they had acted stupidly in arresting the professor. late this afternoon, the president stepped into the press room to make what some see as a critical political clarification. >> i want to make clear that in my choice of words, i think i unfortunately gave an impression that i was maligning the cambridge police department or sergeant crowley specifically. and i could have calibrated those words differently. i continue to believe, based on what i have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling professor gates out of his home to the station. i also continue to believe, based on what i heard, that professor gates probably overreacted as well. >> the president stopping short of an apology. but he did invite both the officer and the professor to the

white house to have a cool and to settle things down, which is kind of the regular guy thing to do. obama's talents i think really took over today with grace, style and humor. the president disarmed his critics and defused the situation. >> my hope is that as a consequence of this event, this ends up being what's called a teachable moment. where all of us, instead of pumping up the volume, spend a little more time listening to each other. and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations, we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute to more unity. >> the president did suggest the media had year played the story but underscored the importance of the discussion about race in america. joining me is georgetown university professor michael

eric dyson. professor, great to have you with us again tonight. >> good to be here. >> did the president do the right thing today? i mean, was this a no-brainer for him to come out after the cambridge police department had demanded an apology? they kind of raced it up a little bit. do you think the president made the right move today? >> i don't know if it was so much a no-brainer as a no-choicer. the reality was the president had to step into the fray once again to intervene in a more edifying fashion than he had before. i think what's critical here is to understand that the issue not be lost. because what apparently has happened is that there is an equitable relationship between the police department on the one hand, and a private citizen on the other. the reality is, brother schultz, in american society, racial profiling and police brutality have been egregious examples of the occupation and black and latino communities by forces that don't necessarily feel sensitive to or understanding of those populations. and while it is good to resolve

this particular instance of this conthat grace between police and the community, the reality is we don't have an equally competing force here. police brutality has been vicious, racial profiling has undermined the stability of these communities, and i hope that as the president says we tamp down some of this debate as we have more light than heat now, we'll be more analytical about it. i think the president can use his bully pulpit to say, look, that is serious issue, we have to address this issue as i did as an illinois state senator, to deal with racial profiling, and now as president of the united states i don't want to run from race, i want to run right through the middle of it so we won't have to dismiss it but embrace it and move towards the future. >> do you think the president will back off on any kind of conversation in the future on race relations after going through a three-day firestorm that we've been through? what do you think? >> yes. i think that he's already been loathe to embrace race, for obvious reasons. he doesn't want to be pigeonholed. he doesn't want to be

ghettoized. that's the difference, ed. there's a difference between not wanting to be pigeonholed and ghettoized and saying, look, as the supreme, if you will, political officer in american society i have a responsibility to americans to educate. here's one of the things we haven't talked much about with president obama. as an african-american he has unique insight into the particularments and pains and possible tizz of black life. he has a responsibility to educate white americans and others who don't understand that as well. not avoiding race. avoiding race means he avoids some of the difficult issues that must be dealt with. if he can teach us to do it with ecwan anymorety and poise, with balance and insight, he would render up a tremendous service. he's got to get over the disinclination to embrace race and deal with it. i think that's the real responsibility here. >> one of the things that's striking me is this criticism of the president right now, that he should have left this alone because it's a local issue. i want to remind our viewers tonight that when rodney king was beaten up back in march of

1991, president bush, bush 41, came out and said he was sickened by the videotape. i think this is standard operating procedure. i think the president has to come out -- of course. >> -- and directly answer the questions. do you think we took a step forward in race relations this week and could this be the first of many for president obama? >> no question. i think we have the great opportunity to learn something here. and by the way, martin luther king jr. was constantly told, you're butting your nose into our business. get out of it. but without his butting his nose into the business of birmingham, birmingham would have never ultimately been changed because it became a symbol of not only race hatred, it ultimately became a symbol of race transformation. obama has the same opportunity here to use this as he said, a teachable moment, so that america understands this is an egregious past we have to confront. but we'll do so together. if white and black and red and brown can come together to focus our energies on overcoming the racial malaise that persists, then this will have been a great moment.

professor gates, sergeant crowley, and president obama will have been critical role players in the determination that we will, from this moment on, have a better nation than we had in the past. >> professor dyson, always enjoy the conversation, we'll see you again, thanks so much. joining me now is nbc political director and chief white house correspondent chuck todd. chuck, this was supposed to be a health care week. >> yeah. >> how is the white house feeling about the president's performance this afternoon? he was a surprise. he's done this before but do you feel like they got a victory at the end of the week? >> well, you know, victory -- i wouldn't use that word. i think they feel like they've gone a long way to putting a period on this story. the president himself talked about how this seemed to disrupt health care. and he said he'd be right back on it next week. and so i think they knew they had to -- look, this is what he can do really well is fix a problem. politically. we talked during the campaign,

we've seen it once -- a couple of other times early in his presidency, is that, you know, when in doubt, he throws himself out there. this was going to be a brutal press briefing with gibbs. it was coming an hour and a half after that police union press conference in boston which directly called out the president. and you know, i saw at one moment, all three cable news channels say, press briefing with robert gibbs coming up soon, coming up soon. this was going to be televised and it was going to be brutal. so they did the right thing by getting the president out there to basically save another bad news day. >> so had the request for an apology not been made, you think maybe the president would not have done this today? >> you know, i don't think it would have happened. i think that police union press conference gone differently or maybe this looked like it was going to start fizzling out, i don't know if we would have seen the president today. >> finally, my sources on capitol hill going to health care now, chuck, are telling me that in the senate, the public option is in serious trouble.

are you hearing that? >> i've heard the same thing. in the finance committee, ken rod rad who's the guy that sort of created the idea for the co-op, what i would advise you ed is get to know what this co-op is going to do. i've talked to some who are big advocates of the public insurance option who believe they can do things within the framework of this co-op that will make folks who are supporters of the public overall big public option feel better about this. but the fact of the matter is, you're not going to get grassley. you might not get ben nelson. you might not get ken conrad. for anything that's called a public insurance option. and the co-op may be just better language to use and easier to sell in some of these places. so as somebody said, it can walk like a duck. it can quack like a duck. it just -- you just can't call it a duck. so co-op may be the language of choice here. >> nbc's chuck todd with us

tonight from the white house, chuck, thanks so much. >> you got it, ed. >> more on that co-op situation chuck was talking about. i'm told by a number of folks on capitol hill that one of the things this co-op is going to do, it's going to put an infusion of mob to help states set this up. it could end up being like the third or fourth biggest insurance providers in the country if it works out that way. we'll have more on it, obviously, next week as this is a developing story. paging harry reid's spine. where is that spine? i want to know what the heck is going on? i mean, why is it that the deadline did not happen, and why isn't the president getting what hadn'ts? seems to me jeff bingham is going to have something to say about that when committee come back right here on "the ed show" on msnbc.

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welcome back to "the ed show." i really want to know what you think about this whole thing with the delay on capitol hill to kill the public option. that is the question tonight. do you think this delay in the senate on capitol hill is going to kill the public option? text "a" for yes and "b" for no to the number on your screen, 622639. now, i spoke with new mexico

senator jeff bingham earlier today. and he is, of course, the senator who was on the senate finance committee. we talked about a number of different things and i asked him about the public option. senator, can you tell the american people tonight that there will be a public option coming out of the senate finance committee? >> i can't tell you with any great confidence exactly what we're going to come up with in the senate finance committee. we're -- as you mentioned, there are six of us, three democrats, three republicans, who are trying to put together something that can be proposed to the rest of the members of the committee for their consideration. and no decision has been made on public option or no public option at this point. >> senator, the president has made it very clear, that's what he wants. and many democrats across the country think that he went to washington with a mandate, winning nine bush states and

bringing out a new generation of democrats and their focus was health care. do you think that you would be letting the president down as a democrat, one of the three on the committee, if the finance committee does not offer a public option? >> well, i think that -- i serve also on the health and education committee here in the senate. we reported the bill two weeks ago that does contain a public option, which i strongly supported. and i think that's got to be part of the debate that we go through here. i hope in the final analysis we wind up enacting a public option. but i think the process we're engaged in right now is to get a bill that can get the support necessary to be reported out of the finance committee. and of course, then out of the full senate. and there's a lot of aspects to health care reform which the president has committed to that clearly we have a consensus on.

and i think we need to be sure to do those and do as much eltsd as we can. >> senator, is it all about the money? is that the biggest concern inside the committee right now as we get down to the 11th hour of these bipartisan negotiations on how to pay for it? is that it? is that the stumbling block? >> well, that's a significant issue. and i hope it doesn't become a stumbling block. clearly, we want to make some reforms that are going to require additional funds. but we are looking for ways to pay for that. the president's committed that anything we do has to be fully paid for. and that's the commitment of the congressional leadership as well. so whatever we do by way of health care reform will be paid for. now, that's in stark contrast to what was done a few years ago with the expansion of the prescription drug benefit for medicare. that, under the previous administration, that was proposed and adopted, there was no effort to pay for that.

that was just the additional cost that was loaded on to medicare. here, we're going to pay for this health care reform. >> senator, there are some democrats who are complaining that they haven't been fully briefed on what this committee is doing and one of them is senator jay rockefeller from west virginia who was a big part of this whole process as well with another committee. is this a point of contention behind closed doors with democrats? >> yeah, there's no question that we have democrats who are anxious to get more detail about what's being discussed -- >> are you competing te i conce? there are some who say the democrats on this coalition are conceding too minimum to get bipartisan agreement? >> we're trying to get something to propose to the committee and the committee will ultimately decide what the majority of folks want to send to the full senate for consideration, and the full senate will decide what

can be enacted. so, we're trying to find where is some common ground? what can we propose to the committee? as a bill to work from? >> does the co-op plan still have life in your committee? >> it's certainly one of the things that's being discussed. this is a proposal senator conrad has made. and there are various variations on that idea. but it is a way to have a nonprivate insurance company option available to people. >> senator, do you see us doing health care from this country, getting everybody covered, getting what the president wants, and not praising taxes? because this is of course what your opponents are saying. there's no way it can get done unless everybody gets taxed. how are we, in your opinion, going to pay for this? >> well, the proposals we're talking about in the finance

committee now are not putting a tax on average americans. and -- >> how about the top 2%? >> well, we're not proposing to do that either. >> then how's it going to get paid for? >> well, we've got a variety of mechanisms we're looking at. we don't have the final list yet. but we're looking at ways to incentivize people, to buy health care in a more prudent way, and to get the health care they need and to expand coverage at the same time. and then the cost curve, which i think is the president's priority. >> senator, why does the finance committee need more time after there has been so much prework to this and build-up to this, and why weren't you -- your committee able to meet the august deadline, which of course harry reid says not going to happen, of course that is what the president wanted. what's the holdup? why do you need more time?

>> well, the holdup is that this is a very complex, difficult piece of legislation. extensive piece of legislation. it does involve about one-sixth of the u.s. economy. and there are members on our committee, and particularly in our group of six, who are shshs anxious to understand the detail what was they're getting ready to propose. >> are you concerned that the opponents to any kind of reform, and they are out there, and the efficacy money is at an all-time high, the lobbying effort has been at an all-time high on this issue. are you concerned the longer this goes on, the less likelihood the democrats and the majority party will have to get things done when it comes to reforming health care in this country? >> no, i think that's obviously got to be a concern. the other concern on the other side is if you come out with something that's half-baked and can't be adequately defended and supported, then, of course, you're that much more subject to attack. so we want to get something that

people can stand behind and defend and put forward and urge their colleagues to support. and we're hoping that we have some republicans who are willing to support that as well, outside of our six. >> well, there are 60 senators in the senate that do caucus together. they're called democrats. there's a couple of independents. how much of a personal disappointment to you that all the democrats can't get together and this bipartisan thing has to take place? >> well, i think that reality here in the senate on virtually every issue is, we need at this time in our country's history, with 60 democrats -- 58 democrats, two independents, and 40 republicans -- we need to have some bipartisan support to do very major legislation. and this is very major legislation. so we're trying to find that

bipartisan support, and that's the whole exercise we're engaged in. >> folks, the landscape just got a lot tougher to navigate through. for the senate not to be able to meet this deadline sets up, i think, a real tough play for the democrats. the righties couldn't be happier about this whole thing. listen to senator jim inhofe from oklahoma in a recent radio interview. >> i just hope the president keeps talking about it. he's trying to rush it through. we can stall it. and that's going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election. >> oh, yes. it's all about the 2010 election, isn't it. let's just stall, make obama a failure on this deal. it doesn't stop there. republican governors are now getting into the act. minnesota governor tim pawlenty, who has definite aspirations for 2012, nailed obama on fox news. >> this whole health care proposal by president obama is really quite a joke on a number of levels. i think he's scamming the american people. and just on this payment issue

alone. even if you believe that he's only going to tax people over $1 million, which i don't think is true, what's going to happen is he's proposing it, that's only going to cover about one-third or 25% of the total cost of the package. the rest of it is going to be paid for, quote-unquote, by savings, waste fraud, and abuse. if you believe that, i've got january tee times for you in northern minnesota. >> i'll take that tee time, governor pawlenty, if you can guarantee me you've been right in on all these negotiations. get ready for the onslaught of television commercials trying to defeat obama and the health care reform effort. now, they have the money to burn. now they have the time to burn it. because of this delay. what a travesty. harry reid letting the senate go with no deal, they ought to be working through august. advocacy money is going to start pouring into every market they want to target democrats to make them look weak with no leadership. the right-wing sound machine. they're not going to take a day off on the downs, not at all.

this is about winning the hearts and minds of the people over the next 60 days. i don't want to say i'm losing confidence. i'm just saying, i think we could be in the 11th hour a lot sooner than we thought we were. all right, we're going to take up what you just heard with a terrific panel coming up later on in the show. but first, "psycho talk." i want to know if the republicans can -- did they get a nickel for every time they say "government takeover of health care" or "between you and your doctor"? the worst talking point foer offenders next.

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my favorite, friday night "psycho talk." the republican sound machine plural. republicans have been out there with their right-wing talking points so often we had to put them all on "psycho talk" tonight. we've told you about the luwen group. the consulting firm that republicans love to quote this outfit. it's also owned by the insurance giant, united health care. very convenient there. we've told you about the gop hacks, frank lund sten, they wrote the republican playbook on health care. we want to put this together so you can see what they're up there. watch for yourself. >> the cost of doing what is currently on the table is to have a government takeover of health care.

>> the luwen group did a study -- >> a government-run plan. luwen and associates, a consulting firm, health care experts -- >> a study by the respected luwen group. >> government health care -- >> the government control -- >> the democrats want a top-down, bureaucracy-driven, punishment-driven, command people around, mandate govern. >> the government has taken over. >> the luwen associates, a respected technical firm -- >> according to the luwen think tank -- >> government takeover. >> one study from the luwen group -- >> what the president wants to do is put the federal government in charge of our lives. the government control of our lives. we do not have 47 million americans who don't have health care. there are no americans who don't have health care. everybody in this country has access to health care. >> everyone in this country has access to health care? if you've got the greenbacks. did the luwen group come up with

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welcome back to "the ed show." it has been a rough week for the president. it ended i think with a very strong performance today. this afternoon, president obama made a surprise appearance in the press room to clarify his comments about the controversial arrest of the harvard professor henry gates. he used his, i think, trademark calm demeanor to bring perspective and insight to the emotionally charged situation. >> my sense is you got two good people in a circumstance in

which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved. the fact that it has garnered so much attention i think is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in america. >> okay, big discussion on this tonight on "the ed show." for more, let's bring in msnbc anchor carlos watson with us ran tight. president make the right call today. was he forced to do it because he was called out by the police department that was involved in this? >> a little bit of body. in the end, i think he did the right thing. when i say the right thing, i was one of the few guys who said all along i was glad the president addressed it at the press conference. i thought he was right in saying that ultimately, even if you don't believe race was involved, and i suspect that it was but no one knows for sure. some involved, not the only factor. the police department, not the way you resolve something with a

58-year-old guy once you're in his house and he knows it. for president obama, i think he had to walk it back because the word "stupidly" had more power than even i initially appreciated. >> we put up that picture we just had on the screen because there were black officers on the scene. >> yep. >> and i don't think we've really touched on this too much. why wouldn't that black officer turn to his fellow white officer and say, "back off, will you, the guy's 60 some odd years old, he's got a cane, he's not a threat, he's in his house." i find that interesting. >> i did too when i saw it originally. any one of a couple of reasons. first of all, we don't know whether that guy's new on the force. >> afraid of the boss? >> yeah, happens all the time. right? we see it. we see it here, we see it in all sorts of situations. that's one. the other one, though, by the way, is let's be honest. lots of people could do wrong, whether you're white, black, latino, asian. it's not limited to just one particular race. so for all we know, that guy could have made the same bad

decision. in the end that's the part i'm confident on, that this was a bad resolution. you can do better. >> carlos, you know this. everything in washington, not just some things, everything is political. you got the conservatives over there, the republicans over there saying, well, gosh. obama doesn't support law enforcement. you know? he's weak on all this. obviously trying to pit him against authority. did he end that today by doing what he did? >> we won't know until sunday. and i say we won't know until sunday because we've got to see what happens on the sunday talk shows. that could ignite it again. we'll see where that goes. i will say this, though. that is about as dangerous a charge as democrats can end up facing is hearing that they're weak on law enforcement. there was a time, and i don't have to remind you, that for 20, 30, 40 years, there were a couple of democratic achilles heels. one was that they were weak on loft, another when it came to national security, they were weak as well. >> carlos, stay with us. let's bring in our panel tonight. sam stein, political reporter for "the huffington post."

jeff santos, radio talk show host from wwzn in boston joins untonight. jennifer rubin, weekend editor for the media. let's go to you, jeff. your right there in the backyard of all of this activity. how is the community responding tonight, if we can, to what is happening now that the president has come out and made a statement late this afternoon? what about, that jeff? >> i think people are going to be, like president obama, defuse the situation. that's what should have happened in the beginning. both mr. -- the professor, as well as mr. crowley, should have taken the situation, looked at it, defused the situation. as the "boston globe" editorial page said, basically just walk away. did you do that, you don't have the words, you don't have the confrontation, you don't have the arrest. i think, look, crowley's not a racist, the professor's not a bad guy. professor gates. this is a situation where people just overreacted. and the emotions and then the partisans took over and it ran

from there. >> with all due respect to ed -- with all due respect to jeff, i just need to make sure that he's not saying that those two individuals were in equivalent positions. >> no, he's right. the officer is in charge. he had the power. he's the one that should have basically defused the situation. i'll take you back to the movie "the colors" back in 1984 with sean penn and robert duvall. it was duvall, the older cop, who basically said to the younger guy, i'll take care of, this i'll handle it, i'll talk to the gang leaders. it was shun penn, the young guys, who want to go forward. you need that kind of leadership. that's what had to happen that didn't happen and it escalated from there. >> jennifer rubin, what's the next play for the president? is it over? does he touch this any more? do we just move on to the next phase? what do you think? >> we're talking about it. i suspect we're going to be talking about it tonight and saturday and sunday on the talk shows. and it's yet to be determined whether this is completely behind him. i think they very much regret

having wasted several days on a bad story for them and i think they regret having a loss of momentum on health care. it wasn't a good press conference to begin with and this just made it worse. so i think we're going to try to put it behind them. whether they will or not, we're going to have to find out next week. >> you better not say it wasn't good press conference on liberal talk radio because they'll tear you apart. there's a lot of people out there who are really defending the president for his press conference the other night. i know, i got a lot of it the last couple of days. sam stein, the way the president handled this today, that's president obama. this is the third time he has walked into the press room and said, i want to talk about something. >> quintessential obama. i mean, he takes an issue, addresses it head-on, says let's all get together, let's come to solution, let's get it off the front page. the one thing i took away from this was disdain for the media. he did not want to talk about this. he couldn't believe the media elevated this. he wanted it off the front page.

he wants health care to be the sole objective. hopefully for him he's going to get rid of it. sunday you could see it re-emerge again. >> i'm not dissing the president here. i'm a big fan. but i think because of his life experience, for maybe just a couple of seconds at the podium, at the press conference the other night, he might have forgot, i'm a regular guy too. >> he was talking like a regular guy. >> say he felt it. say he really felt the it. >> for maybe a second he wasn't the president. you know what i'm saying? which by the way is not the worst thing. >> no, it's not. >> no moment in ronald reagan's career was more powerful than that debate, that sole debate in the primaries, where he said, i paid for this microphone. where he felt it. sometimes those moments are right. i will say this. a lot of where this starts is it never should have been a press conference. it should have been a speech the other night. it should have been an lbj-like speech about the issue of our time. >> in fairness to the media, this was a big story for a number of days before it got to the presidential press conference. if he had had the press conference maybe next week, you know, timing's everything in our

business. fellows, stay with us. great panel tonight. coming up, i thought these banks were on the brink of disaster. now we're hearing they got $74 billion sitting around to hand out to pay bonuses and extra salaries. you know, i want to know what they're going to do to get back in the black. as we're leaving american workers without jobs. how about a swim? i'm a little irregular today. don't you eat activia? for my little issues? they're not that bad. summer's no time to put up with even occasional digestive problems. believe me, once they go away, it's amazing how good you feel. announcer: activia is clinically proven to help regulate your digestive system in two weeks. summer's a wastin'... take the activia challenge now. it works, or it's free. ♪ activia

will the delay on capitol hill kill the public option? "a" for yes, "b" for no to 622639. standard text rates apply. we'll bring you the results at the end of the show. coming up, banks making money again. limb: dude that was sick! i've been hangin' up there for, what, like, forty years? and then - wham - here i am smacking the pretty off that windshield of yours.

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♪ and these guys too. ♪ obviously they do. ♪ oh, and her. ♪ in my "playbook" tonight, this is a fairness story. workers versus wall street so to speak.

i want to talk about the record bonuses that we're seeing on wall street. these things are projected to be larger than ever. taxpayers rescued these banks. we bailed them out. tens of millions of people are unemployed and they're setting aside billions of dollars more to pay themselves huge bonuses? what's going on here? the "washington post" reports the top six banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees. last year at this point, they only had $60 billion set aside. goldman sachs set aside $6.6 billion for compensation in the last quarter. that, my friends, is a record. if that pace continues, the average goldman employee will make $733,000 a year. joining me is krista frkrista fe land of the "financial times." how could the treasury department sell this to the american people without telling us this is the way it was going to be? >> well, i think in a way,

particularly with goldman, what we're seeing is greater success, actually a quicker recovery on wall street, than the treasury and frankly than the banks themselves had expected. and part of this actually, you may not agree with me here, ed, is a good news story. it's better for goldman to be making money than for goldman to be losing money. it's better for american taxpayers that goldman is able to repay the t.a.r.p. funds and to buy back the warrants, which it did this week, than continue to be on the government dole. where i think there are legitimate public policy issues are around the incentive structure of bankers' pay and also around the continued implicit guarantee which is allowing all the banks, including goldman, to continue to operate. maybe they should be paying the government a little bit more money for that guarantee. >> all right, now i think the public, i'm just guessing here -- at least this is the way i take it -- they see this money going to wall street. you know, we're on the verge of

financial collision. in the midst of all this conversation and run-up in rhetoric about how serious this is, we just happen to have a line item budget that we're going to set aside, you know, billions of dollars for, let's see, bonuses. let's see, better salaries than we had a year ago. i mean, this really is almost, in my opinion, finagling the numbers big-time, cooking the books against the american people. i mean, i'm all for the recovery. i'm all for profit. but it looks to me that the timing of this and the budgeting of it is very suspect. >> well, i would actually disagree there. and i do think that it's important to make a clear distinction between banks which are continuing to receive government money, banks in which the government is a significant shareholder at the moment, like citigroup, like bank of america, and banks like goldman sachs and jpmorgan which are now private companies, they paid back the government money. i do think there's a significant difference there and i think it's -- the taxpayer has much more jurisdiction to say to the

banks that are owned by the american people, look, we are your major shareholder, and this is the way we think you ought to operate. but coming back to the government guarantee point, i do think there is an issue there. and the important thing that happened in terms of the markets last year was the markets understood that the big banks would not be allowed to fail. >> and the managers of the financial houses knew exactly how much money was coming and what they could do with it. i mean, that's just -- maybe i'm being too cynical. >> no, no, you're not. but that insurance policy is worth a lot of money in the market. >> in the long haul. >> to put it crudely, it's similar to what we have as depositors in our commercial banks from the fdic. and commercial banks pay the fdic money for that insurance, which gives us security. i think that there's a legitimate argument to be made that the wall street firms should be paying the government for this implicit guarantee, and they're not right now. >> okay, but you would agree that this is not what was sold

to the american people. and the senate was pretty coy about all of this. the senate finance committee. i mean, because if you had said "bonus" in the same sentence as "financial collapse," it just doesn't fit. >> well, again there, i don't think that it's bad news that some of the banks are recovering. it's good news, right? i mean -- >> it is. >> would you prefer that some of these banks continue to need more taxpayer money? absolutely not. >> it is but did they need all of that money? you're the nicest person i've ever had a disagreement with. >> well, no. but the banks like goldman and jpmorgan actually didn't want the money. they took the money because they wanted the systemic guarantee. i think what is fair to say, ed, is did the government drive the hardest bargain it could? the answer is no. with goldman in particular, there's a comparable case, and that is warren buffett. warren buffett also lent goldman some money last fall, and warren buffett got a much better deal than uncle sam did.

so you're right on that. >> good to have you with us tonight, thanks so much. >> pleasure. the republicans aren't offering solutions. they're just complaining about everything the democrats are trying to do. oregon democratic congressman earl ble joins us next.

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welcome back to "the ed

show." late word this afternoon, house majority leader steny hoyer says the house probably won't meet the deadline and will have to work into august. congressman from oregon, what do you make of that news these deadlines are going to be backing things up? >> well, it's disturbing on one level. because it's clear that our republican opponents here will just do anything to try and put sand in the gears to try and inflict a waterloo as they say on president obama. and they are certainly not committed to health care reform. >> and will these delays really give the right wing an opportunity to nail what the president really wants to accomplish along with the democrats in the house and the senate? i mean, we really now have got a word game going on here for the next 60 days. >> no question about it. it gives them more time to spread deliberate falsehoods. i just had a very personal example of a bipartisan piece of health care reform that i worked to put in this bill that had

republican support on our ways and means committee. and the republicans are suggesting that somehow, this is a fast track to euthanasia. it's really disturbing. >> congressman, good to have you with us tonight. i appreciate your time and thanks for your work on this. joining us on our panel, sam stein. also with us is jeff santos from boston. and jennifer rubin joining us from washington tonight. sam, you know, to have more time also gives the grassroots that obama was so effective using in the campaign a chance to go back and really resell this thing and gain momentum. it works both ways. what do you think? >> i totally agree. i talked to a bunch of most people from the grassroots yesterday from an article saying, we're going to gear up, we're going to double down. it sounds like spin but it's truth. there was a faction within the white house that wasn't displeased by the fact that they missed the deadline. their rationale is legislation is going be out there on the recess, all it's going to do is be attacked by the republicans.

this way we don't have that vigor of attack, we can get when it we come back in the fall. >> with these attacks that means the president is going to have to get visible with the american people. we all know he can do that but how critical is it? >> he's actually not doing it. he's largely been unsuccessful. he's now upside down in americans' confidence in him to handle health care. i'm not sure he is the best salesman. i have to laugh when you say republicans are throwing sand in the gears. republicans are in the minority, it's the democrats who can't get this out of the house or the rest of the congress -- >> wait a minute now. the phraseology that is being used by senator demint and some others over there about killing the legislation, the stall game, we play that sound bite earlier tonight. jeff, your thoughts on that? do the republicans have the upper hand? >> yeah, this is ridiculous. it's the party of no. this is the people who basically tell 47 million americans that they have health care, it's fine, everything's groovy, it's all great.

ridiculous. typical republican mantra. before you know it they'll be calling us socialists. before you know it, they'll be calling us communists. typical game plan. might as well call dean smith up now. it's ridiculous. >> it's all about the stall. panel, good to have you with us tonight. we'll have you all back. earlier in the show i asked will the delay on capitol hill kill the public option? here's what you had to say. 57% of you say yes, 43% of our respondents tonight say no. that's "the ed show." "hardball" with chris matthews is coming up right now here on the place for politics, msnbc. have a great weekend. off to the lake country in minnesota. back with you monday and a heads-up for next week's coverage. another insurance company is going to be coming out with their numbers. what kind of profits they had in the second quarter of this year. and of course, we'll see if they match up with united health care, which recorded 155% increase this quarter, second quarter of '09, versus '08.

"hardball with chris matthews" is next right here on msnbc. can't we all just get along? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, let the peacemaking begin. from the moment president obama said at his news conference that the cambridge, massachusetts, police acted stupidly in arresting henry lieutenant gates, he guaranteed that the story, both the arrest and his comment, would become larger than life, and it has. in fact, it has trumped everything, including health care, which is what mr. obama wanted to make news about this week. so this afternoon the president made a rare appearance in the white house briefing room, and though he never said the words i'm sorry, that was clearly the message. >> in my choice of words, i

think i unfortunately gave an impression that i was maligning the cambridge police department or sergeant crowley specifically, and i could have calibrated those words differently. >> well, the president says he still believes that sergeant crowley overreacted, but he also believes that dr. gates overreacted as well. the president seemed open to having a beer at the white house with both the sergeant and the professor. we'll have much more on the president's latest comments in a minute. for his part, sergeant crowley says he does not want people to see him as a monster or a bigot. gates gave no choice to him but to arrest him, that's what he says. the sergeant. gates says the incident was a battle of wills on his part and he said a series of unspoken slights, the words of the professor, he saw them in the way that crowley treated him that evening. also, we'll button up this