>> what do you tnk of when you see aree? a treatmt for cancer? alternative fuel for our cars? do you think of hope for the environmt, or food, cloing, shelter? we do. weyeaeuser, growingdeas. >> i will not vote and many of us will not voteor a final hoe-a senate compromise without a public optn. >> this we on "inside washingt," n trouble from

the left on health care. is the public option dd? meahile, the congenial debate continues. >> why doou continue to support nazi policy, obama has expressed sport this pocy? >> ohat planet doou spend mostf your time? >> also, afghans risked the lives to vote. as terrorist bombings escalate in iraq,the maliki government chooses not to ask for american help. e nation ses two legendary newsme robert novak and don hewitt. >> the secreis to find people who could tell thetory better an you can. captned by the naonal captioning institute --www.ncicap.org

>> i am looki for somebody who can tell me ofhe public option in president obam's health plan is still able. democratic senator kent conra says not ithe senate. >> look, the fact of the matter is that there are not the votes in the united states senat for the public option, they're never have been, so to continue to chase that rabbit i think it's just a wasted effort. >> after saying at the rabbit would obably be taken offhe table, health and human service secretary thleen sebelius gave the little fellow a newease on life >> absolutely nothing h changed. we continueo support t public option it. that ll help lower costs and if american consumers more choice and keep private insurers on this. >> roger simon, what is the status of the public opon rabbit rit now? >> i bieve without the public

oion, barack obama will not get the health careeform througcongress. he ishe head of left-of- ceer party. they want the publ option. kentonrad, i should pot out, is not the whip of the sate. he is not counting votes. dickurbins great when i see dick durbin on televion saying th the public option is - dick dbin is. when i see dick durbin on television saying that the publicption is dead, i will believe it. >> im reminded of the general chesty puller. he was srounded and he said, "we ha them just where we want them." that is whereobama finds himself. hes surrounded. he has conrvatives after him, as the blu dogs after him,he liberals after him, the commentators,olitical commtary class after him. do not think that he is going to pull a chesty puller, but i

not thinke iout of the ga yet. why do i say that? lyndon johns sd to clarence mitchell and the naacp wn they're pushing the civil-rights bill -- mitchl went to himnd said he hadomething he really had to ruff, and g elected him and said, "how many vot do you have, crence?" that is wt it will come down to with obama. >> the wascally wabbi is dead. in the e, liberals are bluffing. ra liasson npr t it coectly. there no left wing democrat who will losa seat if the option is leftout of the bill. there are moderate docrats who wi lose seats if the option is in the bill. th will determine how it goes. ere will be no pubc oion. ther might be a co-opdea, whicis a trojan horse. >> i don't think there will be a

co-opdea. at has faen pretty flat. it would not surprise me if th house pass a bill with a public option in,nd the senate paes some bifurcadhing that ds not have a public option, and it is all result in congress, probablyithout some sort of publ option. --is all relved in conference,probably wiout some st of public option. >> you ha the blue dogs digging in their heels, you have howard de saying thathe public oion pass to be there howould l handle is? >> hwould not haveeld public meetings. giving the oppositioa chance to ce and waved sis and talk out socialismnd death pane. heworked with congrs but he got medicare tough congress in 1965. it w the last of thereat society. he got considerablbipartisan

suort. >> the other thing he did was unt votes. this is but omaas got to do. starts out with clearly0 votes the sate. althe republicansill vote against him. with the public option in, and pbably without apublic option. he has kent crad, of who will go somewhere else, scorce will not suort the public option. where does h -- or says he wi not support the public opti. where does he get the fift60 vo? has got to dohe math, and if they haveot done that, that is awfully surising. >> why does obama court the reblicans any way? >> he i not courtin republica. are you kiing? iall the argumts are within the democrats. the left democra want the

puic optio and thelue dogs are about the cost of the program. the reblicans are entirely irrelevant. he likes tblame it on republicans, but it is within his party. he has a morityn the house that is huge, and a super majority in thsenate. >> but he does nohave a filibuer-proof -- >> he does -- >ted kennedy and natur, so the he does not have 60 ves even if he had -- does not show up,so he does not have 60otes evenf he has every democrat's support him. barack obama is not lyndon johnson. lyndon johns did not have to cope withtalk radio and cable tv. the are very differentimes. >> why not just passed theill you want and let republica filibuster? >> what ll hapn is that yo will end up with a slimmed down bill that erybody agrees wi be high regulation of insurance compani. everybody is eligible, no

preconditions, you do not get dropped if you get sick, and caps on payments are lifted everybody will agree tha will be individual mandates. young people e going to have to pay into the stem. everybody will agree on tt. all the other stuffill probab fail. >> if he comes u with a bill that cuts down substantially o the 46 milon who are uninsured, he has achieved quite a victory. >> have more queions about health care d the debate. >> my obligatio to the american people says we will g this one one way or the other. >> peggy noonan writes i "the wall street joual" this week that every big idea tha works is marked by clarity. ere is the clarity in this debate, nina? >> that is the probm. there artoo many movin parts. i's like the hum back.

most people have back pblems, and mrobama has ba problems beuse there is the question of controingosts, who do you cover, the devery of services. th is the pblem. of course, these are all real problems. but it is just too ha to explain. there isot a single thing. what i don't unrstand is th nazi analogies,people showg up with hitlerustache is pnted on presideobama. peop showing up with loaded weapons. at presidential four run how do they t away with that? >> that a provocative act and act of intimidationnd has no place in pitics. maybe ey are trying tsay that the second amendmt is a viable a that they are emphasizing their right to the second amendment. this isgoing to have political discourse. it ialso potentially very dangerous.

>> i wan to say something about this. during t bush administratn, there wereots of people pushed away from rlies because they haa john kerry button maybe not even displayed. little old ladies wer the administration would alys say it is theecret service. now there are people outside with guns. peopleay thathey are not breaking the law. this is clearly a decision by the obama administration t to ha a big fight wh a gun rights peopl if the secreservice decided that s threateng, they would arrest those people. i personally conder it threatening pre i uld arrest the people. >> i wouldarrest th as well, although i think it is highly exgerated. nancpelosi talking about people caring nazi insignias. half a dozen, perhaps? it is a way to ta honest, mile-age people speing in a emocracy. msc edited out -- it had a

segment on a guy with automatic fle outside a rally, d implied that he was a threat. it was actually african- ameran, and it was stunt put on by aocal talk radio host. all that was left out o that report it implied that is right wing i nets. >> there are right wingfrican- americans. >> but he would not be racist. it was edited out opurpose. >> to get back tohe issue of clarity, the other si is against socialism and dea panels and hitlelike actions of barack obama. on bark obama's site, as nin said, here we are in mid-to- late-gust and there is no clarity with barack obama's position. does he want a public option? doe he want, what? uld he sacrifice th for the

bill? how is he ing to pay r it? will hejust taxillionaires' like nancy pelosi once? -- wants? how far is he willing to go to get to thehouse and senate? would he nd a filibusr? on and none of those critical points has there bn any cavity >> andhere is a good reason, i think,or it. you start t with something like health care th has been debated for 50 years. you have to know where everybody is on the sueyou have 535 members up there. you have to know where the stand. he is takintime to flush them out. y need to know wre your vote are on the publi option. you need to know where your tes are on all of these issues before you answer -- time is on his side. i don't think so. >> tim is on his side and we

will talk offi next january -- talk about this next january -- >> it has been a long and costly flush if that is the case. let me ask about the letter ted kennedwrote to the governor of massachusetts asking to change in law -- a lawo that there is no vacancy in the senate seat before special election. >> w was behind thchange? edward kennedy. his letter was touching, bu his hypocrisy is staggering. the tradition in massachusetts had always immediate appointment. u don't have a vacancy and you go ahead. as a w to keep d romney from appointing a scessor to prident kerry, kennedy was the onwho changed the law. all a sudden he has discoveredhe virtues of having two seats oupied at the same time. >> it does not lk good at thi point because the democrats are sullen and the republins are

crowg about this. but he wants to make sure that massachusetts s two senators -- >> he did not care about that four years ago. >> now, he dot, but now he does. >> he cou not to his sister' funeral, seemingto be indication thate will nev get to washgton to cast a vote. when we say the democrats nd 60 votesthey could do without kennedy's te as longas they could pickp a republican vote or two. >> snowe and collins, maybe. inabul, there were couisinbaacot talib's best efforts to keep voters away. one election officia estimates th 40%o 50%f the nation's voters showed up. fewer than 70% who vot in the

rst national election in 200 people have hopeor democracy , i guess but keep wonderg if this is aar of necessity the president says it is and he said so on mday. but ist? >> i do not knowf it is until i look xt door and pakistan. then i cannot figure t how, if yo have a gh style taliban- ty government on the border of pakistan, the next pce to go will be pakisn. then y are in real trouble. ou are talking about a country with nuclear wpons. >> here is a country with illages, very remote, tribal allegiances that shift sometim on a daily bis. >> ather baugher where we really do not undersnd where we a fighting. we understand what we e fighting f, but it not clear if we will er get there. if they vote in the 40% 50%

range,hat puts thembout where e united states is, so i am not sure we shou be too crital of tha the upshot is does iteally matt to the outcome of this more whohey ele? you are collecting the government is afraid to leav the capital ty of kabul, has lile support in the countrysi. you have a american and na troops that e fighting to create democracy ia plac where it s never flourished. >>ournitial sweep to vicry in toppling the taliban gave u the idea that we could turn afghanistan into a real count and real docracy. that isactually an illusn. it never w a country and wl not be a democracy as we undetand it. what ourbjective is is a minimal objectes. we kw that the enemy wie activend will have some influence in t south. our objecte is to mainta the

capital andwhat used to be the no. alliance. and holdhat line. i thi the minimal objectives achievable but the ide a sile, unified country that is democratic is a complete edition. -- illusion. >> president obama dine his objective early on as defeatg the taliba defeating the taliban is one thing cld nation-building is completely different if he goes into t area of nati buiing -- >> how do you deft the taliba without the tion-building? >> do y build anation at the same time? >> in iraq,errible sectarian violence this week. 30,000 american oops still in and around the city of bhdad. the maliki gernment did not call them i for assistance. ean, a close political adviser to the government, said

that we want them out of here a quicy as we can get them out, the ericans. >> we have had pblem with maki as recently as the success in basra. he attacked the sadrites, but it w a close victo and it was erican helpn the end that helped. heas always overestimed his stngths. in taking us out, he again overestimated s strength an now he seemseaker than he wa this is a winnable war, but it could be unwinnable if the iraqis assume at they are in control in situati where they a not quite ready and keep out as happened in this way. >> i do not agree with that construction at l. look at ithis way -- in aust wehave had two amerin casualties in iraq. two. this is an iraqiroblem. how the iraqis handle theight with sunnis and shiites is their

business. th want areferendum in january to get us out soor, that is eir business. our job is not toake sur that the iraqis get along with one another. we ve done the job tt we had to d weon't have to stay there. winning the w is their business. >> we destabilize the country and now we say it is broke d we wl not fix it and that is what the iraqi government wants to rd the malik governnt's desions are probabl wronfor the couny but goodor the united states. thousands of lives and trillions f dollars. th money would buy us 10 years of heah care reform. i think our le there is and should be over. >> if we used those resources in afghanistan and the beginning, we would bin a much better situation. >>right, and how exactly wld you have used them? in iq, wehave the potential of an extremely portant stragic ally and it reires a

slig bit of patience and few more months rather tn a quick and complete withdrawal. >> and when it is done, we go. >> let me ask you about the cia hiring and traing blackwater contractors to g outnd assassate al qaeda-types be it must've be a hell of a aining job. >>it is thultimate in the contractinproblem. >> congress never ard about th. you have to have govement responsie for itself. in theoming weeks, we will have much more of this ki of stuff. the inspector general's report onhe cia and tortureis comg out. eric holder we probably a sign a prosecutor to look into whether anybody exceeded t rules put down by the bush administraon. we ll probably have e

inspectogeneral's report out of justice about whether the lawyers the acted improrly in setti down the torture rule. >>oesn't all this publ airing of dirty laundryefeat the rpose of intelligen gathering? >> but in the se of the investigations tha yo expect the justice departnt to laun, the high justice department official taed about thisame issue and said that people died as result of tse interrogions'. u have to do something in th case. yo cannot just step back and say that that is wt it is. >> we are never ing to bend the cost curb on assassations if we ep doing this stuff out. i rememberhen american agencies want to asssinate omebody then they didt themselv. we did noto out andquandered $2million. >> i like that idea, but there a counter argument. what would these assassinations

as sensibly do? look, it never happened, only ideas. ifou want to kill a guy pakian, you use a drone but if you want to kill a guy in hamburg, killing h in the west is hard. you have problem with a local street you wt to use a contractor, because this is easiero deny. the reason the program in the d was abandoned was bause it was a shoong bad guys in hamburg and paris d london. >> contting these guys is an old practice of the cia. ey hired the mafia to go after castro. this is nothg new. >> that did nowork out well. >> as i recall, that wathe kennedy ys. >> yes, it was. it did not wk o well. normally this do not work out well.

>> is that really a good licy? >> i think it is a wonderful policy if you get the right guys. >> allied with people we cannot control- >> let's say y find somebody in brazil and yemen who was not exactly your friend, you should a guy. >>let me ask you about a guy who s in prison for the bombing of pan am 103. 27 people die 189 of them amerins. he was jt released by scottish authorities for compassionat reasons. >> the better disoon. >> he has cancer. terrible miscarrie of justice. by theay, this guyooks healthy me. one guy, the scottish secreta of justi, it was his decision and his alone. fact, the sco have granted 80% of such requests over the last 10 years.

>> ts is a scand. cadences masquerading as compassi. somebody a "nation review" did calculation -- th guy served 11 days f everyerson he mdered. >> robert novak, wbrought you on, i have toe honest, to be the cynic >> i ha never been one in my life. >> he died this week after a long illness. would you aee with him or not, the prince ofarkness -- heoved that -- nobody in the town worked haer. >> he was a journalist who believed in jonalism, like the late mary mcgrorydid. i kn him in different way. in washinon, things are not always as they seem agreed for example, i deepl lov charles krauthammer.

people may not know that. with robert novak, i met him 40 years ago. i knew him as a parent. our kids were in high school to get there. then he had a show that nobody really saw with indust people in washingto we spent half an hour tother talking aut wasngton,.c., d nothing ideological at all it was a ofessional but not an ideologue. >> colby and i areoing to ope to massachutts. [laughte he was ally ieresting, and what distinguished him was his independence. he waa columni who did reporting so he di not have to be edited by anybody. he said exactly what he lieved. was hisndependence that made him so invaluable. >> he waslways very nic to be even though im sure he considered my politics deplorable. think it was aays a surprise to him that people dinot like him because his politics. he was always able to separate in his mind his core humanity from simply s political liefs.

>> that is absolutely right. it is so funny that he was called the prce of darkness. th washis public persona, but he wasuch aecent, nice rson personally that it is a mismatch. >> don hewitt -- we could do whole show about don hewitt. he was producing television news when most wereistening to e radio. d the kennedy-nixon debates produced the first half-hour evening newscast, produced about 60 minutes where he donstrated that it is possible to make money doing newsprt i will leave it up to others to decide wther that wagood or bad anotherreat newsman di, alan otten, former washington reau chief of "the wall street journal." last word. thanks. see you next wee for a tracript of this broadcast, log on to insidewashington.tv.