that presidentbama wanted to get across during the mpaign was hee cngg foreign policy. >> okay. mark we're out of time. >> thank you. tamron, have a great ekend. >> here is your wning mug. have a great weeken >> "hardball" starts rig now. the present kisses the ri. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm lawrence o'donnell sitting in for chr matthews in new york. ading off tonig, the pope, thepresident,nd amica's catholics. when president obama had his meeting toy with pope benedict, it seemed a conservative pope may view mr. obama mo favorablythan some conservative cathocs i the united stas. will today's meetg with the pope help improve the prent's standing wisome conservative catholics who condemn his position on abortion? we'll bate that one in a moment. and here at the political sex scandaldesk, we learn the

shocking news yesterday that republicanevada senator john ensign's parents sled $96,000 in hush money to his mistss. of course, ensign's lawyer insists was purely an actf generosity. you can be the judge whene talk to the dean of nevada litical journism john ralston who intervwe the miress' husband. >>plus, teddy, in his own words. a fascinating docentary about senar edward moore kennedy airs on hbo begning mony. we'll talk to one of the proders about this deeply personal and intimate look at ted kennedy from childhood to lion of thsenate. also, tonight levi johnst says he has a pretty good idea why sarah pali decided to quit, and it h nothing to do with fighting for alas. that in "the potics fix." and sometis a picture is worth 1,000 smirks, like this one for instance. but when you seehe actual

deo of the incident, youjust might change your mind about what you think is going on here. we'll showt to you in the "hardball deshow." but first,he president meets the pope. neil hudson is the director of insidecathic.com and author of ward christian soldiers and a.j. deon is a senior fellow at the brookings institution and the author of so out. it looked like a very friendly meeting at the vacan today. you didn't get any feeling of the rt that you got from some of the prosts at not dame for example en the president was invited to speak there. how did youead it? >> i think it s a good day for president ob i think it wasood day for popebenedict. i think had bsically reairmed e status quo, that obama and benedict have some this in common. that benict didn't have in common wh president bush, but at the same time thepope took the occasion to pess the issue

of abtion and biohics an he left president obamaith a document cald thedignity of the n person, whichoutlined the position of the church on those issues. but it w aordial event. it looked od for obama, and i think it was a gd day f him. >> e.j., you and deal have both had personal audienc with the pope, nois pope, but previous popes. tell us what that'slike. you walk into vatican city an work your w up to that chamber e you're going to meet the pope. >> you kw, i covered the vatican for "the new york tim" back in the 1980s and i actually wrote a lot aout then cardinal ratzinger, now popebenedict, in those days. and i ended up covering hi quite a lot on papal journeys, but e was one priv audice that i arranged wh abe rosenthal -- for abe rosenthal, the lateexecutive and ters this extraordiry s" feeling as you're walking across st. pets square. i td him i used to tell my

friends in the vatican that we had l in common because we worked for the only two institutions left intheorld that claimed infalability, and i always lik to say abe didn't laugh. hetook it seriously for both. >> and i'm se, e.j., you weren't surprised to see this treatment. thiss a normal treatment by the ppe of american presidents. was there ything new or differt in ts instance? >> i think wt's striking is there really is a disjunction tween the aitude of the vatican and e pope toward present obama and the attitude of our conservati catholic friends who wdog all that demonstrating d complainin about notre dam obvisly, the pope and prident obama disage on abortion, but e vatican looks at president obama as deal ggested as aotential ally on a lot of issues. they e the middle east in largely theame wa they bh are interested in a

dialogue with islam. the po actuay gave the presiden two documents today. one s on thechurch's position on the life issues. the other was hisvery, very ogssive wring on the economy. if you read that you see the pope is to obama's left. i think that was the yin and yang. the church i to the right on life issue but to the left of our american cnsensus on econic questions. >> the church is wh obama on onlife issue, which is the you no for emple, president bush, who was at the other extreme on the death penalty as a govnoraving executed more people than anyone who has ever occupied the white hou, so you know that there's a disagreement between the he and conservative catholicsn abortion, but there this other agreement tat people tend to ignore, which is also a life

issue. >> well, that's an important issue,d, of course, the chur hasn't completely outlawed the death penay, as you well now. it's still possible but not really practical ia civilized society with the kind of penal system we have. >> no,but just for our noatholic audience, just to clarthe point for the the evious pope frequently issued personal pleas to governor bush to not- >> absoluty. >> andhose pleas were ignored by governor bush, a noone at notre dame thoht that was worth protestingn president sh showed up there. >> what's funny, you know, i went to the notre dame speech th president bush gave aat particularcommencement. it was very interesting because the stent bod gave president bush repeated standg ovations. when you looked at e facuy of notre dame, about a third of them refused to budge all. but, you kw, it's interesting what e.j. was saying about the contrast between conservative

catholics' protest at notre dame and the sense of cordiality tween the holy father and the president. both situatis, i thin are entire appropate. there shou beordiality. there should be goodipmatic relations between e holy father and the president of t united states, and it's entire propriate that som american catholics re et that t world's leading catholic university was honing a president who isrguably a pro-choice/p-artion presidt against the very mandates in a document itten by the united states bisps. i don't e that those two tespro were ippropriate at all. >> i kept using the phse conservative catholicsecause one of thehings that bothers me was someone who was born into ka lott simple and lived in caolic cmunities all my life, this word catholic gets rown around to incle everyone who h ever be baptized in a roman catholic church. there are liberal catholics. there are radical lal

catholics. there are conservative catholi and th have different opinions. let's consider current pollg, for ample, amo catholics in the unitestates on president obama. rit now obama isolling among catholics at 54%. john mccai-- and i'm sorry these are exit polls. thesare exit polls from the election. obama,54%. mccain,45%. that means and i he argued this politically before. what that means is afar as i n see, catholics no longer function as an interesting subgroup in plling because the behave and have for many years, ey behave identically to the poll. e whole ved forbama 53%. catholics voted for him slightly more at 54%. so what exactly is it that we're talking about in american politics, e.j., when we talk about catholics? we're talking about this group that sms toepresent identically the tire population. >> well, the way i like put

it ishat there is noatholic vote andthat it's important. >> yeah. >> by which i mean that really among cathics it's very hard for any republican to get less than 40% of the vote. it's very hard for a demoat to ge less than 40% to 45%. but you have a big swing vote in the middle, a it'soved ound consideray om electiono election. but ur underlying point i think is right. catholic catholics, like americans,re a very diverse group. there are a lot of latino tholics. 10% of catholi are african-erican. if i couldo back to one point mycolleague, deal, made, i think you reallyave to say that ameca catholic conservatives acted in a way that i don't think the vatican was enrely happy with. now, ty're free to do that. it a free cou. theyanrotest as they want, but the vatican i ink was worried that this sent a

partisanignal. they don't wt the church to be partisan, and think conservative catholics want to argue that abortion is the one an only issue a they want play down somef these other questions, including economics, and i think that when you saw what the pope did tay, he was saying, ye those life issues maerbut so do these other issues that i just wrote a 30,000 wd encyclical on. i think that's where argument is. not is abortion important or unimportant, but rather h do you weigh these issues a how do you include this very rich catholic social teaching that all of us who are catholic hve been taught. can you make a theological arnt that wouldsupport the tion that abortioshould be not only the number one issueon which to judge an american president by american catholics, bu the only one? at there's no reason, there's no need to look at y other sues as e. has just suggested andxecute a balance

of them? >> i can make the gument that it's the number one issue, but i wouldn't even attpt nor want to make the argument that it's the oly issue. it's the number one issue because it's the fndatioof allmorality, but oneoint you made eaier about polling catholics,atholic pollingnly makes sense if you distinguish between mass attending caolics, regly ms atteing catholics and self-identified catholics. the when you get a true picture of how the catholic voter little bit different than the general electorate. >> well, yeah, sure. i think at's a fair point. the mass attending catholic, but then the sample starts to split out in a size that becomes kind of weirdfor people to try to use. e.j., do you want to respond? >> i just want to say that al's point that mass aending caolics are on the whole a little more conservative in their ting, that's true, but what's rlly striking is how many mass-atteing catholi,

how big a te obama go not just among catholicho is say -- who identify as catholic t don't go tochurch. he got a very b vote, particularly aong latinos g mass-attending tholics. so i think there's an attempt to say that, oh, well, the liberal catholics really aren't mass-attending. i know that's not what he id directly, but i think the i78 plication of that wrong there are a lotf conscientis ss-attending catholic who is take what the late cardinal bn ard called a sele garment vi when he said you have to care about all these issuein common bause that he overlap anthat includes t death penalty. a lot ofmy conservative catholic friends and give them credit for this from my point of vi, they said they had been for the deh penalty and they rethought it and saidf i want to be consistenthere, i ought to oosthe deathpenalty, and i applaud the fact they've done that. >> all right. th's going to have to be the last word on itoday. i wanto thank you both for

this thoughtful dcussion of this. thank you. >>coming up, senator john ensign admittedis parents gave his mist and her family $96,000. he says it's all kay, it's all legal. his critics sa it amountso hush money. is ensign's job in jeopardy? we'll talk to the dean of nevada political jourlism j john ralston whonterviewed the husband of ensign mistress.

coming upup, a rsonal, up close look at t th lfe and career of senenatored kennedy. wewel l ta to the producer o of the new hbo dodocumearar"tdydy h his own rds." "hdbdbal returns right after this. whwheritit'sulnerable. ♪ tylenol arthritis workrk with your body to block theain, without terfing witherin high blood pssure medicines like aleve sometimes c can. ♪ so you don't just feel bte

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>>ththat air fooene having just landed on the ground in acaccr ghgha.. president obobam about to disembarark omom air forcece ond be grreeddin ghana. hihi arriviv in subsaharanan

rica, his first visit t trere ncnc taking office. could bebe any m minee now orit coululbebe a few minutes. ey don't always just h havtoto run off the e anane. they can t takththr time, those prpresents. all right. wewelce back to "hardball." vada senator jojohnensign admitttt h havg had an affair last month, b but thataa't the d of it. yesterdaday l leaed ensign's's parents s pa nearly $1,000 to hihis ststss and her famamy.y. atat ne?? john r ralonon is a politicalal columnist for hehe las vegas sun." chris cillizza covers popotitics forthe washington post." john ralston you hahad an intervieiew dada or yesterdayay with doug hampton, who is t huanand the woman thatnsign had ththe affair witth, right?t? >> yeah, and deded, that ishy i think, lawrencnce, the statatt came out frfr john ensign's lawyer. theherogram he alllleded tt john ensignaiaid his w wfefe m

ththan$25,000 which trigged the and for ainvestigation. he got plenty of political l an maybe in hisindoral esesons, but theyried to tatakeheheegal questions away. i'm nonot rere tse are gone. >> whose akeked for t t crimina invevestatatio >> citizenenfofor sponsibility anddthics inasasngton inititiay y fid an ethics compmplat t agnst h hnd an fe complaint, i i bieie. after ththey learned o off mpto alalgagatis about more than $25,000, which triggggerriminal viviations, they then askeked f a imimal investitigaonon. >> all rigig.. i think we havav a a clip of yo interview today y atat's cued u and ready to go here with doug -- whattisisisname? doug hampton. doug hampton. let's lisisn to atat. > he told me bacacay at the sa t timhe said i'm in l lveve with your ife, you c't work for me anymore. we were employs, not fid, but orcherated, asked to

lee, usred out, however y have it. a powerful man cnged our employment life forever. >> why is he gng public with this personal family agedy like that and getting on tv with you d talking about it this way? you know, i guess only he ally knows that. i think pt of the motivati certainly is heants money. he ds want money. he wants more moy than he got from mike and sharon ensign apparently i guess that hush ney, if it wahush money, h an piration date. but i gus the answer is this guy habeen ruined by this, he believes. he believes john ensig ruied his life personalnd financiay. he's already admitted that he's asked for millionsnd milons ofollars from john ensign ad be reuffed. so i think he's going public he thinks to put more preure on john ensigor to get a book deal or get some kind of financial payment for what he's going through he's in desperate financia straits from what we know. i don't know of any other motivation beyond that and, frankly, revenge. >> we' going to get to the

politics of this in a second, but there's more fom your extraordinary interview wre he discusses why his --is theory as to why jo ensign came out publicly and was the first t come out pubcly about tis to try to head off -- to try to get contl of the story. let's listen to what he to you about that. >> how did he find out about this, do you think, to go out -- >> i genuinely solicited fox help because i believe ey're -- >> how h did he findut to gein fro of it? ne of the correspondents that's a part of fox news is ri santorum. >> the fmer u.s. senator from pennlvania >> i sentt a note to rickknd ggedick to call me to talal to me before, andd he dididnt. obviviouslin my opinion, i could bebe wro,,utut thahaould be what i would susupposhahaened, andif m m ong, rick, forgivivme. >> s so he s sayg g th fox news had the e oror johnhn nsign was tipped o that fo news h h thestory by fox

news employee ofof sortsick ntorum, former snator from pesysylvia, and so john ensign enen gs out to the microphone and tlsls the rlrld, i had anan affair. riris cillizza, ththis iss goint the ethics committeen the senanateisisn'it? there's no way to h headd off t investigatation,s s there? >> i n't think so. let me firsrs commend myy frien john raston. befofo h he sat doown w wh doug mpmpn for tthi thth storory h largely gogone away. we h h hrd talk of thee potential ofof m moy being inlvlvedbut we did't't knowow. i'll behonest as r rerter i snsn'tble to get ii so kudoss to jon.n. the other t thi is, yes,s,his complicates johnhn ensign's's politicacal rereer drtically. an a aair is one thing ase've learned many timesesnn politics d i believe that if itit w juju t the fafair john ssig woululd ceaiaiy susurve.e. i think it'soror iffffy nonow. i've gotten out o othe predictiting o resisiatatio

business aftfter i sasaidmark sanford wass a goner foror se.e. you never know h things play out in politics.. this is totoward if notlegal proceedings,s,t't's rtainly headaded tarara deepeper d dig look into the f finces he,,ndnd that's p pblblemic foror senoror ensign. . >> chris ciiziz, i knowouou don't have i i your monitor there, but i wanteded y know u're speaking on a split screen inn juxtaposititio withte live coverage we have ofof presidident amamsrrrriv in accra, ghahana this histororic moment whehereurur first african-american presisidentasa arriving in n suahahar africacaa president for ththfifirstime. thesese e e e kind ofdd xtapositions in today's wld of p polics that s smm unavoidadae.e. jon ralston,itit seems neveva is more underststandi o o thiskiki of thing tnn washington, d.c., is. it were up the ters of nevada, what wouldhhey like jojohn sign to do next? >> are you s sayinwewee an dedersnding lot out in nevada or we have s sla morals or

ststereopepe >> jon, yoyou n'n't epununni those whatat hapnsnsn v veg stays in v vas commercials and exct us, you k know,oo notot tee them seririslsly. lieneni understand that fefeining, and it'snteresting beuse i've heard people say, oh, nevadidiss are ing to forgive e hnhn ensign, dd there is some andodota ididen that people are angrgry thth doug g hampson. eyeyhink what he's doing is even wororse t th what john ensn did, which i i fnd to be fraral laughable and kind o of sickeni, bubuthere's also some polling data i have heardabout, lawrencece that suggeststs th johnhnensign, who wawas just a month a a the most popular elected official i i is ststate isis pluluining in populalari.. i think people, ashrhris said, would foforgivanan affairerhaps, bubuthey don't't forgive hypopocris payouts omom the e family, and noww don't't know whe this is goi with the senate e etcs committee frankly, we don'tnnow ifee know erything abouthehe legality of f thespapaents. >> o onehihing to watch would sasay isatat what ensign's lleagues in the senate do. ththerwas a quote inn the "las

vegagas n"n" t paperr j jonaalsn works f for from j john cornyn sically saying he didndn k kno if john ensisign w going to sur vich. thth's's n helulul t john ensign have one ofhis collgugu sort ofof tossingheir hassup and sayingge might mama it and he might not.t. watch h wh his colleagues do. ififhey feel theheolitical pressure that this is a aoil that j jus has to be lanced r r them tomomoveon, talk about the ecomy, talk about healthth car, ey will dot.t. politicians s e e suivors and they always have at survivorr ininstctct i the back of their minds. y you just talk amongst yourselves. i'watching this movininoment t t african-amereric president ofhehe uted states arrive i in riricaorhehe first titimen his role as president. this is trurulyanan amazing mom for usto be ab toriring to the worlrld, a this is really y one of thosethings,s, cis cicilliz, , at when he was mpaigning and people wrere talking g ouout at will be fferent, what will it be ke having an african-americacan

president, this isishahat nd of thing g thatouou couldn't nessssary specifically ticipate, but thiss s actly the e ki of thing t that so different, isn't t?t? t the visual power o these sorts of thingng i i think, can unundestimated. remember, presesenent ama cacampaiededn the iaa that was going t tochchge the wayay n which thee u uted states was viewed by the world community. going to subsaharanfrica as the firstt a afcan-american president, someonene wsese memes bar raack husseinin obama i thi ininedibly meingful. lolo bck to his eech to the islamic worldld. whenenhehe ssssgerooks and sounds differentnt tn past messen iiuries, i think the soum bol symbolism m ismpmpornt. >>nn itatae was asked ababout economic aid toto africaca and economic developmeme i isss in afafca, and he wntnt -ee stard d f with a v ve prove

soral l swswer about gdp measururenent d h whenen his father left kenya thgg was the e samess south koreaa and th soututh koa a ok off andenenya t t ft behind. it was an i intesting ecconom analysis and thehe camea a ment in thehe middle in that d dry o y y whe he mpmp said i have relative who is l le i in commmmititieand vlages that knowow hunger, and therewewe sa the eight mostst powerful aders in the worrld, the most p powfu among g emem aually telling the world that his relatives live viviages where there ishger. thth i is d damic that could not p psiblyav imagined b bei in the dialogue, t personal dialogue, , t theresident of the itit states with g-8-8 members before thihis president could we, chris? >> no, and inruth i tnk we couldn't have a antipiped itit. wewelslso can't really titicite what effect it wil haave.. uu know, we'e're never totallll sure becausese iee like i my job, you know,, you wrwrite blb, you standd o one inch fromthat

gigantic picture. u're rarely able to take 20 sts back andsay it's actuallyly a pictururee of a cow or horse. we don'teecearily know what it is yet, b but i dodothi, , again, t the symbmbicic power o rican-american presidentnt g gng to ghana,oing to subsahahan n africa, traraveli around the wowod,d, iis part and parcelel thatathahang messasage, barack obobams message that not only do i have a dffffert sume om peoplele whoavavbeen elected to esidency in the pstst i look ffffert, i have a differentt backgrgrndnd, d all o of t those things will hehelpe e ma the caseseoror t world. whatat we'seeing, the v vial -- wewe're seeing that hpen right w. >> okay.y. thanks, chs. jonn ralston, we're going to he u back. thensign story isis n n gooin ayay. this show is ginin to sayay on ththisstory. thank k yoveveryuch jon ralston and chriscillizza. > up ne, so whahawawas ally going onon i president obamama' mind wheheththis piurur was tatake the photographph g a a l of ickers, but the video tetess anotothestory. stick around f f t the "sidesho" u'u'reatching "hardball" onlnly on msnbc.

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wcome back to "hardball." time forhe "sishow." president obama is in africa tonight for the last leg of his week-long trip. this week we've seen a bunchof handshakesgrp photos, and evenone mitep literally when the president trippedis way through a orway in italy. this rticular photo snapped last night is getting a l of looks today,both here and overseas thdrudge report faturedit all last night and today, butit just goe to show that sometimes a photogra can be misleading. now, let's watch the video of this exact momentnd you ca be the feree on this one. the woman moves. he takeshe hand -- what was he really loong at? let's see that again.

hemove wherar his eye i don't know. i think --ut now wat one more time,atch sarzy. let's do this one mo time. keep your eye on sarkozy th time. we'll circ sakozy, and, ye, okay. ll i don't know. it looks lik no foul for president obama, but sarko, he's plang by the freh les. nextup, franken goes to washingt. al fnken was underestimateby everyo, especially the republican par from e day annound he was running for the senate. everyonexcept me. as soon as he announced, i predicted he was going to win. i used a lot of the usual political aritet in making at prediction but mostly i used my personal kwledge of al franken. for 30 years i have known him to be a srt guy who works hard and he knows how to do his homework. that's how he got into harvard and at's how i knew he was going to get into the senate. now everyo is wondering ich al franken is going to show up for 3407nd'supreme court

confirmation hearing of sonia sotomayor. member this guy? that's paul simon. very hard-working, very boring united statesenator when al was still a wild and crazy guy writing and performing at urday night live." e al franken you're goin to see on monday. that by the way is a sho of al franken playing paul simoon "surday night live." e guy you're going to see on nday, that' going to be the serious al frank. maybe even the boring al frann. if you want to s the nny al franken, you're g to have to buy "snl" dvds. up next, the line of the senate. a newocumeary elores the fe and 46-yearete career ofed kennedy,ho many argue is the greatestenator to ha ever seed. we'll talk tohe documentary' prucer next. u're watching "hardball" onl on msnbc. driveheord difference. the difference is fofo quality. ity that can't be beat honda or toyota. and that d dferencis in every vehicle in our lineup..

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>>i'i' scocottohoh with yourur cnbc mararket apap stks enng mostly loowerr aer chevron issued a profit warning anand some k tech stocks got an up rating. evevron was the bgest drag on the dow day. 's's shares l ling more than 2.5% afterer warnrnin its secon quarter earnrningsouou be t by a shararp clclin general motors shares r ro 37% asshehe aautomerernnnoced it's o o of bankrkruptcmumu ononerhan expected. ares in aaig up almtt4% today. ththey a l lking for the gogovement's permission to p p ouout mlilis more inin bonuses toch ecutives. >and tech s sckcks rnrn mixid after an eaieieboost on a ratings upggrade for s see key hardrdwa mars. that's it from bc first in busineness worldwide. now back to o "hardbl."

> i haha come here tnight to stand with you to change america, totoestore its future, to rise to our bestideals, and to elect baack oba president of thenited states. >> welcomeme bac to "hardbal" that wasasenatored kennedy speaking a at the dedecratic national c conventn l last summ. hbo's new docucumentar"teddy, in his own words"hronics the life and pololitical careerr ofe man no known asheion of the senate.. had a airs on mondday at 9:9:00 eaeastern. andaroli water all co-produd the movie. there's s so muu gund to cover. iant to show the people out there, people e der 60, w dodon't knowhe earl ted kennedy, don't rember the early ted kennedy, i want to show what you've gotn thiss movie, especially y these kids

th convention was wched by a lot young voters,s, a l lot o kids athat convention. i s there. th's the only ted kennedy t they know >> solutely. i also a one ofhose people who ow h him as a-- knew him as a senio senator,, vy vocal, veryry confnfident, and olde gentleleman, andso, yea to o se him whenene was the ely '60s, starting out,ust as feistynd -- isincredible. >> he started out pretttty you running for the unitited stas senate.. he was a a assistatant distrt attorneyeyn bost. his brotother go electeded to t esidency. that mea there was going t be an on senate seat to run for in twoyes, anand he ran. and h he fou himselelf in hisisy firsttenatorial campai debate. you have footage of f that in ur movie.e. let's take a look k at that ght now. >> i his name was edwdward moor, with his qualifications,,ith yourur qualications, tey, if itas edwardmoorere, you

candididacy woulbe a joke, but nobodys laughing. nobody is laugughing. and nobody is laaughingecause hihis name i nott edward mooror. it's edward moore kennedy. >> it wasas a full-courtrtress ede m mccormack. it w really quite a baptism byby fire. >> youre not runningon qua qualificatio quification. yoyou are nning on a slogan. u can do more for ssachusetts. thiss the most insnsulting slogan haveeen in massacacsettspolitics because is slogan means votete for this maman becae heas influence, hee ha conctions, he has relations. we should not hav anan talk abou p psonaliesor families. i feel that we should bebe talki about t the people's destiny in massachusetts. >> now,he ironic thing aboutt

that p pticuladebate is that e eddie mccrmack s runni against ananne else, the oppoponent wou have said the same thing a about eddiee mccork because eddie mccorormack's unc s then john mccormackck the speaker of t the housef represenentives,o he was rurunning a veryfamous liticaname, very famous politicafamily, t it was thee second most popolicaca n na massachuhutttts the time. thatat w s sething that ted kennedy had to figure out h h to ararnd then enter the senate keke a franken is now bu much bigger versionon, a big celelebry.y. everybody hahad eieir es on him d how he was going to prfrfor how did hehe perform? >> i t thi he dideery well. i meanan, w wasmazing t to ee all l thee ises that he ceses about ssionately now are the things t thahehe w caring -- he has alwayays cared passssiotete abt.t. he was always s omom the beginng talking about t hethth ce, healththarareor seniors. ose are issuess th hehe h really stutuckois guns and i inink very admirable for that. >> richardixixon was absolututyy obsessed w witththe kenneded having lost a p prededentl electionono o jfk. thth he's in t whitithohous and

he's still not confident he's beaten thehe kennedys,anan he w completely obsessesed thth ddy. wewe'llilien to it right n nowto a secret whiteteououseecording of n non w wainin to go after tetedd kennne.. this is from t nixon tapes. lieneno this. 'd likeo get teddy tapepe that why i want a lot more. >> s spoposi there's somemethgg we canan rlllly ng teddy the kennedy clan w wit anwewee going wt toruru wiwi it. > i mean toet the real scandal onththem >> justst looking for scandal o impropriety. >> nou're talking. ou have a senatornd you hahave a preside of the united states ssing all day, is there something wcan hang o him. somethwe can accuse him of. >> with teddyy with all t the things he wawaaling with popotiticay and within his family and all ofof t losses s has suereredhe waslslso

>> he lososthihis dedest brothn world war ii. he thenen has his remainingldest brother sassinated november nd, 6363, asress of the ed stas. hi then -- his remaining oldest brother isssassited while running r president in 19, and at this point hangived thugh all of that, here we are in 1972 and nixon isrying to figure out how to make this guy's li worse. >> eah. >> but he peeveres. he kps going and he eventually himself wants to run for the presidency. >> yes. at was something that i also had not fully appreciatedoi into this oject, that from about '68 rigig after bobby's death, people are e taining him about running for presidenent,nd there was a effort to draft hihm in '6'6 to take obby's plplac and rereal f f, yeah, up unt 1980 or '79 when h final le di sidehe's going to run fo pre prident, this is a question that's hanging over him and it something people are asking him

about that whole time. >> when you lookat tha early senate career of ted kendy leading up prior to running for president inhe '80s, it's hard to find the easy year for teddy. earlyn as senator, he had a plane crash, a small plane go downnestern massachusts. he's in the plane. he injuries his ck. never going toe able to walk the same way ain for e rest of his life. one of the things i think about en i watch him in front of these audiences like last suer is the young kids don't undersnd whathe olde people inhat convent hall, what' happened to them when they're crying listening to ted kennedy. they d't know the emotional base of the relatiship that he has those voters. let'take a look at ted kennedy fg what i believe was t most puic equent eulogy ever given. itas his eulogy ofis brother, robert kennedy. >> my brother ed not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. to be membereed simpl as a

good and decentan whoaw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to healit, sawar and tried t stop it. >> not easy to watch. >> no, it increbly emotional moment, and really we triery hard in this film,t's entirely archal interews and footage. we tried to let the footage speak for tself. you case the emotion and you can see teddy just by wahing him and letng it play. >>onday night at 9:00 on hbo. >> thank y caroline waterlow. up net. levi joson, the ther of bris tol palin'baby says knows whspooil quit asgovernor.

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>>and we're back. time now for he politics fix" with lynn swe of the chicago sun times and the waup's prry bacon. levi johnston the father of bristolpalin's baby, has his own theory about why gernor sarapalin will step dow in 16 days andn interview withhe asciated press, leviai that governor palin, quote, had talked about how nice it would be to take somef this money people hadeen offering u and, you know, just run with it. say forget everything else. i think the b deal was the book. th was millions of dollars.

a palin family okeswoman was th book. that was millions ofdollars. a palin family spokesman ot back, t interesting t learn lev is working on a pece of fiction whileoning his acng skills." lynn sweet, this seon opera continue what do you makef levi's latest entry? it's asood an elanation as >> well, it is od. isn't it ney is a motivat. i'm in the camp right now where i don't know she hadhat much to gain by staying inlaa to finish out her term. even though, u know, conventional wisdom would say that's what she should do. it might nott her f whatever her future holds for her. >> perry bacon, are you persuaded by levi's heaay? >> i d't know how muchi talks to the governor t i ink, that said, i think it is likely she'll make a bo, it is likely she will makeo money being out of the governor's office than in the vernor's

office. >> we've been taking bets all week and'd like yo to put your bets dow n she plot her way from here a presidential campaign or is she completely out of it? >> yes, she can. what do know? she haso expand her base ich is going to stick with her. she's in a nse -- remember the daysn hillary rodham clinton s seen as very polarizing figure? that changes. you can change your personae. it's very hard. if you want to sl a lot books and become a naonal figure tt is accepd by all the replican party, n just a segment, she has to figure out way to do a i don't know if she has now. better to be in the lower 48 to talk tpeople than t be stuck inhe legislature in laska. that'swhy some of this ki of makes sense. two things c happen aonce. you can make a lot of money in a book and maybe, just maybe, put together an organization or an image wheryou n give it a try. ruing for president -- >> there's a lot of resistance -- there's a lot of resistance within the republican party to palin >> absolely.

>> tt frntly gets ovlooked in this coverage. let's consider what peggy noonan had to say about sarah palin today. in tevision interviews she was ou her depth a shallow pool. e was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions. and sometimes in knowg them. she uldn't say what she read because sheidn't read anything. she was utterly unncerned by al of this a seemed, in fact, rather pro of . it wasvince of her authenticity. perry, with people lke peggy noonan taking ose kind of shots from within the republican tent, how can she find her y ba into credible presidential campaigning? >> i think what cnged over the last week is not -- in some is not tat much. before, a lot of repuicans liked peggy than noon, live in washington, live i new york, didn't really ink sarah palin was very qlified in the rst ple. in some nse this is people who ready did not like her very much,re we enforcing that? do think it hurt her in that you'll need republican strategists, people in

shington to help you run for president. she lost credibility with the people and activists who are more politically involved. e lostredibility with her unexplained behavior. i thinlike lynn said, she has a strong support from activists o will be behind her. the polls seem to suggest it hasn't really canged much at all in that people w liked her before sti like her, democrats, independents still don't like her. >> we'll be backith lynnweet d perry bacon for more of "the potics." plebee's 2 for $20.

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and so today, i'll rurn to the place where my political joney began back in 1978. back to touth side of ico. back to my community and my constituency. to announce, my friends, that i will not be a candidate in the 2010 ection. and that i will notun for united states senate at. >> that was senator roland burris announcin today he won't run for electionor the seat he was appoind t by rod blagojevich. we'rback with lynn sweet "chicago sun-times,"nd perry bacon for more "the polics fix." did he do the math and fig you're, can't win this seat, there'no sense trying? he had more upon in his pket than in hi campaign account, di't he? >> he did try.

he meant to pay leaders in ma he tried to do some fund-raising the numbers weren'there. he toldme in may it doesn't matter what i want t do,f don't haveny money i can't run. and it took him awhile to realize th this was it. because did wanto try and get ected to theat he was appointed to. the politics in illinois were stacked against him. no one, national or local, of any democratic stature, wul have backed him. >> perry bacon, he seemed to love the job, seemed t be thrilled getti that appointment that looked like the plac he wanted t spend t better part o the next decade, at least. looks like he's got no fight left in him,huh? >> s. i saw hi ear this week, talked to hi a bit. he me the same point lynn madewhich is he really wanted tobe in this job. he enjod it. always had amile on h face while he was in the senate. for democrati thinthis is good news r them. they wanted to avoid having him in a primary because they didn't think he was a very viable candide to win. i thk they're happy about that. two, you've seen ba, president obamtrying to recruit other

caidates to run for this race rsonally at times. it avoids having aivisive primary where the presint himself is tryg to defeat t ly black senator out there. i think thatood news for democrat who have bn hoping, tryi to dissuade him from running for quite a while. >> lynn sweet, you'reur chicago pert, handicap the race for us now. who's the fnt-runner on the democrat side and republan side? >> the front-runner in the republican se is mark kirk, who ot lk in to run. i think as of now he's in. there's a few rdblocks that i think will becleared up. three mainple on the democratic side, and this is interesting that you just ran l the ted keedy stuff because of one of his nephews who lives in e chicago are chris kenny,as been organizing thecampaign. thenou have the atate treaeasure $1.8 million already in the w war ct. ereryl jackson, chief ofhehe chicagago urnn league. i would say - -- >> we're goining to have toto l it there. thank you, lynn eeee and