cope of "american freak show what are you doing up at this

33 rescued minute engineers. 67 angry women in one house. 80 feet under ground. this time we can't promise they will make it out. miner mad, miner love, major drama. only on -- that's going to be a good show. good morning to "morning joe." it's 6:00 here in the east coast. i have my left-hand man joining me. well done, sir. that poor guy playing the drinking game. also with us, msnbc chief washington correspondent, norah

o'donnell. and msnbc contributor jonathan and natalie and nicole wallace. we're glad to have you with us again, nicole. big show this morning, condoleezza rice will be in the studio talking about her new book. also did you guys see any of the delaware senate debate last night? fascinating moments. not much talk about witches. we got down the issues. we talked about snl and marxism. it was a good debate. we'll start with the miners. i understand they are all out. >> all of chile's miners. they are safe above ground after a flawless rescue mission. shortly after 10:00 p.m. local time last night the world

breathed a sigh of relief when luis urzua stepped out. he helped the men deal during the early days. now the six rescuers who descended into the mine to supervise the mission then held up a sign that read mission accomplished, chile. >> never a good idea. >> we've learned more about the other men as well including the 28th miner. his wife was at home having contractions at the time of his cries. all miners are celebrities and have been courted for tv shows. maybe "dancing with the stars." >> super mario. >> local singer turned businessman has given them each

$10,000. a greek company offered them free vacations. and a soccer team invited them to games in europe. >> jonathan, happy ending. you got to marvel at the ingenuity that got it done and the speed. we thought this morning we would still be seeing them come up. >> when we first heard about this tragedy we thought they would be down there until christmas. the fact that they are out now and to be able to see it live, these people underground for 70 something days, flight, cramped together, being pulled up to the surface. >> and without showers. >> anyway, it's wonderful they are out. >> and "new york times" said this was the ultimate reality show. the government of chile with the

lyinging and flags and balloons and confetti like you're watching the finale of "dancing with the stars", of course, with much more consequence results. >> and a happy ending. people grab on to these stories, the hero who landed the plane on the hudson. we relish the mornings when we can talk about something happy. >> with all the human drama involved w-the baby that was born and renamed hope, esperanza. the mistress instead of the wife. it's all fantastic. >> we're going to get into this a little bit later. >> the mistress makes the front page. >> the man hugging not his wife but the mistress. >> we get several emails yesterday from people who were saying, you know, you people celebrating this story, you

know, good news, you never do it. it's not that. this is real people in real-time, a real situation. and we cover so much contrivance with political candidates or ridiculous semi reality those. this was real. that's what gave people a bounce in their steps. >> talking about a freak show let's turn to the delaware senate race. >> queen of the segue. >> delaware senate candidate christine o'donnell and chris coons faced off and during the 90 minutes republican o'donnell went on the offensive attacking chris coons as a career

politician with marxist views. >> i would remiss not to bring up the fact that my opponent has recently said that it was studying under a marxist professor that made him become a democrat. when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, not supporting eliminating the death tax, i would argue that there are more people who support my catholic faith than his marxist beliefs. >> i am not now nor have ever been but a clean shaven capitalist. >> let say you were back stage, perhaps advising christine o'donnell watching the debate what would you say? >> so, i think that we were just talking about that which is real, that which is authentic.

her great asset is this strain that i think her ad team has been pulling out. i am you. i don't think explaining marxism to the voters of delaware is along those lines and i think that she should stay in her sweet spot here and the moments where she's relatable are the moments she's doing well. the moments she's trotting out marxism is a little cringe worthy. >> coons was trying to portray o'donnell as an extremist who values partisan bickering over compromise. he backed away from senate majority leader harry reid who recently called coons his pet. >> hooer reid called you his pet. >> i don't know why he said that. i'm nobody's pet. i want to represent all delawareans. i have support from be

republicans, democrats, independents. o'donnell tried to separate herself from her past view. when asked about comments that want evolution was a myth she declined to address the sub are jerkt saying they were irrelevant to her candidacy. >> what opinions of late that have come from our high court do you most object to? >> oh, gosh. give me a specific one, i'm sorry. >> actually, i can't because i need you to tell me which one us object to. >> i'm very sorry right off the top of my head, i know that there are a lot, but i'll put it up on my website. >> we know you disagree with roe versus wade. >> she said recent one. roe v. wade is 30 some years old. >> any other supreme court --

>> that question sounds very familiar. we need to get that in the prep debate binder. >> if you are a campaign operative in either party you kind of know there are these questions these don't get stumped by the question that stumpbed -- >> you know what's interesting what you said earlier, i don't know about anybody else here, but the more these illinois-equipped candidates ahear in these debates and we show the clips on tv the more i feel sorry for them. i feel sorry for her. but to your point, the witch ad, the first ad they, had i'm not a witch, if you extracted that line from that commercial, that was a pretty good theme for her to address. yeah, i've lost the house. yeah, i've been without a paycheck. i know what it's like. i am you. >> and, look, you look at where sarah palin is now and where she

was in 2008, the things that were liabilities were viewed as liabilities for sarah palin's candidacy in 2008 have turned into assets. it's not necessarily a weakness to lack experience. people are so disgusted with the model of a politician, an establishment politician, a well educated, you know, well main streamed candidate. that's no longer a formula for success. voters are so hungry for upheaval, not just change, this is the upheaval election. >> people might like this, this authenticity but they haven't gotten to the point where they want to elect that person to office. sarah palin was able to get the nomination but not able to get to be vice president. christine o'donnell was able to get the nomination. >> let's see what happens in

nevada pup have another candidate who everyone said oh, the republicans, silly republicans, they nominated the unelectable one. she's head-to-head with harry reid. we'll see. we'll learn more in 30 days. >> i have to disagree, i don't feel sorry for these illinois-equipped candidates. if they are going to put themselves out there for public office and can't defend themselves on the nutty things they said or done in the past that's on them. they asked for that. >> i'm not feeling sorry for him or her in this case but what the cringe factor she induces in me. i don't want to watch this. >> there is a certain appeal that sarah palin has and that christine o'donnell has. the candidate of the agrieved. christine o'donnell plays this very much like sarah palin. she turned to chris coons at one point during the debate, i'm sorry i wasn't born a trust fund

baby. i'm not like all the rest of you who are elites. she plays the victim card to her strength. look, she's down 15 points or more in the polls but still doesn't explain why president obama and president biden going together on friday if the democrats aren't worried. >> that victim card gets old. when president obama was doing it during the campaign in 2008, remember, around this table were saying he's playing the victim, stop playing the victim, stand on your own two feet. at some point christine o'donnell will have to stand on her own two feet and take hits and try to hit some of them back. >> but republicans truly believe that they are the victims of an elite and liberal mainstream media. she doesn't speak -- she's preaching to the choir of the republican base, not just in her state but this is why there's so much national grassroots support for her candidacy.

>> but why do they think that? >> i don't know. it's part of the debate when this light moment came up and of course o'donnell's notoriety on snl. watch this. >> there's been lots of discussion in the national media about things my opponent said or done that i think are distraction from the core issues that delawareans ask about. >> you're just jealous you were not on "saturday night live." >> i'm dying to see who will play me, christine. >> why is she laughing at her own joke. someone please explain. >> she's not even talking to state media. that's true. you can't drag her out of her headquarters. what's the approach. >> she's going to test this new model. she's speaking only to the republican faithful and we'll know how big they are and how powerful they are. typically they are not powerful, big enough in numbers to deliver

statewide elections. that's why republican candidates talk to other people. we'll know more in a few weeks if you can win in a state by not engaging the national press but the state press corps. >> up next, he's considered a republican front-runner for president in 2012. why some top republicans do not want mississippi governor hailey barber to run for the white house. plus four years later man who was accidentally shot by vice president dick cheney during a hunting trip is telling his pretty shocking story to "the washington post" this morning. we'll give you the details. tease, it was a lot worse than first reported. here's bill karins with a check on forecast. >> we have rain in areas of the mid-atlantic and tonight and tomorrow all through the new england. if you're heading out the door this morning we have a

thunderstorm complex come through virginia. looks like it will move right through the richmond area throughout the next hour or two. other areas of rain up here to the north, washington, d.c., more or less showers as we go through jourt morning commute. not too bad at the airports. more rain from buffalo and pennsylvania. so if you're in philly and new york your rain will be after the morning commute. let me time it out for you. the area of red in here, this is the heavier rain over d.c. about 1:00, during your lunch hour. the heavier rain shifts in to philly and new york city. this area of rain will be around 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. the evening ride home in new york. the storm intencsifintensifies. a pretty good storm. thursday's forecast, umbrellas needed and then on friday it all heads up into new england.

rest of the country, you're looking just fine opinion middle of the country is absolutely gorgeous. bottom line, umbrella weather from d.c. to southern new england today. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ [ upbeat instrumental ]

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we here at bp know how concerned you all are about the dozen of miners surfacing from underground in chile. we're happy to report that earlier today we successfuy capped the shaft to prevent othe miners from getting out.

>> that' awesome. let's take a look at the morning papers and we're starting in a poll shows a bump for sharon angle. nicole justtalking about this. she's up 47-45 before tonight's g debate. linda mcmahon is talk about women. richard blumenthal with a nearly 2-1 advantage with female vote. "usa today" in a move that triggered immediate controversy the government said yesterday that gasoline now macon taken up to 15% ethanol grain alcohol instead of just ten. the move will cut depeence o foreign oil. opponents say using the more corn based ethanol, could damage

j.j.s, pu engines, could push up grocery prices. >> and halloween doesn't fully explain the spike in powdered-wig sales. there's an unusually high demand for colonial wig. it will run you about $17. which is what you paid for yours. >> have to powr it every morning. >> front page of the journal. interesting piece. and we have a look at politico's morning outlook. >> he i thought i would be original with my halloween costume. >> let's talk about hailey barber a guy we hear a lot when talk of 2012 comes up, wide lou considered to be the front runners if he decides to run. politico learning that a group

of well known republicans going to urge him not to run? what's going on? >> mike has a great post. that a group of republicans after the election are going to him and urge him to being republican national committee chairman, michael steele's job right now and not run for president. they also think they need adult leadership to help restore the rnc which has lost a ton of hits clout, power and money under steele who has, obviously, had a lot of different issues with the establishment here in washington. nicole, we hear barber's name a lot in the wide-open republican field for 2012. is he someone who excites republicans as a presidential candidate? >> it's not that hexcites us he calms us down. he's so good. he's a pro. he's done it before. he knows how to run races. he knows how to calm anxious

republicans. he knows how to raise money. he's emerged as one. wise and reasonable voices in our party. at a time when it's really dominatedby some chaos and some off the wall things. he has really toned down the rhetoric at times of great national anxiety over certain issues. he's struck a perfect note. this is very interesting. >> what nicole is saying is really important. after this election the republican party is going to need somebody who can step in and referee. there will be a huge incentive for some of these presidential candidates to say extreme and caustic things that will get them on cable tv, get them links over the internet and they will need somebody who can referee that and push the primary process towards somebody who is elecble, somebody who is not sarah palin, and would do well in a republican primary. >> jim, the white house has been

talking a lot over the last week or so about foreign money being used to fund mid-term in campaigns for republicans, whoever is paying for them there's a lot of money being spent on both sides. 200 million bucks, 5% more than was spent in 2008. >> republicans have a chance to win back the house and senate. more and more money is getting pumped in from corporate america. we basically had a complete destruction of campaign finance laws where now people can plunge in, do things anonymously. you have corporations that sat on the sidelines and rich republicans that sat on the sidelines for the last four to six years that are rourting money through groups like karl rove and others because they are frustrated with the policies of the obama administration. it's a confluence of all those factors have led to this wave of money. it will only get worse because

democrats have been sitting on their money and republicans announced overnight that they raised $13 million in the last quarter which is the most since 2006. there's a ton of cash. that's all they will see is campaign ads. >> last couple of weeks a lot of money. jim, thanks so much. coming up the sub plot we were all waiting for, the trapped miner whose secret love affair unraveled while he was underground. the love triangle outside of the mine. we'll show you what happened yesterday. don't forget to sign up. for the all new morning minutes newsletter, you know why it's exciting? a young man is involved in this operation. >> where do i sign? >> the most handsomest devil in all the land. does a recap of the shows and the big stories of the day. sign up by going to

joe.msnbc.com. we'll be right back.

live chopper shot. beautiful of where, alex? anyone? >> new jersey. >> as my son would say it's somewhere. >> hats the harbor. that's brooklyn from the harbor. >> brooklyn from the harbor. >> welcome back, everybody to "morning joe." some news this morning, defense secretary robert gates said abrupt end of the don't-ask, don't-tell would have enormous consequences for the troops. gates said the question of whether to repeal the law should be decided by congress. attorneys general from all

different states are looking into whether faulty procedures were used to evict homeowners. a process called robo signing where countries approved documents without confirming their accuraciy. this is what got us in the problem in the first place. it comes as the "new york times" reports bankers ignored signs of trouble with foreclosures, specifically they sight examples of citigroup and gmac where paper work was outsourced to frazled workers. and employees processed paper work so quickly they barely had time to see what they were signing. according to the "times", mortgage bank erps so inexperienced they were criticized as burger king kids. all right. the man who became famous for being on the wrong end of a dick cheney hunting shot is speaking out this morning in today's "the washington post."

harry whittington discussed the shooting where dick cheney peppered him with bird pellets. he still has one in his larynx. he disclosed his injuries were much more serious. in addition to a mild heart attack, he also suffered -- this is not funation collapsed lung and the ammunition came dangerously close to damaging a vital neck artery. he said i was lucky, i feel every day is a gift. he also addressled that news conference he gave four years ago in which he appeared to apologize to cheney for getting shot. >> my family and i are deeply sorry for all that vice president and his family have had to go through this past week. we send our love and respect to

them. as they deal with the situations that's a lot more serious. >> nicole, did you make him do that? that's evil. i'm sorry i got shot. >> hold on. we'll get nicole on this. he clarified that statement to the post saying it was more a sense of disappointment it happened at all. i'm sure it must have been difficult for mr. cheney and his family. i still feel the same way. they have not seen each others for years, only exchanging birthday cards. asked if dick cheney has ever apologized, he said i'm not going to go into that. you were there, nicole, right? >> that was a strange weekend for you? >> yeah. i mean you thought 2005 and 2006 were bad. imagine if he killed his friend.

this was his dear friend. cheney was deeply distraught about this. i think that contributed to his instinct to keep quiet. i do remember sunday morning, dan bartlett who was white house counselor, i was communications director and we went through some communication items the next day a speech that president bush was delivering, oh, one more thing. i said what? he said the vice president shot somebody. and i said on purpose? he said no, no, it was accident. there began one of the strangest weeks in m my tenure. >> let's do a little sports. >> let's do it. >> mickey mantle. there's a new biography out.

may have played his entire career with a torn acl. the new book explains he suffered a torn acl in the 1951 world series and even though he had surgery to address that surgery a couple of years later there was no established procedure to fix the acl. so after suffering that knee injury? what did he do? he won three mvps and stole 145 bases. mike, you did have a way of numbing the pain. >> he did. he had some severe problems with alcohol as we have come to find out. if you see mickey mantel in film clips he favored that leg. a partially torn acl. unbelievable baseball player. >> there's a lot of dirt in there. good read from you like

baseball. exhibition game, basketball game, friendly. china and brazil playing in beijing. things got ugly. little hip check there. chinese players get over trash talk. didn't like the call by the ref. then the fists start flying. this is an exhibition game. trying to promote the globalization of basketball. chinese players start stomping one of the british players. this got ugly. star chinese players from the nba, yao ming were not present at the game. good for them. chinese basketball association apologized for the brawl and ordered the entire team to attend class on good sportsmanship. >> it actually began, one of the english players grabbed the last copy of -- >> didn't want to bring it up.

again, it wasn't my intention when i wrote the book to create international chaos. but that's the way it turned out. tony blair, a lot of people in riot gear. here's a goal celebration, maybe we should show it. euro championship. one of my favorite soccer players sneaks a goal. he took his pants off. this is how they celebrate in the sport where you can't use your hand. teammates mob him. what are we doing here? i think we've seen enough of that. >> underwear endorsement deal. >> that's what he's looking for. this is sad. more evidence that cleveland is in denial about the fact that lebron james is gone. this is their new 2011 team calendar with lebron james on the cover. bad news, gang, he's not on the team any more. the printing company placed the

orders before lebron made his decision to go to miami on july 8th. long lead time. the new kathleen dr., mo williams on the cover. >> did you tell the viewing public the name of the printing company, seriously? >> no. >> perfectly -- >> perfect timing. >> that's the name of the printing company. >> true story. roger federer is making it happen. the shanghai master against american john isner. a lob over the head. all you can do is smile. federer races back, goes between his legs, hits the shop. isner wasn't ready for it. new poll numbers in that tight connecticut senate race between richard blumenthal and linda mcmahon and this morning's

must reed opinion pages. you're watching "morning joe" sponsored by starbucks. [ wind howling ]

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♪ try to see things my way many of us came into this expecting to see all the change we talked about happen all at once, right away. the main barack obama walked into the office door. but the truth is, it is going to take a longer time to dig ourselves out of this hole than

any of us would like. >> that was michelle obama yesterday hitting the campaign trail for the first time since 2008. she was attending a fundraiser for russ feingold who is facing a tough campaign against ron johnson. 020 points higher than her husband's. she has other stops planned in connecticut. new york, washington, california and a joint rally on sunday with the president in ohio. a brand new poll does attorney general richard blumenthal has opened up a double digit lead over republican linda mcmahon, 54 to 43%. interesting story in the "new york times" about linda mcmahon having trouble getting women voters and people fed up with this barrage of -- >> if you put that number

abandoning. 54-43. two weeks ago the spread was 49-46. significant jump. independent voters in the last two weeks a swing where mcmahon was up five points now she's down five points. in two weeks a ten-point swing. >> this poll taken just before that debate. >> so this is kind of a play on the way we thought it would. linda mcmahon hung around for a while. blumenthal opens up the lead late. >> connecticut is interesting. i'm a resident of the state. ever since we started house hunting there's dump dodd signs in connecticut. but i think linda mcmahon's ads whatcom up. when they poll people about what they are feeling -- people are annoyed by the quantity, which is so interesting. usually it's an ad message that puts people off. her ads tough. there's a story today about how women are turning on her and hillary clinton faced that a little bit in her democratic

primary against barack obama. women decide elections because they are the rulers of the world. as we know. i was trying to soft pedal that for your benefit. but, you know, women are the hardest on women most time. >> you hear the same thing in the california governor's race. the meg whitman ads are toffees some people. you get it on your belt buckle, you get a meg whitman ad when you get dressed in the morning. >> think of the way a lot of people watch tv. they are watching their programs on dvr. there's got to be lot of ads for them to still be annoying. people are annoyed that they have to fast forward through some. let's get through some op eds. >> david ignacius blind to success. we have just lived through one of the more notable successes of

government intervention in modern times. auto e. bank rescues that saved the country from a great depression. program should stop running scared on this one. stop apologizing. start taking credit for policies that worked. we've heard that from a lot of people that come and sit around this table. you decided to do health care reform, decided to go with the auto and bank rescues. run on it, if you did it be proud. >> apparently there are some folks that look at polls and polls say the american people don't like the fact that the government intervened. it's interesting that david used the government intervention. that's what a lot of people, particularly tea party folks are freaked out. but had the government not stepped in to save the banking industry, we could have been in much worse place than we are now. >> we're going to have peter baker on shortly who has a

terrific magazine piece in the sunday "times" about the presidency and communication difficulties they've had over the past two years. this is a huge communications difficulty event. who among us -- who out there in this country wouldn't take a deal where you loan somebody some money, a substantial amount of money the banks and auto companies and within a space of a year, over 18 months, you not only get the money back you make a huge profit of the money because they paid huge interest in paying the money back. who wouldn't take that deal? >> you point out peter baker's piece which is coming out in the sunday "new york times." we're trying to get the policy right than the politics right. i think there might be some democrats out on the trail who are running away. i don't think the president is running away from the agenda. even the first lady out there should have said change takes time, the president said he's gotten about 70% done what he wanted to. extremely ambitious first two

years in terms of a domestic policy agenda. not only health care but dealing with this economy and making massive efforts to make sure it wasn't worse. >> he has been out there saying we walked back from the precipice because of the actions we took. still ahead condoleezza rice will be here. looking forward to talking to her. first, he might have been the only miner perhaps not looking forward to getting out. his secret love triangle unraveled while he was underground. we'll show you who was waiting for him when he got out. yes. ♪

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>> she insists we're more mature since her witch craft days. we're now older. she handled chris coons pretty well. >> the pizza shop owner who makes $300,000 before they pay their employees or feed their family this will cause them to close that. >> we're going to try to have a conversation here this evening. it would be helpful for us to

have an exchange of ideas and let each of us take turns. >> finally a candidate who is not afraid. oh, yes. willie is it time? >> it's a little different but great. the love triangle that developed during the whole mining situation. barrios rojas, his wife is outside with the picture of her husband 26 years. she looks down the line and sees another woman weeping with the picture of her husband. who was that? it was his mistress. they found out about each other while he was underground. yesterday we were waiting to see who was going to get the hug when he came up. that right there, my friend, is the mistress.

the wife stayed home. she said i'm not going embarrassed. it's very clear it's her or me. she decided to stay home. she said in phone conversations and letters that he made it clear that he's fine, i know he's in good health, that's enough for me. i don't need to see the guy. mr. barrios' family insists they have been separated for quite some time but that's news to his wife who says they are not separated. the love triangle resolved and the mistress is the one who got thug. >> she showed up. >> hats off to her. she showed up and got thug. by the way one of the miners underneath there, he showed, while he was down there said i love elvis. graceland has invited him, free tripe to memphis. >> why go to greece if you can go to graceland. one more, justin bever has a book out.

it's his memoir, he's 16 and wrote a memoir. why would you buy that when you can buy something else? >> right here. >> like this. >> you asked me. >> let me show you why you don't want to buy this book. >> anything about what christine o'donnell has warned us against? >> is he there yet? >> oh, my gosh. >> here's one more reason. he's transformed to rap music because he came up the hard way in ontario. that is one hard core tween heartthrob. when we come back we'll get it back to the center with

condoleezza rice. she's standing by. she may be wondering why she came at all. we look forward to talking to dr. rice when we come back.

how far been watching this? isn't it unbelievable? it's incredible to see something

this heroic go this well. it's amazing. they are saying these 33 chilean miners being rescued from hell. i said hello, have you not heard of the new york subway? hello i said. >> it can feel that way sometimes. welcome back to "morning joe." right at the top of the hour. 7:00 here on the east coast. still with us, mike, nicole and norah o'donnell and joining the table the former secretary of state, condoleezza rice in her new book just out. she takes us on a detailed journey inside her past and her childhood before she burst on the national scene at the white house under the bush administration. in her book titled extraordinary, ordinary people, a memoir of family. dr. rice, so great to have you with us. >> very nice to be with you. >> this is not a foreign policy book. >> no. >> as i understand you're working on that one as we speak.

>> am. >> temple us the idea behind the book. >> as you're getting ready to leave eight years of government service you think about what you would like to talk about. people ask me how did you become who you are, how did you get to where you are? i said you have to know john and angelina rice. you get to know them, my parents. a school teacher, my mom. my dad a high school guidance counselor and a minister. in the extraordinary circumstances of birmingham, alabama where somehow they had me absolutely convinced that i might not be able to have a hamburger at the woolworth's lunch counter but i could be president of the united states if i wanted to be. it was terrific parenting. >> obviously your world view, your life was formed by some of those very dark days of the civil rights movement. right, almost literally in your own backyard in birmingham. tell us how some of the events of the early 1960s shaped you. >> birmingham was really in many

ways two separate societies. i didn't have a white classmate until we moved to denver when i was 12. you couldn't go into a restaurant or hotel. yet i lived in this wonderful middle class enclave called tibbitsville in birmingham where high expectation, high standards. if you wanted to do anything that remotely resembled an educational opportunity then parents were there to give it to you. but birmingham in 1962 and 1963, of course, became bombingham, and in every community there were bombs going off and i lost a little kindergarten classmate in the bombing of the 16th street baptist church and so i think i know a little bit about what home grown terrorism is like if you're a kid. >> how do you keep that optimism. how do you in the midst of all that say to your self in this country, one of my kindergarten classmates was killed because of her race, kick president of the united states. that's a long leap to make.

>> it is. these parents than community were exceptional in that way. they really believed that education first and foremost was armor against everything. and, yes, you had to be twice as good so that they, meaning whites would respect you, but, you know, even that was said not as a matter of debate it was just said as a matter of fact. we internalized those messages that you're not a victim of your circumstance, you may not be able to control your circumstances, but you can control your reaction to them. >> what do you think? given your background, given all that you've achieved, given all that your family endured in birmingham and many families endured, what goes through your mind when you hear about or see in a movie like "waiting for superman" you look at a school system in the district of columbia, what goes through your mind? >> we're failing these kids miserably. when i can look at your zip code and tell whether or not you're going get a good education

something is wrong pinpoint goes right to t . we're united by a central belief it doesn't matter where you came from it matters where you're going. that's only true if you have a good education. how dare we warehouse these kids. how dare we tolerate a situation in which third grader still can't read. that's what i think. it's a national scandal. >> how do we cut to the crux of that? we've been fighting this education battle for decades and generations. if you look at statistics we're moving backward not forward. >> well, i have great respect for the educational reform movement that's out there and some of the reformist superintendents like joe klein here in new york or michelle rhee would will be a great loss to the children of d.c.

they are standing up and they are pressing people to be accountable. i have enormous respect for teachers. my parents were teachers. they have in some ways the hardest jobs in the world. but, it is also true that if you're a teacher and your kids laerngt a aren't learning, aren't performing, it's not the students fault. >> you just used the word parents as in plural, parents. whenever this topic comes up, inevitably it gets to what has happened within the black community in america in terms of family structure. you know, if willie and i say something about it, if norah says something about it f-you say sboigt, nicole, we get emails you don't understand you're a racist or whatever. what do we do? >> well somebody has to in our community, in the black community, those of us who have been fortunate enough to be on the right side of history in

this regard need to speak to the terrible things that are happening to the black family structure. we can't continue with kids having kids having kids. it is important to have, to the degree that you can, if not two parent families, parent family in which even the single parent is capable of raising and taking care of the kid. i feel that if a child doesn't have that structure, then somebody has got to take up the slack, the community has to take up the slack. i'm very active with boys and girls club of america i'm on the national board. very often that's a safe place for children to go. one thing we're talking a lot about can it be a safe place and a place where extended day learning can take place. so this is an issue that we will suffer badly as a country if we don't solve it. we will become less confident, we're already becoming less confident. we'll start to turn inward, and that's not going to serve us

well or the world. >> do you think the discussion in this country about race has become more elevated or it has deteriorated since obama became president? >> i don't know if it's since the election of president obama, but i do think that over the last years, the conversation of race has deteriorated. there's nothing more delicate in the united states than the topic of race. and it's because we have this great birth defect of slavery. we have these deep wound of segregation and prejudice. and so, vaes hrace is a hot but. the worst thing you can say to somebody is you're being racist on one side or the other. and yet lately in the last several years we've been thrown it around. we're willing to say it's racism that causes president bush not to pay attention to katrina. we need to stop that. turn down the volume on the issue of race because that will pull us apart more than anything

else. >> what do you think when you hear the numbers that 30% plus of republicans believe that obama is a muslim, that there's a strain out there that believes he still needs show his birth certificate to people. we need to take our country back. what do you think when you hear those? >> i hear in a lot of that, a kind of latent fear. i hear in that latent frustration. and i hear in that a lot of misinformation, obviously. now i'm a social scientist and i always know, look at what question was asked of people before you judge their responses because sometimes these surveys can be misleading because they lead people in a particular way. but, obviously, the national conversation in general is a little too loud for my taste. it is a little too fast for my taste and, look, i've watched cable news with everybody else and i love cable news shows.

but it all happens very rapidly. there's no time process information. >> does this kind of conversation you're talking about and given your background and turning down the volume does the current conversation in politics make you feel esstranged from your party at all, the republican party? >> no. partisans on both sides bear a lot of responsibility for really partisans on both sides. i'm a very dedicated republican. i am comfortable in my party. >> the tea party? >> the tea party is a grassroots movement that is saying to people the conversation in washington and the conversation out in the country isn't the same. and washington, you need to listen to the concerns of the people, you need to listen to our anxieties. you need to listen to the fact that we're worried about the size of government, and the debt we're passing on to children.

that's how i see the tea party. i don't agree with everything that is uttered in the name. tea party. but i am certainly heartened that somebody is angry at what's happening to our country, even if i would like people to channel that in the direction that's positive. >> dr. rice, the question that always comes up when you or someone else makes that point is where were these people during the bush administration, when the deficits were being run up. all of a sudden they come up when president obama is elected. kit be just about debt and the size of government? >> well, i think we got to a tipping point, frankly on the debt issue and i think that the financial crisis heightened the problem of the size of the american debt. look, it's not just within the tea party or within the country, if you go out as i do into the international community women wonder what in the world is happening to the united states of america. they are worried about our lack of confidence, they are worried

about our debt loads, and, yes, the debt has been rising for some time. that's strau. but at some point it gets to the place that people start saying wait a minute, this is enough. >> can we turn to foreign policy. i want to ask you since you were in that bush administration, two wars, afghanistan and iraq and now the president increasing the number of troops in afghanistan with a plan withdrawal next year. do you support the president's timeline for next year for the withdrawal from afghanistan? >> i support the decision to try and improve the situation in afghanistan to a point that afghans can handle their own security affairs. now, we know that afghanistan, we've always known it was going to be difficult. fifth poorest country in the world. but at least it's a place now where women are being educated and not being executed in stadiums by the taliban and al qaeda is not plotting and planning without any consequence in afghanistan and in the

northwest frontier of pakistan. there's been some progress. it's going to take some time to effect that hand over to afghan security forces. i do think one thing i would do differently if i could going back is increase the size of the afghan forces. i don't think we sized them properly. i don't think we made a push to make them large enough and that's now going to take some time. >> in that element of reflection and this wonderful book about your family, is out, you've written it, and you're working now on a book larger memoir type of book on foreign policy. in that element of reflection, having to do with afghanistan, the decision to concentrate on iraq, as you write this book, as you live your life each and every day, do you ever think, oh, boy i would like to have a few of those decisions back. >> there are decisions i would like to have back. i think that's the character of being a human. but, the decision i would not take back is a decision to

overthrow saddam hussein. he was a cancer in the middle east. just imagine now the circumstances of saddam hussein and mahmoud ahmadinejad competing for nuclear supremacy in the middle east. that was a realistic prospect. the iraqis are slow in forming a government. think about what the conversation is about about iraq now? it's about are the shia going to invite them into this government. it's a far cry is saddam hussein going to use chemical weapons against his neighbors. >> agreed. i think most people would agree with that assessment. but what about the question that i think runs through the mind of a lot of americans, fine, we do have elections in iraq, that's a huge positive step. but osama bin laden is still out there. saddam hussein is dead. osama bin laden is still out there. >> osama bin laden was going to be out there whether we did anything in iraq or not.

osama bin laden is capable of hiding in large part because of the way he operates. if you fly over the mountains of afghanistan and pakistan, you know why terrorists can hide. and you can't -- if you're in those positions of responsibility, you sometimes don't get to pick and choose and say well i'll do this first then i'll do this then i'll do this. that's not how international politics work. we bhot a problem of al qaeda and afghanistan and a problem of the threat of saddam hussein. i had never believed and i was very much inside that we somehow starved afghanistan of resources in order to do iraq. i think that's a red herring. we believed that afghanistan was best dealt with a small footprint of american forces, american air power and the ground forces were afghans. i can remember very well at the outset of the war in

afghanistan, something struck you as funny, outside of the war in afghanistan that we were going to use the afghan northern alliance and the mill sflas the south and american air power and the russians were helping us to give the northern alliance what they needed. and president bush said to me, you know, the northern alliance said they are not getting what they needed. george at the net said they are not getting what they need. call the defense minister of russia. he said i know. it's not easy to find donkeys. it was an effort to use afghan fighters. we're in a different phase now. and i support what has been done in the surge. i have tremendous confidence in david petraeus pet, robert gates, mike mullen. we can do this. >> what about barack obama? >> of course, he's the

president. and i only say that because the military team here has to deliver. >> just to go back for one second to iraq u-still believe today in 2010 that saddam hussein pose ad direct threat to the united states? >> saddam hussein most certainly posed a direct threat. >> a elect threat despite what we know about weapons of mass destruction. >> this is a man that dragged us into war twice before the 2003 war with president clinton's bombing of the site there's and before in 1991. now, it's going to take some time before we know the full story of how this plays out. but if iraq emerges as an arab democracy says multiconfessional arab democracy in the middle east that will to change the nature of the middle east from balancing iran with a tyrannical dictator who invades his neighbors, uses check cam weapons against his neighbors and his own people and is an enemy of the united states to an

iraq that's democratic and a friend to the united states. that takes time. i'm very fond of saying that today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. i got be the white house soviet specialist at the end of the cold war and frankly it doesn't get better than that. but i know that the collapse of the soviet union on december 25th, 1991 was because of good decisions that were taken in 1947 and 1948. that's the long arc of history. i also know from acchild of birmingham, alabama, that i'm not that old and i couldn't go into a restaurant or stay in a hotel or have a white classmate and i've already, it's been two years since i was secretary of state. history has a way of showing that something that one day seemed impossible, later on we just take it as inevitable. so the middle east will be there

too. >> so with that in mind should we deal with other countries that we now know are direct threats, place like yemen where we know al qaeda is formulating, somalia, kim jong-il has a new weapon. should we confront these countries as well. >> you don't use the same techniques or strategies in every case. it's the height of not thinking, let me put it that way, to say, all right, we dealt with iraq in this way so we'll deal with every other circumstance. with kim jong-il, for instance we formed the six-party talks. so that china, that has tremendous influence, rue sharks japan, south korea that has a lot at stake, and the united states could join forces to try and deal with the problem, the nuclear problem in north korea. we didn't make as much progress as i would have liked but i believe that we made some and the structure, china, russia, japan, south korea, the united states working together is even

going to help to manage this transition in north korea. >> i know about future political office you said you don't have the fire in your belly but is it slowly burning? is it starting somewhat? completely snuffed? snuffed out. it once existed? >> oh, no. >> why would you not want to enter politic? >> i just don't think day have the fire in the belly. i've watched it up close and personal. it's not because i think the system is so tough. it ought to be tough. but i like what i do. i now like being a professor at stanford. but i served as secretary of state of the united states. there isn't any better job. i can't imagine -- >> think your book is such a wonderful piece of history. i'm glad you started with the biography. you talk about your father trying to vote in 1952 and how they made it difficult for blacks to vote by count beans in a jar. it's a wonderful piece of

history. but why not -- why not enter politics? why not given the cynicism that exists why not enter politic. >> i have played my role, i think, in the way that i'm best, best able to play it. i'm involved in politics. i'm involved in california politics. in helping candidates, meg whitman and carly fiorina in california. i'll do that. i care about the future of our country and the republican party. i'll be active. not just for me. >> hate to put you on the spot going oust this segment, but mike singletary is 0-5. what's the deal? do you fire him? >> you know, i think he's going to the last season. >> whoa. >> the 49ers, it's a sad story from the gold plated 49ers. they will get there eventually. >> is it true you're a big

fantasy football player. >> i've never played football fancy. i don't have time. i follow it closely. i follow the cleveland browns who lost all the games but one. >> you know how to pick them. zmi. >> it's an extraordinary book. what a story from segregated 1960s birmingham to secretary of state of the united states of america. congratulations on the book and thanks for being here. >> thank you. great being here with you. >> the book is "extraordinary ordinary people, a me moire of family." up next inside the mind of president obama. the lessons learned and which republican the white house be expects to face in 2012. we get a preview of the cover story in the "new york times" magazine. and christine o'donnell and chris coons face off for the first time. will the conversation finally get beyond witch craft. let's hope so. you're watching "morning joe"

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joe." 7:25 here on be the east coast. joining us now from washington, "new york times" white house correspondent and contributing writer for the "new york times" magazine, peter baker. pert conducted extensive interviews with president obama for the cover story of this sunday's magazine, a piece titled "the education of a president," everyone in washington is talk bigt. in it president obama describes the lessons he's learned from the first two years in office. in part he says he let himself look too much like the tax-and-spend liberal democrat. he realized too late there's no such thing as shovel ready projects when it comes to public works. most of all he learned for ace anti-washington rhetoric toffees play by washington rules if he wants to win in washington. peter, good morning. thanks for being here. >> good morning. thanks for having me.

>> tell us about the piece. how you got this inside information. >> the idea was to look at the present situation coming in to this mid-term election from inside the white house. how does it took from the inside out given be the troubles they have been having, the polls obviously show the democrats in a bad position heading in to that vote. we were table interview the president for an hour inside value office and about two dozen of his advisers as well as some people on the outside look at the situation as they looked at. what lessons they learn and how do they apply to the next two years. they have begun discussing what they call obama 2.0. they know the results of the elections even if democrats hang on will leave a congress that won't be as friendly as they had. what changes do they need to make? >> nicole wallace is with us with a question. >> peter, i know lots of times and i hope this doesn't sound thin skin of me but the

communication staff in the white house is blamed for everything that's gone awry. to what extent do they blame the communication strategy for the president's low approval rating? >> it's certainly part of the self-diagnosis. you're right. every time, you know this better than anybody, any time a politician gets in trouble it must be a communications problem. not a policy problem. the policy is okay only if people understood it better they would support it better. i talked with robert gibbs. he laughed. he said i've never been to a policy problem meeting for the last 20 months indicating obviously he's been draged into a few communication problems. i asked the president about this. he said look obviously there are thing i wish i had done differently opinion even says he neglected what he said are the politics of selling his program that he was focused on, a crisis that he inherited, and that he probably should have done more to make sure he brought public opinion along with him.

having said that he pointed out that president clinton in 1994 lost the congress, his approval ratings were roughly where the president is today. but three points lower than or actually four points lower than it is today and everybody says president clinton was a good communicator. that suggests the issue is not just communication. >> peter, i was going to say that's one of the most interesting things, the more we learn about president obama how reflective he is, as you point out reading these biographies and those same numbers looking back at clinton in '94. what about this checklist that the president kept? maybe i mibs this but i've never seen him say they already accomplished 70% of what we talked about during the campaign. were you struck by that? >> yeah. it's a self-selective list. up put on it what you want to put on it. there were a number of things

that was said in 2008 that didn't and make the list. what they look back at is his new foundation speech. that's what they want to call his new deal in effect in april 2009 at georgetown and he laid out five pillars for domestic policy that he wanted to do. three of the five they have made significant progress in their mind. they feel that gets lost in the conversation sometimes. of course, they have to address whether in fact people actually do recognize they made these, you know, advances forward but don't like what's been done. i mean it may be that people understand that they pass ad health care program and stimulus program and financial regulation program and some education reforms and, you know, they are not satisfied by the merits of what they are putting in place. so it's a little too early. a lot of these things haven't gone into effect and people haven't had a chance to see how they work out. what president obama says is it's time to take the long view.

he said this happens to president. they come in to office and there's a lot of excitement and they disappoint people and it takes a while to become visible to people. >> peter, this is jonathan. you mentioned earlier the president didn't do a good job, the sales part of the presidency. do you think he's just in his nature comfortable with the sales portion of the job of the presidency? can he do it? physically can he do it? >> you know, obviously he's an effective communicator in the right kind of circumstances. what we've learned is he's more effective in some circumstances than others. the mig big inspirational speec worked for him. what doesn't work well is staring into a camera from the oval office.

you'll see him out on the campaign trail doing these backyard conversations. they are a little hokey but the idea is to get him out of the white house and get him out of these structures that don't really connect with ordinary people. >> peter, in this media saturated age that we're all part of, people like to feel that they know someone, whether it's celebrity, whether it's the president and people really would like to know the president. you go in for the interview. he appear as half hour early. he comes into the interview and says immediately, okay, fire away. is this who this president is? let's get this done. let's get it over with. another checklist deal? >> he wasn't rushing, he's not a chitchater. he's not a hey how is the family. he has a lot to do. he's all business. he wanted to get to the topic. he had a lot to say. he didn't really, you know, go in for sort of small talk.

that's who he is and i think that's what we'll see more of. >> all right, peter baker we've only scratched the surface. do yourself a favor and read it. thanks for being here. up next, christine o'donnell and chris coons debate for the first time. a live report when we come back. mmmm. you don't love me anymore do you billy? what? i didn't buy this cereal to sweet talk your taste buds it's for my heart health. right. mmm... i worry about your mother. cry herself to sleep every night over my arteries, but have yourself a bowl. good speech dad. [ whimper ] [ male announcer ] honey nut cheerios tastes great and its whole grain oats can help lower cholesterol. bee happy. bee healthy. baked in apple with a daring amount of cinnamon.

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♪ the mid-term elections are 19 days away. one of the more interesting races is in delaware, to fill vice president joe biden's old senate seat. last night the candidates faced off. kelly o'donnell is has the details. good morning. >> reporter: how are you we reached the full o'donnell quotient. christine o'donnell has attracted to much attention. so much what she said in the past. views she has. her stunning tea party upset. this was a different experience. chris coons is leading in all the polls for the first time they sat next to each other and talked about issues and for people looking for substance

they found it. >> yes or no. >> yes. >> today. >> no. >> reporter: stark differences on policy and personality. delaware democrat and county executive chris coons defined the choice. >> miss o'donnell has experience at running for office but not running anything. at delivering catchy slogans but not delivering on any real solutions. >> reporter: the tea party's christine o'donnell defined her opponent. >> my opponent has a history of promising not raise taxes on the campaign trail and then breaking those promises as soon as he takes office. >> reporter: on tax cuts, coons seemed to break from president obama. >> support extending the bush tax cuts for the overwhelming majority of americans. i don't think we should draw a line apartment $250,000. >> reporter: christine o'donnell wants more and deeper cuts. polar opposites on health care reform. >> i would stand for it. >> what i want to do is to fight to fully repeal that so we can

begin to enact real reform. >> reporter: o'donnell differs from many tea party candidates that say the department much education should be eliminated. >> don't think we need to go that drastic of a step. >> reporter: on the supreme court o'donnell stumbled much like sarah palin had. >> well, let's see -- >> reporter: when asked to name at that recent decision she opposes. >> i'm sorry. off the top of my head i know there's a lot. >> reporter: coons comes from a wealthy family. his irritation towards o'donnell often showed. >> we'll try to have a conversation this evening rather than a diatribe. >> i support responsible? >> if you can reconcile those comments you're more talented than i think your. >> reporter: o'donnell turned aggressive calling coons a marxist. >> my opponent has recently said that it was studying under a

marxist professor that made him become a democrat. >> reporter: coons called himself a bearded marxist in a college paper but says it was a joke. . >> i'm not now nor have i ever been anything but a clean shaven capitalist. >> reporter: o'donnell dismissed her controversial witch comments but didn't mind teasing coons about her parody on snl. >> thanks for having me. >> you're just jealous you were not on "saturday night live." >> i'm dying to see who will play me, christine. >> reporter: so, you got a sense there that the things got so much attention were down played through most of this debate. o'donnell did come through and come up with an answer related to that supreme court question. she put out a statement saying she would look to the 2005 case where the court said local governments could take personal property in order for corporations to expand. it was a controversial case at

the time. now she said she had trouble picking a recent case and that was the question because she wanted to compliment the four conservative justices on the court. so there was so much to look at in this debate. important for voters. >> as always you do a good job wrapping it up. if it's double digits why is president obama and biden going there this friday? >> well i asked coons about that and he said he really was thrilled to have both of them come visit, especially because this was biden's seat. but there's so much attention about this that both sides are pouring money and really fighting seriously. he says he does take her as a serious candidate. >> all right. the rise of the o'donnells. maybe for st. paddy's day he'll have to do a genaology. and the new cover of "time".

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beautiful shot of manhattan. looking south towards new york harbor. what a city. and it's thursday and that means only one thing to anybody who thinks about anything, it's time to unveil this week as new cover of the last magazine standing, "time" magazine with time managing editor. >> thank you, mike. our cover this week is on a subject that really disturbs lots of people and that is the disease of alzheimer's. about one out of three americans know someone or has someone affected by this and what has changed in the last year or so is that there's all kind of progress being made about the disease, and, in fact, you know, we're not any closer to a cure but what we're closer to is something that people don't even realize we don't have is way to diagnose it. until recently the only way you could diagnose alzheimer's is after the person died. and now we're finding ways of

early diagnosis for alzheimer's and whether you're susceptible to it. you can halt the progression of the disease, can't cure or get rid it. but if you know your dna makes you liable to it you can actually help forestall it. >> what does the piece tell us about the root of diagnosis? >> the root of diagnosis a protein plaque that forms in your brain and they are not sure why that happens although they are finding some tell tale signifiers that show you're liable for that to happen. there's more early on set. it feels ike an epidemic but it's not quite. people are moch more aware of it than before. ate very chilling disease in the sense that you lose your sense of self and you lose your consciousness even before you lose your life. >> what about advances in stem cell research? does this lend itself to that? >> it's one of the things that people are looking at and that

different researchers around the country are looking at to see whether the injection of adult stem cells in different parts of the brain might help. thus far they haven't had a break through with that. >> what else do we have this week in "time" magazine? >> we have our fabulous under 40 people in washington who are making a difference in politics. something i like and care about because i really believe in public service and these are all people who are working in government or state government or politics who really believe that government and politics can make a difference in people's lives which i think kit. >> is that some of the people. >> yes, it is. i'll hand you this huge thing. >> who do we have? see if we disagree. mark rubio. >> fabulous. >> matthew daschle. cedric richmond. >> you know what i'm sorry. can i say something. i completely forgot something.

the alzheimer's coverage is done with maria shriver and the shriver report. maria is probably watching me. maria shriver and shriver report on alzheimer's we collaborated with them on the cover. they did a fantastic poll on how alzheimer's is affecting people. >> timmy shriver has dinner with his dad, sergeant shriver in washington, almost every evening of the week. and one of the mysteries of alzheimer's disease is if you see shriver who is in his 90s now, he's about 90, he looks terrific. he's happy. but lost in that fog that alzheimer's crates. >> she's been very concerned about it. she has done a national poll, particularly about how women are affected by it. she will be on the sunday shows talking about it this weekend. great collaboration. >> thank you very much. next our guest is going to

explain why it's not a good idea to keep wild animals like a bengal tiger in your apartment. something that nicole has been doing that's why she moved to connecticut to get away from the tiger. you're watching "morning joe", brewed by starbucks. ring ring. progresso. everyday i eat your soups, i save a lot of money. that's great. so, your rich and hearty soups have made me, rich and hearty. that's funny. i'm hearty because of your juicy steak, your potatoes... you're really, rich and happy. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup.

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on the side and all of a sudden it was a warm target and immediately, boom, it just nailed me right on the finger. the finger is a little bit stiff but it's still on there. thank god for anti-venom. >> a clip from animal planet's "fatal attraction," devastating consequences that can come about when a person shares a home with an exotic animal. dave salmoni, large predator ex-pert from animal planet. chris rock has a great bit talking about the siegfried and roy. everybody is saying that tiger went crazy. chris rock says no, that tiger went tiger. what are these people thinking he they live with these large, dangerous predators? >> i think it's a combination between these people have a big heart, want ay connection between these animals and some people think it will work out better than it does for other people. >> match.com, right? i mean, what is it, though? >> people think they'll not be the ones that get attacked.

i spent most of my life with wild animals. i went to school for it did apprenticeships for it. i studied them for 12 years before i had relationships with lions and tigers and certainly don't have them in my house. they see an animal and feel that compassion to be with it, to have that relationship. i think they take it too far. it won't happen to me. it will love me, i'll love it and love is enough which obviously never really works out. >> you have a formal training which a lot of these people that are victimized don't. back to the tiger goes tiger, i see you on animal planet, rolling around with lions. is there something in the back of your mind that says maybe i shouldn't be doing this? >> shouldn't and -- i don't know if i shouldn't or if it's more about that i know it can happen. i know that i'm not the guy that can say, hey, it's never going to happen to me. if it happens to me, it's because i knew the risks and i took them. so, yeah, i definitely feel like because people do see me rolling around with lions, that's probably the impetus for people

who see -- >> you're trained. >> when fatal attraction comes out, i like to put the message out there. you really can't have it. these are not pets. i don't treat them like pets and you really shouldn't. >> how do you train to wrestle with a tiger, to mess with giant snakes, to play with chimps? >> for me, i have degrees in zoology and i went to a place that handled the animals that i want to be around and learned from those types of people. the first thing you learn is the fact that it can go wrong. my first year of training i got attacked by a male lion and it nearly killed me and before that i would have said hey, guys, this guy loves me, he needs me, we're best friends. then my best friend tried to kill me and it's like, that's a great lesson. >> do you see, to the point you made, maybe people see you playing and they say i can do

that, too. do we see more people now than before living with exotic animals? is there a way to measure it? >> "fatal attraction" comes out at 9:00, i think, on friday. those people are -- it's definitely growing. it's far easier for people now than even five years ago. if you want a snake, if you want a tiger, for some reason -- maybe it's the internet. maybe it's that people are getting into it more so there's more money in it. it's definitely happening a lot more. >> how do you get a tiger, if i may ask. >> black market. it's the same way people get their drugs, i guess. >> don't try this at home! >> it looks like a great show. you're a brave man. be safe. hopefully, you can teach people that it's not okay rather than the opposite, to live with these kinds of animals. dave salmoni. catch animal planet's "fatal attractions" this friday 9:00 pm eastern and pacific. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> nicolle wallace, you're leaving? >> i'm going home. it's time to walk my dog. >> you have to do better than

that. will you walk her dog? >> i have some issues. >> wrestle your dog in central park. great to see you. >> thank you. when we come back, john ridley, our old friend, joins the conversation. don't forget, tonight is the book signing for willie's new book "american freak show," which features several people who have lions in their basement. we'll be at the barnes and noble in westport. [ male announcer ] the turn changes everything. ♪ the turn will make you think. ♪ make you re-examine your approach. change your line. innovate. and create one of the world's fastest-reacting suspensions, reading the road 1,000 times per second. it's the turn that leads you somewhere new. introducing the new 2011 cts-v coupe.

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33 rescued miners, 67 angry women in one house, 80 feet underground. this time, we can't promise they'll make it out. miner pad, miner love, major drama. only on oxygen. >> that is going to be -- >> you laugh, but it won't be long. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 8:00 here on the east coast. still with us, mike barnicle, jonathan capehart, norah o'donnell, and joining the table, founder of that minoritything.com. >> now you tell me joe and mika

aren't here. i almost took a shower this morning. >> we sold everyone a bill of goods. that's how co inform di rice felt. >> i saw dr. rice roll with it. >> how have you been, john ridley? >> very good. >> were you moved to the miners being pulled out of the ground? >> it's funny. we did a story on that, on thatminoritything. i put love in quotes because these folks are rescued but you talk about hollywood, it's a great narrative that plays out of time. you get to know the characters involved, the hopes, the families and then one by one, are they -- it's like the last episode of dynasty, did they all make it out alive? by the way, billy wilder did an amazing film called the big carnival and ace in the hole. but about a trapped miner and sort of a not on the up and up

reporter who conveniently talks to the rescues into leaving the miner down there as long as possible to stretch out this story. it's really an amazing tale. >> it was about a cable news producer, right? >> before its time in 1951. very, very young man named murdoch decided -- >> cable news of its time. we've got a lot of politics to get into. norah has some news first and we'll get your take on a number of things. we haven't had you back since christine o'donnell's event. >> wow! >> we'll get to that but first all of chile's 33 miners are safely above ground after a flawless rescue mission that went faster than anyone expected. shortly before 10:00 pm local time last night, the world breathed a sigh of relief when the 33rd and last miner stepped out of the capsule. the last one out was the one whose leadership helped the men in the early days following the

mine's collapse when they had limited food and no communication from the outside world. and the six rescuers who desc d descended into the mine held up a sign that red "mission accomplished chile." the 28th minor, richard villarroel got out just in time, his pregnant wife was home ha having contractions at the time of his rescue. they're all now celebrities and have been courted for tv shows as well as book and movie deals. singer turned businessman has given each of them $10,000. pretty nice. there's also a greek company that's offered them all free vacations. and soccer teams real madrid and manchester united have invited them to games in europe and we know joe is jealous about that. the man who became famous to being on the wrong end of dick cheney's hunting shot speaks out this morning. harry whittington speaks out

about the event when he was peppered by tiny pellets. they were much more severe than originally disclosed. in addition to a mild heart attack he suffered a collapsed lung and the ammunition came very close to damaging a vital neck artery. whitington says i was lucky. i just feel like every day is a gift and sometimes i wonder why i got these extra years. wow! he appeared to have apologized to cheney for getting in the way of his shot. here is whittington in 2006. >> my family and i are deeply sorry for all that vice president cheney and his family have had to go through this past week. we send our love and respect to them, as they deal with situati situations that are much more serious than what we've had this week. >> but whittington clarifies

that statement to the post saying it was more of a sense of disappointment that it happened at all. i'm sure it must have been difficult for mr. cheney and his family. i still feel the same way. since the shooting, cheney and whittington haven't seen each other for years, only exchanging birthday greetings. asked if cheney ever apologized to him personally, whittington simply said i'm not going to go into that. so, john, what does that sound like to you? >> you know, it sounds like dick is mad for ruining his shot, you know what i mean? like tiger when somebody makes ay noise on his backswing. you know what i mean? i had the bird. thank you. great. no, really. thank you. appreciate that. >> that's why mr. whittington had to go and publicly apologize. >> i'm sorry, dick, i lost a a quail for you. >> it was much more serious than we knew at the time. the white house clamped down on that information. it was like pulling teeth and

cheney was secretive about it. i think in some ways he was trying to protect a friend but also is very secretive about things. >> dick knows how bad it was. you shoot somebody, you go and shake their hand. eight years, six years later. >> four. >> four years later. >> it was 2006. >> yeah. >> we'll be having math 101 right after the show. >> delaware, forget it. >> did you say delaware? >> yeah. >> all right. listen to this. chris coons and christine o'donnell squared off last night in their first debate in delaware. during this often contentious e debate, o'donnell went on the defensive, attacking democrat chris coons as a career politician who would rubber stamp democratic policies. >> i would be remiss not to bring up the fact that my opponent has recently said it was studying under a marxist

professor that made him become a democrat. when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, which is one of the tenants of marxism, not supporting the death tax, which is a tenent of marxism, there are many more people who would support my catholic faith. >> i am not now nor have i ever been anything but a clean-shav n en capitalist. >> partisan bickering over compromise and solutions and also backed away from senate majority leader harry reid who recently called coons his pet. >> harry reid, the senate majority leader called you his pet. >> i don't know why harry reid said that. i'm nobody's pet. i'll be a bulldog for delaware. i'm running to represent all delawareans, not just democrats. i have support from democrats, republicans from all three counties. >> at times o'donnell softened

her rhetoric on issues like homosexuality. when labeling evolution a myth, she declined to express her views on the subject, saying they were irrelevant to her canned d candidacy. she was stumped when asked to cite a recent supreme court decision of which she disagreed. >> which opinions of late that have come from our high court do you most object to? >> oh, gosh. give me a specific one. i'm sorry. >> actually, i can't. because i need you to tell me which ones you object to. >> i'm very sorry. right off the top of my head, i know that there are a lot, but i'll put it up on my website. i promise you. >> we know you disagree with roe versus wade. >> she said a recent one. >> that's a relatively recent one. >> of late. roe versus wade -- it's 30 some years old. >> any other supreme court -- >> well, the debate had a light moment when o'donnell's national

notareity came up. >> there are things in the national media that my opponent has said or done that is a distraction that delawareans both asked us about. >> you're just jealous that you weren't on "saturday night live." >> i'm dying to see who will play me, christine. >> don't cringe, john ridley. latest poll numbers show 57% for chris coons, 38% for christine o'donnell, who has raised $4 million after winning the primary last month. >> she's going to have a really nice house after this. wow! >> just this week, john, the conversation in california, the race has been over the word "whore". >> yes. >> down in delaware, we're talking about witchcraft and marxism. this is a silly season, even by national political standards of silliness. >> all i can do is agree with that. there is, on the one hand, a

rise of wiley coyote type politics which is dump something in the middle of the road and force your opponent to run around it and a real -- to me, people are embracing a real anti-intellectualism. for elitists, anyone who has gone to a particular school, anything like that. it's kind of scary. i understand what it means to be a true elitist, someone who is not in touch. you can be in touch on both e ends, you can go to school to not be in touch with what's going on. i thought that delaware debate was interesting. chris coons had a real opportunity to talk to people, really talk to people about health care costs and why they're rising, the fact that most americans are underinsured by their companies and make that plain to people that the reason costs are going up is because right now if you get sick, you'll get hit in the pocketbook as you never have before. one person that's good at

talking politics, has done that for a long time, and one person that's not good at talking polit politics but no real conversation in the middle to individuals. >> christine o'donnell and sary palin has used that to some degree. christine o'donnell says i wasn't born with a trust fund. a great story about this. joe miller in the last half, went to yale. kentucky, rand paul, duke, medical degree from there. colorado, the tea party candidate, ken buck, princeton. pennsylvania, pat tumi, harvard. i mean, so christine o'donnell is sort of the exception there. i didn't know that joe miller had gone to yale law school. there's not -- i wouldn't say there's a total embrace of anti-intellectualism, but there's some high-profile candidates that play that card. >> they play that. george bush went to an ivy league school. i don't know that it's a matter of where they actually went to school but the idea you're being set out as an elitist.

if i go to a mechanic, i want an elitist. if i go to the dentist, i want the best there is. >> or a surgeon. >> wherever you go -- i go to a shoe store, i want a guy who loves his job. you've been to stores like that, where people are excited, they know what they know and they want to help you and go that extra mile. and the idea that when you go to vote, the big elitist, little elitis elitist, it's the strong man. as you point out in your report, it doesn't exist. you're fighting an idea that everybody else who may fit into that elite mode -- no, not an elitist. how do you defend a false negative? >> distressed and feeling that the people in washington have no relationship with those who are in america who are suffering, having trouble paying their mortgages who don't have a job, or their spouse or their child doesn't have a job and there seems to be no connection with the people that represent us. >> that's what it is. it's an easy card to play for many candidates, especially

running against an incumbent, especially against an incumbent democrat. you went to harvard. you have an ivy league education. you come from a fine family. you have no sense of what my life is like, having lost half the value of my 401(k). you're an elitist. it plays out well. >> it used to be what you wanted for your family, rise above go, to the best school, and take all those values and give them to your children. >> sure. >> things like that. it's odd that it's been flipped now. >> in this case with christine o'donnell, the charge she's making -- correct me -- she didn't go to an ivy league school. she is having huge money problems. when she says i'm not like you. you're this person way over here, it has the ring of truth, which is why i think particularly the second -- it's particularly powerful. o'donnell is me. now i'm scared. i didn't go to yale. i know what it means to make a dollar and have problems keeping it. the only problem is christine

o'donnell, there's no there there once you get beyond the "i'm you." >> one of the things we hear in some of these campaigns and in a lot of the tea party rallies is we want our country back. you hear that over and over. when you hear that, what do you hear? >> what do i hear? to me, i think of the nixon forgotten americans, these are the folks who -- a certain expectations are disguised now as victimization. quite frankly when i hear i want my country back, i hear a select individual. i want to be careful, because there's not everybody. there's a lot of pain, lot of suffering all the way around. for me, where a lot of this anger is coming, it's a particular kind of individual strapping up saying i don't literally like what the government looks like on the outside. you have to remember, the national employment average is about, what, 9.8%, 9.5%. part of the reason it's there, in certain demographics, that unemployment is about 25%, about 30% and you don't see that demographic arming up, going out

saying i want my country back, things like that. they're saying it's bad. we're going to get through this. we're going to fight. throw out the demographic so people get what i'm saying. >> want me to say it? >> you can say it. >> we've seen it. we're talking about the extreme portions of the tea party movement and they're overwhelmingly white. those are the folks that are saying i want my country back. >> right. >> and it does have that tinge of i want my country back from them. >> right, those people. >> i don't know. >> i want to make clear, extremes, not broad based at all. >> i agree with what both of you guys are saying but there's also people out there who when they say or think i want my country back, what they want is the same kind of public schools they went to when they were grow iing up. they want the same kind of civility among people that they

had when they were growing up instead of people flipping them the bird in traffic. what they want is growing up without the threat of drugs or illiteracy or growing poverty or the threat of unemployment or another economic collapse. what they want is more stability in this country and in their lives. >> i don't disagree with that. i would just say that, again, the demographics that are hardest hit by all of that, d g drugs, bad schools, a higher unemployment, are not the demographic strapping on the guns saying i want my country back. >> that's true. >> they're in their own community saying what can we do to make it better? that's the difference i would make. >> this man has homes not just in manhattan but in beverly hill. >> everywhere in america. everywhere in america. i'm coming to your state soon to get your house. i'm john ridley. i support what i do. >> my god. i want my country back right now. politico playbook is next. how mitt romney is setting himself apart from other 2012 presidential prospects. is he borrowing a campaign strategy once used by richard nixon? also the subplot we're all

waiting for, the trapped miner whose secret love affair was revealed when he was underground. we'll show you what happened when he came to the surface. first here is bill karins with the forecast. hurricane paula is about to fall apart, south florida getting rain from that today. nothing to be concerned with. other areas of concern today, rain through washington, d.c., down i-95 into richmond. that's where the heaviest rain is now. little later today, it will shift toward baltimore, philly and into new york city during the evening rush hours. a will the of people got to work. the drive home will be a different story. boston and hartford tomorrow morning will be your tough commute. rain moves through today, that's all. tomorrow we add in the wind. it will be very windy, lot of leaves will come down. flooding on the streets. we'll have some downed trees and mostly from new york city northwards up through new england. the rest of the country looks fantastic today. west coast, not quite as hot. after two days in the 90s in san

francisco, today we cool it off to a beautiful 84. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. [ female announcer ] when you save an average of over $450 a year

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they're still partying in vegas at 8:22. this is prime time right now. >> 5:22. sit on that for a second. imagine we're there. >> we're having fun. >> just come out a little bit.

>> do you know what else they're doing? they're getting ready for a debate tonight, harry reid. let's take a look at the morning papers. las vegas review journal, poll shows a bump for sharon angle, ahead of tonight's debate with harry reid. >> "new york times," election day three weeks away senate candidate linda mcmahon is having trouble winning overwhelm in connecticut. recent poll shows richard bloomenthal with a 2-1 advantage amongst women voters. >> wall street journal, halloween alone doesn't explain huge spike in powdered wig sales, the tea party seems to be increasing demand. >> a guy in the colonial wig

business. >> new york post, he's all mine, miracle in chile, a wonderful, heartwarming story, comes to the surface to meet his mistress. his wife, marta, chose to stay home. a wonderful, wonderful heartwarming story. >> that's why the mistress got the job. she was going to show up. the wife stayed home. >> what happens in the mine stays in the mine. >> the wife said i heard he was okay, he was healthy. that's good enough to me. i didn't need to see this mess. >> he gets $10,000 for coming out, right? that's all i need to know. book deal. >> executive editor from politico, jim vandehye. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. >> what's his strategy here, jim? >> nixon in '66 strategy, doing

every single thing he can for every single candidate, given $1 million to 188 different candidates in the house, 24 in the senate, 20 gubernatorial candidates. he has different routes he's running money through. unlike palin and other figures, he's not out there every single day trying to make news or create a stir but grind it out in the early states, try to increase his presence in places like iowa and other state that is will matter early on. for him it's probably the wisest strategy. he has a huge, huge, huge liability that he has to somehow figure out how to overcome, the massachusetts health care law that ended up being the prednisone cat for doing the national health care law, which is about as popular with republicans as taxes or terrorists. >> it's noran, jim. >> how are you? >> i'm great, thanks. michelle obama hitting the trail, holding a fund-raiser and

also found herself as a lead story on drudge yesterday. you wrote a piece about this because she told tom joyner, we got this man into office, we're all proud about barack and went on to say that everybody i know in our communities is praying for us. is that a fair, unfair shot at her? what's behind this close examination of her comments to tom joyner? >> every time that the obamas talk in terms of faith and prayer, it becomes news, mostly because people -- there's been criticism of obama not going to church from the right and not being spiritual as, say, bush was in office. people on the right are having a little bit of fun with it. i think for a lot of democrats, they feel they have to do some praying in these close races in the house and senate. she has a much bigger objective right now. she remains very popular. she can go to places like wiscons wisconsin, illinois, get a big audience. she can try to fire up the base, young voters, minority voter,

members of the other constituencies. they have to close that gap. the broader map of the democratic party, deploying obama where they think he's a big asset, michelle obama, where she can go virtually anywhere but where they think she can augment the campaigns there and bill clinton in places where obama cannot go, particularly in the south or a large number of independents or conservative democrats. >> you figure out the most beloved vice president in the history of vice presidents, joe biden, who can go anywhere. >> he can go anywhere, a force on the trail, doing a ton of event, unlike obama, can go virtually to any district and to any state. basically, democrats have to do this. they have to figure out. it's keet to the next three weeks. you'll see more money than we've ever seen pushed into these campaigns. the key will be can democrats somehow recapture that energy of 2008 and get turnout way up? you see it on the republican side. there's no doubt at all that you'll have huge turnout on the

republican side and among independents, especially independents who are not happy with obama. the big question is, can democrats counter that? >> it will be fun to watch. >> take care. >> jim vandehye from politico. erin burnett is keeping track. ay, my daughter showed me a designer handbag. and like that, we had a new side to our business. [ male announcer ] when the martinez family saw an opportunity, the hartford was there. protecting their employees and property, and helping them prepare for the future. nice boots. nice bag. [ male announcer ] see how the hartford helps businesses at achievewhatsahead.com. ♪ ♪ one, two, three, four ♪ want you and everything that you do...do ♪ ♪ it's obvious that i like you ♪ i'd go anywhere to be near you ♪ ♪ you say

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new weekly job numbers up right now. erin burnett is live at the new york stock exchange. before you give the number, i want to explain the critic remark that mike barnicle made. >> please do. >> this is a story you'll like. >> it's about spike in powdered wig sales. just wondering if that will move the market today. >> that's what you were saying. because what i heard was is she wearing a wig? i mean, i don't want to, you know, read anything into that. >> powdered wig, if that makes it better. erin, what's happening with the jobs? >> let's get to the jobs. the jobless claims came in a little bit weaker than had been expected. we had a jump of about 13,000. we were looking for a jump of 1,000. so, 462,000. the takeaway from this is what it has been the past few weeks. it's a weak market not showing significant job growth or job loss. on the producer prices, this is

interesting that i want to throw in here. this could be an indication of inflation, came with a rise of four-tenths of a percent. a rise more than was expected. those looking for inflation building in the system may point to that headline today. overall, though, anticipation of the fed opening the spigot has done one good thing for global stocks, set them to a two-year high. it has done some bad things for the dollar. i want to hit on this. we talk about markets in this segment. obviously the dollar and the fate of the u.s. is a political issue. you talk about it all day, every day, right? think about these headlines. dollar spirals lower. another one, dollar slumps. we see them everywhere. it's feeding into all this political talk of take back our country. a little perspective might be good here. the dollar is higher today -- it was higher a year ago than it was today.

i'm sorry. the dollar is higher today than it was a year ago. it's not as if we're go iing do a dramatic spiral and seeing the u.s. currency going to pot all of a sudden. it's justify not accurate. we may be putting in too much money and there may be real issues down the line. even though we have been dropping rather sharply over the past several months, if you take a little perspective, it's not as bad as it may seem. that's important when we see these headlines and people start to get worried about where the dollar is going. that's my key headline on the dollar. keep that all in perspective. on apple, apple passed $300 per share yesterday. if you look at it as if it were an economy, it is now almost the size of south africa, which is pretty amazing. >> wow! >> second only to exxonmobil here in the united states and their sales of apple computers were up 24%, according to a survey done by a major tech watcher. five times faster than any of their rivals. >> what is the sense on the street, erin, what happens to apple stock when verizon gets the iphone?

>> well, that is going to be good for apple, i guess. that's what people think. it just means people who are frustrated with at&t who haven't bought an iphone, they'll run in and put them on verizon. hypothetically, the theory on the street is that it will be good for apple but we'll see. one final thing, guys, if the dollar remains weak and drops even further, u.s. stocks could go up and the reason for that is our companies get more than half their business from overseas. the weaker the dollar, the bigger their profits and that could be good for people's 401(k)s. >> one nugget that just crossed while you were talking, trade deficit widens sharply as gap with china hits all-time high. >> gap with china and all-time high. china had a record surge in how many dollars it holds and they don't have anywhere else to put it. they can put some of it in gold. as long as u.s. and china can trade together, they'll keep those dollars in dollars. which means our dollar is not

the worst thing in the world. anyway, that's it. >> she is much too smart to be on with us. >> i know. >> and her hair is much better than yours, barnicle. >> i have no hair. >> i mean, put a little powder in it. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> mike could use a powdered wig. erin, thanks so much. "sports illustrated" takes us through the iconic magazine covers through the years. up next, political round table, senator john barrasso from wyoming. in charge of cutting co. calm down. i know that it is not your job. what i'm saying... excuse me? alright, fine. no, you don't have to do it. ok? [ male announcer ] notre dame knows it's better for xerox to control its printing costs. so they can focus on winning on and off the field. [ manager ] are you sure i can't talk -- ok, no, i get it. [ male announcer ] with xerox, you're ready for real business. ♪ now the healing power of touch just got more powerful.

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are you telling us this will be a major part of his address? >> look, it will definitely part of his address, absolutely. there's no reason to -- there's no reason to back off asking for the disclosure. >> fact-checking organizations and from newspaper editorials and a lot of people saying this is the kind of unsubstantiated attacks that -- >> the list of donors that is being protected and identities

being protected. jim, if there are organizations raising tens of millions of dollars and won't tell us who their donors are, my guess is they're not telling us for a reason, because they have something to hide. >> i would be happy to respond to mr. gibbs' list for foreign contributors of american crossroads. there it is, right there. >> zero. >> zero. zero. while we're at it, let's talk about the president's evidence for the accusation that the chamber of commerce and american crossroads had foreign donors. it is nada, no evidence whatsoever, that the president made this charge on the basis of, which leaves us with what is the white house credibility on this issue? none. none. >> quite a performance. here with us now, advice chairman of the senate republican conference, senator barrasso. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. good luck on your book. >> thank you very much. >> first question out of the box

will be what's your favorite color. >> yeah. he's good. he buttered me up. >> let's talk about the clip we just saw there. what do you make of the white house claims that, as they say, foreign money is stealing democracy, this money going into republican campaigns. how do you answer that? >> they're desperate, trying to distract from the fact that the american people are worried about the economy, the jobs, the economy, the debt, the spending. 9.6% unemployment. the president is having a town hall meeting, 19% unemployment of young people around the country. they're doing anything they can to distract, try to distract the american people will not be distracted. >> senator, you are a practicing physician, an orthopedic surgeon. and when people look at politics and they read about politics coming out of washington, they see the democrats proposing a and republicans saying no to a, b, whatever it is. is there anything in your experience as a politician and as an orthopedic surgeon, anything at all, one thing in this health care bill that you

approve? >> oh, there are things that i wanted to improve that are already in the bill. you talk about young people trying to be able to stay on their parents' plan. we need to do that. we need to work with pre-existing conditions. our state in wyoming has done a program like that. but when you put 2,700 pages in a bill together, which nancy pelosi says first you have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it, that's not the way to go. and now with the president's broken promise, he said if you like the health care you have, you can keep it. they took two pages of the bill, blew it up into 121 pages of rules and regulations and that's why now it looks like over half the people in the country who get their health care insurance through work will not be able to keep what they have, even though they like it. that's the problem, is that you really didn't have an opportunity to amend. i brought amendment after amendment to the floor. all of them were rejected. it was take it all or leave it. no real working together. that's the problem, because we do need health care reform. we need better solutions. we need to repeal this mess and

replace it with something that works. >> in terms of the health care reform, you talk about people not being able to afford their health care, especially from work. a lot of the problem is that people are underinsured. companies offer them insurance but if they were to have a catastrophic illness, they're not going to be able to afford that. at some point the premium will go up. what's the way to resolve that? >> this health care will raise premiums higher than as if nothing was passed at all. i brought a number of proposals to the meeting with the president, who rejected all of them. just do catastrophic for everybody, then have health savings accounts for others. let people join -- small businesses join together for insurance. you have to do something about lawsuit abuse, which wasn't covered. and then i think you really need to let people that buy insurance personally get the same tax advantages as the big companies and let people buy insurance across state lines that. will increase competition and

give people a bigger bargaining power. >> let's look to november 3rd and say the republicans do take over congress. what's the first thing that you think that the republican party should do with its presumed new majority? >> barack obama is still going to be president, no matter what happens with the elections this november. it's really two-election cycle where we need to make sure, in my opinion, that the president is no longer the president two years from now. we need to make sure that we extend -- prevent the obama tax hikes that will go into play january 1st. i don't know why the president let congress go home without voting on these tax hikes that are -- that's why people aren't creating jobs in america. there's too much uncertainty. >> so the agenda is know when to stop? no to president obama and stop the so-called -- >> let people keep more of their own money. don't let the government make those decisions. the president says we have a lot of better ways to spend the money. it's not the president's money.

it belongs to the american people. >> can i ask a question right n now? there's bickering going out right now with the democrats in the house and the senate. probably the democrats will hold on to the senate, probably. and there will probably be a narrow majority for republicans in the house. and the president staying the president. you talk about a two-election cycle coming up. how is anything going to get done when you've got these fighting groups that basically are not talking to each other and are not on the same page and looking toward 2012 as opposed to looking exactly where we are in 2010? >> hissically in the senate, things get done more when it's 52-48 one way or the other and the president needs to come back where the american people are. he has turned intoey t a tax an spend liberal president. we need to get the president in the middle of the center where the american people are, and that's where the president ought to be governing the nation. >> senator parrasso, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> and please have your wife

improve her taste in literature. she can do much better though i appreciate it. coming up next, a trip through history for any sports fan. the iconic covers of "sports illustrated." my mother froze everything.

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welcome back to "morning joe." here with us now, editor of "sports illustrated," terry mcdonl is here to talk about "the covers." great to see you. >> great to be here.

>> a little trip down memory lane. let's start with the man who has been on the cover more times than anyone, michael jordan. >> that would be 49 times. >> wow! >> substantial. >> wow! >> closest is muhammad ali, i think, at 41, 38, something like that. >> there was a backlash against this one. >> very big one. "sports illustrated" tries to take the position of the fan, what the fan wants, what the fan is interested in. at the time of this cover, michael was playing professional baseball, not doing as well as he had done in basketball. and so they did this michael, bag it cover. he took it very personally and has not spoken to "sports illustrated" since, not at all. >> that was over 15, 16 years ago, something like that. >> when i got to the job, of course, michael jordan -- >> right.

another one that stirred some controversy was lebron james. why? because in 2002 "sports illustrated" dubbed him the chosen one at 16, 17 years old. a lot of people are saying why are you putting that kind of pressure on a high school kid? >> it was pressure. you always try to foreshadow things. i have a personal complication with that story. i had just been hired to be the editor of "sports illustrated." i went out to salt lake city to the olympics to meet the writers and editors and bill colson, my predecessor in new york, made the decision to put -- it was one of his last covers, to put lebron on the cover. naturally, i began taking heat immediately. what are you doing? why could you possibly be doing this? in retrospect, it underlines what sports covers do, in foreshadowing and people now are very glad they knew about lebron at that time and i don't think we have to worry about lebron and pressure. >> you were completely

vindicated because he has turned out to be everything that you said he would be. >> another thing that the magazine has done and has always done -- it is a iconic magazine, especially with the covers. miracle on the ice cover is listed here, lake placid, 1980. one of the things it does for people with all ages, you look at a book like this with past cov covers and you are 18 again or you are 30 again and you are living through that moment again. >> well, that was exactly our intention, because that's what happens to us when we go look at these. we have them all up on a wall so we can just walk down those years. but it really can get sentimental for you because your life just flows. you start with the cover you remember in "sports illustrated" and walk yourself through. >> growing up. >> oh, yeah. this was one of the magazines when you talk about the magazines in our house, "sports illustrated qug was always in our house. great moment, brandi chastine

when she ripped off her short and show ed her sports bra. i have to ask you this, most of the sports illustrated covers we know about women are women in bikinis and not known for their sports abilities but for their gorgeous bodies. have there been more women on the covers the last, say, five or ten years for their sports achievements rather than their looks? >> i would hope so. it's something i thought about when i went in there. the swimsuit women are pretty athletic women, actually. >> i mean, known more for their sports achievement. >> it's not leering and it's not unhealthy. it's supposed to celebrate, you know. >> it's a different generation. for me, i grew up playing sports, which is why we had "sports illustrated." my mom's generation didn't have the same opportunities. it's historical. you learn about your history in these sports covers and about

more women on the covers. >> you also learn from these covers and from the stories in the magazine over the years about the changes in our culture. >> yeah. >> in the '50s, when i first started reading "sports illustrated," eddie matthews hitting the ball. ted williams. baseball was king in the '50s. television, pro football has now eclipsed baseball in many, many ways. >> there's a statistical analysis in here of what has happened to the cover. so you can see how that's changed. baseball is very strong but it has very interesting trends like that, that you can chart just like a political campaign. >> if you can track a best-selling cover, that generated the best stand sales. and is there -- like jennifer aniston would sell your glossy rags? >> no. some athletes will stand out but

it's about the teams. when boston won the world series, we didn't put a single athlete on the cover. we made a montage about the fans. it's about the town, how hungry they are and the tradition of the team. that said, i don't know, the swimsuit issue just, you know -- >> it's really about women and sports. by the way, swimsuits sell. >> this is a great book. it's a trip through american history called "sports illustrated the covers." thanks for bringing it to us. can't wait to go through it. appreciate it. up next, what have we learned today? ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ daylight comes ♪ i'm on my way [ indistinct shouting ] ♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ working my whole life away [ dogs barking ] ♪ the boss told me ♪ i'd get paid weakly ♪ and that's exactly [ bull lows ] ♪ how i'm paid ♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ working my whole life away ♪ another day ♪ another dollar ♪ daylight comes ♪ i'm on my way but the financial landscape is still full of uncertainty.

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time for what we learned today. mike barnicle, what did you learn? >> i'm reporting for duty in westport, connecticut, at a book signing at the barnes and noble westport, connecticut, 7:00 tonight. willie geist, i will be accompanying and guarding him. >> we're taking the metro north up. it will be a party train. john ridley, great to have you back. >> thank you very much. i learned that the "sports illustrated" swimsuit cover girls were really