return, you never know what you're going to get. you should definitely wash your hands regardless. don't do it at work, and don't talk to your mom. alone. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. republicans want to forget about rush limbaugh. but democrats won't let them. >> how are you, folks, it's great to have you back. rush limbaugh here again. >> advertisers have been dropping like flies. >> have you really lost 28 sponsors? >> no, we have not lost 28 sponsors. >> as many as 39 sponsors have pulled out. >> i'm not going to comment on what sponsors decide to do. >> msnbc, pmsnbc has decided their new theme is the war on women. >> women are going to make up their own minds in this election. >> there is no war on women. >> i believe this is the year of the woman. >> they could have carried mitt romney over the ohio finish line. >> if santorum did better with women, he could have pulled it out in ohio.

>> it is mathematically improbable that rick santorum can be the nominee. >> we need a person running against president obama. >> newt gingrich needs to drop out right now for that to happen. >> lots money to run through, i'm the tortoise, i take one step at a time. >> newt won his home state and nothing else yesterday, why is he staying in the race? >> seriously, michael steele, what is going on with mitt romney? >> this is the guy, this is who he is. >> and in 2012, we're going to get him out of the white house. >> he won the most states, he won the most delegates. >> you have to give him his due. >> why does mitt romney still look like a big bowl of cold mashed peas? >> you don't need people that will crawl across broken glass to vote for mitt romney. >> the reality will settle in and they'll understand, mitt romney is going to be the nominee. >> if you don't run chris christie, mitt romney will be the nominee and we'll lose. we'll lose.

the limbaugh aftershocks continue. president obama's re-election team wants you to never forget what mitt romney did not do when rush limbaugh attacked georgewn law student sandra flora. >> there's an mri for the soul and people learn about you, along the way there are tests. we saw one last week when rush limbaugh engaged in tt horrendous outburst against the young woman law student from georgetown. and the republican candidates were asked to comment on it. and romney first refused and finally he said, well, that's not larng i would have used. if that's not language i would have used, that's not language what i would have used, what about the essence of what he said. he called this woman a prostitute, and he called her a slut. and suggested that her -- she was trying to get taxpayer

funded birth control. all that was outrageous, the premise was false, that was a moment where he could have stood up and been a leader, and earned the respect of the american people. >> who's he afraid of, do you think? in the primary? >> in that case i think he was afraid of limbaugh. as george will said, if you're afraid of rush limbaugh how are you going to deal with ahmadinejad and all the bad guys in the world? sometimes you have to stand up, these campaigns test you. there are moments like that. this was one those moments and he failed the test. >> rush limbaugh continued today to pretend he is not concerned about the stampede of 40 advertisers away from his show. >> everything is fine on the business side. everything's cool. there is not a thing to worry about. 28 sponsors out of 18,000. that's like losing a couple of

french fries in the container when it's delivered to you at the drive through. you don't even notice it. >> one advertiser is buying more time on limbaugh's show, rick tyler senior adviser for pro-gingrich super pac winning our future tells npr, we bought more. limbaugh reaches more listeners who are likely primary voters in all the states than anybody else. one new advertiser thinks there's an opening. >> he's the owner of ashley website. he connects married people that want to have affairs. >> we're totally willing to step into the void of other advertisers. i'm happy to have ashley madison users join 10 million rush limbaugh users, it seems like a great marriage. if it costs $2, $3 million i'm

happy to pony up. >> advertisers are unanimous they feel limbaugh will survive this crisis. he has the largest radio audience in the country. at least 15 million people weekly, that would push rush's audience on par with the highest rated shows on television. his advertising driven income is estimated at more than $56 million a year. joining me now is former democratic national committee chairman, former vermont governor and cnbc contributor howard dean. and melissa harris-perry. melissa, 56 million is quite a perch to fall from. if he lost half his business, he'd still be one of the most powerful voices in radio. it's unlikely that rush will collapse over this. but he's lost some very serious advertisers, not all advertisers

are created equal. some of his strongest, biggest dollar advertisers, in our politics, where do you think this story now is in our politics, and where does it go from here? >> well, in a certain way it's exhausting in the middle of our politics, isn't it? here's rush limbaugh, who is doing just what he wants. he's keeping his name in the middle of controversy which does seem to keep listeners tuning in for him. now, yes, he is clearly losing sponsors, but he's only losing some sponsors, and as you just pointed out in that smart intro there, you have new people willing to step into the gap. i think what it does is it provides an opportunity for people who are not limbaugh supporters to now know which companies we can support with our dollars for deciding to exit stage right or stage left after this, and which folks want to be very careful about support iing with dollars. he is at the moment at the top

of the marketplace. >> let's listen what the president had to say when he was asked about rush limbaugh. >> i don't know what's in rush limbaugh's heart, so i'm not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology. what i can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don't have any place in the public discourse. the reason i call ed miss flute is because i thought about malia and sasha, i want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. and i don't want them attack ed or called horrible names because they're being good citizens. >> well, that was clear enough

but howard dean, i want you to listen to rush limbaugh's response to what the president said, and then, if you can, please explain to me what it is we're about to hear rush limbaugh say. i just don't get it. let's listen to rush. >> he doesn't know what's in my heart, but you do. and that is the key. this is the guy who stands next to jimmy hoffa and chuckles when hoffa talks about the "sons of bitches in the tea party" being taken out. he laughs when they're demeaned and insulted. he doesn't answer the question about other people who have been really really ripped and criticized and so forth by people on the left, liberal commentators and so forth. >> howard dean, can you make any sense of that for me? >> al franken probably wrote the best thing about rush limbaugh

ever. he had a book called "rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot." that explains everything. this guy is an entertainer, he's the dean of hate radio in america, and it caught up with him. people are sick of this kind of stuff. more than anything else, this has gotten romney in trouble. i think romney will win the nomination, romney can't survive this. the swing voters in pennsylvania are republican women in the philadelphia suburbs, i would love to see romney's numbers or any republicans numbers in those districts. that's what cost mccain pennsylvania, it's going to cost romney pennsylvania. this is the gift that keeps on giving, you cannot insult 52% of the population, and expect that they're suddenly going to have a change of heart and think republicans are somehow good for women. >> howard, did it happen too early in the campaign? >> no. >> this is the kind of stuff, lawrence, this is the kind of stuff that people do not forget, they will not forget this.

if this had been an argument about the churches rights and all that kind of stuff. that's the kind of stuff that happens in washington, everyone gets it, the elites, about the constitution. this is a core attack on every woman, 82% of women offer if tile childbearing age have taken birth control pills. this is an attack on 82% of women in the united states of america who rush limbaugh essentially called sluts. they're far more disciplined than we are, they're far more on message than we are. this is a spectacular meltdown of the party. we're going to win virginia, ohio, florida. this is just shocking. i can't believe this is happening to the republican party. >> let's listen to sarah palin's version a defense of rush limbaugh. >> i think the definition of hypocrisy is for rush limbaugh to have been called out, force

to apologize and retract what it is he said in exercising his first amendment rights. and never is that the same applied to the leftist rad cams who say such horrible things about the handicapped, about women, about the defenseless. so i think that's the definition of hypocrisy. >> melissa harris-perry, as a leftist radical -- i assume she's including me in this group. i can't remember saying any of those things she's talking about. that's the classic, you know, kind deflexion defense that has no meaning. that's the best you could do, i guess. >> well, it is and it isn't. i want to pause for a second here, and point out that the right does not in fact have a monopoly on saying really horrible things about women with whom they disagree. sexism and massagenny does end up on all sides. for me, what is most dangerous, hor fig here, isn't the language

of slut per say, as disgusting as it was, and as much as it was directed at an individual person. i want to keep our eyes on the fact that what the right has a monopoly on right now is a set of policy positions that actively remove the ability of women to make choices for themselves around their own health care, and around their own family planning decisions. i worry both around race questions and gender questions, when we get so fundamentally up in arms about the language. i hear you, that maybe ween cat find radical leftists who say mean things, but look, i have been called extremely nasty names from both the left and the right that are deeply gendered. what i care about are the policies around the veilability health care for women. and what the right has a monopoly on is their willingness to silence women and exclude them from their own health care decisions. >> thank you both very much for

joining me tonight. coming up, who was the real winner in ohio last night? i mean, who actually got the most votes? and no, it was not mitt romney. and super tuesday failed to do what it usually does, convince at least one candidate to drop out of the race. santorum needs gingrich to drop out. gingrich needs santorum to drop out. well, we're going to have a gingrich/santorum showdown tonight in the spotlight. and the exit poll question that should shock and shame america. and, we have some extraordinary video of a young barack obama leading a student protest at harvard law school. video that fox news is already lying about.

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who won last night's presidential primary contest in ohio? the republican presidential primary contest in ohio? well, romney got 456,000 votes, santorum got 445,000 votes. the person who got the most votes in ohio last night was the candidate who wasn't running against anyone. president obama got 547,000 votes last night in ohio, which means that more voters in ohio left their homes, left work, got in their cars, came out, travelled to a voting place and cast symbolic ballots to renominate president obama in an uncontested primary than the voters who supported either mitt romney or rick santorum. ohio is a must-win state for

republicans. no republican in the last 150 years has ever won the election without winning ohio. in ohio last night, mitt romney lost to people making under $100,000 a year, 70% of the people who voted in that republican primary. joining me now to drill down on the results of last night's election in the all important state of ohio is steve kornacki. i figure whenever votes are cast in ohio, study them. that's where john kerry missed the presidency by a flip of 60,000 votes, it would have been different. what did we see in ohio? i am hugely impressed that over a half a million people in ohio went out and said, i'm going to cast a vote for president obama, even though i know he doesn't need any votes at all. >> right. >> there's some real energy out there. >> it's a continuation of what we've been seeing in other primaries so far, not just with

the turnout for obama, but the high turnout for obama but low turnout for the republican race. >> this is the low turnout, in the year of the tea party rage against the president. >> right. >> this tea party needs to change america, bring back america, all those slogans, they're not sure -- >> literally what the republicans are left with out of this process, there's going to be no energy for that nominee. they really are banking on all the energy being opposition to obama. >> these guys are flirting with, roughly a third, a little more than a third of the electorate in the states, that's what they call a win. and when you're campaigning in ohio in a primary like this, you want to be locking in votes for november, you need to run a campaign in ohio that is particular to ohio, you know as the republican i have to win this state. it can't just be a game about winning that republican -- having a win last night. >> well, what jumps out at me, the interesting thing about ohio is there are 88 counties there.

they're actually aren't that many swing counties within ohio. i think there are only six that changed hands between 2004 in the kerry/bush race and 2008 in the obama/mccain race. when you look at those six counties last night for clues, there's one that was a good sign, ham until ton county where cincinnati is. haven't voted for a democrat since lbj. that's good, but the -- four of the other five swing counties last night web with the for santorum. one problem area for romney jumped out at me, when we go to the northwest part of the state where toledo is, toledo is more dependent on detroit and the auto industry. romney was winning the cities in ohio, he was winning the blue cities. he lost toledo, he lost the three counties around toledo

that went for bush in '08. i think he hurt himself there yesterday, and that could have implications for the fall. >> the funny thing about all these candidates opposed the auto bailout, there's something about romney's opposition that rings louder and clearer to people. >> it's part of the larger trend with romney, where he's associated with top 1% in general. you can put the income statistics up there, this guy really is relying on a coalition of people making more than $100,000. when you go higher, $200,000 or more, he won by 29 points. >> the only where you can get a third of the electorate is in a republican primary. >> right. the turnout is actually higher, at least in ohio, i'm not sure in other states, in ohio the turnout was higher this time around among the wealthy than it was before. and you look at where the state

was won for obama, how he flipped it in 2008, it was between about 30 and 100,000 on the income scale. that's where he made the biggest gains from john kerry in 2004. >> rachel made the point in the previous hour, that the rich have finally found the candidate worth really going out of their way for. that's the only surge in turnout you see is among the 100,0$100, earning voters. >> that's really the fundamental question, with mitt romney for the future of his campaign, the sort of reluctance of blue collar republicans, is that i ideological or is that a response to his aristocratic bear something. >> everything looked good for president obama in ohio last night. steve kornacki thanks for joining me up. the santorum campaign will beg the gingrich campaign to

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rick santorum wants newt gingrich to drop out of the race. we'll have a santorum/gingrich showdown next. in the rewrite, the shocking exit poll question that the media does not seem to understand. and later, we'll show you video of president obama leading

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you, and candid, not being political, i will answer your question and he let you know i voted for the cheerful one for newt gingrich. >> sarah palin and a majority of voters in most states that voted on super tuesday voted against mitt romney. because rick santorum and newt gingrich continue to split the conservative vote, romney continues to sneak into first place in states like ohio. the romney path to the nomination has always depended on the proposition that at least two republicans would be splitting the conservative vote. with santorum running well ahead of gingrich in national polls. republican strategist steve schmidt explained the reality of the gingrich candidacy this way. >> there's no question going-forward that a vote for newt gingrich is a vote for mitt romney in this process. >> the pro-rick santorum super pac, the red, white and blue fund released a statement today

saying with gingrich exiting the race it would be a true head-to-head race and conservatives would be able to make a choice between a consistent conservative and rick santorum or mitt romney. newt has become a hindrance to a conservative alternative. newt gingrich responded this way on bill bennett's radio show. >> if i think he was a slam dunk to beat romney and obama, i would consider getting out. i don't. >> joining me now is rick tyler, senior adviser for the pro-gingrich super pac. er eric, santorum is beating gingrich consistently in these things. you have a wipeout of mitt romney in all these campaigns. what does rick santorum have to do to convince -- not newt gingrich but other republicans

to rise up and say, come on, let's narrow this race? >> i'm not a political strategist, i have to say that if he continues to say what he believes in, i have a funny feeling that the obama administration is probably more afraid of san forum at this point than they're willing to admit. he has an ability to connect with rust-belt middle americans, working class americans. i think that's why i would ultimately support him. i feel that he makes a connection with average americans that in a way romney isn't yet making, and i don't see him making that in the way that santorum is making. so it's hard for me to think he's not electable. i think he's the most electable of the three. >> the national polls don't show that mitt romney has any particular advantage over rick santorum running against president obama.

and your guy is just falling behind further and further behind. why? why rick? why prolong this? you were heard, you heard steve schmidt say that a vote for gingrich is a vote for romney. how can you let that happen? >> well, steve schmidt managed the john mccain campaign, i'll manage that. we put a lot of effort into georgia, because we felt like we had to win georgia. it was okay, we had a decisive win. i'm out here in mississippi and alabama, that's the next step. let me put the calculations, they change somewhat. the calculation is that -- put out by the romney campaign who has no ability to beat barack obama, david axelrod did it today laying out why he couldn't beat barack obama, mitt romney has used up his last half life and he's wiped out his support for the middle class.

and independent voters. he's destroyed his ability to beat barack obama. more people showed up for barack obama than showed up for the republicans, that's because of the negative campaigning that's been going on. let me put this calculation on the table. the hurdle for newt gingrich or rick santorum to catch up with mitt romney is only equalled by the hurdle of mitt romney to arrive at the convention with the proper number of delegates. it is not in rick santorum's interest to drop out of this race. it's in his interest for newt to stay in the race and collect as many delegates as rick should do to keep mitt romney from getting the requisite number of delegates to arrive in tampa. in doing that, after the first ballot which mitt romney will fail to win, then rick santorum would have a genuine chance at winning an open floor fight. he doesn't have a chance otherwise, he has no ability to beat mitt romney and his organization and his money. >> rick -- i just have to follow up with that.

of course he has the ability to be -- you look at michigan, ohio, romney bombed santorum with money in ohio, and if newt gingrich wasn't in the race, santorum would have beaten him decisively. >> well, explain that -- in the united states, but explain that theory to me in california, in new jersey, in new york. that theory doesn't hold up, those are big states. and mitt romney will decisively beat rick santorum in states, he's going to outspend him. he outspends him in ohio by 4 to 1. if you can keep mitt romney by outspending you 3 to 1, you're going to win. >> eric, rick is trying to play it forward. he won't grant us the actual facts of the votes we've counted. and he wants to talk about the votes that are months away. eric, what rick is essentially saying is okay, hey, everybody, let's just keep playing, seems pretty clear to us, that even

romney isn't going to get the delegates he needs in the election process to go into the convention with the nomination. so we will all show up in florida with our delegates and then we can talk. and if rick santorum's way ahead of newt gingrich, maybe there's some kind of deal to be made. let's just wait until florida. what's wrong with that? >> i think they really believe that. it's hard for me to tell them not to do that. i don't believe that. i think that -- listen, a lot of the votes for romney are pragmatic votes. a lot of people don't love romney, but they would vote for him. i'm certainly one of them. however, people love santorum. when i talk to people who like santorum, they don't just like him, they love him, they're passionate about him, they see his passion. there's a lot of that for gingrich as well. if i thought he could win, that's one thing. i guess the question is, when will he see that? the point is, it doesn't matter what we with think, gingrich has

to believe he can win. for some reason he still believes. i mean, he's come back from the dead twice. i think he still believes he can do it. santor sum going to go a lot further, the question is when will gingrich see what everybody else is seeing? and i don't know that he ever does that. >> rick tyler, you seem to be saying that it isn't about winning, that gingrich has given up the idea that he can actually win the nomination through the election process, and you're just in the business of getting delegates out of this proportional outcome that you can get in various states, and just seeing how many you end up with when you go to florida? >> no, the key to winning is getting the most delegates to vote for you at the convention. newt gingrich is behind 60 delegates behind rick santorum. he could wipe out that difference in mississippi and alabama alone. there's 150 delegates -- >> what if he doesn't? let's just go to mississippi where you are right now, and

it's gingrich's neighborhood. if rick santorum goes in to those southern states and beats newt gingrich, is there any message newt gingrich can get from that to say, you know what, i really am in the way, i should get out of the way so 24 can be the conservative against the moderate flip-flopper romney? >> well, that would be up to speaker gingrich. as you know, i would support speaker gingrich. if he wants to go to the convention, i will support whatever he wants to do. i believe we will win alabama and mississippi, and we'll have a new ball game. if he he believed that romney or rick santorum could actually beat obama and change washington, which neither their records reflect they would be able to do that, they would both accommodate washington, he would step aside. he doesn't see that in either of those candidates, why not give people in mississippi a chance to vote for another conservative? >> well, according to that formulation then, he'll never

stop aside, because every poll shows president obama beating every one of these guys. rick, come on, you can't keep things going like this. >> things change. >> i want to see the real debate between the conservative and flip-flopper. >> you want to see a newt debate -- >> we'll have to have you guys back after the votes next week. eric and rick thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up in tonight's rewrite, the ohio exit poll question and answer that you really have to see to believe. and fox news is lying tonight about a video of president obama leading a student protest back in his days at harvard law school. one of the president's classmates will join me. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota.

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one a great deal, two somewhat, three not much and four, not at all. now, in afghanistan, you could expect 100% of voters to choose a great deal. in a country that has separation of church and state you would hope that 100% of voters would chose not at all. unfortunately, that is not the answer we got from ohio republican voters last night. only 18% of them got that one right. 18% of them said, it did not matter to them at all that a candidate shares their religious beliefs. that's the american ideal. sadly over 80% of ohio republican voters last night registered varying disagrees of agreement with the taliban on this one. 29% of them said it matters a great deal to them that a candidate shares their religious beliefs. another 33% said it matters

somewhat. another 19% said not much. it doesn't matter much. that's over 80% of republican voters in ohio saying a candidate sharing their religious beliefs matters to them to varying degrees. if you find yourself thinking that the 19% who picked not much aren't very far from the american ideal, imagine if that question had been, how much does it matter to you that a candidate shares your racial identity? what if if that group of 96% white voters, 19% had said not much. doesn't matter to me much if the person isn't the same race as i am. not much. some would say that not much is not good enough. not a good enough answer to that question. the media doesn't understand that the answers we got to this exit poll question are utterly scandalous.

that only 18% of republican voters in ohio say they cast their votes without any religious prejudice at all. only 18%. the media and exit poll analysts are only interested in which candidates did these people vote for. and so they're willing to tell you that mitt romney lost badly among the 29% who cared about the religion of the candidate the most. and as you can see here, mitt romney won among the candidates who say they didn't care at all about religious beliefs. what you see there is a chart of american religious bigotry. there it is. but there's no headline today anywhere in america saying religious bigotry rampant among ohio republicans, because after decades of plitization of religion, the media now considers it perfectly reasonable for all candidates to

have to discuss their religious beliefs in campaigns and answer questions about them. and all candidates in both parties now constantly traffic in religious pandering. >> a thoughtful prayer life and one that genuinely is open and thoughtful, yes, you could commune with god. now, i don't hear voices. but i do feel the spirit. >> my faith has been my anchor and my guide. and i'm proud and unashamed to tell people that. >> as a starting point it means i believe in -- that jesus christ died for my sins, and that i'm redeemed through him. >> i believe the bible is the word of god, absolutely. and i try -- i try to live by it as well as i can, but i miss in a lot of ways. >> how can you have judgment if you have no faith?

and how can i trust you with power if you don't pray? >> no candidate for president has ever said what i would like to hear a candidate for president say about religion. and so i had to create a fictional candidate a few years ago to rewrite the rules of religious pandering. >> i may be wrong, but i suspect our churches already have enough political phonies in them. >> senator, do you or do you not -- >> i don't see how we can have a discussion on religion. have you to pass a test to get in this government. i want to warn all the press and the voters out there, if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. they will all lie to you, a lot of them will, and it will be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your votes. so every day until the end of

this campaign i'll answer any question anyone has on government. if you have a question on religion, please go to church. thank you. >> senator? >> senator? [ male announcer ] that. right there -- reminds you why you fell in love with her in the first place. and why you still feel the same. but your erectile dysfunction --

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risky stance on a very public controversy at the time in 1990. harvard law school had only three black tenured professors and five women professors. professor bell protested the lack of diversity by taking unpaid leave until the university hired a woman of color. students at the harve ar law review were among the most cautious grooming themselves then for senate confirmation hearings, attorney general or the supreme court. speeding away from controversy wherever it may erupt on campus, but the harvard law review never had a president quite like barack obama. knowing that prestigious law firms aren't eager to hire leaders of protests, he took the risky step of siding with professor bell. this posting of the young barack obama's taking a stand.

>> and i remember that the black law students that organized an orientation for the first year students. and one of the persons who spoke at that orientation was professor bell. and i remember him sauntering up to the front and not giving us a lecture, but engaging us in a conversation and speaking the truth. now, how did this one man do all this? how has he accomplished all this? he hasn't done it simply by his good looks and easy charm. although he has both in ample measure. he hasn't done it simply because of the excellence of his scholarship, although his scholarship has opened up new vistas and new horizons and changed the standards we will be writing about. >> joining me now is one of the leaders of the student protest

and harvard law school in 1990, keith boiken. as we hear that sound as the camera is panning toward barack obama. it could have been him speaking somewhere yesterday. you were one of the few among us who heard him then who hear him now. could you see in that barack obama standing there with the microphone that day the kind of thing that might be in his future? >> i had no idea at that time, actually. we were in the midst of creating a movement for diverse it tiff on campus. and we invited barack to speak because he was the first african-american president of the harvard law review. he got up there and gave a wonderful speech, he spoke about derek bell. he didn't speak about the issue of diversity, but about derek bell. the idea that people are trying to vilify him today is astounding. >> this is the business of fox news. they decided that derek bell is one of the great american

radicals. and tenured harvard law faculty have always been among the most threatening among us. i mean, people like him are thought provokers, they push ways of thinking about different things. tell us about derek bell. >> well, you know, if you look at that rally, most of the people who war there were not black. it's a reflection of how popular derek bell was as a professor at the law school. >> and beyond the law school. >> and beyond the law school as well. he had a critical impact of critical race theory, he was a mentor to me and many others. i spoke at his funeral services last fall, it was amazing that hundreds of people showed up at the riverside church in harlem to show their support for him. the president of nyu came out and spoke, it was a reflection of the type of person he is. and the idea that barack obama would come and embrace him and

show his support for him, there's nothing controversial about that at all. nor is it even news. i saw this videotape four years ago, when a producer from a different network showed it to me and asked me what i thought about it. i said, there's nothing to it. it's just barack obama expressing his support for a presser at harvard law school. >> pbs has had the footage since 1990, fox is trying to pretend like this was hidden in some dark secret about the president's past affiliations. it seems to me it's pretty impossible to get in trouble by an association with a member of the harvard law school faculty. >> yeah. >> that's never happened before in our history. >> the whole idea that somehow barack obama or others would want to hide this -- why would anyone want to hide this speech. it shows him speaking without a teleprompter, speaking so eloquently. and speaking about an issue most agree with. >> it wouldn't be easy to get the president of the harvard law review to show up at any form of

protest. talk about that. >> well, it was an act of courage on his part to come and speak. he had not participated in some of the rallies we participated if. we had sit-ins and demonstrations, he didn't do all that. he came and stuck his neck out at a time critical importance when professor bell was about to leave. that was an act of integrity that i respect about him. >> i think we all see in that video now what the future had for him. keith boykin thanks for joining me tonight. you can have the last word on our blog thelastword@msnbc.com. "the ed show" is next. good evening, americans, and welcome to the ed show tonight. mitt romney's spineless response to rush limbaugh's controversy has caught the attention the president and sarah palin is trying to play the victim again. keep it right here, it's the ed show. let's get business side.