warning so there's no need to become concerned about that. so i don't think there's any plan around, other than, you know, i'll set up my insurance company, let me know what you need, i'll provide it. >> sure. >> i'm sorry. >> derrick pits will insure you against alien invasion. dr. hawking calls contact with aliens risky. are we confident we have not already come into contact and survived? the dennis rodman theory? >> the fact of the matter is we have no documentation whatsoever of any kind of contact. there's so much speculation, keith, it's enough to keep the movie industry and the book industry and science fiction going for a very long time. it's sort of great to play around with this idea but the only problem is that whenever you make these extraordinary claims, as you heard dr. sagan say, you have no proof. then we always think our signal will travel for hundreds of light years and that the "i love

lucy" programs are out there, but that signal deteriorates over time. our earliest radio signals are already deteriorating beyond 60 light years. so if the aliens aren't within that realm of maybe 100 light years they're not going to find us. >> to that last point about the traveling and deterioration, hawking said in the past the only long-term insurance survival guarantee for the species is to leave the planet, do you agree with him and can i hitch a ride? >> i have a ship leaving next week, it will only cost you $20 million. >> all right. with insurance. do i get the insurance with it? >> that comes with the package. sure. and all the water you can drink. >> derrick pitts, and the interplantary insurance. >> that's current current for this, 2,552nd day since the

previous president declared mission accomplished in iraq. good night and good luck. it's official. >> on this vote, the yeas are 57, the nays are 41. >> the issue for wall street responsible for this shouldn't even be debated on the floor of the united states senate. republicans also say they'll do anything to stop immigration reformat the federal level. perhaps preferring that states like arizona implement their own bright ideas. >> hope that we meet again on better circumstances. >> tonight, meet the folks who wrote the papers please, law. and our viewers kept telling us

they were getting creepy fundraising mailers designed to look like census forms. then congress made it illegal to send out fake census mailers. turns out they're still coming anyway. remember the john birch society? i had such a great time at c-pac. now they're making up more. first, guys, please stop. if you don't stop, can i have some of the money? all that, plus george w. bush's new book, the u.s. senator who's taking credit now for a bill he used to say would kill you, and the perfect gift, just in time for mother's day. it's "the rachel maddow show," starting right now. today in washington, all 41

republican senators lined up unified along with one democrat, ben nelson of nebraska, and they all bravely insisted that wall street reform not be debate the on the floor of the united states senate. just to be clear here, they did not vote wall street reform down, they voted to not allow it to be discussed. even without ben nelson, democrats have 58 votes in the senate on this, a huge majority in favor of passing wall street reform. but republicans are filibustering, they are insisting that it not even be talked about on the senate floor. which is not to say the negotiations on this are over. republicans say they do want to keep talking. they just don't want to do it in the senate. you know, where people can see. republican senator richard shelby reportedly still trying to work out a deal with democrat chris dodd. a number of republicans considered possible votes for some version of reform in the end. but today's vote to not allow

debate on the senate floor really just means that republicans want the political negotiations on wall street reform to happen away from the c-span cameras in private, off the senate floor. this was not a vote on the merits of the bill. this was, hey, do you guys want to start talking about wall street reform? and the resounding reply was no, we do not want to start debating this. whatever you hear in terms of beltway common wisdom about this, believe me, it is not normal for things to take more than 50 votes to pass the senate. a majority of a body of 500, mathematically speaking, a majority vote in the united states senate is 50 plus one. but on wall street reform, like lots of things, republicans aren't just voting no. they're using a procedural tool to keep a vote from even happening. democrats have a majority on this. republicans just won't let them take a majority vote. ever since they lost control of congress in the '06 midterm

elections, republicans have become a finely-tuned filibuster machine. see how the number of filibusters sky rockettes there in 2007? that's the voice of the republican minority. just since president obama took office republicans have filibustered the stimulus, the tobacco regulation, extending unemployment benefits, health reform of course -- you know what? actually, it's pretty much everything. do we have a scroll of that? yeah. as far as we can tell, republicans have filibustered every major piece of legislation since president obama took office. the only major actions we've been able to come up with that weren't filibustered were the nominations of the president's cabinet secretaries and the nomination of supreme court justice sonia sotomayor. that's because cabinet secretaries and supreme court nominees rarely if ever get filibustered. but never say never. another supreme court nomination coming up this summer. procedurally, this is the reality in the senate. republicans are filibustering

everything. they are using senate rules to blo block majority votes on every nominee and every significant piece of legislation, now including wall street reform. even though that doesn't get talked about anymore, don't lose sight of this. this is not normal. the constant ever present, always on filibuster has never happened before in the history of our country. this has never happened before in the history of the senate. how democrats will respond to the always on filibuster in the case of wall street reform remains to be seen. will democrats manage to win over some republican votes? would they, could they use the reconciliation procedure to get around the filibuster like they had to do on health reform? nobody yet knows for sure. procedurally it is not at all clear what happens next. as i said, there's never been a case in american history where every single piece of legislation is filibustered. we've never done this before.

but substantively, it is important to keep in mind what the republicans are using the filibuster to block right now. they're blocking wall street reform now. when more than two-thirds of americans say they want wall street reform. everybody who understands that there is an economic crisis right now, that was caused by a financial crisis, everybody who understands that wants the financial system to be fixed. so in practical political terms, how do you make the case that you're against financial reform? it's actually not going to be easy. check out, for example, this e-mail today from the tea party nation. this, i think makes clear how difficult it's going to be to make the case against wall street reform. quote, today is the day that harry reid has scheduled a vote to try and cram the quote, financial reform bill down our throats. by which they mean bring it up for a debate using a majority vote. that's cramming it down your throat in tea party speak. back to the letter, this is the

good part. let me give you one horrific example of the stupidity in this bill. this bill will create liability for advertising agencies for ads that the federal trade commission decides are aiding and abetting false advertising. imagine you own an advertising agency. your job is not to verify what a client is selling, your job is to simply create the ad campaign that will drive customers to their doors. so that's the pitch. that's the tea party nation pitch to their supporters about why financial reform is so bad and must be stopped. their pitch is, it wouldn't allow false advertising. oh, the outrage. imagine the poor tea party nation e-mail appeal writer who's tasked with putting together this message. how can we make wall street reform sound really bad? would it sound bad if we asked tea party activists to imagine if they were ad executives who

wouldn't be accountable for what they're selling? would that rile people up? imagine the angry mob taking to the streets now. we want the right to make false statements in advertising! we demand the right of advertising executives to not be held liable for lying about what they're selling, is this what we're supposed to be chanting? could we make it rhyme? i don't know that this campaign against wall street reform, because it's against false advertising is going to fit on a sign. i don't exactly know how this is going to work for them. republicans might be taking every procedural advantage they have in congress right now to stop wall street reform. but politically, in terms of the substance, in terms of trying to convince their base on this one, the political problems here are plain. joining us now is chris hayes, washington editor of "the nation" magazine. thank you very much for coming on the show. nice to see your glasses have been found. >> oh, they have. thanks for having me. i think rand wrote advertising agencies of the world unite. >> i was -- when i got this this

morning, i got it on my blackberry before i was sitting down in my regular e-mail on my computer and i thought it was something that had been cleverly put together by one of the whiz kids on the staff, wouldn't it be funny if this is what the tea party nation had to resort to? it's amazing to me. how do republicans sell this to their base, that they're against wall street reform? >> i think, the more i think about it and the more i think about this whole bailout thing, the more i think actually the bailout dog whistle is a way of trying to invigorate their base. i mean, one of the things i think you see is that the issue of the financial reform bill is not seizing the imagination, even of the most hardcore conservative members of the republican coalition, the tea party folks, this bill is not seizing their imagination. they're not showing up at town halls to oppose it in the way they were with health care. and i actually think the bailout attack wasn't even so much designed for the general public so much as it was just actually a first attempt at even trying to stoke some outrage and some

energy amongst their own core supporters, which, you know, i don't really think is present. i just think we're not seeing the level of outrage there that we saw against the health reform bill on this bill. >> and because they haven't been able to sort of gin up outrage about this among their base, they haven't been able to excite their base with this, and i think you're right in that observation, what happens next politically? what's their next step toward trying to stop it? >> i think there's a few -- there's sort of a branch in the tree here. i mean, one is that, you know, one imagines perhaps everything is changed and now the republicans really, really care about their good faith objections to what's in the bill and are trying to make a good faith effort at negotiating. the other is they're essentially stalling and they're trying to more or less hold up wall street for lots of contributions. and this is essentially what mcconnell and kyl -- mcconnell and cornyn were doing, we stand between you and wall street reform. and the longer they hold it up the more they can get campaign

cash. and then the third thing i think is possible is they think if they stall they can kind of rerun the health care arc, which is to say if you look at the early polling on health care, it also was high and the longer they dragged it out the less popular it got. there's a thinking i think among some sectors if they drag this out the same thing will happen. >> democrats do seem to have caught on to the idea, though, that if they allow it to be slowed down it will be stopped. >> yep. >> democrats seem to have figured that out this time. they also seem to have figured out that they should fact-check their opponents when their opponents start inform get away with saying things that aren't true about the legislation. my question, though, is whether or not democrats have learned any lesson from health care or whether they have a new lesson that they're trying to learn here about actually negotiating with republicans. are the negotiations actually happening, even though there is no debate on the senate floor? >> i think, yeah, they are. i mean, you know, people i talk to on the hill and other reporters find the same thing,

which is there are actual negotiations happening. i hope they've learned a lesson. one thing i thought very interesting, the white house came out with a veto threat very early in this in a way they never did with health care reform. the only thing they issued a veto on was it not be too large. now it's if the derivative language is not strong enough. i would also say this is not just in the hands of democrats on the hill, it is incredibly important that public opinion remain squarely for taking on the banks and reining them in and there's lots of opportunities for progressives who care about this to call their senators and to call members on the hill to show up at protests. there's a march on wall street being led by afl-cio, there's a group new way forward doing actions, there's a bunch of people marshalling grassroots organizing to go after the banks. i think that's going to be more important than the deals made on capitol hill. they'll respond to what the mood in the country is. >> the day the democrats start

responding to their base protesting in the streets is the day that i realize that i've won't up and lived in another country. >> i'm a cubs fan so i remain hopeful. >> i was going to say, you can be the -- you can be the cloud, you can be the silver lining and i'll be the cloud. chris hayes, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you, rachel. okay. suggestion for what to get your mom for mother's day. i -- i don't know your mother, in all likelihood, depending on who you are, but i swear she does not have this. i really, really don't think your mom has one of these unless she is a rogue russian missile engineer, in which case you should probably just think about jewelry or flowers or something instead. but for everybody else, a great idea. that's ahead. - is he in? - he's in copenhagen. - oh, well, that's nice. - but you can still see him. - you just said he was in-- - copenhagen. - come on. - that's pretty far. - doc, look who's in town. - ellen! - copenhagen? - cool, right? vacation.

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still ahead, a right wing group has invented a quote from me that i never said, and they're using it to solicit money from their members. this is becoming a theme in my

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the big deal news headline out of the world of politics today was the republican party's filibuster of wall street reform. but there was supposed to be another big deal thing in politics today. today was supposed to be the day that democratic senator john kerry and republican senator lindsey graham announced bipartisan climate change legislation. that announcement, as you probably noticed, did not happen today. why didn't it happen? because lindsey graham got very mad. he scuttled his own climate

legislation because he says he's angry that the obama administration might bring up the issue of immigration reform first. quote, this comes out of left field. we haven't done anything to prepare the body or the country for immigration. senator graham's anger has been seconded now by the top republican in the senate, mitch mcconnell who said, quote, this isn't the right time to do immigration reform. republicans bending over backwards doing everything they can, skcuttling their own announcements to make sure immigration reform does not come up. remember when george bush wanted to do immigration reform in 2007, his own party bent over backwards and delivered their own president a huge political defeat on this issue because they were so desperate to not do immigration reformat the federal level. the fact that it continues to not happen at the federal level is ought the justification that some states need right now to

deal with immigration on their own. which is how we got this. >> the bill i'm about to sign into law, senate bill 1070, represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis that we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix. >> and so the state of arizona now has a new law requiring police officers to demand the paperwork of anyone who looks like they might be an illegal immigrant. >> what does an illegal immigrant look like? does it look like me? >> i do not know. i do not know what an illegal immigrant looks like. i can tell you that i think there are people in arizona that assume they know what an illegal immigrant looks like. >> in the meantime, papers, please. before this bill was actually signed into law, we told but the guy who introduced it in the first place. it's this guy, republican state senator russell pearce. he is famous in arizona for

having accused the media of pushing the view, quote, a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inerrant holocaust tale, the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of nonwhite aliens flooding across the borders. he latary apologized. he is also famous for being caught on tape hugging a neonazi. an actual neonazi guy. see, with the swastikas? he introduced this radical bill in arizona that just became law. but if you want to meet the guy who's taking credit for writing the new law, that would be the gentleman named chris kobach. he's a birther, running for secretary of state in kansas now. his website brags, kobach wins one in arizona.

he's also an attorney for the immigration reform law institute. that's the legal arm of an immigration group called f.a.i.r., federation for american immigration reform. mr. tanten is still listed as a board of directors. seven years after he started f.a.i.r., he wrote this, quote, to govern is to pop late. will the present majority baesably hand over its political pow tore a group that is simply more fertile? as whites see their power and control over their lives declining will they go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion? that's f.a.i.r., who helped write arizona's anti-immigrant law. the group reportedly received more than $1 million in funding from something called the pioneer fund. it describes itself as a group

formed, quote, in the darwinian-galtonian evolutionary movement and eugenics movement, who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the constitution. f.a.i.r., which again claims credit for writing arizona's new immigrant law, it was long bank rolled by the pioneer fund. quote, i've come to the point of view that for european american society and culture to persist requires a european-american majority and a clear one at that. in 1997, tanten said, america will soon be overrun by illegal

immigrants, quote, defecatining and creating carr garbage and looking for jobs. again, this genius is the guy whose group is behind arizona's new law, they take credit for writing it. quote, assisting senator russell pearse in drafting the language of the bill. in drafting that language, f.a.i.r. slipped something in for itself. they sue state government's. tucked inside article 8 of the new law is a provision that if groups like them win their cases, quote, a judge -- sorry, a judge may order that the entity, quote, who brought the action recover court costs and attorney fees. which could create a nice financial boon for the formerly eugenics, promote the genetics of white america anti-immigrant group whose attorneys helped

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a couple months ago i got this in the mail labeled as a congressional district specific 2010 congressional official survey. it's designed to look like a 2010 census form. but it was a republican

fundraising form. these were mailers that not only exploited people's knowledge of the actual census to get to you open it up and read it, these things also undermined the actual census. by the time people get their real census forms in the mail, you'd be less likely to open that up if the last time you got something that liked like an official census form it turned out to be political junk mail with questions about how evil communist obama is. because it was messing with the mandated census, legislation proposing to ban stuff like this passed the house and senate unanimously. the law was signed by president obama on april 7th. the law made it a crime for the u.s. mail to deliver an envelope from a nongovernmental entity that had the word census on it, unless number one, the solicitation includes disclaimers that it is not a government document and, number two, the envelope includes the name of the entity that sent the solicitation and an accurate return address. so that should have been the end of that.

right? except as we reported on the maddow blog on thursday, people are still getting fake census mailers from the rnc. talking points memo also reported today on one such mailer sent to a voter in california. several viewers from washington state sent us fake census mailers they received. they all had exactly the same 2010 congressional district census letter that the rnc sent out in february. all of them were dated april 12th, five days after president obama signed the anti-fake census mailer bill into law. one viewer sent us the entire package she received, including the fake questionnaire with the same questions as the february mailer. and the same appeal for donations under the heading, census certification and reply. even the envelope which instructs the recipient, do not destroy, official document, even that contains the term census document. and while there is a note that says it is not a u.s. government document, nowhere on the envelope does it say that the

rnc is responsible for these mailers. census document, registered to, deliver exclusively to, do not destroy official document. it says nothing about the fact that it comes from the republican national committee. no return address on the envelope. this would seem to violate the provision in the new law mandating that both of those pieces of information be on mailers like this. but the rnc spokesman told us today that while he couldn't go into detail about the rational used because they don't divulge things like fundraising, the rnc's legal department doesn't think they violate the new law. the law everybody thought was written specifically in response to their creepy, fake census mailers. so they are continuing to send them out. joining us, the original sponsor of the prevent deceptive census look-alike mailings act, carolyn maloney from new york. thank you for being here. >> well, thank you for raising

the attention and putting a spotlight on this violation. >> let me ask you about the overall rational here. how much damage do you think that mailers like this do? why do you think it's important that something like this be banned? >> well, we're still in full swing with the census, and it's very deceptive and it's sad that the rnc is trying to make a partisan buck over -- and trying to deceive people in the process. we need an accurate account, and this is totally misleading. >> do you agree with the republican national committee's legal department that this latest census mailer that they've sent out after the law was pass the, that it doesn't violate the law? >> it appears to have violated the spirit of the law. i have written to the postal department to make a determination on whether or not it violates it. but clearly it was dated five days after president obama signed it into law. at the very least, mr. steele

should check with his republican members of congress, because they all voted for it, and don't approve of the actions that are taking place. >> one other rnc spokesperson made who i thought was a pretty novel argument about this. they told the spokesman review newspaper that the party wasn't breaking the law with this new mailer because the post office would have rejected a mailer that wasn't in compliance with the new law. essentially saying they've been cleared and that these mailers are legal because the post office delivered the mail. what do you think of that argument? >> i think it is ridiculous. the law was very clear. my law stated that you had to have a return address and the sender, and the documents that i've seen do not have that. and in fact it's very misleading and very large print they say, do not destroy official government document, and in very small type, the disclaimer. so it appears to be very misleading, and it appears to be a direct violation of the law.

certainly the intent of the law. >> the chairman of the nebraska's democratic party has also, like you, filed a complaint with the u.s. postal service about these mailers. is that the appropriate avenue, the only avenue open for anybody who wants to register a violation of this law? >> they should write the postal department and ask for clarification. that is what i have done, and chairman clay and other democrats to get a determination, officially, from the postal office. it appears definitely not to reach the law that we passed, but there may be other mailers out there that are different, that do have the rnc as the return address. the ones that i have seen that have been sent to me do not have a return address, they do not have a sender. it says census, so it appears to be in clear violation of the law, and it happened five days after it passed unanimously and was signed into law by president obama. >> oh, well what's a law signed by the president and passed

unanimously by both houses of congress? these things we swat away. carolyn maloney, thank you very much for your time tonight, ma'am. >> thank you for putting a spotlight on, it rachel. thank you. still ahead, the paranoid whack-a-dos at the john bir much society are make stuff up about me, first of all, thank you, second of all, i think 10% is fair. cash is always nice. right? and president george w. bush has a november surprise for america, a preview coming up. i hope there are illustrations. please stay with us. nothing works stronger, faster, or longer to relieve all my symptoms... ...including congestion without drowsiness. get claritin-d at the pharmacy counter. live claritin clear. it was in my sister's neighborhood. i told you it was perfect for you guys.

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millions in every country all around the globe, which means cruise missiles, powerful enough to take out an aircraft carrier, i am not kidding, are now being marketed as ready to plug and play and be moved anywhere it isn't weird to have a shipping container. it's called the club k missile system, being marketed by a company based in russia that calls itself more inform system-agat. they've put out a promotional video that shows how you can mount this shipping container with missiles inside it on a train, truck or ship and nobody's going to know what's in it. it just looks like a normal shipping container, until you hit the button. an editor at janesdefenseweekly says, quote, this club k is game changing. the threat is immense in that no one can tell how far deployed your missiles could be.

or frankly who might have missiles at all. jane's estimates that the price tag will be between $10 million and $20 million. not radically out of the reach of lots of people who i'd feel uncomfortable having the secret capacity to blow up one of our aircraft care yerercareers. or baltimore. the club-k system was recently marketed as the defense services asia exhibition in malaysia. again, the creepy, very high-res video is posted on maddow blog today. nightmares of run away weapons proliferation are available every night inside my head. b-a-c-c-a-l-a-u-r-e-a-t-e. baccalaureate. correct. [ audience groans ]

since this competition has been continuing for 48 hours and we have yet to eliminate anyone, it is the decision of this board to declare all 20 contestants winners. you have all competed admirably. admirably. a-d-m-i-r... ♪ ♪ (laughing through computer) good night, buddy. good morning, dad. (announcer) oreo. milk's favorite cookie. so, at national, i go right past the counter... and you get to choose any car in the aisle. choose any car? you cannot be serious!

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beat the path through the wilderness not everyone has the courage to follow. senator grassley was one of the most vocal opponents of the health care legislation. >> you have every right to fear. we should not have a government program that determines you're going to pull the plug on grandma. >> this spring senator grassley even joined the republicans claiming that health care was unconstitutional. specifically he said a mandate that people have to get insurance was the unconstitutional thing. even though senator grassley himself proposed a health insurance mandate back when republicans were opposed to president clinton's health reform ideas too. senator chuck grassley is just plain against that health reform bill. he didn't vote for it, he said it would kill your grandma. he said parts that were his own idea were unconstitutional. he even went into cloud conspiraciville when he said it would conjure up 16,000 more irs

agencies. now he's for it. iowapolitics.com posting senator grassley's press release in which the senator is now bragging on how much that health reform bill he voted against is going to be great for the folks back home in iowa. quote, i worked successfully to improve medicare payments to doctors in rural states. as part of health care reform enacted this year. i voted against it and it will kill your grandma, but if there's any chance you like it, would you mind giving me credit for it? senator grassley's up for re-election in november. needless to say. it'll hold your plants but it'll also hold 'em back. the solution: miracle-gro garden soil. the perfect mix of rich, organic ingredients, and miracle-gro plant food. just mix it in. and turn bad soil into great soil. helps plants grow twice as big. instead of holding 'em back, they'll leap ahead. miracle-gro garden soil. and moisture control garden soil.

the john birch society tried to convince americans in the middle of the last century that the drive to put floor ride in drinking water was a communist mind control plot. the john birch society tried to convince americans that not only was president eisenhower a conscious dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy but that his controlling agent in the communist conspiracy, the commy to whom ike reported for his comy instructions was his brother milton. and he looked so nice. the john birch society was actually helpful to some conservative politicians for a while. they supported barry goldwater, for example. but whatever help conservatives could get from john birch conspiracy theories riling up the base, was probably outweighed by associating

conservatives with those thinking controlled by good dental care and milton eisenhower. so the john birch society got exiled essentially in the '60s. they barely survived in the fringes for decades after that. until this past year. the conservative movement decided to bring them back into the fold. the john birch society was invited to co-sponsor the big c-pacc c-pac. i sat down and talked with them. they were still trying to sell me on the evils of fleur ride, i kid you not. they were very nice to me, i spent some quality time hanging out with them. i did not learn very much but we certainly had a pleasant and cordial time. given our spirited hate-free jousting, i was surprised when one of our excellent viewers recently brought this to our attention. it's a new six-page john birch society fundraising letter which has gone out to their

supporters. on page five it says this, quote, we know that the other side is watching our growth with alarm. recently we were abeing tad on the air by msnbc commentator rachel maddow. we responded to her charges online the next day. the third day she responded so we know she and others are monitoring our website. she has stated that one of her goals for 2010 is to eliminate groups like ours from the political scene. to her, we say lots of luck. while i gladly take all the luck i can get, let it be known that i have not stated any goals for 2010, at least not publicly, and the ones i talk to privately are don't eat so much fried cheese, maddow. i'm not even doing well at that one. as for stating it is a goal of mine to eliminate groups like the john birch society in 2010, it's simply and totally not true. i have not done that, needless to say, at all. it's a lie.

and while i am flattered that the john birch society thinks i'm powerful enough to dlaetthr them, i'm probably not, unless the ee nuns yation of facts is threatening their existence. if they're going to make up stuff about me to raise money, do i feel a little left out of the money. whether it's scott brown of massachusetts or the floor ride's a communist conspiracy, people feel free to make up stuff i've not said and not done in order to raise money for themselves now. so i have decided that i want in. we're looking into the possibility of creating a new foundation that will license lies about me to conservative causes and lawmakers, things i haven't actually said but might be politically remun tive. provided the conservatives who want to raise money on me give me a cut of the profits.

then i will send 100% of my take to an apolitical nonpartisan cause that i think is worthy. it's sort of fair, right? i mean, if the john birch society is cashing checks by essentially forging my signature on them and i have no way to stop them from doing that, couldn't i at least get some of the cash? joining us now, editor of "the new york times" book review and week in review and author of the book "the death of conservativism" thanks very much for joining us. >> good to be here with you, rachel. >> so i be flattered? >> well, you're in pretty good company. you mention eisenhower. everybody mentions eisenhower. the birchers also said roosevelt and truman were part of the conspiracy. >> it is a tidy and intellectually high-powered conspiracy. >> when they were done with milton eisenhower, who was talking about them anymore? >> is there always somebody in this role for conservative groups of being the boogie mmanr the john birch society, what do

you need to be their boogie man? >> what they really hate is the idea of governance itself. set aside democrats or even republicans. it's the idea of governance. robert welch, the founder of the john birch society, founded in 1958, the year after the death of joe mccarthy and really founded to perpetuate that idea. democracy itself does not appear in the constitution. >> i know i know this is a bit weird question and maybe a bit sensitive. is the john birch society only be allowed in conservative groups because of death of william f. buckley? >> there was a towsle when he got rid of them. he denounced welch's theorizing that 90% is controlled by the -- >> the founder of the john birch

society. >> and buckley denounced that as drifl, but there were many on the right that supported him no enemies on the right. if they can be useful, you keep them in the tent. then by the mid '60s, as you said before, they had gotten so far off the grid that buckley, a guy who kind of trafficked in intellectual circles, particularly in new york and had a lot of smart liberal friends, got a little embarrassed by them. at the same time, though, as you said, they were forceful, they were useful. in the goldwater campaign in '64, they were the foot soldiers. in some sense they're the precursor to the tea partiers we're seeing now, so the right is always nervous about evicting people like that. >> conspiratorial theorizing will always be attractive to a certain segment of people who are energized or more likely enervated. once you're the subject of one

of their conspiracies, is there a way to argue out of it, or are you in a rationality-free zone? >> i was thinking about your very amusing remarks. robert welch actually had a term, robert welch, the presiding genius. it's called the reverse principle. if the -- let's say the soviets decide they're going to give up some of their nuclear warheads, they're not really doing that, or if they say they're going to do it, it's because they have another plan. so if you say you now want to be embraced by them and you're willing to accept their attacks, and also that you invite them to point out, you know, statements that you have made that you can prove are lies, will say it doesn't matter they're lies, because you're not saying what you really think. if someone listens closely to what you've said and what you really mean to say, they've got you every time. >> what if i raise -- no, it will never work. there's no way around it except

to talk about who they are in the bluntest possible terms, i think. what does it say to you, sam, that the john birch society is back, after so many years in exile, after conspiracyists had to contend with what were sort of gatekeepers, what does it mean that the gatekeepers are gone? >> it means it's a movement without seniors ideas. look at david frohm, more or less evicted from the movement. i don't know, maybe he has his own conspiracy about you. they all do. but, yes, there are no serious ideas left on the right. we see who the great idea people are, the ones who pretend to be -- glenn beck, rush limbaugh, all the rest, this is about as good as it's getting, so they don't have a buckley or irving crystal or someone like that to call them out. there's another difference too, rachel. people like buckley and crystal

thought part of the job of conservatism was to persuade serious liberals, if not to agree with them, at least to rethink their own ideas, to raise the level of discourse. that's not what the extremists do. >> sam tanenhaus, author of "the death of conservatism" thank you for coming in. >> my pleasure. great to be here. coming up, keith investigates the claim that aliens could be out to get us, but first on this show, george w. bush of all people gives democrats a boost heading into the november elections. coming up next. ♪ i am stuck on band-aid® brand ♪

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