and joining the table, the "new york times" columnist gail collins is the author of the new book "william been waiting so long. >> yes. >> gail, good morning, it's good to see you. >> good to be here. >> tell americans watching on this presidents' day one thing they need to know about william henry harrison they didn't know before. >> well, he was marked as a person who was poor and a humble soldier. in fact, his father had signed the declaration of independence, he came from a wealthy family. if mitt romney could do that now, his problems would be over. change him, you know, to a guy from dorchester who just grew up there in the streets and had a tough time. >> hard scrabble upbringing. >> what drew you to william henry harrison, though, of all the presidents? >> "the times" has a series of little biographies of all the presidents and asked me if i would do one. and i thought, he died after a month in office, so monetary policy will probably not come up all that much. so this sounds like a guy i could handle. >> only a month to cover, it makes it an attractive project. >> let's talk abou

gail collins, thanks very much for joining us tonight. >> a pleasure. >>> coming up, lying going on onhe campaign trail. robert reich is next to tell us some of the important truths and some of them are inconvenient truths that we need to know as this campaign proceeds. and later in the rewrite, i'm kind of the you can, because rachel already did a much better job of what i had in mind, so let's see if me and the staff can figure something out about politifact's strange take on one of my tv ads. >>> and later, bill o'reilly thinks there's only one way to talk about whitney houston now, and he is very, very angry at the media, especially me, for not talking about drug use enough. little billy must not have been paying attention in his catholic school when they talked about respect for the dead. [ tom ] we invented the turbine business right here in schenectady. without the stuff that we make here, you wouldn't be able to walk in your house and flip on your lights. [ brad ] at ge we build turbines that power the world. they go into power plants which take some form of energy, harness it,

. >> reporter: "new york times" columnist gail collins is the author of a book about our ninth presidentffice may have been a trifling 31 days, but his road to the white house is legendary. >> the campaign of 1840 is actually quite modern. >> very modern. i mean, even more modern than we are sometimes. ♪ who has heard the great commotion, motion, motion ♪ > there were songs ♪ it is... > plenty of spin. merchandising. and.... >> he had the first campaign slogan. tipy canoe and tyler too. >> reporter: harrison was an army general nicknamed the hero of tippecanoe after the site of an indian battle. but collins points out.... >> all of his victory involved him having way, way, way more people than the other side. >> reporter: a mere technicality. harrison was likable and had no strong political beliefs. a perfect candidate for the newly formed whigs. he looked like a president. >> he looked presidential. he was sort of tall and thin and good posture. >> reporter: a great nose. >> very roman kind of thing. >> reporter: but harrison's ticket to the white house was an anti-harrison editorial th

but i tell you, i'm kind of like gail collins in the new york time. she felt like when the last episode was over of down ton abby. i think they've been great and learned a lot about each of the candidates. i think last night it was a two-person show. but i'm not sure i would pick anyone as a winner last night. >> where do you think the race is now for the republican nomination? >> right there. i think it's going to be between santorum and romney going in. i don't think romney has gotten it wrapped up yet and may not for a while. i hi this thing is going to go on. it was interesting last night that gingrich was almost like the senior spokesman or the senior statesman who just from time to time sort of offered an observation. but he was never really in it seemed to me. it was a back and forth between romney and santorum. i thought the best moment of the night was when they asked ron paul when they asked santorum why he was a fake in the ad. because he's a fake. >> compare yourself to congress people and he said that's a silly game. >> yeah. >> never tur

. >> what do you think is -- now, today gail collins, national journal gave a little shout out to us.eally meant. it was the big story. what is the big impact of all of this? >> there are two points about this. the first one everybody's focusing on is the political point. one of several comments romney has made which he argues are misconstrued about employment and people, firing people, i like that too. they seem to suggest a lack of connection. a more important point hasn't been discussed over the past 24 hours and that's the substantive one. he said as part of that interview, if there are problems with the safety net, i want to strengthen it or fix it. in fact, at the core of his campaign has been an argument about retrenching it. the base of his argument is that he is, quote, converting us into a social welfare state. he's already talking about converting medicaid which is an entitlement into a block grant and significantly reducing the federal contribution and in "meet the press" he talked about block granting food stamps and federal housing aid as well. and one last point. he's t