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>> 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, or food, clothing, shelter? we do. weyerhaeuser, growing ideas. we are counting up the delegates for the convention, it looks good, and we are counting the days until november and that looks better. >> this week on "inside washington," romney wins more than he loses, but santorum and gingrich hang in there. >> if the governor thinks he is ordained by god to win, let's have it out. >> iran and talk of war. >> those who are beating the drums of war should explain clearly what they think costs and benefits would be. >> a visit by the israeli prime minister. the energy debate. >> the president of the united states is lobbying against american jobs.

>> ninnewt vs. rick. >> i and the tortoise. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> it was not a knockout, but mitt romney did win ohio, massachusetts, virginia, and vermont, and it appears unlikely that santorum working rich or certainly ron paul can come up with enough delegates -- or gingrich or certainly ron paul can come up with enough delegates to take it away from him. according to the latest "loss two journal"-nbc news poll, the republican candidates have taken a beating in this campaign. romney -- peter hart says voters are not sure who the guy is or what his values are. ->> i want to know what you

want to be remembered for. >> around at my home, i want to be known as a good father. >> romney seems to be a good father, but what can he do to convince blue-collar women, men, latinos and others that he would be a good president of the united states? charles? >> there are questions of what a good dog owner he is, but we will not go into that. he needs this over with it. he has got to do a knockout. he has every opportunity at a knockdown. every time he wins, he slips in the next round. then he can turn his attention to the president. until then, he will continue to be damaged and diminished. >> nina? he should do and

is doing is have his wife with him all the time. not just because she seems like a regular prison, but he seems more at ease and more like a real human being when he is with her. mark tells me that is in contrast with other candidates. he has this problem of high negatives now because of the negative campaign he has had to run. that is not something you get rid of easily. colby? >> the rap is that he will say or do anything to get elected, and he has not this bill that during the campaign. -- he has not dispelled that during the campaign. and he has campaigned negatively against the other candidates with the onslaught of negative ads against gingrich and santorum. he is paying the price for that. >> mark, what does mitt romney have to do to up his game. >> the lesson of richard nixon

in 1968. richard nixon ran as a competent, experienced, able alternative to the democrats in power. that is what mitt romney has to be. he has to forget it touchy-feely thing. it does not work for him. i agree with my colleagues, the observations made about him, all of which are accurate. the reality is that he is in authentic when he tries to present himself as anything other than what he is, a turnaround artist, but family man. that is fine, but he is a turnaround guy and that is what the argument ought to be exclusively. >> i'm thinking of what joe biden once said -- you have to take a risk when you are running for president. the wrist he did not take this week that he should have was to say something less than complimentary about rush

limbaugh. it was a perfect opportunity for what is called a sister souljah moment, to say that i don't always play it safe, i have real values, you went over the line. and to make the optics or is, bain capital owns a clear channel, which is the rush network. the optics of it are not great. >> i am sure that is a liberal supreme, but when the president of the united states apologizes for what bill maher said about women -- >> i did not say he should apologize. >> when obama speaks about maher's misogyny as he takes $1 million for his campaign, i would expect romney to acknowledge somebody else. the hypocrisy on the left -- >> about what?

>> rush limbaugh and the spokesman of the republican party, as if misogyny is exclusively the province of conservatives and republicans. you have it all the time with maher, chris matthews, and with this guy -- ck louis, or louis ck at the congressional correspondents dinner. when i hear a denunciation on the left, i will expect one on the right. >> we can waste time on rush limbaugh -- >> i didn't bring it up. >> let me go back to the point mark made about 1968 and might this is different from mitt romney. 1968, richard nixon had a vietnam. that is what romney lax. the issue he thought he was going to have, the economy, may

still be there but not to the extent that he thought. atat week's end, we were 8.3%, added 227,000 jobs. >> richard nixon in 1968 stayed within his game. he never tried to be funny, never tried to be particula rly engaging with widows or small children. he was who he was. that is what i am suggesting romney has to do. the problem romney has is not unlike that of john kerry, democrat. john kerry was the dream candidate drawn up on the board to run in 2004 against a party that brought the country into war, with george bush, who had a spotty record, and big cheney, who had no military record -- and dick cheney, who had no

military record. john kerry did not turn out to be a candidate who engage people emotionally. mitt romney in many respects was drawn up as a challenge at fort tough economic times. if the economy improves, it is is bad for his prospects. >> richard nixon went on "laugh in" and said "sock it to me," the first time a candidate for president at done something so circus-like. it is not as if he did not try to get out of character. mark is right. what romney can also do, aside from saying i am a turnaround artist, is to make the argument against obama about liberal overreaching and big government. that is the case he can make. he is a moderate conservative, not a hard-line conservative. the moderate conservative can make the case about stewardship and audiology. -- ideology. it could win the presidency.

>> a word about israel, iran, and talk of war. >> at this stage it is my belief that we have a window of opportunity where it can be solved diplomatically. >> when it comes to israel's security, israel as the sovereign right to make its own decisions. >> i do not have a policy of containment. i have a policy to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon. i will take no options off the table, and i mean when i say. >> it is a sample of what went on this week with regards to iran and israel. what are we looking at with regard to iran in the next few months? >> it is hard to predict, but israel has every right to say -- netanyahu has every right to say that israel must be the master of its own fate. and president obama has every right to say i will do what i have to do at the time of my

choosing. the united states and israel have mutual interests, but they are not synonymous. israel has to protect its borders. if the united states engages in a conflict with israel -- with iran, as charles said a couple of weeks ago, we are not likely riyadh --yingi in the saudis and the gulf states would be happy to see a strike. but as roger simon said last week, the problem goes beyond the arab countries and what happens in the muslim world. that is no reason not to take a strike, but here is what is important -- the united states has to be prepared for contingencies. our interest go beyond our shores. if you are going to strike and iran, we have to be prepared to protect the interests in africa, asia, europe, where we can

expect retaliation. >> mitt romney had an op-ed in tuesday's "washington post" where he called obama "america's most feckless president since jimmy carter." >> that is preposterous, and he ought to know that. what is feckless about going against al qaeda, the drone strikes? >> charles in his column talks about the fact that we have gone into talks with the iranians, and i, like charles, think they are probably just stalling. but when all of your allies want to do it, you have a tight timeline. you still have the sanctions, and the sanctions are really hurting them. they may not stop the nuclear effort, but they are really hurting them. i think you have to contemplate

the notion that this country at some point probably is going to get a nuclear bomb. >> a former chief of the israeli intelligence says that iran is a rational actor. >> yes, i saw the interview. he said it is are rational actor, but not in the way that the west thinks of irrationality. within its the logical ideology, it is rational, it looks after its own interest . the question is what was raised by colby. the question at stake in the negotiations between obama and bibi are not about america striking or starting a war. no one is expecting it, no one is asking for it. the question is can israel, feeling its of being enclosed, feeling iran reached as owner of immunity after which israel

could never strike, and iran will paternal have a bomb to hang over israel's head -- does israel have the right to defend itself? every indication is that obama is restraining israel. if anybody has a diplomatic solution, they are whistling in the dark. the reason i'm concerned is that there are no limits set on the talks. they are open ended, and will be like the previous seven years and will give iran all the time it needs to develop a bomb and finish the program. >> if you accept the premise laid out by the former head of mossad that it is the rational regime, and therefore interested in its own self preservation, talks make as much sense as they did with the soviet union. that is the first point.

the second point is, missing in all of this debate and mitt romney it rattling sabers he does not know even exist is what is the compelling national security interest of the united states that he sees? what is the last resort before going to military power? what is the popular support for it? what are the consequences of our acting? what, finally, is the exit strategy? romney is making a terrible political mistake. obama is a flawed president with political weakness. the strength he has is with the national security and foreign policy. >> you have our response, charles? >> imagine israel didn't exist. what is the american national interest in the iranian bomb? a, as colby said, all the arabs

on our side would be terrified and it would be hegemony over them. but in the end, it would be a threat to the united states did not imminent as it would be to the israelis. but they are aligned with terrorists, and we could lose the city, and i mean we could lose it in an hour, if iran decides to use it or does it in a way that would be untraceable. it would always be under the damocles sword. these are people dedicated to the destruction not just of israel and of the moderate arabs, but ultimately of the west. that is what we have to calculate. it does not mean that they will attack tomorrow, but in the end, can we live with an iranian bomb? >> i have seen this movie

before. we went through it and we went to war in 2001 under this premise, that somehow there was going to be -- the secretary of state said that there would be a mushroom cloud of the united states. it would be a more effective argument if we had not heard it -- >> do you doubt iran is working on a bomb? >> i don't know what iran is doing. i do not know -- you asked me a question, i was trying to answer it. if you want to continue to ask questions while i am try to answer, that is one of thing. i do not know when iran is doing. i do know that there are nations involved and they better off enough to unfettered examination. doing so woul -- failure to do so would raise strong suspicion that taping are doing something. >> i see no reason to conclude that the president of the united states would not do what he said he would do big he said he would prevent iran from

getting a nuclear weapon. i see no reason to doubt that. there is no evidence he's not going to do that. >> there is no evidence -- the words of his own director of national intelligence -- c lapper said when asked by the intelligence committee, at any o -- have any of the sanctions had any effect on the nuclear program? answer, no. has not changed the program, has not changed its development. what is the evidence that he is prevented anything? >> he did not say he -- he prevented -- >> the time to take action is not now. you want to do it today. >> i just said the opposite. >> it is at not entirely clear we have the ability to prevent a. we can injure someone and

possibly prevent it for a couple of years. >> i want to make a point about mark's agnosticism it is in reaching uranium to 20%, entirely unnecessary if it is just elected. here is a regime that is suffering economic sanctions which are enormous, because it won't allow inspectors did you are telling me this is also because of electricity? >> it is not irrational to put whatever you are doing under a mountain when you turn on the television, you pick up the paper, and there are other countries eager urging themselves are being urged to strike and, bomb you. >> all you have to do is allow iaea inspectors and you don't have to bomb anybody. >> the president says he has a clean energy program. need a serious,

sustained, all of the above strategy for american efficiency, american innovation, american at fuel-efficient trucks, american field efficient cars -- fuel efficient cars. we may not get there in one term. >> 4 more years. >> ok, "four more years" they are chanting. does he have a real plan, nina, or is this just campaign rhetoric? >> since he ran for president, this has been one of his big things, to promote alternative energy. we all know that presidents do not control gas prices. despite what newt gingrich says, they do not. they of the prisoners of gas prices. exponentially, barack obama --

if they can go up exponentially, barack obama will be a prisoner of gas prices. he has a plan -- whether a it is a decent plan, i am an agnostic on. >> why did he reject the pipeline? >> he had staked out his position. it is obvious that the political landscape has changed since he rejected the republican push for it. gas prices are pushing for dollars. if they go beyond $4, that has political implications an impact in this country take it changes people's buying habits. what a bank cannot stand -- what they cannot stand is if a consumer prices it threatened the recovering economy, the 227,000 new jobs announced this week. it is a real threat. you can see it in the fact that they lost 10 democratic

senators. >> something about the keystone think that is really unspoken of an interesting -- he was a prisoner of enviros. they thought they had a deal with the folks in nebraska. it fell through. obama vetoed the pipeline and said to find another route. i have no doubt that the pipeline will go through. it may not go through nebraska, but it will go through some ma -- somewhere. >> it does not go here, it will go to china. >> that is like it is such an absurd decision, so obviously a political one, cave to his left. the hypocrisy of the president when he says our strategy is all of the above -- does he really imagine americans are so stupid -- all of the above except canadian oil on a platter,

except oil off the florida gulf coast, except at the drilling in the arctic, except the national petroleum reserve set aside by harding in 1923? his answer, algae. oh, yes, algae is the oil of the future, and all the swimming pools in america -- all you have to do is fire pool men around america and algae will grow like crazy and we will have $1 gasoline. >> i would like to lift this a little bit above the absurd. let's go back to the pipeline. as a matter of fact, they do not have any specific plans the to go through nebraska. >> they abandoned. >> before you approve it, you need to know how it line is

being drawn. it is significant that senator ben nelson, a democrat from nebraska, not a significant supporter of the obama administration, voted against the amendment. he is not up for reelection. you do not dismiss environmental concerns just by saying they are tree huggers. that is too simplistic. >> who is going to drop out first, ninaoewt or rick? >> do we want them to not support newt? yes, we want them to support me. >> we are staying in this race because i believed it will be impossible for a moderate to win the general election. >> santorum wins north dakota, oklahoma, tennessee, gingrich won georgia, ron paul has not won anything yet. it does not seem like either of these gentlemen will make it.

why do they keep going? >> newt, it may be ego or vanity. these campaigns had been taken over totally by super pac's. newt gingrich's super pac's in oklahoma, tennessee and georgia that outspent his campaign 70-1. hello, john roberts, sam alito. thank you for taking our system and screwing it up completely. rick santorum has the argument. rick santorum, if he gets gingrich's vote, which he would do, beats mitt romney in michigan and ohio. time to go, newt. >> if romney does the math, he is right, they cannot overtake him. on the other hand, if you look at what is ahead the next several weeks, there are a number of states where they will

go to gingrich and santorum. >> but he still got the lead, and there isn't somebody else. he had to win ohio or there would have been a lot of talk about somebody else, an open convention and all of that. as long as he keeps chugging along and others don't have organization, so they keep losing more delegates than they should, he is going to win. >> newt has to win at mississippi and alabama. if he doesn't, he is gone. if he wins one, he will hang on and try to win in louisiana. but then where does he go? >> texas. >> well, he will talk about texas. he will hang in there because it is a matter of pride and sort of narcissism, but in the end he does not have a path and he knows it. >> he has to win the mississippi and alabama to qualify as a regional candidate. >> he is done but has not been

told. i told him twice. i am not going to tell him the third time. >> see you next week. vo:geico, committed to providing service to

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