violence against women and allowed our culture to act as though this is something we can deal with later or in a hush hush way. we got to confront it, we should use this opportunity to confront and change something that is too readily accepted and excused. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton, have a great weekend. "hardball" starts right now. night of the generals. let's talk "hardball." ♪ ♪ good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. does this new war in iraq and syria make sense to you? does it sound right to you, that a campaign of air strikes will bring down a zealous army of 30,000-plus fanatics? that our pilots can kill enough of them to get the rest of them

to give up the fight? also tonight, the pollsters get it wrong in scotland. the people over there vote overwhelmingly to stay in the uk. and roger goodell takes questions from reporters and but comes up with no answers. so why is he talking? lastly, a look at the greatest bill cosby who made history again and again and again. but a start with the war against isis, the up in the air war. what if a pilot gets shot down, doesn't coming in low create a far fettered target for missiles against us. what if the enemy gets hold of one of our pilots, what then? which army will grab the positions we bomb into submission? again, does this new american war in iraq and syria make sense to you, personally? the american people tell

pollsters, they don't think it will succeed. should we be fighting a war we don't think will work from the outset? all the bombing will achieve is that the u.s. will tell the united states it's standing up against isis. doesn't that increase their recruitment, allowing them to match every casualty we inflict on them? i want to start with the general. what do you make of an air war where we're counting on the people on the ground, in iraq and syria to somehow go in and grab the land? how do you see this working? >> well, air power has a strength of its own. the air power, this is not your grandfather's air power. we have 24-hour surveillance with drones that have missiles

on them. your assumption that a pilot could get shot down is correct. we have a method for going in and sending search and rescue teams in to get them. we also could coordinate, depending on the circumstances, with the available ground forces, either from iraq or the kurds that could get them. but anything could happen, chris. i think people need to feel assured that where we are now is not where we might be in a couple weeks from now. i think the strategy, the way it's been portrayed, one of using air power, by trying to use that first, i think the discussion by general dempsey that that's his recommendation, that he made his best recommendation to the president. the president has the option to change later. look, as long as the why is consistent, and the why is, isis has to be stopped. they cannot be allowed to form inside iraq and syria where they

become a dominant country. number two, the what has to be done. they have to be degraded and they have to be controlled. and the third, the how. how it's done has been described by the president with a restriction on boots on the ground. that could change based on circumstances. remember, chris, we got two campaigns. one is syria, one in iraq. both of these are complex at best, but you got two great generals, dempsey and austin. when i was on the joint staff as a two-star, dempsey worked for my boss, and austin worked inside of my division. so both of them have been there before, and there was a little lady over at the white house named susan rice at the time. she had the desk at the state department. so you got a team of people who have been there and done this before and they will work with the president and get the effect they need to get. >> general, back to you in a moment. the president has said again and

again, american troops will not play a ground combat role. no boots on the ground, he keeps saying. he repeated that promise again last night. let's listen to the president on how he's limiting this type of campaign. >> the american forces that have been deployed to iraq do not and will not have a combat mission. their mission is to advise and assist our partners on the ground. so i told our troops yesterday, we can join with allies and partners to destroy isil, without american troops fighting another ground war in the middle east. >> earlier this week, the president's top general martin dempsey gave a very different take. he said, there could come a time when we would recommend boots on the ground. he would. listen to this. >> my view at this point, is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. i believe that will prove true. but if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the united states, then i would go back to the president and make a

recommendation that would include the u.s. of military ground forces. >> that's a position from not just general dempsey, but others have that view. quote, flashes of disagreement over how to fight the islamic state are mounting twb president obama and u.s. military leaders. the pentagon wants to retain the option of deploying small numbers of forces at the front lines to help the proxy troops to call in air strikes from close range. we're seeing a little bit of a difference here, but it's been profound and consistent. the generals -- i don't know if the word is hawkish. are they hawkish? or are they saying, to win this war, we have to go about it more grandly with real action on every front? >> as our other guest knows, generals don't like to be told what they can't do, what's off the table. because their number one duty is not only to execute the mission,

but to protect their troops. for that purpose alone, there will be boots on the ground, i'm convinced. the real argument is over how you define what a combat mission is. the president said there will be no combat mission. that doesn't mean there won't be a lot of boots on the ground and that they could be get drawn into something that would be combat. and i'm not entirely sure that either the white house or the pentagon minds that this is a public dispute here. it's not a vicious dispute -- >> how does it help the president to be seen as criticized by his generals? >> no, i think that the general is doing him a favor by expanding the definition of what could be allowed, without technically violating what the president is committing to by way of a combat mission. >> general, help us with the definitions here. it seems to me, if you have advisers like in vietnam in the early '60s and late '50s, they're in there advising, working in combat, maybe come out on some of the fire fights

that are nearby. they're encouraging and training. they don't just stay back at the base, do they? what does it mean to be an adviser? does it mean you don't go near the fighting? >> well, no, you get close enough to advise at the brigade level, you're inside artillery range. which means you are giving them the technical means to be able to call for fire, be able to call for jets, being able to call for bomber. chris, let me tell you this, we're evolving in this as we go. but remember the old phrase that edward r. morrow and walter cronkite might have used to describe a friday night on the eve of a war, has changed. the biggest thing happening is high school football, tomorrow it will be college, and sunday it will be pro. the people are going about their business. they're expecting the president and the military to handle this. the country is not under serious threat of an attack. that being said, they want us to

do this, get it done with the minimum exposure of our troops, get the job done, where inside of iraq, they can handle this with their neighbors. that being said, i think if there's any discussion as to what we going to do it and how we going to do it, let's leave that in the mind of the enemy, isis, to figure out what we're going to do. a little ambiguity is not bad. >> do you think that's the president's plan to keep it ambiguous when he says no boots on the ground, doesn't mean no special ops. >> the discussion we're having 30 years ago would be between washington and his congress. world war, presidents and multiple generals. same thing in the korean war. so the idea that how we going to do it is of discussion. the healthy thing, we know this discussion is going on. when it's unhealthy, is when you don't know discussions are going on and that's when we really

make bad mistakes. >> i agree. >> general, i'm a believer that we doesn't have enough discuss before the iraq war in 2003. the generals, it seemed to me, were very skeptical. it was the people around george w. bush, including dick cheney, pushing that war. the generals knew it was a strange thing to jump us into a country, that was a secular, non-threatening country, just because we didn't like his face. get rid of saddam hussein. then we find this al nusra in syr syria. we keep bringing down governments and letting them be replaced with anybody, and we're not there. we had armed services on this morning. he said if we had kept a residual force in iraq, we wouldn't be facing this. but that doesn't answer the problem. if we kept a residual force there, they would be fighting

isis right now. >> right. and in the president and the pentagon's thinking as well, if you keep your troops in there, if you keep taking the lead, if you're the point, the kurds and the sunnis and the shias and so on, are never going to take the lead. >> they're going to watch friday night football. >> they're never going to take the lead themselves. i think general dempsey, the pentagon, basically agrees with the president that the others have to do it. they're not just proxies. that others have to do it. what general dempsey is saying publicly, though, is, look, it's going to require more american troops than you think. we don't want them to take the lead any more than you do, mr. president. but he said it may well take more troops than you think it's going to. and i think he's trying to set expectations for that. general dempsey is. >> do you think baghdadi is thinking he's losing over there? the isis leader? i think he's in good shape. he's got us engaged in attacking him, which makes him look good. sat the same time, we've said,

we're not going all in against him. >> not having been on the receiving end of an american air strike, i'm not sure. but those are pretty -- >> thank you for joining us. thank you both, gentlemen. have a nice weekend. the nfl commissioner concedes this afternoon, i got it wrong. roger goodell faced the music today a bit. i still don't know what he's arguing in the wake of the league's bad behavior, which he's talked about again and again with no explanation. plus, no country of their own. after a dramatic campaign, they went to the polls, they vote to stay a part of the uk. alan cumming said, they shouldn't do it.

the promovement lost by ten points. that's a wipeout. and 30 years ago one of the most famous tv fathers ever made his debut. >> you're afraid to try, because you're afraid that your brain is going to explode and it's going to ooze out of your ear. i'm telling you, you are going to try as hard as you can. and you're going to do it because i said so. i am your father. i brought you in this world, and i'll take you out. and there's a new biography of the great bill cosby. it says "the cosby show" paved the way for the election of obama. finally, when we go into syria, we know we're going to come out. and when we do, the people that remain there, including isis, are going to call the shots, not us. this is "hardball," a place for politics.

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new numbers in the colorado senate race. a "usa today" poll has gardner ahead of udall by one point, 43-42. take a look at the latest quinnipiac poll it has gardner with an 8-point lead over udall. we'll be right back. if energy could come from anything?. or if power could go anywhere? or if light could seek out the dark? what would happen if that happens?

anything.

welcome back to "hardball." after going silent for ten days, nfl commissioner roger goodell addressed the media late today. in that time by the way, the plague of violence in the league has gone from bad to worse. in addition to those horrible images of ray rice knocking out his wife, the league has been confronted by new charges of other players engaging in violent acts, including of course against children now. and the latest came wednesday when arizona cardinals running back jonathan dwyer was benched after he was arrested on charge

of aggravated assault. the "new york times" reported according to court documents released thursday, back in july, he headbutted his wife, fractured her nose and threw a shoe that hit his son's stomach. >> have you considered resigning at any point throughout this? >> i have not. i'm focused on doing my job and doing the best of my ability. i understand when people are critical of your performance. but we have a lot of work to do. that's my focus. we've been busy in the last couple weeks. we have results to show for it. we talked about some of them in my statement. but i'm proud of the opportunity that we have to try to make a difference here, and do the right thing. >> sports columnist with "usa

today" and dan shaughnessy writes for the globe. why did he have the damn thing today anyway? what was the point besides pr and some kind of notion of timing and letting the heat out. i didn't hear anything from him today. what did you hear? >> i'm still trying to figure out why he was there in the first place either. he said really nothing new. he spoke from the press release which they sent out. he apologized a lot, yeah, that's great, but there's nothing concrete that said we know we have to get a handle on this and here's how we're going to do it. they're going to call in a lot of experts and they're going to get this right. >> what do you think of this mueller thing? put the story to bed, create a committee, hire lawyers and stenographers, they take forever when you could do it in two hours. go to the nfl headquarters and ask every nfl executive and say,

did you get this tape sent to you or not? it takes an hour to do that, an hour. this is pr, it's timing, it's the old trick, bury the ball, let it sit there until the thing cools down. i'm not saying politicians don't do it. bill clinton did it with monica. finally when it's cooled down, the word gets out, and you survive. dan, what do you think of this? maybe you have a different view. >> i'm not going to disagree with anything you're saying there, chris. and again, they can ride this out, ratings were up last week, it's a great television program. it continues to be that. people want to see their games, want their fantasy football. he's out there taking the bullets. i'd like to see the 32 owners take a press conference and answer these questions. he's taking the hit. >> 44 million to take the hit.

he was charming enough. no reason to hate him. but he didn't answer anything. anheuser-busch, of course budweis budweiser, pepsi, mcdonald's, campbell soup, visa, marriott, and other says who spent hundreds of millions on the league have all sent warnings. and my wife is the executive vp of marriott, just to make it clear. and here's what anheuser-busch said the other day. we are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code. we've shared our concerns and expectations with the league. dan, i know money talks. we've heard that. but money talks. the fans of football who pay for the tickets and have the season tickets and go out every sunday and watch it every sunday, they don't seem to be changed in their viewing habits. >> no. >> but the other people out there, who just buy beer or go to hotels, buy campbell's soup,

those people seem to be talking through the money people. and that message is getting through. i guess that's why he had the press conference today, to take the heat. >> i don't think the league loses anything with those people, those aren't the fans to begin with. and the sponsors, it's great pr for them. in minnesota, it did affect what the vikings did with peterson. i haven't seen campbell's soup or the $1.2 billion anheus anheuser-bus anheuser-busch, they sent a pr delivery, and made a threat, but they won't pull away. and until they do, nothing happens. >> what could work? i mean, i guess he's talking, he didn't even know what the definitions are today, roger goodell. every time someone asked him a question, that's the kind of thing we have to look at. he couldn't even start on a scale of one to ten, what's worse, drug use or knocking out your wife?

how many days' suspension for drug use and how many for knocking out your wife? or turning your kid into a grilled hotdog with a tree branch? don't they need to come up with a code of what's acceptable and what's not, and write it down? >> yeah, they do. that's why i'm wondering what they've been doing for the last ten days. i was hoping he'd say, if you do this, you get this many games. when you get arrested you're coming to new york to sit down with me. but we got none of that. there's no more clarity now than there was two weeks ago. >> he said something like, state laws differ. is that his cover story? federalism is his problem? >> everything is being put off. there's the whole due process issue. there's the players association. again, they are just riding this out. and they will be able to ride it out, i believe that, and they know that. >> let me ask you about the

culture. guys go to college, play football. and the old thing, i got to tell you something. when you watch football on sunday, in pennsylvania, penn had bigger crowds than the eagles on sunday. but the whole idea was your a collegiate person, you went to college, got some polish, some education, then you went pro. that notion that you somehow lost some of the bad habits, the street corner behavior, is that still true? or is that too ticklish a question? >> it goes into several levels, chris. i don't think this is an indication of people playing a violent game who can't turn it off when they get home. i think it's a societal issue. i'm not sure it's more in the nfl than it is in society. but those players need to be sanctioned. >> the idea of going to college, do your homework, go to school, put a coat on before you went to

a game. that whole idea of sports as being a gentlemen's game, is that gone? is sports for gentlemen now or not? >> it's become a semi- pro game at the college level. look what florida state is doing with winston. how many chances has that kid had? >> how about unc where nobody was going to class? >> well, yeah. >> i went to grad school. this professor didn't even make them come to class. >> right. >> talk about a gut course. we have a problem here. thank you, dan and nancy. up next, a word to thes with for the vice president, be careful who you use as a model when facing bipartisanship in congress before a women's group. a center who has been accused of sexual harassment by 19 women probably isn't your best example, mr. vice president. this is "hardball," a place for politics. told my doctor, he said humira is for adults like me

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time for the side show. as andrew cuomo campaigns for re-election this week, he's facing some pretty far out accusations in the latest series of attack ads. his republican opponent created a new web ad to parody what he's calling cuomo's negative campaign. check this out. >> andrew cuomo, unicorn killer. cuomo locked santa in a chimney. humpty dumpty, cuomo shoved him off that wall. >> he's the worst man in the world. >> he's a monster. >> if andrew cuomo can make up stories about rob aft reno, two can play that game. new yorkers need jobs and tax relief, governor cuomo. how about talking issues for a change? >> i hate those ads. anyway, yesterday cuomo responded to one of those

made-up charges, saying, i have not murdered any unicorns. i'm against it. glad he cleared that up. next up, vice president biden spoke about how today's republican party is a far cry from the grand old party of old which knew how to compromise to get things done. but he made the mistake of praising a former senator as an example of cooperation. the problem is, that senator was forced to resign from the senate back in '95 after 19 women accused him of making over-the-top sexual advances. worse yet, biden was speaking to the women's leadership forum, an audience that included hillary clinton when he praised him. here were his comments. >> it was republicans who expanded access to the polls. it was republicans in the judiciary committee that did motor voter. it's republicans that were involved, mathias and packwood

and so many others. it wasn't democrats alone. >> packwood. be careful who you use as exhibit a. up next, if you're going to be going by exhibits in scotland, the country should have declared its independence. that's not what happened. the majority chose to stay part of the united kingdom overwhelmingly. you're watching "hardball," a place for politics. what's wrong with trying new things? feel that in your muscles? yeah... i do... try a new way to bank, where no branches equals great rates.

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here's what's happening. president obama has signed a spending bill that includes an authorization allowing the u.s. to arm and train moderate syrian rebels in a bid to weaken isis. french fighter jets carried out strikes in iraq destroying a weapons and fuel depot outside of mosul. and biden spoke at a women's event to speak against sex assault. back to "hardball."

welcome back to "hardball." the scottish independence movement suffered defeat in yesterday's historic vote. according to all the major polls, it should have been neck and neck. the "yes" vote was said to be getting at least 47% at minimum. the final result was anything but toss-up. 55% voted against independence. just 44 for it. at t at t who the got it right? the bookies did. simoon marks is the chief correspondent for feature news. thank you for coming on. i always like this betting stuff. you could actually see which way an election was going without listening to the pollsters who were all over the place. why were the bookies right in this case and the pollsters really suggesting a very tight

election, which it was not? >> i must confess a bias. my grandfather was a bookie. so [ laughter ] this was volatile, no question about it. it was seen as a foregone conclusion six weeks ago, and then the polls narrowed. >> it looked like a win for independence. >> it looked like a clear win for "no." then there was that one poll last weekend that said "yes" could get there. but the pollsters were not being told the truth. it wasn't just the pollsters. i had four colleagues of minot ground in edinburgh for the last 96 hours. they said that "no" voters were scared publicly to say they were going to vote against "yes" for fear of repercussions. >> so they were afraid to talk to pollsters? >> absolutely. >> i was surprised because i was reading it all. i thought the uk was going down last night, david. >> that was the impression one

got from the coverage because there seemed to be so much passion. >> it's a big story. don't attack me for hyperventilating. >> no, no, listen, i thought it was a great story. i was riveted by all this. i'm not saying that in a bad way, chris. >> yes, you were. hyperventilating is a direct shot, come on. >> no, this happens often in america too. when pollsters try to poll referendums, they tend to find that people usually are more willing to say yes to change to a pollster, than they are to vote for it. there's a gap when it comes to changing the status quo. i think it reflects to a certain degree, when you get to that moment about flipping the switch to do something dramatic, some people then end up being more cautious and going back to the status quo. >> how about depending on the accent of the person calling? i think they hire people with posh accents, perfect english,

and it appeals to the liberals, rather than hey, buddy, what are you going to vote? what about 16-year-olds? how do you poll a 16-year-old who's never voted ever? >> that's a huge issue. the voting age was lowered to 16 for this referendum. the first minister of scotland thought that was going to help him get a "yes" vote through. how do you poll 16-year-olds? they were clearly making up their minds at the last minute. [ all speak at once ] >> the great thing about this poll, though, was, you know, you look at the polls that are going on now in america about the senate races and the polls try really hard to figure out who's voting. if you don't know who's voting, you can't come up with an accurate poll. but in scotland, everybody voted, 85% of them. they didn't have to come up with models. they just had to ask enough people 16 to squ85 and find out. they didn't get it right.

but it was a great political science experiment, a foundational issue that was debated for two years. people in other parts of the world take up weapons and fight over these sort of issues. but it was a great debate and it was a great campaign. >> well, three cheers for gordon brown. i think gordon brown is a great man. anyway, polls won't work if you ask the wrong people. the house's normer majority leader suffered a shocking loss back in june to a tea party challenger no one had heard of. the polling showed that cantor would cruise to victory 62-28. that poll wasn't exactly right. and i hear, i hear, simon, that eric cantor has not spoken to his pollsters since. >> as he paid them. >> he shouldn't. anyway, the poll failed to capture an angry and fired-up teapt voters. cantor lost by 12 points.

but let's look at this thing here. we have a new poll out, that says 1 in 4 americans that would vote for secession. is that just crankiness on the right? do they really want to take nevada out of the country? what's this about? >> there may be people outside of texas who would like to see texas secede? >> we get to vote on that one. [ laughter ] >> but i think there is a crankyness. you look at the attitudenal polls about americans, and despite the fact that unemployment is down and there are other positive signs, they are in a really bad frame of mind. secession, whatever, sure, let's try it. 1 out of 4 would say. 1 out of 4 also believe barack obama is a muslim. and 38% of america can't name the three branches of government. we've learned that too. >> you're an elitest. [ all speak at once ] >> this headline is gaining a lot of attention. angry with washington, 1 in 4

americans open to secession. 24% say they support the idea of their state peacefully withdrawing from the usa. at least its peaceful. [ laughter ] >> people are out of their minds. >> but scotland was a test for a different variety of people. people from cata lonia in spain, kurdistan, this was seen as a real study, not to mention the guys in wales who were watching and going, wait a second, what's going on here? this was a test case. >> what would you have called the country? you couldn't call it the united kingdom if it wasn't including all of great britain, the island. >> you would have ended up calling it the slightly less great britain, or england pd depending on your political outlook. >> i don't know why the cat lans have to have their own country, from the frens don't like the waloons. i don't want the french speaking

label province to become its own country. why do people see secession is the natural instinct when they don't think they're happy in life? >> i think there's an element of tribalism, and there's an element of real self-autonomy and control. if you feel you're getting a bad deal from the guys back in the capital, you're on the wrong side of the ledger, then you want to secede. but i think what's going to happen now in great britain or not so great britain, you'll have some dissolution of powers back to scotland and wales and northern ireland. the union will exist, will survive, but people who want more say over their own localiti localities, they're going to get that. >> i'm not sure local government is more honest than national. i have never thought that was clear. anyway, thank you, simon. great to have you on. thank you, david. have a nice weekend.

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she said, i worry about my husband leaving the house every day. and there was a big ooh. and i think that people who don't understand don't want to understand. i think that people should know that there are things against african american people, still. there are things that ought to be fixed that are not fixed. >> we're back. that was bill cosby back in march of 2009 here on "hardball." i was talking to him about the new first lady michelle obama, and the issue of race of course. 30 years after the premiere of one of the most ground-breaking sitcoms ever, "the cosby show," a new biography is out on cosby. it traces his journey from a philadelphia housing project to his break-out role in the series "i spy" to "the cosby show," who

some say helped pave the way for barack obama to the presidency. mark, congratulations. >> thank you. >> i think the thing about cosby, he wasn't the first african american to have a tv show. but the first one that really worked. i spy was a winner. and "the cosby show" was super. he knew how to win. what's his drive? he drove himself from where i grew up, into temple, he went to the magnet school, the smart kids' school, central high. he was one of the few minorities in that school. everything he did he drove by himself. >> when he talks today about kids in the inner city and he's gotten a lot of criticism for the way that he talks about them and stressing the themes about education, responsibility, and so forth. what he's really talking about is his own life story. he grew up poor in a housing project in north philadelphia. he had a very high iq, but was a

bad constituent. he dropped out of school, joined the navy. and it was only there that he started to develop the habits of discipline and hard work that he would carry gets into temple un barely on a track scholarship with a combined s.a.t. of 500. he really credits the navy and his experience at temple of turning his life around. so he's talking to those kids saying life isn't hopeless for you, either, if you embrace these principles. >> so he lost his son in that tragic murder case. it was a hold-up, his son's car broke down early in to morning, a russian guy came along and was convicted of killing him. did that do anything to say that life's precious and kids ought to hold their lives more? >> he privately expresses his views. i talk about this in the book as

he's first taking off about a lot of these themes. his only son was the happapple his eye. a kid who had turned his own life around when he discovered he was a dyslexic, a story he carried into the "the cosby show" with theo. >> his car broke down and some guy came along and just opportunity. >> yeah, i tell it in detail in the book. cosby responds in three ways. one is work. one of the reasons he's still on the road almost every week performing and that's his way of coping with, you know, the tragedy that he's experienced. but, you know, i think that this sort of preaching that he's doing, to the black community now, a lot of them is to give some meaning to his death, which is so sensitive. >> i saw him a couple years ago

at reverend sharpton's events. he tore into them. he said they don't go over to the muslim neighborhoods because they've chased them away. >> he's talked the talk, but he's also walked the walk. i described him in the book going into some really hard neighborhoods in baltimore and in new haven and so forth, talking to gang bangers, you know, gathering people on the street to talk about how we have to get guns out of the street. we have to get kids into the school. so, you know, say what you will about his views, he's willing to go and directly into those neighborhoods to talk to people. >> america is a strange place on race. i root for it to change. i have think it has changed. my generation has changed, therefore, our kids have changed dramatically. i think about the cosby show. people have always made an exception in the white world for blacks being very successful in sports and music, you know.

for some reason, those are the areas. okay, you guys can be the superstars. but the cosby show seemed to be outside that. it wasn't about being a great jazz musician or athlete, it was about being a great dad. that was what was so interesting about it. >> well, you know, i call it quietly revolutionary, that show. in two ways. one was cosby was trying to show people that they had more in common than, you know, than their differences. >> between white and black. >> yeah, white and black. but, also, he was trying to hold up an image to the black community. and to say instead of being victims, you know, we can have intakt families where there's laughter. where there's romance. where we send our kids to college and we honor black culture. there was a lot of jazz and black art and the role of the historically black college, the spin-off show that cosby got made as a result of that show.

and the person that was quietly bhiernd a behind all of that was his wife, camille. the producers were arguing that it would be more universal. it was camille cosby who sided with the producers who said no, they're going to be a successful, professional couple. >> what was the black-white ratio of watching that show? >> you know, that show was so popular. it got numbers. it averaged 35 million viewers, up to 60 million viewers it was the number one show in every single demographic. >> look at this. if you still go by a bookstore, get this book. it's about america and how it's changed.

thank you for joining us tonight and we'll be right back.

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everyone is looking for ways while to cut expenses.s unique, and that's where pg&e's online business energy checkup tool can really help. you can use it to track your actual energy use. find rebates that make equipment upgrades more affordable. even develop a customized energy plan for your company. think of it as a way to take more control over your operating costs. and yet another energy saving opportunity from pg&e. find new ways to save energy and money with pg&e's business energy check-up. let me finish tonight with this. as someone who opposed both earlier wars in iraq, it's no surprise to you that i don't get this latest one. whatever else is said, whatever other information you pick up, the central fact is this. we go into that part of the world, we know we're going to come out. and when we do, the people that will remain call the shots, not us.

this was true for the crew saiders, it's true for us. we go in and kill a lot of people. we come out and the people who remain take charge. there's a claim out there that if president obama had found a way to have the iraqi government allow us to keep troops in that country of iraq, we wouldn't have had isis. does that mean u.s. soldiers would have fought them off? we, the americans, would have gone at them and killed them all? if so, you are making my argument. as long as we stay, we can control things. as soon as we leave, these who remain, do. unless we are willing to stay in iraq indefinitely, we have to face the reality that those who remain will run the show. that government wanted us out of there. out. whatever fears they might have had about insurgence, their number one concern was getting us packed and on the next plane. so this fundamental facts guys, my thinking in these matters, iraq is not our place, it is the place of the iraqis. all we can accomplish by bombing

isis and stirred up and ready to retailuate. if we cannot beat them, someone needs to explain the mission. don't expect it to stop with that. and that's "hardball" for now. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all in," the nfl in crisis. >> i let myself down. i let everybody else down. and, for that, i'm sorry. >> commissioner roger goodell faces the national media for the first time since the nfl crisis began. >> i'm not satsz filled with the way we've handled it from the get-go. >> but he insists he's not going nymph. >> mistakes happen. we're going to get this right. >> and the nfl announces a new initiative. >> we have entered into a long term partnership with a national domestic violence hotline. >> we'll talk with the head of that organization. plus, we'll look at the state of the nfl with sports