i check them a lot. i check them because when i was growing up you saw the park practically empty so many nights. it's a good bet that everyone in the seat wednesday night is coming back. that's maybe the biggest come from behind story of all. that's it for "hardball." thanks for being with us. "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" starts right now. the question of the day, does the elephant in the room need to lose weight? >> it's called christie's hefty burden. >> obesity is a national epidemic. >> the kind of stuff that comes up once you actually get in the arena. >> walked in here, he said, i want to stand up as a former fat guy. >> christie's hefty burden. >> you kind of skipped a lot of the column. >> christie's hefty burden. >> he can't do it physically. >> christie mania reaches a fever pitch. >> republicans keep reaching for. >> he's not shutting the door. >> chris christie waiting game. >> he better do it quickly.

>> at least he's not longer threating suicide. >> very special week for me. >> his political stock price increases. >> our friend lawrence o'donnell yesterday was with me and sugge suggested this was all about fund-raising. >> money will be a big factor. >> rick perry was in enough trouble without having chris christie to worry about. >> i'm the east coast version of sarah palin. >> christie showing interest, a andrea, does not help rick perry or mitt romney. >> will rick perry have more than mitt romney? >> mitt romney is out with a new ad. >> i'm a she lion when it comes to attacking him. >> mitt romney, they're not that into you. >> you better look out. 28 days. with exactly 28 days left for new jersey governor chris christie to decide to jump into the republican presidential race, today people are asking if

he's in shape for that race. friend of the show, eugene robinson, caused a ruckus on "morning show" this morning with the first line of his "washington post" column. "whether or not he lets himself be persuaded to run for president, chris christie needs to find some way to lose weight. like everyone else, elected officials perform best when they are in optimal health. chris christie obviously is not." withdrew gene robinson's column says christie's weight is a legitimate issue. "obesity is a national epidemic whose costs are measured not just in dollars and cents but also in lives. christie's weight is as legitimate an issue as the smoking habit that president obama says he has finally kicked." michael kinsley in his first column for "bloomberg view" was even more blunt in his opening line. look, i'm sorry, but new jersey governor chris christie cannot

be president. he is just too fat." michael kinsley ever the learned and thoughtful liberal admitted that's not a very liberal attitude. it's discriminatory, it's patronizing, it's coercive. kinsley is less concerned with christie's health than gene robinson is. for kinsley it's more about symbolism. "the president inevitably sets an example, unfortunately the symbolism of christie's weight problem goes way past the issue of obesity, itself. it's just a too perfect symbol of our country at the moment. with appetites out of control and discipline near zilch. perhaps christie is the one to help us get our national appetites under control, but it would help if he got his own under control first." the candidates' filing deadline for the new hampshire primary is 28 days away. with republican world on edge about chris christie, two

reports were published by reporters with reliable sources in christie world. the "new york post" reports "christie's renewed consideration about a white house run came after prodding this week from some republicans he idolizes including former first lady nancy reagan, former secretary of state henry kissinger and former president george w. bush." sources said. the new jersey "star ledger" adds, "in addition, the governor's wife, mary pat, no longer objects to a presidential run according to an adviser to the governor. a few months ago, former first lady barbara bush called mary pat to assuage her concerns about life in the white house, the adviser said." the christie excitement surge continues even though there have been exactly no national polls that show christie's support level among the current republican field of candidates. more importantly, christie has not been included in any of the

key early state primary polls. the latest new hampshire poll, for example, shows mitt romney with a commanding lead there with 41% of the vote. rick perry runs fourth in new hampshire, with 8% of the vote. the latest south carolina poll shows perry essentially tied with romney. a slight lead within the margin of error. and the latest florida poll shows perry nine points ahead of mitt romney. there is at this point simply no polling evidence to indicate how christie would do if he entered the republican presidential campaign. the first thing governor christie would have to do if he announces his candidacy is lie. he would have to tell the lie that he is ready to be president or explain why he was lying when he said this -- >> you have to believe in your heart that you are ready to walk

into the oval office and to lead the station. and i don't feel like i'm ready. i don't feel ready in my heart to be president. i don't feel like i'm ready to be president. i simply to not have the desire to do it nor do i think i'm ready. >> joining me now is ed rollins, republican political consultant and former top political adviser to president reagan and jonathan alter, a columnist for "the bloomberg view" and an msnbc political analyst and a constituent of governor christie. >> that's right. >> thank you, both, very much for joining me tonight. ed rollins, i want you to take a look at a commercial that jon corzine ran in that last campaign using the -- trying to use christie's weight as an issue. let's take a look at that commercial. >> if you drove the wrong way down a one-way street causing an accident and putting the victim in a trauma center, would you get away without a ticket? chris christie did. if you were caught speeding in

an unregistered car, would you get away without points? chris christie did. in both cases christie threw his weight around as u.s. attorney and got off easy. if you didn't pay your taxes, ignored ethics law, would you get away with it? chris christie. one set of rules for himself. another for everyone else. >> as we know, that ad didn't play very well in new jersey, but what about this issue? it's one thing for a campaign to bring it up as corzine did which was kind of ham handed, but you can't stop the columnists from bringing it up. >> as a fat man, myself, who ought to lose 30 or 40 pounds and just having gone through a campaign, it's a very tedious, were tiring process and my concern for the governor, and i don't know whether he's going to get in or not get in, is he needs to get in some kind of shape. my last advice to my friend, mike huckabee, whose campaign i chaired four years ago who lost 100 pounds before he started running, is he needs to get 40 pounds off if he was going to make the race.

haley barbour lost 35 pounds when he thought about running. you need to be in some kind of shape. obviously at the end of the day that's not what's going to move his candidacy forward or not, but it's a distraction. we're sitting here talking about it today as opposed to all the positive things he may have done. >> all right. let's listen to what chris christie, himself, had said about his weight. >> the weight exacerbates everything. i've been pretty candid about that right from, you know, the start of my public career. my asthma doctors always told me, like my other doctors have told me, the lighter i am, the healthier i'll be. >> jonathan alter, it was bound to come up, and here it is and you have ed rollins telling us that campaign professionals with candidates like christie, mike huckabee in the back room talk about it, give advice on it, say this is what you have to do. what should christie do if he's going to get into this race in terms of -- he obviously can't lose weight fast enough in the 28 days. but i mean, it seems like at

some point he would have to address it. >> i think he will. you have to draw a distinction between whether the weight will be a political issue. i don't think it really will be in the republican primaries. and whether it will inhibit him as an effective candidate. and there i really do agree with ed. this is a distance event. it's a marathon. it is so tiring to be on and off airplanes six days a week then when he gets back for 12 hours to new jersey, he has to run the state. you know? and then he's back on an airplane. and i know that, you know, for reporters, we are exhausted when we go out with these candidates. the successful ones have some kind of special gene that lets them seem fresh as a daisy when they're really exhausted. i'm not sure that you can have that gene and have that kind of weight. i think what he will do is he'll announce that he's going on some kind of a diet and then it will

be like oprah's diet. he'll actually get some fans as they chart his progress, assuming he's somewhat successful. >> ed rollins, if chris christie were to jump into this thing now, is there republican political campaign staff talent available to him? you have rick perry pulling in staff. you have mitt romney with a lot of hired staff. i don't know the republican staff bench out there, who are available. who are willing to do it. i mean, for example, is ed rollins available to the christie campaign? >> ed rollins is done. he did his stint for the last three months. so he's old and retired. there are talent. preside the key thing is, he has a couple people around him who have done his campaigns that are pretty top notch. you have to be people in iowa, south carolina, new hampshire, building a big organization, raising money, doing all the kinds of things. you can't do it in 30 days. perry has been in the race now for five or six weeks.

he's still struggling. he had people who are all prepared to do gingrich's race. they've been doing this for six months or a year. it takes time to put all the apparatus together and at the end of the day to raise the money, to compete, you know, five months from now voters start voting. and to be ready to go. plus having a full-time job which will worry me, with a democrat legislature. the other thing that's not been talked about is new jersey has its assembly races and senate races in this november. so he's out on the campaign trail basically campaigning for himself, raising money for himself, and if for some reason democrats have a majority in both of those houses and they add to that majority, there's going to be a lot of very unhappy republicans in new jersey where he has to eventually come back to. >> let's take a look at some of the issues he'd have a serious problem with in a presidential primary. we're going to hear from one of his new jersey constituents who has a problem with christie on immigration. let's listen to what lou dobbs

had to say about christie. >> out of his mind. he says it isn't a crime to be in this country illegally. u.s. attorney christopher christie of new jersey says the simple act of being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime. his words. this is the kind of arrogance, incompetent and cuteness we really need a lot of in federal government. this man is an utter embarrassment. >> john alter, you're going to be seeing a lot of that tape, 2008 tape of back when christie was u.s. attorney. you'll see a lot of that if christie jumps in the race. >> absolutely. you'll also see a lot of tape you showed earlier of his saying i'm not ready. that's really a problem for him. he'll be asked by every reporter about the "i'm not ready" comment and he'll be challenged by every other republican candidate on immigration. look at the heat that rick perry is taking and he's been quite tough on the border, but they got him on this one issue that relates to the children of

immigrants who've done nothing wrong at all of illegals, going to the university of texas. so it will be open season on christie on immigration. i think a series of other social issues. look, to survive in the northeast, as a republican, you have to be fairly progressive on social issues. that puts him out of step with a lot of the conservative base. >> ed rollins, i want you to listen to a tape where he had a disagreement with sean hannity where christie sounds a little bit too much like president obama on gun control. >> are there any issues where you are, quote, moderate to left as a republican? >> well, listen, i favor some of the gun control measures we have in new jersey. >> bad idea. >> listen, we have a densely populated state and there's a big handgun problem in new jersey. certain gun control issues looking at it from a law enforcement perspective, seeing how many police officers were killed, we have an illegal gun problem in new jersey. what i support are common sense laws that will allow people to

protect themselves. i'm also very concerned about the safety of our police officers on the streets. very concerned. and i want to make sure that we don't have an abundance of guns out there. >> ed rollins, how does that play to republican voters in iowa and south carolina? >> and new hampshire. not very well. and equally as important, you know, that needs to be defined. he refused to fill out the nra questionnaire when he was running for governor. you have to remember this guy, h he ran against one of the most unpopular governors in the country when he beat corzine. the commercial he showed earlier about him getting exemptions from certain things and being overweight may not have had any impact because that guy was going to be defeated, corzine. this is going to be a tough, rough battle. he's one of the superstars of our party. he's been a superstar in njs ew jersey. the national media are going to have a field day on him like on perry. they're going to look at every element of his life. you may be able to handle the trenton and new york press, not

that they're not tough, but you get into a presidential campaign, they look at every element of your life. bottom line, it's a tough, tough game. i hope he runs, though. >> hope he runs. it would be good for the republican party. they're going off the rails, lawrence. this may help them come back to some degree of sanity. i hope he jumps in. >> ed rollins, jonathan alter. thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you very much. >> thanks, lawrence. republicans have a big crush on chris christie right now because he is not running yet. rick perry can tell him exactly what that's like. more of perry's paff is cost is back to haunt him as his candidacy sinks in the polls. that's next. the protests expand across the country as occupy wall street passes day 14. msnbc's chris hayes is at the occupy wall street demonstration site right now. he will be joining us live from the scene. [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider.

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coming up, republican presidential candidate rick perry is sinking in the polls, being chased by hecklers and now his controversial past is coming back to haunt him. the author of a new piece on perry's political career joins me next. and at this hour, police in new york are barricading streets and increasing the pressure on the occupy wall street protesters. msnbc's chris hayes is live at the scene and will join me later. [ boy ] hey, i thought these were electric? uh, it is, yeah, it's a chevy volt. so what are you doing at a gas station? well it still takes gas to go farther.

but you're not getting gas. true. not this time. uh, don't have to gas up very often. so you have to go to the bathroom? no. yes you do. thought these were electric? yes, it's a uh, a chevy volt. so what are you doing at a gas station? so i got my nephew i neto build a website., i hired someone to make my website... five months ago. we are building a website by ourselves. [ woman announcing ] there's an easier way. create your own small-business site... with intuit websites. just choose a style that suits your business, then customize, publish and get found... in three easy steps. [ bell dings ] sweet. [ announcer ] all from just $7.99 a month. get a 30-day free trial... at intuit.com. rick perry got booed at the

last republican presidential debate when he correctly but foolishly accused his audience of not having a heart. if they opposed his texas version of the dream act which allows undocumented students who attended texas high schools to pay in-state tuition rates in the texas university system. that booing at the debate has now turned into heckling on the campaign trail where perry's facing signs saying, "rick perry supports illegal immigrants." and "rick perry enfor forcdorse mexico." even though rick perry entered the presidential race late, he was still obviously not yet prepared for the national limelight. even though according to my next guest, rick perry is the permanent candidate. joining me now is alec mcgillis at the new republican and autho

of "the permanent candidate: what's driving rick perry." >> thanks for having me. >> your article takes us through rick perry's candidate as the permanent candidate. there are a lot of vivid moments. someone tries to explain policy to him, he says, don't bother, i wouldn't understand it anyway. >> right. >> is that typical of perry's approach to policy? >> it is. this is not someone who's overly concerned with policy. somewhat like his predecessor in texas, george bush. what i really found in his piece for "the new republic" is really this is a man who's not really driven by ideology. as much as he's been made out to be a hardened right week ideologue, that's not the way people in texas look at him or understand him. this is a man driven by his own ambition and desire to climb the ladder less than by a coherent

political philosophy. so, you know, occasions like that where someone will come to him and want to hash out the details of something, he said, yeah, just don't bother about it. it was actually kind of candid in a way. for him to be that open about his disinterest in that. >> you quote someone as saying, working close to him, says he can switch colors to whatever he needed to be at any time. one of the colors he has switched is -- lately -- as he's gone from being very interventionist in the economy, socialistic ideas that economists sometimes call industrial policy. he's created these entities, government entities in texas that funnel money into the private sector to support favored industries in different ways. that is what michele bachmann is calling crony capitalism because a lot of the beneficiaries of those deals turn out to be in your reporting contributors to perry campaigns.

>> exactly. a lot of states do this kind of economic development stuff where they give big incentives to companies to come to their states. it's sort of a race to the bottom really. texas, though, takes it a step further. they give a lot more money and there are a lot fewer controls on the money they give. and the fact is that a lot of the people who have gotten this money from these two funds in texas have been major contributors of governor perry. he's been remarkably brazen about it, actually. you almost have to hand it to him, he's been so forthright about it and unabashed about giving money to big companies and startup companies backed by major contributors including two people who gave him a $1 million loan in 1998 when he was running for lieutenant governor, a loan that he got in the last week of the campaign that basically put him over the top in that very close race. that was the race, of course, that pull him in position to become governor two years later. so it's really kind of a big enterprise that he's had going

for himself where you've got the money coming in in the form of campaign contributions and then the money going out, taxpayer money going out from these funds or through other channels to people who have backed him. it's, like i said, it's really remarkably candid. he makes very few bones about it. >> he also enters private business deals with these people who back him. you have reporting on him making $1 million on a private real estate transaction that involves a friend of his who also supports his campaign. this is a guy who's been on government payroll most of his life for the air force and then into politics. and he's become very, very rich in his outside economic interests, hasn't he? >> exactly. it's quite striking. like you said, he was a farmer and rancher for the first few years of his career working on his dad's farms and ranches. but then has been ever since a government employee, state legislator, agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor, governor, and he's now

a very wealthy man. and the way he did it was mainly through these land deals. he had several very duck ssucce land deals including one that i touch on in my piece in "the new republic" where he bought a small plot, third of an acre i believe at a resort outside austin, bought it in 2001 or 2002. sold it five year the later. had not built anything on this plot, sold it five years later for $800,000 profit. the person who sold it to him for a remarkably low price was a state senator who's a friend of his. the person who bought it had been set up -- had the sale partly set up by one of these major contributors of his. so it definitely has sort of a funny look to it. >> yeah. there is no honest way for a politician to get rich while in office. exempt maybe and only maybe through marriage. alec macgillis of "the new

republic," thank you for joining me tonight. >> thanks for having me on. coming up, we'll go live to wall street on day 14 of the protests. msnbc's chris hayes is there. he'll join us from the occupy wall street demonstrations. and christie fever turned out to be fun for the late night comedians. >> i think he kind of put the nail in the coffin of speculation that he would run by the announcement that he made today. >> and if i were the media, i would by gosh, i would go back to lavishing unwarranted attention on other possible noncandidates who have sent maybe more mixed messages. [ courier ] the amazing story of whether bovine heart tissue

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the police commander using pepper spray against some young women. >> all right. that looks bad. maybe that cop had a good reason to use a blinding stinging chemical on five apparently already penned in women. and what looks like his fellow officers who are surrounding them. maybe the pepper spray was a mistake.

it was a hot day. maybe that was officer was reaching for his canister of cooli ining cucumber mist spray grabbed the pepper spray by accident. i'm sure he learned his lesson. i'm sure if we just filmed him later -- >> we're here in peace. we're here in peace. >> i'm starting to think this guy doesn't even have cucumber mist spray. in the spotlight tonight, the occupy wall street movement gains momentum thanks unfortunately in part to police misconduct and brutality. tonight occupy wall street protesters gathered outside new york police department headquarters in protest of police tactics featured here on "the last word" and last night on "the daily show." the protest against wall street greed, economic inequality, tax breaks for the rich and now police misconduct continues to grow with the help of multiple major new york city labor

unions. a 38,000 strong transit worker as well as service employee teacher communications workers and pilots unions have all pledged support for the movement. afl-cio president richard trumka endorsed the protests today saying "we need to bring back balance to the financial economy and calling attention to it and peacefully protesting is a very legitimate way of doing it. god only knows you can go to the hill and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen." the protests started in new york city's financial district 14 days ago and has spread to san francisco, chicago, denver and boston. more protests are planned tomorrow in washington. msnbc's chris hayes spoke with some of the wall street protesters today. >> what brought you down here the first time? >> just because i feel like

there's a ground swell here. that i think this thing could catch fire and people can realize, this might punch through what's going on in this country. >> what do you want to see happen here? >> what i'd like to see happen is i would like to see people in this country start taking an interest what's going on, what's happening on wall street and how it directly affects them. look at this, a bunch of stinky hip hippies, this doesn't affect me at all. they don't realize they might lose their mortgage, their property values have gone down. their retirement funds have gotten trash the. my mother was supposed to retire. she can't retire because her retirement fund took a 40% hit. she can't live on social security. >> joini ining me now from lowe manhattan, the site of the occupied wall street protest is chris hay, host of the new msnbc weekend program "up with chris hayes" which airs saturdays and sundays at 8:00 a.m. eastern. thanks for joining me tonight,

chris. >> reporter: thanks for having me on, lawrence. >> we had earlier reports indicating the police were closing off streets down there and tightening up the pressure on the demonstrators. what is the situation there now? >> reporter: well, right now the police seem to be just hanging back and watching and the mood is as you can hear behind me extremely jubilant and hopeful i would say. every night there is a general, what they call a general assembly here, or g.a. here, which is sort of the governing body of the occupiers and it is run through a set of somewhat beroke rules that involve total consens consensus. they use this method of human -- where one woman speaks and everyone else around repeats the phrase. you have a hypnotic quality. around this meeting, in its particulars is hilariously mundane, about getting food,

making sure sanitation committee is picking up, about getting sleeping bags. it's a model of self-governance that's sort of remarkable to witness. >> chris, i think oddly enough, ironically enough the predictor of this event was the mayor of new york who said some weeks ago on his radio show, "we have a lot of kids graduating college and can't find jobs. that's what happened in cairo. that's what happened in madrid. you don't want those kinds of riots here. the damage to a generation that can't find jobs will go on for many, many years." there's the mayor of new york saying, there's something going on in this country that's so disruptive to life in this country, so disruptive to individual and collective economic progress that there will be some kind of outcry. this seems to be that outcry. >> reporter: i think, i think a lot of people who have been witnessing and reporting on and looking at the sort of both the scene and the actual facts of

the matter in terms of how our economy has come out of the recession and also just the national mood, i mean, if you go around as a reporter, you hear the same things over and over. the sense of disillusion, alienate, betrayal and anger and distrust in the pillar institutions that comprise the entire society from washington to wall street where i'm standing right now. nothing has seemed to come along but for the barack obama 2008 presidential campaign, since then has nothing has seemed to come around that sort of quite channeled that particularly among i think progressives in the way that the wisconsin protest did about a year ago and the way this is doing right now. i think there's a certain level of which everything about this, and if you come down and i would urge people in the tri-state area to come down and check it out. every stereotype you have in your head of drum circles and hippies giving free hugs, i got a hug before coming on here is

true. what's also true is there's a tremendous amount of incredibly smart, passionate people who know what they're talking about and know things are not right. the fact that things are not right and are not working is what is resonating. >> chris, this is spreading to other cities as i mentioned in the lead in to this segment. i just in a coffee shop today in los angeles was told by someone he's going to a demonstration, a sympathy demonstration in los angeles which is not listed in our rundown. there's more of these popping up than we can keep track of. is someone organizing those from where you are? is that happening spontaneously? >> reporter: it is truly remarkable to the degree it is leaderless and governed through consensus and the degree to which things are sort of getting out to the internet and sort of self-organizing. tomorrow if you tune in on "up" we're going to talk about this some more and we'll see you next week. >> chris hays host of "up with

chris hayes" airing tomorrow morning at 7:00 and sunday mornings at 8:00 right here on msnbc. thanks for joining us tonight, chris. >> reporter: thanks, lawrence. appreciate it. ahead, sarah palin makes a big mistake. attacking fox news for putting out misinformation. that's in the "rewrite." and later the late night comedians were all over chris christie this week as they will be if he runs for president every week. the week in comedy is coming up. [ kristy ] my mom is well...weird.

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including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions, such as tongue or throat swelling, occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then get lunesta for $0 at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. guess who's causing trouble for fox news. no, no, no, way more trouble for fox news than i could ever cause fox news. sarah palin. she has actually accused fox news host meagan kelly of putting out misinformation. and palin got in an on-air fight with another fox news commentator. you have to see this to believe it. palin attacking fox news is in the "rewrite."

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talking head has been based entirely on the possibility that she could an electrifying candidate for president. or at least a candidate for president. when the filing deadline for the new hampshire primary comes and goes on october 28th, the world will know what viewers of this program have known for quite a while, that palin is not running for president and that her market value will plummet. nick broomfield got his documentary about palin "you betcha" into theaters just in time. it opens tonight. >> she was chewing gum like she was 12 and, i mean, you would have thought this was her personal fan club. >> palin is like the most popular preteen girl. she's all about drama and loyalty. it's who's in our club and who's not in our club and it's all about perceived threats and

perceived disrespect. >> i know. i know. looks like a cheap shot. the documentary actually has many more compelling scenes than the one we just showed you. but that scene actually is the perfect lead-in to the trouble palin has been getting in lately at fox news. as the documentary says, it's all about perceived threats and perceived disrespect. check out this episode of "freedom watch" on fox business. >> is herman cain the flavor of the month as governor palin quoted? not to criticize him, but do these debates result in somebody up and somebody down and is it always going to change at the end of each debate? >> it has that potential because somebody has a chance to do very well or very poorly. you know what, i think that was a nasty comment coming from her. flavor, you know, wrong. herman cain, when i talk to people, to republicans -- i was down in florida this week.

they say, you know what, his policies make sense. they're coherent. i can understand them. he has conviction. he's a real conservative. and they like him, judge. you can't undervalue -- >> let me ask you about what was that shot juan williams took at me saying i made a nasty comment about herman cain. what was that all about? >> actually it wasn't juan williams. it was i who was quoting media who were saying you made the comment. but please correct what the record established. did you say the republicans seem to have -- >> it was juan williams -- >> did you say the republicans seem to have a flavor of the month without referring specifically to herman cain? >> but it was juan williams who said he thought it was a nasty comment that i made. i think it's nasty when a colleague takes a shot when they don't know what they're talking about. no. i said what the media tends to do is kind of gin up controversy and propel this flavor of the week and i'm not saying that herman cain is a flavor of the

week. i'm one of his biggest fans and would never dismiss him or speak negatively about him. >> where did the fox guys get the idea that sarah palin called herman cain the flavor of the month -- where'd they get that idea? the problem for palin on this one is that fox news actually has a much bigger audience than the fox business network. on fox news two days before, sarah palin said this -- >> take herman cain. look at why he's doing so well right now. i guess you could say with all due respect he's the flavor of the week. >> well, she got his first name wrong and at least she did it with all due respect. but that is not sarah palin's worst problem. at fox news, her worst problem is meagan kelly. >> what happens now? paul ryan said he's out. chris christie has said he's out. sarah palin hasn't officially said one way or another but in

the polls she's way down at the bottom including versus the existing candidates. >> okay. fox news and meagan kelly in particular are getting way, way too fair and balanced about sarah palin. roger ailes knows how to protect his valuable talent, he wouldn't be allowi inin ining fox news t getting fair and balanced on sarah palin even for a minute if he cared about protecting palin's long-term value to the network. roger ailes has a very good feel for when the fox news players are moving from just being unfair and unbalanced to being utter absurdities. just ask glenn beck. ailes knows by october 28th palin's value to the network will be minimal. she will be a complete joke to everyone, especially the people who believed she was going to run for president and the people who invested their hopes and dreams in her running for president. so roger ailes is obviously not trying to control every word the

fox news team says about sarah palin and he's got to have some very, very serious problems with what palin said on fox news about meagan kelly and about fox news. >> you know, i think it's kind of humorous to see the way that the media is covering these candidates. let me give you an example of this. earlier today, greta, on fox news, you had a host who said sarah palin in the polls, she's way, way down there in the polls. i'm kind of scratching my head going, wait a minute, on another network on cnn just the other day they showed a poll where i was, like, within five points of president obama. i was doing well, much better than many of the other candidates. i'm thinking, all this misinformation and contradictory information, contradicting information from even hosts here on this network, itself. and many times a host or a

reporter, they have their own agenda and they interject their agenda in the information they're providing their viewers and readers. >> now, it's one thing for sarah palin to say that i interject my agenda in the information i'm providing my viewers because i do and because roger ailes hates me and would be perfectly happy to have sarah palin say that about me or anyone else here at msnbc. sarah palin just said that fox news in the person of meagan kelly, a roger ailes favorite, lied about sarah palin's position in the polls. the latest poll that sarah palin's name is in has her running as meagan kelly accurately put it way down at the bottom against the existing candidates. sarah palin accused fox news of putting out misinformation. that's her word.

misinformation. that would be my word for what fox news puts out every day and every night, but i don't work for fox news. who else in the history of fox news has accused fox news of putting out misinformation while still on the fox news payroll? and how perfect is it that the fox news employee accusing fox news of putting out misinformation was actually putting out misinformation in her accusation? fox news a constant purveyor of misinformation is actually not guilty of putting out misinformation in the one instance that the current fox news employee accuses them of putting out misinformation. how long will the misinformation network allow sarah palin to continue to use misinformation to correctly label that network as the misinformation network?

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chris christie's campaign contemplation, herman cain's win in florida and michele bachmann's husband all inspired the late night comedy writers this week. here's the week in comedy. >> chris christie, new jersey governor and part-time bobby bacala impersonator spoke last night at the holiest site in republicanism, the reagan library and was propositioned almost immediately. >> are you reconsidering or are you standing firm? >> everyone go to politico.com.

it's right on the front page. ais i'm not going to bore you with it. now. click on it. there are the answers. >> it's like a treasure hunt. i love it. it's like a live linking to another website. we'll follow the clues and reveal the secret message. >> i'm not running. i'm 100% certain i'm not going to run. i don't want to run. >> an urge to reconsider running for president chris christie points people directly to a two minute montage of unequivocal no, i am not running. interpret that for us, oh great political pundits. >> christie left the door slightly open for himself. >> chris christie has left the door open ever so slightly. >> well, he left like this sliver open. he left a little sliver open. >> christie's comments are a test. see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear. >> you hear what you want to hear. everyone else hears, i'm not

running. a rorshack test? yeah. tell me what you see. what do you see? >> there's talk that new jersey governor chris christie is under a lot of pressure from republicans to run for president. yeah. also under a lot of pressure, chris christie's belt. >> they're having trouble luring governor christie into the presidential race. they've tried everything. they've had phone calls, people have called from republicans, trying to get him, please. and i thought, have you tried pie? but you know if you elect chris christie president, you can say good-bye to pardoning the white house turkey. that ain't going to happen. >> after getting sadly beaten by herman cain, political pundits are calling rick perry texas toast. that's what they called him in the paper today. texas toast which pretty much sums up perry and romney. toast versus the waffle. what do you