love you to remind everyone of his tour de force performance in "teen wolf." we all know that there are man-animals walking amongst us. anyone who has seen robin williams with his shirt off can attest to that. i have it on good authority that tori spelling is one quarter ostrich. >> there were similar legislation proposed also by senator brownback in 2007 that was never voted on. should that have been his hint right there that this might be viewed with some mockery outside of those 20 people who support him in the senate? >> well, i guess. but keith, you've got to remember, we were very busy in 2007. first of all, the economy was in terrible shape. congress had yet to pass all that amazing health care reform. and if i'm not mistaken, i think we were at war at the time, which just seems so weird now. but now that these things have finally been settled, we can concentrate on the most pressing issue, facing human kind, centaur prevention. >> the list is, economy, health care, terrorism, mermaids,

climate change, centaurs, cat women, iraq -- iraq is like eighth on the list. >> and centaurs can only be felled by magic crossbows. >> exactly. is this going to be the wedge issue of 2012? have we run through the rest of the culture worlds? not illegal immigration anymore, but genetic migration. >> i found it weird senator brownback kept talking about the dignity of human life. have you watched "america's got talent." i think we are are plum out of dignity. i think as humans we've had a good run. maybe it's time to give the mermaids a run. mermaids appear to be universally hot and appear to be kind of easy. they are like barnard college students. >> and why is senator sam brownback trying to prevent from darrel hanna from washing up on the shore outside my house? >> tragic and sad. >> an excellent point. great thanks as always. >> thank you. that's "countdown" for this the 2,263rd day since the previous president declared

mission accomplished in iraq. i'm keith olbermann, i don't know what made me think about that, good night and good luck. and now it's the latest episode of dick cheney's got a cia secret, with her special guest, colonel wilkerson, here is rachel maddow. >> i've got to tell you, i've always been terrified by the idea of mermaids. >> take 15 seconds and explain this to me. why. >> mermaids, i felt like there's something deeply, deeply terrifying about them. everybody else thinks they're mystical and nice, i always felt threatened by the idea of mermaids. i'm with brownback on this. >> huh! >> thanks, keith. >> you're welcome. >> all right. well, most awkward segue ever. thanks for tuning in. colonel lawrence wilkerson will be here this hour to help us try to unravel the mystery of what

exactly dick cheney was up to with the cia program that he allegedly directed should be hidden from congress. there's also incriminating news tonight about governor mark sanford. there's some stunning news about senator john ensign of nevada. and there's some outrageous news about goldman sachs. elizabeth warren will be here with us this hour as well. that's all coming up. but we begin tonight with what is starting to feel like the jeff sessions show, even though it's supposed to be the confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor. in the absence of any real drama, suspense about whether or not judge sotomayor will actually be confirmed to the supreme court, sort of seems like an unavoidable conclusion that she will, the hearings are instead turning into a showcase for the senate, rather than a showcase for her. the republican opposition to judge sotomayor is still steering largely clear of her judicial record, except for one case, republicans have characterized as a pro-affirmative action ruling and they're criticizing that one a lot.

beyond that, the opening statements and questions from the committee, seven republicans, and particularly from their leader, jeff sessions, have been much more revealing of the political beliefs of republican senators than they have been of the judicial beliefs or temperament of this nominee. who you will be surprised to hear is not a person named miguel estrada. >> we would have picked miguel estrada. >> miguel estrada would have been a u.s. circuit judge today. >> i had a letter earlier from miguel estrada. >> a brilliant lawyer. >> a honduran immigrant. >> i'm puzzled as to why mr. estrada keeps coming up. >> we would have all voted for him. >> the miguel estrada case. >> i don't think anybody on that side would have voted for mr. estrada. >> mr. estrada is not the nominee here. >> no, mr. estrada is not the nominee. he was rejected by the senate after george w. bush nominated him for a federal judgeship.

like lots of other people were rejected by the senate after being nominated by george w. bush. dozens of people, in fact. so why is he the one they keep bringing up? among all the many failed george w. bush nominees, what is it about miguel estrada in particular that warrants so much comparison from the republicans of him and sonia sotomayor? hmm. a mystery. maybe this next revealing moment from the hearings today will provide us a clue. >> the circuit voted and you voted not to reconsider the prior case. you voted to stay with the decision of the circuit. and in fact, your vote was the key vote. had you voted with judge cabranes, himself of puerto rican ancestry, had you voted with him, you could have changed that case. >> i'm sorry, what's relevant about judge cabranes in this decision?

>> judge cabranes, himself of puerto rican ancestry -- >> do you see the important point that jeff sessions has just drilled down to here? it's very subtle. >> judge cabranes, himself of puerto rican ancestry -- >> okay. you see? judge cabranes is totally puerto rican. so is judge sotomayor. and yet, she did not vote the same way as judge cabranes, the other puerto rican. see what i'm getting at here? yeah. when jeff sessions was himself trying to become a federal judge back in 1986, he at the time, in those confirmation hearings, admitted to calling a white lawyer a, quote, disgrace to his race, because that lawyer represented black clients.

now that same jeff sessions is the republican party's standard bearer on who's qualified to be a judge or not. and he's making very clear what he sees when he looks at a nominee like judge sonia sotomayor, what about her most predicts how she would vote as a judge in his mind. who he sees as her peers, the appropriate people to compare her to. >> miguel estrada case. i said i had a letter earlier from miguel estrada. he was nominated by president bush. had you voted with judge cabranes, himself of puerto rican ancestry, had you voted with him, you could have changed that case. >> there was a moment today that was not just about race, though. senator sessions did go out on a limb today and suggest that judge sotomayor could also be compared, unfavorably, of course, to another female judge. and in so doing, we got today's inadvertently revealing republican moment number three. >> i believe in judge cedarbaum's formulation. and she said, and you disagreed, and this was really the context of your speech, and you used her

harsh statement as sort of a beginning of your discussion, and you said, she believes that a judge, and no matter what their gender or background, should strive to reach the same conclusion, and she believes that's possible. you then argued that you don't think it's possible in all, maybe even most cases. >> one rule of thumb when you're choosing someone to be your ally against somebody else, make sure your chosen ally agrees with you. and isn't say, sitting in the hearing room in support of the person you're trying to use them to attack. >> my friend, judge cedarbaum is here this afternoon, and we are good friends, and i believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual

case and applying the law to those facts. >> in fact, judge sotomayor's one-time mentor and long-time friend, judge miriam cedarbaum, was in the hearing room. she then tag teamed that attempted jeff session's smackdown by telling "the wall street journal," quote, i don't believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging and her personal predilections have no effect on her approach to judging. we would both like to see more women on the court, which i guess means senator jeff sessions should stop quoting that particular judge as a means of attacking judge sotomayor. the sotomayor hearings are expected to go on for two more days, which may or may not mean two more days of republican party public implosion on the issue of race. joining us now is dolly elittwick, senior editor for slate.com. she's been covering the nomination hearings from washington. thanks for coming back on the show tonight? >> thanks for having me. >> you got to watch these rounds of questions in person today.

yesterday you said after opening statements that it seemed like the opposition strategy against sotomayor was really in a basic sense, about issues of race. was it day two about that today? >> a lot of it really was. i was surprised, actually, how many times we heard the "wise latina woman" came up. i thought we would go to that well once, maybe twice. we went there many, many times today. and many, many times, what we were told is, sure, you have this impressive 17-year record as a judge and we can't find much to complain about, but here's what we know. we know that your speech, your "wise latina" speech somehow gives us a truer sense of who you really are instead of that entire record. so it's trying to bifurcate who she's holding herself out to be and who she really is because of this one sentence. it's interesting. it's sort of a way of framing of it is this is the real issue and everything else is just kind of wallpaper. >> i was happy today, though,

because there were a few questions about sotomayor's judicial record other than the ricci case, a few questions that weren't about speeches. senator grassley asked her about eminent domain. senator kyl asked her about a second amendment case. what were those lines of questioning like. did those raise substantiative issues without a good back and forth? >> they were both very funny colloquies, rachel. because in both cases, you have her record, which is pretty modest in both the gun case and the taking case they talked about. she didn't get to the big issues, she looked at a much narrower issue. so in both these cases, you have grassley saying to her, why didn't you get to the big issue from the famous connecticut eminent domain case, why didn't you get to that? and she would say, the guy didn't file his appeal on time. it was an issue of statute of limitations. i didn't have to get to the big constitutional question. same thing in the guns case. you have this angry, angry

republican saying to her -- orrin hatch is saying, why didn't you get to this big, huge issue in heller. why didn't you get to whether the second amendment is incorporated against the states. and she said, well, because the supreme court told me not to. in heller, the supreme court expressly said, we're not getting to this issue so i'm not going to get to this issue. you have this weird inversion where they're like, why aren't you more activist, judge sotomayor, and it was sort of surreal, when they do get to her cases, it's to say, you shouldn't be so humble and modest. that's so john roberts. >> well, watching on tv today, even though there's sort of a foregone conclusion, this is riveting. it's a supreme court nomination, and the way it's covered on tv, you get close-ups of sotomayor at the table, the witness table, and close-ups of the senators while they're talking, and you can get into the drama back and forth. but i wonder, you've been there in person, and seeing who all is in the room, not just who's talking at any one second, does that give all of this a different feel? either the combativeness that we

saw especially, for example of lindsey graham today and jon kyl today, or specifically the talk about race and prejudice. does it have sort of a different feeling when you're in the room? >> i'm glad you asked that. i have the sense that this is playing really different at home than it is in the room. because you need to understand, the first couple of rows behind her, you can probably see this on tv, they are her family, they're her supporters, they're her friends. there are a lot of people who are not white men sitting directly behind her. and there are many, many reporters, for instance, who are only hispanic reporters, working for hispanic publications. and so things that might play really well if you were just talking to joe the plumber or sarah palin, just kind of elicit a little bit of a sense of a bridge too far. and i thought her little exchange with lindsey graham, where he was saying, you're a big bully, and i don't think like bully judges, and telling her that maybe she needed a little time for reflection and sort of just the very, you go to

time out, young lady, and really think about your "wise latina" comments, the way it played, at least, among the people around me was like, huh? do you really want to go there? so i don't know. i think graham did what he had to do and he does it with his buttermilk smile and he's so sweet and lovely that he can get away with it. but i don't know that they understand that they just can't talk to joe the plumber anymore. >> chief legal correspondent and senior editor at slate.com and our connection to the hearings today, on these last couple of shows, thanks very much for joining us, dahlia. really appreciate it. have you noticed this week that we haven't heard beep from former vice president dick cheney. after doing interviews with every conceivable news outlet not named "the rachel maddow show," the former vice president has been very, very quiet since it has been alleged in washington this week that he

personally ordered that congress not be informed about some post-9/11 program that is yet to be described. colonel wilkerson was secretary of state during the bush administration. he'll join us next to talk about this story. my biggest pain's really in my lower back. feels kind of like knives. aleve works all day on my back pain. only two aleve liquid gels can stop pain all day. that would take twice as many advil or ibuprofen. aleve allows me to get through my work day. ♪ she does. obviously they do. ♪ oh, and her.

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it has now been five full days since we first got news that the cia had been operating some sort of secret program that it was actively hiding from the congress. it had been three days since that allegation that the cia was hiding that program at the direction of former vice

president dick cheney, in what would appear to be a direct violation of federal law. since the story broke, there has been lots of speculation about what the secret program was that cheney didn't want congress to know about. and while all the speculation is really titillating and makes for great headlines, it does seem, when you start to look more closely at it, that there's something not quite right here. at least something as is yet unexplained. here's what we've seen. "newsweek" says cia squads to track and kill al qaeda terrorists. "the wall street journal" says, the program was looking for ways to capture or kill al qaeda chieftains. "new york times" says cia had planned to assassinate al qaeda leaders. liz cheney, her own very special voice of america, described the program as ways that we could capture or kill al qaeda leaders. the reason that doesn't make sense is because this strategy of capturing and killing top leaders of al qaeda, it's not exactly classified.

it's not exactly a secret plan. that's the war on terror. that's the war on terror strategy we heard articulated again and again and again by the bush administration. >> we have been chasing down al qaeda ever since they attacked us. we've captured or killed two-thirds of their known leaders. hundreds of taliban and al qaeda fighters have been captured or killed. two-thirds of known al qaeda leaders have been captured or killed. >> capturing or killing members of al qaeda, it's not some secret operation. it's essentially the simplest construction of the whole idea of the war on terror. so this secretive "don't tell anyone" program that leon panetta shut down immediately upon learning of it last month had to be something other than just capturing and killing members of al qaeda. was it capturing and killing them in inconvenient countries, like countries we are allies with? well, technically, pakistan is our great ally in the war on terror, but we kill people there on a really regular basis.

for example, june 23rd, u.s. drone fires more missiles into pakistan. july 4th, u.s. drone attacks said to kill 17 at taliban outposts in pakistan. july 8th, u.s. drone attack kills 12 in northwest. how many times have you read headlines about drone attacks killing pakistani civilians while we were targeting al qaeda suspects in that country? if killing al qaeda suspects inside the borders of our ally, pakistan, doesn't even make the front section of the newspaper anymore, then a plan to kill al qaeda suspects inside the borders of other countries hardly seems like something that would stop the presses in washington the way that this program has and that would send the director of the cia all but sprinting to congress after calling the program off as soon as he heard about it. joining us now is retired army colonel lawrence wilkerson. he's former chief of staff for secretary of state colin powell. he served during the first term of the bush administration.

colonel wilkerson, thank you very much for coming back on the show. nice to see you. >> thank you, rachel. >> we've heard all this speculation, all these leaks about what this program might have been. you were there in the first term of the bush administration. does any of this ring any bells in terms of what you knew about at the time? >> it does ring some bells. we, very early on, after 9/11, at the state department, learned from our ambassadors in the field that there were teams being dispatched to their cities, to their countries, and these teams were clandestine and essentially aimed at capturing al qaeda leaders or al qaeda affiliates and interrogating them and so forth. so the fact that it might have gravitated over to the cia or the cia might have joined in, which is something that happens a lot these days with delta force and other special operators is no surprise to me. but i take your same surprise, isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? what i suspect has happened is what began to happen while i was still in the government, and

that was we're killing the wrong people. and we're killing the wrong people in the wrong countries. and the countries are finding out about it, or at least there was a suspicion that the countries might find out about it, and so it was shut down. that's my strong suspicion. >> when you, at the time, attempted to find out what was going on or at least to get answers to these ambassadors that you were hearing from around the world, how much were you able to find out about who these operators were, what their goals were and who might have been running that program? >> at the time, secretary powell, of course, called dr. rice, the national security adviser and got virtually nowhere, so wound up calling secretary rumsfeld. and after some hemming and hawing, which was rumsfeld's forte, he finally admitted that he had dispatched some of these teams. i don't think he sent them to the horn of africa, probably to afghanistan and pakistan, he

probably sent them to indonesia, southeast asia in general, and he was after every one from abu zooif to al qaeda. they were taking on every terrorist they could get their hands on. i don't think we ever knew the full range of his deployments. and in most cases, i think it was delta force. it was probably directly through the special operations command commander in tampa, didn't go through the regional commanders. in other words, they didn't know it was happening either. didn't go through the ambassadors, didn't even go through the cia station chief, until later when i believe the cia became involved in it, and then, of course, it became both a military and an intelligence agency operation. >> the whole reason why this has turned into a huge story is because of the claims from people with knowledge of what happened inside those intelligence committee meetings at the end of june that leon panetta came in and said, i didn't know about this program until 4 1/2 months into my tenure at the cia. it is now over and it was kept

from congress overtly on direct orders from vice president cheney. we are told that's what leon panetta said, so there is a degree of hearsay, but it seems to be confirmed by multiple sources. if we're talking about delta force operators, military personnel doing this sort of thing, how does it fit in that dick cheney would be ordering the cia not to tell congress about it? that's the part i don't get. >> well, i think that's pretty clear. if you know the history of the cia, you know that presidents have told the cia to do things since 1947 that the cia then lied to congress about. it's laughable that the cia has never lied to congress. they lie to congress on a routine basis. it's part of their portfolio. however, it's usually the president. in fact, i don't say usually, it's always been the president who directs the cia to do these things and then takes the fall if like eisenhower sending u2s over the soviet union, suddenly gary powers is shot down and

eisenhower's plans and his activities are revealed and he has to take the blame for it. this is unprecedented now. we have a vice president who has apparently authorized these activities, whether or not the president knew or not is anyone's question. i don't think he probably did. the division of labor in the white house in that first term was cheney gets everything that's important and i get everything that's easy, if i am bush. so cheney was making most of the national security decisions, most of the domestic decisions that mattered, and he was certainly making most of the decisions that involved lethal action in the war on terror. >> and the inclination of mr. cheney, as we know, is towards secrecy. that might explain why he felt it had to be overtly kept from congress? >> absolutely. and that's not an uncommon thing, either, as i said, but it's the president that normally direct it and the president who takes the fall. >> i suppose it's immaterial in 1974, president ford issued that executive order banning assassinations by the cia. >> i'm sorry, but predators have

been assassinating people under cia and military guise for some time now. >> it's always both good and tremendously alarming to talk to you, retired army colonel lawrence wilkerson, chief of staff to secretary of state colin powell during the first term of the bush administration, thank you so much for your time tonight, sir. >> thank you, rachel. let's say you're a politician and it became public that your parents paid off your mistress to the tune of $96,000. most people might resign from office at that point. nevada senator john ensign, not most people. we'll have more on that in a moment. [ engine revving ] [ engine powers down ] gentlemen, you booked your hotels on orbitz. well, the price went down, so you're all getting a check thanks. for the difference. except for you -- you didn't book with orbitz, so you're not getting a check. well, i think we've all learned a valuable lesson today.

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coming up, scandal plagues senator john ensign of nevada, has made an odd decision for a u.s. senator. he has announced that he will be running for re-election in 2012, but he will be running with a running mate. his running mate will be the sex, money, and ethics scandal that continues to dog the nevada conservative. new details today including a remarkable statement of nonsupport for the senator from his own political corner in his own home state. that is coming up. but first, it's time for a couple of holy mackerel story in today's news. just how far did still-south carolina governor mark sanford hike up the appalachian trail, so to speak? turns out he went very far. in response to a request made through south carolina's open records law, the paper "the state" has received more than 600 pages of documents related to the time period in which the governor was absent without

leave. in way more detail than we wanted, the documents reveal two damning details in terms of the abdication of responsibility. his chief of staff, scott english, phoned his boss 16 times while the governor was in argentina visiting the woman whom he was having his hike. governor sanford never picked up and those 15 calls were never returned. hope none of those calls was about something important. secondly, governor sanford also chose his extramarital excursion over an opportunity to meet with a company who said it was hoping to expand its operations in south carolina. expand operations at the very least implies create new jobs in south carolina. which kind of makes governor sanford's mid-life love life resuscitation a very specific sort of jobless recovery. we will stay on this story. and in iraq, amid still way

too much violence and a pullback from iraqi cities by u.s. troops, there was a very, very bright spot in iraqi culture last night. it was the return of soccer. last night the iraqi national soccer team played its first home game in baghdad in seven years. until now, the team had had to play out of the country, out of concern for player's safety. and while the home team was actually finally home at last, in baghdad last night, the only visiting team that's thus far been willing to visit iraq to play the iraqis was the palestinians. iraq won the match 4-0. if you want to set your dvr for the next home game, iraq will host tanzania on august 12th. another empathetically overwhelming iraqi sports news for an american audience, i have to tell you that this man is a member of iraq's national baseball team. they have a national baseball team. you will notice that while he is wearing a baseball shirt, it is a baseball shirt from a japanese

team. that's because the iraqi national baseball team does not have enough money to have uniforms. they don't even have enough money to have a copy of the baseball rule book, nor a proper baseball diamond. they play on a soccer field. the national team is so broke the players are playing with a grand total of three baseballs between them, nine old gloves that they share and one five-year-old softball bat. mcclatchy reports today that the iraqi national baseball team was founded a few years ago by three iraqis who had been living in the united states when they took a visit to baghdad. and despite death threats, serious enough to have made the previous baseball club disband, the greatest threat the current team now faces is financial. the iraqi olympic committee refused to budget money for the team, instead giving it a one-time charitable donation that mostly just covers their entrance fees to the international baseball association so they can technically have some hope to have someone to play against if

they can ever get it together. right now the team's major aspiration is to play in a baseball tournament in september that's being held in afghanistan, of all places. right now the major aspiration of the rachel maddow show staff is to figure out how to raise money and figure out the logistics to ship these guys a case of baseballs and a bunch of brand-new gear. we started working on these logistics this afternoon. we haven't totally figured it out, it's complicated, but we will keep you posted.

a most unexpected development today in the sex and money and ethics scandal that continues to engulf republican senator john ensign of nevada. while there remain unanswered questions and unfollowed leads, ensign took a big leap today, announcing that he not only plans not to resign, but that he will also run for re-election three years from now. in an interview with the las vegas sun, senator ensign said, quote, i fully plan on running for re-election. of his supporters, he said, i'm going to work to earn their respect back. senator ensign's process of earning back the respect of nevada voters will, maybe, take some time. after calling on president

clinton to resign for having an affair while he was in office, after calling his senate colleague, larry craig, a disgrace when craig was caught in an airport public sex sting, calling on craig to resign as well, by saying, i wouldn't put myself, hopefully, in that kind of position, but if i was in a position like that, that's what i would do. senator ensign himself admitted to an affair with the wife of his former chief of staff. he then said his mom and dad had given his mistress and her family a gift of $96,000 after senator ensign told his parents about the affair. still unanswered are questions about other cash deals associated with the affair. the national senatorial committee still not apologizing for or commenting on the fact that ensign put the 19-year-old son of his mistress on the republican party's payroll during the time he was sleeping with the young man's mother. he then took the young man on the payroll once the affair ended. also, doug hampton, senator ensign's former top aide and the

husband of his mistress said in an interview that his wife was paid more than $25,000 severance by senator ensign when the senator asked her to leave that job. the payment never turned up on campaign finance disclosure forms. if it did happen and it was paid out of campaign funds, that would be an illegal payment that would put the senator on the hook for up to five years in prison. and there are still unanswered questions about the nearly $100,000 cash payoff to the mistress and her family from ensign's mom and dad. according to ensign's lawyer, quote, senator john ensign's parents each made gifts to doug hampton, cindy hampton, and two of their children in the form of a check totaling $96,000. each gift was limited to $12,000. the payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts, and complied with tax rules governing gifts. so the scenario the senator has asked us to believe about that payment is that senator ensign's mom and dad each gave their son's mistress a payment of

$12,000, his mom and dad each also gave the husband of their son's mistress a payment of $12,000, and mom and dad each gave $12,000 payments to two of their son's mistresses three children. if we're expected to believe this wasn't really just one big cash payoff to the mistress, this was a gift to the kids for the kids use, what did the poor third child do to deserve getting left out of the loot? mom and dad got each two $12,000 check, kid one and kid two each got $12,000, but the third child wasn't deserving of money from the parents of mom's secret boyfriend? senator ensign isn't publicly bothered with answering any of these questions. he says he has support from the leadership of both parties in the senate and others are telling him, quote, keep your head up, this thing will pass. that's not exactly what senate minority leader mitchell mcconnell has said about this scandal, addressing it in his

weekly news conference today. >> well, i think senator ensign will have to speak to those issues himself and you can ask him about it. >> when asked again, mr. mcconnell turned around and walked out. republican governor jim gibbons today, in a statement to the rachel maddow show said, quote, i am sure this is a very difficult time for senator ensign and his family. there has been a lot of attention that has been given to this matter and i will not fuel anymore speculation. it's not a statement of condemnation, of course, from the governor, also not a statement of support. meanwhile, we are still unable to get any statement of support for the senator's pledged re-election campaign from either senator john cornyn, head of the national senatorial committee or the lieutenant governor in nevada. but john ensign does say he's running again. i wonder who his chief of staff is going to be. joining us is john rollston.

columnist for "the las vegas sun," and mr. rollston interviewed doug hampton exclusively last week. thanks for coming back on the show. >> hi, rachel. >> you're much closer to this story than i am. you've talked with some of the principals involved. do you believe that there are still some important loose ends to tie up or at least explain here, like the payments from ensign's parents? >> well, of course you're right on about that, rachel. i mean, you just described it and you wonder about the third child. my point on that would be, why should we believe anything that john ensign's lawyer has said? no one has produced canceled checks. doug hampton, as you pointed out an my program said his wife had received more than $25,000, well over. is that the $96,000 he was referring to? was it given to her by john ensign, or was it a pass-through from mike and sharon ensign? were those really gifts? you had the sarcasm that i had, that no one believes this was the generosity of the ensign family.

and if it by some chance was, what other generosity did they show toward the hamptons or other people during john ensign's u.s. senate career? this whole thing is barely worthy of the "jerry springer show," and you haven't even given some of the more sordid details of this, thank god. so why should we believe anything john ensign or his surrogates say about this until he is willing to answer questions and produce the evidence to back up these claims. >> in terms of answering questions and providing evidence, senator ensign has been laying low, obviously. what have been you been able to find in terms of support for senator ensign from other republicans, from other political powers that be in nevada that might make a difference as to his political future? >> there isn't much out there. certainly, publicly. and i've heard from a lot of republican operatives that most of the republican elected officials would rather see him resign, but they're afraid to say it publicly for whatever reasons. i think that the reason that

people in the state and in washington on the republican side are not coming out are what john soon and others have essentially said, they don't know the facts here. they don't know what the next shoe might be that drop ifs there are anymore shoes. john ensign won't answer questions. i'm sure whatever he has said to his colleagues has probably not reassured them, because it's probably very, very vague in general. he pointed out in that "sun" story that he has support from both sides. you mentioned the mitchell mcconnell statement. the question he was asked there, if john ensign is running for re-election, will you support him? and he would not even say he would support john ensign. i think the republicans here, certainly, and probably in washington too, are just scared to say too much because they don't know if the story is over yet. >> senator ensign did say that he is going to be running for re-election, which is, of course, a weird thing to say three years before that election would have to happen. i imagine that was an unexpected announcement, even from the perspective of somebody covering this very closely.

did you know that was coming? do you have any interpretation of that for us? >> i have to tell you, i did not. and lisa has been very intrepid from "the sun" on this. when i saw that, i laughed out loud. who takes anyone seriously when they announce they're running for re-election three years in advance. but think more about it. here is a guy who is essentially saying, if i don't say this, number one, i'm a lame duck and no one's going to pay attention to me. and secondly, really, i think he sees if he says he's not going to run for re-election is some kind of admission of wrongdoing, that he did something wrong, and he's unwilling to say that beyond the fact of the initial statement he made at that press conference weeks ago. i don't think we should take that seriously either. i don't believe he's actually fully engaged, going for re-election. i believe he thinks he has to say that, lest he show some kind of weakness or some admission that something else might be out there. >> and with each passing day, the silence from republican

colleagues gets more and more deafening here. jon rolston, host of "face to face with jon rolston," thanks very much for coming on the show tonight, jon. >> thank you. the investment bank goldman sachs posted huge second quarter earnings of over $3.4 billion. i guess all that tarp money of ours is really paying off, huh? the banking industry is so grateful to the american people that they are making it their top priority to kill president obama's consumer protection program. thanks for all that money. elizabeth warren, the chair of the congressional oversight panel for the tarp fund will be here next. stay tuned. (announcer) it is the most advanced automobile we have ever created. a car that can help awaken its driver if he begins to doze... keep him in his lane if he starts to wander...

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they got $10 billion taxpayer dollars from t.a.r.p., $13 billion taxpayer dollars from aig, and today goldman sachs, the country's most powerful investment bank, or whatever they're calling them now, posted second quarter earnings of over $3.4 billion, an additional $6.7 billion is going to employees of the bank, which puts the average goldman sachs staffer on pace to earn

nearly $1 million each. average. if you average out for the whole company, everybody's making almost a mill. if you average out for the whole company, everybody is making almost a mill. good times! that's a bailout. one might suppose an industry whose near-death were regular people working regular jobs might assess some government regulations to help out the same regular people who helped them, right? of course not right. as wall street bankers count their taxpayer subsidized profits right now, they are fighting one element of the rescue plan specifically intended to protect regular individual americans who don't have comma capital i-n-c period after their name, the consumer financial protection agent system setting standards for mortgages, stopping risky loan practices. in the words of treasury

secretary tim geithner, it has only one mission, to protect consumers. according to "the new york times," the financial industry made killing this project its top priority. joining us now is one of the progenit progenitors of the harvard law professor who suggested the idea of an agency devoted to protecting consumers from industry in 2003. thanks very much for joining us again. >> thank you for having me. >> you suggested this idea of a consumer protection agency six years ago. what would this kind of agency do? what kind of difference would it make in our lives? >> it would make a huge difference doing something small. take typical credit card contract today which is typically 30 pages long. in 1980 it was about 1 1/2 pages long. that additional 28 pages is mostly full of tricks and tracks. that's the point. the pricing model shifted from should i lend to these people because i think they'll pay me

back over to, we'll hold out an interest rate and a free gift and an advertisement about how warm and fuzzy it is to do business with us and put what the industry calls revenue-enhancers in the back. that means all the tricks and traps and fees and penalties. that's where the big profits come from. what this agency would say, in effect is, no, we are going to go back to agreements people can read. there is going to be a plain vanilla off-the-shelf for most people, 1 1/2 pages credit card agreement. the company can fill in its interest rate or penalty rate or what triggers the penalty, but you can make comparisons and say that's the cheapest one. that is the dangerous one. that's how much my free gift is costing me. the idea really is to make this stuff clear and let consumers make choices.

that's not going to be so profitable for the industry. >> are you worried the industry is going to be able to kill this in the crib? reporting is it's their top priority to get rid of it. >> my gosh, i have to tell you, it's like they are stampeding in the walls in washington. the gucci loafers. these guys built up a huge war chest. they've been interviewing public relations firms to see who can come up with the next harry and louise ad to explain to people why they're better off with credit cards nobody can read, hundreds of pages of mortgage documents that nobody can read. the idea is you're better off with how things are. forget all the stuff that happened over the last few years. we promise to keep things up just like we did before. i can't believe they are trying to sell that to the american people. >> professor warren, when you look at the relationship between

these bailed out firms and their political agenda, do you think there's a case to be made that they have an ethical responsibility, essentially to protect consumers, since it was regular american consumers to bailed them out? >> i won't go to a ethical responsibility to protect them. i just want a level playing field. i really do. i'm not even asking that they have to be extra protective. i'm just saying, look, if you can't explain it so the person on the other side can understand it, you shouldn't sell it to them. the bottom line is, you need to explain your product in a way that's clear to the customer so the customer can compare one product to another. the reality is that's going to push down profits in that industry and leave more money in the hands of middle-class families. i don't see how you fight them. i genuinely, truly don't. what argument do you say we want to continue our tricks and traps pricing and you're going to love it?

>> we're about to see it. elizabeth warren, chair of the congressional oversight panel on t.a.r.p. wish we had more time with you. great to have you on the show. >> you bet. >> on "countdown," who is protecting us from dreaded mermaids and animals. announcer: what's your cialis moment?

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