>> rose: welcome to the broadcast. tonight an update on the homecoming of the two american journalists detained in north korea. we talk to martha raddatz of abc news and evans revere of the career society. >> they weren't getting anywhere with the engagement and north korea was doing the same old thing and so was the united states and now they hope they have some sort of change, move the north koreans perhaps back to the six party talks, make some progress with the nuclear issue, although they will say again and again this had nothing to do with it. but they want some sort of trust some sort of change in the relationship. >> the north koreans have finally gotten the message that we were trying to communicate to them lo these many months that this is not the right path for them to be on and i'm personally convinced that all or part of that message was one of the messages that i believe president clinton and his team transmitted to pyongyang. that the path that they are on is not the right path. there is another way to this relationship and i hope the north koreans were listening

carefully to that message. >> rose: and then joe scarborough, co-host of m nbc's "morning joe" author of the new book on what the g.o.p. needs to do to regain prominence. >> so people elect the agent of change, barack obama,, in 2008. what they've seen in 2009 has been a traditional liberal democratic approach and so i think there's some anger out there listen, it's not overwhelming, certainly not like it was with bill clinton in 1994 but certainedly warning signs are there for the obama administration. >> rose: finally, author colson whitehead. his new novel is "sag harbor." they're teenagers and there's a small span of time with they get wiser but i'm not sure it's a coming of age novel. it draw miss my personal experience, you could call it a little more autobiographical. but for me i'll call it a novel and leave it at that. >> rose: the freed american journalist, politics with

"morning joe" and colson whitehead next. captioning s snsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: the two american journalists who spent almost five month december thained in north korea are back at home tonight. laura ling and euna lee were welcomed this morning by friends and family at the bob hope airport in burbank, california. former president bill clinton who had flown to north korea to secure their release shared a

warm embrace with its former vice president, al gore, who co-founded the television channel that the two women worked for. laura ling addressed the group this morning. >> 30 hours ago euna lee and i were prisoners in north korea. we fear that at any moment we could be sent to a hard labor camp and then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting. we were taken to a location and when we walked in through the doors, we saw standing before us president bill clinton. (applause) >> rose: shortly after, president obama spoke outside the white house. >> the reunion that we've all

seen on television i think is a source of happiness not only for the families but for the entire country. i want to thank president bill clinton. i had a chance to talk to him for the extraordinary humanitarian effort that resulted in the release of the two journalists. i want to thank vice president al gore who worked tirelessly in order to achieve a positive outcome. >> rose: joining me now is evans revere, president of the new york-based career society. he was among the former u.s. officials involved in the back channel talks that paved the way for the journalists' release. joining me from washington, martha raddatz, senior foreign affairs correspondent at abc news. i am pleased to have both of them. let me first go to martha. the white house, what are they saying so far, mar that are? >> well, the white house is still trying to distance itself with any official kind of trip.

they're still saying it was a private visit, thes after humanitarian mission. but a senior official from the white house outlined things that there's clearly heavy white house involvement here, heavy state department involvement here no matter what they call it. a lot of this was orchestrated with the help of the white house. >> rose: in what way did they help? >> well, they certainly talked to president clinton. they certainly reached out to president clinton. the national security advisor, jim jones,ing contacted president clinton after al gore contacted the white house and said that the families and that laura ling and euna lee wanted president clinton to come over there because that's what the north koreans wanted. so the north koreans were really making these demands, as far as i see it. they were demanding that bill clinton come over there and if he did, the women would be leased. they were also demanding an apology. i try to sit back from this,

charlie, and think "what did i miss over the last month? what did i miss over the couple months that was coming out of the state department?" and i think about two weeks ago in india i sat down with hillary clinton. that's when she was talking about the north koreans as unruly children and saying things like that. she also issued an apology to the north koreans. she may not call it an apology, but she basically said "we're very sorry this happened." so i think there were a lot of demands coming from the north koreans. i mean, this is a very serious thing here holding these two journalists. everybody is very happy they were released. but there was a lot of back channel going on and i know evan knows a lot more about that than i do. >> rose: i'm going to get to that. but what is the take on what we gained from clinton's conversation with kim jong il? >> well, they met for about an hour and a half and they had that v.i.p. state dinner. so they certainly didn't talk about just the release of these journalists. i mean, that was pretty much a done deal before he went over there.

they wouldn't have gone over there if he didn't believe he was coming back with those journalists. i think president clinton probably had a lot of personal opinions, he probably talked about denunuearization and what he feels about that. he probably talked about what the north koreans are doing. i mean, i am guessing here, but i can't imagine for 90 minutes they talked about the release. again, the white house is stressing this was a private mission, private conversation. but bill clinton was told not to do any negotiating about the nuclear issue. i don't think he probably did that. but it probably came up in some way. >> rose: all right. clearly they don't want to have him negotiating. >> no. >> rose: when did this start? tell me everything you know. >> the... from the moment the two young ladies were taken into custody. they're almost... there almost certainly was conversations... were conversations going on inside the administration, as there were outside the administration about how do we fix this, how do we resolve

this. mywn involvement in it was basically watching this unfold and remembering other instances where americans had been taken into custody in north korea. some on my watch when i was in the state department, some on the watches of others. and so all of this was flashing through my mind and i was convinced from day one-- and i've now heard from colleagues inside the administration-- that they were looking at this with an eye towards figuring out how to fix it. so from day one is the simple answer. >> rose: fix it means get the two young women home? >> get the two young women out of there an maximizing the effort to do that. and making sure at the same time that this issue remained disconnected from the nuclear issue and the other broader poll zi issues and differences. >> rose: first and foremost humanitarian issues. >> exactly. >> rose: okay. so do you believe that they were held because the high command in the korean government from the top down wanted to use them as a

pawn? >> i think they were taken into custody because they were very close to the border and in an area where the north koreans thought they ought not to be. so initially they seemed to have not... they seemed to have transgressed in some way or were close to transgressing and the north koreans had an opportunity to do that. once the north koreans had them in custody, however, and sent them, as they often do with cases like this, to pyongyang for interrogation, they then realized what they had and who they had because these were two journalists who'd done a lot of reporting in asia on some very delicate issues. so i don't think from the outset the north koreans had any intention to go across a border and grab someone. they were presented with an opportunity.... >> rose: and therefore... >> and once the process was set in motion from the north korean perspective, it probably had to proceed through its conclusion. investigation, accusation, investigation, trial, sentencing etc., etc.

so this was on its own track inside north korea. at the same time, i believe when the north koreans realized who they were and in the midst of the current diplomatic impasse with the united states, they probably did see this as an opportunity for engagement with the united states. there's an open question as to whether there was an opportunity for horse trading, if you will "we'll give you the journalists if you do something for us in the nuclear issue." i don't think that ever came up, quite frankly. but that was always the concern, certainly. i don't think the north koreans actually did that. but when the north koreans realized who they had, they realized there was an opportunity to parlay this into something more. >> rose: what did they want? >> face. the opportunity to engage the united states. the opportunity to have the united states say to them that we will talk to you and engage with you even though, quite frankly, for the last several months it's been the north koreans who've been avoiding most dialogue with the uninid states. but i think in their heart of

heart it is north koreans saw this as an opportunity to get the united states somehow to the table and use this perhaps as an ice breaker. >> rose: because they are anxious to get a relationship, a bilateral relationship with the united states? >> i think that's still the bottom line for them. >> rose: towards what end? >> if you believe what the north koreans have been saying lo these several months, certainly since the outset of the obama administration, they want recognition as a nuclear weapons state. they want the united states to treat them as an equal. not only in the normal diplomat sense of the word but in terms of their nuclear weapons status. they want the united states to engage with them bilaterally to resolve the various issues that are on the table between them. they want all of that and more, but i think those are the core.... >> rose: are they a nuclear state? >> they have nuclear weapons, they've demonstrated the nuclear capability but the united states is not going to recognize them as nuclear weapons state as we would russia or china. >> rose: and are they selling

whatever technology, whatever... >> there's no understoodcation that they are selling nuclear material. there's no indication that they are proliferating nuclear material or weapons. but, as we have seen in the case of syria, the north koreans were certainly involved in the construction of a nuclear facility there. >> rose: which was destroyed by the israelis. >> exactly. that's an important form of proliferation and it is a legitimate concern of the united states and the international community to stop that sort of thing. >> rose: so, martha, was does the obama administration believe this will go? now that they've all spoken to the significance of the humanitarian mission and separating it from negotiation but having a former president be there and meet these people, what do they hope might come out of it? >> well, first of all, i think over the last few months what they were trying to do, even before today, even before bill clinton went out there, is really change the dynamic. if you look back over the past few months-- and this started

right after the young women were taken-- you had a nuclear test, you had a long range missile test, and the rhetoric coming from the obama administration was almost exactly the same as had been coming from the bush administration when the north koreans were launching missiles and having nuclear tests. exactly the same rhetoric. exactly the same reaction from the north koreas. they would just ratchet up the rhetoric. they would keep launching rockets. but then there was this subtle change. and i think it came around july 4. and that was when the north koreans launched short range, medium range rockets, you barely heard a word from the administration. and i started talking to people then because i noticed that. i thought something different here. and they said "we really need to just change the dynamic. we don't know how to do it, but that's what we're trying to do." so i think because of what happened with bill clinton, they just want to build on that. they want to change that dynamic. they want to make progress in

engagement. they weren't getting anywhere with engagement and north korea was doing the same old thing and so was the united states. and now they hope they have some sort of change, move the north koreans perhaps back to the six party talks, make some progress with the nuclear issue, although they will say again and again this had nothing to do with it. but they want some sort of trust some sort of change in the relationship. >> can i offer a slightly different take on the origins of this? because, quite frankly, after the election last year, after the u.s. presidential election last year through the inauguration and continuing through the inauguration, the rhetoric from the soon to be obama administration and the obama administration once inauguration took place was positive towards all of our erstwhile adversaries. the messages that were being transmitted directly and directly toward the north koreans were very positive messages about a willingness to engage, a willingness to resolve

fundamental issues with them and a willingness not only to pick up where the previous administration had left off but to move beyond that for reasons that are still unclear, but we can speculate, the north koreans decided that that was not good enough. and so almost literally from the moment the president's hand was lifted up from the bible, the north koreans were already tracking in a very uncomfortable and a very confrontational direction. and many of us on the outside of the administration saw this happening, reached out to the north koreans and asked them to refrain from this sort of rhetoric and from these sort of actions. well before the missile tests, well before there was any hint of a nuclear test things were already heading in a bad direction. so we made a major effort. "we" meaning all of us on the outside who are concerned about this relationship, to try to get the north koreans to move back to a better place and to await the formation of the new administration's north korea policy. and when that was in place, then we assured our north korean counterparts that we could get

moving on a positive track. for lots of reasons, the north koreans opted not to do that. opted for a more confrontational and hostile approach. and i think that over the course of the last several months, the north koreans themselves have seen that this approach has resulted in their further isolation, the imposition of almost unprecedented u.n. and other sanctions. >> rose: the idea that ships might be searched. >> exactly. and i think the north koreans have finally gotten to communicate to them lo these many months that this is not the right path for them to be on. and i'm personally convinced that all or part of that message was one of the messages that i believe president clinton and his team transmited in pyongyang. that the path they are on is not the right path. there is another way to this relationship. and i hope the north koreans were listening carefully to that message. >> obviously when barack obama took office the rhetoric was very different and he wanted engagement. but when the north koreans didn't do what he wanted them to do, they publicly... the

rhetoric was very similar to what george bush was doing at the time. and that, i think, just compounded the problem and the north koreans realized they weren't getting anywhere, the obama administration realized they weren't getting anywhere, and that's when you started seeing publicly as well that change. and mrs. clinton saying "we're not going to pay any attention to them." although a couple weeks later there's bill clinton over there. >> rose: there much talk at the white house about how this may indicate a new role for bill clinton? >> i think that there's not a lot of talk about that. i think president obama said today that he wants to talk to bill clinton at some pointnd see what happened over there and what they talked about. but it certainly does put bill clinton back in the spotlight. it was a real tale of two clintons today and over the past couple weeks. >> rose: thank you, martha, great to see you. >> you, two. >> rose: thank you, evans. we'll be right back. stay with us.

>> rose: joe scarborough is here. he is the host of "morning joe" the m nbc program that's attrting a growing following. "newsweek" magazine compared the broadcast to something like a serious minded evening show still wearing its bathrobe and slippers. >> (laughs) >> don: you like that. here's a look at "morning joe." >> david gergen who's been around a few presidents, republican and democrat alike, has had positive things to say about president obama. but he faults him in the way he's run the administration thus far. in what ways? >> he said a really interesting thing. he said he basically thinks obama needs to appoint a really good manager for the stimulus package. that that money hasn't gotten spent fast enough. >> isn't joe biden doing that? >> well, he thinks that under f.d.r., f.d.r. had managers who were more specifically in charge of the stimulus who didn't have other responsibilities and who got more done more quickly. >> do you realize there are conservatives/libertarians that

read your magazine? >> we are indeed. we're very popular in the military actually. >> are you? >> get a lot of soldiers reading us and hear back from a lot of them. >> okay. i'm just saying once in a while... well, actually, you had p.j. edge o'rourke in the '80s. he was a conservative guy, had great articles. >> i think conservatives like to read us to disagree with us. >> just like the "new york times." i buy two copies, one to read and one to burn my n my backyard after i finish reading it. >> rose: well, that was from this morning itself, was it not? >> yes, this morning, fresh off the presses. >> rose: before he broke into television joe scarborough was a republican congressman from florida from 1994 to 2001. he recently mapped out a comeback strategy, not for himself but for the g.o.p. the book is called "the last best hope: restoring conservatism and america's promise." i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. >> sorry you didn't bring me again. i enjoy hearing the stories about the ball girl last time

here. i take her everywhere i go. she sells books. >> rose: the best ball girl we've ever had. she was good. and, boy, does she add to your show. >> oh, many i god. yeah. people always ask why mika went on the bookstore with me. she doubles the sales. and triples the size of the audience. i'm not dumb! it's like i've got any own palin nobody's there to see the old guy. they're there to see mika. >> rose: and the chemistry between the two of you. >> yeah. >> rose: good for you. let me just talk about you first. first the news. i watched your show this morning as i often watch your show. the clinton story. questions? what'd you think? why didn't he speak? he wanted to report back to the white house first? what? >> yeah, i think so. and i think it was a smart move for him. i'm confounded by some people on the right actually criticizing

this operation. this is very simple. >> rose: it's unbelievable to me too. >> this is a very simple quid pro quo. we get two americans back safe and sound. all we have to do is give them bill for a three-hour dinner. >> rose: (laughs) and bill might have learned something. >> and i heard john bolton say that's negotiating with terrorists. i mean, if the ransom's that cheap, we need to send bill to iran and get those.... >> rose:e:et those weapons. >> get those stories. i mean, there's also so many interesting undercurrents here. bill clinton, al gore. not the closest of friends since 2000, but they were brought together this way. hillary clinton, kim jong il. i mean, they've been saying some very unkind things to each other. they're brought together. barack obama, bill clinton. again, always that constant friction. i know because you live in new york and bill clinton has a lot of friends in new york, you're constantly hearing people saying "why don't they use bill more? why don't they..." you hear it

everywhere you go. it's just... all of bill clinton's friends "it's just not right. obama's not using bill clinton! he could save the world!" >> rose: (laughs) do >> do you not hear that >> >> of course you do. >> rose: this is the home run answer to that. the home run answer. >> and, again, this is what bill clinton is so good at. >> rose: what's that? >> well, he... he... on the world stage. >> rose: admired and therefore is... >> this is a guy who's beloved. >> rose: and people like to be around him. >> we could use him. i said in the middle of the bush administration, you know, george bush ought to swallow his pride, pick up the phone. whether republicans like bill clinton or not, outside of this country he is an international superstar. >> rose: and it would have been an appropriate thing to do because the father and the former president had formed a pretty good relationship for charity. >> no doubt about it. also, it's so fascinating, too. bill clinton, an ex-president returning back to north korea

where he had sent an ex-president, jimmy carter, in 1994 and that didn't end as well obviously. >> rose: and he was negotiating something when time ran out. >> no doubt about it. you know, the best part, really, though, of this, other than obviously these two journalists being safe and sound back with their family, which is great, we should all be grateful for that, is the fact that bill clinton got intel that the best intelligence agencies in the globe.... >> rose: an american hasn't sat with kim jong il in a long time. >> what does he look like? we think he's had a stroke. what does this mean for the development of nuclear weapons. is the guy even there? >ose: is there an argument to be made that might have some persuasive manner because it was delivered in a way that it was delivered. >> exactly. they got to sit down, talk. bill clintononot the measure of the man for three hours. that's pretty valuable. >> rose: and it evidently happened because they insisted

clinton be the person. >> right. no doubt about it. i wonder how al gore felt about that. >> rose: i think he's been there before. don't you? >> and who really wants to go to north korea? unless you have to. >> rose: well, i think... i mean you could see his great sense of concern for those two people. for them and their families. >> no doubt about it. i was joking. really, it's a win-win. >> rose: you weren't joking when you were in florida trying to keep him from being president. >> no, not at all. >> rose: (laughs) >> those were different times. i've grown since then, charlie. i've grown. >> rose: in there trying to swing an election in florida. >> i'll tell you what, trying to keep our military people from voting. we couldn't have that, could we? >> rose: no, we couldn't. did you succeed? >> evidently. we got the military votes. that was my job. >> rose: is that right? >> yeah. >> rose: well, i made it my job. how have you grown since then? how are you different today? >> you know, i think i know now in 2009 what i didn't know in

1995. >> rose: well, i hope so. >> and ironically i'm counseling my liberal democratic friends, saying "just relax." you know, i thought 1995 when we conservatives took over congress we owned the world. that we could pass whatever we wanted to pass through the house, the senate would confirm it, it had go to the white house be signed and it would be law. what i found out was james madison was a pretty smart guy. we darted further right than america was ready to go and you had moderate republicans, democrats in the senate. it sort of chiseled off the edges of that agenda. the same thing is happening now. and democrats have gone too far left. they spent too much money. they're moving faster than the middle of american political thought is ready to go. and they're learning the same lessons. >> rose: are they doing that because it is their ideological place or are they doing that because they look at this economic crisis and they are

pulling all the strings they know? >> listen, what barack obama is doing is what what ronald reagan tried to do in 1981, what bill clinton tried to do in 1993 in the first year. they've looked at history and you have a honeymoon period. you try to get as much done as quickly as you can get done because you know after the first year it's a long, hard slog. so that's what he's trying to do. but the problem is, what america wants him to do is focus on, as mike barnicle says three things: jobs, jobs, and jobs. and so when you talk about health care, when you talk about tax increases for health care, when you talk about cap and trade, when you talk about all of these other things that a lot of americans don't see directly affecting them getting a job, and indiana or ohio or whatever, i think that causes more problems. but also barack obama is limited

by what happened over the past eight years. george w. bush and the republican cochran the debt up to about $11 trillion. barack obama's first budget was very expensive. it doubled the debt. his projections, and americans just aren't ready to go that far. >> rose: the book "restoring conservatism and america's promise" basically is an indictment of the bush administration. >> well, yeah. i mean.... >> rose: they got away from main street conservatism. >> it's an indictment of republicanism. it's an indictment of people being more interested in keeping the republican party in power than doing what they said they were going to do when they got to washington. i mean, we got elected in 1994 by saying "we're going to show restraint. we're going to show restraint in spending. we're going to try to balance the budget. >> rose: contract with america. >> right. we were going to show restraint in foreign policy. we weren't going to engage in military adventurism, we were going to try to reign in the

growth of entitlement programs. we did that. we passed welfare reform. we balanced the budget. we did try to restrain what military adventurism. if you look at the bush administration, on all three of those counts, i think $155 billion surplus, they turn it into a $1.5 trillion deficit. they taken a entitlement system-- medicare, especially, that's going bankrupt-- they had a $7 trillion liability to it. and i think most damaging to this country at home and abroad, they take colin powell's republican view of how we're supposed to conduct ourselves on an international stage. the powell doctrine, the weinberger doctrine, we've talked about this before. we show restraint abroad. we don't go to battle unless it's the last possible option. but when we go.... >> rose: and then go in with full force and make sure the american public is behind you before we do it. >> as colin powell said, when we

go to war, we don't want a fair fight. tony zinni has a book out. tony zinni actually wrote a memo saying "don't go into iraq unless you're going to have 350,000 troops. if you don't go in with full force, we're going to have a mess on our hands." he predicted it. >> rose: right. >> and a lot of the smart generals that have been in iraq before predicted it. for some run donald rumsfeld didn't want to listen to the generals that won the first iraq war and we decided we're going to win the war on the cheap. charlie, there's nothing conservative about that. there's nothing conservative about spending this country in debt. there's nothing conservative about putting us $7 trillion in debt. that's not conservative. >> rose: is tony zinni and colin powell more the kind of republican that you identify with than, say, newt gingrich? >> well, um.... >> rose: (laughs) >> let me put it this way. >> rose: don't spin it... >> no, i'm just going to put it this way.

newt gingrich can win statewide elections in georgia. colin powell can win statewide elections in connecticut. we don't have colin powells or tony zinnis in our party anymore. we've got a few, olympia snowe. >> rose: she was so good this morning. >> so good. but for everyone that wants to kick colin powell out of the party, i say do you really.... >> rose: that's rush limbaugh. >> well, it's a lot of people. i went out on my booker to and i was trying to explain to people, if you want to be a national party again, you've got to win a seat or two in new england. and let me tell you something, people who lookike me and talk like me from the south, we're probably not going to do well in northeast harbor maine. colin powell will. olympia snowe will. >> rose: well, in the northeast... >> i just threw that out. there i own the northeast with mika with me. okay, mika, if you say so, i'll vote for you. but they kicked colin powell out of the party.

you know what i learned on this book shower in it's fascinating. speaking in new england. i had a lot of people come up to me, a lot of older gentlemen especially come up to me and say "i used to vote for republicans when they were like you." said "i'm really conservative, i'm like a libertarian i'm so conservative." they said "no, you're not a hater." and what i realized on this book tour, two things, one good, one bad. the good thing is that moderates even people left of center, will low pressure to you if you don't come to tell them barack obama's a communist and sonia sotomayor is a racist. they will listen to you when you can have a debate onphilosophy. >> rose: who said that sotomayor was a racist. >> i forget now. i've played a lot of football, charlie. a lot of republicans said she was a racist. >> rose: so your friends... >> sadly on the other side... you call them my friends. sadly on the other side, hard core republicans.

let me just tell you, i'll say it right here. they're not as conservative as me. certainly not on spending. certainly not on military adventurism. a lot of these people wouldn't listen to me because i didn't call obama a communist. because i didn't call sotomayor a racist. i mean, style has a lot to do... i mean, there's some people, the hard right and the hard left expect to see anger and expect you to play hard ball and if you don't you're not a real conservative or a real progressive. >> rose: on the question that rolling stones was talking about leadership, barack obama six months. how do you assess the leadership first? >> it is... you know, it's a split decision for me. foreign policy, i couldn't expect more. >> rose: this is the same thing jimmy baker said. >> did he? on foreign policy he is the first realist we've had in the white house, at least judging by his actions over the first six

months since bush 41. he takes all the information in, he doesn't dart wildly right or left. sure, his rhetoric is a bit more progressive. but that's his rhetoric. in reality he is, he's the first realist, at least over the first six months. domestically i don't think he's shown leadership at all and i say that because i'm very disappointed. >> rose: because he's given too much power to congress? >> exactly. he turned the stimulus package over to nancy pelosi, the most important package, the biggest bill in the history of this country. remember he sent up david axelrod and larry summers. they went up to the hill, they said "this is our outline." which was an outline that a lot of republicans said "we can live with that." and congress told him no. nancy pelosi, no. we're not going to be bipartisan we're in power now. and larry summers came out and

said "message received." they turned it over to nancy pelosi.... >> rose: part of that also was the reaction, i think perhaps an overreaction, of what clinton had done on health care. >> you've got to be careful, also, speaking of jimmy carter anantip o'neill, one of the reasons why tip o'neill didn't like jimmy carter is because he didn't believe the new president his fresh face from plains, georgia, was showing the proper respect. >> rose: so many presidents come to washington, especially if they've been governors, they want to be perceived as an outsider. and at some point someone helps them understand in order to get bills passed, in order to be an effective force, you have to have some other relationship, if not accommodation, to the way washington works. >> exactly. >> rose: you understand that. >> you do have to accommodate and the president has to deal with congress, no doubt about it. but you start with the stimulus package, and i think another mistake, cap and trade. nancy pelosi pulled barack obama into the cap and trade debate. a debate he shouldn't have been pulled into if health care really was his number one agenda

item. he got pulled into that mess. there's been a lot of noise leading up to health care. so by the time he gets to health care, he's upside down on the deficit. he's upside down on the size of the federal government's growth. he's upside down in the poll numbers on a lot of these issues. it's making his job a lot more difficult right now. >> rose: do you think public option is a bad idea in health care reform? >> i think so. >> rose: you like the cooperative idea? >> well, sure. i do. the problem is.... >> rose: (laughs) >> for the president. well, no, if you want to know the truth, there's nothing in the constitution.... >> rose: i do want to know the truth. >> you want the truth? you can't handle the truth! we don't have to do everything in 2009. >> rose: thank you, jack. i thought you were a marine pilot. >> i'm a constitutional lawyer. i know the constitution forward and backward and i can tell you as a guy who.... >> rose: in florida. >> i was in a con law class. i no what i speak. there's nothing in the constitution that says you have to get everything done 2009.

>> rose: there you go. but you just said the reality is you need to do as much as you can because you have less effectiveness afterwards. so you have two competing i ias running through each other. >> this president has burned through a remarkable amount of political capital over the first six months? >> rose: has he really? because his popularity is still high and much popular than his positions. >> yeah. i'm just talking about any big spending bill he's going to have some problems. i think really the best thingnge can do right now, if i were advising him-- and of course, i'm not-- i would say aggressively go after consumer protections. taking care of pre-existing conditions, allowing kids to stay on insurance until they're 25 or 26. >> rose: and foreclosures and all of that have. >> yeah, all of that. focus on consumer protection. get as much as you can get now and when the economy turns around in 2011, go back. >> rose: being a hot media property, as you are. >> oh, yeah.

whoo. >> rose: come on, i can't pick up anything that doesn't talk about scarborough and "morning joe." how has it changed, if at all, your perception of media? >> um... i've got to be careful here. there is... what i've found... i've found two things. i've found that the media, most of the people that are in the media have a world view that's left of center. that's one thing i've found out. >> rose: a world view? that has to do with u.s. engagement around the world? >> well, no, no. just their view of the world, their view of politics. you don't find a lot of people that are pro-life in national media. you don't find a lot of people who have bumper stickers on their car that talk about the second amendment. and i always.... >> rose: you like to bear arms, don't you? (laughs) >> can you not... do i not look like a hunter to you?

i've never fired a gun. i can say not only have i never fired a gun in anger, i've never fired a gun. but you know the thing is, though.... >> rose: you've never looked at the white of their eyes, have you? >> no, i haven't. but as i explained, though, to my conservative friends, it's just the nature of where the media is. >> rose: okay, but if... >> if three networks and the two or three major newspapers were in manhattan, kansas, instead of manhattan, new york, well, they'd probably be more acclimated to a red state world view. that's not the case. >> rose: and the most important thing is to make sure you understand a red state world view and make sure you give it plenty of attention as you do everything else. >> that's right. >> rose: and on that count you believe what? do you believe that whatever.... >> i believe that wherever the media.... >> rose: wherever the majority of the media come down on that question do you believe that it impacts how on their coverage? >> well, sure, but what i've noticed over the past five years....

>> rose: i mean, you see all these stripes coming in there. and here. >> i do. what i've noticed over the past five years, i've noticed the press has gotten a lot more in tune with what is going on in red state america. >> rose: and what's going on in red state america? >> there's anger out there right now. >> rose: about? the economic conditions of the country? but is it more populist? is it just the sense that you're bailing out those people on wall street and not bailing out us? >> go back to '92 and '93. there's so much that reminds me of '92/'93. bill clinton won in 1992 because you know, we hit the reset button on the economy. we went from an industrial age when we were transforming into an information age, it will take three or four years until we get there. so bill clinton dealt with that anger. when he didn't respond the way people wanted him to respond in 1993 and struck him as a traditional liberal, who rose? ross pro. and suddenly you had these... what was it, up with america?

up with people. whatever pro's group was called. millions of people got involved in the political process in '94. the same thing has happened here. we've hit the reset button. we're not going to be an economy that's madly driven by consumerism. so people elect the agent of change, barack obama in 2008. what they've seen in 2009 has been a traditional will you be ral democratic approach. and so i think's some anger out there. it's not... listen, it's not overwhelming yet. it's certainly not like it was with bill clinton in 1994 but certainly the warning signs are there for the obama administration. they need to respond well. >> rose: but how have you change i mean, explain to me how you see the world. but has being in the center of this media thing, is it different than political attention? i mean, is it less? is it more? is it more comfortable? >> it's a lot more fun, not having to wake up at 5:00 every morning and seeing what your

local newspaper is writing about you. >> rose: or spending a lot of time on the phone raising money. >> oh, yeah. no. this is... but you know what, though, charlie? the show, it's like... we talked about this before. you and i, let's not tell our bosses, we're the luckiest guys in the world. >> rose: exactly. i know. >> because at this desk and at our morning desk we get a lot of the top thinkers in the country and the world. and it is... who wouldn't be thrilled to do that? >> rose: and is that a more important role for you than, say being, what, like a senator from florida? >> there's no doubt. >> rose: a more important role for you than being a senator from florida? so you say to the people of florida "i can best serve you not by running for elective office but by running "morning joe"? >> thank god i don't have to say that the people of florida. all i have to do is talk to my wife and see how she comes out. >> rose: how does she vote on that? >> she wants me to stay out of politics. >> rose: that's the reason you

left, mostly. >> well, i had two boys.... >> rose: that's what i mean. a. ly. >> family. >> rose: now you have a larger family. >> i've got 47 kids now. >> rose: (laughs) starting with willey. >> yeah! exactly, he's our troubled child. starting at 5:30 every morning i have to w we up and see if he's doing all right. but i had some republicans approach me, ask me if i'd beed in running for senate this year and i called a couple of political friends that i respect and everybody had the same conclusion. you have a lot more influence, you have a lot more reach and you're having a lot more fun doing what you do every morning than you would being the 99th or the 100th senator in the minority in seniority. >> rose: "morning joe." how do you make it better? >> we get smarter. >> rose: how do you get smarter? >> well, we dig down deeper. i think our biggest challenge is not to get in the same routine.

>> rose: take it for granted. reach out. how about this book "restoring conservatism and america's promised." author joe scarborough. he is... >> i'm no tony zinni! i'm a starbucks guy. >> rose: tony zinni said one thing that i totally agree with. it is that he thought the most important thing about leadership was the capacity to continue to grow and to change and to... what you just said about your show. that's the essence of leadership he said. >> you have to wake up every morning and challenge yourself. how am i going to improve myself today? and who's the best example of that in the military right now? petraeus. >> rose: exactly. >> general petraeus is a new type of general. ily l say the one thing about george w. bush that i think history will be kinder about than we're being right now how bush recognized the talent of petraeus. and, in fact, at this sort of

tangled route, went through this tangled web of people in the pentagon, found petraeus, worked around the existing power structure, found this guy, pulled him out and petraeus really is. i mean, he's a star. we'll see, though. the second act is going to be tougher than the first act, that's afghanistan. >> rose: we're talking about iraq on this program in terms of where it goes and whether the most important decisions are yet to be made. any way qi "the last best hope" is the book, joe scarborough, thank you. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. colson whitehead is here. his novels include "the intuitionist" and "john henry days" which is a finalist for the pulitzer prize. "washington post" wrote no one writer writes were many imagination about the complexity of race in america than colson whitehead.

he takes an autobiographical turn with his new novel "sag harbor." i'm pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. >> howdy. >> rose: tell me what genre this fits in. >> i'm not sure. i think people want to call it a coming of age novel. >> rose: exactly. >> even though i'm not sure if it has all the features of a coming of age novel. nothing incredibly transcendent happens. there's no giant shark in the water they're trying to avoid. they don't find a dead body in the woods and while the song "stand by me" plays and stuff like that. and so there are teenagers and there's a small span of time where they get a little wiser but i'm not sure if it's a coming of age novel. because it draws from some of my personal experience you could call it a little more autobiographical. for me i'll just call it a novel and leave it at that. >> rose: the other thing about a coming of age is that after the experience you are somehow more adult, more learned, more something. wiser. >> rose: right. >> or you had a good time with

the young woman in your experience. >> well, in my experience, actually, over the course of a summer or a year we're only .001% wiser. we don't have these great transcendent moments. >> rose: a lot more fun because it was more of a home for you than manhattan. >> yeah. i grew up in new york city and we'd go out to sag harbor in the summer. if you don't know, sag harbor is in long island. it's part of the hamptons and in the '70s and '80s it was a qint, quiet town now it's sort of page six. but in the 30s and '40s there were african american lawyers, doctors, bankers from new jersey and manhattan and brooklyn who wanted a place to go in the summer and they found this neighborhood in the old whaling town of sag harbor where they could go and it said from by word of mouth so you'd go out, next summer bring a friend and they would come out and get a house. and it grew in the '30s and '40s and '50s and my grandfather was

one of the early adopters, i guess. my mother went out there. i went out there every summer. having this weird existence where i grew up in the city and would go out for three months to long island in the hamptons and have the sort of strange adventures not knowing how special it was. my other books have been sort of a little more abstract. but there seemed to be so much material there that i wanted to tackle and try something different. >> rose: what was the material? >> well, you know, i was... i hated being a teenager. i find, you know, the whole thing excruciating and humiliating, like most people. and so my first book was about elevator inspectors, it wasn't about me. my second book was about john henry, not about me. but there's something about doing something that you're scared of that seems that maybe it makes sense to do. so i think i... you know, 20 years is a good enough distance from my teenage years. >> rose: is the fear in part not wanting to reveal something

about yourself that people might not know? >> sure. i mean, revelation also revisiting that time and trying... you know, where so much of your personality is forged. but then once you escape you don't want to go back. >> rose: but it was a comfortable time for you was it not? or not? >> not in terms of.... >> rose: but in terms of economic status it was a comfortable time. >> sure. >> rose: middle-class. >> my parents had their own business and we were well off. but like any teenager, whether you're... where you come from or your circumstance, you know, the teenage years can be pretty hard. >> rose: why is that? what it is that makes teenage... >> well, i think you're becoming aware of how different you are from the rest of the world. i think you coast for a while learning things and then high school comes and puberty and you realize, oh, i'm not the person i thought i was and no one else is and how do i navigate this new sort of social network, this new social... new paradigm i'm in in high school where i'm an individual and trying to fit in with everybody else and figure

out the teenage codes. >> rose: where does benji's life not parallel your's? >> w wl, you know, i was a very inarticulate teenager and not really aware of what was going on. the narrator of the book of "sag harbor" a s a grown-up looking back. i couldn't have done a whole book in the voice of a 15-year-old. i would have found it just too... i think a little boring and not as much fun. if you have an adult perspective the adult can look back upon the teenage years with bemusement, wisdom, and try and shape this chaotic immature material into a coherent narrative. >> rose: when you're writing about the '80s... this was the '80s, yeah? >> '85. >> rose: lots of pop cultural references. do you have to go back and sort of remind yourself of what they were? >> well, that's the fun part. sometimes do books and it's a lot of library work and sometimes i just g g to itunes and go through my record collection. so going back and discovering a all this old post punk and new

wei and early hip-hop is good and fun and figuring out how to use it. pop culture is important to kids. but how do you make not just an empty reference. how do you make it serve the character in a larger story. so, you know, the boys in the book are 15, 16, and in '85 the music they're listening to is a lot of hip-hop. at that point hip-hop was very quaint. they had bands like u.t.f.o. who dressed like the village people and had weird costumes like leather jump suits and the lyrics were very corny. but on the horizon in the late '80s we have gangsta rap coming and the commercialization of hip-hop and the music is becoming more mature. so in the way that... the same way they're on the cusp of adulthood, the music that they listen to is also in this process of becoming. and so the music and pop culture of their time becomes a way to talk about what they're going through. >> rose: does benji feel any sense that he perhaps was

indulgent about riding on the backs of those who made sacrifices earlier? >> well, through generations, the grandparents' generations, benji's parents generation. and they have different ideas of what it is to be african american, to be a professional. you know, these... the newly emergent black middle-class of the '20s and '30s were doing it for the first time. and when they were making this community, they were building it step by step. and then there's the... benji's parents generation, civil rights generation who find different ways to negotiate blackness in america. and then there's the kids. these teenagers who n '85 who grew up taking a lot of things for granted. and how does that play out? you know, these generations, this dance of generations. and so the fun is trying to figure out what it was like to be a teenager in the '80s but also how these kids fit in with this long line of african americans. >> rose: for benji and you, sag harbor was home more than anywhere else.

>> well, yeah, we moved around a lot when i was a kid. sfruruone rental to another. >> yeah, more kids, bigger place kids go off to college, smaller place. but the one constant was sag harbor. and when you... a lot of kids out there when you go to college you stop going out because it's too buj ji. it's not part of this hampton scene, you stop going out there for a while. but frankly i started going out again a couple years ago and it's nice to get out of the city and i know all of the streets and i can walk down main street and superimpose my own '70s and '80s sag harbor on the present glitzy sag harbor and it's still a real home for me. >> rose: we're in a political age and we have an african american president for the first time, enormously popular here and around the world so people are beginning to talk about the post-racial world. are we in a post-racial world? >> no. i think, you know, that's sort of nice and there's reason to be optimistic for many reasons. i know that my daughter who's four is growing up in a new

world. i don't really wear ties much but i'm wearing ties because i'm leaving the house. and.... >> rose: because you're leaving the house? >> and i put on a tie a few months ago and she said "you look just like the president." so her idea of a man who wears a tie is african american.... >> rose: so what does she say about the president? >> well, she was a big hillary supporter. >> rose: how old is she? >> s s's four and a half. >> rose: four and a half, right. >> but her teachers were trying to get her involved and so for months during primaries i was, like, what about barack? and she is like "i'm down for hillary." she made the switch.... >> rose: at four and a half? >> yeah. she made the switched a mirbly. >> rose: after the nomination process? >> yeah. >> rose: and where was your wife? >> she was... we tried not to get too involved with matty's political maturation. luckily it worked out knock the end. >> rose: so matty's happy. >> yeah. >> rose: you were happy. the president's happy. what is your ambition?

>> keep writing different books. i mean, this book is a real sort of change of pace for me and for the first time i'm not sure what i'm doing next and that seems very good. you know, generally when i have a book coming out i know what the next thing is, i'm halfway through. but i'm still learning how to become a better writer and do things differently and i couldn't have written "sag harbor "ten years ago. >> rose: because you weren't psychologically ready or because you didn't have the skills? >> both. i needed distance from childhood and i also needed the chops to pull off a first person voice, a teenage voice to transcend my own sort of experience and make it more universal. you know, the book takes place in a particular time and with a particular set of circumstances. but it doesn't work unless it... it taps into this universal teenage experience and what it is to be a person and figuring out your way in the world. so he'ss an african american teenager in the '80s but

hopefully he's all teenagers and he's all of us in his horrible travails. >> rose: >> the book is called "sag harbor" colson white head. thank you. >> rose: >> thank you. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org