of the generals blunt assessment of top u.s. options in afghanistan. >> the time has come for the world to move in a new direction. president >> obama goes to the u.n. -- >> president obama goes to the u.n. general assembly. >> i am not delaying, i am making an extremely important point. >> it is an important point, but you are also delaying. >> i am pleased to appoint paul kirk as the interim united states senator from massachusetts. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> welcome to "insider washington."

i'm mark shields, sitting in for bordon peterson, who will be back next week. "the washington post" scored a scoop of the week with bob woodward's story that general stanley mcchrystal thinks that the united states needs more troops in afghanistan to keep the mission from failing. >> if the president does not come to a decision soon, what will happen is we will miss the window of getting more troops into the theater as the spring t hawo occurs when, more troops will be necessary. >> the leak of the report is seen as response to the president's perceived reluctance to send more troops to afghanistan. will this pressure the president to send more troops to afghanistan, charles scott hammer? -- charles krauthammer? >> i think it will. i think the reason it got me to this because this was delivered to the president on august 30,

and the military is frustrated because this was an urgent request and was sitting around for a month and they want an answer, all in all out? >> nina totenberg, your own sense? will the president down to the pressure, react to it? >> it could have the opposite effect. there is no doubt why this was leaked. it was to pressure him. the sense one gets listening to him is that he is having second thoughts about this policy, and he is not going to be rushed into it. he is not going to make a commitment like iraq if he thinks there are real doubts, and the report, after all, can be read more than one way. >> colby king, this was the good war, the applause line during the campaign of 2008. iraq was a disaster, a mistake, but afghanistan was the good war. what happened? >> i think it is like the

prospect of a hanging, it tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully. i think the prospect of putting more troops into afghanistan means more u.s. casualties, unavoidable. more u.s. casualties, more u.s. treasury being spent. obama willie will have to confront that. -- obama really will have to confront that. this is his warit became that when he committed 17,000 more troops to afghanistan surely after taking office. he said it was a war of necessity, he laid down the gauntlet on this. now he faces the consequences of facing a great deal of loss. even if you succeed with the mission, it will cost more in the way of life in the treasury, and i am not sure he is willing to take that step. >> jeanne cummings, it is complicated of the fact we have a stolen election, or at least a very sullied and stained election, allegedly reelecting

karzai, and corruption is rife in the system. do these make it tougher for the president? >> it does make a lot tougher for the president, and mcchrystal's position is not the only one in the administration, and certainly congress is going -- growing increasingly concerned about afghanistan, and a tainted election added more to their skepticism. the president has a lot of opinions to weigh. the vice president is a skeptical voice on whether more troops are necessary, in terms of the timing of those trips, the size of it, whether the 17,000 that have already been added to the troops over there need more time to see if they can effect change before we send more in. it is a very complex debate. mcchrystal this week came out after the report was leaked and he tried to make the point that he was giving his position bluntly, clearly, but it was a pure military position.

the president has a lot of other things to consider. >> the other thing about this report is what i said you could read it two ways, he says in that report that militarily, if you do not put more troops in, significant number of more troops in, we will fail. but he does not say that if you do, we will wind. no foreign power has ever succeeded in this -- i am not saying we cannot, but it is a very dicey, very costly, and we may have already missed the window three or four years ago. the president has to figure out whether this is worth wagering a good deal of his presidency on. >> he has got to also consider the position he put himself in. mcchrystal is his person out there. he replaced the commander on the recommendation probably of the secretary of defense, but he replaced the commander who was in place out there. here is mcchrystal giving him

the strategy that they said he needed, a counterinsurgency strategy. mcchrystal as telling him the truth. it is going to cost. now obama has got to face the challenge of meeting the cost, and i am not sure he has it in him to do it, quite frankly. >> colby's right. the war is being run by obama's on general. on the 27th of march, obama made a speech flanked by the signatories of defense and state in which he began by saying " today and announce a comprehensive new strategy on afghanistan at." this is his strategy. for the last six months it was his strategy. and he goes on television, all of the networks, and says, "we don't have a strategy until -- until we have a strategy, i am not point to commit our troops." he tells us six months ago about a new strategy, which was at the conclusion of our review.

it is his strategy, his policy, his general, and that is why he is stock. his aides are worried that he will become lbj, a domestic reformer who will get lost in the swamps of the counterinsurgency. it is a real concern, and that is where the pressure -- is not about the discovery of corruption in afghanistan. that is like discovering in gambling in rick's cafe in the films. he knows it is corrupt. the election complicated. it is an old story, not a new fact. >> but you would be a fool to simply refuse to change your sttegy once you get your general in their who tells you it would cost more than you perhaps thought, once you have an election that everybody thought might be all right, ok, and is not ok. >> but not if you have declared it is a war of necessity and

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>> we have sought in word and deed a new era of engagement with the world. now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges. >> the president says is a new day, but he spent time in new york talking about old problems -- climate change, nuclear proliferation, and peace in the middle east. this was his first speech to the general assembly is he getting traction on his international to-do list, colby king? >> he showed distance in substance and tone from his predecessor.

that is the new day we are talking about, that he was well- received, unlike the way president bush was received. that said, he is still dealing with governments, go taking the same positions. personality cannot change the united nations, rhetoric cannot change the united nations. the united nations represents governments, not individuals. there obama will run into the same problems that his predecessor countered when it comes to things like the middle east or climate change. >> there were a couple of things going on at this week. there was the public here, where everybody from obama to ahmadinejad, who spoke to a half-empty chamber, too gaddafi -- god knows what he was doing -- but behind the scenes there was a fair amount going on. it is not clear whether we really did get a concession from the russians that they would help on sanctions if necessary, but it is the first indication that we might have actually

gotten that. >> progress, jeanne cummings? >> it is just the beginning. we are only starting out. we don't know how obama's relationship with the rest of the world leaders will be called. certainly were not pitching at hisead, which they used to do with bush. that is the change. but if you look at the specifics he was trying to bush, there might have been a little bit of progress on nonproliferation, and i think maybe it was helped by the announcement that iran has secretly had another plant in the works that does not appear to have been for energy purposes. that may have helped it more than anything that happened at the u.n. but if you look at middle east, no attraction there. those guys cannoagree on an agenda for a meeting. if you like climate change, he is not getting much traction in the u.s. congress, much less on the world stage. obama has a long way to go

before we see whether he can really make progress on the international priorities. >> in fairness, he did get traction in the u.s. house -- u.s. senate -- >> climate change culpribill. >> it won't surprise you, but i found his appearance in new york embarrassing. apart from the repetition of apologies about the bigness of america until his ascendancy and redemption -- the wickedness of america until his ascendancy and redemption of the country, was the naivete of the speech. he said, for example, that no nation can dominate another, no group of nations can sit above another, as if he does not sit on the security council. but when he sat on the security council, he presided over, and it was a resolution about the abolition of nuclear weapons, and the president of france

commented afterwards, and that translates roughly and i exaggerate -- what the hell we doing here? we are not living anin an alternate reality, we living in reality. all this pronouncement about the abolition of nuclear weapons was nonsense. there was more realism in my model u.n. in my high-school then i heard in obama's speech at the general assembly or the council. >> people are still talking about charles' model u.n. high school. >> chalerle when he was courting anybody said, "i plan to dominate you." >> surprisingly, i don't agree with charles on this. the president made a very

important points to say to the gathering, look, you're jays -- your days of saying its just a u.s. problem, those days are over. it is a mutual problem and you have a responsibility to step up and not just wait for the united states to take the lead. it was an important change and it was not apologetic. >> and i also think that -- the obama administration wants to reset the way the u.s. interacts with the world, and that has to start somewhere. if it starts with that resolution, that is fine. but we had a previous resolution a statements and speeches that pointed fingers and north korea and iran and they did not get us anywhere either. tough talk and try for a long time and this is an attempt to take and a differe -- to take a different approach. >> it is more talk, just soft talk. >> what do you want, middle talk?

>> the u.n. is a fiction and a farce, and the idea that obama will redeem at and make it a new retionship and a force in the world is itself farcical. that is what made it so embarrassing, the way he took it seriously, and the way he took these tyrants who applauded him seriously. >> republicans in the senate seriously. >> republicans in the senate finance committee s

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>> i want to do my job, and our job is to sit here and do it as long as it takes. >> the effect of this amendment will be this -- after we have completed action on the bill here, we have to wait another two to three weeks before we can vote on it. >> senator max baucus and the democrats in the finance committee defeated an amendment that would have added a literally weeks to the time it

would have taken to vote that bill in committee. the debate took more than two hours and there were more than five other amendments waiting to be possibly debated. what will it take to get a health care bill out of this committee, jeanne cummings? >> stop feeding them, locked the doors, make them work the weekend, until midnight. >> and take away the tv cameras. >> if he keeps working them until late into the night, republicans will figure they made their point and they may start dropping some of those amendments. as it is right now, they have serious areas that they have to continue to debate. even those really important points of contention will take them into next week. if max baucus can just keep their feet to the fire, he can maybe get this thing out sooner than it might been. >> colby, senator rockefeller and senator schumer, two of the most prominent democrats, say

there will be a public option. that has got to be a bone of contention. >> they will try the public option, probably do it on friday. as they should. they will put all of these issues on the table. something important is taking place. we have been criticizing them because we say that nobody is talking about the details, nobody knows the costs of the amendments. now they are dealing with the nitty-gritty of the debate. with a few exceptions, i find it pretty much an informed discussion taking place. it is long and torturous, but i think there is substance there pri. i find that the senators are reasonably well informed. >> look, i agree. i understand why obama and the democrats had a political necessity for speed. you want it done before a possible setback in november

elections, you want to get it done this year while the president is still strong. but this is a trillion-dollar proposal, 1/6 of our economy, the most radical reform of our social system probably in 20 or 30 years, at least as large as medicare. the idea that it ought to be done in a day or week or two or three is nonsense. all of these -- almost all these discussions in committee are serious, substantive, about numbers. a lot of these numbers are still undone. cbo has not scored them. in the absence of that, how can you pass a bill? >> first of all, you are not passing it, you are getting it out of committee, and there is another bill. they have been at it for months and months, and it is about time -- wait -- they got to the end of the road on this committee and got something to the floor. it will not be what passes in the last analysis no matter what, and if something passes,

it will not be the end of the day, either. will change, because there will be mistakes. but to act as if this is more money than we spend on iraq -- this bill would not be more money than we spend every year on iraq. >> some of the senators are just getting their first crack at this bill. only six of them have been working weeks and months on this. now you have people like rockefeller getting the opportunity to really offer their own amendments, and that is happening on the other side, too. as part of the process. >> but it is true that this is a debate we been on for 10 years, not a debate that started last week. >> this is something we have been over before. >> but the details and regulations are all new and real and carry numbers. >> that is why i want you to pay attention.

>> this appointment is a

profound honor. i accept it with a sincere and humility. >> that is paul kirk, selected to represent massachusetts in the united states senate until the state holds a special election in january. it was ted kennedy's dying wish to have a replacement quickly appointed, but the process was not exactly pretty. >> note, it was not pretty, but at least we have seen the governor do it pretty well. if you look at the other appointments that have taken place, the governor of new york killed himself in the process, the governor of delaware has been criticized for putting a place holder to hold it for the vice president's son, and of course there is illinois, and in alaska, you add sarah palin overlooked to fill the slot, and look where she came back. it means that this governor did it right. it is a popular selection, he is a place holder, it is for the

short term, so the voters can express themselves in pretty quick order. finally we have a process that seemed to work. >> the messiness you were referring to is the fact -- >> flip-flop in t law. >> it allowed a democratic governor to appoint, is prohibited a republican. i think that instead of changing the law every few years, what the massachusetts legislature ought to do is simple, simy have a law that says that when that seat comes up and, at the kennedy family will choose its successor. that way will be simple and direct and clean, as it was in this time. >> that would please the voters of massachusetts by and large. >> absolutely. >> but jeanne is right, compared to what we've seen elsewhere this year, so what? it is politics. that is what politics is.

it happened pretty efficiently. >> my relatives in new bedford think it is wonderful the way they handled this thing. frankly, i am surprised looking at it from a distance. remember the initial reaction from the democrats was lukewarm to cool. republicans were grousing about it because they don't matter in this equation. but the democrats really did not seem to be warm to this idea, and the fact that the move from where they were to where we are now says something about the political process in massachusetts. >> at wonder if they haveow a law that can withstand a democratic or republican governor. even if it is a republican governor, deccan be an appointment made for three months, but then there can be an election and if the democrats think they can win it, they can win it three months later. >> as a native of massachusetts, when there is a vacancy and report to the governor, you have a special election, e vacancy and a democratic governor, democrat, and makes an

appointment. that straightforward. tune in again next week for "inside washington." announcer: the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, so why does the journey from where you are to where you want to be have to go through a classroom? it doesn't. from correspondence courses to online platforms, like the graduate school's gs connect, distance education has always helped people on the go, go further. the courses you need, available on your schedule, anytime, anywhere. great moments begin at the graduate school. learn more. visit...

>> from the united nations and new york city to the nation's capital, to pittsburgh, pennsylvania, world leaders and experts are talking climate change and how to curb global emissions. good morning and welcome to "clean skies sunday," a weekly half-hour look at energy issues facing washington and america. i'm tyler suiters. susan mcginnis is on assignment. across the country and at the u.n., climate legislation, global warming, and how to solve or slow its negative effects are leading discussion topics all across the area and one of the biggest stages was pittsburgh. that's where president obama led the g-20 meetings. >> pittsburgh was a perfect venue for this work. this city's known its share of hard times, as older industries like steel could no longer sustain growth. but pittsburgh picked itself up