there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. good evening. i'm chris matthews. in washington let me start with the possible collapse of baghdad. collapse. how many times have we heard that word in history, the collapse of the chinese nationalists in the face of the advancing red army, the collapse of the soviet union in the early 1990ed? how many times have we seen the armored personnel carriers racing down the streets of a capitol, men waiving and firing their weapons into the air, the hotels and other symbols of the

status quo suddenly thrown open to the bearded and triumphant forces of the countryside. is this the immediate picture and the blatant contradiction we see with our stunned eyes and what we were told would be the enduring army and the notions of nation building. whatever gave the idea that we could concoct a country to our specifications and that we could convert a bathist dictator ship to a democracy. didn't saddam hussein offer this warning that the government we've given power to is less interested in healing sectarian wounds than an exacting sectarian revenge? here we are watching the sunnis head to baghdad, the shia prepared to hold them off. the president of the united states reviews options. none of them will correct the

u.s.'s jamboree from hell. bobby ghosh and paul eaves is a senior advisor at the national network. they told the shia to take up arms against a powerful suny militant group. i.s.i.s. has taken over several areas and is going to march on baghdad. senators john mccain and lindsey gram are talking. today the president is considering his options. the united states will help but ultimately it's up to the iraqis to solve their own problems. let's watch. >> we will not be sending u.s. troops back into combat in iraq but i have asked my national security team to prepare a range of options that could help secure iraq security forces and any action we may take to

provide assistance to iraqi security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by iraq's leaders to set aside sectarian differences, to promote stability and account for the legitimate interests of all of iraq's communities. we can't do it for them and in the absence of this type of political effort short-term military action including any assistance we might provide won't succeed. >> we can't do it for them. john f. kennedy asked about vietnam. >> in the final analysis, it's their war. they're the ones that have to win it or lose it. we can help them, give them equipment and send our men out there as advisors but they have to win it, the people of vietnam, against the communists.

we're prepared to help them. >> your thoughts about the situation right now? get to the general in a second. same question to both of you. what's it look like on the war front right now in the outskirts of baghdad? >> chris, you have to think that baghdad won't fall although a week ago i would say mow ssul wouldn't fall. the best units of the iraqi military and shia's military will put up a greater fight than i.s.i.s. did. this is a war that the iraqis have to win on the ground. it's already well for us to say to maliki you should govern better, but that's a problem for next week, next month if he can

survive for that long. right now for the next 48 hours, for the next seven days he has to protect the capitol and his army has to take back the cities he's lost. if he can't do that then no amount of assistance we can provide here will change the dynamics on the ground. >> bobby, that puts us on the same side as the iranian guard. >> yeah. >> so we've joined the side we've been fighting for this week. >> i don't think we can join the fight. it's the fight the iraqis have to fight and win. there's not a lot we can do. there's been loose talk of providing air security and drones. that's not going to happen. air security and drones as i'm sure the general will say requires a level of ground intelligence we have and we cannot trust the iraqi government.

there's nothing that the united states can do. the iraqis have to win this one by themselves. politically it's important for the rest of iraq to see that their army is standing up to these people. it won't do to have foreign boots on the ground to protect the capital of iraq. >> apparently general we have a situation where we have the iranian group come to the assistance of the cone guard there. my question is how does it look militari militarily? should we be thinking about what john mccain said? senator mccain said he wants -- today he insisted the war in iraq had been won, the country was stable and all was good until president obama withdrew the troops. let's watch him here. he goes further later today. >> the fact is we had the conflict won. the surge had succeeded and then the decision was made by the obama administration to not have

a residual force there. >> what about churning the hague and taking the sunnis out of leadership positions. what about the fact that there are some parts that are on the previous administration that could be relitigated as well? >> well, what about the fact that we had it won? what about the fact that people like me said we've got to fire -- >> did we? >> -- going. we've got to get the surge going. yes, we did, finally, and what about the fact that general petraeus had the conflict won thanks to the surge. >> i don't know what victory means anymore in that situation. there are snapshot victories and the next day some new group takes over. >> we came to a draw, but there has been a slow train wreck going on politically that has set the stage for where we are right now. we have fought to a draw as senator mccain said militarily, but we had not solved the political problem that has endured and has created the mess we're in right now. by the way, i don't think

baghdad is going to fall. the units are coming out. they're predominantly shia. maliki will turn it over to a competent general and we'll harden the defense of baghdad. once he has a reasonably strong defense of baghdad, at that point you leave the fortress and you take back the terrain that you've lost, but the i.s.i.s., these guys are coming into territory that is increasingly unfriendly to them so -- >> unfriendly to the government? >> unfriendly to -- no, they're coming out of the sunni triangle where they have a basis of support. where they've got people who are either friendly or at least going to turn a blind eye but as they come into the shia controlled areas or where we've got more shia population, it's going to get tougher for the isis to prosecute. i suspect that we'll see a turn in the combat here to maliki. >> what do you make of john

mccain saying we need air power to get in there now? start shooting at the insurgents, start shooting at the isis on behalf of the government. >> target level detail is difficult to come by in the best of conditions. >> translate that to civilian talk. these are not advancing columns. >> correct. >> this is not world war ii you have units moving forward along a roadway. >> correct. they have to find the targets. the problem with the isis and insurgents, they hug the population. the bombs don't discriminate when you have a lot of people in a tight space, not all of whom are enemy people. so air power is an issue. if we do military option, the president has a profound amount of military tall length in the united states that can stiffen the spine of the iraqi forces. >> bobby, this gets back to the central question, what are we in this war for?

if it is a civil war between sunni and shia and it's become -- it looks like it's become that. maybe it shouldn't be but this isis has ginned it up this way now. if they're able to claim the sunni territory as the general be said but are meeting resistance going into the shia area, it looks like a divided geography. why are we taking that and killing people because we've politically cut a deal with maliki who's refused to play our politics, which is inclusion politics? why are we killing snib what moral right do we have to go in there and kill anybody? the moral question, what are we doing on international television for 10, 12 years now killing arabs? >> it's especially hard if as the general said these guys hug the population. it's one thing if you are facing an open battle against a terrorist group that has enormous amounts of civil blood on their hands that are quite plainly identifiable as bad guys, but the trouble is that's not how the operators are.

you march down single file on a highway as if this was the second world war. they are scattered. in fact, if they did operate like that, they wouldn't have been as successful. even the iraqi army as weak as they are would have been able to pick them off. the fact that they can disappear, blend into a crowd, the fact that they know the terrain very well. these are mostly iraqi fight jesh ers, not foreigners. that's why the simple solution like the one mccain is suggesting is not going to work. >> general, here's my view generally. our military is unbelievable. volunteer army. they do what they're order today do within moral grounds. they are incredibly courageous and they are in the worst places in the world like the outposts in afghanistan, they've been in iraq. my wife said this, kathleen said to me, that puts more and more onus on the political leaders to get it right. if these guys are going to

fwiefight a good fight, make sure they're fighting a good fight. did it ever make sense to you, when we go into iraq. >> i was a major general -- >> we overthrough -- overthrew a government. >> indeed. when secretary powell said smoking -- >> nuclear weapons. >> yeah. that -- i said, all right. perhaps we have a problem here, but it is proven to be utterly disastrous. >> that was con effected for the european allies. they admitted that. >> and executed badly at the senior leadership level. this has been a disaster from the very beginning. >> that's what i think. i'm looking at the politics. thank you for your service, general. thank you for all the military people. thank you, bobby gosh for a regional look. coming up, the americans say the war in iraq wasn't worth it

from the beginning. what makes the hawks think there's an appetite for more action. people like john mccain saying send in the fighter pilots and bombers. how far will chris christie go to make people look past the problems in jersey? this far. i call that political shock therapy, when a politician does something so unexpected and ridiculous, so out there, to try to shock public opinion back to his side. and what happens when u.s. congressman charlie rangel is caught googling on his device during a debate. finally, the people who took us into iraq to never mention the word. this is "hardball," a place for politics.

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>> welcome back to "hardball" no matter how the question is asked, the majority of americans clearly consider the iraq war a mistake. in the most recent nbc/wall street journal poll that asked whether the iraq war was worth it, more than 60% say not worth it.

then there's the way cbs asked the question in march 2013 poll. do you think the united states did the right thing in taking military action against iraq? or should the united states have stayed out? 54% say we should have stayed out. and in the most recent poll comes from pugh/"usa today" conducted in january. do you think the united states has mostly succeeded in failed in achieving its goals in iraq. 52% say failed. given that set of data, let's listen to andrea mitchell ask senator john mccain about selling americans now on any sort of military involvement in iraq. >> given the state of -- the facts on the ground right now, how do you persuade americans that there's any military option they ought to embrace to try to bail maliki out and restore a country that's coming apart at the seams. >> first of all, i think you have to explain to the american people what kind of a threat that isis takeover of iraq would

pose to the united states of america. can you imagine a caliphate or a center of violent muslim extremism dedicated to attacking the united states, the consequences of that. that has to be explained to the american people. >> joining me now is senior political reporter in the daily beast kimberly dozier who was seriously injured covering the iraq war. you say wounded covering a war, you never see injured. john mccain, bless his heart, has a particular history, seven years in the hanoi hilton. he doesn't like half attempts. but the americans look at this as a long slog of nothing. what we do is put one side in power so they can screw the other side. to me, the most horrific example is the hanging of saddam hussein. that was an act of revenge by a bunch of thugs.

how much fun can we have at this party. we had to put a hand to that. your thoughts? the american people, what can you tell their opinion about mccain is out there talking air strikes. hillary clinton says not now. prudently, but not now. killing more arabs seems to be a turnoff. >> not just in iraq and afghanistan and libya. the polls show americans, republicans and democrats, just want to stay out of wars right now. i think the idea that obama or john mccain can convince americans we will intervene is not going to happen. it's not going to be public opinion is demanding it. i don't think that will be the case anytime soon where public opinion is demanding that. >> i despise when people say all options are on the table. what they mean is we're going to go to war and end up shooting people. the only people for the war are the ones who write columns. i don't know if the service members' parents are pushing

this war. your thoughts? >> president obama is specifically saying he won't be putting large numbers of troops on the ground. >> what about air strikes? he says reviewing all options. what is he talking about? >> it will require more intelligence forces on the ground. both special operations, cia, et cetera. >> is there a moral authority to go into iraq at this point? is there a moral authority? >> that's one thing they have to figure out. it's not specifically al qaeda. at this point the armed use of military force, that which we use to invade iraq, it doesn't apply. because -- well, that which we use to invade afghanistan, it doesn't apply because it doesn't specifically say a group that divorced itself from al qaeda is also a threat. so the white house might have to go back to capitol hill for approval. >> i would think so. is there some piece of paper sitting on capitol hill

somewhere where the legal council that says we can just bomb people if we think about it? it's one of our options? >> congress is not going to approve another war. >> the american people, i would like to know there's some limit to power in the presidency. >> the president is talking about striking in syria and the congress is pushing back so aggressively, he immediately stopped there. there may be the legal authority, i've been told that john mccain is saying there's legal authority. >> what is the legal authority? >> we already authorized the war. >> we left. >> if americans are under threat then you have american diplomats. >> we're in every capital in the world. we have missionaries and business people anywhere. under that authority we can fight anywhere at any time. >> but to play the devil's advocate. >> you are the devil. you are making an argument that justifies military action anytime a president wants to conduct it. >> think about what could happen with iraq and syria remaining permanently in the hands of an islamic militant group or just northern iraq and syria.

it becomes a nexus for foreign fighter, even more than it already is. >> you mean like iran? >> well, we're talking about foreign fighters being drawn to syria and possibly now to the northern part of iraq or the sunni-held areas to learn the kind of skills that would not only perpetuate a civil war in that area between the sunnis and the shiites, but also being the thing they could use in western capitals, in the united states. >> that's an argument for us controlling all the land mass in the middle east. because it may be used for terrorism. here's my question. why are we on the same side as the iran revolutionary guard. battalions there defending baghdad. what does iran have in common with us in fighting terrorism? >> there's a difference in using, as john brennan used to say, the counterterrorism forces of the u.s. like a scalpel to try to hit certain targets, take out certain leadership, and from what i understand, that's the

kind of aid being considered to give to iraq. >> here's my point, both of you. we in the united states senate, i didn't get to vote, i'm not a certain. hillary clinton voted for this one. john mccain always does. to declare the iranian revolutionary guard a terrorist organization. now there's talk by mccain of joining them on the same side. fighting the rebels over there. fighting the sunnis because there in there fighting on behalf of the maliki government now. we're talking about sending air force strikes in there on their behalf. if they're the terrorists, are we on their side now? or are there terrorists op both sides? >> what administration officials would say is that the iranians are in there, backing the shiite side of the government and possibly fulmenting more of this sectarian violence, making matters worse, what the u.s. would provide this kind of aid. as the president said today, they have to clean up their political act and represent all sides of the country where they're not going to get u.s. help. the u.s. is trying to say we'll

give you help but you've got to start playing all sides. >> just to play politics here a little bit. back when we were de-bathi cizing that government and this guy with the nice looking suit, bremer, with the suit and the brown shoes he wore all the time. they went in there and did something that had nothing to do with us. they got rid of the iraqi army, got rid of the iraqi government, destroyed the entire politics from that country which was sunnis. they told the sunnis we're not on your side. we basically waged war against the sunnis. >> is the civil war which is what you're saying, or is it an elected government we're trying to defend. i think that's the way to frame the question. if it's a civil war, it's like syria, with we're definitely not going to go in. >> twhafs all about? >> historical point.

yes, later on, the u.s. military reached out to the sunnis and there was a whole anbar awakening and we became their greatest ally. >> then what happened? >> then 2011 we handed it over to the maliki government and we withdrew forces. >> and he got rid of the all the sunnis. >> then he started working against the sunni leadership and death squads started going after -- settling old score again, just like they did in the bad old days. >> that's my case. thank you for making my case. there was a little fight there, but it always should be a fight here. have a nice weekend. i'm not sure they're having a nice weekend over there. coming up, jon stewart's theory on why the sunni insurgents are moving so fast towards baghdad. and this is "hardball" the place for politics.

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the militants are advancing

towards iraq's capital of baghdad. >> what the [ bleep ] is going on over there! how are the militants moving so quickly? is it ez pass? >> welcome back to "hardball." time now for "the side show." one congressman is known for his high tech high jinx. charlie rangel is pretending to take a phone call during his democratic primary debate. when they faced off wednesday, rangel was caught supposedly researching a candidate's answer. watch this. >> the one thing that i created was the dream center to help young people reimagine the possibilities bound for them. it's not an idea i talked about. i have actually done it. >> congressman, are you googling during this debate? >> no, i just wanted to show what he was picking out was not consistent -- >> it's not fair because they're -- >> i was going to show it to him, but you're right. >> from now on, this is the clip that comes up if you google the

words charlie rangel and debate, that scene. finally, the world cup has begun in brazil. here's what jimmy fallon of "the tonight show" had to say about that. >> today is the start of the world cup. the world cup. it's that special time of year when americans in bars are like i guess we're watching this now. i don't know. is that all that's on. isn't there a lumberjack competition on espn5 or something? >> so true. regardless, it's safe to say international football fever is spreading rapidly across the globe and even out of this world. nasa released this video of astronauts on the international space station playing soccer in space. two american astronauts and one german can be seen here showing off their moves in micro gravity. up next, chris christie dancing with jimmy fallon. like nixon and "laugh in" and

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hi, i'm frances rivera. president obama travels today. the president told the tribe there's more work to do to improve education and create jobs. in politics, congressman raul labrador is entering the race. and when sergeant bowe bergdahl returns to the united states, his family is asking for privacy as he recoup perfect rates. now we'll take you back to "hardball."

♪ >> welcome back to "hardball." after that. anyway, that was chris christie dancing, i guess you call that, on "the tonight show" with jimmy fallon last night. and a performance we're not likely to forget anytime soon. to me it's the latest move in christie's charm offensive to rehabilitate his image amid the unfolding george washington bridge scandal, et cetera, et cetera. posturing himself for a potential run for president still in 2016 should he escape the legal entanglements of the scandal. what he wants to show here is that he has nothing to hide, literally. he's willing to look really

silly and that may be harmless. it's the perfect counternarrative of the headline perception that he's a schoolyard bully. but playing against type isn't new in american politics because guess what? it works. the common perception of richard nixon in 1968 was that he was uptight, rigidly old fashioned in a changing era. but his appearance on "laugh in" helped counter the impression a little bit. >> oh, no. i don't think we could get mr. nixon to stand still for sock it to me. >> sock it to me? >> as a candidate in 1976, jimmy carter hoped to shed his holier than thou image by agreeing to an interview with "playboy," causing a shutter to many who thought the born-again christian was too prudish. and in 2000, mayor rudy giuliani topped them all, hoping to soften his tough law and order appearance by cross dressing.

>> you know, you're really beautiful. a woman that looks like that has to have her own special scent. >> oh, well, thank you. maybe you could tell me what you think of this scent? >> hmm. i like that. >> i think that's pretty indecent, actually. most recently we saw president obama join zach galifinakis on "between two ferns." it was an effort to rehabilitation rehabilitate his image. so is chris christie's image makeover going to work? his hands are pretty full with problems in the garden state. he faces five active investigations right now, legal investigations into the george washington bridge scandal. he's got a budget short fall that's real and lacklustre job growth, all big hurdles on his

way to 2016. anyway, joining us is long-time crisis pr expert and vice chair howard bragman. this looks to me like classic crisis management. he and his pr team have said you've got to wait a long time, many months to find out if you're clean of this legal entanglement. you have people who may get indicted. you don't know that. but you've got to assume and have a contingency plan if you do avoid indictment. if nobody too close to you gets indicted, you've already got some momentum. i think that's what he's up to. >> i think this was a very good political moment. he went to jimmy fallon who's been very critical of him. you get extra points for going into the lion's den, gone very viral, very funny, very well written. all these things work to his benefit. a great moment. but i don't think in any way do i see this as a game changer. and that's the issue here. any more than nixon ended up being a warm, cuddly president after he said sock it to me. he's not going to change who he is. and further, chris, there's one thing.

i keep thinking if i was the political opposition, i could craft the best anti-christie ad by taking some of the nasty headlines that run in the state of new jersey and you simply ask the question, is chris christie dancing again and you show this videotape. >> i know, what do you think? i think the picture of him dancing is so unforgettable. i don't even think you have to show it again. i think people are going to just -- why is this guy doing this on television. >> that's a very diplomatic adjective and i applaud you for it. i think it actually works for governor christie. he got a panel of critics hired by governor chris christie to review this. for the few minutes that i was watch, i forgot this is a guy who doesn't think gay americans should be allowed to marry who they want. this isn't a guy who thinks people with cancer should have medical marijuana. he's against gun safety, against raising the minimum wage.

he was very loveable. the fact is, i'm glad he had a good day. he's had a very rough year. he deserves to have a few laughs in his life and it's not the liberals or the media who are chris christie's foes on the road to the republican nomination. i think you gentlemen are both right. anybody who watched his speech at cpac knows this man is running. what chris christie is up against is the tea party. and they're the ones who despise him because he put helping his own hurricane ravaged state above hating the president. >> even the more puritanical people on the right opposed to dancing, they probably say this is why there shouldn't be dancing out there. >> lost the calvinist vote last night. he blew it. he blew it. >> to dance like he was there, you have to have a few pops. governor christie sought to down play the bridge scandal with humor. he even extracted an apology from jimmy fallon for beating him up over it. let's listen to this exchange. >> you had a little scandal happen. >> what are you talking about? >> i don't know if you heard about it. boy did you get hit in the press pretty hard.

and some late night shows made -- [ laughing ] >> are you sorry? >> very sorry. i just want to say -- >> i accept your apology. >> you know what, howard, i have to tell you about christie, we covered him on the way up, we covered him through the scandal. there's something about the guy -- he's certainly not going to walk away from this totally clean. look at all his aides involved in this. and there was a culture of bullying obviously. my question is, is he just good copy? like frank risso who come along in philly. they're like ralph cramdon, they're so much more interesting than most politicians, just because of the nature of who they are. >> there's certainly that aspect of it, chris. this guy is kind of fun to watch. he says a lot of outrageous things. and if to you look at the republican party, it's anybody's

race right now. >> he's four points down from hillary clinton in the strongest state. i grew up in pennsylvania. i know how strong hillary is up there. he's only four points behind her. at this point right now. >> he's incredibly formidable. but i don't think there's a chance in hell that this guy is ever going to get the republican nomination. there are too many far right people that hate him for hugging bill clinton. and we'll never forget them. >> i think you're exactly right. and it's interesting in noting watching this that, you know, the dances he did were -- i don't think we're going to see rand paul to do the libertarian two-step or ted cruz renounce my canadian citizenship shuffle. i give him a lot of points for it. i would like to see him doing the missing sandy funds or the three downgrades for my state. but until he dance the new

jersey perp walk. walk, his political career is not over until fox news pout putts a d next to him in the chyron. >> go on youtube and watch the dances. it goes on and on and on and on. and it's so bouncy. up next, just in time for father's day. my nbc colleague to talk about his great new book. "good talk, dad." this is "hardball," a place for politics. increases at the age of 80. helps reduce the risk of heart disease. it seems that 80 is the new 18. grannies, bless your heart, you are bringing sexy back! eat up. keep heart-healthy. live long. for a healthy heart, eat the 100% natural whole grain goodness of post shredded wheat. doctors recommend it.

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conservatives are pushing to get one of their own to succeed eric cantor as house majority leader. and earlier today, it looked like california congressman kevin mccarthy, is the only candidate after two rivals dropped out. we learned the tea party raul labrador wants the job. he's officially declared his candidacy. it's mccarthy for the establishment versus labrador. we'll be right back. how are things with the new guy? all we do is go out to dinner. that's it? i mean, he picks up the tab every time, which is great...what? he's using you. he probably has a citi thankyou card and gets 2x the points at restaurants. so he's just racking up points with me.

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>> we're going to have fun. we're going to have fun. hey, don't let your mother smell that beer on your breath. she'll take it out on me. well, i better get a move on if i want to get us out of here by dark. good talk, son. >> good talk, dad. >> good talk, dad. that was a scene from chevy chase's "national lampoon vacation" back in the 1980s. it helped inspire the new book co-authored by my colleague titled "good talk dad" the birds and the bees and other conversations we forgot to have. after his father bill announced to the world he has parkinson's disease, a condition he hid from willie and his sister for ten years. they decided to get to these awkward conversations they didn't have when willie was having growing up.

from sex and booze and what life was like living with parkinson's disease. better late than never, i guess. it's a great read. willie geist is the host of "morning joe." how is it different doing "morning joe" with mika and shifting over to the most conventional -- i'm just kidding. i would never ask you that. >> i love how you lead off with that. good to see you, man. >> let's get out to the question of war stories. my dad never got sent over. his uncles and brothers were. i said, don't you miss having war stories to tell? he said, no, my friends never tell the stories. now is it your sense that your father -- did he ever come clean and tell you the really bad stuff that happened in vietnam? how do you think he waited before he gave it to you? >> you know, it's funny.

in writing this book, a lot of people asked me what did you learn about your father? you feel like over 40 years you know everything about him. there was one piece of my dad's life, in 1969 when he served in vietnam as a combat photographer that he just never talked about. didn't want to talk about it. i nibbled around it. several times. you have a couple of drinks on the back porch and he never wanted to go there. he had these photographs because he was a combat photographer. i had some sense of what he had been doing but he didn't want to talk about it. i think it's exactly what you said. he's told me he didn't want to be the guy in the bar trading on the deaths of guys he knew, on the deaths of 58,000 guys in vietnam. he didn't want to be a war story guy. he was living in denial. didn't want to talk about it. i said, wouldn't it be great in this book if you took this opportunity and told me and told other people about what you went through and so he sat down and he wrote through it and, chris, he remembered everything. he remembered every guy, every village, every road. it's a really moving chapter.

>> i always ask this of guys who are in t in the combat situations out there in the jungle, which movie that we get to see is the most realistic? did you ever ask him that? certainly "platoon" is pretty scary. >> yeah, "platoon," "apocalypse now" goes a little far. he never glamorized it, never roman at this sized it. he's very clear and he feels that way when he watches this and sees discussions you've been having on your show today in war, he was there in vietnam, he knows what happened and he's the guy that has the experience looking back and says, when will we learn? when will we ever learn? it's not something he views, his experience in war, in a glamorous way and he didn't want to talk about it. i did get to city get him to sit down and write it. >> that's the name of my book. my dad never talked about birds and bees. he said, if you don't know it now, you don't know it. your dad finally got to it at

what age were you? when he finally got to the birds and the bees? >> he tried once when i was 13 or 14. we were sitting around watching a yankee game. he said there was a pitching change. there was a lull in the action and he said, hey, you think we should have that sex talk. i talked to him action faced and immediately started talking about don mattingly, dave winfield, anything, go back to baseball, our safe place. we never had the conversation about the birds and the bees. now he tries to go back. part of this book is that we have these conversations retroactively. in this case it's probably about 25 years too late to have the sex talk with me. he always says, you know what, you have two kids, you figured something out. >> he must be proud of you. i mean, look how far you've come. >> i hope so. >> you're a a projectory. trajectory to greatness. >> come on. >> am i embarrassing you? >> enough about me. >> it's a book about you and your father. >> you know, i'll tell you

though, chris, i had a great role model, not just professionally in how to write and how to put stories together but how to behave and so, again, with career he didn't suggest i get into this business. he never sat me down and said, journalism is a noble calling, try it out. all i had to do is watch him. he went to fun places, talked to interesting people and had a fun life. he seemed like his job was more interesting than the other dads' jobs. i think like a lot of things in our relationship and our life, i learned by osmosis that it was something i wanted to try. >> some day i want to read joe, mika and me. that's going to be one of the great stories of our time. the book you wrote, great for father's day. get out there, saturday morning. the perfect time to buy a book when you go trolling around to the stores. you go buy a book, your wife looks at clothes. good for yourself, "good talk, dad." >> chris, thanks for having me on. >> thank you. spokesperson: the volkswagen passat is heads above the competition,

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let me end this week with a message from almost 13 years ago. it was in the days after 9/11 that the neo-cons began beating the drums to get us into iraq. there was no reason for it, of course. nothing in our national history justified our attacking a

country that had not committed a war on us or committed an act of war on us. we had believed since the time we were kids that the aggressors, those that started the war, were the bad guys. i will never understand how a president so limited in his ability or sense of history as george w. bush, a vice president as uncharismatic as dick cheney, or a band of unelected idea owe logs could screw this wall to history as the band that ran things in the early years of this century. we were united. they were the ones who divided us. they were the ones who divided iraq into the two warring factions today battling for control of baghdad. they went in and took apart the iraqi army, government, establishment and replaced it with a sectarian bunch primarily interested in getting even with their fellow iraqis. as i said, look at the spectacle of saddam hussein being hanged to a jeerg of a mob of shiites. sadly, history will make us part

of this whole debacle. the people who took us into iraq, who tied us into this blood feud should cease and desist from ever again saying the word iraq. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. stay tuned now for "weekends with alex witt." a call to arms in iraq. new action today as extremists in that country march toward baghdad. now the u.s. might get involved. reaction ahead. the fallout from a shocking week in washington. in the end, which party might benefit from a surprise election result? new developments in the search for malaysia flight 370. one effort to find it involves reward money. it is a moment that stunned movie goers. see how one company delivered a message to a crowded theater. good saturday morning, everyone. welcome to