in the guest spot is michael waldman, head of speech writing in the clinton white house.u here. if it is not about persuading the american people or about persuading congress, what does the president hope to accomplish tomorrow night? >> there's an idea that somehow in the past a president would go and give an oval office address and suddenly public opinion would turn and there would be thousands of telegrams flooding into congress, we've changed our mind, we want to take military action. >> that's not going to happen? >> nixon used to give these speeches on vietnam and he we found out later the telegrams were fake. president george w. bush really didn't persuade people to support going into iraq until after our troops were already in harm's way. what the president can do though, what he has not yet done is layout in an intellectually clear way, why this would be necessary, why chemical weapons are so different that we have to step in as he would say. what the goal is, and what could possibly come of it. in a way it's to give members of congress who might think it is the