democrats a rather rousing speech at a dnc dinner at the national museum of women and the arts. before that, he answered questions from grass roots supporters at a fund raising reception that was broadcast online. here is the president rallying democrats tonight in an effort to push forward with his agenda and toward the mid-term elections. >> you know, sometimes i think we got so many things done so quick that people forgot. but let's just think about this. we upheld the principle of equal pay for equal work. we lifted the ban on stem cell research and restored science to its rightful place in america. we provided health care to 4 million children who now have it who didn't have it before. we passed the strongest veterans budget in decades. we protected families from getting ripped off by credit card companies and children from being targeted by big tobacco. and helped consumers deal with

the twin plagues of mortgage fraud and predatory lending. we appointed sonia sotomayor to the supreme court. we passed a service bill named for ted kennedy that's giving young and old a chance to serve their country and their communities. we're working with congress to finally repeal the law that denied gay americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. oh, by the way, in the meantime, we prevented the worst financial crisis from getting even worse. turned the economy from contraction to expansion. made the largest investment in clean energy in history, the largest investment in education in decades. expanded the pell grant program, dealt with an h1n1 virus on the

side. that's what your support has helped us do at home. abroad we've begun a new era of engagement working with our partners to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, seeking a world free of them. we're working with other nations to confront climate change. we are now a leader and not a follower in that critical mission. we banned torture. we're rebuilding our military. we are reaffirming our alliances. we've begun to leave iraq to its own people as i committed to doing in the campaign. and we've chartered new ways forward in afghanistan and pakistan. we're making progress every single day in taking the fight to al qaeda and across the globe. i went to cairo on behalf of the american people to begin a new dialogue with the muslim world. we're living up to our

obligations as a wealthy nation helping to promote food security around the world, helping to deal with diseases around the world. we're living up to a moment that demands american leadership by standing with the people of haiti as we speak. so in ways large and small we have begun to deliver on the change that we talked about, the change that you believed in and that you campaigned hard for. but the reason that you and i are here tonight is because we're not done. we've got a lot more work to do. the things that we talked about during the campaign are the things that still need to be done. they've been put off by washington for too long. and this is where change gets hard. change is easy if you're just talking about tinkering around the edges. change is harder when you actually dig in and try to deal with the structural problems that have impeded our progress for too long.

this is where we run head long into the lobbyists and the special interests and the bitterness and misinformation that characterizes so much of our politics. which means that some of you may be feeling discouraged because it feels like things are taking longer than you might have expected. well, don't be discouraged. i'm not discouraged. i knew this was going to take a long time but i knew the fight was worth it. and we've got to keep up on this fight. this forces the status quo. they may not give an inch but i don't give an inch either and you shouldn't give an inch either. we didn't come this far to put things off or to play it safe or to take the easy road. >> joining us now is eugene robinson, pulitzer prize winning columnist and an associate editor for "the washington post." he is also an msnbc political

analyst. gene, always great to have you on the show. thank you very much for being here it's great to be here, rachel. is it true that you have the other gene robinson on your program tonight as well? >> we have two men named gene robinson on the show tonight. only in part because we wanted to have you both on the same show. we probably would have done it anyway but it's kind of great. >> you cornered the market on gene robinsons. >> we were trying to come up with a segment where we could have you both on at once and i was going to go, take it, gene and sort of do it as a personality test to see which of you would be more aggressive and go for it. >> you would enjoy that wouldn't you? >> i would. neither of you would which is why we didn't do it. so anyway, let me get your reaction to the president tonight. i mean, two more speeches in one night tonight for the president. what is the white house strategy here and do you think it's working? >> well, i think the strategy, which you saw begin at the state of the union and certainly carried forward in the question time appearance with the republicans last friday and

again with the senate democrats and on and on is to take back control of the debate, of the language and the terms of the debate about these important issues. if health care is defined as the republicans defined it as a big government takeover of 1/6 of the economy, you know, run for your lives, that's bad for the democrats trying to pass health care reform. if it's defined as no preexisting conditions as an impediment to getting insurance, as holding down costs, you know, the long-term deficit reduction, that's good for the democrats who were trying to get it passed and i think the president has taken strides. frankly, the white house message machine allowed the republicans to define that issue and other issues in the minds of voters for a good part of the year and that was not good for what the

president calls change that's hard to bring about. >> and one of the things that's been so interesting to watch in politics over the past year is the republican efforts to try to find their leadership, figure out who their spokes people are going to be, see who's going to sort of rise to the top among a sort of chaotic, interesting period in the republican party, the democrats obviously have somebody who's up ahead and it's barack obama. are there other democrats, though, that need to be serving as an echo chamber or a mullet plier f -- multiplier in these cases, should we expect other democrats to start sort of campaigning in the same way the president is? >> you are expecting the democratic party to behave like a political party? and have one message that it gets across in a coherent way? i'm not holding my breath. but it would be interesting, wouldn't it, if after you heard

the president for example give that speech, if you heard, and nancy pelosi and harry reid and not only them but perhaps an evan bayh and and one of the blue dog democrats in the house, if you heard them echoing the language and at least agreeing on the terms of the discussion, i think that would certainly paint a portrait of the more unified and together big tent party. big tent parties are hard to manage. and so let's not minimize that. but you're not really hearing that. when you heard him with the senate democrats for example, you heard a lot of senators who were concerned about their next re-election campaign, raising their own parochial issues from their own point of view and not really kind of getting with the program necessarily. >> in terms of what that program is, the president has been making both a policy case and

sort of a pundit case, a political case for why health care can't be dead. why health care can't be over. he is saying not only is it the right thing to do by the country but it is really the right thing to do politically, democrats, the solution to this problem that we're in, the solution to say scott brown being elected in massachusetts, is not to do nothing. and i wonder if you have a sense in washington at "the post" in terms of the folks that you know who are close to the inside of politics, do you feel like that's resonating with -- as a pundit it resonates with me. i just don't know if it's resonating with people running for office this year. >> you know, it resonates with me, too, rachel. i am not sure it resonates with all the people who need to be ringing with this, if it's going to move forward. i see a kind of two track approach going now. clearly, there are a lot of people in congress who don't want to spend the next say month or so continuing to have the

same health care discussion that they've had for the last several months. but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're stops on trying to get a comprehensive or at least senate bill version of health care passed. so my sense is that those kinds of talks about health care are still going on but the public face, the public discussion that they really want to have right now is about jobs. and about the economy. and there's a feeling that they didn't really signal to americans that this was their top priority item as it is with most voters and they want to rectify that. so that's why you hear so much about jobs but there is so much vagueness about, okay. fine. let's not drop health care but what do we do? what happens next in order to move it forward? and you're not really hearing that publicly. >> yeah. that may be something that they

don't want to talk about in public anyway. that may be something that they have to work out behind closed doors. we'll know it when they do it i suppose. eugene robinson pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor for "the washington post", as always, great to have you. president obama began his day at the national prayer breakfast in washington speaking out against the bill that would have called for the execution of gay people in another country, in uganda. the other gene robinson who we're having on the show tonight, bishop gene robinson, joins us to discuss that and you would think that politicians right now would be running as far as possible away from wall street, big banks, and all the taxpayer funded largesse. you would be right except for republicans. republicans appear poised to outfit senator scott brown's pickup truck with diamond-encrusted hubcaps and a solid gold pine-shaped air freshener and a goldman sachs logo that sits right above the grille. mind boggling details ahead.

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leigh he. two things about the demon sheep commercial from the california republican primary. first the guy who does the demon sheep voice over the bad guy from "the goonies." also the demon sheep commercial was not actually the worst republican political decision of the week. that's coming up next. sta-a-y with us. huckles ] when i was a kid, we -- we would just go to the -- the farm. [ cow moos ] [ laughter ] no, seriously, where are you guys going? ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! [ female announcer ] the new classroom. see it. live it. share it. on the human network. cisco. and unlock the freshness of the outdoors for your indoor cat.

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that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you're about to enter so help you god?

>> i do. >> again, congratulations. i hope you enjoy it as much as i did. >> vice president joe biden warmly welcoming the nation's new junior from massachusetts today. the first order of business is expected to be joining his fellow republicans in filibustering the jobs bill. senate majority leader harry reid announced today the senate will vote on the jobs bill on monday. shortly after that announcement senate republicans signaled their intent to oppose it. >> if it's anything like what was passed through the house at the end of last year i'm opposed. it's just more of the same. if the president and the democrats would like to negotiate i hope we'll have the c-span cameras in. >> if republicans filibuster, which they will, senate democrats will need one republican to join them to pass the jobs bill. although senator scott brown campaigned under the slogan, jobs are job one, when he was asked tonight if he might be willing to vote for jobs as his

job one as a new u.s. senator mr. brown dodged the question and then said something about the stimulus that implied that he maybe doesn't fully understand what's going on around him yet. >> the last stimulus bill didn't create one new job. in some states the money actually released hasn't even been used yet. >> it didn't create one new job? >> that's correct. we lost what, another 85,000 jobs again give or take last month. >> wait a minute. you understand this, right? the economy is losing jobs. the stimulus and the jobs bill are trying to add jobs to compensate for the ones that we're losing. just because the overall number is still negative that doesn't -- he's a senator now. the "boston globe" this week noted in a six-day span just before election day scott brown collected nearly $450,000 just from donors who work at financial companies including hundreds of financial executives. 450 grand in six days right before the election all from

wall street. which means my new senator is going to fit right in with what is shaping up to be the republican party platform for 2010. amazingly republicans seem to have decided to run on a we're with wall street platform. during his run against martha cokely scott brown promised to oppose president obama's plan to impose a fee on wall street banks that haven't paid back bailout money yet. republicans are against that. they are in favor of wall street not having to pay back the bailout money to taxpayers. similarly this week government bailed out aig announced plans to shell out $100 million in employee bonuses. yesterday house democrats introduced a plan to get that money back for the taxpayers by taxing those bonuses. today senate democrats followed suit. >> it's outrageous that many of these companies are doeling out millions of dollars in bonuses while the rest of america feels the pain of their reckless decisions.

>> they should share the benefit of that bonus with the taxpayers who bailed them out. >> get that taxpayer money back. if this aig bonus outrage thing feels familiar to you, it's because in last march, because last march during the last round of aig bonuses, democrats offered up a similar bill to get the money back. it passed the house by a huge margin, 328-93. of the 93 who voted against it? 87 were republicans, including the top republican in the house, minority leader john boehner, and the number three republican in the house, mike pence. voting to let those aig bankers keep their bonus money that we paid them. democratic candidates all over the country are eagerly awaiting republican votes in favor of the aig bonuses, again this time around. if that's not enough wall street love for you consider that the top house republican on budget matters has proposed his own alternative budget to the president's budget. the republican one proposes the

biggest, wettest kiss to wall street yet. privatizing social security. if republicans get their way americans will be able to invest a portion of their social security payroll taxes into secure funds consisting of equities and bonds. gamble your life savings on wall street? what could possibly go wrong? oh, is that the safety net? as salon.com pointed out today the only annuity felly exempt from the economic ruin brought on bite investment banks and insurance giants was social security. if that's really what republicans want to talk about then democrats should accommodate them with a smile. there's also the supreme court ruling last month allowing corporations to pour unlimited money into american politics. it led to a spate of democratic efforts to blunt the ruling's impact including legislation introduced today by democratic senator sherod brown of ohio. talking points memo did some great reporting this week on how as expected conservative minded libertarian minded tea partiers

are also disgusted by the supreme court ruling on the grounds that it undermines individual freedom to participate in american politics because individual participation just gets big footed by corporate participation. one texas based tea partier told the website tpm that this ruling, quote, attacks everything this country stands for. even the illiterate racist tea party guy we keep talking about on the show, even he is against the supreme court ruling. del robertson the leader of tea party.org slammed the ruling and said it, quote, puts the people at a tremendous disadvantage. in the face of that reaction from even the extreme tea party folks that republicans would love to count as their base right now, here's how elected republicans are treat go-ing th ruling so far. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell said, quote, any proponent of free speech should applaud this decision. the court ended the suppression of corporate speech. john boehner said i think the supreme court decisions today are a big win for the first

amendment and a step in the right direction. let the american people decide how much money is enough. in an election year republicans are now doubling, tripling, q d quadrupling down on standing with wall street and big business against the taxpayers. so welcome to washington, senator brown. welcome to a republican party that is now actively campaigning against the jobs bill, against getting taxpayer money back from the banks, agenls taxing the aig bonuses and for seniors handing their retirement money to wall street and for big business's right to influence american elections at the expense of the american people. even foreign big businesses. democrats, this is a long, slow curveball right across the plate. swing, batter, batter, swing. yot what it needs for the next, oh, 10 years. we can't move forward until you mail it back. 2010 census anncr vo: ...you can get help gwith a flat tire....

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today president obama spoke at an event sponsored by the otherwise secretive religious group known as "the family." every president since dwight eisenhower has appeared at the family sponsored national prayer breakfast but this year both the event itself and the president's attendance got a lot more attention and more criticism than usual thanks to the family's suddenly high profile in the news. since the last national prayer breakfast the family has been in the news for all sorts of things you do not want to be in the news for if you are a secretive religious group. first, there were the three, count them, three republican sex scandals linked to the now infamous c street house where members of congress live in

washington. then of course came evidence of the family's ties to legislation calling for the death penalty for gay people, the so-called kill the gays bill was introduced in the ugandan parliament by a legislator who is a member of the family and is in fact an organizer of that country's national prayer breakfast. we've been looking into the family's influence on the kill the gays bill for months. on monday we addressed the controversy over president obama's decision to attend the family sponsored national prayer breakfast with citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. that group was calling for the president to not attend the event. the president did go to the national prayer breakfast this morning but both he and secretary of state hillary clinton took the opportunity of being there to address the controversy about the family and the kill the gays bill head on. >> but religion cloaked in naked power lust is used to justify horrific violence. religion is used as a club to

deny the human rights of girls and women from the gulf to africa to asia and to discriminate, even advocating the execution of gays and lesbians. >> we may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are whether here in the united states or as hillary mentioned more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in uganda. >> that's one way to send a message to the kill the gays pro-ponents in uganda and the americans who have influenced them. here are a couple other ways. a pair of washington groups, foreign policy in focus, and a group called full equality now staged a protest outside the c street house last night on the eve of the national prayer breakfast and a coalition of religious and gay rights groups put together an alternative to the national prayer breakfast this year. they called it the american prayer hour. it was held in more than a dozen

cities across the country today. these are images of the american prayer hour today in dallas, texas. the multicity event was announced at a press conference on tuesday at which a gay man from uganda who is seeking asylum in this country spoke about what it means to be gay in his country as the kill the gays bill is debated there. he delivered his remarks as you can see here with a bag over his head because he's afraid for his own safety if he is publicly identified as gay. as written, the law would make it an extraditable offense for this man to come out as gay anywhere in the world as a ugandan citizen he would be forcibly sent back to uganda for prosecution and even potentially to be executed. joining us now is our second gene robinson of the evening, bishop gene robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the episcopal church. he helped organize the american prayer hour today. bishop robinson, thank you so much for your time. nice to have you back on the show. >> thanks, rachel. it's nice to be back. >> how did the american prayer hour go today?

>> it went very well. it was in upwards of 20 cities and while the national prayer breakfast was going on, we had communities gathered all the way to anchorage, alaska praying for these good people of uganda. you know, i was in uganda doing aids work helping set up a national aids education program back in the early '90s and i don't think i've ever met a more hospitable and wonderful people and yet we've got these conservative christians going in and lighting the fires of hatred, which must break god's heart to see parents turning on their children who happen to be gay or lesbian. >> i understand, bishop, that you had a meeting at the white house this week in which you talked to the president about this. what did you say to him if you're at liberty to tell us? >> actually, the president was

here in new hampshire. >> oh. >> the day i was at the white house. but we did talk with some of his advisers. and talked to them about the importance of our government making it quite clear that we would not cooperate with anything like these proposed draconian laws and, you know, one of the reasons that we are making some progress here with respect to gay and lesbian bisexual and transgender rights is that in america so many of us have come out and there's hardly a family left that doesn't know a family member or a co-worker or a former class mate to be gay or lesbian and that's just not going to happen in uganda when coming out can subject you to beatings, lesbians are almost routinely raped in order to cure them of their homosexuality, and horrific things are happening there and so this really can't just happen from the grass

roots. we must use our leverage and i'm so glad that secretary clinton and president obama today took this opportunity to highlight this. >> you're satisfied with the way that they addressed it and you think that this is, you think it'll make a difference in terms of what happens in uganda? >> i think it does make a difference. you know, there's an old saying that the church is pretty good at pulling drowning people out of a river. you know, we're good at the charity thing. but what we need to do is to walk back upstream and figure out who's throwing them in in the first place. and i think president clinton -- president obama and secretary clinton today made the first in those efforts. for us to begin to identify these religious groups who -- it's horrifying to me -- but in the name of god are going over and stoking the fires of hatred and, you know, even in

california forest fires when someone lights a fire, and then it gets out of control, we hold those people accountable. but we have religious leaders going overseas and starting these fires of hatred and then when they get out of control and result in a bill like the one we see calling for the death penalty for gay and lesbian people, they back off and say, oh, my goodness. i never meant anything like that. i'm sorry. we have to hold them responsible because they are throwing gay and lesbian children in that river and they are drowning. >> do you think, bishop robinson, that the american prayer hour will become an annual event? do you think that it's possible that politicians could be drawn away from the national prayer breakfast? do you think the family, the fellowship, the organization that supports it, is, has gotten itself in deep enough water here that people may start to pull away from them at that event? >> i think it's a possibility.

we need to be careful with whom we associate and i think the family has used the national prayer breakfast as a way of acquiring a sort of patina of respectability and credibility and so perhaps in another year maybe we ought to offer an alternative event so that our congressional people and even the president himself will need to think long and hard about whether they want to lend the credibility of their presence to such a group. >> bishop gene robinson, thank you so much for joining us tonight. i really appreciate you making time for us. thank you. >> you're very welcome. okay. so something tremendously squirrely is going on this year with the super bowl ads. remember when move on wanted to run an anti-war ad during the super bowl and they weren't allowed to? how come focus on the family gets to run their don't trust your doctor antiabortion ad this

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the sad day has arrived. the once small and hairless panda endearingly nick named butter stick has left his american home for china. he was born at the national zoo in washington in 2005. he quickly rose to international fame thanks to the zoo's awesome panda cam which allowed millions to follow his every adorable, furry move online. but as the calendar days passed by, so did his time in the u.s. for as much as americans loved the panda he belonged to china as part of an agreement that brought his parents to the u.s. ten years ago. so after a lengthy good-bye that even included two fans getting engaged at his going away party, she said yes, he left early this afternoon aboard a fedex plane bound for china. his trainers have spent weeks training him to enter a specially made, see through plastic crate in which he traveled. it was loaded by fork lift onto a fedex tractor trailer with a sign on the back reading "fedex

panda express." they didn't give him a tracking number, however. he was driven to the airport in a seven-vehicle convoy by the same guy who drove his parents from the airport ten years ago. he was loaded onto the panda express plane which was actually a boeing 777 with big panda logos on it. onboard another 3-year-old panda from the atlanta zoo who is also heading to china. also on that plane a whole lot of bamboo and keepers and veterinarians who watched over the pandas in a pressurized cargo compartment. so bye-bye, butter stick. seeing you leave is almost as hard to understand and weird as seeing america export something to china. heart healthy levels of sodium, and taste you'll love. guy: mmmm! chef: we're kind of excited about it. announcer: campbell's healthy request. new anti-aging eye roller. reduces puffiness immediately --

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tim tebow heisman trophy winning quarterback for the florida gators football team gave the closing prayer at the national prayer breakfast today sponsored by the family and attended by the president in washington. mr. tebow is of course an outspoken christian conservative. he and his mother will star in an ad that will air during the super bowl. it's an ad that's about their faith and about their position on abortion. the ad focuses on the decision by mrs. tebow to not get an abortion in contravention of

doctor's orders after she contracted a serious illness and took potentially harmful medication early in pregnancy. mrs. tebow got very lucky. she survived the dangerous pregnancy and the baby she bore grew up to be her famous son tim. the ad was produced, written, and paid for by focus on the family, a very conservative christian group that campaigns against abortion and gay marriage and gay rights. focus on the family says they worked on the ad with cbs for months saying, quote, there were discussions about the specific wording of the spot. we've worked with cbs almost since the beginning. now, cbs used to say they wouldn't accept advocacy ads during the super bowl. in 2004 the progressive political group move on.org tried to air an ad during the super bowl that was critical of president george w. bush and the war in iraq. cbs said no to that ad. this year apparently they're okay with advocacy. at least they're okay with the advocacy of the tim tebow ad,

the don't listen to your doctor ad. i just want to make one comment about the content of this ad as reported. everyone of course is very glad for mrs. tebow that her choice to risk her life against a doctor's advice worked out so well for her and for her family. honestly and sincerely it's wonderful. but she and her son and focus on the family and cbs in this ad are encouraging other women to take similar risks. as one doctor who performs abortions told the daily beast this week, quote, when people want to stay pregnant no matter what the risks we hang in there with them and do whatever we can do for them. but it doesn't always turn out so well. this week planned parenthood released a web ad in response to the tebow ad. planned parenthood of course doesn't have the money to run it during the super bowl so it won't be seen by zillions of people but it is pretty powerful. >> i'm sean james. i'm a former college and professional football player. >> i'm al joyner.

i won an olympic gold medal. >> i love my family and i love sports. >> and super bowl weekend is a perfect time to honor both, sports and family. >> there's a lot of talk leading up to the super bowl about an ad focused on sports and family. the ad features a great football player, tim tebow, and his loving mother discussing a difficult medical decision she made for her family. i respect and honor mrs. tebow's decision. >> i want my daughter to live in a world where everyone's decisions are respected. >> my mom showed me women are strong and wise. she taught me that only women can make the best decisions about their health and their future. >> my daughter will always be my little girl but i'm proud every day as i watch her grow up to be her own person, a smart, confident young woman. i trust her to take care of herself. >> we're working toward the day where every woman will be valued, where every woman's decision about her health and her family will be respected. >> we celebrate families by supporting our mothers, by supporting our daughters, by trusting women. >> joining us now is dave ziron

a correspondent for "the nation" and host of sirius xm's edge of sports radio, also author of "welcome to the terrordome" the pain, politics, and promise of sports. great to see you. thank you for being here. >> great to see you too, rachel. for this interview i'd like you to refer to me, please, as gene robinson. >> we think of you as gene robinson around the office. >> thank you. >> that's why we booked you. let me get your reaction first to the planned parenthood response ad we just played there. former nfl player sean james, olympic gold medalist al joyner. what do you think? >> i think it's a little bit too little too late. planned parenthood should be holding cbs's feet to the fire right now and saying if you are going to air an ad by focus on the family, if you're going to be using tim tebow the dough-eyed hunky trojan horse for focus on the family to enter our living rooms on super bowl sunday then we demand equal time. >> well, there is the issue of, i mean, inconsistency here. but if the networks were consistent, i mean, would you

rather at the super bowl see the tim tebow antiabortion ad and a planned parenthood pro choice ad and the move on add and something, i mean would you rather see all of that stuff or rather see none of it at the super bowl? >> let's talk about some of the ads at the super bowl if we could. we can talk about there not being advocacy ads but they actually advocate a lot of things like women like to hang out in bikinis around men who drink beer. not to mention that the super bowl is the number one day fort pentagon and armed forces to ge. if we're going to have this advocacy, pro bikini or pro armed forces then, yeah, throw the doors open. cbs has been profoundly contemptible, i would argue. i know president obama said we need to have more civility in our discourse. but, hell, no, this ad is ridiculous and should not be on super bowl sunday without some sort of response. >> it does seem important to me that there's an admission that cbs was involved in the

formation of the exact language in the ad. and i don't -- i mean, i don't mean to make too much of an ad we've only heard reported or seen scripts of and haven't seen the tape of yet. wouldn't you say they would be risk averse to be a medical claim that this ad says ignore doctor's advice. >> i don't know if they want to rename itself the conservative broadcasting system or what but i have to think someone walter cronkite and edward r. murrow are saying where has cbs gone that they're going to air a focus on the family ad that they co-wrote on super bowl sunday. >> in sports terms, dave, tim tebow's future in the nfl is uncertain. that's one of the interesting things about his career. but if he makes it, will the nfl take kindly to the eye black with the bible verses and preaching at postgame briefings and some of the stuff that have made him popular? >> first of all, if tim tebow doesn't make it in the nfl it's

because he can't break a pane glass with a football, not because of a censorship of his christian views. i think i have an equal chance as tim tebow. unbiased view. most nfl owners are roughly to the right of attiilla the hun. the idea that tim tebow would have any trouble is ridiculous. organizations like athletes in action, fellowship for christians athletes are in every nfl locker room. he would do just fine. >> dave zirin, columnist for the a nation. thanks very much for your time. enjoy the super bowl, bikini and anti-abortion ads this year. >> go saints, that's all i have to say. >> who dat. coming up on "countdown," marcos moulitsas from daily kos joins keith because bill o'reilly complained bithe daily kos poll that shows extreme

views are held by self identified republicans. we are heading to new orleans tomorrow as you well know. we actually got a little bit a head start on that today led by our stomachs. we will start eating our way through the big easy. (announcer) powering that fan is one little battery... and if you think all batteries are the same... consider this: at iowa lakes community college, the students learn to keep america's wind turbines going and to keep them safe, the only battery they trust in their high voltage meters are duracell rechargeables. so whether you're responsible for tomorrow... or enjoying today... it just has to work. duracell smart power. duracell trusted everywhere

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[ male announcer ] the subaru legacy. feel the love. tomorrow we're going to be packing up the rachel maddow show set, sxwezing into an faa approved carryon bag. kent jones is already there. the last time we sent him on the road he was in ft. worth, texas, in the rain for george w. bush's motivational speaking gig. this time he's in new orleans in the rain and hopefully warming up a bar stool for me. hi, kent. >> reporter: hi, rachel. i'm on bourbon street in new orleans three days before the super bowl, so of course it's pouring. but that's okay because this afternoon i had a remarkable

conversation with 87-year-old lea chase, the proprietior of duky chase, the landmark new orleans restaurant. we talked about the mood of this city right now. this is an exciting time with the saints coming to the super bowl. now, what does this mean to this city? you've been here your whole life? >> it's so beautiful. yes, this is one of the most beautiful things we've ever had to happen to us where the whole nation, even international people are looking at us and just admiring how we live, which is a sim life, but a good life. we feel that we make people happy. and that saints team has made us extremely happy. you know, we are just happy about anything. >> reporter: and new orleans has been through so much. >> we've been through a lot. we've been through a lot. and we're just now beginning to see where we're rising a bit. now we're beginning to see buildings, new housing going up,

new streets and things like that. so it takes a long while. you know, 80% of our city was destroyed. 80% of this city was underwater. >> reporter: including this restaurant. >> including this restaurant. >> reporter: right? >> yes. but thanks to many good people that we are up on our feet, and now we have to move. we're up on our feet, but we would not be here had it not been for people. just everybody came from all over. in this room, you see all these chairs? my friends in ft. wayne, indiana, raised money to buy all these chairs. >> reporter: indiana, the enemy now, the colts with these chairs. >> the colts. >> reporter: how did that happen? >> i don't know how did that happen. that's a hard thing for us, too, because we have a new orleans boy that's on that colts team. >> reporter: exactly. >> we loved archie manning when he played football. we loved him to no end. i'll never forget my first

meeting with archie and his people was when he was in college at ole miss. and i had just one room over there. here comes this group of naturally all white kids just waving their rebel flags. okay, you're in my restaurant with a rebel flag. i thought that was funny. archie who? i said, who in the world is archie who? so we got archie who. and we were able to have him for a long time. and he lives here. and he raised his children here. >> reporter: does he come into the restaurant? >> he's been here several times with meetings and all of that. but we are proud of him. we are proud of them. they're good people for our city. so but this time, i'm sorry, sorry peyton. >> reporter: you'll get here tomorrow, so i'm sure the rain will stop.

looking forward to seeing you. >> you, too, kent. that's awesome. sorry peyton. amazing interview. we do have a very exciting show planned tomorrow from new orleans. politics, football, music, food, and of course cocktails. can't go to new orleans without talking about that. we hope that you will tune into our very special show tomorrow night. until then e-mail us at rach rachel@msnbc.com. our pod kaat at rachel.msnbc.com. "countdown with keith olbermann" begins right now. have a great nooilt night. which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? the junior senator from massachusetts -- >> i do. >> congratulations, senator. >> but why did the gop go from demanding immediate seating for senator brown to trying to stall past a series of controversial votes back to immediate seating? republicans for sale. john boehner meets for drinks with the boss of jp morgan, says

only the gop can protect him from the horror of reform. abdulmutallab singing like a bird. yet mitch mcconnell trashes the american intelligence committee and the justice department and says only the gop can protect you from the horror of terror. >> he was given a 50-minute interrogation. probably larry king has interrogated people longer and better than that. >> political points ahead of intel. hello. the christmas bomber now providing leads about the yemeni cleric tied to detroit, the fort hood shooter, and even 9/11. and oh, by the way, the president can kill you while you're out of the country if you're working with the terrorists. huh? >> if that direct action, we think that direct action will involve killing an american, we get specific permission to do that. limbaugh's use of the "r" word. sister sarah still silent about it. his escape?