up in the low to show where we get the real headlines with none of mercy working live out of washington d.c. how the military attack on get off he continues but who exactly is in charge and we have to wonder if this war is doomed from the start with no strategy no goals no endgame in sight and there are reports of more violence in the middle east this time coming out of israel rocket fire is picked up in recent days between israel the gaza strip and just today there was a bombing in jerusalem so what will happen if you become worse and what will the

u.s. do now that we have a rapidly changing middle east and more dismal news on the housing market at this point does anyone even pay attention anymore or has the news become just too depressing for americans to swallow and it's now easier to get a gun in the state of south dakota than it is for a woman to have an abortion so what does that say about this country and what happened to armageddon that was promised publicans when health care reform was passed exactly one year ago i'll speak with and despairing of the young turks and the latest attack on public employees florida's governor signed an executive order insisting that state workers face random drug testing as well as pre-employment drug testing does anyone else out there see this is a violation of your rights we're going to host a debate on the issue at the end of the program but now let's move on to our top story. the war against moammar gadhafi continues reports say the international air strikes forced the doppies tanks to retreat from the key western city of misrata on

wednesday the rebel council created the governing body in order and for its organized scuse me and the pounding by cruise missiles bombers and fire jets is only getting heavier that doesn't mean they can offer us any closer to stepping down or giving up and quite often that is promising a very long fight so what sort of supposed to happen next the u.s. continues to vow to take a step back after the initial phase but there also seems to be no cohesion amongst the allied forces involved in this initial fates today nate. countries fail to agree to take command no one can figure out what the goal of this mission is so politically militarily was this doomed from the start or discuss the witnesses lawrence korb senior fellow at the center for american progress well i think that much for coming here now obviously this is all interwoven but let's see if we can break it down militarily politically and let's just start with military strategy how do you possibly conduct an operation of this size when there really wasn't you

know a goal something that was agreed upon before it even happens now the goal was agreed upon the goal was to protect civilians who for free from killing. innocent people but how do you do that with airstrikes if not always easy to talk about isn't. what will the goal wasn't the goal was to prevent him from killing civilians which in fact he's not i mean basically we have accomplished and we're continuing to patrol and keep the pressure on him so that he can do what again their goal was for to you know remove gadhafi from power would you like that to happen sure but that's not the goal of the mission and there also seems to be a little bit of a problem in the sense that no one can really figure out who is in charge right because this is supposed to be an international coalition but at the same time you have the u.s. and the u.k. and france all with their own operations with their own names the u.s. is perhaps coordinating all of these efforts but the french defense minister

e ministry keeps reminding us that that does not mean that the u.s. has command nato now hasn't been able to agree upon whether they want to step in or not so what is that supposed to mean for the international coalition if the u.s. does step back very stupid probability for you the u.s. charge the french will always claim that they're not working to get up in the first gulf war you know they're going to want to go to the french military very professional and so they're working with everybody else you don't see french planes but bring in put you know planes will be divided. it's or anything but oh there were some reports that initially some of the french jets on saturday that went out that had been cleared or there wasn't. any type of the united states wanted to be the first player because we don't want to sort of be seen as the end of american involvement of a muslim country given the fact that we went into iraq under false pretenses now of course we don't want to be seen that way but i'm just asking then how technically even this defense secretary robert gates came out today and said possibly even by

this weekend the u.s. is going to take a step back how is that going to happen what's going to happen is we will not be flying those really well patrols with sixteen so that. we won't be larger as many cruise missiles because we've already accomplished our objective we'd be libya now safer aircraft for all of the all of the countries and again with us stepping back it gets the your marriage brand off there and it also tells people in the united states that we're not going to start a third war and other people are going to help us of course you know because they have more interest about than we do but it would be a really now safe for the civilians because they can take it off it isn't it doesn't look like he is going to step down anytime soon he quite the opposite is going to promise a long fight here with a man like moammar gadhafi he might start using civilians right as shields to protect his own forces and at that point are airstrikes really going to help the people on the ground well the fact of the matter is had this not happened he would be in control of gaza and he would have control of the country he doesn't have to

he's going to lose control of misrata and it's only a matter of time until his people or people supporting him turn on him because in addition to the military pressure we've also got economic pressure a lot of we've got it in bargo we've got a blockade and so basically he can talk all he wants more time is not on his side so you think that boots on the ground it doesn't have to become a reality in the city i don't think so because you've got boots on the ground in the sense of the. people who want to get rid of or bigger the boots on the ground and we are providing the protection and that they need dealing with with gadhafi politically president obama has not really been on message entirely here because one day he says gadhafi must leave the next day he isn't quite sure about that and you know i feel like a lot of people have felt confused that there is no cohesive message coming from the white house and from you know the military know what bob has been very clear he

wants he wants preval filipe what he's saying start to want to commit to being that while there maybe leave a military mission is not to get through the offer to leave or the military mission is to protect civilians but the ultimate goal is to leave the president has never said he wants to use military force to accomplish that objective but so how do you put the two and two together right now do you have a bit of a problem divide between the military and he already kosovo we wanted the last of its to leave kosovo for seventy nine days and finally perpetuated on the venture they got rid of but we did not do that you know by bombing them or anything like that but do you think of this is already being perceived as another war for america a lot of you would say that this is war no matter how long or how short it is right this is only ones who are involved that's why most people talk about no fly zone but the point of view of the united states it's not costing us anywhere near what iraq and afghanistan did but it wasn't his money it cost him his hundreds of millions of dollars that we're going to have we've already budgeted for mean in terms of you know if the ships and planes were not flying go farther north they'd

be out flying i mean i used to be unable to light also we had to fly so many hours at once they didn't have a war you'd be wrong anyway so it's not costing us no american troops are really in danger so yes it is a war but in terms with the american people they are not looking at it like you do afghanistan or you know the american people in fact a new poll came out today is that seven out of ten americans support these airstrikes because in order to protect civilians and see it as a humanitarian mission i think that's where most of the debate is whether it really will end. just a humanitarian mission or not do you think it's going to hurt obama politically helpful politically. for both the right of the left which was i think used to insult the right because basically they've seen him do two things one. international legitimacy and number two get other people to be reported the burden americans are tired of you know who we most with her we look for by themselves and he's definitely getting a lot of fire from there right lawrence thank you so much for joining us tonight.

and we have even more violence in the middle east today a small bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop outside jerusalem's main bus station today killing one woman and leaving at least twenty four others injured and this is the first bombing in jerusalem in four years leaving many wondering if we're about to see what's the long been a volatile situation descend into chaos and in recent days rocket fire between israel and the gaza strip has picked up israeli prime minister binyamin netanyahu said that this matter could entailed exchanges of close and it may take a certain period of time but he said that he is very determined to strike at the terrorist elements and then comes the next complication the hamas is taking responsibility for the strikes from gaza the bombing in jerusalem was claimed by islamic jihad a smaller faction within gaza so what happens if the situation gets worse and how will the u.s. respond to its closest ally in trouble while we're currently waiting three wars joining me as attorney christopher swift belo the university of virginia law school center for national security law christopher thanks so much for joining us again

tonight pleasure to be but do you think that the situation is deteriorating from what we've seen here not only over the weekend and in the past few days and seen a lot of airstrikes from both sides or rockets from both sides but now we have a bombing in jerusalem which hasn't happened in quite some time but let's be very clear the bombing in jerusalem today is tragic it is terribly sad but it's not terribly surprising fortunately rather than seeing so it's something completely new what we're seeing is the same dynamic that's gone on resolved for decades now playing itself out again. and it's trying itself again both because of the international situation but more importantly because of the lack of progress within israel and palestine currently towards some kind of final so but at this moment does it become all the more important because of all the unrest that we see in the middle east in north africa do we fear that this could actually get even worse get even more violent we have more extremist factions it's not just from last night also taking place let's break that question down to different parts you have the

concern of who's responsible for the different attacks in israel right it's pretty clear that katyusha rocket attacks from gaza into southern israel are hamas operation today islamic jihad claimed the operation it claimed the bombing in jerusalem these groups are aligned with one another politically they're aligned ideologically they may not be very well aligned operationally hamas is having trouble in the reining in islamic jihad so to the extent that you know absolute actors on both sides of this conflict are using provocation to promote their political agenda that's definitely a concern no backing up into the broader region concern isn't so much that israel and palestine will touch off in violence the neighboring countries if you look back at the gaza war in two thousand and nine that was pretty well contained because it was pretty much and israeli hamas conflict but if you look at everything that's happened in the greater middle east over the space of the last six weeks if you look at all the fundamental changes that have happened in so many countries having

this open wound in the heart of the middle east does not make anything easier for us and it certainly sends the wrong message to the young generation of performers that are looking for a better future and what message are we sending exactly because of course it's no secret that israel is our ally right the america where america will do anything it needs to protect israel but at the same time now we're trying to send messages that we are going to support democracy in some of these other nations but what happens if it's a type of democracy. they elected government just like hamas that we aren't so find out the danger that we consistently get is the one man one vote one time scenario which arguably happened with hamas in gaza. but looking at the bigger question the issue isn't so much which side are we going to choose right there's only one side here that's worth supporting and that's the side of peace and which already palestinians are for it the majority of israelis are for it willing to bet that if

you want to round and sampled the majority of the people who've been pushing for reforms in these arab countries across the region the majority of them would like to see a pluralistic stable beechen as economically prosperous and at peace with israel although i've had it happen if they have the majority on both sides is florida everybody would like to see peace in the middle east here then why can't we fix the problem here is the difficulty with insurgencies in any kind of insurgent situation which is what the consul arab israeli sorry the arab policy and put the israeli palestinian conflict fundamentally is provocateurs on either side can derail majority opinion were deep peace process by using provocative once we saw it today right we could send katyusha rockets over the border is israel response you have a terrorist bombing in jerusalem the city of peace israel's going to respond now israel has a right to respond and it should but that response has got to be absolutely targeted announced proportionate and when that response isn't that when things

happen like the accidental killing of the palestinian boys over the weekend it only feeds the same cycle of anger and hatred and bitterness that's been going on in this region for decades you know what we really need to take a look at the situation not in terms of which side we support or who's right who's wrong you know israeli absoluteness want peace without justice right palestinian absoluteness want justice without peace the simple fact of the matter is both sides know you can't have peace without justice and vice versa both sides know they have to make hard decisions and it's time for the. united states to step in and hold some hands and encourage people to start making some of those hard decisions i would love to see that happen and it's a very nice idea to say that it's time to stop saying that you must pick a side but think about it obviously people are going to expect the united states to take a side israel is going to expect the united states to take a side but the difficulty with both of these sides is that both of them are right both of them have done things that are very wrong and having this conversation that

we've been having for the last sixty years hasn't made anything better right the united states will always protect israel from an existential threat but at the same time we have to be willing to push our friends and our adversaries towards the negotiating table because a filter to negotiate here means an open wound in the center of the middle east for generations the car given what's going on right now in egypt and tunisia perhaps the i mean we might see a change of government there with bahrain in syria do you think that the u.s. is going to have to change their tune a little bit they're going to have to step back and come up with this once he gets to so much as that as it is a matter of reengaging and billing are you willing to take the risk that american administrations have deferred for decades even if those are military risks i don't think this problem this situation can be solved a military standpoint because they're always in the palestinians are more than capable of making each other's lives military lives miserable the united states is not a position where it can intervene militarily to prove that situation the kind of intervention i'm talking about is strong clear leadership in

a diplomatic and political domain preferred way from your american president that's focused on breaking these old ideas breaking these old cycles and working towards a constructive solution well i brought the obama can do that will certainly be something thing as no other president has been chris thanks so much christopher thank you so much for joining us tonight pleasure to see. now time for short break will we come back mike huckabee is doing what republicans do best waging the culture war to obscure from the issues that actually not this time he's taking on the gays our original going home sales mean ited states have reached the lowest point since j.f.k. was president the american dream seems so john and no one's talking about it anymore so is it simply too depressing for americans to face the music. let's not forget that we had an apartheid.

i think. either one well. we haven't got the live shows there can safely get ready for. a charter here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

new web site with twenty four seven live streaming news tell us what to do about it ongoing financial heart unlimited high poll of the videos for download. and stories you may never. be so a. little. aren't. you guys welcome to shell and tell me alone a show we've heard our guests have to say on the topic now we want to hear. just go on to you tube to video response or to twitter reply to the questions that we post on you tube every monday and on thursday to show your responses. later. what do you do when you have no novel ideas or solutions to the problems that face

america but you still want to be president full of eve you just wage a culture war you distract from the real problems of this country faces and you focus on abortion and gays and of course the left sinister plan to conduct background checks in order for you to get guns and mike huckabee has dive head first into this war he has decided to join the very full ranks the republicans including to who wish that they could go back in time who desperately wish that they could take back the progress that was achieved by the repeal of don't ask don't tell that's right huckabee like all of you before him has decided to take a grave stand against an issue that has brought support from the american people i think we all remember when paul empty the predecessor his conservative credentials were under fire so he said the following. more. recently in the phones for implementation for implementation of repeal.

it's not only does the don't ask don't tell is very very bad but if you elect in hell even defund if the implementation that is really super conservative you have to vote for progress or wait or go to go back in time much like the entire republican platform which now brings us to mike huckabee who your interview with one news now said the following he said there's been some talk of the military is fine with having same sex orientation people but if you really surveyed the combat troops that is not at all the case i don't think i'd be the decisions that politicians should make these are decisions that soldiers should make when the soldiers in the foxholes make the decisions they choose something different and we should listen to that. right how could be so when the pentagon did a study asking troops and found that upwards of seventy percent of those troops didn't believe that gay troops would undermine unit cohesion and the pentagon was lying even if the majority of the soldiers didn't want to repeal of don't ask don't

tell what about what the american people want this huckabee care about that the american people who pay for the military how can you overwhelmingly also support the repeal of don't ask don't tell and i guess that they don't get a say because they are in the foxholes the i'm not convinced that huckabee actually understands how our armed forces operate we don't hold the armed forces and let them decide when the entire country goes to war we don't poll the armed forces and ask them where we should leave the war for a little bit more complicated the next congress is involved theoretically that is i think we all know if you're libya that there are ways around that ideally the american people are involved and of course the president gets a say and in reality if we abide by our constitution which says that equal rights are for all polling means nothing because it's already said. as to apply to all including gates sorry but your reasoning just doesn't really pan out at all and ask her feeling don't ask don't tell good luck you can pander to your base all day long but that doesn't mean it's going to get you elected and it certainly isn't going to

convince the america as a whole to go back in time with you. he is a member that housing crisis in this country well it turns out that it just got worse the congress department released figures today for february home sales and new home sales fell by sixteen point nine percent are now the lowest point since the kennedy administration and it may get worse goldman sachs released a statement today saying that housing that has gotten so bad that investors can't even be disappointed and more so has it gotten so bad so depressing that we can't even talk about it and if that's the case and how are we supposed to come up with the next here to discuss with me is anthony randolph the director of economic research for the reason foundation and the thanks so much for being here tonight so when goldman sachs tells investors you can't even be upset anymore is that just mean that it's really all gone downhill that it's completely demolished we're at

the lowest place in the housing market by far since this is actually the crisis began really since one thousand sixty's has really began we began keeping data if you look at whether it's building permits in the new start like new starts of homes existing home sales new home sales they are all almost every statistic is at the lowest number lower than even when we were at the top of the recession when the housing bubble was really starting to crash and that is despite several years now the federal government seeking to try and probably the housing market to try and boost sales to boost prices. given that that's where we're at there's a lot of people who might say look now we've reached the bottom and we really can't be disappointed by bad numbers in the future because it's just it's so bad eventually it can only get better which is essentially what the goal report saying i think that there's probably some credence to that a truly the housing market does have to bounce back but i actually don't think that we're necessarily at the bottom yet worse than you thought we haven't even hit rock

bottom about how warm up in the here's and here's why i say that if you look at it's. estimates of how many homes still need to be purchased to clear out the inventory of all these homes built these neighborhoods outside las vegas or in orlando or outside phoenix just home after home that's not being sold or people were trying to sell their homes that care. to four years worth of homes that need to be purchased before we have a stable sustainable growing housing market three to four years depending on us that's a lot of homes so how much of that you know how much the fact that new homes are being sold is based on the fact that there are so many homes there under for a closure that people are going for those you know it's not because it's a lot cheaper that's certainly impacting the sale of new homes and why would you want to pay a high price to build a new home when you can get a short sale or a cheap home foreclosure that's absolutely the case and there's a lot of people that are saying this is a great time to buy prices really can't get lower but the fact is that there's

a lot of homes that haven't even hit foreclosure the foreclosure process has been slowed by a number of foreclosures last year just being overwhelmed with the number of homes that they need to actually put through the foreclosure process so we still have a lot of homes that need to go to be foreclosed on and then be put on the market which is going to depress prices so there's a lot of people that don't want to build a home right now because they don't know what their home is really going to be worth in a couple years because they don't know what the housing market is a lot you know around now you know you and i have tried to talk about this before unfortunately the last time we had one second ago is are they could near you while you relenting over guy but let's go back into the conversation too right because purcell many americans are the american dream was to own a home and fortunately bat just might not be the american dream anymore that maybe isn't realistic anymore but you say that the entire market needs to be privatized you know fannie and freddie obviously need to go but then what happens to all those people that bought that one day perhaps the government might help them reach that

dream but what needs to be privatized is the system of financing sort of the. how much money or where the money comes from the funding so i don't think that the american dream anymore really should be to own your own home it's not practical in a more. twenty first century where people are moving more frequently were travel is not what it was in the one nine hundred sixty s. you can go all over the world you can you know work in new york one year or two years later work in d.c. and that's normal we can still obviously people should still buy homes. we shouldn't have that but we shouldn't necessarily have a public policy the government shouldn't try to make sure that every single american owns a home that's the american dream that should change but if we privatized if we get rid of fannie mae and freddie macwhich and we don't have the government's basically financing the purchase of homes that doesn't mean that people are going to be able to buy homes it doesn't mean that the rates are mortgages are going to go skyrocketing high what it means is that it's going to be a little bit more expensive to buy

a home and it means that you're not going to buy a home until you can afford to buy a home and during the housing bubble we didn't see homeownership rates rise we just saw a really cheap kweisi i rent because the homeownership rates are now where they were in the ninety in the one nine hundred ninety s. all those people who did buy homes who thought that they had become homeowners that have now lost their homes they don't have any equity and so they're put into their homes they didn't really ever own their homes and so simply by getting rid of fannie mae and freddie mac. what we do is we say when you actually buy a home you're really going to be a homeowner you can actually achieve that american dream it's going to be a little bit more expensive so you're not going to maybe i hold in your twenty's you made by in your thirty's but that should be ok could it be that you never get to buy a home considering the way i. look at the economy right now look at unemployment we've seen so many study after study that says that this generation is going to be going to make less money than their parents did i mean do you think that americans can actually come to accept that that perhaps they might never ever be a home. if people are not able to buy

a home ever in their lives it's not going to be because fannie mae and freddie mac. own existence. it's not going to be because i will say it is not opening as a goal it's to support basically investors on wall street financing american homes . there certainly are going to be individuals that may never own a home that's maybe that's good maybe that's but it's appends and really where you live you may never be able to own a home in washington d.c. but if you really want to own a home you can move in work homes are a lot cheaper and you can be a homeowner there certainly are going to be markets where that may be the case but just because we have a private private market for financing those homes i think it's really interesting what the whole process is that doesn't mean that you'll never you know we're going to be able to hope they're still going to be money out there so you're still going to be like it was your survival of the fittest obviously not everyone you're not going to you know. given your well i definitely you know it's i think it's something that's going to be really hard for a lot of americans to come to terms with and it is depressing and i think that's

perhaps why we've seen less coverage of this issue lately it's because people just don't even know how to really talk about it anymore anthony thank you so much for joining us and it's now coming up next our tool time winner is one of the accused again the man leading the march to war against all of us seem so for a time that just two years ago he was praising the improvement of the u.s. relationship with the yes and telling letter to and it is now easier and the state of south dakota to buy a gun that is to get an abortion so liberal publicans realize that you can't be anti big government and pro invading people's lives and privacy. marvin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.