>> schieffer: today on "face the nation," it was a week when you couldn't believe your ears. first it was house speaker john boehner. >> ilet again insist, high principle of cut than the debt increase. >> schieffer: when he said that last year, congress tied itself in such a knot that america's credit rating was downgraded, not to mention congress' approval rating which hit a new low and now he wants to fight the same battle? was he kidding? >> this is no joke right here. >> schieffer: the president and congressional leaders huddled over hoagies but had no answers so we'll ask three key senators. republican leader mitch mcconnell, virginia's mark warner, and south carolina's lindsey graham. does this mean we're headlined

towards another of those nasty "stop everything" political standoffs in an election year? and did you hear what mitt romney said about the comeback of the auto industry? vice president biden sure did. >> i'm going to quote him, he said, "i'll take a lot of credit for the fact that the industry's come back." oh. ( applause ) and by the way, i'll take a lot of credit for a man having landedly on the moon. ( laughter ) because although i was in school, i rooted for it. >> schieffer: on another, is the romney admitted he doesn't always remember his exact words, but he said, you can still take them to the bank. >> i'm not familiar precisely exactly what i said but i stand by what i said, whatever it was. >> schieffer: all that, plus want latest from the nato summit, analysis from tom friedman of the "new york times," cbs news correspondent

isa ward, just back from afghanistan. white house correspondent norah o'donnell. and police director john dickerson. you don't get just the straight stuff here. you get it all. because this is "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs from cbs news in washington, "face the nation" with bob schieffer. >> schieffer: good morning, again, and welcome to "face the nation." senator mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate is with us this morning from louisville. welcome, senator. i want to start out with this statement by speaker boehner because last summer, when congress got itself all tangled up over extending the debt ceiling and the country was headed toward default, financial securities got their ratings downgraded, you were one of the key players, as it were, who

helped structure a compromise that kept all that from happening. were you surprised when speaker boehner said now he's ready to repeat that same fight and go through this whole thing again? >> well, let's make sure we got it exactly right what happened. what the speaker and i both said last year was that if the president's going to ask us to raise the debt ceiling, we shouldn't treat it like a motherhood resolution that passes on a voice vote. we ought to try to engage and see if we can do something about deficit and debt and so we did. and even no though the agreement ultimately reached was a lot less than i had hoped for and i know a lot less than the speaker hoped for we reduced $2.1 trillion in discretionary spending over 10 years. why do we need to use the request of any president to discuss deficit and debt? look, we have a debt now bigger than our economy. that alone makes us look a lot

like greece. we've had the lowest labor participation rate in 30 years. we've had 39 straight months of unemployment above 8%. the country's in a lot of trouble. we have a president who just this weekend at camp david was advocating a position to the left of the european central bank which has been resisting doing an american-type stimulus to solve their problems, and yet the president is arguing that the europeans should replicate policies that clearly haven't worked here. what the speaker was saying i entirely agree with. if the president is going to ask us to raise the debt seale ago and he will early next year-- we do need to have another serious discussion about trying to do something significant about the deficit and the debt. >> schieffer: well, speaker boehner seemed to suggest that he wanted to do it before the election, and i don't think anybody thinks that that's necessary to raise the debt limit before the-- before early

next year. but he seemed to suggest that he wanted to do it now. and i take your point of what you just said, but let me just read you. here is what the "wall street journal" said last year-- in fact, i read this quote to you on "face the nation" the morning before you finally worked out the compromise. the "wall street journal" said then, "the debt limit hobit should also realize that at this point, the washington fracas they are prolonging isn't helping their cause. republicans are not looking like adults to whom voters can entrust the government." aren't you just setting yourself up for the same kind of situation again? >> let me tell you what isn't adult behavior. you know how the democrats raised the debt sealing in the previous congress? they airdropped it into obamacare. nobody got to vote on it. that's how seriously they take the debt ceiling. our view is a request of any president to raise the debt

ceiling is a serious matter because it underscores the way we have been engaged in excessive spending and borrowing. particularly over the last three and a half years. it is the perfect time, bob, the perfect time to engage in a discussion about doing something serious about deficit and debt. we could not get this president to do anything serious about entitlement reform, for example, the single biggest threat to future generations, not of consequences. my three appointees to the bowles-simpson commission voted for it. one of my appointees will to the joint select committee later in the year offered our friends on the other side new revenue. that's not something that we lightly offer. we got nothing in return. about the long-term debt problem facing this country, and we all know that it's on the entitlement side. so at some point here, this president needs to become the adult because the speaker and i have been the adults in the room arguing that we ought to do

something about the nation's most serious long-term problem. >> schieffer: well, talk to me about the timing here. are you talking about you'd like to do this, having this argument over whether or not to raise the debt limit before the election or are you willing to let that go until after the election? >> well, the timing will be determined by the president. they determine when to request of us that we raise the debt ceiling. we assume that will happen at the end of the year, early next year. >> schieffer: so, so you're not going to do anything until-- until the president brings this up on this particular >> look, without presidential leadership, nothing is-- can be accomplished. we didn't have presidential leadership last year. it's pretty clear the president's not going to lead on this any time soon. unless he engages, you know, we don't control the entire government. we control the house of representatives only. we'd like to do something about the nation's biggest problem, spending and debt, which is, of course, the reason for this economic melees and this high

unemployment. whenever the president is willing to engage, we're ready to go. >> schieffer: let me ask you then, let's talk about something else, whatever the case on all of that. the cuts that you, the republicans, the democrats, and the white house agreed on last year will go into effect at the end of this year. it's $1.2 trillion across the board cut to spending. are those cuts going to stand, or is congress going to change that situation? what happens? >> yeah, i don't think we ought to cut a penny less than we're pledged to cut. i'm perfectly open to a discussion about how we arrange that-- those reductions. but we promised the american people we were going to get $2.1 trillion over 10 years in discretionary spending reductions, and we need to do that. we can have a discussion about how you allocate those. i happen to be among those who think it's much too tough on the defense department, defense of the nation is our single biggest

responsibility at the federal level of government in this country. but i don't think we ought to cut a penny less than we promised the american people last year we would. >> schieffer: so, i mean, because speaker boehner and house republicans, as you know, just passed a defense bill that actually raises defense spending. so on the one hand, he's talking about, you know, we've got to cut spending, but on the other hand, they vote to raise defense spending. so you would-- you would go along with that in some fashion? in other words, you don't mind rearranging the cuts, but you're going to make sure that in the end, the cuts that you voted for stay as they are. is that right? >> that's correct. what the house did was to reconfigure the spending reductions so that it was less impactful on the nation's defense, which is, of course, the most important responsibility of the federal. >> schieffer: all right, well, mr. leader, we want to thank you for being with us this morning and for answering questions. that's why we asked you here and

you're pretty good about asking them. i want to turn now to mark warner, democrat of virginia. he's on the budget committee. and down in columbia, south carolina, senator lindsey graham. senator warner, first to you, what went through your mind when you heard speaker boehner say what he said this week? >> it felt like groundhog day. you know, we saw what happened when the speaker last year played, in effect, debt ceiling roulette. he almost blew up the whole economy and the notion with fiscal turmoil going on in europe right now, that he would try to say we're going to draw this bright line again, and kind of "my way or the highway" approach. i think it's incredibly irresponsible. the fact is, i agree with senator mcconnell. we've got to take on this debt issue. we've got to recognize $16 trillion in debt, $4 event 5 billion a day we add to it but it's going to take a balanced plan, like simpson-bowles, like

our gang of six, that has revenue and entitlement reform and the notion that it will be done on one side of the balance sheet with spending cuts only, there's no responsible out there that has looked at this problem that says you have to do both. >> schieffer: senator graham, how would you respond to that? >> i would say that most americans believe that we're so far in debt that their children's future is at risk, and if we're going to raise the debt seale ago we already borrow 40 cents of every dollar-- for every dollar we borrow in the future we ought to cut the government by an equivalent dollar is not radical. it's something we should have been doing a long time ago. and there's not a snowball's chance in hell that we're going to get out of debt, reform entitlements and control spending without presidential leadership. so what boehner proposalsed about raising the debt ceiling is just a start. i'm not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling until you show me we're serious about getting out of debt and the gang of six,

bowles-simpson, hats off. if i were president obama or candidate romney i would tell the public we're going to take bowlez-simpson. that will be our road map future. if you'd like to change it you have a chance. but we're going to take that up. we're going to control spending. we're going to flatten the tax code and get new revenue by eliminating deductions and we're going to have entitlement reform and it's going to take a presidential leader to make that happen. >> schieffer: senator warner, you're part of the so-called gang of six, some call it a gang of eight, that are looking for some way out of this thing. do you think there's still any chance that you all could come up with something? >> absolutely, bob. we're up to 45 senator. lindsey has been suggesting and helpful as well. we have over 100 members of the house. i think-- we know it's going to require reform of the tax code that's going to renovate additional revenue. it's going to require changing our entitlement programs so there will be a medicare and social security 40, 50 gears

now. it's going to require put something defense spending cuts on the table, as simpson-bowles laid out. and we're still at work at this, and what we're going to need and whether this moment comes in the lame duck session or first quarter of next year, it's going to require all of us kind of shoulder to the wheel and being able to take off our democrat and republican hats and put our country first. >> schieffer: do you think anything could actually happen before the election, senator graham? >> the president-- no, i really don't, bob. the president's last three budgets have gotten zero votes and our democratic colleagues haven't voted fair budget since april 2009. so i don't see a breakthrough. but in the lame duck, we'll have an opportunity to take the gang of six idea, simpson-wowles, but for the campaign itself, i think both candidates for president should be asked, "would you take simpson-bowles as a road map to fiscal sanity and pledge to try to implement parts of it and bring it to the congress for a

vote. i would love to hear both of them say yes. you know, president obama has had three and a half years to change things. he had two years with super democratic majority. and they did basically nothing but run up the debt. so i don't think much happening. >> schieffer: what about that, senator warner? >> i think it would be great. we have already seen president obama came out when the gang of six laid out their ideas and he said, yeah. we went on tv and said he'd support them. that probably cost us some votes among republicans in the house. what i'm concerned about is mitt romney's position which during the republican presidential nominating process where he said he wouldn't even take a deal that had $10 in cut for $1 in new revenue. reaffirming that position drives us right into the fiscal ditch. >> schieffer: dan bolls had an interesting piece in the "washington post" this morning where he said there are a lot of big issues on the table but he said the biggest issue is not being addressed and that is simply this-- can washington actually govern? i think it's a investigator fair question and a pertinent

question. what's gone wrong, senator warner? >> well, i do think this issue around debt and deficit has become a proxy whether our institutions can still function. bought buyers not going to get to any other issue until we can in effect figure out what our balance sheet is going to look like, what our long-term tax program will look like, and our entitlements. i think there's a sense among most members we have to get it fixed. there is a lot of common ground but there is no institutional fix in washington to do the right thing. all of the interest groups are very much opposed because it's going to mean changes to the tax code, changes to the entitlement programs. and we need to make it safer, particularly for some of folks who have been there a long time to step up and put country first. >> schieffer: i would guess you would agree with most of that, senator graham, but how did we get to that point? how did we get to where we are right now? >> well, we hay new president in 2008 that ran on hope and change, and he had a real opportunity for two years with

super democratic majority to do what mark said, control federal spending, reform the tax code, and do something about entitlements, and here we are in this election, nothing's happened but more debt, more spending and out-of-control entitle am spending. here's what i would say is good news-- republicans have crossed the rubicon on revenue. we don't have enough money in washington. we're historically low in terms of revenue collected, but nobody wants to increase taxes. what mark and the simpson wowles committee did, flatten the tax code, get rid of all the deductions, take most of the money to buy down rate so we'll have an entrepreneurial economy and put some of the money on debt. republicans have said in the past all the money from eliminating the reductions must go to reducing taxes. now, there's a group of us that say that if you take $4 billion away from this and all producers -- because that's unfair-- but a billion dollars on the debt and $3 billion to lower taxes,

that's something that will lead to a breakthrough. and i hope governor romney will embrace the concept of reducing deductions and exemptions and putting some of the money on the debt as well as lowering rates. that would be a breakthrough for our party. >> schieffer: well, i want to take a break here. we'll come back and talk. this a little more when we come back.

>> schieffer: and we're back now with more from senators graham and warner. senator warner, you heard lindsey graham just now talking about some of the things republicans think they can do. what do you think has to happen here? >> well, i do think we need presidential leadership, and i think president obama has provided that. he laid out a plan that took $4 trillion off of the debt amount. it was, i think, a balanced approach. it probably won't be the exact

framework. i think the simpson-bowles and gang of 6 is closer to and he has endorsed the gang of 6. it will include folks outside of washington as well. we need voters to demand this or fire us all because this is our first responsibility. we're going to need the business community in this fight as well. too often, the business community in the last debt debacle sat out that debate. we need them shoulder to the wheel as well because nothing would be more devastating to the economic recovery and to any business than to have an interest rate spike that would come about if the rest of the world said, hey, we're not sure america's going to get its fiscal act together. >> schieffer: what do you think happened at the g-8 when you had all these economic leaders of the world meeting up there at camp david, senator graham, because up until now, they pretty much stressed austerity as the way out of this debt crisis that is sweeping across europe, but yesterday, they seemed to shift a little bit and said maybe the way out

of this is more jobs, creating more jobs. and basically talked about more spending, which is what president obama has been more or less suggesting. you think they took a good step here or how do you think that's going to-- what the impact of that is going to be? >> well, i think the european economies are doomed if they keep going down the road of higher taxes on people who try to create jobs and more federal spending in europe. i think they need to do what mark and the gang of six have tried to do-- control spending. we're at 25% of our g.d.p. in spending. we need to be at 18%. but take the tax code and flatten. do away with all these deductions and exemptions and lower rates. europe can't achieve growth because the governments over there are too large and they're trying to increase taxes and be austere weapon what they need to do is do what we're trying to do is flatten their tax codes so more jobs can be created,

control government spending, and work on their entitlement programs that are out of control. in america, we have to tell the american people that bob schieffer, lindsey graham, and mark warner need to pay the full cost of the medicare premiums. we need to tell younger workers you have to work past 65 or we're going to lose our nation. we have to adjust the age on medicare and social security and we have to means test benefit. and if europe doesn't do that they're going to go down the tubes. if they keep trying to have growth of jobs by growing government they're never going to get the job growth they need. at a need need to change their tax system to make it more entrepreneurial and so do we. >> what i would simply say while i agree with lindy we need a plan, it's going to have to reform our tax code and entitlement programs, you can't cut your way out. you have to have a growing economy. that's what i have been concerned with the ryan and romney plan, they would take the federal part of our spending which is now 16% and cut it down

to less than 5% over time. i don't know any nation in the world that can compete in the 21st century if they spend less than 5% of their dollars educating their workforce, rebuilding infrastructure, there is no other country in the world that would have that kind of plan. >> schieffer: i want to thank both of you, and i'll be back in a moment with some thoughts of my own about some real accomplishments in washington this week.

>> schieffer: commentary clearly labeled i don't want to goat carried away here, but two amazing things happened this week. congress actually did something. second, and perhaps even more

unbelievable, political consultants came up with a series of ads so nasty that politicians on both sides denounced them as too dirty, even for today's campaigns. the news from the capitol was on a bipartisan vote, the house extend the life of the export-import bank, the institution that arranges financing for countries that want to buy u.s. products. a no-brainer in times gone by, but a bipartisan vote on anything is so unusual these days, the "washington post" put it on the front page. the other stunner, the "new york times" reported thursday a billionaire named joe rickets, the founder of t.d. ameritrade, had triggered a series of racially charged ads tying barack obama to the incendiary black power minister jeremiah wright in a way, the strategists wrote, john mccain would never

let us do in 2008. the news caused a huge bipartisan uproar, and in a matter of hours, the potential bank roller withdrew his support saying it wasn't his style, and mitt romney, who is usually very cautious about commenting on any unanticipated event, strongly repudiated the whole idea and said he wanted no part of it. well, good for them. too soon to know if this signals a trend toward cleaner campaigns. it probably doesn't, but in this era of anything goes, it's good to know at least a few things still don't. back in a minute.

>> schieffer: some of our stations are leaving but for most of you we will be back with page two and a foreign policy discussion with senator graham, tom friedman of the "new york times" and our own cbs news foreign correspondent isa ward. stay with us. ♪

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>> schieffer: welcome back. president obama this morning is hosting world leaders from over 50 countries for this year's nato summit. the top issue on their agenda out in chicago is afghanistan. to talk about all that and some of the other foreign policy issues our friend tom friedman, columnist for the "new york times," correspondent isa ward, who spends most of her time in the middle east but is here with us today in washington. she's just back from afghanistan. senator graham, of course, is on the armed services committee and rejoins us from south carolina. senator graham, before we get into all of that, i want to ask you, first, about something that is, you know, just happened last night, i guess. chinese dissident chen guangcheng arrived in new york, where he is going to attend law school. we all know this dramatic story

of how he escaped house arrest, wound up at the american embassy, and then finally got back. what do you make of this? i just want to get your reaction. what do you think this means? >> well, one, i'm glad he is out of china, but i think i think this is an opportunity for the american government and people to reengage china about their human rights record. this guy had a dramatic escape from the hospital. his family has been treated like dirt for years because they object to forced sterilization, forced abortions by the chinese government. we have an intricate, very close relationship with china economically. it has drowned out our moral voice and this opportunity exist throughs this brave man to raise our moral voice and tell china we want to do business with you but you better change your behavior because you're an outlier in the world based on what mr. chen is objecting to. >> schieffer: you know, tom, this all happened when the

secretary of state, hillary clinton, was in china. it seemed to me that as difficult as it was, that the chinese were probably as anxious as we were to try to figure something out here. am i wrong about that? >> what really comes through in the story about this is how much the chinese wanted to play this down, not make a symbolic issue about it. i think there are a couple of things going on. one is they've got their own internal turmoil at a very high level with this leader from out west, li, who has been been found knee deep in corruption and his wife potentially implicated in a murder. we see something else going on, too it's fact that the chinese didn't even want the information released fair while early on in this crisis i think tells you something about the massive spread of microblogging in china and the fear of the leadership that this would create a nationalist, populist firestorm and contradict their room for maneuvers. you have a lot of new factors now at play in this

relationship. >> schieffer: isa, you-- we're all so proud of you when you managed to sneak into syria when things there were at their worst. you got in there under cover. you reported from the scene when other people were reporting from across the border and other places. it was just a remarkable, remarkable series of reports. >> thank you. >> schieffer: since then,un, under the old "what have you done for us lately" since then, you're just back from afghanistan. that's the topic number one in chicago where all these leaders are meeting with president obama. what is the state of afghanistan right now? what did you find when you were there? well, obviously, it's a very complex picture. but there's certainly a very real concern for many people living there about this set deadline for a troop withdrawal. and i spoke with one very important and interesting pakistani writer, ahmed rasheed, who argued, quite persuasively,

i think, that it is absolutely essential for some type of a peace agreement already to be in place between the taliban and the karzai government before we can really pull back those forces. because if those forces pull back and we're plunged into a civil war, the karzai fledgling security forces have absolutely no chance of winning any kind of a victory in a battle between the taliban and karzai's government. it is important to engage the taliban. and certainly i also met recently in pakistan with members of the taliban, and there is a sense that possibly certain factions of the older generation are growing more politically savvy. they understand that they can't go in and make a complete grab for power, that this will have to be some kind of a unity government. there has to be some kind of a sharing agreement. otherwise, the aid stops, and they don't want to be international pariahs in the way that they were in the 1990s. of course the question then is to what extent is the taliban a homogenous group, and how can we trust them? >> schieffer: so are we set up

for this to end the right way, senator graham? >> yes, possibly. the strategic partnership agreement where we commit to have a counter-terrorism force past 2014 closes the deal, in my view, on the taliban's aspirations to come back militarily. the afghan security forces are getting better. they're better trained. they're better equipped. two years ago, for every afghan soldier in the south, around kandahar, there were two americans. today there are two afghans for every one american. focus on building its army and the police. let the taliban know that we will have a force past 2014. the british agreed to stay today past 2014. my view is with about three or four airbases, 20,000 troops left behind past 2014, with american airpower and special forces units, the afbegan army will always win a fight with the taliban. and if you want the taliban to

reconcile and stop killing women in so, stadiums, you have to beat them militarily and i think we're on track to do that. >> i have a slightly different view from senator graham. i believed from the beginning we had four choices. lose early, lose late, lose big, or lose small. my hope was we would lose small and early. i have felt from the beginning of this whole surge that the surge of president obama could work if three things happened. karzai became a different man, pakistan became a different country, and that president obama could succeed in nation building in afghanistan. whenever i hear people saying it's a training problem, i always ask myself, who has trained the taliban? training afghans to shoot, to fight, that always just has a real disinence in my ear. un, i think people fight when they have a will, and it's not just about the way, and i think there are a lot of afghans that don't want to fight for a corrupt government, all right.

that's one problem, and the other problem is pakistan, which has been playing a double game. they're giving sanctuary to the taliban, at the same time being our ally. until pakistan stops looking at the taliban as a strategic depth against iran, i don't see how any of this has a happy ending. >> i'm inclined to agree, absolutely, with tom. pakistan has to confront its very real internal economic and political problems, and until that starts to happen, it's impossible to see how there can be any kind of lasting peace in afghanistan. >> schieffer: so is what happens in afghanistan, senator graham, we went there because it posed-, we're told-- a threat it our security, and in fact i think it did. does it still pose a threat to our security, and has what we have done there in the time we have spent there made us any safer? >> well, what makes us safe is that killing bin laden, that

helps. what makes us safe is providing capacity to will, and i like tom friedman, and your report is one of the bravest on the planet but i couldn't disagree more. the afghan people reject the taliban in large numbers. their military and police forces are getting better in the eyes of the afghan people. the taliban are never going to give up the fight until they believe they will lose. pakistan needs to believe that we're not leaving afghanistan and the taliban can't come back. they're betting on the taliban coming back. you can't lose a little bit in afghanistan. either you win or you lose, and my belief is if we'll stick to it and follow general allen's plan-- who i trust better than knob this show or anywhere in the world-- that we're going to leave afghanistan but we'll have a military force left behind that will allow us to defeat the taliban in perpetuitiy. and you're dead right about the karzai government. it's corrupt to the core. here's what you don't get. i've been there about a dozen times. there's a generation of afghans

who want a better country, who are going to be less corrupt, and they're going to come to power one day but you'll never have a transition of corruption to good governance without security. so these young people are risking their lives and dying in droves to change afghanistan. if we stick with them, there will be a brighter future in afghanistan, and we cannot leave afghanistan without our national security being affected one way or the other. what happens afghanistan will follow this country for decades. i applaud the president for his strategic partnership agreement. nato needs to fund the argument. nato nation need to commit past 2014. if we do, that we will get this right. >> schieffer: let's talk about another real problem and that's something you know a lot about, clarissa, because you spent a lot of time there, and that is syria. where are we right now? there's a-- quote-- cease-fire in place. but there's no cease-fire. >> absolutely. there's no cease-fire. none of the points of kofi

annan's peace plans have been met. there are still tanks and troops in civilian areas. people are not able to protest without being fired out as we saw in alepo, students coming out to protest were met with bullets instead. there's a real sense that this peace plan is not going according to plan and at what point does the international community call this plan a failure? and if they do call it a failure what's the next step, because unfortunately what's happening in the interim, while there's this kind of inertia, is you're seeing extremist, nonstate actors stepping in to capitalize on the political chaos in the country. and i speak with these opposition activists every day and they're up in arms they say, of course we have nothing t do with these bombings and we're horrified that they're happening and they're giving our movement a bad name. but they're certainly not in any position to put a stop to them, either. >> schieffer: tom, what is the next step? >> well, we're seeing, bob, from 30,000 forecast we're seeing the breakdown of a 100-year-old

order, basically, in this region. sunni-led iraq has been change. christian lebanon, it's all part of a broad arc of basically an old order crumbling. and, you know, the reason it iraq has a one in 10 chance today of some kind of decent outcome, it's for i would say two reasons. one is you did have an unsurge of iraqis there who really wanted to claimant future, but the other is we were there. we were there as a mid. we talk iraq from saddam suffered jefferson without getting stuck. there is going to be no midwife in syria. you're going see the same kind of sectarian volcano erupt withoutw no midwife. all we can do, i think, is identify the decent actors. hold them to high principles. try to push them in the right direction. work with the russians.

the game is over. do we intervene? syrians have decided they want to take this guy out, all right. we've got to identify the better angels in that group try to align with them and tilt them the right direction. we can't do alone. we shouldn't do it alone but i don't see any other option. >> schieffer: senator graham, is there anything we can do here? >> year, we do a lot. we can back up the idea that assad has to go. we need to tell the u.n. your plan is not work, come up way better plan. we can help arm the rebels. we can make it a fair fight. we don't need to do this unilaterally. what's going on in syria is the same thing that went on in tu nearby achina, the young people are experiencing the ability to talk to themselves. they're sick and tired of living in countries that are corrupt to the core, and the arab spring has many forms to it, and the question for us, what is the arab spring, and what role should we play in it? every country is different, but i would like to see more involvement in terms of safe haven for the rebel forces.

a stronger effort to arm them militarily. and to try to find out a work relationship with the syrians. it's a very complicated environment, but if you break assad off, and you get him out of power, it's the biggest blow to iran in 25 years. the iranians are watching us. if we leave afghanistan like we did iraq and it begins to fall apart, why should they think we'll do anything to their nuclear program? if we can't take assad downa after we said we would, they're going to think we're not really serious about them. so the iranians are watching us, bob. and i were the president of the united states i would put a full court press on to make sure assad goes sooner rather than later. >> schieffer: let me talk to tom. you mentioned the arab spring, and i know you're just back from cairo. give me your thoughts on what senator graham said. >> back from lebanon and jordan. yeah, i certainly think that what you're seeing today in the arab spring and senator graham alluded to it and i think at its core is what he said.

it is an upsurge of arab youth. seeing how everyone else it is living in the world and it was like a volcanic eruption. here's what we see a year and a half later. the eruption was enough to blow the lid open but not off. in egypt the lid is still there. the army, part of the old regime is still there. into the opening came the most organized political party, the muslim brotherhood. that's what you're seeing playing playout in. >> egypt, the struggle between the democratic youth aspiring for a different future and this very old political movement. what's missing in the middle east that europe had, europe had a model, the european union. and everyone wanted to get into it. and it was a huge magnet for them to do the right thing. in the middle east, the model you have is islam. that's the model that's pulling them the other way. we'd need to be in there i think to the extent we can, with money, resourcees, and example, at least, of trying to nurture them toward a different model.

>> schieffer: well our time is up. where are you going next? >> probably lebanon as the fighting is continuing there. it's trickling over from syria. >> schieffer: we'll await your report and be back in one minute with some politics.

>> schieffer: with so much news going on, on so many fronts we've almost neglected the campaign news. joining us are cbs news political pros, norah o'donnell, and our white house correspondent john dickerson, our political director. what's been happening out there, john? >> we've had all of these squalls, momentary stars have flared up in the campaign race but it's still the race between a president dragged down by a weak economy and a challenger who has trouble with his favorability ratings. but that's been change a little bit. the obama campaign has been work for months to lock in the impression of mitt romney. and it hasn't exactly been working.

their view is in a weak economy, where people are inclined to turn against a president, they don't think is doing a good job on the economy, they need to make romney objectionable. but if you look at romney's favorability ratings, according to gallup and some other polls in well, in february 39% had an unfavorable view of him-- excuse me, 39% had a favorable view, 49% unfavorable. the number now is 50% have a favorable view, 41% unfavorable. things are going better for romney. why? rick santorum dropped out of the race. this is defight all the attacks by the obama campaign. what's happened now is mitt romney is kind of seen as the okay alternative or starting to be seen as that and the obama team has to make that stop. >> schieffer: so what's happening over at the white house. >> i think that's why you saw this first scrimmage, really, where the obama team launched the offensive to define and discredit mitt romney, potortray him as an empty suit when it comes to being a business man, why they went after his record, not as a job creator but as a

job destroyer. i'm told they're going to continue this assault. they're going to double down on this assault with new ads. they barely spent any money on this one ad, but they got a lot of play from everybody else. they were able to generate discussion. this is-- if the obama team captain succeed in painting mitt romney as an empty suit, then they will lose this election because they want to use it to distract from the this whole record about obama as president. >> schieffer: wasn't it amazing-- i thought it fairly amazing this whole idea of this campaign at one of the consultants came up with to try to replow this business and tie president obama more to jeremiah wright, and they said right up front in the presentation they made to do it in a way that john mccain wouldn't let us do. i mean, this thing was really shaping us as even too nasty for today's politics. romney said no thank you. i want no part of it. >> right. the campaigns basically try and do character assassination and make it look like a natural death with their opponents.

and this is a case where the character assassination came out right into the open. there was no relationship here between romney and this group that was noodling this idea. but what used to happen when you were a candidate, people who gave you money had a lot of money to put in the party, they'd give you their crazy ideas at a fund raiser and you'd smile and then you'd move on. ( laughter ) now they have $10 million and they can fult on the air, and this was just too hot for romney. they distanced themselves which was a signal not only to this group not to run these ads but also to any other republican because while this is somethinga that essentialed by certain members of the republican party, those members of the republican party have gathered around mitt romney. he doesn't need to worry about them. it turns off those moderate voters in the middle who see this as having nothing to do with the economy. who see it as character assassination, who see it as race baiting, and romney doesn't want to mess with that. >> schieffer: norah, the white house is really going after governor romney on this whole business of being from bain capital. what's that all about? is that going to work? >> well, i think it's-- it

remains to be seen how mitt romney reresponds. he did not respond very heavily this week. they're going to continue these ads. they're going to use different companies, not just the steel company that was of news in the last week. mitt romney, i know, called this character assassination. but the obama team wants to show that this is moreave self-inflicted wound, that romney is taking credit for creating jobs, but actually what the business did was invest in companies that created jobs and then there were also some failures. so i think there's-- you know, this is going to be part of what they're going to do, i think, they were surprised to find this week the poll numbers that john mentioned where romney's favorability ratings have gone back up. romney's fund-raising numbers were extremely strong. this past month. so it's going to be a very tight race. >> this is a message not only to make romney's number one pitch i'm a business guy, to make that a liability for him, but it's also for the president to argue, look, in this time of scarcity, when we're going to make huge

choices i've got your back. he doesn't jur back. and joe biden was in the eastern part of the ohio this week, making the same kind of pitch, saying he's not one of us, arguing that biden is a middle-class joe from his humble roots. and that he understands. and that's what this ad is also showing. if you look at this ad which norah said didn't run in any places, it's got all blue collar men in it. this is a group the president hasn't done well with and democrats in general haven't done well with, but it's a group mitt romney is going to have trouble with. the pitch to them also here is they're trying to organize voters and get them to come to the polls. that's where we are in this race and this is a pitch to the union workers saying, hey, the democrats have your back and this baseman doesn't. >> i've been saying this, the economy, presumably, and his business record should be his pitching arm, right. and essentially the president wants to sideline him for the rest of the season and tear that apart. >> we see from the first ad romney put out this week, very positive, and it's i'm "mr. fixit." i'm going to reform the tax

corked get rid of the obama health care plan, approve the keystone pipeline. it's all going to happen lickety-split. the interesting thing is two of those are going to require democratic votes and in this town i'm not sure that will happen. >> schieffer: thanks to both of you. stay here.

>> schieffer: 36 years ago, america was in the midst of another presidential campaign. democrat jimmy carter was challenging our first unelected president, republican gerald ford. so "face the nation" brought in a real heavyweight to talk politics, muhammed ali, and that is our "face the nation" flashback. >> for spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview on "face the nation." >> i said i told you i was the greatest not the smartest. >> peter: heavyweight champion of the world didn't fall river political insights but when he asked who he favored, he may

have set a record for candor. >> i don't know nothing about politics nor do i want people watching this show to be influenced by my feelings because i don't know nothing about this, but the only administration i have really liked is the ford administration. immediately after beating-- i was invited to the white house and met him and his daughter. >> schieffer: well, good reason or not, it was a memorable broadcast. to this day, ali remains one of the very few to appear on this broadcast who admitted up front not to know enough about something to be taken seriously. our "face the nation" flashback. we'll be back.

>> schieffer: well that's it for us today. we want to thank you for joining us. be sure to be here next week for "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

next on "this week in defense news," the wattle in congress over the -- battle