think speaking to a huge state in the democrats, you would mention the guy's name, he didn't. his first year as president, johnson was not much mention to the johnson people. i think one reason is that first year that was the year that president obama was resisting an

awful lot of pressure largely for the pentagon to escalate the afghanistan war. we do know that he read at least one account, one history book about lbj making the decisions in 1965 that escalated vietnam, that ultimately killed the reforms that johnson wanted to do so i think at least that first year johnson to obama probably meant vietnam. >> that's fascinating. the i'm thinking about having looked at the photos all day today. >> just fascinating. >> which are amazing. looking at them, seeing the way the commission was documenting and investigating not just the civil rights protesters but the anti-war protesters that came thereafter, and to see that legacy in protest and to see that legacy in reaction in mississippi and to foe that's also johnson. >> and you know why it's so important? i was talking with civil rights leader of the '60s not long ago. he said his granddaughter had learned about rosa parks, came home and said, i don't know why she was so great.

if someone told me to go to the back of the bus, i wouldn't do it either. this is why we need things like that museum. >> michael beschloss, thank you so much for your insights on this, michael. nice to see you. are you ready grandma? just a second, sweetie. [ female announcer ] we eased your back pain, you turned up the fun.

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we put members first. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side wyoming's republican senator is one of those incumbents oning for re-election this year and who has to worry not only about running against a democrat to hold on to his seat but also running against primary challengers who were taking him on within his own party.

i have some good news for him because here is his potential right wing challenger. yeah, that's a rocket propelled grenade launch er. here is another one. yep, thomas blem iing. he says his occupation is soldier of fortune. he's a mercenary available for hire around the world. this, for example, is him posing are a rebel group in burma. thomas blemg calls himself a soldier of fortune and is a candidate for the united states senate from the great state of wyoming trying to unseat mike enzi. he recently explained to "u.s. news & world report." i assassinate add guy one time. i can't say where, but he had it coming to him. he was fairly easy. he was a bad guy. mike enzi is lucky enough to have confessed assassin bleming because the previous challenger dropped out of the race.

liz cheney for a brief and shining moment earlier this year was mounting a senate campaign to unseat her fellow republican mike enzi. and the liz cheney senate campaign turns out it was sort the of one of those washington-created bubbles. didn't much work in wyoming as much as it worked in the beltway. and that bubble popped abruptly at the beginning of this year. liz cheney was not leaving public life, though, leaving competitive public life. now that she is no longer a candidate she has settled in to attacking rand paul of kentucky. now this is from "the washington post's" conservative columnist jennifer reuben. i asked liz cheney as someone close to her father and who worked on his memoirs for her reaction. she said, quote, it's not surprising since senator paul often seems to get his foreign policy talking points from ra i rachel maddow.

she was asked to comment on reporting from david korn at mother jones who got these clips of rand paul in the early days of campaigning for his u.s. senate seat. and in the clips rand paul is talking about his own party and what he thought the republican party should move away from. watch. >> we need to be fearful of companies that get so big that they could actually be directing policy. when the iraq story started halliburton had a billion dollar no bid contract. they shouldn't be so powerful they direct even policy. there's a great youtube of dick cheney in 1995 defending bush number one and he goes on for about five minutes. he's being interviewed i think at american enterprise institute and he says it would be a disas asser -- disaster and that's why the first didn't go into baghdad. he goes to work for halliburton, makes hundreds of millions of

dollars as ceo. he's back in the government. 9/11 became the excuse for a war that they already wanted in iraq. >> so liz cheney was reacting to those comments from rand wall when she told "the washington post" this week he seems to get his foreign policy talking points from rachel maddow. flattered as i am, i think i know what she's talking about and i think she has it wrong. as did rand paul. the iraq war is not just an abstract thing to have ideological fights about. it was a policy choice that is an empirically known thing. you can document what happened in the war and why we went and whether or not the claims that were made at the time we went to that war were true or false claims the. it's history. you can study it. the here on msnbc over the last year we put together a toumtry called why we did it which published and spotlighted new documentation about why that war happened. and rand paul is partly right, that it was a war that they had planned on having before 9/11

ever happened. and he's right that the reason they had planned to have that war was oil 679 but it's too simple american policymakers wanted to go into iraq so they could benefit. their american companies would steal oil that previously belonged to the iraqi government and they would steal it -- they would sell it and keep the money. and, again, this is not an esoteric or unknowable thing. the evidence exists. we have seen the planning documents. it was about oil. specifically, though, it was about making sure the world market for oil was well supplied. iraq really does swim in a sea of oil. it has a lot of oil and u.s. planning before 9/11 for using military force against iraq's government was all with getting the government out of the way so iraq's oil could get to the world market so we could buy it as happy customers just like everybody else. so rand paul is wrong. liz cheney is always wrong. but the answer to the question that they are fighting about

while had they are wrong is not an unknowable thing we can fight about indefinitely. it is a known quantity. publicly the administration presses its case to the american people that iraq must be confro confronted before saddam hussein's true intentions are revealed in a nuclear mushroom cloud. >> the last thing we should want is a smoking gun. a gun doesn't smoke until it's fired. >> the internal deliberations are about exploiting iraq's oil. the pentagon is debating, quote, whether to use control of iraqi oil to advance important foreign policy objectives affected by energy issues. while the national debate is over aluminum tubes and mobile buy l biological weapons labs, internal planning documents note that increased oil production in a post war iraq would have the eventual effect of reducing world oil prices. >> prior to our even going to war in iraq, the focus was on

oil and iraqi oil and how to take it over far more than anything else. >> that is a clip from why we did it which is msnbc's documentary on the question of why the war in iraq happened. it's a question that can be answered and that documentary airs right here tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. tall the building is, or how ornate the halls are. it doesn't matter if there are granite statues, or big mahogany desks. when working with an investment firm, what's really important is whether the people behind the desks actually stand behind what they say. introducing the schwab accountability guarantee. if you're not happy with one of our participating investment advisory services, we'll refund your program fee from the previous quarter. it's no guarantee against loss and other fees and expenses may still apply. chuck vo: standing by your word, that's what matters the most.

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so today was quite the news day. the health secretary who oversaw the rollout of health reform resigned at a really weird time.

hillary clinton had a shoe thrown at her in las vegas. and they picked david letterman's replacement. when they say things happen in threes in the news, this is not the kind of three they usually mean. it's been a very busy day. lots to come. [ male announcer ] staples has everything you need to get your client's attention. from architectural prints and brochures to oversized printouts and banners that will bring your designs to life. ♪ yes, staples has everything you need to get your client's attention... except your client's attention. thousands of products added every day to staples.com, even bullhorns. how much? [ male announcer ] now get 50% off marketing materials.

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on tdi models. well, that was a surprise. >> break iing political news tonight out of washington. nbc news has confirmed health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius is resigning after five years on the job and following the rocky rollout of president obama's health care law. she was the president's point person to implement that law. she had come under fire numerous times from republicans especially. there were calls for her job back when the website debuted as a giant debacle. she was allowed to stay on through the deadline. >> late breaking tonight, big surprise news out of d.c. that the health secretary kathleen sebelius is stepping down. according to the white house chief of staff secretary sebelius started talking to the president last month about her future. they say she submitted her resignation letter to the president last week and the

president plans to formally announce her resignation tomorrow at which point he will also announce who he has picked to replace her. the nominee to be the new secretary of health and services will be cynthia burwell. she is a harvard and oxford trained rhodes scholar from west virginia who was confirmed by the senate the for her current job by a vote of 96-0. . surprise news about secretary sebelius resigning comes ten days after the white house ran its victory lap when the signups for the president's signature health law beat everybody's estimates of what they would be especially after all the issues with the website not working when it first rolled out. the congressional budget office projected 6 million signups by the deadline march 31. last week the president was able to announce actually 7.1 million people signed up and then just today skathleen sebelius was in congress telling them that signups have now hit 7.5 million people because of folks who were effectively in line to sign up before the deadline but couldn't get it done by then because of

technical reasons. technical reasons. technical delays. technical screw-ups and lousy communication around technical delays and screw-ups of course plagued the rollout of the health reform law from the very beginning. secretary sebelius said she took full responsibility for those failures. but after the rocky start, obamacare turned out it worked. they fixed the website and, wouldn't you know it, the law resulted in millions more americans having health insurance than had it before. and so now kathleen sebelius has to go? why now? because the administration can't resist stepping on its own tail and turning the first good news cycle they've had about obamacare in its past instead a story about a firing? if you're going to argue that she was planning on going all along, that these discussions started last month, even before the deadline, what explains this interview on the day of the deadline last week with "huffington post."

>> secretary sebelius, this obviously has been a long, hard push to get this program up and running. i think not only technically, politically this must be difficult. do you see yourself sticking around until november for round two? >> well, absolutely. i think the goal is to for the first time make sure people have affordable health care options. that's really what is at the end of the day. this is the most satisfying work i've ever done. >> so you're staying for a while? >> i'm in oocht secretary sebelius, thank you for your time this morning. >> thank you. >> that was last week saying i'm in. i'm staying until november. and now she's out. surprise news reported late tonight out of the white house thus turning the only good obama news cycle the white house has had in years into one that ends with a resignation which republicans have been clamoring for for years.

what are they thinking? joining us now is david korn, mother jones washington, d.c., bureau chief. thank you for being here. >> good to be with you, rachel. >> surprising timing here? i mean, seems surprising to me. >> you know, surprising. i don't think anyone saw this coming. more surprising that it didn't happen sooner. i mean, i understand your point they may be stepping on their own tails here if people regard this as negative news. in one way, though, it may be a good time for her to go. it's quasi mission accomplished, a complete disaster in october/november. at that point people were calling for obama to lop off some heads. he, it seems, made the right decision and didn't go that way and focused on getting the thing to work, keeping the people in place and then it works, works better than people expected. they meet their deadline, their target numbers.

they're ahead of their target nuls and i'm betting she's pretty damn exhausted by now. you know, maybe this was a pause when she needs to be refreshed and it's time. it is time for me to go. it could work out that way. >> whether or not this is the pause that refreshes, which is actually the perfect idea for this, you've seen all the headlines tonight. health secretary resigns after troubled rollout, after rocky tenure. has the white house been mad at her about the rollout? have they been angling for a way to get her out? >> that's a good question. back in october and november i was talking to a lot of people in the white house about who they were mad at and why did this happen, why is no one held accountable, why was no one dismissed or fired, and they really swore up and down they could have been spinning it a little that they weren't having

any rhett tetributions, recriminations. up until the debacle, as brian williams called it, afterwards they really got their stuff together and kathleen sebelius was pretty steady, as it looked publicly, in getting this back on track. i think she deserves a lot of credit. maybe she deserves some blame for what went wrong but deserves some credit for turning this around as well. >> exactly. and that's why, to me, this is like a team being sort after comeback team, starting off having a bad season at the start and then winning the championship and they're running around with the cup like, we did it, we did it. we're the champs. and they stop halfway through their victory lap to fire the coach. no, wait until nobody is paying d attention. >> maybe she wants to spend more time with her family. >> that's a very astute point. david korn, mother jones, thank you for being with us. i appreciate it. i am, as a matter of political

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you'll remember the infamous shaw throwing incident when

president bush was taking his final trip to iraq, standing there with the prime minister, a dude throws a shaw aoe and then another. what is a cultural symbol of dis disrespect. that happened to former secretary of state hillary clinton giving a paid speech at an institute of scrap recycling meeting in las vegas. when a woman in the audience apparently popped off her shaw and let it rip at the former first lady. secretary clinton was not hit by the shoe. she was not hurt. we do not the know why the woman threw the shoe. she was arrested after doing it and she calmly left with her arm raised in the air. so that happened today which you may have heard. did you hear how hillary clinton responded when this lady threw the shoe at her? secretary clinton not only

dodged the shoe, she made like five jokes about it in a row as soon as it happened and she responded in a way we learned something new about hillary clinton we did not know before. so here is what happened. this is the tape. watch to the end. i had no idea this was true. >> it's already recycling about -- what was that? a bat? was that a bat? is that somebody throwing something at me? is that part of cirque du soleil? my goodness, i didn't know solid waste management was so controversial. thank goodness she didn't play softball like i did. >> hillary clinton played

softball? did everybody notice except me? i mean, if i knew only one thing about hillary clinton, you would think it would be a softball thing, right? don't you think that i would know that news even if i knew nothing else about her? i am sorry somebody threw a shoe at her today just as i am sorry somebody tlhrew a shoe at georg w. bush. softball thing? mind blown.

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(agent) i understand. (dad) we've never sold a house before. (agent) i'll walk you guys through every step. (dad) so if we sell, do you think we can swing it? (agent) i have the numbers right here and based on the comps that i've found, the timing is perfect. ...there's a lot of buyers for a house like yours. (dad) that's good to know. (mom) i'm so excited. johnny carson hosted the tonight show for 30 years from 1962 to 1992. as a rule, johnny carson did not talk about politics. he joked about everything and everyone. but left politics alone on "the tonight show" except for when he didn't. every rule its made to be broken. the fact that johnny carson didn't talk about politics meant

it ended up being a big deal when he finally did. >> it is really a strange story if you think about it. as you probably know, he, mr. hart, and another friveend of h, broadhearst went on a boat trip to biminy and took along a girlfriend of hers and went to biminy and chartered a boat. the day before yesterday somebody asked them what the name of the boat was. they didn't seem to remember. well, i can see why they wouldn't want to remember. the name of the boat was "monkey business." now here's what i don't figure out. you are running for the highest office in the land. take a little trip to biminy with a couple of ladies. going to go down to charter a boat. of all the boat names there are,

like "mother." or "mother teresa." you hire a boat called "monkey business." that its not good thinking. nobody knows what, what happened on the boat. but i understand the whales were watching them. >> johnny carson doing a rare political monologue in 1987. he is right about the facts. the boat was called "the monkey business." wouldn't have been funny if he made it up. it happened. though he didn't like talking about politics when something that funny happens in politics somebody being in charge of funny for millions is going to find it interesting even in politics. in the years since johnny carson's time on late night the tradition continued of beg audience, network comedy shows not dwelling on politics too much, not becoming too ideological one way or the other. basically leaving political issues out of the mix.

exempt when they don't. in the rare times when the shows do get political. it scan be both really amazing. and also really awkward. >> now you and your husband, you run this, this clinic. >> two clingics. >> the pray the gay away thing i don't get that. >> see, when i heard that, i really thought it was like a mid life crisis, like pray away the gray, that's what i thought it was. >> you know what i am saying. when i was a kid. they used to teach me to be right-handed. you are left-handed. the hand of the devil. to me it is the same thing with gay. sound like two gay people want to get married that's their business doesn't concern us. why is senate wthat even an iss? >> because the family is foundational. and, marriage between a man and woman has been what the law has been for years and years and years. >> i got to admit that is the part i don't get.

i know gay families they have children and are wonderful people. doesn't seem like they shouldn't be allowed to be happy. but i am not going to change your mind on that one. >> david letterman announced he is retiring from late night comedy after 32 years in the business. david letterman not only reinvented the genre he has been a genius in tell vitzed comedy from his earliest shows from literally his opening monologue he has been genius at what he does. though mr. letterman is famous for breaking the mold and doing things in a new way all the time. he too has mostly stayed away from political issue. not a political show. and that simple fact of, of scarcity has always made everybody snap to attention whenever he does make an exception to the no politics rule. i mean, there is david letterman during the 2808 campaign. not doing politics every night. not obsessed with the race. when john mccain suspended his

presidential campaign he was going to rush to washington and address the financial crisis in 2008, the david letterman show was an important part of the way the country learned about the decision by john mccain and not in a good way. >> maybe you heard the big news, john mccain, senator john mccain, republican candidate for president was supposed to be on the program tonight. were you aware thought of? yes! but he had to cancel the show because he is suspending his campaign balls the economy is exploding. here is a senator, fourth term senator from arizona. you go back to washington. you handle what you need to handle. don't suspend your campaign. you let your campaign go on. shouldered by your vice presidential nominee, that's what you do. you don't quit. you heard it here first, this doesn't smell right. you know? this just doesn't smell right. this is not the way a tested hero behaves. at the last minute he calls up. and said, i can't make it.

can't make it. can't make it. i said, i said what its the, what is the problem? he said, well, the economy. he said the economy is about to crater. so we find out today he didn't really leave until this morning. didn't go until this morning. thank you. >> can i give you an answer. >> please. >> i screwed up. >> and that was the last time anybody ever heard of john mccain. not really. because our late night comedy shows in this country big audience, everyone come together. mostly apolitical venues. when they do touch on political topics it can be an important political thing. >> now hire is where the one comes against cheney, tell me if i am full of gas. cheney says we are not going to go after osama bin laden he is from saudi arabia we don't want to rub the royal family wrong, because they control all our oil. >> i never heard cheney say any of this.

>> i know, i am making this up. am i close to anything at all? >> no. he has the got problems on a lot of fronts. i think the president has to be more assertive in explaining to the american people what the -- is going wrong. if you know that wouldn't you think he would know senate. >> there is a strategy to it. he thinks the american public is so distracted by the machines and ipads and phones that they're going to forget about it get bored about it. he can ride it out. that's what he is doing. >> i have a feeling that's not what he is thinking. ha-ha. i am just -- [ applause ] >> i don't know. >> now that mr. letterman announced he is leaving, cbs today announced his replacement will be a comedian who has spent the last nine years not just mocking bill o'reilly to his face like david letterman did in guest appearances but living out an on-air satirical bill

o'reilly, steven colbert of the colbert report, announcement raises a quaegs bestion about a who doesn't dabble in politics he has come up as a political comedian, a very political comedian. >> wow, what an honor. the white house correspondents dinner. to actually, to sit here at the same table with my hero, george w. bush. to be this close to the man. i feel like i'm dreaming. somebody pinch me. you know what, i am a pretty sound sleeper, that may not be enough. somebody shoot me in the face. i believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in iraq. i stand by this man, i stand by this man because he stands for things.

not only for things. he stands on things. things like aircraft carriers, and rubble, and recently flooded city squares. and that send a strong message that no matter what happens to america, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world. >> there has always been some politics in late night. when it pops up it has a really big effect because it is a mostly apolitical world. nobody knows exactly what steven colbert is going to do with the new gig. it means a huge stage for one of the greatest political comedians of all time. it remains to be seen itch thf stage is a stage for overtly political humor. colbert. it is fascinating to see what he decide to do with it. mostly though, honestly. mazel tov. david letterman is a genius. as he is leaving.

jimmy fallon on the tonight show. steven colbert on cbs. honestly, we are lucky in this country to be living in this golden age of genius people who are this good at their jobs doing this work for us every night. it's exciting. that does it. tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m., why we did it. hope you will tune in. now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. president obama said he wouldn't be where he is today without the work of civil, the civil rights movement and president lyndon banes johnson. and steven colbert would not be going where he is going were it not for david letterman. >> progress in this country can be hard and slow. >> president obama set to address the civil rights summit today in austin, texas. >> the focus of three days of reflection on the history since that time. >> the voting rights act. >> immigration reform. >> fair housing act. >> in kid ration of what should happen next. >> t