national museum of women and the arts. before that, he answered questions from grassroots 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 midterm 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 denies 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. we're 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're not -- 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 enjoy that. 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 a government takeover of one-sixth 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 are 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 at the head, and it's barack obama. are there other democrats, though, that need to be serving as an echo chamber or force 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 nancy pelosi and harry reid and not only them but perhaps an evan bayh 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 a 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 the 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'd 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. e weight on your own, until life shows up with hungry. or, you can follow the weight watchers plan

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okay. two things about the demon sheep commercial from the california race republican primary. we're able to report the guy who does the demon sheep makeover is the bad guy from "the goonies." also it was not actually the worst republican political desifths week. that's coming up next. stay with us. no problem. mind if i take a shortcut? yeah, sure. [ tires screech ] ♪ [ man ] i knew the subaru legacy was the smart choice. ♪ what i didn't expect was the fun. [ male announcer ] the subaru legacy. feel the love.

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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 senator from the commonwealth of massachusetts today. that new senator's 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 unalterably 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 that was 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 coakley, 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 doling 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 sherrod 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 bigfooted 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 treating the ruling so far. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell said, quote, any proponent of free speech should applaud this decision. in citizens united, 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, squad rupe l quadrupling down on standing with wall street and big bins 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, against 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. dd. how's it going? what's up? what's shakin'? poppin'. crackin'. yeah, buddy. brother! dude! dude! what's up? what's up? hey. bro. hey. hey! daddy! darlin'. sweetie! buddy. beautiful. aww. buddy! [ male announcer ] now you can call who you want,

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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 on this show 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 proponents 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 multi-city 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 classmate 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 grassroots.

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. well, 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 moveon 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 year?

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they didn't give him a tracking number, however. phi shan was tai shan 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, butterstick. seeing you leave is almost as hard to understand and weird as seeing america export something to china. national car rental knows i'm always in a rush. they let me charge past the counter...

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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 moveon.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.

in the triple jump. >> 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 zirin. he's a correspondent for "the

nation." he's the 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 doe-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 moveon ad 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. because we can talk about their 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. that's an advocacy ad. not to mention that the super bowl is the number one day for the pentagon and armed forces to get out there in all their glory. david petraeus flipped the coin last year at the super bowl. if we have this advocacy, pro armed forces and pro bikini, we should throw the doors open and cbs has been profoundly contemptible, i would argue. i know president obama said we need more civility in our discourse. but hell no, thishell no. this ad is ridiculous. it should not be on super bowl sunday without some sort of

response poppite 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 that we've just seen reported on, but wouldn't you think they would be risk adverse enough on an ad that basically says ignore doctor advice. >> i don't know if they want to rename or rebrand themselves the conservative broadcast service or what, but i have to think that walter cronkite is shaking his head saying where has cbs gone, they're going to air an ad that they co-wrote. >> tim tebow's future in the nfl is uncertain. that's one of interesting things about his career. if he makes it, will the nfl take kindly to the eye black with the bible versus and preaching at pro graham --

>> if he can't make it into the nfl it's because he can't make a pane grass window with a football. i have about as much chance of being in the nfl as this guy. most nfl owners are roughly to the right of atill a the hun. the idea that tim tebow would have any troubles is ridiculous. he would do just fine. >> thanks so much for your time. enjoy the super bowl bikini and anti-abortion ads this year. >> hey, go saints. that's all i've got to say. >> who dat. >> coming up on countdown, bill o'reilly has been complaining about the daly kos poll that shows rather extreme views are

hold by a rather large proportion of self-identified republicans. next on this show, we are headed to new orleans tomorrow. we actually got a little bit of a head start on that today, led by our stom panachs. [ female] olay ribbons body wash shakes off dry winter skin with 2 separate ribbons. the white ribbon that cleanses and the body butter ribbon that moisturizes continuously leaving skin satiny smooth. goodbye dry winter skin.

that's a lot of people. i've collected a few postcards of all the places that at&t has coverage... spokane, washington; boston, mass. san francisco, tulsa, oklahoma... dated a girl from there. warren, michigan... didn't work out. bozeman, montana; daytona beach, florida; madison, wisconsin... good college town. i think we get the picture.

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tomorrow night, we're going to be closing up our set and heading down to new orleans. kent jones is already there. the last time we sent kent on the road, you might recall he was in ft. worth, texas, in the rain for george w. bush's motivational speaking gig. in ti this time he's in new orleans in the rain and hopefully warming up a bar stool for me. hi, kent. >> 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 dookie chase with the owner of a restaurant. what does this mean to the city? you've been here your whole life? >> yes. this is one of the most beautiful things to ever happen to us where the whole nation, even international people are looking at us. and just admiring how we live, which is a simple life, but a good life. we feel that we make people happy and that saints team has made us extremely happy. >> and new orleans has been through so much. we've been through a lot. we've been through a lot. and we're just starting to see where we're rising.

now we're beginning to see buildings, new housing going up, new streets and things like that. 8 0% of this city was under water. >> including this restaurant, right? >> yes. and thanks to many people, we're up on our feet and now we have to move. we're up on our feet, but we would not have been here had it not been for people. just everybody came from all over. in this room, you would see all these chairs, my friends in indiana raised money by to the buy all these chairs. >> indiana? >> indiana. >> the enemy now, the colts. >> with these chairs. how did that happen? >> i don't know how that did happen. that's a hard thing for us, too. we have a new orleans boy that's on that colts team. we loved archie manning when he played football. we loved him to no end.

i'll never forget. here comes this group of all white kids, naturally. just waving their rebel flags. okay, 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. >> yes. >> and he raised his children here. >> 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 that. good people for our city. but this time sorry, sorry peyton. >> well, rachel, you'll get here tomorrow. i'm sure the rain will stop.

looking forward to seeing you. >> you, too, kent. >> that's awesome. sorry, peyton. that was an amazing interview. we do have a exciting show for you tomorrow. music, food, cocktails. can't go to new orleans without talking about that. we're tuned in tomorrow night. we're really excited about it. e-mail us at rachel.msnbc.com. "hardball" is next. good night. a plague on both your houses. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. > good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. leading off tonight, double jeopardy, as goes the house, so goes the senate. could the democrats lose ten

senate seats this fall and control of that body as well as the u.s. house of representatives? in seven years, no party has lost control of the house without also losing control of the senate in the same election. does this say the democrats better make a comeback this spring and summer or they'll be in worse trouble than even they imagined? plus, ending "don't ask, don't tell." here's a quote from a gi serving in iraq. "yeah, i think my former commander was gay. kicked ass. would have followed him back to fallujah. shame he was shot." let's get past the loose talk and find out what life in the military is really like from men in uniform. would ronald reagan have been reagan enough for republicans these days? the gop don't like to talk about it, but reagan raised taxes. he signed a bill that granted amnesty to immigrants and named pro-choice sandra day o'connor to the supreme court. what happens when the rhetoric smacks into reality? the tea partiers begin their convention in nashville. catch the name of one of their seminars.