>> i will not vote and many of us will not vote for a final house-a senate compromise without a public option. >> this week on "inside washington," now trouble from the left on health care. the public option it dead? >> this is just a public sliver of it.

>> the congenial debate continues. >> you continue to support this nazi policy as obama has? >> on what planet do you spend most of your time? >> afghans risked their lives to vote. as terrorist bombings increase in iraq, the maliki government chooses not to ask america for help. the nation loses it two legendary news man, robert novak and don witt. >> the secret is to find people who can tell the story better than you can. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> i am looking for somebody who can tell me if the public option in president obama's health plan is still viable. democratic senator kent conrad

says not in the senate. >> look, the fact of the matter is that there are not votes in the united states sena for the public option. there never have been. to continue to chase that rabbit i think it's just a wasted effort. >> after saying last weekend that the rabbit would probably be taken off the table, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius gave the little fellow a new lease on life. >> absolutely nothing has changed. we continue to support the public option. that will help lower costs and give american consumers more choice and keep private insurers honest. >> roger simon, what is the status of the public option read it right now? is he dead, like, or, toast? >> without the public option, barack obama will not bill through congress. he is the head of the left-of-

center party that wants the public option. kent conrad is not the whip of the senate. dick durbin is. what i see dick durbin on television saying that the public option is dead, i will believe it. >> colby? >> i remember where general chester pulley wise. he was a marine like you are. he was surrounded, they are in front of us and behind us, we have been just baugher we want them this is where obama is right now. he has the blue dogs after him, he has the liberals after him, he has the commentators, political commentary class after him. i do not think he will pull a chester pulley, but i do not think he is out of the game yet. lyndon johnson said to clarence mitchell and the naacp when

there were pushing the civil- rights bill that they had to have it. johnson looked at mitchell and said, "how many votes do you have, clarence?" that is what it will come down to with obama. >> the wascally wabbit is dead. in the end, the liberals are bluffing. mara liasson of npr put it correctly. there is no left wing democrat who will lose a seat if the option is left out of the bill, but there are a lot of moderate democrats who will lose a seat if the public option is in the bill. that willetermine how it goes. there will be no public option. there might be a co-op idea, which is a trojan horse, which would be a substitute. >> i don't think there will be a co-op idea. that has fallen pretty flat. it would not surprise me if the house passes a bill with the public option it. and the senate passes some

bifurcated thing that does not have the public option, and it is all resolved in conference, probably without a public option. that will be the big trade off, that you have a public option and you give in on x, y, and z. >> you have the blue dogs digging in their heels, you have howard dean saying that the public option has to be there. how would all be to have handled this? -- lbj had handled this? >> he would not give the opposition ta chance to wave signs and talk about socialism and death panels. he would work with congress. it was 1965 and was the last of his great society and he got considerable bipartisan support. >>nother thing he did, especially with the civil rights bill, was count votes. this is but obama has to do.

he starts out clearly with 40 votes against him in the senate. all republicans will vote against him. with the public option, and even without, they will not vote for him. kent conrad will go somewhere else, or says he will not support the public option. where does he get his 60 votes? or if he tries this other thing and tries to go with 50 votes, that will blow up on him. where does he get 60 votes? he has to do the math. if they have not done that, i would be awfully surprised. >> why does he want to court republicans anyway? >> he is not courting republicans. are you kidding? all of his arguments are within the democrats. his problem is that the left the democrats on the public option, and the blue dogs about the cost of the program. the republicans are entirely irrelevant but he likes to blame it on republicans, but it is

within his party. he has a majority in the house and a super majority in the senate. >> but not filibuster-proof -- >> he dies. -- does. >> ted kennedy cannot show up. he does not have 60 votes. barack obama is not lyndon johnson, and these are not the same times. lyndon johnson did not have to cope with talk radio, cable tv. these are just very different times. >> why not pass the bill you want and let republicans filibuster? >> what will happen is that you will end up with a slim down bill that everybody agrees is going to be high regulation of insurance companies, so everybody is eligible, no preconditions. you do not adopt if you get sick. -- get dropped if you get sick.

everybody agreed on that and there would be an individual mandate. everybody will agree on that. all the other stuff will probably fail. >> he could come up with a bill that cuts down substantially on the 40 million who are uninsured, he achieved quite a bit.

>> my obligation to the american people as people get this done one way or another. >> peggy noonan writes in "the wall street journal" it every big idea that works is marked by clarity. where is the clarity in this debate, nina? >> that is the problem. there are too many moving parts. this is like theuman back. most people have back problems. mr. obama has back problems because there is the question of

controlling costs, who do you cover, delivery of services. that is the problem of course, these are all real problems. but it is just too hard to explain. there is not a single thing. >> what i don't understand is the nazi analogies people showing up with hitler mustache is painted on obama. people showing up witloaded weapons. how did they get away with that? >> that is a provocative act, an act of intimidation. and has no place in politics. weapons at a political rally -- maybe they are trying to say that the second amendment is a viable and that they are exercising the right to the second amendment. this is no way to have political discourse. and also, it is potentially very dangerous. >> i want to say something about this. during the bush administration,

there were lots of people turned away from rallies and push away from the outer parts of rallies because they had a john kerry button, maybe not even displayed great little old ladies were proud the administration would always say that it is the secret service. -- even at little old ladies were. the administration would always say that it is the secret service. now people are carrying guns outside. this is clearly the obama administration decided not to have a big fight with the gun rights people. if the secret service decided it was threatening company it would arrest those people. i personally consider it threatening. >> i would arrest them as well, although i think it is highly exaggerated. nancy pelosi talking about people carrying nazi insignia. how many, half a dozen? isit is a way to tar honest, middle-aged people. msnbc add footage of a guy with an automatic rifle outside of

raleigh, implying that he was a threat and racist. it was africa -- was actually an african-american and it was a stunt put on by a local talk radio host read all that was le out of that report. it implied that it was right wing mats. >> there are right-wing african- americans. >> but he is obviously not a races. >> to get back to the issue on clarity, it is about being against socialism and death panels and what are considered the hitler-like actions of barack obama. on barack obama's side, here we are in mid-to-late-august, and there is no clarity in the barack obama position. tell us what he wants. does he want a public option? would he sacrifice both for the rest of the bill? with the tax health care benefits like max baucus wants?

will be taxed as billy netflix and nancy pelosi wants? -- will he just acts of billionaires like nancy pelosi what? is he willing to do reconciliation? will he fight a filibuster? on and none of those three critical points has there been any clarity? ->> there is a good reason for it. when you start out with health care, you have to know where everybody is on the issue. you have a five part of 35 members up there. you have to know where they stand. -- 535 members up there. you have to know where they stand he is taking time to flush them out. you need to know where your votes are on the public option. that is before you then -- time is on his side. >> i don't think so. >> we will be talking about this next january and the primary when you counted them then.

>> it has been a long and costly flush if that is the case. >> let me ask about the letter ted kennedy has written to the guard of -- to the governor of massachusetts asking them to change the l so that there will be no vacancy in that senate seat before the special election. it was originally put in place to prevent mitt romney from putting somebody in there if mitt romney became president -- if john kerry became president. >> who put that in place? ted kennedy. his letter is touching, but the hypocrisy is staggering. as a way to keep it mitt romney from appointing a successor to president kerry, kennedy is the one who changed the law. all of a sudden he discovered the verge of ving the two seats occupied at the same time -- the virtue of having two seats occupied at the same time. >> the democrats are silent and republicans are crowing about this.

but look, he wants to make sure that massachusetts has two senators -- >> he did not care about that years ago. >> he could not go to his sister's funeral, which i am sure if you wanted to go to. that seems to be an indication that he will never get to washington to cast a vote. but when we say that the democrats need 60 votes, they could do without his boat as long as they could pick up a republican vote or to prin-- (employee 1) subject: urgent!! bob!!

i need the baker file stat!! reply!! still making changes. circle back later!! what's with the yelling? oh, our internet slows down during peak hours so sending e-mails and large files just takes forever. so, we just yell. ben!!!hanks for the flowers!!! i thought you hated me!!! lol!!! semi-colon! right parenthesis! winky emoticon!

(announcer) switch to verizon and get a dedicated high speed internet connection from our office to your small business so you won't be slowed down even if your neighbors are online. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tty/v today and for only $79.99 a month for 12 months with a 3 year contract you'll also get our award winning internet security suite, unlimited nationwide calling, and over $180 back in available online rebates. plus, the reliability of the verizon network. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tty/v today for the verizon single line business pak and data protection pak. one of the many tools in the verizon small >> at weeks in end, there were counting of votes in kabul, despite the taliban's efforts to keep voters away to many people were killed in the taliban's so the struggle. in the 40% of the voters showed

up from fewer than the 70% who voted in the first national presidential election in 2004. people have a hope for democracy, i guess. but i keep wondering if this is a bore of necessity. the president says it is and he said so in phoenix on monday. >> i do not know if it is a war of necessity until i look at what is next door with pakistan. then i figure out if you have a hall style taliban-type government and pakistan, -- afghanistan, then the next place to go will be pakistan. >> here's a country with something like 30,000 villages, very remote, tribal allegiances which shift, sometimes on a daily basis. how do you pull that together? >> another award that we do not understand where we are fighting. we understand what we are fighting for, but it is not clear if we will ever get there.

if they vote in the 40% to 50% range, that puts them were about with the united states is, so i am not sure we should be to critical of that. the upshot is does it really matter to the outcome of this who they lacd? they are electing a government that is afraid to leave the capital city of kabul. what they haven't sd are american and nato troops that are fighting -- and instead are american and nato troops that are fighting for democracy that has never flourish. >> our initial, swift victory in toppling the taliban give us the idea that we could turn afghanistan into a real country and democracy. that is actually an illusion. it never was a country and will not be a democracy as we understand it. our objective is sort of a minimal objectives. we know that the enemy willbe active and will have some influence in the south. our objective is to maintain the

capital would use to be the no. alliance. and it to hold that line. that minimal objective is achievable. but the idea of a single, unified country that is democratic is a complete solution. >> how long does this last? >> president obama defined his objective early on as preventing the taliban -- he defines them as a threat not only to the region but to the united states. defeating the taliban is one thing could nation building is completely different. >> how do you defeat the taliban without the nation building? >> do you build a nation at the same time? that is the problem. >> in iraq, terrible sectarian violence this week. 30,000 american troops still in and around the city of baghdad. the maliki government did not call them in for assistance. one man, a close political adviser to the government, said

that they want them out of here as quickly as they can get them out. >> we have had a problem with maliki ever since he had success in basra. remember, he attacked the sadrites, but it was a close victory and american help in the end that helped him. he has always overestimated his strengths. in keeping us out of the cities, he again overestimated his strength. he is weaker than he was. this is a winnable war, but it could be unwinnable if the iraqis assume that they are in control in a situation where they are not quite ready and keep us out. >> look at it this way. in august we have had two american casualties in iraq. two. this is an iraqi problem. how the iraqis handled this fight with the sudanese and this

shiites is their business. if they -- sunnis and shiites is their business. if they want us to go, pack up and let's leave right now. our job is not to make sure they get along with one another. we have done the job we meant to do. we do not have to stay there. as far as winning the war, that is their business. >> we destabilize the country and now we say it is broke and we are not going to fix it, and that is what the iraqi government wants to read the maliki government's decisions are probably wrong for his country but good for the united states thousands of lives and $10 trillion. that money could buy as 10 years of health care reform. >> if we use those resources in afghanistan in the beginning, we would be in a much better situation. >> how exactly would you have used them? but we have in iraq is the potential of an extremely

important strategic ally and it requir a slight bit of patience and a few more months rather than a quick and complete withdrawal. >> robert novak and don hewitt pass fm the scene.e

>> robert novak, we brought you on, i have to be honest, to be that cynic. >> i have never been one in my life. >> robert novak died ts week of an illness. whether you agree with this but if you are not, the prince of darkness -- he loved that -- he was the hardest working man in town. >> he was a working journalist, like mary mcgrory. i knew him in a different way. washington is not always as it seems. i deeply loved charles krauthammer agreed people may not know that.

with robert novak, i knew him years ago. i knew him as a parent. our kids were in high school to get a print and then he had a show that nobody really saw where the interview people in washington. we spent half an hour together talking about washington, d.c., talkinnot ideological at all. >> colby and i are going to get up in massachusetts. [laughter] -- elope in massachusetts. what made an interesting was his independence. he never had to be edited by anybody. he said what he believed. it was his independence that made him so in valuable. >> he was always very nice to me even though i am sure he considered by politics deplorable. it was always a surprise to him that people to not like him because of his politics. he was always able to separate in his mind is court -- core

manatee from political beliefs. >> that is exactly right. it is funny that he was called the prince of darkness. he was such a decent, nice person personally that it was a mishmash. >> we could do a whole show on the don hewitt. he was doing television news when most people were listening to the radio. he did the kennedy-nixon debates, and produced "60 minutes," where he demonstrated to the suits at blackrock that was possible to make money doing news. also, another great newsman died, alan otten, formerly washington bureau chief of "the wall street journal." last word. thanks. see you next week