bill wolff back at the office, we'll return this from eww to new. now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." tonight, republicans have three big problems, newton, willard, donald. >> "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" is a complete total disaster. >> the party has image problems. >> the clown show. >> i would like to restore your right to drink raw milk any time you wanted to. >> image problems. >> i'm someone who is moderate and my views are progressive. >> he has been consistent since he changed his mind. >> is romney so desperate to prove he is a conservative, chris alyssa, he is bringing out christine o'donnell? >> what was that endorsement?

>> mitt romney has to start pulling over conservative voters or he is not going to win the nomination. >> mitt romney is not a true conservative. >> they don't view mitt romney as one of them. >> no one is getting a mitt romney tattoo for next summer. >> if you cheat on your wife, you'll cheat on your business partner. >> do you give someone you acknowledge is a bomb thrower a nuclear weapon? >> electromagnetic pulse. >> you don't want a president throwing grenades left and right. >> impacts would be so horrifying. >> i am not a bomb thrower, rhetorically or literally. >> 21% of republican voters say they believe the current field of candidates is a strong one. >> it is a disaster. complete disaster. a complete and total disaster. a complete and total disaster.

>> president obama played to his political strength giving a speech at fort brag to mark the end of the war in iraq and highlight his administration's military accomplishments. >> around the globe as we draw down in iraq, we have gone after al qaeda so that terrorists that threaten america will have no safe haven, and osama bin laden will never again walk the face of this earth. >> according to the new nbc news and "the wall street journal" poll, president obama bringing home the troops from iraq and killing osama bin laden the top two accomplishments. reventing economic depression third. that shows mitt romney with the best chance of defeating president obama, but that poll was taken before the game changer of the week, an endorsement that none of us saw coming and that the romney

campaign was apparently powerless to stop. christine o'donnell, the only republican candidate for senate that had to deny she was a witch last night on fox news announced her endorsement of former liberal mitt romney. today, she called romney consistent. >> some people say mitt romney isn't the most consistent candidate because he's changed his mind about big, important issues over the years. >> you know, that's one of the things i like about him because he's been consistent since he changed his mind. >> christine o'donnell then told tea partiers to back anyone but newt. >> the tea party i don't think should be behind newt at all. he has supported a federal mandate. newt gingrich has been inconsistent, unreliable. if you want to get behind michele bachmann, behind rick santorum instead of romney, i can understand that, but not newt gingrich. >> mitt romney took a break from

fund raising in manhattan to appear in an interview with "the new york times." he warned republicans against voting for a zany candidate like newt gingrich. >> zany is great in a campaign, it's great on talk radio, it's great in the print. it makes for fun reading. but in terms of a president, we need a leader. >> a day after a 2002 video surfaced we showed you last night in which romney called himself a moderate with progressive views, the romney campaign posted an online ad, accusing gingrich of being the liberal. >> hi, i'm nancy pelosi. >> we do agree our country must

take action to address climate change. if enough of us demand action from our leaders. >> together we can do this. >> while the romney campaign spent today raising money and talking about gingrich's zaniness and liberal excursions, it was just another day on the campaign trail for newt gingrich in iowa. >> what i want to come today and talk about, i think this may be the first time any presidential candidate ever talked about brain science. >> joining me now from des moines iowa, "new york" magazine columnist and msnbc political analyst, john allen, and from washington, huffington post director and nbc political analyst howard fineman. thank you both for joining me. guys, first of all, o'donnell business to deal with here. howard fineman, christine

o'donnell's endorsement of mitt romney. there is a real mystery at the core of this thing. number one, why couldn't the romney campaign stop it, and what's going on here? she's saying gingrich is more liberal than romney. how did this happen? howard? >> well, being one of the people that had the honor of covering the christine o'donnell campaign in delaware, i can only imagine that there may be, i'm just saying, hypothesis, maybe some unretired campaign debts involved who know as mitt romney has said, money is no object. i can't imagine that that would be a problem if she needed to have the rest of her debt retired. but if they didn't actively try to prevent it, didn't distance themselves from it, they made a big mistake. to the extent anybody pays any attention whatsoever, she proves the point that mitt romney doesn't have any real conservative support. >> john, she doesn't know what

she's talking about. clearly has talking points that mitt was for the mandate, and she's endorsing a guy that made the mandate law, the individual mandate of healthcare made it law in massachusetts, so it has the feel of somebody putting her up to it. howard's idea of campaign debt retirement sounds right to me in any normal circumstance, but why, why would the romney campaign or any campaign want an o'donnell endorsement from this particular o'donnell? >> politics is full of mysteries, lawrence. this is one of them. i think you're right about -- look, mitt romney helped tim pawlenty. i think that analysis by howard is probably correct. it is obviously true she's reading talking points, although i'm pretty sure those didn't include her saying that tea party voters should vote for anybody, they could vote for rick santorum or vote for

anybody else in the field, rick perry, as long as they didn't volt for newt gingrich. also feels like there's bad blood between christine o'donnell and newt gingrich that i am not totally aware of. this is the definition of a one day story if the romney campaign is lucky. >> not if i have anything to do about it. >> lawrence -- >> we may be done now with this one. let's go to the $10,000 bet rehabilitation campaign that romney has been on. today, the boston herald editorial posted an interview with romney conducted yesterday. he was asked about his personal wealth, and this is how he dealt with it. >> i haven't made any money in politics. i made my money -- by the way, didn't inherit it. when my parents passed away, they gave to each of the four of us a certain amount of money, and i gave what they gave to me away. half to my kids, half to charity.

>> okay. let's get a little something straight. he was 48 years old when his parents passed away. by that time he was so much rich richer than his father ever was, he could give half away, give the other half to his kids, which is a clear benefit to him. i love when a born rich guy tries to explain how he's not really rich. howard, should he just shut up about this and accept being a rich guy in the campaign? is there any other way to play this? >> no, a couple points. first, that's called a generation skipping trust, trust in estates. so yeah. they engineered that nicely. what struck me, though, lawrence, is that mitt romney who until a few days ago was so aloof from the media that he wouldn't even give time magazine an interview for a cover story they were doing is showing up everywhere except on the step of the penny saver in concorde, new

hampshire. he was at the boston herald, who hate him. he was at "the new york times" which he disdained for months. gave an interview to "the washington post." the new i'm behind everywhere but new hampshire mitt romney, and i made the $10,000 bet mitt romney, is suddenly making himself available on the theory that his quote sober reasonable, nonzany behavior when contrasted with knew the will somehow lead to the rehabilitation of mitt romney. i don't see any evidence of it yet, but that's clearly their strategy now. >> joe, there was information that emerged that the romney campaign had endorsements already in its pocket, ready to pull out whenever they needed them to drive the story. i'll be shocked if christine o'donnell is one of those planned endorsements, but okay. does he have any other big ones coming before people go to the caucus places in iowa or do any

endorsements matter at this point? >> well, i think that's the last question is the really relevant one. i am not sure how much endorsements matter at this point, especially for mitt romney whose biggest problem is he is perfect sufd as establishment candidate for the republican base. pulling out establishment endorsements in the first few states doesn't help him much. they are, have been a long time, even before this current moment of panic which is what it seems like, given how defensive and reactive they're being to the criticism, whether on the media or on the money or other issues seen as vulnerabilities. they always thought this could be a very long fight. so the notion that they are playing the long game, they need to survive the first four states, but think if they can get through the first four states, his combination of financial wherewithal and the delegate counting operation in place, the fact they can run a state organization, they think that gives him a big advantage.

i think they'll keep the endorsements and try to make it through the first four states and play for a long campaign against a weaker rival. >> howard, there was interesting overnight polling that indicated ron paul could be the guy that pulls out the win in iowa based on where he is in the polls and based on organizational strength over gingrich in iowa. do you see that as possible and what would it do to the race if ron paul knocks off gingrich in iowa? >> first of all, it is definitely possible. i have been out in iowa a couple times, not recently, i know from one of the reporters there, and we have a whole punch with patch patch.com, they say he is strongly organized, strong on college campuses. there's a problem having moved in the primary, the caucuses, not all the college kids will be there. if anybody can overcome that problem, it will be ron paul's organization.

the more mitt romney attacks newt gingrich, and that's what romney is doing now, the more it could be to ron paul's benefit, which the romney people don't necessarily mind. they would rather put it to use newt's term, electromagnetic pulse over iowa, discredit iowa, have somebody else win it as long as it is not newt gingrich. >> he has been asking for a nonaccusatory campaign between romney and himself, trying to put away the hatchets, this was the bury the hatchet week. it hasn't worked so far. of course, the frontrunner wants that. is romney finding vulnerability in gingrich in the attacks he used so far? >> i think, lawrence, with newt gingrich, when he buries the hatchet, he buries it, then takes out a rake and shovel and hits him with it the next day.

that's the way gingrich has been behaving. i think both of them, i am in iowa, been here the last week, and it is pretty clear gingrich and romney are suffering from the war. there's a concept in iowa, it is iowa nice. going negative here has real consequences. both seem to be dropping a little. that could be to the benefit of ron paul, or also to rick perry or michele bachmann. you could end up in iowa with a mess, where you have five people bunched up close to each other, and that's good news for mitt romney. anything that is not a decisive gingrich victory, expectations are so high because he is polling so strongly here, anything not a big win for newt gingrich is a loss for newt gingrich, and a loss for newt gingrich is a win for mitt romney. that's an okay outcome for him. >> is local television drowning in campaign ads?

>> you can't turn on the tv without seeing them. ron paul is running a lot of ads, well organized. a lot of romney super pacads, it is getting heavy. only will get heavier. >> thank you both for joining me. >> thanks. with his career as debate moderator in shambles, donald trump is doing what he does best, attacking anybody that attacks him. he spent the better part of the day attacking me, and since unlike donald, i have a day job, i haven't had time to read the tweets and respond until now. that's up next. and later, republicans like mitt romney and dick cheney say presidents should never, ever apologize. it is too bad dick cheney couldn't convince george w. bush of that when he had the chance.

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yesterday, newt gingrich released a statement promising he wouldn't cheat on his wife. even better, he said he wouldn't cheat on his next wife either. so it works out. or the one after that. [ applause ] he promised for four wives, the next four. how can you get back pain relief that lasts up to 16 hours?

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less than 24 hours after suffering the complete humiliation of the collapse of the republican debate he was supposed to moderate, donald trump returned to his real job saying mean things about people named o'donnell. >> it's really amazing. when i don't like somebody, the shows do really badly. maybe it is subconscious, maybe will over matter, who knows, but their shows do really badly. lawrence o'donnell, his show is failing, it's a disaster. they moved him out of the 8:00 slot because bill o'reilly was absolutely killing him.

they gave him the less coveted 10:00 spot and he's dying at that. then you have rosie o'donnell, really interesting, the names are the same. maybe they should get married. but rosie just found a new mate, and i don't think she would find him attractive even if that were the way she goes. so rosie o'donnell's show is a disaster. it's a complete disaster. lawrence o'donnell's show is a complete and total disaster. moved from a coveted spot, now even at 10:00, it's a mess. so i have an idea. maybe rosie o'donnell and lawrence o'donnell, and they must be related somewhere along the line, they should get together, form a show, and they'll have the lowest rated show of all time. what a good idea. i'm a natural at television. >> shortly thereafter, rosie o'donnell responded to trump on twitter. how many billionaires sell ties and have crappy nonreality

shows, none. go back to selling snake oil. bankrupt much? then trump tweeted thousands of e-mails from folks urging me to seek the americans elect presidential nomination, to which rosie replied only in your dreams, donny. it went down from there. there were ugly, hateful things about rosie's new partner. i'm not going to read that. get that off the screen, we're not doing that. and rosie signed off with this tweet. lawrence said it all and best. her treat linked to this video. donald trump has never suffered sharper, more accurate criticism than what was said about him on this program this year. he has smartly up to now done everything he can to avoid the mention of my name or the

existence of this program, realizing that that would draw more attention to my criticism of him. then yesterday suddenly donald trump started tweeting me. i heard because his show is unwatchable that lawrence has made many false statements last night about me. maybe i should sue him? donald trump will never sue me because i know his big secret. his biggest secret. and he knows that i know it. donald trump cannot afford to sue me. and he knows it. trump has not yet explained howl keep his youtube filled with hateful video if he decides to run for president as an independent, which of course he will never do. so fans of his youtube page can be assured the hatred will just keep flowing. joining me now, msnbc contributor, jonathan capehart.

you talked to trump during this political season. is this where it is, he has fallen off the edge of politics and it is back to just saying hateful things about o'donnells? >> apparently so. apparently he loves talking about o'donnells. he has gotten into a tiff with rosie o'donnell in the past. when i met with him in early fall, in september, the first few minutes of that meeting, five minutes of that meeting were spent talking about you. everything he said in that video he said to me over and over and over again. so he doesn't really like you. which is already established. but look, what we have here is a man who is out of his debate on december 27th, who didn't follow through on the threat, if you will, of running for president this go around, but he's still dangling the carrot for whomever cares that he could possibly run as an independent if the gop doesn't feel a candidate he

feels is the right candidate to go up against president obama and who could, you know, give as good as we get from the chinese, and lead america down a forward path, as he would say. >> pretending to run for president is what gets him on talk shows these days, so he's going to continue to do that. i want to explain that tweet went on the screen about rosie's partner. >> if you could read fast. >> i don't want that. he got really ugly. rosie was really clever. he got really ugly and vicious, and i didn't want to include that in what we're talking about tonight, especially because i think it is my fault. i have the feeling that this morning's outburst was provoked by something i said last night, which i think we'll look at that now, see if this is enough to provoke donald into today's outburst. >> trump will continue to lie about running for president in order to promote his television show, and the most gullible performers at fox news will continue to nod worshipfully as

trump continues lying. donald's dark secret is that although he was born rich, he has managed to maintain a rich life-style. he will never, ever be even close to rich enough to finance a presidential campaign. little spoiled donald trump was born rich, but he was definitely not born to run, and he never will. could it have been the cute little family picture? what was the trigger in there. everything i said i said before and he didn't do a big outburst. and then this morning. >> i'm not sure. maybe it is just you. maybe you're focusing on him and it sparked him to react this way. think of it this way. maybe he views you as the vehicle to keep himself in the news and relevant. >> oh. see, i thought i was the puppeteer, and he was the puppet.

is he controlling me? what's going on here. >> i don't know, maybe he is riding your coat tails. >> how thrilled are the republicans, in the republican campaign, jon huntsman he was whacking every day, michele bachmann hit hard lately, how thrilled are the candidates that he's now shifted back to just going after o'donnells, at least for today, leaving them alone? >> leaving them alone, but also he's not really a distraction any more. i think december 27th was a huge speed bump, roadblock for the candidates. they're looking to win iowa on january 3rd, a week away. the idea that they would sit with someone who would steal all the oxygen out of the room, steal the attention from them. they don't have to worry about that now. they can worry about things they would normally worry about, getting to as many doors as possible, shaking as many hands, pulling people out of their homes a week later at the

caucuses to blunt whatever momentum newt gingrich has to stop ron paul maybe from stealing the whole thing. i think basically with donald trump out of the way, they can focus on the task at hand. >> jonathan capehart, thank you for joining us. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, stephen colbert bids farewell to mitt romney. seems mitt forgot what george w. bush did when one of america's spy toys fell in a mean neighbor's backyard. planning o. i want to work with people who are objective. how about a plan with my name on it? can we start with realistic goals, please? show me how to keep more retirement money in my pocket. now and down the road.

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in the "rewrite," there's hope for those of us that want to see the ego maniac in control of the debate. and an update on the kind fund, kids in need of desks. what your generosity has done in africa and what you can do to help this season. [ sniffs ] i have a cold. [ sniffs ] i took dayquil

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one pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing of the skin or eyes. talk with your doctor about your medicines, including those for migraine, or if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles, to address a possible life-threatening condition. tell your doctor about alcohol use, liver disease, and before you reduce or stop taking cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. side effects include nausea, dry mouth, and constipation. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about cymbalta. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer.

♪ it's nice to see you ♪ in my bed ♪ ♪ there are diamonds in her eyes ♪ ♪ ♪ and they sparkle in the night ♪ ♪ when the moment comes alive [ male announcer ] this is your moment. this is zales, the diamond store. take up to an extra 15 percent off storewide now through sunday. it was a year ago this week i told you about my trip to malawi. i went there with the hope of providing desks for students that had never seen desks.

i learned about the scarcity of resources in the country. then with unicef, i found a woodworking shop that hired extra workers to make 30 desks i was able to pay for with cash in my pocket and deliver to one classroom in malawi. when i told you this story last year, i knew you would be moved to help, but i had no idea how generous you would be to the kind fund. kids in need of desks, a special partnership we established with msnbc and unicef, specifically to deliver desks to african schools. you left me awe struck. as of today, contributing over 2 million dollars. that allowed us to deliver 39,949 desks, with 5,000 more in

the manufacturing pipeline to be delivered soon. kids in need of desks is the permanent cause of this program. the need will surely outlive this program, as i explained to a group of public school students in new jersey who contributed over $3500 themselves and their parents contributed another $3700. if we continue at the pace we are at now on raising money to get desks for schools in malawi, how long do you think it will take to get desks for every student in malawi? three weeks? anybody else want to guess? how many people think it will take a year? how many people think it will take longer than that? it will take ten years to do it. you can still be raising money to do this for malawi when

you're in college. >> i returned to malawi this year to see what your kindness has brought and to deliver more desks. the school where i delivered 30 desks for one classroom on my first trip now has desks in every classroom. they literally sang their gratitude for you for how you changed their lives. you can see a more complete version of their performance on our blog. i hope you look at it. it is really you who the kids are thanking. these desks are a brilliant and economical design, made to unicef's specifications, designed to seat two students, with two compartments under the desks for the students' materials. but in most of the malawi schools i've seen, there's so much overcrowding that usually

three students slide onto this little bench. at $48 a desk, you can provide a new and vastly improved learning environment for two or three students. for at little as $16, the price of a couple of movie tickets, you can lift an african student off the ground, off the floor for the first time in her life and instantly give her a dignity in the classroom that no one else in her family has ever experienced in a school. life is hard in malawi, but you don't see that on the face of the people. they are the most optimistic and hardest working people i've seen anywhere in the world. given their circumstances, hopelessness is an option. malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. the entire country is a high risk malaria zone. hiv, aids spread to 12% of malawi's 15 million people. life expectancy is 53 years.

malawi doesn't have enough of anything, and it certainly doesn't have enough jobs, but these desks are now providing jobs in malawi. before these desks get delivered to a classroom where they change the lives of the students, they have already changed the lives of the families of the people that make the desks. my favorite little factory in the world you're outgrowing. those workers have jobs that didn't exist a year ago, thanks to you. their families, their children are eating better than they were a year ago, thanks to you. >> they work with heart. they like working. they want to come to work. >> that's motion moosa, the man that made the first 30 desks last year and had to hire more workers to make more desks. >> without a company like this, he could have the welding skill, and there would be no jobs.

>> they go through tough time getting to school. their families try hard to help them get educated and they go through a lot, and when they don't get a job, it is disappointing for them and the families. they deserve a job. >> he sends a group of workers with the delivery truck to carry the desks into the classrooms, but they're never needed. the kids rush the truck and do it themselves, with some of the boys thrilled to show they can carry a desk alone, and in a flash, the classrooms are transformed by the children themselves. it is their classroom after all, and in an instant, they change it from a place of pain to a place of pride. if you try sitting on a cement or dirt floor seven hours a day, you'll know the pain i'm talking about that the kids suffer. after the desks arrive, all the children go home to their villages and tell their families that night about something

extraordinary that happened at school today, a place where most likely nothing extraordinary has ever happened before. if you have any room left in your charitable giving this year, if there's someone on your gift list who already has everything, consider giving that person the gift of one of these desks. you can go to lastworddesks.msnbc.com. you can click on the link, kids in need of desks. that will connect you to the kind fund. you can have an e-mail gift notice sent to anyone on your gift list for whom you would like to give the gift of a desk. your gift will keep the workers in their jobs, making the desks. you will allow them to continue to provide for their families, provide enough to eat. and you will lift some poor children off the floor. if you buy just one desk, you

won't lift just two or three children off the floor, because that desk will be used year in and year out by at least two or three children at a time. we're already on track to deliver desks that could end up being used by several hundred thousand children, maybe even a million, during the life of these desks. you don't have to be a teacher to know there are a lot of ways to improve a kid's attitude and performance in class. what if among the million kids who might end up sitting at one of these desks there's one, just one, slumped in the back of a classroom today, leaning on a friend's shoulder, unable to keep his head up in the fifth hour of the strain and pain of sitting on the floor. and what if after he carries his new desk into his classroom he sits up and connects with his teacher for the first time, and what if he begins to excel, gets

the momentum to complete his education, and becomes a doctor, maybe an engineer. who knows. what if he goes on to do good things, maybe even great things for malawi, saves lives, improves lives. makes our world a better place. and what if that was your desk that he carried into his classroom that day? you'll never know if it was your desk, but what if it was? what if?

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and then i go to the trump tower building. ever been to the trump tower building? they have a beautiful christmas tree there. and just to give you an idea, talk about depression or recession, give you an idea how much money guys like donald trump have. first of all, how much does it take every year in cash to feed that thing on his head. [ laughter ] but forget that. anyway, i go there to see the beautiful christmas tree at the trump building, and it is gorgeous, and he is so rich. you know the star on the top of the christmas tree. this year it is tom cruise. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. premier of the packed bag. you know organization is key...

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in tonight's "rewrite," hope

for all of us that couldn't wait to see the trump debate. another ego maniac that makes his way but with boring hair stepped forward with an offer to moderate a republican debate which he is more than delighted to do, even if only one candidate shows up. and you know, the guy even sounds a little like trump, in a boring hair kind of way. >> folks, i would be lying if i didn't say i saw this coming. donald trump is a friend. he's my best friend. number one best greatest friend of all time. we race yachts, trade mistresses. i call him trump card, he calls me gold beer. that said, the guy is a boob. he looks like a tan jell-o had sex with a dish rag. i can say it because i love this man. to honor the memory of trump mattering, it is more important than ever that tonight i reannounce the stephen colbert

south carolina serious classy republican debate. yes. [ applause ] >> a lot of excitement. a lot of excitement. i didn't have to say that. we set the date late to mid january. mark your calendar. there's tremendous interest so far. huge, massive, interest. everybody is talking about the debate. salon, daily beast, npr, path mark circular, and now it will be even bigger than ever with rick santorum and newt gingrich free from their commitment to trump trump. you have a home in my debate. i am delighted about newt, less about santorum, but solid delight across the board. ♪ i'm burning out this useless telephone ♪

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including the knuckleheads at the car wash. those are super bowl tickets? yes dude! you're going to the super bowl! [ morgan ] use your visa card for a chance to win. to see more of the story, visit our facebook page. ♪ it's nice to see you [ male announcer ] this is your moment. ♪ this is zales, the diamond store. take up to an extra 15 percent off storewide now through sunday. ♪ that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories -- plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. they sound awesome tonight. and when i do find it, i share it with the world. you landed the u.s. tour ? done. this is fantastic ! music is my life

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time for tonight's episode of it's only okay if a republican does it. last sunday, an unmanned u.s. spy plane was picked up in eastern iran near the afghanistan border. iranian state television showed the drone on tv and claimed it was brought down by iran's army. on monday, president obama said the united states has asked for the drone back. this morning, fox news anchor martha maccallum asked mitt

romney about the situation. >> i want to know what you think of this iran drone situation. what would you have done if they came to you and said mr. president, a drone has gone down, it is one of ours, one of our top technology, we have an opportunity to take this out. the president said he didn't want to do that. he thought it would be seen as an act of war. what would you have done? >> absolutely take it out. he was extraordinarily weak and timid in a time of critical moment. this will have severe implications for us long term and it was a terrible mistake on his part. i find it incomprehensible that he didn't destroy it or go get it. i think destroying it would have been easier, destroy it immediately or go get it. the idea of letting it fall into hands of people that will use it against us, use the intelligence capacity against us is an extremely enormous mistake on the part of this president. >> here was the toughest vp in history's reaction on cnn. >> the right response to that would have been to go in

immediately after it had gone down and destroy it. you could do it from the air, do it with a quick air strike. >> okay. so i guess apologizing and politely asking to get it back is absolutely out of the question. at least obama hasn't apologized yet. he did ask for the thing back, which certainly leaves all good republicans wishing there was someone in that white house like dick cheney that really knows how to handle this kind of thing. >> late saturday night in washington, sunday morning in china, a united states naval maritime patroller on routine surveillance mission in international air space over the south china sea collided with one of two chinese fighters that were shadowing our plane. both our aircraft and a chinese aircraft were damaged in the

collision. our aircraft made an emergency landing at an airfield on china's hi none island. the embassy was told by the chinese government that all 24 crew members are safe. our priorities are the prompt and safe return of the crew and the return of the aircraft without further damaging or tampering. >> but china demanded an apology from america in order to return the crew, just the crew. and the ever tough bush/cheney administration completely surrendered to the chinese communist dictatorship and apologized. both president bush and secretary of state powell have expressed their sincere regret over your missing pilot and aircraft. we are very sorry the entering of china's air space and landing didn't have verbal clearance.

that policy resulted in the safe return of the 24 members of the crew. as for the plane, the chinese did not allow the u.s. to go in and get the plane back, and the u.s. didn't dare. the chinese kept it for three months. they dismantled it, studied it. they learned everything they wanted to know about it, and only then allowed a russian liaison to fly it back in pieces, except of course for the pieces that the chinese military just kind of misplaced, like oh, maybe the invaluable black boxes. dick cheney, another day, another lie. mitt romney, well, at least he's never going to have to make a decision about what to do when america loses an aircraft in unfriendly territory. you can have the last word online at our blog, and while