if i had given the money through the u.s. chamber of commerce you would have never, ever known. that's november 9, seven days since the republicans took control of the house. mr. bane, where are the jobs? i'm keith olbermann. good night and good luck. now to discuss what democrats can and need to do during the lame duck session of congress, ladies and gentlemen, the lockest consecutively service -- appearing anchor on msnbc rache maddow. good evening. >> nice to have you back. >> thanks for your support. >> thanks for staying with us at home for the next hour. we used to have a great segment on the show that was called lame duck watch. it was something we used around this time two years ago roughly to track the lame duck presidency of george w. bush. it was after barack obama was

elected president but before obama was officially sworn into office. despite some stiff competition on the show i feel safe saying that lame duck watch was the best we ever did in terms of using musical interludes on this show. it was "hail to the chief" followed by a quack. do you remember? ♪ [ quack ] >> people would come up to me on the street and do that. quack! i loved it. it still stuck in my head two years later. it was our way of watching underreported things the bush administration was going. it's the old congress coming back to washington for one last hurrah before the new congress that was just elected gets sworn in. this is a new lame duck period. it's time to bring back the lame duck watch, right? the problem is the music.

we cannot use that great little musical animation anymore. we can't use it because that is "hail to the chief" which is specifically for the president and so it made sense for watching a lame duck president. it makes no sense for watching a lame duck congress. i don't think there is congress music. if we are going to watch what happens in the lame duck congress, what does the intro sound like? after much debate among the staff today, fanfare for the common man, quack, some auto tuned remix of the gavel sound, quack. something done 111 times quickly, quack because it was the111th congress. we have something we think we can use maybe. here it goes. >> hell no you can't! >> quack. >> the official intro hencefort for the coverage of the lame duck congress. hell, no, you can't. quack!

it's still this congress. in the lame duck period nancy pelosi is still speaker of the house. democrats still have a roughly 77-seat advantage over republicans in the house. even with republican mark kirk of illinois starting imminently democrats will still have a significant majority in the senate. congress doesn't begin to reflect the results of the last election until this current congress is over and a new one is sworn in. that doesn't happen until next year, until january. so democrats have a decision to make now. democrats are still in charge. what do democrats want to accomplish with their giant congressional majorities while they still have them? if you had been listening to republicans they haven't made it seem that way. >> hopefully when congress goes

back next week into session we can see the president come to our direction. >> between now and january 1, as things are, is there any compromise that you could make or maybe not a compromise because of your conviction on this. could you vote for taxes to go up on anybody? >> no. >> republican congressman eric cantor there demanding that president obama bow to the will of republicans right away. to be clear, senate republicans were in the minority before this election. they will be in the minority during the lame duck period and they will be in the minority when the new congress is sworn in in january. house republicans are still in the distant minority now. this is when the bush tax cuts issue you heard cantor talking about will be decided. there is so much bloviation about the tax cut issue it is easy to forget the details. the details are determinative.

when the bush tax cuts were passed in 2001 and 2003 they were not paid for. they were just larded onto the deficit. that's what turned the clinton budget surplus into the bush budget deficit. that, a couple wars and something about medicare did it. because those tax cuts weren't paid for, they had a time limit on them. that was the only way the people who passed the tax cuts could get away with blowing that hole in the budget, with being that fiscally irresponsible. the cuts had to expire. they had a ten-year sunset and that point has been reached. the bush tax cuts are set to expire at midnight on new year's eve. what that means is that at no point will republicans be controlling any house in congress when a decision gets made on the bush tax cuts. that decision has to be made while republicans are still in the minority and democrats are in control. somebody alert eric cantor. >> hopefully when congress goes

back in session next week we can actually see the president come to our direction. >> i understand why you want that but why would he do that exactly? as we have been talking about since even before the elections the tax cut issue was a perfect issue for democrats. the only difference between the parties' positions is republicans want big tax cuts for the richest americans and they are willing to lard 700 billion dollars onto the deficit to pay for them. here it is in red, white and blue and a little bit of black. all of the different lines going down the screen represent different income groups. as you go down the line the income level gets larger. the size of the bubble represent it is size of the tax cut. these are two proposals. democrats in blue and republicans in red. the blue bubble is how big the democratic tax cut would be by income group. the red is how big the republican tax cut would be by income group. the democratic and republican plans are almost exactly the same in terms of how much people

get in terms of tax cuts. under democrats and republicans, people are getting more or less the same amount of tax cuts. the last line you see is for people making $500,000 to $1 million per year. then you get to people making more than $1 million per year. watch what happens under the republican plan. watch this. boing. look. that's the timpbs in the proposals. republicans want to shower all of that on the richest americans and pay for it by larding it onto the deficit. this is a good political issue for democrats from democrats' perspective. we talked about it a couple of months ago when it appears in the column at the washington post. we called it the fat-bottomed snowman or something. a lot of things need to happen during the upcoming lame duck period. we should play it. play it. >> hell no, you can't. quack!

>> i don't know if that will work. there is a lot of stuff that has to happen in the lame duck period. it's unemployment benefits. those have to be extended for 2 million unemployed americans. if congress doesn't act, reimbursements for doctors under medicare will drop suddenly by nearly 30% in the doc fix they do every year. the secretary of defense is calling for the don't ask, don't tell repeal in the defense authorization act to be passed between the time the pentagon study comes out december 1 and the end of the year. there also needs to be a stop gap spending bill to fund the government or the government shuts down essentially on december 3. there is a lot of stuff they need to do. what happens in congress now depends on democrats. nancy pelosi as speaker. harry reid as senator majority lead around giant democratic majorities in both houses that are essentially entirely intact. what happens now is democrats sealing the legacy for what they did when they controlled both houses of congress and barack

obama was in the white house. republicans get their chance in january. they do not get it starting on monday. ed schultz, the host of msnbc's "the ed show" joins us. thanks for sticking around. >> great to be with you. >> you know more than i do. i know it from watching your show, about how democrats in washington strategize about getting stuff done and about their agenda. do you have a sense of what they are planning to do with the lame duck period? what they are planning to get done? >> here's what i think the democratic base want to see out of the democrats. get a heart, show some soul and grow a spine. let's talk about compromise. what is that? it's principle for the liberal causes of the country and making sure they deliver for the american people. i think they can do it. i think it can be a very active lame duck session. you have interesting things out there. you have hispanics and women for

harry reid committed to the dream act. that would be the biggest thing they could get done on illegal immigration. you've got the middle class tax cuts. use the term middle class as often as you can because the republicans don't do it. >> right. >> your graphic depicts exactly what they are all about. the bottom line is that we have got a group of people in this country who are suffering. and their unemployment benefits are going to run out. show some heart. show some soul. that's what the american people want. americans, i believe, are good next door neighbors. we help people in need. we always have. so why would we stop now because there was one election in time, a snapshot about how people feel about the economy and all of the sudden the democrats are going to cave in on everything? show your heart, get a soul and go after it with a strong spine. that's what i think the constituents want. >> taxes go back to clinton-era rates on january 1 if congress does nothing. between now and then democrats

have majorities in both houses of congress. here is the situation. if they say to republicans we've got a spine, no socking the deficit to help rich people, we're talking about the middle class and working people here. we are not going to be that fiscally irresponsible for the rich, then the republicans are against a wall, right? they either let all the bush tax cuts expire which they don't want to do or they let the democrats win. everything expires except the tax bracket for the richest people. then what are the republicans in the position of doing? they have to come back in january to pass tax cuts for the rich only when they are in charge. it puts republicans in such a mess if democrats drew a line here. >> i think the republicans don't think the bush tax cuts go far enough. i think they will try to go for a higher percentage down the road claiming that will jump start the economy, that it will be best for america and they will do the government get off our back thing.

the democrats can get an easy victory by defending the middle class. that's the portion of american society that's suffering the most now. focus on the 98%. then make the republicans come out and explain, okay, what discretionary spending cuts are you going to make? they haven't done it yet. explain your game plan. then use the term that the republicans love to use. you know the american people deserve to know. they talk about the american people want this, the american people want that. well, the american people want to know where cuts are coming. medicare, medicaid, social security and how deep will it go? the truth of the matter is they want to get the new deal. they want to get it all gone. if they had power that's where they would go. they would get rid of every social program they could. the democrats can't go wrong on unemployment benefits, tending them. they can't go wrong on the dream act. reid has to follow through on that to show the soul and

character. of course the middle class tax cuts they can't go wrong. if they are aggressive and if they don't let the republicans dictate to them what compromise will be they stand to re-energize their base again. right now i think the base of the democratic party is looking for spine. >> is this an issue where the aggressive progressives. i was thinking in particular about steve bennett who was so eloquent about the use of the lame duck period today. i'm just wondering if this issue, particularly the bush tax cuts for rich people and larding it onto the deficit this is an issue where aggressive progressives know what they want and the elected, it is a matter of trying to persuade them to put the spine in it. >> they need to do it for the people. we are living in extraordinary times, extraordinary circumstances. i think the blue dogs coming back have to know what's right for the american people. they have to vote the democratic

base on what they stand for to set up 2012. this was not a good election. i mean, for labor it was tough. it was a rough night at the office. but the people that did come out in support are going to expect payback and democrats to stand up for them and fight, show heart, show soul. >> while not in theory but while democrats are in a majority they are in a position to do something. this is the last chance to make rubber hit road for a while if the republicans are going to continue with the party of no stuff. >> as far as republicans are concerned you can't have it both ways. you can't be in favor of blowing the budget over the next ten years and come back to say, we are for fiscal responsibility. >> fiscal conservativism. >> they can't do it. put them in a box by forcing them to tell the american people exactly what cuts they are talking about. there are severe cuts coming, big time. >> on the specific issue of don't ask, don't tell that's one

of the things you can tell there is activity behind the scenes. do you see any republicans coming around on it? do you see blanche lincoln coming around to repeal even though she didn't vote for it? >> i don't. i think when the republicans have power they are going to vote down ideological lines. and they are going to leave don't ask, don't tell right where it is. here again the democrats can put them in the box. this is what the american people want. this is what military leadership wants. >> 70/30 the numbers on this. >> absolutely. it's a discrimination issue. no question about it. it is a victory for the democrat ifs they push hard in this lame duck session. they should do it. >> ed schultz host of "the ed show." great to see you. >> great to be with you. >> still to come, a bit of a programming announcement about this show. an announcement that's created wave this is afternoon. and, surprise, i'm still not getting an interview with george w. bush.

so i will keep doing my interview with george w. bush alone. also, sarah palin made the sun go backwards. all hail her terrifying power. please stay with us. [ female announcer ] kids who don't eat breakfast may not be getting the nutrition they need to keep their bodies strong. carnation instant breakfast essentials supplies the nutrients of a balanced breakfast to help build strong muscles and healthy bones. carnation instant breakfast essentials. good nutrition from the start. carnation instant breakfast essentials. that's why there's crest pro-health clinical gum protection toothpaste.

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have you met your new congress? do you feel you have been properly introduced? new congress, this is america. america, this is your new congress. >> i don't care how this gets painted by the main stream media.

i don't care if this shows up on youtube because i am convinced that the most important thing the founding fathers did to ensure me my first amendment rights was they gave me a second amendment. [ cheers ] >> and if ballots don't work, bullets will. >> what will? that's the new chief of staff to congressman-elect alan west. you know, the second amendment remedy thing has been bugging me all week. there were a handful of people, sharron angle among them, that if you didn't get the outcome they wanted they would pursue political objectives instead using the second amendment. using guns. angle, of course, lost which has me wondering if she thinks we should expect people to use second amendment remedies now. angle lost but west won.

west will represent florida's 22nd congressional district. this is the person who he has just named as his new chief of staff. >> this is the stand-off. when i say i will put my microphone down on november 2 if we haven't achieved substantial victory, i mean it. because at that point i'm going up into the hills of kentucky. i'm going out into the midwest. i'm going to go up in the vermont and new hampshire outreaches and i'm going to gather together men and women who understand that some things are worth fighting for. and some things are worth dying for. >> i guess because alan west won in the election she's not going to go up into the hills to prepare people to die, to form a militia and prepare for death.

so no outreaches of vermont for her. instead, capitol hill where she will -- i don't know. the congressman-elect's new chief of staff joyce huffman, a radio personality from south florida. those were not images of her laid owe show. that was her speaking in public at a july 4 event. there are reports that mr. west has been on the show more than a hundred times in the past four days and she will try to keep her job on conservative radio. the station says she's now a correspondent. you may remember allen west's campaign during which time he asserted he has a higher security clearance than the president of the united states. >> i have a clearance that even the president of the united states cannot attain. >> that is not true. he really doesn't. i mean, it is possible that he's talking about a security

clearance from a different country than this one, but if he's talking about the united states of america -- >> even with the profile mr. west earned he was endorsed by sarah palin. he was endorsed by the so-called young guns, the self-appointed new leadership of house republicans and john boehner went out to campaign for allen west who's turned out to be a show case candidate for the republican party this year. this is who he hired to run his congressional office. >> if ballots don't work, bullets will. i have never in my life thought that the day would come where i would tell individual citizens that you are responsible for being the militia that the founding fathers designed. they were very specific. you need to be prepared to fight tyranny. >> today commenting about her

move to washington, d.c. to serve as chief of staff to congressman-elect alan west joyce said she's excited to go to d.c. saying he's excited to go to washington to get a bird's eye view of congress. to give her the benefit of the doubt she's speaking of a flightless bird, i'm guessing, maybe, perhaps. it's too soon to tell. [ female announcer ] new charmin ultra soft has an ultra-cushiony design that's soft and more absorbent. so you can use four times less versus the leading value brand. new charmin ultra soft. [ man ] if it was simply about money, every bank loan would be a guarantee of success. at ge capital, loaning money is the start of the relationship, not the end. i work with polaris every day. at ge capital, we succeed only when they do. whoo!

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danger, will robinson. danger, will rogers? the great state of oklahoma is back under surreal law tonight. last week citizens voted 70% of oklahomans who voted voted for an amendment to ban courts from consulting shariya law. can't be too careful. a lawsuit has been filed. that case is being considered. a federal judge in oklahoma city issued a temporary restraining order blocking the state board of elections from certifying the recently passed no shariya law here amendment. that means while the new law is stayed, we are back to the islamic republic of muskogee where the wind comes sweeping down the plain and the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes -- right behind the burqa.

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hey, so programming note. i love these. today is tuesday. tomorrow is wednesday.

then the day after that is thursday. my guest for the interview on this show on thursday is jon stewart of comedy central's "the daily show." also the host along with stephen colbert of the rally to restore sanity and/or fear the weekend before the election. i have been on jon stewart's show and enjoyed it. he doesn't do much guesting on other programs. i'm glad he's decided to acede to our pestering. same bat time, same bat channel. i'm very, very nervous. i'm very, very nervous. we'll be right back. yeah, maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit. v8. what's your number? and she's going in with no protective gear? her hands could dry out. [ female announcer ] dawn hand renewal with olay beauty.

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i bought my policy online and i haven't heard from the company since. when pam switches to nationwide insurance, we're not going to treat her like policy 413. we're gonna treat her like pam, get to know her, be proactive. oh and rename the company nationpam. oh, ooh. done. ♪ nationpam is on your... ♪ ♪ sam we'll make that work. i am not ashamed to admit it. we are all excited to have "the daily show's" jon stewart scheduled to be here thursday. in working on what i want to ask him i have been thinking about how he and i do what we do differently. and with very different levels of success, i will admit.

but basically what our jobs boil down to is talking about the news on cable tv. there is an uncomfortable desk, blazers, sadly makeup. there are words that pop up or scroll across the bottom of your tv screen while we are talking about the day's events. right? but big picture, given the tools available to those of us working in the loosely defined medium, how can what we do here be most useful? what can we contribute to the national conversation that the national conversation needs? and that we are sort of set up to be able to provide here? everybody's going to have their own answer to that. i realized when i started thinking about it that one of the things i was wishing we did more of was debunkery, separating truth from fiction. the term fact-checking has been scrubbed of meaning. so let's go ahead and call it debunkery. when republicans take control of the house in january a man named

darryl isa will be the new chair of the oversight committee. he says he wants to start hundreds of investigations into the obama administration -- hundreds. he says he wants seven investigations a week for 40 weeks. that's like 280 when you add it up pretty much. he wants 280 separate investigations into the obama administration. on, for example, the grave scandal that is climategate. a story that is still true on the right wing. despite the fact that it's been debunkeried by a series of independent investigations including one by the british parliament, this theory of a grave conspiracy to fool the world into thinking there is global warming when really there isn't global warming, this remains a very live issue in right wing circles. on the right, conspiracy theories and allegations debunked by the outside world are not considered debunked. the right has its own self-feeding media universe now.

we have lost faith that facts matter. birth certificate, the president is secretly foreign, there are death panels in health reform, climategate. it's costing $200 million a day for the president to go to india and he's taking a tenth of the navy with him. all prove bli not true but still true in right wing land. in the face of the rejection of the reality-based community, do you stop debunking? do you get demoralized and decide the difference between true and false doesn't matter because one side doesn't believe it matters? no. yes? no. no. you recommit to debunkery as cause and custom, as a thing we not only can do, we ought to do. also, i like doing it. so debunktion junction, what's my function? stories today's news, true or false.

first, nicaragua accidentally invaded costa rica. true. because of a google maps mistake. google maps admitted with regard to the boundary between the two nations their cartography was off which inadvertently powered an incursion and a funny blog post apology we have linked to if you would like to read it today. next, true or false. kentucky senator elect rand paul opposes earmarks. this one's tricky. it used to be true but that was before he was elected. now that he is senator-elect rand paul and can bring home the bacon for kentucky that whole rand paul is against earmarks assertion the false. he's telling the wall street journal that, quote, he will fight for kentucky's share of federal pork. never mind what was promised. this is the new him. true or false, secretary of

state hillary clinton today gave an interview in which she discussed the propensity of americans to spend our days wrestling and wearing bikinis. true. also on tape and super great. >> if you look at american tv as much of the rest of the world does, you would think we all went around wrestling and wearing bikinis. that's what you would think we spend our entire day -- instead of viewing us as a karkh ka temperature it's important to be present, answer questions and make connections. >> also if we all ran around wrestling in bikinis we definitely would have sent linda mcmahon to the united states senate from connecticut. just saying. next headline, this one's actually less of a headline than it is visual. that burger king guy -- you know the mascot guy? he looks a lot like the head of the world's tallest jesus statue

that's being erected in poland. see under the neck, that little figure there, the little figure between the jesus -- what is that a cherchief and the bottom of the jesus haio? that's a person. largest jesus person ever being built in poland. looks just like the burger king. total judgment call but that's true from my perspective. next up, it is morning in america. morning in america as declared by what looks to be the first political ad of the 2012 presidential campaign. >> this is our movement. this is our moment. this is our morning in america. >> to the extent we are talking literally about morning this one is false. the sunrise when she says morning in sarah palin's new commercial, that sunrise over the statue of liberty is really a sunset. it is actually time lapse sunset behind statue of liberty. yours from a stock footage site

for $45. it can pass for morning in america only if you play it backwards and don't care which way is north or east or what the sun does in real life when near the statue of liberty. not morning. evening. next question, true or false. when president obama was a child in indonesia, president obama had a nanny and his nanny was gay and went on to play on a trans gendered volleyball team. true or false? true. so far as we can tell from now, his nanny was an openly gay man who in keeping with indonesia's relaxed views of it dated the town butcher and joined a group of transvestites who entertained people by dancing and playing volleyball. great game volleyball. i used to play. rn california ye.

there is a video. true or false? that's a missile. the answer for that? that one needs a guest. please stay tuned. does it take l in today's business world? our professors know. because they've been there. and they work closely with business leaders to develop curriculum to meet the needs of top businesses. devry university's keller graduate school of management. learn how to grow the business of you at keller.edu.

just what is it? flying over the skies of california, they are calling it the mystery missile. >> an apparent massive ballistic

missile. >> at this hour no federal agency can explain what it was. >> there have been all kinds of reports that it looks like some sort of missile launch. >> a mystery missile launch off the california coast. >> i am loving this today. this was a possible missile -- >> not only a possible missile, but a possible apparent massive ballistic missile. apparently something which looked fairly dramatic on videotape happened in the sky above the state of california yesterday at sunset. this thing that happened in the sky has been officially christianed the mystery missile. consider that not everybody saw it and also these other images sort of look like that mystery missile footage and these pictures you're seeing here are definitely not missiles. these are pictures of regular airplane con trails when viewed from very, very, very specific

joining ta t about why the contributing editor of wired to debunk it until we have to. >> right. >> it doesn't seem like we are going to learn that this was a missile. what do you think? >> it does not look like it was a missile. i have to say my missile wanting quotient was pretty high here. i did talk to people who were actually nerdier than me when it comes to military technology and they were like, no, dude, no missile. >> and the reason people thought it was a missile was obviously because of the images that looked to the naked eye and the untrained eye like it was a missile launch. >> definitely. >> but there was a sense that there was something more to the story when the military claimed

to have no idea what it was. the military didn't initially say this is not a missile launch. they said we don't know. what explains the response? >> they said it wasn't a missile launch and later in the day they said, we don't think it was an enemy missile launch either. that's a long time -- like 24 hours with no warning either way, no way of making sense of this. i talked today to strategic command, northern command, and, pentagon. they were all like, we have no idea. >> we have no idea meaning we have checked what we are responsible for and it doesn't seem like it was us but maybe the other guys. >> maybe the guy down the hall. >> there is nobody in charge of -- >> you would think. >> it's awkward. >> right.

>> the other option, if it wasn't -- not necessarily accidental but a missile launch by the u.s. military or by an enemy military was this prospect that it might be a private missile. something that sophisticated amateurs designed and set off themselves. this doesn't look like a model rocket. is that sort of speculation off the table? >> i don't think any speculation is 1,000% off the table yet. i mean, i'm a little hesitant to use my naked eye but that doesn't look like a model rocket to me. >> what's interesting is if you es t airplane contrails that makes sense of the fact that, okay, other things in the world that look like missiles aren't necessarily missiles. maybe it was just the vantage point of the cbs news helicopter a jet flying overhead we see it right to left or left to right. if you shift perspective 90

degrees and the plane is coming right at you in the sky it looks like it's going straight up. that seems to be what happened. there are a couple of tips from the beginning that there was something funny here. first of all it was going slow for a missile. that's weird. secondly the plume didn't seem to be expanding at the bottom the way you would figure a missile's plume would. so some people smarter than me figured out pretty quick that it wasn't a missile. >> and not all of l.a. thought there was a giant missile launch. to me that's the layman's ah-ha moment. had something that looked that dramatic from any other angle happened everyone in l.a. would be trying to figure out what this was. >> true, but most of l.a. was on the cell phone, doing their nails, getting caught on the 405 cursing traffic. >> fair enough.

editor of the indispensable danger room blog. even before we knew for sure that this was bunk we wanted you to tell us whether or not it was. thanks. appreciate it. good to see you. coming up, lawrence o'donnell, god bless him, bravely kicks off a series of interviews with people who, in lawrence's words, hate him. not my words. those are lawrence's words. he's kicking off a series of interviews with people he thinks hate him. tonight he starts off with glen greenwalt. on this show george w. bush is getting ample air time promoting his skills as an author. that's new. i am still not getting an interview. not that i meem bitter. it's fine. i'm a duck. bead up, roll off. i don't mind. i'll just do the interview myself. [ k. tyrone ] i'm an engineer.

my kids say i speak a different language. but i love math and math and science develop new ideas. we've used hydrogen in our plants for decades. the old hydrogen units were very large. recently, we've been able to reduce that. then our scientists said "what if we could make it small enough to produce and use hydrogen right on board a car, as part of a hydrogen system." this could significantly reduce emissions and increase fuel economy by as much as 80%.

at the walmart in marinette, wisconsin. that first job launched my career. since i've been with the company, i've been promoted ten times over the span of 11 years. today, i'm a divisional learning and development manager. we can actually help people develop in their own careers. my job allows me to make a difference in the lives of almost 100,000 associates in the northeast. if you think about it, that's almost 8 times the size of my hometown. my name is nick and i work at walmart. ♪ ♪ i can't find it. ♪

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i think i am finally coming around to realizing it. i think there's no soft pedaling it. i'm not going to get an interview with george w. bush, no matter how i promise to hold the book or say the name of it or talk about it in any sort of terms in order to promote the sales, that's not gooding to happen. his first interview is with matt lauer, oprah winfrey, rush limbaugh, sean hannity, sean hannity. his sixth interview will be with bill o'reilly, seventh with greta van susteren, candy crowley, cbs this morning, tenth with fox and friends, the 11th with jay leno. i am not on this list and i did not win the facebook contest to

try to get an interview with him. i do not think that i am going to get an interview with george w. bush and i am reluctantly coming to accept that. but i'm still going to lay out what i think is the central question posed by his book in the hopes that maybe he will just drop by here at msnbc one day and decide he wants to chat becauses who enjoying all these other interviews. without knit picking, without even talking about doing a full fact check or following every decision point, going down every rabbit hole, even without drilling in to this, there is one giant glaring thing in the book that's wrong. and it's wrong even if you only consult george w. bush himself on its veracity. even if you don't use outside sources, it is the central issue of his presidency. it's the central decision point, if you will, on the central issue of his presidency. and he gets it wrong in the

book, giantly, hugely, ostentatiously, provenly wrong. here's the problem. we all know before we invaded case, mr. bush's case was that there were weapons of mass destruction, right? >> right now, iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. >> saddam hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. >> we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in a mushroom cloud. our intelligence officials estimate that saddam hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and vx nerve agent. intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

>> except for all the doubt. we also all know, including president bush himself knowing, that when he assigned a study group to look for weapon of mass destruction after we invaded, the iraq study group found nothing. if you're george w. bush now, say, writing a book, you don't have to go back and read the big old boring report, you can just read your own transcripts. >> we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. we did not find the stockpiles. those weapons of mass destruction got to be somewhere. nope, no weapons over there. maybe under here. iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there. >> after the weapons of mass destruction thing was debunked, george w. bush not only said it

was de bunked, he then changed his stated rationale for the war. he wouldn't have had to do that if the weapons thing stild stood. why change your argument and say it's about all kinds of new stuff that it's not weapons if you could count on the weapons argument in first place. after the weapons stuff was disproven and the president admitted it, he stopped talking about weapons and brought up all kinds of new arguments for why we invaded iraq. because saddam was committing fraud in the u.n. oil-for-food program, you may recall. >> saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the u.n. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions. >> see, it wasn't weapons. it was that george w. bush was interested in ensuring the integrity of u.n. programs and was willing to back up the integrity of the programs with the might of the u.s. -- yeah.

then he argued that we had to invade iraq to create democracy. >> advancing the cause of freedom and democracy in the middle east begins with ensuring the success of a free iraq. >> he also tried the argument that we have to invade iraq in order to save iraq's women. >> as the citizens of afghanistan and iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region. young women across the middle east will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. >> mr. bush also then argued that we had to invade iraq in order -- this is novel -- to get new allies. >> the goal in iraq and afghanistan is for there to be democratic and free countries who are allies in the war on terror. that's the goal. >> whatever you think about the we invaded about the oil-for-food program and we invaded for the women and whatever you think about the individual merit of these retroactive rationales for starting the war that we heard from george w. bush after we

started the war, the argument in terms that we would not have all those reactive rationales if the reason he said we had to start the war in first place had held up. >> iraq did not have the weapons. >> right. iraq did not have the weapons. and george w. bush knew it and admitted it and changed the explanation for why we had to go to war. george bush in his own history in recent years admitted that weapons were not the reason we went to iraq. but in his new book he regresses, despite admitting it over and over again. despite changing his rationales that he couldn't talk about weapons any more, now we're back to weapon again. now we're back to pre-iraq war bush saying that removing saddam from power was the right decision. for all the difficulties that followed, america is safer without a homicidal dictator pursuing wmd. pursuing wmd.