be a part of the discussion as new research shows a positive result from the most dangerous games out there. >> mike pi as is did the hall of fame committee make the right call and could this be the segment where we have a bench clearing brawl. >> a new push to legalize underage drinksing in colorado. you know we have a spin on this. >> think of it as game change two. inside the 2012 election with what both were thinking when the cameras were off. 26 days after the newtown tragedy. two years after tucson and as the alleged mad man in the movie theater massacre stands trial, the obama white house is trying to find a way to stem gun

violence. >> there is something that wakes up the conscious of the country. that tragic event did it in a way like nothing i have seen in my career. the president is going to act. there executive orders and action that can be taken. we have not decided what that is yet. >> that was vice president biden with eric holder and gun safety groups and victims of past shootings. he is tasked with finding common ground on proposals to curb gun violence. they will meet with owner, video game manufacturers, hollywood executives. parents, teachers and mental health groups and advocates and community leaders. this is the first time they publicly reached out to the nra. they will meet tomorrow, but don't expect wayne la pierre to be there. they are sending a representative in his place.

biden will release a statement here with us for the first time in 2013, howard fineman, director of the "huffington post" media group. welcome back to the show. first of all -- we have got the news of the pending white house meeting with the nra with representatives and we don't know the details yet. am i right to be cynical that the white house has to look like they are reaching out and look like they are receptive to it and neither wants to be talking to the another. other. >> that will be about the most insigne seer hand shake. wayne la pierre won't be there. it's possible that they are out here and looking for someone right now. >> howard, i do know. it's going to be james l. baker who was a 30-year vet, former executive director of the nra. we do know.

>> good. the symbolism is still such that there is no deal with the nra unless wayne la pierre is in the room and there is no deal regardless i don't think. even the mindest form of legislation on trying to reinstitute the assault weapons ban that lapsed. any kind of language is not acceptable to the nra that view this is as a call to arms. the obama administration said legislatively the strategy will be to try to isolated nra and you can pick off republicans and get the cooperation. i'm a little skeptical that in the house they will get votes for anything that smacks of gun control. i wonder, what i'm sensing is if there ends up being a compromise, it will center around mental health. is that your sense? >> my sense is they are going to clothe whatever they are going to try to do with as many other

issues and topics as possible. video games and culture of violence and mental health care, et cetera for whatever gun control proposals there may be. that's going to be the approach. the problem that the president has and that some democrats have is they talked to the people who run their campaigns. they talked to people who want to run in red states. they have got to be careful, they are hold not to go too far because the last thing they want to do is saddle candidates with what can be described as anti-gun positions. kentucky in 2o 14 and mitch mcconnell may be vulnerable. they may have a strong democratic opponent and do you want jack conway or jerry abram son is to have to carry around a strong pitch by gun control in a

state like kentucky. that's the politics beneath the surface of this. >> howard, you know the commission and the committee that biden is heading will meet with the shooting victims and a lot of the proposals we heard floated in my opinion and don't seem to dress the problem and would not prevent another newtown. if we learned from columbine and ft. hood and virginia tech and newtown, criminals and crazy people find ways around these gun laws that we are insulting the families when we tell them banning certain weapons or registering guns is going to prevent another tragedy? don't we owe them real solutions? >> i think the political system oh,s them their best efforts.

while it's true that they can work their way around whatever laws are put in place, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be enacted. it's hard to defend. i don't know what grounds you have. the assault weapons being readily available in american society. some of the types of bullets and magazine clips and types of weapons of mass destruction that are available to the public. if you want to say all of american society will tote the assault weapons and need to defend each other, what argument is there not to ban it. >> assault weapons sounds scary. they are faithful useful and can be useful in a number of ways. a lot of reasons to have them.

we had an assault ban for years during which columbine happened. >> what's the use of a large magazine, a large bullet clip assault weapon? >> if you are talking about magazine capacities, that's different than assault weapons. >> but explain what other than the hands of tactical police officers and the military, what is the use of a rapid fire assault weapon. >> i don't know what you think rapid fire means, but they are scary words that people use that have to be broken down. they don't mean that people in the media use them to mean, howard. >> explain to me what -- tell me a good one. >> we do this. will i don't want to take everyone else's time, but we can talk about this in more depth. >> we have seen the discussion that military capacity on the street has not necessarily agreed. >> what are is military

capacity. that doesn't mean anything. >> for means what happened in the movie theater this summer. >> or newtown. let's bring in general. >> or virginia tech which were hand guns. we are focusing on a shiny object that is not to blame. the person is to blame. >> the person with the gun is to blame. >> i think where we want this discussion to go, to put the options on the table whether it's an assault weapons ban. a lot of us agree at the table that the assault weapons ban was in place and full of loopholes and didn't include a buy back program. we have to look at that and look at the totality of evidence and not ask the question and i said this before. would this have prevented a newtown and is this going to decrease gun violence overall? that is the question. who knows what could have prevented newtown. columbine you can say they would have found a way around this law or that law, but howard, you

mentioned democrats running in red states and the political realities of that that i understand pretty well. >> i bet you do. >> steve schmitt made an interesting point with rachel maddow saying we tend to think of this as a partisan issue. it's more of a regional issue. we show regional ownership of guns by region. do you think that these new groups that come up, mayor bloomberg's group and gabby giffords and mark kelly's group, over the long-term that they can shift the political calculus and shift that cultural dynamic that is in play right now? >> first of all, it's not just a regional thing. it's by party as well. if you look at polling on guns and possession of guns and types of weapons and so forth, republicans are strongly in favor of being extremely cautious about imposing any new

restrictions. democrats are pretty strongly in favor. independents are split right down the middle. again that's something that democrats have to be concerned about. i don't claim to be steeped in the gun culture, but i worked in kentucky for years and i know the state and the people there and they rightly care about their guns not only for constitutional reasons, but reasons of sport and way of and hunting and it's very much in rural america and not just in the south. it's very much a part of the culture. all i'm saying to groups like the nra is based on my sense of american politics, to take a closer look at some of the types of weapons, some of the rapid fire types of weapons, some of the types of weapons that wouldn't seem to have a cultural or hunting use or even for that matter in a sense constitutional use, it's worth doing. i understand the slippery slope

argument and what gun advocates are saying and if you start chipping away then pretty soon we take up all the guns and there will be confisication programs and we will rip out an important part of the constitution. short of that surely there is something sensible that can be done and that's what joe biden will attempt to do. i wouldn't expect the president to stake his whole presidency on this. as you pointed out before, the biden report i don't think is coming out until after the state of the union. that's a perfect way to allow the president to finesse making it a centerpiece of his speech. >> to talk generally about it and not get specific. >> wal-mart said we are not going to the meeting with the vice president and quickly changed courses and said we are going to go because we cannot politically say we are not going to go. what does that switch say to you? >> what it says to me is the

people who are advising them politically are shrewd and smart. they had enough bad publicity as it is with the labor practices, etc. they want to serve all their customers throughout the country. wal-mart is everywhere. wal-mart needs to look at the country as a whole and i think it was smart of them to show up. that doesn't mean they have to agr agree, but i wouldn't be surprised if wal-mart ends up being on board. >> that's part of the idea for the white house. trying to pick up the other stakeholders. always great to see you and thanks for coming on today. next, first they give pot the grown light and now a colorado lawmaker wants to make it legal for parents to buy their kids booze. could looser laws make it safer? as the cycle goes on for wednesday, january 9th. new prilosec otc wildberry

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>> underage drinking laws may be loosening up. if one senator has his way, greg briefy, a republican pointed out to us earlier has great gop dar that allows 18, 19, and 20-year-olds to drink at restaurants and bars. there is a catch. the booze has to be bought for them by their parents. briefy got the idea after he and his wife took their 20-year-old daughter out for dinner and she was not able to have a drink with them. >> what are they celebrating?

>> what? outrage. >> here said he wants returning service members to have a drink with mom and dad. advocates said if it's in a safe environment, why not? colorado just legalized recreationality marijuana. is the rocky mountain state on the road to moral ruins? are they on to something here? i think the compare to marijuana and alcohol is not accurate. marijuana is much safer than alcohol. i do reject that compare and this is hardly the top of my priority list in terms of things i want our legislators to focus on. i don't have a problem with the idea of people over 18 with their parents and have their consent being able to have a drink. i don't have a problem with the age being lowered to 18 to be quite honest. doesn't rank at top of my priors, but i don't have an issue with it.

>> going after lowering the age, that's an interesting idea. i would be open to it. this to me seems different. first of all, is colorado so flushed with cash and overemployment that this is on the top of their priority list? really? i don't appreciate the way that this republican senator seems to attempt to wrap this issue in the flag. let's play it quick. >> let's say your 20-year-old son or daughter comes back from a tour in afghanistan and you want to take them down to the local hall and have a beer with the vets and tell them stories. if the bill passes, you can do that with that son or daughter. >> i get the argument. >> the vet nam veteran. >> what if there is no vfw. >> it's so forced, i get the

argument that if you are old enough to serve, you are old enough to drink. this seems like a really cheap pander. >> i totally agree with you. i feel the earth shaking beneath us as i do. i don't see why we have to do this. i don't see where parents are benefiting from being able to share this and suffering for not being able to share this. why they are in the carve out of the drinking age that when you are with your parents, the drinking age is malleable. what if you are with your aunt or uncle or -- >> do you have to look like your parents. >> what if your older sister who has been maternal. here the age is different. they are standing next to your parents. you don't have the permit. can you drive because your parents say it's okay? not at all. i recall a couple of times, my mom is watching.

this never happened. i was allowed to sip a glass of wine at home and they were normalizing it. this is what it tastes like. this is legal at home. why do we need to extend this into the public sphere. it is legal. >> in some states it's legal and some it's not. the parents could get in trouble for doing what viewers did. >> we never did that. >> we didn't either. >> the one thing i say, it struck me and i hear this and i don't mean to pick on this. a state legislator introduces a bill or say wow, is there nothing better they can focus on? i don't know the back story and the chances are that colorado did not put the hold on this. they don't drop the meeting to deal with the underage drinking. anybody at any legislature can submit a bill at any time.

the media likes them and he ended up paying more attention and a lot more than the -- they can walk and chew gum at the same time. on the actual list there other cultures where kids are introduced as part of the family meals. it's not this act of rebellion. when you are proving you are on your own and you drink as much as you can. that culture encourages more responsible drinking and there is less problems. >> to the extend that something moves us closer to that, i would be fine with it. >> another possibility that this is a cynical ploy by the republicans to try to get more young voters. watch out for that. >> look at you. >> suddenly theyor board. straight ahead, game change for the 2012 elections and juicy details including what the

president really thought of that agonizingly long wait for romney's concession.

>> president obama is days away from the start of his second term, but the days leading up to his election is with a new ebook. it's called the end of the line. it debuted on the "new york times" bestseller list and the topic of today's guest spot. he wrote it along with his colleague and this is the fourth in the series available only online. glen joins us now. thanks for coming on, glen. you are focusing on the home stretch. the last month of this campaign and i guess that really starts with that debate on october 3rd in denver. it was probably the lowest moment in the campaign for president obama.

our colleagues got depressed over it. >> she was not depressed. >> maybe if you can just take us back to that night, how is the obama campaign reacting to that? what was it like watching that and reacting to it? >> for started when romney blew that twank willizer dart and it hit him right there. you can see it on the tape if you look closely. he walked off the stage and the only person in the building at the university of denver who thought he had done reasonably well and he gets off the stage and basically said hey, guys, that wasn't so bad. david axelrod said -- michelle was like no, mr. president, i don't think you did really all that well. it took him four or five hours between him and romney where he

realized this was a cat clichl of a certain magnitude. >> to that end, some people accused obama of appearing to take the reelection for granted. there was that poor debate performance. there was making missteps like you didn't build that. some thought it was sloppy and lazy. if you watched the emotion out of the president after he got reelected, crying as he thanked the campaign staff, there was no doubt in my mind that up until the very last second he did not think this was in the bag. he was very emotionally invested. what was your take? >> that's a good point. i view it as a long protracted and a version of the christmas carol. obama was made to see the ghost of the white house future. it was mitt romney and he didn't

like what he saw. there was a sense that he had missed the out on a negative future and no doubt that obama and his team were confident. they had a very, very obviously effective ground operation. there was not a sense inside chicago that this was in the bag. that was in contrast to what was going on with romney where these guys did believe their numbers and had a sense up until the last moment that mitt romney was going to be president of the united states. >> you are giving me nightmares sketching out that future that we would have had. you really give details to those agonizingly long wait for romney to concede. tell us the story, please. >> this was just like eating bon bones. jonathan reported the boston stuff with romney and i did the

chicago stuff. there were two amazingly parallel scenes. in chicago, staffers walked into the suite. the presidential suite where president obama was with his family. they walked into this vision of valerie jarrett streaming at the tv showing the empty podium in boston saying call already. call already. after a while, a lot of senior staffers who told me he was angry at the romney folks in more colorful language wonders what was going on. it took 75 on 80 minutes to concede. obama's campaign manager had to text and leave a message for romney's campaign manager. what was going on in boston was really a microcosm for the denial that gripped the campaign throughout. romney didn't have the on in his suite and was getting information by looking at his body man's iphone. there was a consideration to

send paul ryan to the podium and saying they were not going to concede. there was that level of illusion that broke past midnight and past 11:00 on eastern time when rob portman, the senator from ohio said this is ridiculous. you are not going to pull out ohio. it was like flicking a switch. just as long as it took to do it. >> i heard this from other people and they behaved this way and the romney campaign believed they were going to win up to the end. they were delusional. it's hard to imagine they didn't know the race was slipping away. how did they see it was in that delusional bubble? >> it has to do with the campaigns and you buy in or you don't. for all of you guys, you can tell when people disinvest

emotionally and they die. they have to keep swimming. to a certain extent it's understandable. it get itself garbage. the data they were receiving. you guys litigated this over and over and the notion that they were attacking all these mainstream posters for being skewed and biased. they were buying neal new house, the pollster and they were tied in the battle ground states and six of the seven states that were most intensely contested with the exception of north carolinaa, they swept the table and a combination of bad data and the data. a very specific candidate. a guy who felt that this denver debate was a transformational moment and not only changed in narrative, but transformed the candidacy. you put it and you get this sort of fog of delusion.

>> it's strange because he was supposed to be mr. data. go ahead. >> i want to broaden it out before we go. there was lots of drama in the last month and real tension. genuine panic among democrats. if you take a step back from all of this, we had the political science community telling us if you look at where obama's approval ratings, these were not carter or bush sr. numbers, there was growth there. they were saying all year this guy should be a slight favorite to win reelection and low and behold after the drama he ends up winning by five million votes. do you think we appreciate it that obama was in pretty good shape? >> not great, but decent. >> it was like a chia pet election. you water it and it kept growing and growing. a lot of this has to do with the fact that the campaign knows how to do this campaign thing. they were able to expand and maximize what they had on the ground.

you can't substitute. there is no substitute in this day and age for the target of the voters and reaches the audience and brings them out. nobody has done it better. not even in 2008. >> as we watch, thank you for joining us. president obama will take the oath of office in 12 days and preparations are under way in washington. the stage is being construct and we just learned that beyonce, kelly clark son and james taylor will perform. beyonce will belt out the national anthem and the capital in 2009. the first lady and the facebook friend, nathan paige said congrats to beyonce and the first family. like us on facebook and let us know what you are most excited to see on inauguration day and the presidential inauguration to video games, the president's new gun task force will meet with video game makers this week and new research on how the games

actually change your brain. that is straight ahead.

violent video games. with names like bullet storm, grand theft auto, mortal combat. splatter house. blood-soaked films out there. american psycho. natural born killers. >> natural born killeries in american psycho? has it been that long? since we had a conversation about gun control? >> all joking aside, violent movies and video games must be a part of the gun violence discussion according to new jersey governor chris christie who appeared on "morning joe" earlier today.

you cannot me they do not desensitize the child to real life effects of violence. >> vice president biden meets with representatives of the video game industry ass part of the task force. that is coming as the new research and they benefit our brains. sharpening focus and improving reasoning and decision making abilities. the research is featured in this month's specific mind magazine and the author of the article is new york based science writer. really stunning research, lydia. gamers have higher attentional capacity and those who play live action video games have higher transferability, the ability to apply learning to a task and first person shooter games like medal of honor are among the higher performing in a range of mental tasks. if you have a teenager who is playing video games that sounds

like good news, but there is a downside, explain. >> yeah. i completely agree. this research is really counter intuitive. it surprised me and surprised the researcher who first stumbled upon it. she was looking for something else. the skills and the test said why are you doing this. they changed the study. it is important to be really specific and it's specific games that can spur the benefits. in this case we are talking about the first person shooters. i'm the parent of three boys, 14, 11, and 9. i didn't like these games to begin with. i wasn't looking to be the one sitting up here telling you what's good with them, but i have to say there is a lot.

they improve your first the higher order like spatial reasoning and decision making. most significant and what has researchers the most excited is the capacity for transfer. the gamers learn to go and adjust and change and they can apply the skills they are learning and apply them to something else. it may be the most striking example of that that is a researcher who was somebody who thought video games were really negative. for laproscopic surgeons, they are looking at the monitor, but there is skill that is the number one predictor of the surgical skills. the second is how much time they are playing video games. way after that they are training and how many surgeries they performed. >> that's stunning. i was interested in the gender difference here and it strike mees that there is a chicken and

egg problem. the boys tend to be better at spatial reasoning and they are attracted to video games and they play more than girls and they become better at spatial reasoning. how much is the video games. it's the nature and nurture question there. >> the researchers have the same question. they had seen the research that she and the team had put together. other people were starting to do. they said boy dos tend to play the games and tend to have better scores in spatial attention and reasoning and skills correlate to success in meath and science. what they did was confirmed that the gender differences existed in the particular skills. by studying a bunch of students at the university. they found both male and female university students who were non-gamers and that's not easy to find kid who is don't play the games. lots of girls and a few boys

trained them both on medal of honor, pacific assault which is a first person shooter game just as it sounds and something called balance which is a puzzle game. what they found is remember these are people who had not played games at all. with a certain amount of training on the games, everybody's skills improved for spatial attention and reasoning, but that really significantly the girls improved the most and they erased the gender gap there. it is really striking that maybe this is one way in which we are finding could be used ultimately for that very thing to help girls with what results in their math and science skills. >> you talk about three young boys. are you okay? how are you doing? what i should ask you about really is how the games function as virtual show rooms. preparing future customers for the products that are available and what do you think about the aths r aspect and the gun

community worked and the lobby works with the game communities to introduce them to the weapons. >> i cannot speak to the gun industry connection. that's not what i study and what i was looking at. i can say, i can talk about the psychological research telling us about whether violent games tend to make us more violent. the short answer is yes. they do. in the short-term. they dump a lot of hormones into our body that get our fight and flight instincts up and that wear off about n about 30 minutes. that is not significant. the question is whether there is a long-term effect. that's what everybody is talking about. the national conversation right now. the researchers, i think it's more of a question of interpretation and what they found matters. you have to think of it as pie. in that pie there is about 100 different slices and each of which is a potential predictor

of violent or aggressive behavior. i top the go back and say you have to distinguish between extreme violence like the shootings that we have recently seen and milder forms of aggression and even rch researcher who is worry about the violent aspects of video games told me that they think that video games have almost nothing to do with extreme violence. i have on say that's what the research is showing. let me go back to the question of the pie. if you have 100 predictors of aggressive behavior, 1 to 4%. most people say one slice of your pie and others say maybe four out of 100 slices could be attributed to video games. that's a small proportion, but the other really important thing is that that pie, there is there is a lost stuff in there. positive protective factors like good parenting matter a lot. kid who have the social skills

don't tent to get in trouble. it's not just video games. >> thanks very much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> baseball hall of fame selections out this afternoon after one of the most controversial ballots in sports history. which made it in and who got snubbed? all of them because of steroid suspicions.

>> just over 90 minutes ag they

announced a slate for the baseball hall of fame's 2013 class and it is expected they inducted no one. this was the most controversial class in history starring barry bonds, one of the greatest players in history and one of the greatest pitchers in history. platinum resumes spoiled by the performance-enhancing drugs. despite great resumes and no hard evidence that they actually took steroids, they all fell victim to suspicions. the game of guilty by association and it's about more than baseball and how we judge each other. with a heavy heart i am pleased and i loved them both. clemens as a yankee, but they cheated the game. they did steroids, but i'm glad to see they did not come close. bonds even less than that.

you need sfich% to get in. mark mcgwire is nowhere close. they are at like 12%. steroids are cheating and they have a direct impact on how you play the i found this academic study that compares on-base percentage in the pre-roid or early roid era where the on base percentage is a flat .725. and then it rockets up to almost 800 and stays there for years. this is larger for specific players who they identified as having taken performance enhancing drugs. this is research showing there is a significant difference in your ability to play once you're doing steroids. i can't have roid cheaters in the hall of fame. i'm sorry. >> i totally agree. i have, like, zero patience and tolerance and happen hit for the

cheaper players like bonds and clemens. what's unfortunate is mike piazza was tainted with the same brush. he is the hittingest catcher in all time history. one of my favorites as a mets fan. all around good guy, charitable guy. really good at a tough position. and a great clubhouse presence from everything that you hear about him. and he's not going to get in this year. i hope he will in future years, but guiltily association. there was nothing but innuendo around him for years and no proof of it. >> look. i'm a little suspicious. i think this is a situation that lends itself to easy moralizing. i'm suspicious of it. i want to look critically. no, keep piazza out and bonds out. i think in -- i think bonds is the most extreme obvious a case we have from the steroids era. others require a little bit more context. i think the smartest thing to do and it's wise to wait a couple years with these guys.

i don't think maybe let bonds in this year. let's see how the steroid era looks and what we know about performance enhancing drug. what we know about the steroid era a few years from now. >> because in a few years it will look okay? >> there are cheaters in the hall of fame right now. gaylord perry is in right now. >> that's entirely different. >> he cheated. >> that's different. you're talking about the neighborhood play versus steroids. >> all right. some brilliant insight here but i only talk about baseball on thursday. >> check out my new article in the daily beast today about homosexuality in the nfl right now. straight ahead, call him our closer. steve kornacki gets the final word. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain

tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios

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my middle school librarian used to give me funny looks. sometimes because my fly was open, but mostly because i liked to pick out books that hadn't been checked out in years. this was because of my fascination with presidential campaign politics. when it was over i was left hungry to experience and understand other campaigns the same way. so i headed to the library and stumbled on some dusty copies of teddy white's making of the president series. names, events, issues, cultural references. it was all brand new to me and i absorbed every bit of it. when i started including references to gene mccarthy and rockefeller in my everyday

conversations, it wasn't just the librarian looking at me funny anywhere. others picked up the slack. here's the book on the '76 race. news week all the material would be held for a juicy post-election book. here's what that produced. 1984. here's 1988. and there have been some fun variations on the idea too. hunter thompson he gave it is a gonzo twist in 1972. here's his book. dayton duncan took it to a level about campaign volunteers in the 1988 new hampshire primary. and my friend from new jersey, he applied it to the gubernatorial contest whitman versus florio. i've read every book i can get my hands on. others feel dated now. but i appreciate all of them. there is however, one that towers above the others. one that set out to do something completely different and that

managed to pull it off. the book is "what it takes." it's in the news this week because its author richard ben cramer passed away monday night. a few weeks ago i did what i've been doing with my copy for years now forced it on a friend and said read this. it's the best presidential campaign book ever written. calling it a campaign book is a missed point. it's a little about the campaign but not really. if you read it, you won't learn what the major issues were and where they fit on the spectrum. some of the who ran that year are barely mentioned in the book. a lot of it isn't even set in 1988. what cramer did was pick six candidates who ran, george h.w. bush, bob dole, joe biden, dukakis, gary hart. and devoted his life to learning their lives. the people, the experiences, the failures that shaped them as

kids, students, soldiers, politicians. he wanted to know what life journey could lead a person to say i want to run for president. he also wanted to see how someone like that could be changed by the absurd demands of presidential politicking. that's what makes "what it takes" such a classic. it's not really about one presidential race. it's about six people who happened to run in one race. a to know and understand them is to know and understand presidential politics in a whoa new way. richard ben cramer brought us that knowledge and understanding with "what it takes." even though he's gone students years from now will benefit from him so much as many already have. that does it for "the cycle." martin, bashir it's yours. walmart rolls back and concedes to public pressure quickly.