yesterday. so it has been something he has been considering. and what he's actually asking for, as you said, is that the law be amended so the governor can appoint a senator until the people can actually vote on one. >> and just quickly, we've got to jump off, because the president, we understand, is arriving early for his interview. but i just wanted to make clear that this law was an example of unintended consequences, that senator kerry, to try to prevent former republican governor, mitt romney, to appointing a successor or a republican successor, had that law put in place. >> reporter: right, exactly. this law was passed in 2004. and if you go back even further, andrea, in 1960, when john f. kennedy, who was then a senator from massachusetts, was elected president of the united states, ted kennedy was not 30. and that's how old you have to be to become a u.s. senator.

so instead, the then-kbmpb of massachusetts appointed a friend of the kennedys, benjamin a. smith ii to fill out the term when senator kennedy was finally over 30 and could run and be elected senator. so there are all these backstories to this story, but clearly senator kennedy is thinking of the future and thinking about health care. andrea? >> ann thompson, who knows everything about massachusetts and is a resident and a long-time watcher of the kennedy family as well. ann, good to see you. thank you so much for the latest updates from there. and as we can see on the other side of our screen, the president has come in to the white house room for the diplomatic reception room, i believe, for that interview with michael smerconish. let's go with that. david gregory from "meet the press," host and moderator of "meet the press," is with me here and will be watching with me and we'll talk on the other side, david. here's the president. >> i don't know if the ear piece is going to be necessary, because i think they'll probably play in the rooms those calls. >> i know they're going to play

them, if i can't hear the first one well, i'll put the ear piece in. >> david, as we're watching them get ready for this talk show moment, let's talk a bit about why this is such an important window for the president to try to reach out to a different audience. >> the reality is that the president and the white house are behind on health care at this stage. august has not gone well at all for the prospects of getting universal health care. the president's top legislative priority. the president is being counseled that he's got to ramp it up. he has got to make this a moral imperative. he has got to make the case that if he's going to get health care, he's got to find a way around some of these republican arguments that have proved so piercing and so effective at defining his plan, his ideas, as simply big government, which as you remember, took down president clinton's prospects as well. and that's what he's up against here. >> and david, they're beginning to think of fallback plans, of possibly going for the 51-vote

majority. basically stripping out the budget and finance aspects of this and then doing it under the budget law, which would require not the 60 vote. >> right. that's the bottom line. is can they cut off debates. this isn't just about the republicans anymore. the republicans are effectively gone, as bargaining partners here. this is about democrats. moderate democrats, in the senate, who they don't have right now. to sign on, let alone whether they can pick off a few republicans. the idea of budget reconciliation is such that there may be some difficulties to making that happen. but you essentially try to ram it through without the republicans, maybe split this in pieces as well. but the big thing is whether the president's going to fight for a so-called public plan. a government option to compete with private insurance plans. and they've been trying to say that they're not totally giving it up, but they have made the case that it's not a red line for them. >> senator baucus and his finance committee group, the gang of six, getting together by

conference call at 9:00 tonight eastern time. is this to sort of show that they're still in the game? >> they're trying to keep the pressure on, talk about reconciliation is also a pressure tactic. but, the view was the president was listening to senator baucus, because he felt that he could deliver a republican grand bargain. it has yet to materialize. >> now, we're going to be hearing this live broadcast from the diplomatic reception room at the white house. david, if you can hang in, there's so much more to talk about what you've got coming up on "meet the press" on both foreign policy, key players, the chairman of the joint chiefs. we'll talk about that in a second. here's the president and michael smerconish. >> the president of the united states. mr. president, what an honor for me and thank you for this privilege, and thank you for coming back to my radio program. >> michael, it's great to be on the show again. every time we've been on, it's been a great time. i appreciate the opportunity. >> folks are stacked up, as you might imagine. they're anxious to pose some questions about health care to the president of the united states. more than 5,000 e-mail suggestions have flowed through my website in just the last 24 hours alone.

if it's all right, i'll start by posing a couple of questions and some of the things that i continue to hear from folks and we'll welcome phone callers as well. allow me, sir, to begin with this. did secretary sebelius misspeak last weekend? you know, a great deal has been made as to what she said pertaining to the so-called public option. >> yeah, she really didn't misspeak. the surprising thing is, she'd been saying this all along. she said the same thing a month ago. and let me just describe what the issue is here. we have consistently talked about the need for health care reform, because family premiums are going up three times faster than inflation and wages. the costs of medicare and medicaid will bankrupt this country if we don't reduce the cost inflation of health care. you've got families who can't get health care because of pre-existing conditions or they pump up against some lifetime cap if a family member gets really ill. so whoo we've said, there are a number of components of health care. one is that for people who already have health insurance,

they can keep their health insurance, but we're going to have some consumer protections to regulate how insurers operate. for example, they can't prohibit people from getting health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. they can't have lifetime caps or or yearly caps that prevent people from getting the care that they need. we're also going for people who don't have health insurance to set up a system similar to what congress has, where you can buy into it a bigger pool, get better rates, have better protections around you. you would be buying that insurance from private insurers, but one of the options we talked about was a public option, where there wouldn't be a profit motive involved, it would be not for profit, and that public option would give you affordable health insurance. now, what we've said is we think that's a good idea, but we haven't said that that's the only aspect of health insurance. and what she essentially said was that all these other insurance reforms are just as important as the public option.

the press got a little excited and some folks on the left got a little excited about this. our position hasn't changed. with we think that the key is cost control, competition, making sure that people have good-quality options. if we're able to achieve that, that's the end that we're seeking. and the means, we can have some good arguments about what the best way to achieve it is, but we've got to change because the status quo is unacceptable. >> there's a mind-set among many folks in my audience who say the end game, it's all about single payer. it's a public option or it's a cooperative. and there's a perception out there that you want it all. you want to be in the banks, you want to be in the automotive industry, and now you want to be in health care. can you address that mind-set? >> i absolutely can. first of all, look, the intervention in the banks wasn't started by me. it was started by a conservative republican administration, and rightly so. because our banks were on the verge of meltdown. the only thing that we've done is said, let's put in place some financial regulations to make

sure that this doesn't happen again. the auto interventions weren't started by me. they were started by a conservative republican administration. the only thing that we did was rather than just write gm and chrysler a blank check, we said, you know what, if you're going to get anymore taxpayer money, you've got to be accountable. they went through a record bankruptcy, and now gm for the first time is actually hiring folks back. so i know there's this perception that we have somehow engaged in these extraordinary interventions. part of it had to do with the worst financial crisis in history. and the fact that both the autobailout and the bank bailout were started under a previous conservative republican administration indicates the fact that this wasn't ideological, this was a matter of necessity. now, as far as health care goes, i've consistently said, i would love the private marketplace to be handling this without any government intervention. the problem is, it's not working. what we're seeing is about

14,000 folks lose their health insurance every single day. we are seeing health care inflation go up about twice as fast as regular inflation. businesses are being crippled by it. small businesses, especially, have almost no access to the marketplace, because they've got no leverage with insurance companies. so all we've said is, let's keep the private system in tact, but let's make sure that people who, right now, can't get health insurance, about 46 million, that they're able to buy into the market. and number two, let's have some consumer protections to make sure that those of us who have health insurance don't end up getting a bad deal because we didn't read the fine print and we think that we have coverage when we finally get sick and we need it, it turns out that we're vulnerable because insurance companies aren't operating in the interests of their customers. >> i like to drive an mdx and an f-150, and i've communicated by e-mail in the last 24 hours with the woman who sold me the mdx and the guy who sold me the f-150.

and each of them, mr. president, are saying that cash for clunkers has been a great idea and a wonderful initiative and they closed a lot of deals, but the payments are late. and i'm hearing from a number of folks who say, you know, come on, if the federal government can't get it together relative to cash for clunkers, i don't want to entrust my health care to the federal government. >> well, let me first address cash for clunkers. it has been successful beyond anybody's imagination. and we're now slightly victims of success, because the thing happened so quick, there was so much more demand than anybody expected that dealers were overwhelmed with applications. now, this program has only been going on for a few weeks and we have hired three times as many people to process this stuff as we originally had. there has not been extraordinary delays on the u.s. government's part. i understand dealers want to get their money back as soon as possible. but the fact of the matter is, this is a good news story.

they are seeing sales that they have not seen in years. and they will get their money, but we've got to process it properly, because if we were careless about it, if we were just sending out checks where applications were incomplete and so on, first of all, we've be breaking the law, because there are statutes set up in terms of how this is supposed to go, and secondly, there would probably be some story -- you'd be asking me about scandals where there a whole bunch of checks of taxpayer money being wasted going out to people who hadn't actually bought cars. so i think this is actually a high-class problem to have that we're selling too many cars, too quickly and there's some backlog in the application process. it is getting fixed. >> mr. president, ernie is a listener of mine on wttk in boston and wishes to pose the following president. ernie, go ahead for the president of the united states. >> thank you, michael. mr. president. >> how are you, ernie? >> i'm good. thank you for taking this call. >> great to talk to you.

>> caller: i've understand that you've said that the federal health care plan for government employees is a pretty good plan. >> it is. >> reporter: and congress has voted, to my understanding, not to join the public plan once it passes, because them to keep their good federal plan. would you be willing to either urge congress to have the federal employees join the public plan or would you be willing to urge congress to somehow open up the federal health plan to all americans? >> thank you, ernie. i hear this all the time, mr. president. >> well, it's a great question, ernie. first of all, understand that currently, federal employees have a very good health care plan because they're able to leverage the insurance companies. there's so many members of their -- of the federal workforce that they can get the best rates possible, for every insurance company wants to do business with the federal

government. so premiums are lower and it's a better deal overall. the same concept is what we're trying to do in setting up what's called a health insurance exchange. essentially, it would be a marketplace where people who currently don't have health insurance or small businesses could pool their numbers so they have leverage over the insurance companies, and they could go on a website and look at the various options, the types of various private health insurance plans that are being offered and choose the one that's best for their families. so we're actually trying to do to duplicate what exists for federal employees. we want to make that available to everybody else. now, what we have said is, let's make a public option one choice of many choices that are available to people who are joining the exchange. and i see nothing wrong with potentially having that public option as one option for federal employees as well. but the important thing that i

think i have to make absolutely clear, nobody would be obligated to choose the public option. if you went on that website and you said, you know what, etna or blue cross/blue shield are offering a good deal and i would rather choose that plan than the public plan, you'd be perfectly free to do so. nobody would be saying, you are obligated to go into a public plan. >> i think what folks are saying is, they would love it if you would stand up and saying, whatever we are create, be it a public option, a co-op, whatever name be ascribed to it, we in the executive branch, we in the congress, we will live with exactly these parameters. >> i think there would be -- i think it would make perfect sense for us to make the public option available to federal employees as well. but keep in mind, it would just be a choice. >> understood. let me keep moving, if i may. tracy lives on wxnt news talk 230 in indianapolis. tracy, your question for the president. >> caller: mr. president, thanks for taking my call. >> hi, tracy.

>> caller: hi. until i heard you say that a private option is just a sliver of your health care proposal recently, i think myself and many americans thought that pretty much was your proposal. >> i know. >> caller: so my question is, could you please quickly with five or six bullet points with what legislation must include for you to be willing to sign it? for instance, employer mandates, tort reform, illegal immigrants, what about them? must it include a public option? >> i'd be happy to. first of all, you mentioned illegal immigrants. this has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. none of the bills that have been voted on in congress and none of the proposals coming out of the white house propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants. none of them. that has never been on the table, nobody has discussed it. so everybody who's listening tout there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true. and has never been the case. >> what is their fate, if i

might ask, because there's a 1966 law on the books that says, if you show up at an e.r., you've got to be treated. >> that will continue, because we don't want a situation, in which some child, even if they're an illegal immigrant, shows up in an emergency room and they've got tuberculosis, and then they're going back to the playground and playing with our kids. so i think there's a standard of decency that if somebody's in a severe circumstance, we're going to provide them health insurance. but nobody has talked about providing health insurance to illegal immigrants. i want to make that absolutely clear. tracy, you had a good point about what are the bullet points that i want. number one, it's got to be deficit neutral. this has to be paid for. because in the past, some of the health care plans that we put forward have not been paid for. a good example of this was a prescription drug benefit for

seniors. this was an important thing to do, but we never actually figured out how to pay for it. that went directly into the deficit and national debt. that would be point number one. point number two, it has to bend the cost curve. what that means is that we've got to create a plan that experts credibly say will reduce health care inflation, because if all we're doing is adding more people, but we're not controlling costs, that will blow up the deficit over the long-term and lit blow up the burdens on individual families and businesses. we've got to get control of our costs. we spend $6,000 more than any other advanced country per person on health care. that's number two. number three, we've got to have the insurance reforms i talked about for people who already have health insurance. and that means making sure you can get health insurance, even if you've got pre-existing condition, making sure that you're not burdened by lifetime caps, making sure that insurance companies can't drop you just because you get sick or because

you're older or because you're not as healthy. so making sure that there are basic insurance protections, that's very important. number four is i want to make sure that we have a health exchange, as i just described, that is similar to what members of congress have, where you will have a set of options if you're a small business, if you're an individual, self-employed, you have trouble getting health insurance right now, you can go and look at a bunch of options and we've got to make it affordable for middle class families. so part of the plan has to be that if you can't afford a market-based premium, that we're giving you a little bit of help and you're able to get health insurance. choice, competition, reducing costs, those are the things that i want to see accomplished in this health reform bill. >> where, mr. president, does personal responsibility factor into all this? there was a front page story in "usa today," recently, that talked about obesity being the single most significant factor. i mean, you're a fit guy.

how about rewarding those who get on a stair master every day? >> well, the interesting thing is you're already starting to see this happen among a lot of private companies. safeway, for example, is a company that has done a great job in helping encourage its employees to get fit. and they actually give them an incentive. they say, look, you're going to save "x" amount on your insurance premiums. you'll see that in your paycheck if you are taking steps to take care of yourself. and i think that creating incentives like that for prevention, for wellness, you know, creating cash incentives for people who -- where it shows up, they're saving money on their insurance because of it, i think that's something that should be part of this. >> mr. president, joe listens to me at home base, which is the big talker 1210 in philadelphia. joseph, go ahead for the president of the united states. >> thank you for taking my call, mr. president. >> thanks, joe, how are you? >> caller: i'm scared out of my mind talking to you here. i'm a supporter. i worked hard for you last year.

>> i appreciate it. >> caller: i'm getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are buckling a little bit. we have overwhelming majority support in both the house and the senate. and you own the whole chute, and i'm just not getting -- it's pretty frustrating to watch you trying to compromise with a lot of these people who aren't willing to compromise. >> are your knees buckling? that's his question. >> well, look. i guarantee you, joe, we are going to get health care reform done. and i know that there are a lot of people out there who have been hand wringing and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process. you know, passing a big bill like this is always messy. it's -- fdr was called a socialist when he passed social security.

jfk and lyndon johnson, they were both accused of a government takeover. understandably, the american people have a long history of being suspicious of government, until the government actually does something that helps them, and then they don't want anybody messing with whatever gets set up. and i'm confident we're going to get it done. and as far as negotiations with republicans, my attitude has always been, let's see if we can get this done with some consensus. i would love to have more republicans engaged and involved in this process. i think, early on, a decision was made, by the republican leadership that said, look, let's not give them a victory. maybe we can have a replay of 1993, '94 when clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the midterm elections and we got the majority. and i think there are some folks who are taking a page out of that play book. but this shouldn't be a political issue.

this is an issue for the american people. there are a bunch of republicans out there who have been working very constructively. one of them, olympia snowe in maine, she's been dedicated on this. chuck grassley, mike enzi, others. they've been meeting in the senate finance committee. i want to give them a chance to work through these processes and we're happy to make sensible compromises. what we're not willing to do is give up on the core principle that americans who don't have health insurance should get it. that americans who do have health insurance should get a better deal from insurance companies and have consumer protections. we've got to reduce health care inflation so that everybody can keep the health care that they have. that's going to be my priority and i think we can get it done. >> a bit off message. today, the scotts released the lockerbie bomber due to -- actually, maybe it is health care related. he's got terminal cancer. your take on this? a lot of folks very offended over a perceived lack of justice. >> we have been in contact with the scottish government,

indicating that we objected to this. and we thought it was a mistake. we're now in contact with the libyan government and want to make sure that if, in fact, this transfer has taken place, that he's not welcomed back in some way, but instead should be under house arrest. we've also obviously been in contact with the families of the pan am victims and indicated to them that we don't think this was appropriate. >> mr. president, in each of our prior three conversations, i spoke with you extensively about the need for closure and we agreed, relative to to bin laden and ayman al zawahiri, and as a matter of fact, this is well documented, i've written and spoken about it extensively, things you said in the course of the campaign played a critical role in my personal decision making pertaining to the 2008 election, so i feel i would be derelict in my duty if i didn't come here today and say, where are we? i know we had a major victory

recently with the number one individual in the taliban, but pertaining to bin laden and ayman al zawahiri, where is it? >> here's where we're at. we're continuing to ramp up the pressure in afghanistan. and we had a -- what appears to be a successful election in afghanistan, despite the taliban's effort to disrupt it. you've got general mcchrystal now over there and more troops who are putting pressure on the eastern and southern portions of afghanistan. on the other hand, you've got the pakistani army for the first tile actually fighting in a very aggressive way. and that's how we took out baitullah mehsud, the top taliban leader in pakistan, who was also one of bin laden's key allies. so the goal here, essentially, is to have a pincher, where we are squeezing them on both sides, we're eliminating their allies, it's making it more difficult for them to communicate, making it more difficult for them to operate safe havens, and over time, what we hope to do is to flush them

out. we are going to keep on putting pressure on them. and i know that it's at great cost. i mean, i have to sign letters to family members who have fallen and a lot more are falling in afghanistan than in iraq. and as a consequence, we've got to make sure that we are really focused on finishing the job in afghanistan, but it's going to take some time. >> mr. president, susan listens to wor news radio 710 in new york city. susan, go ahead for the president of the united states. >> caller: yes, thank you very much, mr. president, for talking to us directly about this important issue. >> thank you, susan. >> caller: we all want reform, i guess it's really a matter of what the best solution is. and a lot of us feel that the federal government is just not equipped or it's their role to be getting involved in delivering health care services. and we're very concerned that

most of the money will actually go, instead of taking care of people, it will go to, you know, the cost of administering a huge government bureaucracy. why not do something more like giving incentives to the states, like here in new york, we already have free health care for people who can't afford it. you know, it should only be for people who can't afford it, not for the 20 and 30-somethings that choose to spend their money on suvs and the latest electronic gadgets. and it's frustrating because we all know we're going to be paying for it, and it should only be for the people who can't really afford it and we want to have our own health care decisions locally and we don't want the federal government making those decisions for us. >> is there a state solution here, mr. president? >> well, look, first of all, susan, i think that it's important to understand that part of the health reform proposal that we've put forward would involve the states.

the states in some cases would be empowered to expand medicaid to cover more people. the same way that they've been able to cover more children under the children's health insurance program. so a sizable portion of the people who are currently uninsured would, in fact, be getting their insurance through the states. that's how the current medicare program is able to allow states to cover more people. keep in mind that nobody's talking about the government administering all of health care. what we're talking about, here, is a public option that people could sign up for, but in that situation, they would have to operate like any private insurer. they would have to be collecting premiums and so forth. the track record for government administering health care actually is surprisingly good. medicare, for example, a government program, has much lower administrative costs than private insurers do now. part of it is because they don't

have, you know, either somebody's qualified or they're not, and so signing them up is a lot more automatic. but that points to one of the big problems that we have. in private insurance, huge amounts of insurance companies are spending a lot of money and a lot of effort and a lot of staff just trying to cherry-pick people who are healthy and sign them up and then eliminate people who are sick. and part of what we want to do here is just reform the system so that insurance companies are operating more fairly to all people. if you're young, actually, it's easier to get health insurance these days. the really tough population are folks who are from 50 to 64, maybe they just got laid off, maybe they're self-employed. they have a whale of a time trying to buy health insurance, and we want to make sure that there is a market for them. last point that i would make is that you mentioned the fact that a lot of young people opt out. one of the things that we would do under reform is to say, if

you want, you can stay on your health insurance or your parents' health insurance up to the age of 26. that would cover a lot of young people who fall in that gap, their first job doesn't necessarily offer them insurance. it gives them a way of having coverage until they get that job that has a little bit more security. >> you're needed across town. i appreciate, very much, the privilege of coming to the white house. mr. president, thank you so much for being on the michael smerconish program. >> mike, it's always a pleasure. and i want to thank all your listeners, terrific questions. there's a great dialogue that takes place on this show and i just hope that we can continue that dialogue in the same spirit to solve some of america's big problems. >> thank you, sir. i'll be back in just a moment from the white house. >> well, there you go. the president and michael smerconish and with an assist from tracy, ernie, joe and susan. david gregory, this was a good format for him. first of all, smerconish did a great job, the questions were

good, and the president delivered his answers. >> i think the president's in a position right now where he wants to be face of this debate. the reality has been, for the white house, that these town hall meetings have, in some ways, we derailed their effort to sort of own -- the reason why they had a deadline before the recess to try to control the debate. it has spun out of control. here's an example of the president trying to bring it back under control. a couple of things stand out. the business about the public option is still a big deal. does the government want a government plan or doesn't he? by all accounts, he still does, but he's certainly going to be willing to compromise. whether he is, certainly, democratic negotiators are going to be willing to do that in order to get moderate democrats and any sliver of republican vote that they can get. the second point is, cost containment. being deficit neutral. how are they going to pay for this? there's the guy out there in montana last week who said, you think you're going to get money from here and there and save it here, aren't you going to have to tax people and raise taxes? i don't think that question's

been dealt with well enough. >> it's so complicated. complicated for us to understand, certainly complicated for people who are being, frankly, misinformed, and reading a lot of stuff out there who are trying to scare people. >> and there's the element of passion. i have talked to allies of the white house who have said, pointedly, the president has not done enough to lobby individual senators hard enough on this thing. it's very difficult. what is it that the president is for? what is he fighting for here? he may have bullet points, he may have principles, but in order for those democrats out there who have cast a vote, if they're on the house side, or who will prepare to do that on the senate side, what is it that they're actually voting for? and the president is trying to walk this line between dictating what's going on in it and what he wants and allowing congress to write the bills. but it's a very opaque place to be. and i think the public opinion is running against him, because of that. >> let's just talk briefly. afghanistan, election day, richard holbrooke walking the streets of kabul saying his immediate reaction is, it's

peaceful. well, maybe peaceful in kabul, but there are probably people out in the districts and the villages who have not voted because of the intimidation by the taliban. but you've got some big guests coming up on "meet the press" on sunday. >> we are going to have admiral mike mullen, the key voice on this afghanistan policy, who is a very interesting person to talk to, as well as our ambassador iken berry over there in in afghanistan. the big question is, are we winning and what are we fighting for? most americans think it's not worth it. if there is progress, how are we measuring that progress? that's going to be big part of what we talk about, and the health care debate, where does it go next? schumer and hatch. two key players on the finance question, which is, as you know, what controls this fight. and the debate between tavis smiley and our own joe scarborough. >> we'll be watching you tomorrow night hosting nbc "nightly news." >> for brian, i'll be there. >> so a lot of david gregory. can't get enough.

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to support bone and breast health... while helping you hydrate. one a day women's 2o. refreshingly healthy. convicts lockerbie bomber abdel basset ali al megrahi is now a free man en route to libya. scottish officials announced his release this morning on so-called compassionate grounds. michael sheehan joins us with the state department. michael, the families in particular, the families who we've been interviewing now for 21 years, the cohns and others, they have to be absolutely furious. and nonplussed. we saw this man, literally, running up the steps to moammar gadhafi's private jet. this is hardly house arrest. >> right, andrea.

and i've spoken to those families often over the years and they're outraged again. and megrahi, he's just a stooge, but to see him dash up the steps there is really an outrage, thinking of the deaths of those young kids, many of them coming home for college vacation back in 1988, it's horrific. but this is really their last gasp of outrage. because the real outrage that moammar gadhafi, really the architect of the plot, has been basically let off the hook and american oil companies are lined up over there to do business with him. and that's really much more than the story than this stooge al megrahi, who is really a spit player in this drama. >> now, is that the real deal? american and british companies lined up for oil deals now that gadhafi was given a pass by the bush white house and now the obama white house continuing that policy, because he stopped his nuclear program. he's off the terror list. we can do business with gadhafi. he shook hands with the president at the g-8. >> that's right.

and actually, andrea, as you know, this process of rehabilitating gadhafi started ten years ago in the clinton administration, through the bush administration that really moved it forward it. the oil interests were just too strong. so 21 years after that pan am flight went down, basically, it's business as usual for gadhafi and libya and that's really the story here. >> want to ask you about the cia acknowledging or at least there are certain confirmations that we're getting, the new york typist, "the washington post" that the cia program, that secret assassination program that was briefed to congress by leon panetta after seven year, an on again and off again program, that they were subcontracting, at one stage at least, to blackwater, the controversial contractor. what is the instance of that, if any? >> well, i think there's two significances. one is sort of a public debate, when you hear the term blackwater, this private entity that's being involved, and the

term "assassination," it gets people riled up. but the actually the fact that the u.s. government was trying to find all ways to identify al qaeda and bolin and his henchmen, identify them and capture them or kill them, if they resisted, i think most americans would expected we had done that. the real question in my mind, andrea, is why did the u.s. government to do to go to blackwater to do this? why didn't they have their own programs to identify, find, track down bin laden, grab him, and figure, of course, he would be killed in the process. so i think this is actually much more interesting of a story than the hyperbole over blackwater and the term assassination. >> well, mike, why would they go to another contractor? the argument would be that they wanted some deniability to have a private person or private contractor to do these black deeds rather than having government employees, no? >> well, again, if they're using the term "assassination," that is against u.s. law. but it's never against u.s. law to go out and try to capture

somebody. and if he resists and is killed in the process, that's noncontroversial. or, as we've been doing for years, finding people through our intelligence means and blowing them up with missiles. that's also killing somebody. but we don't call it assassination. i find it just the whole argument somewhat ridiculous. and we really should be focusing on why can't the u.s. government put together a program to find these terrorist kingpins and take them out in a legal way and that's really the issue. we have had success in getting the number three al qaeda operatives, and that's a good thing. but we haven't been able to penetrate the top leadership organization and put people on the ground and take them out. >> but, again, even granting that is legal, let's say the president grants a waiver and that anything that they did with hit squads is perfectly legal. why do it with a private contractor rather than with government employees? >> i think that's a great question, andrea. actually, the cia and other u.s.

government agencies use a variety of different mechanisms to go after bin laden for actually a long time, for over ten years. they use foreign surrogates, other both government and quasi-government organizations from other countries that also are incentiveized, trained, and even paid to find some of our most wanted and criminals. we also, by the way, have a awards program out there. a private citizen can put together a program and go out and try to get some of these guys and get paid for it. and it looks like in this case, they went an extra step and hired a u.s. company in joining the fray and trying to find bolin. i actually think this is a fundamental job of the u.s. government between the cia and our special operations community in the pentagon to find bolin and al zawahiri. and the question is, why can't they get it done? why do you have to go to a private contractor? >> michael, let me ask you about afghanistan. i know it's early and we don't know exactly how things have gone.

we probably won't have the votes counted for weeks and weeks, but at this stage, is this a good sign? richard holbrooke in the field today seemed to be praising the voting so far. >> clearly, it's a great step forward, andrea. obviously, elections don't bring full democracy to a country, but it's an important step that the afghan people are starting to participate in their political process. the real challenge, though, for karzai, if he wins, and it's too early to determine if he will or not, is if he can deliver the services over the next years, the security, the health, and make his government work. and he's able to do that, he can marginalize the taliban and other disruptive forces there. but this is, although it's going to be an imperfect electoral process, it's an important first step. it gets the afghans involved in their political decision making and hopefully karzai or whoever wins out of this election can take the government forward and actually start providing some services to their people other than just a ballot box.

>> okay. michael sheehan, good to see you again. nbc news terrorism analyst. >> thank you, andrea. and does president obama need a health czar to bridge the gap between the white house and lawmakers and the health profession? "the washington post's" david ignatius and "newsweek's" jonathan alter both joining us next. ♪ oh announcer: say hello to the can-doers. - the budget mters. - ♪ yeah yeah the knock-out artists who are finding more ways to spread their dollar further. - to bolder color in less time. - ♪ are you feeling it? say hello to newer ideas and lored prices, enabling more people to turn more saving into more doing. - that's the power of the home depot. - ♪ are you feeling it? try out different colors with new 8-ounce paint samples at a new lower price of only $2.94. (announcer) what are you going to miss when you have an allergy attack? achoo! (announcer) benadryl is

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or have vision changes or eye pain. tell your doctor if you have glaucoma, problems passing urine or an enlarged prostate, as these may worsen with spiriva. also discuss the medicines you take, even eye drops. side effects may include dry mouth, constipation and trouble passing urine. every day could be a good day to breathe better. announcer: ask your doctor if once-daily spiriva is right for you. with the health care battle splitting the parties and doctors and insurers and everyone else, some are suggesting a het czar is needed to referee this fight. david ignatius, columnist for "the washington post," and our own author -- excuse me, author of "body of lies," jonathan alter, columnist for "newsweek" and msnbc analyst, joining us now. i've got you straight. david, jonathan, both of you experts. david, first to you. you talked about the mayo clinic

and the doctor in charge there. isn't it time to bring in a super czar, like a general petraeus, to straight, this mess out? >> andrea, in my column in "the washington post" this morning, i did compare the situation that president obama is facing, where he's been traveling the country, the meetings are getting noisier and the debate is getting more and more polarized to what happened with iraq, where president bush lost the ability to speak to the country and finally turned to a professional, general petraeus, to make the case to the country for policy. i think we're reaching that point in the health care debate. and i proposed this morning that the smartest doctor i know about these issues, the man who runs the mayo clinic, known for providing top care at relatively low costs, his name is dennis ortiz, ought to become the spokesman for how we get out of this mess. we're in a political swamp now. the country wants health care reform, but i think we need some guidance from a non-politician. and the point that ortiz makes,

we need to keep our focus not just on health care reform, but on reforming the system himself. he's a doctor and knows what's wrong and trying to tell us how we can get out of it. >> and they haven't even appointed anyone to be in charge of medicare. jonathan, for all the worse reasons, the good, the bad and the ugly, is the president, is he going to survive this politically if he tries to strip out big chunks of this bill and go with the smaller budget maybe not smaller, but with some portions of the budget and finance components as has been suggested in the "wall street journal" today? will that satisfy the left part of the party? >> the left is really angry right now, but the most important thing is that there be a bill and then by next year, a

lot of these details will have fallen away. where the left has been kind of off kilter lately is that they're not focused on the moral core of this bill, which is ending discrimination against people who have or might be sick. this is the critical, critical component of the bill. so the debate has been dominated by the public option and these other things. the left has lost sight of what the core of this is. that will remain intact as long as he gets that through and universal coverage, he'll be okay politically. >> and let me shift gears quickly. david ignatius, on black water. why subcontract these hit squads at all? why go outside? >> if the cia as in most places, there's a too hard file.

sometimes you kick out a dirt or contractor. i think that's part of what happened. initially, this assassination program was being run internally. they tried to get it going through the operations director. at the end of george's tenure, it seems to have moved outside. officers internally didn't want to do it. they wanted out of it. >> raising lots of questions. thank you, david ignatius, jonathan alter, always great to see you guys. and what political story is making headlines in the next 24 hours? that's next on msnbc, the place for politics. mr. evans? this is janice from onstar. i have received an automatic signal you've been in a front-end crash. do you need help? yeah. i'll contact emergency services and stay with you. you okay? yeah.

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anne joins us now for the next 24. what have you got? >> we're going to be waiting to hear about the gang of six, the negotiators who are talking about health care to see if there's a bipartisan consensus that can be reached. we heard the president saying he holds out hope. there's an increasing amount of

pessimism. >> anne, thanks for joining us. that does it for me this hour. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. contessa brewer pick us up our coverage next. i'd spend class preoccupied, bothered by itchy eyes. but now i have new zyrtec® itchy eye drops. it works fast, with just one drop, to relieve my itchy eyes from allergies for up to 12 hours. no other allergy itchy eye drop works faster or longer. which is good, 'cause there's a lotta paws to shake. with new zyrtec® itchy eye drops i can love the air™. (announcer) find it in the allergy aisle next to other zyrtec® products.

the president answering questions about his plan for health care reform, some say the president needs to act and act soon. >> why have the mammogram if you can't afford the cancer. >> we talked to a single mother who gets real on health care and your stories came flooding in. hello, everybody, i'm contessa brewer. so many people are hurting and

desperate for answers. we'll share some of those responses on air. plus, families here who lost loved ones in the bombing of pan am flight 103 watch as the man responsible goes free. boards a jet headed back to his native home land. the afghan people are awaiting the election results. this afternoon, we'll talk about what lies in store for the families who have endured so much violence. we begin with president obama's multimedia blitz on health care. he's going to hold an online town hall meeting this hour. it comes after he wrapped up a live radio interview. the president is standing by the public option he says as one possible part of the legislation, arguing that reform needs to boil down to choice, competition and reducing costs. >> nobody's talking about the government administering all of health care. what we're talking about here is

a public option that people could sign up for but in that situation, they'd have to operate like any private insurer. the track record for government administering health care actually is surprisingly good. >> let's bring in nbc white house correspondent, savannah guthrie. when he's talking about reducing costs, are there other ideas so far that the white house is skirting around trying to leave it open ended for lawmakers? >> they've laid out a few areas to cut costs. they want to get rid of some inefficiencies in the system. there's this whole set of private plans called medicare advantage and the president wants to get rid of them entirely, which would save over $100 billion. there are different cost cutting measures the white house has laid out. there are some the senate or the house is interested in. one thing they talked a lot about here is that last bit of