coalition, whether they can outlast the president in office. tara dowdell, richard kim. that's "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. happy monday, rachel. go usa. usa, usa. that's right. well done, chris. thank you very, very much. appreciate it, man. let me start the show by saying happy birthday to my mom. happy birthday, mom. okay. thank you for joining us this hour. now we start the regular news. every year, there's a religious holiday that is observed by shia muslims. and this particular holiday always gets a disproportionate about of tv coverage. you know how every easter all of a sudden there's a ton of tv coverage in photo journalism about the faith of christians in the philippines? that's because in the philippines at easter, there's a yearly gory ritual in which filipino christian men re-enact the cruise fiction of christ literally.

they nail themselves to crosses. and every year, it is cringe-inducing and worse to see all the footage of this ritual, but it is a reliable international news story every year when it happens. well, the muslim equivalent of that disproportionately tv covered holiday is a holiday called ashura. ashura happens everywhere in the world where there are muslims but most meaningful to shia muslims centered on this holy shrine in the iraqi city of karbala. that city and specifically this walled off holy section of that city are thought to be the site of a great battle that took place in the seventh century in the year 680. and i say it was a great battle in the sense that it has great theological and historical significance, but in terms of the way the battle, itself, worked out, it did not go so great. one of the grandsons of the prophet muhammad, his side in the battle consisted of himself and 72 other fighters. that's one side. the other side in the battle was

an army of thousands. and the army of thousands won the battle decisively. the prophet's grandson and his 72 fellow fighters, they were all killed, every last one of them. they went up against a much larger force and the much larger force won, slaughtered them all. and that loss, that terrible and complete loss in battle is what shia muslims commemorate every year on the holiday of ashura, and it is often a bloody spectacle. the most diehard men beat themselves with chains. really tearing themselves up in the process. it is literally bloody. they cut themselves with blades and swords. the idea of ashura is to never forget, and indeed to celebrate, not just to celebrate not a military victory, but rather a military disaster and the martyrdom of a revered descendant of the prophet and fighters to died with him. there are 1.6 billion muslims in the world.

1.6 billion. almost all of them are sunni muslims. less than 15% of the world's muslims are shia muslims. but in the history and the theology and the religious observance and overall culture of the shias, that is where you see the role of martyrdom play a really prominent role. if you talk to people who've been able to visit tehran, if you look at street-level imagery from day-to-day life in tehran, you come back again and again to the fact it is basically visually suffused with martyrs. in the most shia-dominated country on earth, in 90% shia muslim iran, the war dead, the martyrs are everywhere. they're on bus stops, they're on banners, they're on murals, they're on billboards. the streets are named for them. it's not just a handful of celebrated or famous or religiously significant martyrs, it's everyday iranian men who were killed in war or who otherwise died somehow defending

the regime or serving the regime. well today in iran, it's being reported that a number of hardline anti-western blogs and websites are claiming that iran now has its newest martyr. he's reportedly a member of iran's revolutionary guard. it's being reported that he was killed in iraq. in fighting against the sunni militant group that has taken over a wide swath of iraq in recent days. pictures of the man's funeral were posted to a revolutionary guard website in iran. pictures showed dozens of people carrying his casket covered in the iranian flag. it's also being reported that a general from iran's revolutionary guard has arrived in iraq, has left iran and gone to iraq to fight the sunni militant groups that's taken over big parts of iraq. american officials on friday said that this particular general flew to iraq with dozens of his officers. a shiite member of parliament in baghdad told "the new york times" that it was more than

that. they say this general arrived in iraq with 200 iranian officers. all of whom are expected to stay behind in iraq and help lead a multinational shia muslim fight against these sunni forces. and that is the fundamental dynamic at work here, right? this is shia muslims versus sunni muslims. shiites versus sunnis. sunni militants, this al qaeda-aligned group of a few thousand fighters, they are trying to topple the government in iraq which is now shia. shia muslims are the majority population in iraq. they always have been. but saddam hussein was not a shia muslim. he was a sunni. so was his government, so was his army. when saddam and therefore the sunnis got toppled from iraq after the u.s. invaded that country more than a decade ago, the sunnis pushed out of power, they regrouped into militias and tribes and fought a powerful and resilient insurgency while the u.s. was there. it never left, though. and now they're back on the march.

and this sunni militant group, people who don't want that sunni militant group to succeed, people who want to try to prop up the government in iraq, the post-saddam shia-led government in iraq, obviously those people include the shia population of iraq and the shia militias that have organized themselves there, right? but also, the other people who want to prop up the government there and fight those sunni militant fighters that are trying to topple the government, the other pro-government forces effectively in this fight are the other shia muslim governments and forces in the region. again, in the global population of muslims, the shia are not at all a majority. they are a relatively tiny minority, but when you look at the map, really, they are the majority of the population and they make up the regime in iran and iran, of course, has a long porous border with iraq. shias are not the majority population in syria, which also has a long porous border with iraq, but the ruling regime in

syria, bashar al assad's regime, is a shiite sect called the alawites. so if we want to jump in, if the united states wants to jump back into iraq to go into this particular fight now, to go after these al qaeda aligned brutal sunni militants that have taken over swaths of iraq, we are going to be joining a fight that is already in progress. and that is not just internal to iraq. and our natural alliance in this fight will be us and the shia-dominated government of nuri al maliki in iraq which we installed after we toppled saddam, but also government of iran and also the government of bashar al assad in syria. that would be our side in this fight. boy, that's awkward. and in a larger strategic sense, that is basically impossible. i mean, it's impossible to see that alliance, that existing alliance in any sort of clear strategic sense for the united states or for anybody else in that group because it is not clear or necessarily strategic. it's just the facts of how the sides line up in this particular

fight. when president obama announced today in a letter to congress that up to 275 american troops would be deploying back into iraq, 2 1/2 years after the last u.s. forces left there, this is the fight that he's sending them into. and this impossible geography for the fight between the sunnis and the shias with iraq sandwiched between sunni saudi arabia and sunni jordan on one side and shia iran on the other, and war-torn sunni majority but shia-led syria on yet another side, well, yeah, this impossible geography is the permanent tinderbox of the sunni/shia split in the middle east which is what the united states risked sparking by deciding to topple saddam hussein in 2003. especially when we made the decision to do that, to set this thing alight with zero plan as to what we would do next. >> there is not a history of

clashes that are violent between sunnis and shias. so i think they can probably get along. >> there's been none of the record of iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in bosnia. we have no idea of what kind of ethnic strife might appear in the future, although as i've noted it's not been the history of iraq's recent past. >> whatever else you can say about this war, let me make one point, george bush is not fighting this like vietnam. whatever the -- we don't need to re-fight the whole history of -- >> saddam may be. >> it's not going to happen. this is going to be a -- >> it could last, you know, six days, six weeks. i doubt six months. >> has anybody booked donald rumsfeld for one of the sunday shows yet this week? when do we get the list of sunday show guests? who wants to bet on donald rumsfeld? because all the rest of those guys we just showed, they're not only still around, but after being so disastrously wrong about what it would mean for the

united states to toss a match into the tinderbox of the middle east by toppling saddam, all those guys who were so wrong, they either never went away in the first place or have recently been dug back up in the last few weeks simply for the purpose of arguing we ought to go invade iraq again. america ought to get right back in there into the middle of the sunni/shia fight that we somehow are the key to fixing this problem. so far the sunni militant group that has swept across a wide swath of iraq, the areas that they have moved through so quickly and that they have taken over, those areas have mostly been sunni-dominated areas. again, they are a sunni militant group. and they say they are marching on to baghdad, but baghdad is not sunni dominated the way the rest of the areas are that they have taken over. the group has also recently released videos and put up postings on social media claiming that they massacred iraqi soldiers wearing plain clothes. nbc news has not been able to independently verify the videos. the videos are horrific.

the group claims that they have killed 1,700 men in iraq. calls them dirty shias. while something undoubtedly terrible is going on in those videos, the iraqi government denies a massacre took place on that scale. whether or not the group did commit an atrocity that is as terrible as what they say they did, the reason that you go and post tweets about it and upload social media-ready videos about it rather than just do it is because you want an action like that to have more than just its direct military utility, right? you want to terrorize, you want to instill fear against anybody who might be thinking against fighting against you. you want populations to flee ahead of your advance. but you also want to provoke the world, right? you want to provoke a fight that is larger than the fight you are already having. this group that's taken over these big swaths of iraq, it is an offshoot of al qaeda, and they very clearly want the western world back in the middle east waging war with themselves.

the true believers. right? yeah, a war with the shias, a war with iran and the revolutionary guards and the force, that gets you part of the way there and we now know that may already be under way. you don't just want a war with the shia heratics but a war with the western infidels, you want a war with the west. so now we have our own fight in our own country about whether or not we're going to give them more of war that they always wanted. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, of course, spent several years reporting from baghdad during the war. he is back inside baghdad tonight. technical constraints notwithstanding, we think we're going to be hearing live from richard in just a moment. look at this report he just filed from inside baghdad. this is remarkable. >> reporter: these iraqi soldiers, prisoners of isis, in a video not verified by nbc news, are being forced to swear allegiance to the al qaeda offshoot that overran their positions.

one refuses and is executed. the others agreed, but they, too, were later found dead. they are getting stronger. joined by supporters of saddam hussein and sunni tribal leaders. in mosul, they marched together on their way to hang an iraqi soldier. this weekend, the militants released pictures of dozens of iraqi soldiers being led to their death. the iraqi army is now fighting back with air strikes and thousands of new recruits. but the insurgents have their sights on baghdad. and if they can't get to it, they may try to send in suicide bombers instead. it is strange to come back to baghdad and see it like this. this is normally the busiest market in the city. today all of the shops are closed and this street is normally full of traffic. today, hardly anything, and there are gunmen on every corner.

some are soldiers. many are shiite militiamen responding to a call to arms from their religious leaders. they're ready to defend the capital and the shiite faith. we did find one shop open. a grocery owned by jamel. he thinks the isis radicals aren't strong enough to enter baghdad now. instead, he expects car bombs. "people are afraid" he said. "we expect bombings will come at any moment." this is perhaps the most iconic place in baghdad. there used to be a giant statue of saddam hussein right on top of that pedestal until as we all saw u.s. marines came right down this street, the statue came down, and saddam's regime collapsed. iraq was at a turning point then and it may be at a turning point now. as evening came, even fewer people around in the city of 7 million. bracing for a new round of sectarian war. perhaps the worst this country has ever seen. >> joining us now from baghdad

is nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. he joins us now by phone. richard, thanks very much for being with us in the middle of the night. i appreciate your time, my friend. >> reporter: absolutely. i'm so sorry that i can't be on camera. we're having some technical issues. as you can imagine, there's a curfew in place here. communications are not great. we were out on the streets not that long ago just sort of seeing what it was like in baghdad under curfew. there is not a soul walking around. nobody but lots and lots of cops, checkpoints everywhere, and these are checkpoints by police, by the shia militias, by iranian guards, i think. i don't know. you couldn't really fell who they were. but you could certainly tell the allegiance here. this is a city on edge. this is a city where everyone is being checked right now. there are intelligence agents all over the place. if somebody came into town, one of these isis militants, a sunni

bomber, anybody who looks suspicious, they will be stopped, they will be questioned, they will be taken away. >> richard, obviously baghdad is a city, is a big city. 7 million people. we've talked recently about how the city became more segregated in terms of shia and sunni areas over the course of america's decade of war there. what's the situation with the sunni population? the substantial sunni population in baghdad? the footage obviously that we've got of those young men signing up to defend baghdad and being blessed under the holy book and everything, those seemed very much to be shia militia kind of images. >> reporter: oh, they are terrified. the sunnis who live in this town are terrified. they are worried about what's going to happen to them. think about what happened in the past here. and by the way, the iranian presence here isn't new. there have always been kuds force advisers here right from the beginning.

the u.s. invaded this country. on day one, there were iranian advisers, iranian special forces in the country advising the new politicians, trying to lay the groundwork, trying to figure out what is going on here. iran is the biggest neighbor. iran has the most interests in iraq. it is the shiite state. it sees itself as the protector of the world shia community. suddenly, iran's enemy neighbor is occupying -- the united states is occupying its neighbor. it has an enormous interest. it got here very quickly and it never left. so now it's coming back to make sure that it can defend the shia territory that it gained effectively or gained as a friendly neighbor after the fall. the sunni community here is very worried and i think they have good reason to be worried because during the american occupation, when u.s. troops

were here, if there was a car bomb, the iraqi troops, iraqi s.w.a.t. teams, the commandos, would go and start investigating these issues, these crimes and they would start questioning people. usually they would go through these questionings in sunni neighborhoods. they would round of lots of people and horrible things would happen to the people they wounded up, to the sunni witness and people who may have been peripherally associated with whatever kind of attack. and the americans would try and keep a lid on it. and sometimes the americans would tell the iraqi army not to use excessive force or brutality or hold detainees in dungeon-like conditions. well, the americans aren't here doing that anymore, so the sunnis are worried if car bombs do start blowing up that they're going to be detained and going to disappear and horrible things are going to happen to them and i think that's pretty likely, frankly. >> nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel up in the middle of the night in baghdad under curfew.

richard, thank you for being with us. >> reporter: back in the square. i was overlooking firdos square and thinking of you. come back and talk about it. we talked about it exactly then. that this sectarian fight never ended. this was a time bomb that exploded with u.s. invasion. it just ticked away, you know, at a sort of a low gear for a little while while the u.s. was here. u.s. left and it's back, like, with abandon. >> we're going to re-post our footage of our initial interview from last time i was with you in baghdad. we're going to post that at maddowblog.com tonight. it feels like a hallmark at this point for what's about to happen next. richard, thanks for being with us, friend. next, president obama stopped waiting on congress and decided to go forward with something that's been a priority for a long time. that story is coming up. lots more ahead. stay with us. ht, "wow, how is there no way to tell the good from the bad?"

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if your boss finds out that you're gay or if your boss thinks that you're gay, in 29 state in this country it is legal for your boss to fire you for that reason and that reason alone. in three additional states, it is illegal to fire you just for being gay, but it is still legal to fire you for being transgender. we have what's called a patchwork of civil rights protections on this issue in this country. it's illegal everywhere in the country to fire someone or refuse to hire them on basis of their race or their religion or a bunch of other factors. race, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, genetic information. but when it comes to gender identity and sexual orientation, those are not treated the same way. the democratic-led u.s. senate

passed legislation in november that would have changed federal law to include employment protections for lgbt people, but the republican-led house of representatives wouldn't touch it. they would not act on the bill. republican house speaker john boehner memorably explained that he thought it already was illegal to fire someone for being gay. and as nice as that might sound, he's wrong about that and he is technically a lawmaker which is weird. when it became clear that under john boehner, mr. denial, the house would never vote on the employment nondiscrimination act, more than 200 democratic members of congress wrote to president obama to ask him to please do as much as he could on the issue just as president. could he please use the power of an executive order to try to extend these protections to as many americans as possible. well today, the white house said yes to that. president obama is reportedly now drawing up an executive order that will make it illegal for federal contractors to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

congress would have to pass a law to make this apply to the whole country but enough companies and particularly enough big companies have federal contracts at some level that this executive order when it's signed it will extend these anti-discrimination protections to about 20% of the whole u.s. workforce. one interesting detail here, and something to watch on this, the white house is saying that president obama is willing to sign this executive order and that he wants one drawn up. but they are not saying when he is planning on signing this executive order. so that means if the house wants to get out ahead on this issue and pass the senate bill, themselves so congress can be the ones to make law on this subject instead of the president doing it unilaterally, well then they've still got time before he signs it because he's not signing it just yet. so there's one last chance for house republicans to get on the nondiscrimination side of this issue. don't hold your breath.

over the weekend the arlington county board in virginia voted to demolish a parking garage in rosslyn, virginia. in the early 1970s that particular parking garage was the meeting point for a young "washington post" reporter named bob woodward and an fbi official who he had nicknamed deep throat. and it was through those clandestine meetings in parking spot 32d that bob woodward and his reporting partner carl bernstein ultimately cracked a watergate case that led to

president richard nixon's resignation. while that now doomed parking garage became a symbol if not a monument for one of the most celebrated accomplishments of the fourth estate, watergate was not our only experience of totally fearless groundbreaking american journalism and that story is the interview tonight and that story is next. looks like we're about to board. mm-hmm. i'm just comparing car insurance rates at progressive.com. is that where they show the other guys' rates, too? mm-hmm. cool. yeah. hi.

final boarding call for flight 294. [ bells ring on sign ] [ vehicle beeping ] who's ready for the garlic festival? this guy! bringing our competitors' rates to you -- now, that's progressive.

journalist michael hastings was killed in car accident in los angeles a year ago this week. he was 33 years old. he was alone in the vehicle when it crashed at high speed. and almost immediately after the news broke that he had died, conspiracy theories started to circulate online and elsewhere that his death could not have been an accident. he must have been murdered. he must have been killed because of his work. and in the year since he died, those conspiracy theories have largely faded away except in the wilder corners of the internet which never give up on a conspiracy theory. but you don't have to believe in those crazy theories and i don't to understand why people leapt to that kind of conclusion about his death. michael hastings was a young man

who was still very much on the upward trajectory of his career but in the time we had with him here on earth, he had a knack in his work for upsetting powerful people. his reporting for "rolling stone" magazine piece called "the runaway general" won a george polk award and resulted in the resignation of general stanley mcchrystal. michael's book "panic 2012" took a scythe not just to the re-election campaign of the sitting president, but also to the press corps that tries to make its own bones every four years by covering campaigns like that according to the campaign's own rules. in "panic 2012" michael hastings turned to the phrase "off the record" into an epithet that damned the newsmakers but also the journalists who accepted those terms. his book about the iraq war and death of his american fiancee, my friend, andi parhamovich. that book was a heartbreaking

and personal story about the war and about that personal relationship. but even then, michael's reporting pulled no punches and spared no feelings when it came to apportioning blame for why that attack happened. and now, a year since he's been gone, and michael's work turns out is back at the center of the news. it turns out, no surprise, it's as upsetting and as relevant as ever and it's happening on two different stories at the same time. first, there's the release of u.s. prisoner of war bowe bergdahl after five years imprisonment at the hands of the taliban. when president obama made the shock announcement two weeks ago that bowe bergdahl had been released, you want to know what happened all over the country? coast to coast? every journalist in the country who was going to be covering that story started reading michael hastings again because michael had written for "rolling stone" the definitive profile of sergeant bergdahl and his family and he'd written it two years

before the release happened. all the details about bowe bergdahl's unit having disciplinary problems and sergeant bergdahl's interests before he went to war and once he got there, his detailed e-mails home about his combat experiences and how he felt about the war. his father e-mailing bowe bergdahl that all caps subject line, "obey your conscience." how bowe bergdahl left the base he left in afghanistan. all the u.s. intelligence intercepts of taliban conversations after he'd gone missing. the fact that sergeant bergdahl was at the center of american efforts to negotiate peace terms with the taliban. if you heard anyone talk about the details of sergeant bowe bergdahl when he got out two weeks ago because the person you heard talking about it went back and read michael hastings' definitive profile of bowe bergdahl and the family. to absolutely no acclaim and not much attention, but it was definitive account of what happened. when bowe bergdahl got out, the

deal that sealed his release was the exact same deal that was negotiated with the taliban fully two years beforehand. and we know that specifically because michael hastings reported it two years ago. a year before he died. and tomorrow, when this novel is published, michael hastings will once again be right back in the center of the news. right back in the middle of the most important story in the country. because it turns out that as the media right now is once again turning credulously to members of the george w. bush administration to have them spin a case for yet more war in iraq, it turns out that while we are doing that again as a country right now, the novel that michael hastings had lurking on his computer hard drive which is being published tomorrow, turns out that book is a laugh out loud totally uncompromising screamer of a novel about how the media blew it so badly when it came to the war in iraq. the magazine in the book is a very, very thinly disguised "newsweek" magazine where

michael indeed worked as an intern and later as a reporter. that's where he was working when i first met him and made friends with him. fareed zakaria and jonathan meacham have again very, very thinly veiled starring roles as media personalities, media brands, and not in a good way. there's a website called wretched.com which seems to be 90% gawker.com and maybe 10% media matters, although i'm happy to be stood corrected if need be. one of the go invade iraq guys named daniel pipes makes an appearance in michael's book as daniel tubes, tubes instead of pipes. another go invade iraq guy kenneth pollack makes an appearance in michael's book as kenneth pollack, the go invade iraq guy. what's ironic is kenneth pollack just this week is, again, getting quoted credulously again by "the new york times." by a media that, again, is showing itself to be fully capable of sleepwalking the country back into another iraq

war on the say-so of the people they quoted to get us there so disastrously the last time. some people come off better than others. there's what i think is maybe a michael isikoff character doing real reporting. there's tom friedman from "the new york times" cheerleading for the war. there's direct quotes from "the new york times," itself, and from "newsweek" written from perspective of 2002 and 2003 as the outlets were failing and failing to notice they were failing, while the journalism industry treated the war as an opportunity for career advancement and not as something that ought to call up a rather sacred trust with the public to try to get it right. and in the middle of it all, in the middle of what turns out to be a gonzo and very funny and very profane story is a "newsweek" intern who in the book is named michael m. hastings. character mr. hastings very transparently named right after himself. and in the book, michael m. hastings is a character that is not particularly sympathetically

rendered, but he is there. very recognizable in the middle of it all. writing it all down with the uncompromising willing to burn every bridge, willing to upset the powerful courage that we know from michael hastings in real life. the book is called "the last magazine." it's a novel. it's out tomorrow. and michael has been gone for a year now, but he has never been more in the middle of it all than he is with this trenchant punch in the media's guts at a time when we really need one. joining us now for the interview, elise jordan, former speechwriter for the white house and state department and the wife of the late michael hastings. thank you so much for being here. >> thanks for having me and thanks for that beautiful memory of michael's reporting. >> well, i mean, i have to ask, if i know you through michael. we didn't know each other except through your relationship. did you see his reporting the way that those of us who knew him professionally saw it? did he know that he was poking people in the eye as much as he

was poking people in the eye when he was doing it? >> oh, absolutely. he didn't care what other people said about him, but he cared about the people in his stories. he cared about the human stories. he cared about getting it right, getting it accurate. he knew that sometimes he had to be confrontational. he definitely, you know, paid a huge price after he wrote the profile of general mcchrystal in terms of all of the just anger from his colleagues in the press. he dealt with it at a really young age. that's why recently when the bowe bergdahl story came out, it held up so well because he did such amazing reporting back two years ago, but it, you know, just showed he thought he was going to be hugely attacked for that story then and then it would become politicized and today, move to today, and it has become horribly politicized. >> you wrote about that, it was for "time" magazine this weekend. you wrote about that saying he thought when he wrote that bowe bergdahl piece that was going to be the most important story that he had ever written, anticipating the kind of hatred

toward bergdahl and sort of, i guess, sort of internalizing hatred about lots of things being put on him in a way that did sort of happen on a delayed reaction once the release happened. is that what you meant? >> that's what's so sad about it, and just at the time, crickets dropped. you could barely hear anything. there was no response in the media to that story. and i thought it was his best story that he'd ever written and he felt it was the most important story because there was -- because a life was at stake. something that he wrote he was so worried could anger the taliban, maybe this -- he really wanted to see bowe bergdahl free and that was really emotional for me. i just, you know, am so happy for bowe and for the bergdahl family that he, you know, is safe and hopefully getting the medical care he needs. >> and tribute to michael that he saw it coming. >> oh, yes. >> well, on the -- in terms of the novel, obviously i should mention that the novel is profane in the most literal sense of that.

and it's funny, it's very gonzo which was always a very fun and sort of riveting side of him. both in his straight-up journalism and also just in his personality. i feel like the story is very much anti-journalism. i mean, the character of michael hastings who is clearly him keeps citing other people's analysis that's it's unconscionable to do in journalism what we do today and keeps going back to this idea that the people who are in journalism are in it for themselves and not for the story and that even when they're disproven, they slough it off as long as they can keep moving up. was that his real view of it? >> no, he had huge frustrations with what he felt the establishment media held up the status quo and he thought that people became too cozy with their sources. they started to see themselves as part of the club rather than holding the club to account. and he, at the same time, though, he called himself a cynical idealist and it was kind of, you know, just thinking back on him and how he felt about -- you know, he just really took so

much joy in reporting and joy in disrupting the status quo and challenging authority and doing the best job for his readers and only caring and being beholden to his readers. >> is it going -- doing the editing and discovering this in the first place and doing the editing and putting together the different drafts that exist, was it hard for you or was it a pleasure for you to have so much of his real voice here? >> it really on some levels just kept me going this year. when i found it, it just -- his voice pops off of the page and he's so alive. i just -- i didn't want it to end. the first time i read it just because it really is -- it's him at his very best at the height of his powers. >> and it's really him. >> it's definitely him. i love that his sense of humor comes out because i think people missed that a lot about him if you didn't know him. but he's just -- he was so incredibly funny and just kept me laughing every day. >> yeah. there are extended jokes and extended riffs and also just page after page of acute observation that bring him back.

i'm sure this was both hard and wonderful, elise. thank you so much. good luck. thanks. elise jordan is the wife of late michael hastings. the book is called "the last magazine." it is a novel. it comes out tomorrow, but it is absolutely about this moment right now in american media and politics and you really ought to read it. all right. lots ahead. we'll be right back. [ julie ] the wrinkle cream graveyard.

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for some time now, the united states has been in company of china, iran, iraq, and saudi arabia when it comes to one of the very worst top five lists in the world. see there we are at number five in the world. just above somalia when it comes to the number of our nation's prisoners which we kill each year. we are number five in the world. we are number five. we're number five. recently, though, we have not been killing anyone in terms of our prisoners. we've had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in this country for about six weeks now. there hasn't been another execution in our country since the state of oklahoma horribly botched and then tried to stop a lethal injection that was already in progress. that was at the end of april when the state of oklahoma took 443 3 minutes to end a prisoner's life. a botched iv line apparently rendered the man neither dead nor unconscious but clearly writhing in pain. when it comes to one of the very

worst top five lists in the since then executions have been scheduled but none have been carried out anywhere in the country. stays of execution have been handed down one after the other in oklahoma, starting that very night, there was supposed to be a second execution and they didn't go ahead with it. ohio, texas, missouri. over the past month and a half all of the scheduled executions have been put off. but tomorrow night the state of georgia is poised to break the streak. at 7:00 p.m. local time tomorrow night georgia is scheduled to kill a prisoner by lethal injection using a single pose of pentobarbital. the execution drug that state previously used became nearly impossible for them to get after companies around the world stopped selling it to u.s. prisons. for a while georgia was importing that particular execution drug from a pharmaceutical operation that doled them out from the back of a driving school in west london

in england. that led to the dea seizing those drugs from the state or at least what was left after georgia carried out two executions using the driving school like this at injection drugs. since then georgia has turned to buying its execution drugs from loosely regulated domestic compounding pharmacies that can make drugs that are not easily available for sale elsewhere. while the state refuses now to disclose information about the specific compounding pharmacy they're using to get their drugs now they have had to disclose some details about their arrangement. so we know that in the last year, for example, the state of georgia has paid out -- paid a doctor, his identity is secret but we know the state has paid a doctor to write prescriptions for lethal doses of pentobarbital to be used in executions. for this service the state has paid that doctor $5,000 and promised to set aside $50,000 to defend the doctor if somebody should sue him or her for participating in state executions.

lawyers for the man who's set to die tomorrow in georgia are challenging the legality of that prescription arrangement. they're also challenging the secrecy of the lethal injection drug's source. because tomorrow's execution will be the first time georgia has used a compounded lethal injection drug. when other states have used compounded drugs for executions it has often ended with horrific complications. tomorrow night georgia says they're going to go ahead and try it anyway. given all the heightened executeny on the death penalty right now, specifically on the effectiveness and origin of the drugs they're injecting to kill them, it's been unclear when there would be another execution in this country after what happened in oklahoma. we all know at least for now it is due to be georgia tomorrow night. watch this space.

maybe this was the first big clue that idaho republicans were going sideways. >> i don't like political correctness. can i say this? it sucks. it's bondage. and i'm not -- i'm about as politically correct as your proverbial turd in a punch bowl. >> that was harley brown, one of several republican contenders for idaho governor this year. last month mr. brown found himself in the republican party's actual televised debate at the insistence of incumbent republican governor butch auder who thought it would be a great way to show party unity. for state republicans, it was kind of a hot mess, that debate. it was also a clue that the republican party in idaho is maybe coming apart a little bit. in idaho, the republican party is really the only party. i don't mean to offend democrats. but republicans hold every statewide office, they hold commanding majorities in the statehouse and in the state senate. mitt romney won idaho by 32 points. yes, you can find blue dots in

idaho, but that's really what they are, blue dots. idaho is republican-land. and so after the sometimes embarrassing and contentious primary that they had last month, the idaho republican party looked around, realized they ran the place, decided they better issue a call for unity. they issued a call for unity at the state convention. they said, now is the time for freedom and unity. did not work. on saturday, idaho republicans attempted to gavel in the convention with an opening roll call. that alone took an hour and a half. just trying to call the roll for all the objections and requests for points of order. by lunchtime, idaho republicans had accomplished nothing at the state convention. by 3:00 idaho republicans were deadlocked over whether to kick out three counties' entire slates of delegates to the convention. elected officials were openly calling the convention a fiasco. by 3:30 on saturday idaho republicans had given up, they adjourned their convention, they gavelled it closed without electing a new party chairman,

without approving a new party platform, they did nothing, they gave and up sent everybody home without doing anything except having a big fight with each other. one state senator said it was an epic failure. "people who have been around a long time don't remember anything like this." idaho republicans called for freedom and unity. they ended up with fiasco and disaster. the convention it turns out was chaired by idaho republican congressman raul lab ra bore. as the convention started congressman labrador let it be known he wasn't just running this convention, he's running for the top leadership position in the united states congress. raul lab bore says he's running for the house majority leader job that eric cantor has to give up now that eric cantor just lost his seat in congress. raul labrador announced he wanted to be elevated to the top republican job in the country. that's not speaker john boehner. then he flew. >> with rand paul to call for unity in his state party. and then raul labrador had

worked for three weeks by his own accounting to broker some kind of deal for peace at the idaho republican party convention this weekend. he says he worked day and night for it. but that fiasco, disaster, one local professor tolled "the spokesman-review," it is hard to blame all of this on raul labrador, on the other hand this does not strength.his credentials for a national leadership position either." congressman labrador has been pitching himself as the one who can bridge the began between establishment republicans and the tea party wing. that's been his witch in washington. with the dust still falling around his chairing of that convention back home, in washington today congressman labrador sent his republican colleagues a letter making that pitch yet again. "the simple fact is, republicans will never again unite the country until we first unite our party." yeah, the way he united those nice folks back home this weekend after working three weeks on a deal, flying in rand paul, pleading and wheedling and charming, having given up having accomplished nothing.

that was the audition for national office that's not what you'd call a confidence builder. who knows, maybe national republicans will pick him, we'll see. that's not a. first look is up next. good tuesday morning, right now on first look. deadly dual twisters shocked the nation with rare and powerful images of a massive tornado cell. >> at one point we saw three tornados on the ground. and looks like the ground got the worst of it. >> details and what's ahead for the heartland today. president obama is sending more u.s. troops into baghdad, as terror cells continue to capture territory. plus a huge victory for team usa at the world cup. also a sproum ruling getting the attention of gun owners. and the request for the latest mix.