i think it's much like going all out on health care. he wants to be inoculated to the best degree he can, that he's doing everything he can. doing everything he can on health care for public option and doing everything he can to get olympics to his hometown. >> is this part of having to do everything? >> i would disagree with my good friend, tom, in i don't think you get points for trying to do something and failing. if you're the president of the united states, you try do something, people expect you to succeed. we've seen other foreign leaders go to the olympics. that seems to be helpful. in the past couple years, the leader of brazil and contenders are bi going to be also in copenhagen. i think this an effort to get it. i don't think he gets points on going, trying and failing either on health care or olympics. >> will this be seen as an effort in one regional part of

the country, chicago? does it show he cares about jobs? my concern about this president has been that he seems to be out of synch with most people. he wants to win that health care thing. most people want jobs. >> most people do want jobs. i think this is boosterism but for america. i think it's going to be positive. >> thank you very much. join us again tomorrow night at 5:00 and 7:00 eastern for more "hardball." michael moore will be with us sitting in tom defrank's store. the movie is called "capitalism: a love story." that's irony. it's time for "the ed show" with ed schultz. good evening, americans. good to have you with us on "the ed show" on msnbc. didn't sound real good. my wife and i traveling on the east coast this weekend in the car for three hours. we haven't done that for a while. right ring rhetoric in this country has reached a boiling point. the government's the enemy. every kind of government, local, regional, state, saeceding from

the union, getting out of the country? that's the hot new thing. questioning whether the president is an american citizen. oh, right wing talkers you're so entertaining. republicans have always tried to make the government the boogeyman, no matter what the subject, it's the government's fault. this is out of control. the fever-pitch we're experiencing in this country right now, i think has got a lot of people nervous. a census worker, somebody doing a part-time job for the government for america, we've had the census in this country for 210 years. this man's name was bill sparkman. he was found dead in kentucky, most of his clothes ripped off and senseless identification tag duct taped to his body and the word "fed" written across his chest. investigators don't know who killed mr. sparkman and what the motive was. they still aren't certain it was a homicide. a lot of things playing into this right now. we do know census workers are afraid to go to work right now. the census bureau suspended door

to door activity in that area of kentucky. newspapers are reporting online chatter among census workers have really spiked. they've heard all the rhetoric. they are worried about knocking on a door and maybe the wrong person showing up with the wrong idea. they've always been subjected to conspiracy theories and fringe attacks, that's for sure. the problem is, the problem, is when elected officials become innappered with this em streamist rhetoric and repeat it as if it's the way it is. minnesota embarrassment is what i call her, congresswoman michele bachmann has been pushing the narrative that big government is dangerous and has been dangerous for months. >> the data collected by the census bureau was handed over to the fbi and other organizations at the request of president roosevelt and that's how the japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camp.

i'm not saying that's that what the administration is planning to do, but i am saying the private, personal information given to the census bureau in the 1940s was used against americans to round them up. >> that's not what i'm saying, but i'll just think i'll throw it in anyway to plant the seed in your head. rounding up americans using their information against them? internment camps? folks, this is beyond psycho talk. it's an elected republican congressional person saying this stuff. when it comes from an elected representative of the united states government, informationally-challenged americans might not know any better. this weekend, roughly 600 of those information-challenged americans got together at a conference. here's one for you. the title of it was "the how to take back american conference." which was held in st. louis, missouri. michele bachmann, one of the six republican lawmakers who attended the conference, which

included workshops like "how to recognize living under nazis and communists." where the speaker outlined what she sees as comparisons between, you know, hitler and president obama. here's another one for you. "how to counter the homosex isle extremist movement and how to stop feminist and gay attacks on the military." these people are nuts. the washington independent reports, quote, it was a weekend of speeches and training sessions that were laden with doom, cries of mounting fascism, and long prayers for salvation. at worst, the speakers argued fascism was on the horizon. at best, this was a pivotal time in a war on christian values. wow. if a person believes he is under a threat at war, okay, that this government is coming for him, he will see it as self-defense. people are not afraid of acting

in self-defense. weigel reports at this weekend's conference the lead eer told th crowd this, quote, don't you dare give up your guns. never, never, never. someone shouted become "give them back one bullet at a time." called out another activist and the room, well, they just got a big kick out of that and they broke up in lalaughter. tonight, another story. the secret service is investigating an incident on facebook, where someone put up a poll asking, quote, should obama be killed? more than 700 people had taken the poll by the time it was taken down. now, for more on the death of the census worker, i want to bring in former fbi profiler, clint van zandt. clint's an msnbc analyst. good to have you with us tonight. thank you for your time. there's been a lot of speculation. we don't know for sure if it was a homicide.

how does a victim of a homicide have his hands duct taped behind his back? how does that happen? >> let's look at a number of this. number one, ed, i jump on parent of your bandwagon. there are enough guns and anti this and pro that and left this and right that. there are 280 guns in america that we know of. there's plenty of guns to go around for everybody in every belief system. i think part of the challenge in this country we're supposed to line up. we're either suppose to be pro this or anti this. we can't just be americans. we just can't say what's best for the country. we have to say, what's best for the party, what's best for the president, what's next for the next president? we whip our country up into this fervor and there are the fringe of the fringe that will pick up a gun and shoot a census worker, commit a murder at the holocaust museum, they'll kill an abortion

doctor or kill somebody carrying a sign that says "i hate abortion." it's on both sides. i think that part of the issue is correct. the other part in this particular case on the census worker that you're talking about, you know, as a profiler, ed, profiling 101. the first thing you look at is victimology. what's going on in this man's background? 51 years old. single parent. his child's an adult. he's in debt. some of these are hypotheticals. hypothetically he's in debt. he's working two or three jobs he's trying to deal with. challenges of cancer he's going with right now. he needs money to do a number of different things. let's say he has a health insurance policy that says it won't pay off if you commit suicide. if you want to close out your debts -- i've had family members commit suicide to leave money to other people. in this particular case, i think the authorities are saying

homicide or suicide? when you look at suicide, you look at his hands were taped, ed, but taped apart. they're not together. if you and i were going to do something, we'd put hands behind his back and tape him. these guy's hands for separated apart. there were other things at the crime scene, for example. he had "fed" on his chest, but that was with a felt pen or magic marker. if i want to send a brutal message i'd take a knife and carve it right in this guy's chest. so there are about six, eight, ten different factors that make investigators have to consider suicide as one means of this man's death. >> does this kind of rhetoric that we've seen and the level of hostility between left and right in this country, does it motivate people to commit crimes like this? >> absolutely. as i say, ed, there are the fringe of the fringe. there are people sitting there saying, you know, you're going to have to pry the gun out of my cold, dead fingers and when they

hear rhetoric on the left, on the right, whether it's pro this or anti that, they get whipped into a fervor. they listen to talk radio. they read blogs that are only on one side or the other. they watch programs that only have one side, and, ed, we choose this. you know, you and i and every american choose what we read and what we listen to. we get force fed what we want to hear. for many of us, that just say, well, there, i believe it. for others that says, by god, i'm not going to take it. i'm going to do something about it. that fringe of the fringe, one more time, will pick up a gun. whether this blog that said president obama should be killed or not, that is stupid. it's childish. it's asinine, whether somebody meant it or not. you and i know since president obama came into office the threats against his life have been hundreds more than any previous president. >> clint, we've also heard elected officials say that he's

not an american, we've had elected officials question whether he's an american. we've had the talk about death panels. we've had the talk about pulling the plug on seniors, and we've had nancy pelosi pull a card out of her chapter of decades ago saying it reminds her of things back in the 7 '70s and she's worried about violence. do you agree with her? should she have concern? are there parallels there? >> you talk about how we line up on one side or the other. the idea in my background i would ever side with nancy pelosi kind of -- grabs me to think i would do that. in this point, i think she's absolutely right. i think that's what all of us have to do is to listen to what she says. listen to what the left and the right says. somewhere in the middle, ed, is the truth. i think the speaker of the house is right when she says this rhetoric and rhetoric comes from both sides, can lead to violence. >> clint van zandt, appreciate

your time tonight, clint. thanks so much. for more, let's bring in david weigel, reporter who covers the conservative movement for "the washington independent." also a contributor editor for "reason." great to have you with us, david. >> thank you. >> you approached the congresswoman michele bachmann this weekend and asked her about this particular incident and the death of this census worker down in kentucky. did you not? >> i did. i approacheder her in a friendy i thought. it's hard to ask somebody for a comment on this. i said as she was exiting the hotel lobby, you haven't said anything about this yet. do you have a comment on the kentucky -- and she sort of cut me off and smiled, looked around and said, let's go, thank you, thank you so much and jumped in the car. she she hasn't commented on this. she talked about the census and danger of the census in the quote you just showed, i was surprised she didn't want to say

anything about it. >> at this conference, was there hateful rhetoric you could pick up on that might have been spewed from the podium? i wasn't there. you were there. i'm asking you objectively, what did you come across? >> there was, but i think the key finding of the conference is that the republican party's message has been shifting so quickly that things like a hearing on fascism in america, the comparison between what we're doing and what hitler didn't, didn't sound extreme as it would have a year ago. as for the census, i mean, michele bachmann is leading in one way. she's also being led in another way. i went to a panel on the threat of a.c.o.r.n. and voter fraud and there were multiple questions from attendees asking if they could not fill out the census. if the census was going to put them on the list, ask them how many guns they owned in order to take them away. the republican candidate for secretary of state said, well, i would never ask you to do anything to violate federal law.

however, they began to lead into -- not to get out of the census but egging on people who had real paranoid problems of what was going on in america. >> if you go to a conference and it's labeled fascists and nazis and communists and you're an elected congressional member and there were six of them there, corre correct? >> right. >> isn't that an endorsement this stuff is actually haening and gets into the hearts and minds of some of their, quote, followers? we spr a dead census worker. whether they're connected or not, the american people are connecting it. a lot of census workers are afraid to go to work on this issue. >> there were six members. governor mike huckabee was there. some republicans have criticized michele bachmann on what she said. patrick mchenry from north carolina wrote a public letter saying, the problem with the census is we conservatives don't want a.c.o.r.n. in charge and

statistical sampling involved. stop telling people not to participate. you're putting the cause. for this many republicans to meet at an event like this and give an endorsement to fringe rhetoric, people can say whatever they want. these republicans are getting ready for a midterm election they want to win. >> this is who they are in my opinion. >> thanks so much for having iv, ed. coming up, i have a warning to all of you late-night tv watchers. be ware of the crazy birther infomercial that's running. if you get sucked in you'll be out 30 bucks and all you'll have to show for it is a bumper sticker. the rightties are trying to pull another fast one on us. my next guest, a doctor, hit the roof when he found out dr. tom rice wanted to use him in a health care misinformation campaign. he'll sound off in just a minute. it's tough to reach that five servings a day

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bill clinton says the vast right wing conspiracy that once targeted him is alive and well today and have their sights set on president obama. joan walsh will tell us what we have to do to turn that around. national car rental knows i'm picky. so, at national, i go right past the counter... and you get to choose any car in the aisle.

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welcome back to "the ed show." america's doctors know we have to fix a broken health care system. where a pink slip could be a death sentence right? 75% of doctors support a public option, according to a study in "the new england journal of medicine." doctors don't support the republican plan. now they're resorting to sneaky tactics. congressman tom price from

georgia, a doctor, is sending faxes to doctors asking them to be a part of physicians counsel to advise congress. it sounds like he's asking for nonpartisan professional advice except it is owned an operated by the nrcc. now, a republican fund-raiser and campaign group. all right, now, i've heard from doctors who are absolutely fierce about this. one of them, dr. barry kauffman. he joins us tonight here on "the ed show." good it have you with us here. when did you first find out your name was on this list? how did this all come about for you? >> well, three days ago i received a fax with a face page from congressman tom price from his desk that stated because of my standing in health care community in indiana they wanted my help for this council to assist them in responsibly reforming the health care system. when i turned to the next page the headline said the right kind

of health care is not run by our government, and my name was circled on this page saying with the scrawled, false handwriting, saying including your name on this ad will go a long way in helping our cause. i ha to call an 800 number to approve or disapprove of having my name in this advertisement. >> you have other things to do like see patients, run a business, be a medical professional than worry about stuff like this. had you not caught it, your name would have ended up there without your consent, correct? >> the spokesman, when i got to the nrcc, first i called tom price's office. they said, he's only the chairman. i said, his name's on the face sheet. he said, she's responsibly as the chairman but you can't talk to him. i talked to the nrcc and say sured me my name only appeared on my own fax and every other name on this were health care physicians that supported the physician council for professional reform. >> just because you get one of

these things from the republicans and you've got a bunch of doctors' names on there, doesn't mean these doctors are supporting what the republicans are doing. can we cut to the chase on that? is that where we are? >> absolutely. they're just putting names, taking them out of the hat. i'm a physician in indiana. they want as many names on here an possible to deceive the public. on the website for this pcrr they say 73% of patients polled trust their doctors as a major source on health care reform. they're extrapolating that by using doctors' names to deceive their patients. >> watch them at every corner, don't you, folks? doctor, where do you stand on health care reform in this country? thanks for coming on the program tonight, but i can't let you go without getting a word in since you are a medical doctor and you see a lot of patients. where do you stand on reform? >> i stand for either universal health care or as i wrote to congressman tom price, medicare for all with a tiered buy-in

program where i could pay a certain amount a minute onth to into the medicare program. >> you're totally against everything they wanted you to sign your name on to? that's basically what it comes down it. dr., appreciate your time. barry kauffman. i have on my radio show received numerous phone calls and e-mails from doctors all over the country who are furious about this tactic and now they're really paying attention to it. coming up, those crazy birthers, darnit, they're at it again. they have a 30-minute infomercial running on tv stations across the country. get this, the guy behind it, his name is gary creep. talk an the shoe fits. i'll show you that in "psycho talk." would you like a pony ? yeah. would you like a pony ? ye ! ( cluck, cluck, cluck ) oh, wowww ! that's fun ! you didn't say could have a real one.

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in "psycho talk" tonight, no joke here. the crazy birthers are taking it up a notch. fundamentalist christian website teamed up with a birther group to produce a 28-minute infomercial pushing the conspiracy theory that president barack obama was not born in the united states. it's been running in seven states all in the south. not a bad plan since more than half the folks down there already think obama may not be an american. here are some of the highlights. >> where was president obama born? why does he refuse to produce his official state of hawaii

birth circuiertificate? what's he hiding? have your name added to a petition to force president obama to obey the law. help the united states justice foundation in their efforts to force president obama to produce his birth certificate by making a gift of $30. >> only in america. your $30 will fund a flood of faxes to each state's attorney's office across the country and eric holder. that's expensive faxing when you consider recipients are probably going to be 20-year-old interns to deposit faxes like those directly in the trash. wait, there's more. >> you will receive a specially created "got a birth certificate" bumper sticker. >> that is one overpriced bumper sticker. in its first week on the air the infomercial got between 1,500 and 2,000 responses. that's right. almost 2,000 people were stupid enough to send 30 bucks to these

folks. buying a tv spot to push a defunct conspiracy theory, that's a full half hour of "psycho talk." coming up, iran is really testing the world's patience. this weekend tehran fired a round of missiles to prove they could respond to any military attack in a, quote, crushing manner. we'll assess the threat in my "playbook." plus, there's a political storm brewing over big sky country montana. it's pouring down on senator max bauc baucus. turns out i'm not the only one asking, buddy, whose side are you on? the committee is holding his feet to the fire over this public option. big vote coming up tomorrow. the leader of that group is with me in just a moment. here you go.

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how you could start saving. welcome back to "the ed show." this is a huge week for health care and it all starts torn. the fate of the public option could vote as early tomorrow on

that provision, an amendment to the bill offered up by a couple of senators. liberal groups are putting the pressure on conservative democrats. movon.org is asking north dakota democrats to call senator kent conrad's office. meanwhile, the progressive campaign change committee and democracy for america have just launched this ad targeting finance committee chairman max baucus. >> my name is ben, i live in billings, montana, with my beautiful wife and baby boy. last june i collapsed because of congenital heart problem. i need open heart surgery but have no insurance and no company will insure me. my wife and i still owe over $100,000 in medical bills. none of this would have piled up if i had the option of buying into a public health insurance plan. insurance companies need competition. they profit by knee nighing care to people like me. >> senator baucus, will you take millions of dollars from health

and insurance interests that oppose reform and give families like mine choice of a public option. i have to ask, whose side are you on? >> joining me, adam green, co-founder of the progressive campaign change committee. mr. green, good to have you with us tonight. get your cell phones out. mr. green, what's the mission here? to get rid of max baucus as a montana senator or to get him to change his mind? >> well, the main mission is to make sure max baucus is being accountable to his constituents on this issue of the public option. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to pass this reform. the most recent poll of montana voters in the supposedly red state of montana shows more montanans support the public option than oppose it. he is one of those people and we want to make him come face to face with his constituents. >> max baucus has taken $3.4 million in the last five years.

you mentioned montana voters of the public option, 47% favor, 43% oppose. this idea of the theme of telling storyies of those who have been left behind, have got some hardships, do you think this is going to work? do you expect it to work? >> it has to work. you know personally how much ben nelson reacted when we highlighted one of his local constituents, a small business owner. he called you. he called this small business owner. he put up his own response ads. we've heard behind the scenes, senator baucus' staff has already heard about this athd. they're responding to it behind the scenes and we want to make sure they're not reacting to fake, consultant-driven, fluffy ads. have to look into the eyes of their own constituents. thousands of people have gone to our website healthcarecan'twait.com. we met the $50,000 mark. really we hope to up the pressure on senator baucus. >> montana democrats on senator

baucus' action on health care reform, he's facing some pretty tough numbers, folks. 55% oppose of what he's doing. 44% support. and i think when you take a look at montana, they're pretty, you know, average american independent-thinking voters. when they hear stories like that, if that doesn't make max baucus turn and go for the public option, it's going to make me think he's either taking marching orders from those who gave him money or taking marching orders from the white house to come up with something different than the public option which would be the co-op. what about the latter? what do you think? >> the co-op? the trigger, the co-op, all of these are not acceptable reform. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. the beltway convention l wisdom is not reflecting what "the new york times" poll on friday showed that 72% of the american public and 50% of republican voters, let alone overwhelming majorities of democrats and

independents want the public option. this should be a political no brainer for every politician including the white house. for some reason we also have olympia snowe playing this critical role. her constituents support the public option 2-1. we need to make sure we're not watering down the public option with a co-op or trigger. >> will you, mr. green, will you run ads on other senators or is it just max baucus? >> we currently have ads up against baucus and also olympia snowe. both of them are at healthcarecan'twait.com. we hope this is a real source of pressure, highlighting voices of local constituents. >> tomorrow's a big day. thank you, adam green. appreciate your time. folks, get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think on this. do you think liberal groups targeting democrats is a good idea or a bad idea? text "a" for a good idea "b" for a bad idea to 622639. we'll bring you the results

later on in the show. the liberal group, accountability now, is taking on bush dog democrats. this is a new one on me. bush dog democrats? you see, bush dogs are democrats who voted with the republicans on the defining issues like the iraq war and who are more conservative than their districts. looks like we have a new saying every night, right? case in point, congressman jim cooper of tennessee is opposed to a public option but his constituents in favor of it. 61% of them favor a public plan even though cooper is from a red state. he represents a solidly democratic district. he's got 66% of the vote in 2008. for more, let's bring in our panel. steven a. smith, journalist and commentator. also michael graham, radio talk show host. wtkk in boston. steven, is it a good idea for the democratic liberal groups to get aggressive on the people stopping public option? >> i have no problem with it

whatsoever because you're holding the politicians responsible. making them stand up front and center, putting them on front street and saying you represent us. what do you stand for? what are you going to do? not only that, yourself digging into the records, history. who's paying for them. trying to buy them off. i have no problem whatsoever on politicians who are put on front street. i think it's a beautiful thing. this is as american as it gets. >> michael graham, on the conservative side, tom delay was good for pulling people aside and twisting their arm. running ads against your own folks isn't what the conservatives have done. >> i don't agree with that. you heard of john mccain. he had a couple problems with people like me when he was running for office. i want liberals to spend as much money as possible attacking democrats. can i donate? go ahead, go for it. i agree with stephen. >> you can donate to their website. i would like to see them run ads against all these conservative democrats that aren't getting it

right. >> i want the idea of making them explain. explain what's going to pay for the young man's health care who has no health care coverage. the young man under obama's coverage would not be able to buy catastrophic care alone. he would be subs diszed by his neighbors. explain it. >> i want to say this. i appreciate the fact you agree with me, michael, but at the same time i think the same should be applied to the republicans as well. i want their constituents putting them on front street and making sure they have to stand up and explain why they are against a public option. >> you mean to tell me there are no republicans out there that are having a tough time with health care? you asked the question of who's going to pay for it. buddy f you're in the top 2%, get your wallet out. we're going to repeal the bush tax cuts. the economy under clinton was great when the taxes were invoked back then. you know what the story is,

michael. come on. >> i'm not going to relive the tech bubble bursting and the collapse of the economy when bill clinton was still in office. i want to say this. you're right republicans have to have a proposal. the more they talk about numbers the more they win. i don't know where you're getting your numbers from today. you saw the new rasmussen poll tonight. 80% of americans like the health kay they have right now. those are the real numbers. >> that was the very conservative rasmussen poll. we're going to find out if it's going to cost anybody some real seats a year from now. before that max baucus just can't continue to have his numbers erode like this and expect to be back in there. >> he's talking about expanding medicare permanently. any time you talk about that -- when you talk about adding 11 million to 15 million people to the medicaid program and haven't definitively said how you're going to pay into it, all i'm saying, but, again, people are

debating how accurate the plan is. >> if the people want it, why not do it? >> people have an obligation to know exactly what they want, not to just say, i want a public option. they need it -- people need to be able to say this is how we're going to pay for it. >> we never had the war on budget. we never had iraq and afghanistan and budget. there was no complaint about it then. why should there be a complaint on this? why are you so worried about who's going to pay for it? the rich people are going to pay for it. >> the notion people are going to pay for their own, if they could pay for their own, they would need the government-subsidized program they're trying to shove down their throats. the medicare program cost $110 billion. the american people are -- >> there's no question there's tweaking that has to be done. the fact is people who have insurance are paying double -- paying at least one extra premium a year, a year to pay for those who don't have it. >> we have to fix that. >> let's not act like every --

abundance of people out there are against the public option. you have an abundance of people out in asking how are you going to pay for it? i'm for the public option, you're for the public option. what are you going to do to pay for it? if tms can't answer that question, you got a problem. >> how to you explain the numbers? numbers are in double digit way beyond people for it. the cost is a concern only to the minority, that would be the republicans. >> sometimes we find numbers are a bit askew. >> michael, your taxes are going up. that's all i care about. you need to -- >> i hope i make enough money. that would be great. >> stephen a., how about my man, brett favre, huh? >> i got to give him his props. he showed up sunday. coming up, republican fearmongerer lindsey graham says we're facing a trifecter of disasters in the middle east. things are so bad we're walking down the road to armageddon?

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we need a big chicago board for this one. a big one. in my playbook, iran is testing everybody's patience across the globe. as soon as president obama and other world leaders spoke out about iran breaking the rules by having a nuclear facility, an offended ahmadinejad fired off a bunch of missiles, some of which can make it to israel and parts of europe. this missiles give obama's team one more thing to worry about as

they put together a strategy with talks with iran this thursday in have neef have. joining me now, national security researcher. nice to have you on tonight. first, tell us how serious is this that -- did we know they had this capability? >> we've known they've had these missiles with this range for some time. it's always serious business when a country with the history of iran starts showing off its missile capability. however, we really shouldn't make too much of it. i think they were put on their back foot by president obama's rollout of the intelligence near qom and felt they needed strength to put them in better position going into negotiations. >> this is secretary of state robert gates. i want to play this when he was asked a eed about the possibilia

military option. what do you think a military option would be at this point if we decided to go down that road, mr. duss? >> you know, i think what secretary gates said was correct, a that in the best-case scenario, a military strike on iran's nuclear facilities, at least the ones we know about, because we think they're the ones we don't know about, would set the iranian nuclear program back maybe a few years. at the same time -- i think this is not discussed nearly enough, is that we -- there are likely consequences of such a strike that would be disastrous. >> this is secretary of defense gates on the situation militarily. here it is. >> there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. the estimates are one to three years or so. and the only way you end up not having a nuclear capable iran is for the iranian government to decide that their security is

diminished by having those weapons as opposed to strengthened. >> matthew, we better be correct on all these timetables that are being thrown out there. how accurate are we and how good is our intelligence do you think? >> it's always an inexact science. the best information we have is iran is still some time away from a nuclear capability. however, a number of clocks working here. first of all, the nuclear clock, the clock according to israel which has made clear numerous times they see the iranian nuclear program as an existential threat and there's increasing fear in the u.s. government they might strike, but there's the iranian democratic clock. >> how do the missiles effect the upcoming talks? >> this was more for iranian domestic consumption than international consumption. we're looking at an iranian regime that is now after the elections that occurred. we're looking at a regime that

is in bad shape do midwestically. it's lost a lot of legitimacy and in situations like this, it has sought to externalize domestic problems by creating incidents like this. >> this is senator lindsey graham in south carolina. south carolina elected officials are in the news a lot and like to talk. here he is talking about armagedd armageddon. what do you make of this? >>vy one rule of thumb. if the president of a country denies the holocaust, believe the worst, not the best of what they're doing. they're trying to develop a nuclear weapon. if they are successful, the sunni arab states in the region will want a nuclear weapon. we're walking down the road to armageddon. >> i never heard that nine month ps ago when bush was around. a lot of things have changed. i want your thoughts on that. >> as my friend, the international relations scholar rob farley says, every country has neocons. they can be counted on to always talk about the worst-case

scenarios and assume the worst about their add versys. >> matthew duss, good to have you with us tonight. coming up, the heat is on the senate finance committee as they face a do or die vote on public option tomorrow. it's time to finally see who's got the guts and who's got the go. joan walsh joins me on that issue and other things coming up next on "the ed show." nature knows just how much water vegetables need. so, to turn those vegetables into campbell's condensed soup, we don't boil it down, our chefs just add less water from the start. ♪ so many, many reasons ♪ it's so m'm! m'm! good! ♪ who switched from geico to allstate... saved an average of $473 a year? no way! way. ♪

your wife famously talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. as you look at this opposition on the right to president obama, is it still there? >> oh, you bet. shire it is. it's not as strong as it was because america has change the demographically. it's as virulent as it was. americans may be hurting president obama, they can take his numbers down, they can take his opposition up. he and his team have a positive jae agenda for america. their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail. that's not a prescription for a good america. >> that is a key point from the former president. bill clinton says republicans' waterloo strategy is bad for theirer party and won't help th take back control in the next election. let's bring in joan walsh, editor and chief, salon.com. good to have you on with us tonight. to you agree that all of this

fallout talk, that if the democrats don't get exactly the health care bill that they want that a bunch of seats are going to be lost? what about what former president clinton had to say there? >> i agree with president clinton. i think it's far too early to say what's going to happen in 2010. i think the democrats should try an unusual strategy for democrats. that is delivering on their promises and that will do them well in 2010. we had a congress elected in 2006 promising to end the iraq war. they did not end the iraq war. we had people get elected in 2008 including the president, saying they were going to give us universal health care with the public option. so far we don't have it. why don't they try consistency and try delivering for their people? that might be a winning strategy for a change. >> if it doesn't work for the democrats, here's another piece of that "meet the press" interview with david gregory and the former president, is it going to be a repeat of 94s is?

here it is. >> do you worry about a repeat of '94 politically? >> there's no way they can make it that bad for several reasons. number one, the country is more diverse and more interested in positive action. number two, they've seen this movie before because they had eight years under president bush when the republicans had the whole government and they knew the results were bad. number three, the democrats haven't taken on the gun lobby like i did and they took 15 of our members out. i don't think it will be -- whatever happens it will be manageable for the president. >> joan walsh, this is a good old pep talk from the former president that things aren't all that bad. that's how i'm taking it. what do you think? >> i take it the same way. i thought that was a dig at obama and the democrats for not taking on the nra the way he did. he's very proud of that and should be. you know, i think he's also trying to focus on something else, i think, ed. you and i have talked about the role race has played in opposition to the president.

it's disgusting and it's there. however, this is what republicans do to democrats. they called president clinton a murderer, a rapist, a drug dealer. the la lewinsky stuff. president clinton faced his own smear campaign. they throw the kitchen sink at the democrats and sometimes it works. he's trying to remind democrats, fight back, stand for what you believe in and know your enemy. >> joan, what about the liberal groups targeting max baucus with television ads in his own backyard to erode on his numbers to get him to shift his position? got a big vote coming up tomorrow in the senate finance committee with senator rockefeller, senator schumer coming forth with this amendment. we might end up with five bills all with the public option. probably not. what do you make of liberal groups going after conservative senators? will it have an impact? >> i love it. i hope so. max