tv The Dylan Ratigan Show MSNBC May 4, 2011 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT
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the show begins right now. the big story today is the photo. good afternoon to you. i'm dylan ratigan a rainy wednesday here in new york. some political storm clouds over the white house today, which this afternoon announced they will not be releasing a photo of osama bin laden's body. take a listen to the press secretary, jay carney, quoting our president. >> it is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool. that's not who we are. we don't trot out this stuff as trophies. >> security preparations also under way for the president's visit to ground zero tomorrow afternoon, without the places were all of this began, also head here to new york riding a so-called bin laden bump. those in his job approval
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numbers. the latest "new york times" cbs news poll has it 57% 11 points higher than last month. these type of event-driven bump does not have much in the way of staying power. after the capture of saddam hussein, george bush saw an 8-point spike that lasted a month. account president turn a temporary bit of good news for him into action that will be of lasting benefit for all americans? we start with nbc news mike viqueira at the white house with the latest from this afternoon's briefing. the big headlines, mike? >> we just saw the president for the first and only time today out on the south lawn of the white house, an event for wounded warriors, starting a cross country bike ride. here is what he said. "america does not forget. america will ensure that justice is done." once again, an allusion to the dramatic events that cull lynn minh nated in that press conference sunday night. jay carney went on to quote that interview with "60 minutes" the possible release of that photograph and the president's
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decision not go ahead and do so the president said, "people know he's gone. we don't need to spike the football." he rights can the fact that what they are picking up from al qaeda is leaders of al qaeda, those that are left, believe that osama bin laden is dead and the president concludes by saying, you will not see osama bin laden walking this earth again. there are con throw verse says that continue, dylan. we just had a press briefing from press secretary jay carney and after the operational details that have been led on to us made public, both on camera and off camera, a series of background briefings the course of the last 48 hours, that's it no more operational details, jay carney very title lipped, didn't want to get into the back and forth. you remember there were details they had they pud out earlier they had to walk back, chiefly, whether osama bin laden was armed when the come man he dose first encountered him, he was not. and whether a woman was used as
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human shield a few of the things they had to go on and correct. but using this phrase all day, dylan, the fog of war, the first reports from a battle field always sketchy. sometimes even untrue. now, the president prepares to go to ground zero in new york tomorrow. he will not make public comments though and that's one interesting aspect of that visit. he will lay a wreath. he will meet with 9/11 families and he will meet with first responds. dylan? >> michael, always a pleasure. >> okay. >> mike viqueira at the white house. for more on the bin laden bump, we have got our megapanel teed up, jonathan capehart from the "washington post," mark tapscott, mark miller, host of left, right and center. no one hangs onto an event-driven bump that long. however it is a unique form of presidential currency. how do you anticipate he might spin this and how do you think he should? >> i think he has a chance to reframe some of the debate n a lot of ways, obama has had an
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inbox presidency, his whole tenure has done been dominated by what he inherited, the financial collapse, economic collapse and except for health care reform and arguably the surge in afghanistan, obviously he inherited afghanistan, he chose to do a surge, but everything else he has done has been dictated by these huge messes he inher rid and i think had is a chance for people to get a fresh look at him. the boldness of leadership and command in ordering the strikes the way he did and choosing this among the options i think is going to give people a willingness to look at him anew and i hope they'll try and set our sights higher, even citing the military's example of sacrifice and devotion to duty is something that would make him rethink whether we are setting our sights high enough on jobs, on the budget and try and not just use this to help his re-election but to actually drive a more ambitious agenda, all the things we have talked b >> mark tap scott, just as the
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bin laden bump gives the president a bump in the polls it pr provokes people like mark mill, myself and others to fantasize about all the things a president riding a bump like that might do in our strange fantasy brains. the fact of the matter is that history suggests that these presidents, whether it is this one or anyone before him will do absolutely nothing more that perpetuate the status quo of lefty -- righty politics, is there anything that could be done outside the white house that could pressure this president to actually do something beyond the traditional bump and roll back to the status quo?
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>> i don't see a whole lot of bounce coming from this. jonathan, your thoughts not only on the bounce but also on the politics of the photos? >> well with regard to the bounce, we all know that the bounce will not last. it is just a matter of how long before the euphoria over bin laden's killing dissipate an people get back to you know, worrying about jobs and the economy and the future. with regard to the photos, you know, i'm working on a piece right now, a lot of things about the killing of osama bin laden that left me rather am biff lent. this morning i was on "jansing & co." and full square behind the white house releasing the photos, quite frankly as a journalist, i think that we should be for releasing of information, the public's right to know but when the white house announced that it was -- the
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president said he was not going to release the photo, there is a part of me that said, well, that's relief, that i completely understand and get why the administration, the president doesn't want that photo out there, the united states doesn't need to show a trophy, that we don't need to spike the football. i think ultimately, the and as minute station made the right decision, people said on air and off air, no one is doubting that osama bin laden is dead, not his top lieutenants not critics of the president or critics of the united states. people know that osama bin laden is dead. >> your thoughts on the photo debate, mark tapscott? >> well, you know, i'm known among my journalist friends as a first amendment fanatic and i think that release of information is always the presumption that we ought to
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operate under. i'm sort of with jonathan on this i think it shows class not to release it, but i think donald trump is working on a speech tomorrow that says the photo doesn't exist. >> that was -- that was good, mark. that was good. matt, the bigger issue with all of this, photo, no photo, human shield, no human shield, he was armed, he wasn't armed, on and on, how much of the conflicting information since sunday do you attribute to different people with different slices of the story under different directiveses as to what they should communicate and how much is predicated on the fact, as one of my producers like to say asking the intelligence agencies for information is like asking pinocchio to lie to you and then everything is a lie effectively and you have got to figure out between all the lies what -- bin
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laden's dead and accept the fact that everything you else you hear is most likely a lie? had >> we. >> i think that's way too cynical. having served in a white house myself, i think things that get attributed to conspiracy are more often not just mistakes. i'm sure that there is a lot of information coming back and, you know it took them a day or so to catch up with what the actual facts were and maybe brennan when he first came out got a couple of things wrong and so they corrected it. i mean, you know, i guess i don't think we should make too much of that or be looking for deep, dark conspire cities in all of that. >> should we be insulted by the fact that bin laden was obviously living in plain sight for years? >> in terms of our relationship with pakistan, i think that's shocking. >> absolutely. >> the idea that he has got this -- had this compound in a place that is like apparently what the pakistani equivalent of living down the block from west point really seems crazy and as
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everyone is saying, we are going to have to do a lot of hard thinking now about this relationship? >> mark? >> i agree with matt and i think the fact we discovered he was there for five, six years really puts into fundamentally different perspective a number of events that have happened in the last two years in our relationship with pakistan. i think maybe we are going to have to have some real hard discussions with those folks about what their future relationship is going to be and what our relationship with india is going to be. >> mark, jonathan, matt, all stick around we turn our attention around debate of withdrawal of afghanistan n the days following 9/11, a defiant president bush, of course, told us all that the best thing we could do for america was go shopping. with osama bin laden now capture and kill canned, how will our new president, obama, use this moment? ly tell us to go shopping? that's the topic of my newest
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blog, which you can find right now atop the "huffington post." and still ahead, what bin laden's death means for the war war in afghanistan. a conversation with congresswoman shelley people gray to bring our troops home. and did uncle sam's warnings get buried about shoddy deals inside office closets? can't make it up. plus, the public pitch. is it time for america to take back our sports team? ♪ take me out to the ball game ♪ take me out to the crowd >> this man is to to so desperate for a bump in the polls to jump his agenda he took the size road of killing the world's most wanted man. it the same reason fdr killed hit less, he was just pandering to the anti-genocide lobby. so you have five brothers.
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bin laden maybe dead but the pulse of america shows many fear the u.s. is far from declaring mission accomplished. the latest "new york times"/cbs poll shows 70% don't personally feel any safer with bin laden dead. in fact, more than six in ten feel less safe with bin laden dead. that is mirrored in the "washington post" poll where two-thirds of concerns about al qaeda retaliation for his murder and those fears could have some standing. intelligence analysts sorting through dozens of computers and hard drives taken from the bin laden compound just three days ago. they say they found something
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valuable enough to pass along almost immediately to u.s. security agencies. >> we continue to review on an ongoing basis all materials seized during the operation as well as new intel that maybe coming in and i stand ready to issue an alert should intel or information emerge that warrants it under the advisory -- new advisory system. >> which, of course, leads to our question, is the u.s. effectively in a permanent state of global war? let's bring in our specialist. west point grad andrew base vich, professor of international relations at bu and author of "washington rules, america's path to permanent war." jonathan, mark and matt are also standing by. andrew, is permanent war a good thing? in other words, as long as we constantly have warriors all over the earth killing people it, it prevents them from getting us and keeps people
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employed, we make bombs we blow stuff up, it feels good. what's the problem? >> i think war is a bad thing. i think long wars are a worse thing and a state of seemingly open-ended or endless war is worse still. that's where we are in this effort to use american military power to pacify or impose so some sort of order on the greater middle east. >> what about how much safer the american people feel knowing that they are funding a multitrillion dollar global bombing of random people with drones? >> i think -- i think if we talk -- if we spokane diddley to the american people, we would say you are safer today, you are not in particular safer today because we invaded iraq back in 2003. you're safer today because the federal government and other government agencies have -- are
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now taking seriously their responsibility to defend the homeland. we left the front door unlock and allowed the bad guys to walk right n so we now have, i think, relatively -- not necessarily perfect, but relatively effective defenses in place and i think that ought to provide some amount of consolation. >> my last question and release the panel onto you, do you view permanent war as a policy directive created by george bush and institutionalized by barack obama? >> no, i think it is a habit that the country fell into in the wake of world war ii during the cold war, as u.s. policy became progressively more militarized. as we came to the conclusion that maintaining military
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preeminence was a core element of our national security policies, it was only after 9/11 that the actual use of this military power on an ongoing basis came to be part of our reality. not because of president obama intended that we would be engaged in these open-ended campaigns but because president bush and others around him miscal cue lated and wars that they thought would be neat, tidy and short ended up being exceedingly long and exceedingly costly. >> jonathan? >> mr. base vich, do you think the killing of osama bin laden gives the united states an opportunity to a more peaceful foot? >> bingo. i think you put it exactly right. i don't actually think that the killing of osama bin laden substantively makes that much of a difference, but i think that it provides president obama an
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extraordinary opportunity. and to be a little bit glib be about it, if he wishes to he can declare victory and go home. and what i mean by that is that he can now begin the process of trying to demille tar rise u.s. policy, in particular, demilitarize u.s. policy with regard to the islamic world. to give up on the notion that the sustained adroit use of military power is going to make that region of the world work the way we want it to work. let me add an additional thought there disengagement in a military sense does not mean throw your hands up and do nothing. what has -- what has occurred, is occurring that is infin knitly more important than the killing of bin laden is this arab spring or arab uprising which demonstrates that people in this part of the world have
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the capability to determine their own fate and with a strong suggestions that the fate they want is not inconsistent with our own sense of the way the world should work. they want to embrace modernity, that undertaking on the part of the arab masses should be something we should try nourish and should be paying much more attention to than to the question of trying to pacify afghanistan at the cost of $100 billion a year. >> mark? >> professor, i'm curious what your response would be if we stipulate that your description of our present purposes in having military forces in the variety of places around the world is an accurate one. under what circumstances would you support u.s. military operations in the middle east that you would believe would view as a just reason for doing so?
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>> where i felt that, there was something going on in the middle east that constituted a threat to u.s. vital security interests and where there existed no other alternative other than force to protect those interests. >> and what would you consider to be those vital interests? just a couple of examples? i'm curious. >> well, i mean, i'm hard-pressed to see that there are too many interests that ought to justify the sort of military undertakings that we have been engaged in since jimmy carter promulgate the carter doctrine. i'm not camp that says this effort to impose our will through military power has proven to be enormously costly and has not produced a heck of a lot by way of advantages. >> matt? >> i'm a big fan of your stuff, andrew. here's my question. if -- if -- assuming a politician was inclined to want to retreat from the kind of
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empire that we have ended up funding at this point that both parties have, the risk for any nah national politician or presidentials a spir rant is they talk in this question and especially yet top line dollars going into the pentagon, they are immediately branded by the opposition as "weak on defense". what would it take to make the world safe for aspiring national leaders to talk this way and frame this conversation without getting decimated politically? >> that's great question and believe me, i'm not one to offer political advice to people who aspire to higher office. i guess a couple of points that i think would at least deserve consideration. the first is that we can not afford, we literally cannot afford to keep doing what we're doing. it certainly is not true that the pentagon budget is the sole explanation for our whatever it
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is $1.6 trillion deficit, but it is a major contributor and we are not going to be able to get our deficit under control without some substantial reduction in defense spending. i think that would be point number one. point number two, i think, is that as preoccupied as we have been with the problems of the middle east over the the past decade or so, if you step back and try to consider the direction that the world is going in the 21st century, the big story, it seems to me, is that we are headed toward some sort of multipolar order. the notion that we will be the sole supreme superpower, an idea that was in pretty wide circulation during the post-cold war decade, i think is really not sustainable. so the world in which we are moving is going to be a world in which nations like china and india, in which groups of
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nations like europe, the russians, maybe the brazilians, are going to have to be taken into account. and the question is how do we bring that multipolar order into existence while avoiding the cast tass trophies of the 20th century, where the failure to create a multipole already order led to two world wars? and i think if you can get the american people to appreciate that that's the big question, you will also get them to appreciate that military power, while certainly essential and certainly will have a role in that multipolar order is not going to provide the entire answer to get to that world. >> andrew, thank you so much for your time this afternoon, insight and education for all of us. the panel stays we take a break. coming up, should we stay or should we go when it comes to afghanistan? we got our guy in pakistan. what are we doing in afghanistan? we will talk with congressman shelley ping gray, who is asking
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so, if we got the guy in pakistan no less, why are 100,000 american troops, million billions of dollars a year where we fund both sides war as they hijack a third of the trucks that come in while we bribe them for the other two-thirds why is that still going on in afghanistan? with osama bin laden dead, pressure mounting on the president to end the afghan war and get to our troops and tax dollars out. in the decades since september 11th, 1,570 u.s. troops have been killed in that war, with nearly 1.3 trillion spent on operations in iraq and afghanistan, an additional 4500 troops killed in iraq. right now, the white house insists that while the death of bin laden is a big victory, it is not a reason to change the president's current exit plan.
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joining us now on the hotline is democratic congresswoman shelley pingry from california, starting a petition to ask for an accelerated withdrawal of troops from afghanistan in july, promising to bring sig match dhours the president. congress woman in an ideal scenario, what exactly would you have the president do? >> well, the president made two commitments to us. one was to bring back osama bin laden and the other one was to commit to an accelerated withdrawal from afghanistan starting in july. i think, you know, we have all agreed, our troops did an amazing job, to our intelligence was good, the president great leader in that. and we need to join him in the withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. i sit on the armed services committee, i will be honest, i opposed the war from the start, and one general after another telling us next year it is going
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to be better, next year we will have this country rebuilt and we will be there it has been over ten years, loss of lives, $7 million a month, 10 million an hour at a time when our country can't afford the loss of lives or blow to our economy and is not working, the president needs to hear from members of congress, supporters around the country, hey, we will be with you if you start withdrawing our troops. >> at the same time you can the president at the west point speech made it clear that his goal notice middle east were less about capturing bin laden than the following characterization. take a listen. >> our overarching goal remains the same, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan and to prevent its capacity to threaten america and our allies in the future. >> at the end of the day, is it necessary to spend the kind of money, bankrupt to our own nation, obviously, if the process, as long as we can pull this off?
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>> look, he did an amazing job with bin laden, a targeted approach, found it where he was, went in and got them, let's remind ourselves, it was in pakistan. we have been told there are less than 100 al qaeda operatives in afghanistan. afghanistan is where we have a major war going on. you know there are pockets of terrorism around the world. i sport president in keeping us safe from terrorism, but i don't think the war in afghanistan, with the enormous nation building that is going on there, at a time when we could use some of those roads and schools here in our own districts, back in our own countries york think it is being successful and okay to say, we'd great victory, now let's change our tactics. >> matt miller, do you agree with that and ultimately is it much easier just to keep blowing the money and shouting boo-yah and shooting things? >> i hope not. i hope that the fact that the president pulled this off with the special forces with bin laden will embolden him to take a more -- a tougher stand with
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his own military brass come july. o we look at the big picture and say we can't build a nation in agent. i hope the congresswoman's efforts really bear fruit. >> mark tapscott, do you agree with that? in other words, do you view the combination of the discovery of the pakistani compound, obviously pakistan, somebody in pakistan was knowingly harboring osama bin laden, whether it was a person that sold him the cement or the people running that military academy and is there a relevancy to the compulsion to withdraw it from
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afghanistan? >> well, you know, i think there's a lot of fuzzy thinking on these things and it is an obvious suggestion to say, well, now that we have gotten bin laden we can get out of afghanistan and that may well be true. but my question for congressman as well as i was trying to pose to the professor in the earlier segment, if you stipulate that we do have vital interests at all points around this globe, we have to have some kind of consistent, coherent strategy for those offenders that's what i don't hear from folks now saying, well, let's just get how of out of afghanistan as soon as possible what are we going do instead of that? we still have vital trolls defend. we still are going to need a strong military and we still are going to have to have a coherent strategy for defending this unlt can. >> ultimately i isn't that the necessary step between now and whatever happens next, jonathan cape hart, going took how we started the show today, how does the president effectively
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utilize the bump? >> we will find that out in the next few weeks. one of the things that hasn't come up in the conversation, you are sort of alluding to it why is it if we got bin laden in pakistan, why do we have so many troops in afghanistan? and that's been the issue all along. we are in afghanistan because we are afraid of a failed start on the border of pakistan. we are more worried about a failed state on the border of a -- of another country with nuclear weapons. and i think we can't talk about pulling out of afghanistan without talking about what that means to pakistan and what that means to american interests in pakistan. >> yeah. i agree with that. and that debate will clearly persist for days and weeks, as
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well, is the departmentof justice going to start living ups to the name when it comes to the banking system? not if the progressives or right wins, have anything to do with t they would rather throw mud at each other. the doj is suing deutsche bank over more than 1 billion in shoddy mortgages. deutsch gave out loans fully guarantee itted by your tax dollars through the federal housing administration without verifying compliance by the standards to get those backings? why not do that when you can lie, take the money and jam it
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in the taxpayer's gut while collecting bonuses. outside auditor reports revealed they were literally stuffed into a closet and left unread and unopened. the amount of fraud could reach as high as $5 billion. widely believed this first lawsuit leave he is the other big banks vulnerable to action. one caveat, the suit is not -- is civil, not criminal and only targets a very small portion of the mortgage industry. attorney general eric holder feeling a heat for settlement with the same banks with the overall mortgage servicing practices. >> if the settlement discussions fail, are you prepared to pursue discussions? >> if will is a basis for prosecutions, we will bring them. >> i wouldn't hold your breath but this appears step in the right direction, then again, the obama administration on the bankses have been known for saying all sorts of right things
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that is the idea behind a california lawmaker's plan for the fans to bite dodgers. california councilwoman and congressional candidate janice hahn thinks the team would be better off following the green bay packer model with ownership. the idea comes after major league baseball was forced to take over the l.a. dodgers, one of baseball's most store rid franchises because of the financial problems facing that opener. but there is a big roadblock to bringing the cheese headway to the west coast. back in '61, baseball made it illegal, they banned it, public ownership and it would taken a act of congress to override that ban. joining us from burbank, l.a. city councilwoman and congressional candidate along with loyal dodger fan janice hahn. janice, why did they ban this? >> i think bud and the commission, they like to deal with just a few select owners and i think the idea of dealing with 100,000 fan owners probably
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makes it a little bit more difficult. >> why could you not have -- not like all 100,000 are going to show up in bud's office there are plenty of publicly traded companies that have millions of shareholders yet it's insane, actually only have one person who runs the company. i don't know how they do it. >> i know. and i think it is a great idea. you know, we have been watching -- us dodger fans have been watching with great sadness the whole drama playing out in the mccourts' live and seeing dodger revenue being spent on lavish lifestyles and homes instead of going back in to make a world class team, i think it is a great opportunity to ask congress to pass a law making it legal for fan ownerships of the dodgers, if they are ever sold. >> how is it playing in l.a.? >> people love it. people are walking up to me, high fiving month streets. they think it's a great idea. there is a lot of loyal fans here in los angeles.
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but frankly it is not just los angeles. we have dodger fans all over who would love the opportunity of owning the dodgers just like the green bay packers model. >> why does the idea appeal so much to you you have made it central at least as part of your congressional campaign? >> not really part of my campaign but my dad, the late, great kenny hahn was a councilman in the '50s and responsible to bringing the dodgers to los angeles in 1958. my brother who grew up to be major of los angeles was the first honorary bat boy of the dodgers. so, we have loved the dodgers our whole lives and it's just been really sad to watch what's been going on, again, to support a lavish lifestyle of the mccourts. so i think it is a great opportunity. fans loft idea. all we are asking is that we would be allowed to be one of the bidders, if the dodgers were ever sold and to do that it does
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taken a act of congress but i think this is the right time. we need to reconnect the dodgers with their fans because we have been -- we bleed dodger blue but crying a loft tears lately. >> i know. i know. have you thought about aligning with other cities and other teams? do you think you could get more leverage in congress if it wasn't just the dodgers that wanted to try to do this? >> well, that's good idea and i think maybe it is an opportunity across this country for fans to rise up and take back, you know, the great american pastime, which is baseball. a lot of these owners pit cities against cities they can pit stadiums against stadiums and they hold us hostage to the threat of moving our beloved team to another city. fan ownership would, first and foremost, keep these teams in their hometown and maybe the right time in this country to rise up and let fans take more control of their beloved teams. >> do you think the tickets will
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get cheaper? >> well, you know, if fans are running, you know, the organization, who knows. again, i think a lot of the ticket revenue and the revenue from the dodgers wasn't going back into making a better team, it was going to support the owners' home in malibu where they only used it to do laundry. so those kinds of things that have come out, apparently the mccourt also to two sons who were paid $600,000 of dodger revenue. one of them was in school. so, these kinds of things that have come out have made us said and rather use the money to have better relief pitching, for instance. >> i understand green bay uses the concessions to fund things like schools. how are the schools in downtown los angeles? could they use any money? >> that is the other thing i love about fan ownership. it is a nonprofit organization, so, after you've paid the
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salaries of the team and the organization, any profits above that would go to local charities and the schools in los angeles could certainly use more revenue. we are having to lay off teachers here in los angeles and that would be great opportunity for the dodgers to really give back to their community and help fund schools' sports teams, athletic teams, afterschool programs, music, art, drama, all the things that had to be cut from our schools out here. so it is a great model. i think it makes sense. >> as the host of the 1 p.m. hour in los angeles on msnbc, you have my whole hearted support. i totally agree with you and think it is a wonderful idea, makes a tremendous amount of sense and i look forward to tracking your efforts to try to do this and obviously, love to stay in touch with you as you go down the line. thank you, janice. >> thanks, dylan. >> janice had hahn. coming up on "hardball," a debate about whether or not torture ultimately led to the capture of osama bin laden. but first, the young turk with praise for our president on
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the young turk in the house is with something to say about the president's handling of osama bin laden. cenk, the floor is yours. >> thank you, dylan. look, i don't like this partisan stuff. you know it i have said it on this show 100 times it depends on what the policy s so, is it right to criticize the president from time to time -- of course, we live in a democracy and i criticize the president all the time on his handling of his treasury department, et cetera. you have seen it on this show,
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6:00 on the young turks, seen it all the time. tough judge the issues one by one depending what they are without the lens of team democrat or team republican, you look at this issue of the raid on bin laden and how he handled pakistan, it was a home run to say anything otherwise is crazy talking and we will show it to you here. first, let's go back to the campaign and what the president promised woe do in pakistan and what john mccain thought was a bad idea. let's watch. >> i'm not prepared at this time to cut off aid to pakistan. so, i'm not prepared to threaten it, as senator obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into pakistan. >> if pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin laden and take him out, then we should. >> he only proved to be 100% right there. john mccain was wrong and to give credit to john mccain, he did he come out today and say, well, i guess the president was
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right about how we handled pakistan. and i remember the absurd criticism. then even criticized on that debit how he pronounced pakistan, even though that technic lit correct way of pronouncing it. we look at president bush and how he handled pakistan, he thought it was a different scenario, wasn't much we could do there he said at one point. "putting 100 of our special forces, stomping through pakistan to find bin laden is simply not the strategy will work." look it is not a black and white issue, as president obama found out it is important to have a president that does nuance it turns out that two answers are either you put 100,000 troops in or you do nothing at all it turns in you put in well, navy s.e.a.l. team 6, about two dozen guys and they get the job done. so, anyone who is at this point saying no, no, no president bush all right right strategy or john mccain had had the right strategy or republicans had the right strategy, after eight years tos of not getting bin laden that is crazy talk.
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anyone criticizing president obama on this specific strike i think is crazy talk. one last thing about that, look there were reports 18 to 37 people in that compound, associated press is saying that there were 23 kids and nine women in that compound. and so the idea do you bomb from up top or do you go in with that strike team? well, you basically save 23 kid's lives at least if those reports are right about how many people are in there and i think that makes a world of difference. when you are looking at this issue by itself, think the president deer is was credit not just having the right strategy as you saw in the debate, the exact right way of handling this issue, including down to exactly how it was per foornld got exactly what we wanted. the president deserves all the credit in the world on this. and how would you suggest we celebrate that fact?
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>> a party. it turned partisan. republicans have seven different ways with that say the president shouldn't get credit. others say bush's torture that gave us the information, it was this wasn't that, certainly wasn't obama, obama's got to be wrong no matter what that seems to be -- earlier today, they had put out statements on releasing the photo, whether we should release bin laden's photo. said, looks like the president is going to release it, that is a bad idea. and then this afternoon, he decides that he is not going to release it and sarah palin tweets to out, you see that he should have released it. the guy can't win any way you slice it i want to be fair and call it as it is. >> i do believe that that is a very good assessment on your part. are there other places of this strategy that was so perfectly executed, really, that others
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that you have seen think it could be applicable to other aspects at least of the war if not the way we deal with the banks or the health care companies? >> dylan, a great question, we have to learn from our failures and successes. in the bush administration, not to make it partisan, just look at what happened, after -- not gotten the results that we wanted at tremendous cost but look at what we have done lately, the surgical strike in somalia to get a top al qaeda leader and now a surgical strike to get bin laden that is success. we should follow that model. >> yes, the turk at your service, 6 p.m. every evening right here on msnbc. cenk, always a pleasure. thank you, sir. also check out cenk uygur, of course, on the young turks, on the web, the most watched news show on the internet. check it out if you haven't already that will do it for us. i'm dylan ratigan and "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now.
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