we're back with pat buchanan and gene robinson. this question. what makes you think, pat, this woman is unqualified? unfiled to get into princeton, unqualified to serve on the court. you're going through the whole situation here. >> she said herself she was an affirmative action baby her whole life. that she didn't get the grades. >> her words. >> her words. >> okay. >> she also said, look. in college i had to read classic children's books in order to learn english a little better. she's been advanced her whole career. she got on the yale law review. where are her s.a.t. scores getting into high school and college? where has she written something in the law review? where is an opinion we've seen that's really brilliant? you might disagree with it. >> what about sarah palin for president? >> sarah palin is accomplished on her own right. no affirmative action there, boy. she didn't get any of that treatment. >> pat, that is just a total

misreading and misunderstanding of what affirmative action is. i realize you say it as a te jor tiff. i think it's a great thing. i'm an affirmative action baby. guess what? doors were opened for me. i have very good s.a.t.s. >> okay. fine. what i'm saying is somebody gets held back. >> a moment ago i said the high school scores went through the roof. now you say they're irrelevant. >> now days they are. these kids get straight as all the way through. it's a joke. >> all the more reason to open the door to people who are qualified. people who graduate -- >> how do you qualify other than by tests? >> people who graduate suma cum laude from princeton and make the law review are qualified. >> that lady up there with

scalia? come on. >> thank you. join us tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 eastern for more "hardball." "countdown" with keith olbermann starts now. which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? the confirmation hearings? yesterday they confirmed senator session's racism and unpreparedness. today they confirmed senator cornyn's hypocrisy. >> so i want to just start with the comments that you made about the wise latina speech. >> cornyn at the confirmation hearing for chief justice roberts four years ago. >> if we keep asking the same question over and over and over again are you going to give us a different answer? are you going to give us the same answer? >> i hope my answer would be the same, senator. >> and the republicans launch an ad claiming sotomayor, quote, led a group supporting violent

puerto rican terrorists and tries to tie her to obama's buddy bill ayres presumably because those lies worked so well for mccain and palin last november. the president gets the message on health care. screw the republicans. even with the 160 republican amendments the majority expected they won't be allowed to vote for this anyway. >> i hope to have bipartisan support for the final product if people are serious about bipartisanship. the cia secret dick cheney plan. more details. not the assassination of al qaeda leaders but al qaeda supporters. you know, the equivalentes in other countries of the people who say things like this. >> the only chance we have as a country right now is for osama bin laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the united states. >> and keep it zipperedgate. senator ensign may run for re-election anyway. governor sanford is taking time

off from taking time off. he's on vacation hoping to reconcile with the mrs. so, dear, you ever been to argentina? and worse. a surprise for the birth certificate denier who sued claiming obama wasn't really president and thus couldn't legally send him to afghanistan. he had volunteered to go to afghanistan so the military simply said, okay. you don't have to go. end of story. except in civilian life major cooke is reportedly an employee of a pentagon contractor and reportedly the pentagon told the contractor, sorry. he just sued the army. he's not allowed on army properties. so major cooke is reportedly out of work. hoisted on his own petard. all that and more, now on "countdown." good evening from new york. it is the first test they give for insanity. does the patient do the same thing over and over and over

again while still expecting a different result? our fifth story on the "countdown" the republicans lead ofg today at the sonia sotomayor confirmation hearings with more questions about judge sotomayor's wise latina speech. meanwhile in a new ad the right wing attempting to label the supreme court nominee a terrorist sympathizer and a pal once removed of bill ayres. know what else? she didn't earn those medals in vietnam, neither. day three of the confirmation hearings, the republicans on the senate judiciary committee confirming only a clear double standard when it comes to their treatment of judge sotomayor as well as the severe case of amnesia. the nominee at least searching for new ways to explain the historical context of her wise latina remarks. >> as i pointed out in the speech that eight, nine white men had decided brown versus board of education. >> do you stand by your words of yesterday and when you said it was a failed rhetorical flourish that fell flat, that there are words that don't make sense and they're a bad idea? >> i stand by the words.

it fell flat. and i understand that some people have understood them in a way that i never intended. i would hope that in the context of the speech that they would be understood. >> hoping against hope as it turns out. yet in 2005 during the john roberts confirmation hearings, senator cornyn having possessed an entirely different view on how those proceedings were playing out. >> if we keep asking the same question over and over and over again, but try to approach it from a slightly different way, are you going to give us a different answer? >> no. >> or are you going to give us the same answer? i hope my answer would be the same, senator. >> well, i'm sure that's the case. >> senator tom coburn of oklahoma back from his latest run as a fed-ex escort credited with a topic change to aborpgs. since coburn is also an obstetrician one would think or at least hope that dr. coburn

already knew the answer to this completely hypothetical question unless he just happens to have a uterus. >> let's say i'm 38 weeks' pregnant and we discover a small spina bifida sack on the lower part of the back on my baby and i feel like i just can't handle a child with that. would it be legal in this country to terminate that child's life? >> i can't answer that question in the abstract because i would have to look at what the state of the state ae's law was on th question and even if i knew that i probably couldn't apply it because i'm sure that situation might well arise before the court. >> by the time senator coburn had judge sotomayor trying to explain whether the second amendment con fers a right to personal self-defense things seem to have entered into would any jury really blame her territory. senator coburn somehow morphing

into ricky ricardo. >> if i go home, get a gun, come back and shoot you, that may not be legal under new york law because you would have alternative ways to defend -- >> you'd have lots of explaining to do. >> i'd be in a lot of trouble then. >> a subtle ethnic drop there, senator. the most junior member of the judiciary committee, senator franken of minnesota, revealed he liked the old perry mason tv show nearly as much as judge sotomayor did. she said she was inspired by it. in his questions senator franken touching on a topic he raised in his opening statement on monday, the concept of judicial activism. >> judge, what is your definition of judicial activism? >> i don't use that word because that's something different than what i consider to be the process of judging, which is each judge coming to each situation trying to figure out what the law means and applying it to the particular facts before that judge. >> no reports of boss limbaugh's

head actually exploding at the sight of senator franken action the sotomayor hearings taking enough toll on his sanity as it was with his accusing the democrats of having given their questions to judge sotomayor in advance because she's so smooth when answering their questions but she stumbles when answering those of the republicans. maybe that might have something to do with the relative absurdity of the republicans' questions. boss limbaugh also having decried the minority mindset of the nominee declaring he had to turn the hearings off because judge sotomayor, quote, was scary. for three entire days judge sotomayor appearing calm and composed, which certainly would scare any racist or certainly somebody who's both. speaking of scary, in a new ad a group defended by the ranking committee chair, that ad accusing judge sotomayor of supporting terrorists if not actually being a terrorist herself solely because she belongs to a main stream civil rights organization that protects latinos from discrimination.

>> remember barack obama's buddy bill ayres? the unrepentant terrorist who bombed american buildings in the '70s? turns out president obama as done it again, picked someone for the supreme court, judge sonia sotomayor, who led a group supporting violence, puerto rican terrorists. is this the type of judge america needs sitting on our highest court? what is he thinking? what was she thinking? call your senators. tell them to stop sonia sotomayor. >> we'll bring in our mnls political analyst and author of "renegade the making of a president" richard wolffe. good evening. >> i'll try not to be scary keith. >> thank you very much. you pal of somebody you. assuming the ad has no direct connection to any republican senators in the hearing room particularly in the light of the fact of recent actual domestic terrorism, george tiller, other cases, don't those senators bear some responsibility for something that coarse when they fail to denounce it? >> let's put the so-called ad in context. as far as we know there was no ad by so this is a blatant

attempt to jump up and down and get attention. secondly yes we don't know that republican senators are involved. no one senior in the party is involved. thirdly, it's pretty dumb and outdated politics. it didn't work in 2006. it certainly didn't work in 2008. having said all of that, they are following the script that senator sessions laid out at the top of these confirmation hearings. sotomayor hangs out with terrorists. well, he says that she ruled in favor of terrorists. she ruled in favor of foreign law and the u.n. and she basically was barely american and would look just after ethnic interests. it's not really about her. none of this has been. this is the campaign, a strong, vocal wing of the party using pretty slick professional operatives between now and the mid term. it's ugly. >> the point of it as you suggest, is there one besides going after the president on

this? because the transparency is the thing at least outside the confines of the hearing, in the limbaugh remarks here, is it fun for these people or cathartic to call sotomayor words like "scary" when really, you know, it might be more accurate to describe her as thorough and methodical in her answers as opposed to scary? >> well, i think being someone called by none other than rush limbaugh as a dunce, and he also said my book was a failure after six weeks on the best seller list. that is nothing compared to what he is doing on this and so many other things. what is scary is the semi-detached relationship with reality they have. i'm sure he is feeding his own newer ow newer -- neurosis and satisfying a big audience. it's building on paranoia which

i think glenn beck has taken to a different level which is that they are some sort of isolated cult and only they know the truth and everybody else out there is crazy. it reminds me of the cartoon. maybe it's the rest of the herd that's wrong. >> i don't mean to digress but in the book were there enough pictures of naked women or lunch meat? is that perhaps the issue? >> my eyes are burning. >> as for this nominee's presentation and her demeanor we would expect her to be cautious but is there something here that seems sort of reminiscent of the president who did nominate her that when she approaches her views, when she articulates her approach, she sounds, in fact, anything but radical? was that perhaps the reason he went in this direction for the first nominee? >> yeah, i think that he had slotted her into place in his mind in a very short list in the late stages of the campaign because of temperament, because of character, because of intellect and, look, for

whatever her sympathy, whatever people on the republicans side think her empathys are, 17 years of rulings and opinions from the bench show her to be incredibly well reasoned and considered and respectful of the law. you may disagree with where she came out on some of her opinions, but she has been a measured judge by any sense of the word. so i think there is something that appeals to a politician like obama, someone who obviously is a democrat, has taken centrist positions and centrist statements. it's about character. it's also about positioning with regards to the law. he did used to teach the law. >> i noted yesterday that the republicans might be witnessing a different kind of confirmation than the one that was on the schedule here that senator sessions was confirming how ill prepared he was and basically how stupid he was when he talked about hispanic judges as if they all dished out one kind of law. today what was this with senator cornyn going back to wise latina? did he forget his own withering remarks to roberts about others

repeating the same question four years ago? was he not there yesterday? did he not get a transcript sent to his office? what the heck? >> well, i think they exhausted the line of questioning after about the first hour or two, but, look. this is pretty crude ethnic politics. yes, they're trying to play the victim card. although again, none of them can point, none of her critics can point to any area of the law where she has abused white folks in any way. the limited amount of rulings there are about affirmative action was done in a panel. it was done according to the test. i think they're on very thin ice and they expended all their ammunition in the first day. >> richard wolffe of msnbc and author of the best seller "renegade." many thanks, richard. >> thank you, keith. light bulb, president's head, click. illumination. the efforts of mr. obama sustained bipartisanship on health care reform. well intentioned, admirable and today finally mercifully and when the other party is owned by lobbyists inevitably,

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republicans get 160 of their amendments to the health care reform bill approved and still none of them may vote for the bill. like they own their own vote i know instead of merely borrowing it from the lobbyists. has obama finally bailed out on bipartisanship on this? later the dick cheney assassination swat teams not meant for al qaeda but for al qaeda supporters. and at worst now it proves there was a network news correspondent, implying he would be softer on the run away governor than a rival had been if only he could get an exclusive with the run away governor. you're watching "countdown" on msnbc. well, this is new... i'm working on my digestive health. whatcha eatin'? yoplus. it's a yogurt for digestive health. it's delicious. here... blackberry pomegranate. honey, i can't find my hand. (announcer) yoplus has the special combination of... fiber plus... special cultures... plus the delicious taste of yoplait.

with the sotomayor confirmation all but certain health care reform taking center stage at the white house today on our fourth story of the "countdown" the obama administration finally pushing bishopship aside challenging republicans to get onboard or get out of the way. with the senate health education, labor and pensions committee today passing a health care reform package to join one passed yesterday the president in the afternoon news conference chiding those who said reform would not happen and adding that work has just begun. >> to the nay sayers and cynics still doubting that we can do this, it wasn't too long ago that those same nay sayers doubted we'd be able to make real progress on health care reform. this progress should make us hopeful but it can't make us complacent. it should instead provide the urgency for both the house and senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the august recess. >> then president obama citing overwhelming public support for reform telling congress now it's up to you dudes.

>> it a's now up to us. we can do what we've done for so long and defer tough decisions for another day or we can step up and meet our responsibilities. in other words we can lead. >> with the senate legislation coming out of committee on a strict party line vote, no republicans vote forgue it, even though the gop added 160 amendments to it chief of staff rahm emanuel carving out a narrow definition of bipartisanship now. at the end of the day the test isn't whether they voted for it. the test is whether the final product represented some of their ideas. i think it will. but the president's top political strategist david axelrod warnings republicans the search for bipartisanship support is ending. we'd like to do it with the votes of members of both parties but the worst result would be not to get health care reform done. meanwhile the republicans warning of the dangers of a purely partisan bill. mitch mcconnell saying from the senate americans want us to work together on proposals that are likely to garner strong bipartisan support. and from republican minority leader john boehner in the house, predictable scare tactics. what this is going to do is ration care, limit the choices patients and doctors have, and really decrease the quality of

our health care system. let's turn now to lawrence o'donnell, msnbc political analyst, huffington post contributor, former chief of staff of the senate finance committee. thanks for your time tonight, sir. >> good to be here, keith. >> what is the plus for republicans if they continue to stay on the sidelines and reform gets passed and i mean in asking that besides the fact that they will continue to be afforded sustenance by their insurance and pharma overlords? >> well, they get to disown unpopular parts of these bills. these bills have extremely unpopular pieces in them. for example a very big medicare cuts are being used or contemplated to be used in order to pay for the rest of the reforms. also, three new top tax brackets just invented by the house of representatives. i can't think of a republican who's going to want to vote for that. and as well as an 8%, basically a doubling of the payroll tax on businesses. so that's what you're going to hear from republicans. we don't want any part of that and we're going to stay away from that. they will be harping on that

nonstop. they've got an agenda here that will make sense to republican voters when they're standing in opposition to this. >> mr. emanuel has suggested democrats might use the reconciliation process to push this through, simple majority votes. is that a message to republicans or the blue dog democrats? who is it intended for? >> it is a message to both and to liberal democrats who desperately want to do it this way. they're tired of any maneuver toward republicans. what's happened at this point, keith, is they can see the shape of the bill from the white house. the senate can see the shape of the bill. it's going to be just about impossible to get republican votes on these bills and what's likely to come out of the senate will also probably be impossible for republicans. and so they're really just facing the reality of what the policies in the bill are likely to get in terms of support. >> did the president finally say no moss here or did a preset timing run out for the republicans or what happened? >> i think the timing is about

right. they knew what the white house schedule was. they knew what the markup schedule was in the house and in the senate. so they've timed the president's strong entry into this subject at exactly when you need it. he needs to push votes, democratic votes, in the house ways and means committee, as these bills are getting marked up, energy and commerce committee, also the senate finance committee which has yet to take action. the senate finance committee is always the place where the real shape of the bill begins because that's where the reality is. for example in the senate committee that passed one today, they have no jurisdiction over taxation or medicaid. they have medicaid pieces in that bill that came out of that committee totally irrelevant because they have no jurisdiction. we have to see what the senate finance committee does. they're struggling to find a way to pay for this that will appeal not just to republicans but will appeal to all of the members, the democratic members of that committee. that is a very tough thing to do right now. that's where the problem is. >> are there problems, also, you mentioned reconciliation as the process by which this would get passed, perhaps. are there political ramifications for that? are there dangers, land mines in

this, too? >> there are no longer political dangers in it because it's pretty clear you're not going to be able to get republicans on this bill but there are procedural dangers. there are pieces of this bill that could be ruled irrelevant and therefore struck out of the bill if it goes through the reconciliation process. now, the way you can overrule that is with the magical 60 votes of the senate in which you can do anything you want. so the democrats may be able to get this through reconciliation and may be able to keep it intact because of the al franken 60th vote. >> irony abounds. lawrence o'donnell of huffington post and msnbc, always great thanks. >> thanks. somewhere the late actor gordon jump is smiling. as god is my witness i thought feminine hygiene products could fly. we'll explain. and should you really be making fun of somebody else's first name if your own first name is a sin nic synonym for a drug high? worst persons ahead.

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the best in a moment and the hamas claim that the israelis are now attacking them with chewing gum. on this date in 1815 emperor napoleon not five months after escaping his banishment surrendered to the british and was sent to another island st. helena. let's play "oddball."

can't even say oddball. we begin at a different shore in the netherland where it was sunny with a chance of showers of feminine hygiene products. this was the scene at six dutch beaches. thousands of you know parachuting from an airplane. some landed in the water becoming tampon pontoons. the company hopes it will help move product even if dutch environmentalists were not sold on the whole idea. as to the men on the beach they were a little bit more aggressive about grabbing the freebies overjoyed that meant they wouldn't have to face the clerk in the checkout line. near tel aviv where the giraffe has given birth to her 11th baby today. well not all today. she is 20 years old and has been producing cavs since she was five. she now holds the unofficial world record for giving birth to baby giraffes. just call her the hendeka mom. the zoo says her parenting is

thanks to the fact she is the only adult female in her herd. it's nice to have an exclusivity deal. as for her children eight still live at home. the other three have moved out to get jobs at toys r' us. an update from pittsburgh on the building that has allegedly been flashing the word pittsburgh in morse code every night for 80 years. we told you monday the building was misspelling the name of the city pitetsbkrrh. here's the visual proof. the red bulb to the right of your screen shot by pittsburgher tom stapleton. we also told you the building owners said they would change the signal and they have. as of yesterday the spelling has gotten worse. also from tom stapleton this is the grant building now spelling pittsburgh tpebtsaurgh. either they do not know what they're doing or they're warning airplanes about flying dinosaurs. speaking of which, dick cheney

was not trying to assassinate al qaeda. he was trying to assassinate al qaeda supporters. and he got into trouble by going on vacation so the governor has gone on vacation? senator cassanova is seeking re-election? these stories ahead but first the best persons in the world. dateline st. louis, number three, best unintentional presidential second. at the baseball all-star game president obama asked pitcher tim wakefield of the american league and boston red sox how he threw his famous knuckleball pitch. turns out this is not the first time a president has quizzed a knuckleballer not even the first time a president has quizzed a red sox knuckleballer. peter morris who might be baseball's foremost historian reports that on april 29th, 1910, the red sox visited the white house. the 27th president and also noted baseball fanatic william howard taft was told that boston's eddie seacot threw a knuckleball. what is this knuckleball, taft asked, examining his hands according to a report in "the boston globe."

nothing very much, the player answered, nine years before he was banished from baseball. dateline bar harbor, maine number two best nonviolent response to a criminal. the homeowner accosted by a man named scott who had broken into his house. the homeowner offered the thief a beer as an inducement to get him to leave. he left. little did he know that was a nonalcoholic beer. and dateline gaza city, number one best war crime allegation. spokesman islam shahwan of hamas who has told the press he has evidence that the israeli intelligence services are distributing aphrodesiacs to young palestinians in the gaza strip in order to, quote, corrupt the young. some in drops. some in chewing gum. wait. i think we have video of the distribution don't we? [ speaking in other language ]

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with the top democrat and the top republican on the house intelligence committee now supporting an investigation into the cia hit squads, and whether vice president cheney concealed their existence from congress, it's time to look at what we know about the bush-cheney assassination teams. our third story tonight how bush, cheney, and rumsfeld gave themselves the luxury of total secrecy free from congressional oversight, still failed to get osama bin laden or roll up al qaeda, and instead screwed up not one but two assassination attempts. that we know of. here then in our third story what we do know. on september 11, 2001, the cia already had a list of high value al qaeda targets. "the washington post" reporting that the agency's counterterrorism center chief of operations suggested creating hit teams to take out those targets in the middle east, africa, and europe. on september 17th, 2001, president bush signed a presidential finding allowing the cia to kill or capture al

qaeda members anywhere in the world. james risen's 2006 book stated the cia created a paramilitary unit code name box top to go around the world and target terrorists. box top began training but was disbanded, quote, the agency's top management got cold feet over the prospect of turning the paramilitary unit loose. the former senior u.s. intelligence official telling nbc news tonight the cia director tenet killed the program in 2004 in part because of a lack of targets. from "the washington post", quote, some officers worried the cia would not be very adept at assassination. we would probably shoot ourselves another former senior cia official said. not so at the pentagon. the british newspaper "the guardian" reporting the military picked up the assassination ball and sent killing teams into the field. where they actually killed people. "the guardian" reports several assassinations. al qaeda? presumably. but not exclusively. possibly. american conservative magazine reporting, quote, the secret cia

program involving a dick cheney coverup consisted of dispatching assassination teams to various countries to kill individuals who were known to be -- al qaeda? no. al qaeda supporters. the first hit attempt was in kenya, was botched, and the delta forces had to be bailed out by the ambassador who had not been briefed on what was going on under his nose. james risen, 2006, quote, members of an operational support element team, rumsfeld's euphemism for hit squads, working in latin america, killed a man outside a bar. the american personnel then failed to report the incident to the u.s. embassy for several days. the incident has never been made public. time to bring in jack rice, former cia officer himself who has since become both journalist and document aryan. welcome back, sir. >> always a pleasure. >> we find ourselves with a lot of questions about why this moved from cia to pentagon. we know the white house had turned former military when cia interrogators refused to use their methods. is it possible the same transferrance thing happened here or just that cheney and

rumsfeld wanted the secrecy they would gain from the laws giving them greater leeway for the military covert ops as opposed to the cia ops? >> well, i think rumsfeld was a bit of a control freak anyway and i think if he had his choice he would have found a way to absorb both the cia and maybe state department inside the pentagon anyway so the fact he decided he wanted this done inhouse isn't exactly shocking. is it? >> no. reporting here, james rice, they had special ops taking lead in afghanistan, wanted his own hit squads all over the globe, lines up with what you said. apparently he got them but he and cheney and bush still failed to get bin laden, still failed to knock out al qaeda, and killed two people in these murky and questionable circumstances. yet this was the administration of military competence? >> yes. this really says something doesn't it? it has to make you feel good when you realize all the things we missed doing, all the failures that took place. the biggest part of this for the american people was this was all done in our names.

and so every failure that was created caused an entire blood feud for every family that was ultimately murdered here who's now stepping up and trying to find ways to go after americans who are in the field. great. we're feeling pretty good about that, aren't we? >> in addition to reporting that targets included al qaeda supporters, "the american conservative magazine" also says the cia plan was to use fake passports, smuggle weapons even into friendly countries, using diplomatic pouches. is it possible that even this, you know, amount of cloak and dagger was too much for the cia? >> we're starting to wonder. when you look at the number of failures here. then of course what you're doing is sort of comparing the competency of what happens at the pentagon versus what happens at langley. right now they're sort of fighting for the bottom slot. i don't think anybody necessarily wants to be there but when you're debating on which one is doing a worse job it's a scary place to be, for us i mean. >> yeah. the person who first killed this program was george tenet in 2004. that's pretty much established.

but senator bond i guess reverting a little bit to james bond here, he is the ranking republican on the intelligence committee, he asked "the washington post" yesterday about panetta killing it, quote, why would you cancel it if the cia were tryi weren't trying to do something like this we'd be asking why not? do we have to in turn wonder if he had been briefed on this he might have kepd this alive and somehow made it successful? >> you would really wonder don't you? in the end what's really sad is this has become political. everybody is trying to find some angle to say it was the other party's fault. that's really the problem here. this goes back to george tenet for sure. certainly. and it goes through every other cia director since. so the failures continue. if this had been briefed in the first place, could this have been a better operation? could this have been a more successful operation? could this have been a more effective operation? how about this hypothetically? we could actually not kill the wrong people. maybe if we killed the right people that wouldn't be such a bad idea. and actually if we did it by the law maybe that's the best idea of all.

>> the last point that keeps striking me on this, i keep bringing it up, people go oh, that's not important. the seymour hersh hint at a story he mentioned earlier in the year at the university of minnesota that there was a secret cheney assassination team that operated through the pentagon, through special operations inside the military and that it involved sending in asassins around the world and not letting station chiefs know, not letting the cia in on it. is it possible that he was running two at once or are we talking about the same thing, snapshots of which have been taken at different times in history? >> it's a really good question. i'm not a bad fan of cy hersh. i've interviewed him a couple times myself. these are quarantined in special spotson never really know. if one side doesn't know what the other side is doing, if the diplomats don't know, the ambassador doesn't know, the

station chiefs don't know and you send in a special operation from the pentagon these guys could kill one another and not even realize which is the bad guy. that in itself is a disaster waiting to happen. >> to say nothing of it being a plot of several peter sellers films. jack rice the former cia officer, former prosecutor now media type like myself. thanks, jack. >> you bet. is it self-delusion? a disgraced governor now joined by a disgraced senator trying to hang onto office? is it the old joke no brain no pain? and more e-mails to the governor. new ones showing a network news correspondent throwing other networks under the bus for doing real reporting. and when rachel joins us at the top of the hour the family, the quasi-cult that forced senator ensign to send the breakup fed-ex letter to his mistress, and author of the book on the family with more on this bizarre d.c. outfit. could someone toss me

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governor sanford takes a vacation from vacation from his wife by taking a vacation with his wife. and disgraced home wrecker and sexual harrasser john ensign thinks he knows who nevada needs in the senate. john ensign. rush limbaugh steps on another and there are the unfortunate e-mails of a network correspondent named jake and the obama suer for not going to afghanistan turns out to be a fake. if you're taking 8 extra-strength tylenol... a day on the days that you have arthritis pain, you could end up taking 4 times the number... of pills compared to aleve.

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democrat spitzer resigned. democrat mcgreevey resigns. democrat hart drops out. republican senator ensign taking a break from religious groups telling him to stop an affair and resuming it the next day. senator ensign is now talking about running for re-election. that's next. but first tonight's worst person in the world. following up on yesterday's revelation of suck-up e-mails to governor sanford's office in hopes of getting an interviews tapper on june 23rd said nbc's slot was slimy. for the record i think the "today" show spot was pretty insulting. find cheek, plant kiss. now it's gotten worse. first at abc news vice president said tapper was quote carrying water for producers he knew had a relationship with the governor's office. then tapper got defensive on twitter. there was no story at the time, just mystery as to where he was, only ones who knew about the affair him, wife, mistress, and the state. the south carolina newspaper not the actual state. then also on twitter the e-mail reflects a clumsa tempt to harm a competitor's chances of getting an interview nothing

else. then finally the sun broke through. an e-mail to politico. busted. in retrospect the story i was referring to wasn't slimy enough. at that moment the only ones who knew of the governor's affair were sanford, his wife, his mistress and "the state" newspaper but i shouldn't have said it and i'll try to leave the media criticism to others from now on. good thinking because slimy would be a newspaper offering not to cover the news as part of an agreement with anybody for that matter. the runner-up boss limbaugh another half step away from reality and the old living in glass houses things. there's a show on msnbc named after a horse. the ed show. a talking horse. i think they brought the horse out of retirement to host the show. and the horse, mr. ed, is talking to a former cia officer. so because ed schultz' first name is ed his show is named after a horse? meaning if rush limbaugh's first name is rush his show is named after a rush like a drug rush?

but our winner, obama birther and general nut who has gotten another person fired. they sued to get him out of assignment to afghanistan. the claim was obama's not really the president so he couldn't really order anybody to serve anywhere. one thing ms. tates never mentioned in publicizing the suit, cook had volunteered for service in afghanistan and then sued to stop it. but as a volunteer he could simply change his mind and the army could not send him there. meaning the suit was a transparent political stunt. the army has already vacated cook's orders. he's not going to afghanistan. but what increasingly looks like her sap of a victim cook didn't consider is in civilian life he is a systems engineer for a pentagon contractor. naturally enough the army sued by a guy has the right to say he is not welcome at department of defense facilities which is exactly where cook was working.

not anymore. major cook by now you must have goent the hint this obsession with a birth certificate already endorsed by one of your own whack job sites world net daily is clouding your judgment and becoming increasingly poor cover for your real issue with the obama presidency. steer out of the skid. see if you can give that advice to ms. tate if she hasn't gone into hiding after costing you your job. tonight's worst person in the world. to irreversible damage. your teeth are no different. everyday acids can cause irreversible loss of enamel. new crest pro-health enamel shield protects against... ...enamel loss by forming a micro-thin shield against acid attack. only crest pro-health toothpastes... ...protect all these areas dentists check most. save your enamel. once it's gone, it can be gone for good. new crest pro-health enamel shield.

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to the governor who got in trouble by leaving the state to spend time with a woman has chosen as his solution and his penance leaving the state to

spend time with a woman. and the senator whose dalliance with an aide left him the victim of a religious quasi-cult thinks the best thing for everybody is if he gets re-elected. two political careers in the hands of the women wronged by the participants. first the luckiest governor in america is taking the rest of the week off. only this time we know it. mark sanford of south carolina hoping to patch things up with the mrs., quote, out of state. probably a safe bet argentina will not be on the itinerary. sanford's spokesman issuing this statement. the governor remains committed to repairing the damage he has done to his marriage so it shouldn't be any surprise spending personal time with his wife is part of that process. it might come as a surprise to his top economic advisor who had a meeting scheduled with sanford regarding the faltering economy of the state. the republican two termer caught two timing announcing he'll seek re-election in 2012 john ensign

supporting support from his constituents as reason to con on as nevada's junior senator but it may not be up to senator ensign. a wait-and-see game on whether or not the part of the love triangle cindy harrison will come forward with a sexual harrassment or unlawful termination suit. ensign says he is getting support from both sides of senate leadership. male and female. as for the state of nevada i'm going to work to earn their respect back. let's now call in melissa harris lacewell, associate professor of politics in african-american studies at princeton university. good evening, professor. >> hi. how are you tonight? >> senate republicans have been kind of measured i think in their support of ensign. why is it those who want to legislate morality continue to stand by those who commit the very acts that they rail against? >> well, i think for me the thing i find sort of most disgusting about this whole moment is the idea that somehow

this is a private matter. right? we should deal with our elected officials only on public matters not on private matters. marriage is most decidedly not a private matter. if it were just a private matter then gay men and lesbians would be free to marry in this country. marriage is clearly a public matter. particularly for politicos who, you know, use their wives and children and church memberships as a kind of credential card for their good citizenship. you know, if you're going to make your marriage a public definition of why we ought to vote for you, then you similarly have to stand for judgment when the choices that you make clearly demonstrate a kind of narcissm, a willingness to be dishonest with those who are most intermitt with you. i don't agree with the notion marriage is a private matter we don't have any business talking about. >> plus if you disappear as

governor that's a public matter. i don't care if you're disappearing to go bowling nine nights in a row. but if this ms. hampton talks any kind of idea of what impact that would have and do you think the fact that ensign plans on continuing his career will in turn encourage her to speak out? because this, i mean, that is a textbook sexual harrassment case not only is there some sexual element to it but at the end there is a firing. >> right. so this country is of course built on the textbook sexual harrassment. whether we go all the way back to the case of thomas jefferson who has an ongoing sexual relationship with a woman who he enslaves and produces children with her, all of the way up to clarence thomas, being confirmed to the supreme court when there was clear evidence there of his sexual harrassment of anita hill. so there is a sort of old boys club m