>> what do you think of when you see a tree? a treatment for cancer? alternative fuel for our cars? do you think of hope for the environment, where food, clothing, shelter? we do. weyerhaeuser, growing ideas. >> how did you become so wealthy on the government payroll? >> that is kind of a low blow >> this week on "inside washington," as democrats

prepare for the worst, the white house on which is the most powerful weapon. the 2010 debates, political discourse at its most elevated level. >> there have been seven dead wrestlers since she started the campaign. >> the lincoln-douglas debates they are not. >> you are jealous that you were not on "saturday night live." >> nobody knows how many times it was transferred. >> a federal judge orders a halt to open " don't ask, don't tell." >> this policy will end on my watch, but i have an obligation to make sure i'm following some of the rules. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> the word you hear repeatedly about this town from the political soothsayers with

regards to november 2 is "bloodbath," as in democratic bloodbath. the white house has dispatched the democrats' most powerful spokesperson to help sinking candidates in several states. >> we have come too far to stop putting the american dream that i know, and my husband knows, and russ knows, back within reach for all of us. we have come too far. >> that is michelle obama, trying to throw a lifeline to russ feingold in wisconsin. can she save him, mark? >> if he is saved he will save himself. michelle obama, the lightning rod, controversial figure in 2008, has emerged as the more popular. she can go to colorado. the president has not been, to my knowledge, invited back to colorado since he helped michael bennet win the primary. she can go where he cannot, and her numbers are high. as far as delivering votes, we

don't deliver votes in this country, we don't deliver groceries, we barely deliver mail. >> 68% approval rating, michelle obama. does putting her out there put that in jeopardy, nina? >> i don't think so. the only time she was controversial was early on in the campaign. she is an incredibly graceful surrogate, who can only help a candidate she cannot elect a candidate any more than any president really elects a candidate. but she can help, and she can certainly help raise money and give a warm, fuzzy feeling. >> how does it look to you, evan? >> obama's approval rating is not that bad compared to congress. he is sort of a lame-duck, even though he has only been there two years. there is nothing positive he can do. mostly he is just a bystander in

all of this. >> a bystander, charles? >> in a country wracked with anxiety over the dead wrestler issue, it is good to see how response of our political system is. as for michelle, she will not make an iota of difference in any of these races. her husband is toxic in most of these races. as for wisconsin, russ feingold, i think, is one of the most principled members of our political class i have seen in 30 years. of all the democrats who mention obamacare, almost all of them are running advertisements against it. he is the guy who was standing up and defending it, knowing how unpopular it is. i salute him. he has narrowed the gap a little bit, but he is behind and looks as if he is not going to make it. >> they have the first lady out there, because they know republicans will show up at the polls and they are afraid democrats, especially younger ones, will stay hundred home. --

stay home. the president speaking to students at george washington university and did a town hall on mtv. >> health care passed and i'm proud of the fact that a lot of people here will benefit directly. >> when asked about partisan sniping, the president was conciliatory. >> i am confident that if we work together over the next several years, the political temperature will go down, the political rhetoric will go down, because we will actually be making progress on a lot of these issues. >> is he going to be able to get the young people out there to vote? >> no, the surge in the 2008 election was three basic groups, african-american voters, college towns, and first-time voters. you cannot at souffle to rise again. but he obviously has to get the electorate out, because the

republicans have target and are harvesting older voters. republicans run advertisements defendant stopping the cuts in medicare. >> and older voters have just learned that for the second year in a row, the cost of living increase will not be applied to their social security. >> well, there is no cost-of- living increase, which is why you are not getting the money. nothing is being taken away from them. >> but you tell that to them -- >> it is like 1%. >> that is why i am not running for office. >> what has struck me about this campaign, and i have talked to a bunch of members of congress, is the ugliness of it. i am not sure why people continue to run for office. i talked to a bunch of members, including a couple of very senior republicans, who are kind of frightened by the ugliness and the nastiness and. >> i think it has been a

splendid campaign -- [laughter] and election day will be more splendid. the news of the week, particularly with the president, was not what we saw in that clip. it is what he says in "the new york times magazine" coming out on sunday -- it is already on the internet -- in which he tells peter baker that he has just realized that there is no such thing as a shovel-ready project. now, that will come as a surprise to americans who invested $1 trillion in projects that he told us over and over and over again were shovel- ready. quite an admission. if you are a democrat who supported the stimulus, you are way out on a limb and the sound of the saw is coming from the white house. >> will house republicans go out on that limb -- house democrats? >> the conventional wisdom is that the house is going to go republican. but the charles' .

- -- charles' point -- the truck for the modern president is to somehow arise out of love muck -- the muck. how could the president not be noticed? he has the greatest political but in the world. but somehow, has managed to make himself not irrelevant, but kind of lame. he has got to salvage his presidency and find out how to make people listen to them. >> first of all, he may do it too much media. >> maybe, but he has not found a way to make himself listened to. >> i think he looks tired and that. you cannot do that when you are president. you have to wrap the kind of energy that reagan and clinton -- >> the problem is that he looks a little tired and a little mad. if he was really mad -- >> his way of rising out of the muck is to accuse the chamber of

commerce of secretly using foreign money without a shred of evidence so that even "the new york times" points out in a news story that there is no evidence for any of that. >> let's examine some of the elegant rhetoric of the campaign as the president tries to rise out of the muck. >> what opinions of late that have come out of the high court to you most object to? >> oh, gosh. give me a specific one. i'm sorry. >> actually, i cannot, because i need you to tell me which ones you object to. >> i'm very sorry to write off the top of my head, i know there are a lot, but i will put on my website, i promise you. >> that is christine o'donnell, running for the senate in delaware. there is the controversy and the california governor's race over the use of the word "whore," there is the candidate in ohio who dressed up like a nazi and accused his opponent of

character assassination in talking about it -- [laughter] >> it was a re-enactment. he was not driving a mercedes and carrying a gun. clarification. i have never defended in nazi before, actually. [laughter] >> i knew the first nazi that charles defended would be a republican candidate for congress. >> as harry reid would say, that is a low blow. [laughter] >> how about the debates? does anybody have a favorite? >> i guess my favorite is the california gubernatorial debate. christine whitman who cannot stop smiling -- >> meg whitman p >. >> meg whitman, who cannot stop smiling, and jerry brown, who has forgotten how to smile -- >> he says he has stopped going

to bars at night. >> i think the fact that we have a limit on how much somebody can stand and be effective, she is going to lose. >> politics has become a freak show. if you go into politics, you have to know that you are going to be a clown, will be subjected to ridicule. whatever you do in your background, whatever flyn on you will be magnified times 23 david brooks at and adjusting column on this guy kirk -- had an interesting column on this guy kirk, water republican, exaggerated his record a little, and he is getting killed. >> who is your candidate? >> paladino. he was not in a debate, but he got into a shouting match with a reporter why he said something like "i am going to rub you out

--" >> "take you out." >> then he got into a talk on homosexuality in front of hasidic rabbis. imagine that in your head when he was -- but it was over, he spent three days apologizing, and the rabbi repudiated him. you cannot make that stuff up. >> he is the howard beale -- "i am mad as hell --" >> the outside, unreported money is 9-1 republicans. we are going to seek billions of dollars by the end of this campaign. politifact, which has analyzed these advertisements run by we don't know who, those are the ads that are not true. they say that 80% of those are

basically false. they may have a kernel of truth in them, but basically false. the ones that are accountable, where you see somebody say, "i am gordon peterson and i paid for this ad," pose a basically most of the time it true. the other ones, forget it. when you see the little tag line at the bottom, it is not there long enough, and i'm too blind to see it. >> what about the attack on the chamber of commerce with foreign money? >> absolutely fallacious. they made it up, the white house did. but that is not the story. the real story is domestic money. billions of dollars, lack of accountability, not lack of transparency. you don't know who is giving it, you don't know why they are giving it, you don't know who's behind it. take the case of eight two-term democratic congressman in iowa, and a group called american

feature fund spends $800,000 against him. he is resourceful and he will withstand it, but the charges, again, have been false. all you need is one of these guys, one member of congress, going down with an outside group spending $1 million. it would send paralysis of fear throughout the congress. nobody in the next congress would do anything but raise money in anticipation of an outside group coming against them. and making a big point about not alienating any outside interests that wants to repeal the estate tax -- >> according to mike allen of "politico," money is pouring in. >> it is hard to imagine congress getting any more paralyzed that is. >> you may not like what congress has done in the past two years, but they did stuff.

they passed health reform, a financial institution reform. these are big accomplishments. these are big accomplishments, and there are big interests that don't like them. big financial interests that don't like them. >> it is hard to require sacrifice in making tough votes. >> what you are missing is the major accomplishments, and they were. health-care reform is a historic accomplishment. i think it is a mistake, but it is historic financial reform, health care, stimulus, cap-and- trade, which was halfway successful, at least in the house, is what has stirred this resentment and anger and pushback. >> do you think that is true? >> it is exactly over what this administration and congress have done. >> the key to success is doing nothing? >> no, if you are going to do something, you do something other than obamacare, $1

trillion up stimulus on shovel- ready projects and then and now a year-and-a-half later that there are none. the american people think money was wasted and they are right. >> let me go back to the connecticut senate race. is there embellishment there with mr. blumenthal as well? >> he embellished his military service. serving in vietnam, when he only served stateside. he seems to have overcome that and put the focus on nonprescription pharmaceuticals in the world wrestling association, and his appointed's association with that institution. >> she says, "i know how to run a business," and that is -- >> he should not be in trouble at all. hugely successful attorney general.

the fact that he is in trouble is a sign of how in the whole democrats are. >> this is a recurring theme in election after election. there is no privacy. but it is not a cardinal sin to have done this. a guy like blumenthal, who has a long record of public service -- yes, it was stupid and at what he did. same thing with kirk, he should not have done that. but it should not cancel out everything they have done in their career. >> nobody gives politicians any slack at all. they give their kids slack, they give their family slack -- >> and as a result we don't get good people running for office. >> how about california, how does barbara boxer look? >> if jerry brown and barbara

boxer both went, it would be the ultimate revenge on pete wilson, the republican governor who in 1994 pushed an anti-immigrant proposal and alienated in perpetuity the growing, burgeoning latino vote in that state. ronald reagan had the latino vote when he ran for governor of california. they've lost it in perpetuity. >> given all that, it is amazing how close that race is, particularly because of the history that mark just talked about, how close is and that state, and as nina said, how close is in connecticut. there are all of these peccadillos and wonderful, quirky stories and debates all over the country, and all the money thrown in. this is really an ideological election, a wave election, and it is about what the congress under the democrats has hundred you asked earlier they had done

nothing -- here is what they could have done. tax reform, tort reform. there are a lot of other issues where you could have had a centrist answer. that obama himself -- had obama himself in this story in "the times" said he wished he had put tax cuts and it is the list to bring republicans - -- in the stimulus to bring republicans -- >> it is not going to be a great republican victory in the sense that it will beef up the republican party. independents, who voted heavily for obama and 2008, are now voting republican. it does not mean that they are republican, it means they are anti-democrat. >> this is not an ideological election, this is an anger

election. democrats are angry and everybody. >> in just about every case, the company thrown -- overthrown, republican or democratic, are attacked from the right. >> the land of milk and honey that charles describes is wonderful. but the republicans oppose things they were for historically. individual mandates -- john chafee and bob dole on national health insurance, tax cuts for small business, they opposed it. >> just when you think they could not have fouled up the mortgage situation even worse, something comes along to surprise you. >> hsbc, a trust, but that is not that i had my note with it and my mortgage. when i found out, i went to my attorney, and we spoke about it and we filed a motion to dismiss the case. >> all clear on that? as the allegation against bank

of america and jpmorgan chase, the talk about fake social security numbers, forged documents, mortgages sliced and diced so that you cannot tell who owns them, state's attorney general filing lawsuits, i don't know why people have so little confidence. >> we thought that we were rescued in 2008, 2009, by tarp and all of that, but we are past all that. there is the suggestion that we are not, that we could have another big financial crisis. the banks, who are dead center in all this, at all this bad paper, or cannot find a paper, i guess, and they will not be able to lend any money and they could have another financial crisis, maybe not on the scale of 2008, but enough to give a sharp jolt to a shaky economy. >> they are not going to get another rescue. they have been paying themselves millions of millions of dollars in bonuses.

i don't understand why, because they don't lend, but they are. nobody feels sorry for them. i think people feel that this is their just deserts. they screwed up once, and now screwed it up twice. if they lose money, so what? that will have a huge effect -- >> taking down the banks -- >> i understand that, but people don't understand that. >> what to say something nice about the banks? >> the wonderful story is the political story. if you w what happened immediately after this erupted, five democratic senators immediately called for a moratorium on foreclosures. the white house immediately reacted by saying no. they understand it if you do that, it sounds wonderful, justice, sweetness and light, you are going to save all the people. if you impose a moratorium right

now, you will have a financial catastrophe. you seize up the entire recovery in the housing market, such as it is, and when you release the moratorium, you will unleash a million houses on the market and there will be a third collapse. the white house has been very careful, even though they want to make a populist argument, because it would destroy our system all over again. >> let's look at the facts. fraudulent work, it illegal, on the part of the banks. they signed off on the documents they never read. why? because of the feverish pursuit of profit. when people paid the mortgage payments one month later to an institution they never heard of, and then three months later, it was a different institution. they securitized all these mortgages in a headlong gold rush. now they say, "but these people who hired people at minimum wage --"

>> well, what do we do about it? how do we fix it? >> we cannot in any way reward this behavior by the banks. >> the banks are so big and central to our economic existence, if we really punish them, we're back in the soup. >> so we just say, "hell of a job, another bonus"? >> if people could not do the loan modifications, they would lose the house. >> now the latest chapter in the "don't ask, don't tell" wars. >> all i ever wanted to do was go back to my unit and do my job. just for that chance, i am really excited. >> that is an air force major, a decorated flight nurse ordered to be reinstated by a federal judge in washington state. she was discharged for being gay. a judge in california put a halt

on all investigations into gay service members, but that is that the end of it. -- not the end of it. >> the federal government has an obligation to defend the laws of the land even if they think it is unconstitutional. that is what obama is doing, trying to do it through congress. my suspicion is that by the time this goes through the courts, it may not stand. that is the hammer hanging over congress' head. but it is going to be messy. it is not going to be easy. >> secretary of defense robert gates has been emphatic about this, that there is a process going on and he wants it to contribu -- to continue. questionnaires have been returned to military personnel, a 50,000 questionnaires back if you talk to military people off the record, they say they are worried about recruitment. i think the legislative process is necessary, going to the

political process of congress -- >> i do, too, but that is the problem. congress is so stuck. i am not sure they are going to ok this. >> the president is right, and he ought to be commended on acting on principle. we do things in this country often slowly, but in the end it usually ends up right. but if you short circuit it, as with abortion, and do it early as a judicial act, you end up with 20 or 30 years of unnecessary strife. i have said that on this issue, but you should do it my way, and that is through congress. >> last word. see you next week. for a transcript of this broadcast, log on to insidewashington.tv.