please welcome andrew sullivan. [cheers and applause] hay, andrew, good to see you again. thank you so much for coming back. >> you're so welcome. >> stephen: though you are a longtime friend of the show. seven times back. you get a foot long sub now. i have to take to you task. you wrote the cover article in the january 23 newsweek. it says why are obama's critics so dumb? are you always that good at is a deucing -- seducing the opposition of agreeing with you? why not just call them ugly, too. i'm in opposition. reasonable rae republicans are in opposition to barack obama. why are we dumb, smarty. >> i didn't say you were dumb. >> stephen: andrew sullivan don't blame anybody else. >> i take full responsibility. listening to the republican debates all the reasonable republicans arguing and did he baiting rationally with one other and with substance, i didn't recognize the picture they were painting of this president either domestically or in foreign policy. >> stephen: he is a complete nail your. he has fish -- failure. he has accomplished nothing. they have a vegetable g

thank you andrew sullivan. coming from london. you're always brilliant. i don't have to tell you that. >>> up next, house republicans caved on the payroll tax cut. it's a loser for them, perhaps lose-lose because they would have lost if they won. this is "hardball" on msnbc. ♪ [ camera shutter clicks ] ♪ [ male announcer ] it's hard to resist the craveable nature of a nature valley sweet & salty nut bar. so i get claritin clear for strong, non-drowsy relief of all my allergies like dust mold pets and pollen. looks good. thanks. i live claritin clear. >>> we got some new polling from the massachusetts senate race up there, which will be one of the hottest fights this year. let's check the scoreboard. according to a new poll from boston, it's a three-point race right now. elizabeth warren is up. and brown has 43. we'll be watching this one all the way to november. we'll be right back. >>> we're back. democrats and republicans have spent much of the last 24 hours jockeying for position after leaders agreed to an extension of the payroll tax holiday, much in

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the one thing andrew sullivan did say, he did say you can't have it both ways.arack obama can't be joseph stallin and jimmy carter at the same time. pick your poison. is it an incompetent moderate to the right, or -- well, he is now in clinton territory, because he understands, like bill clinton, you get a lot of big things done from the left for the first year and a half, and he will spend the rest of his time whether it's the next year or five years compromising with the republicans. >> and compromising with himself, right? what happened to the guy that stood up in front of the country and criticized the role of the super pacs, and now he's encouraging people to give to your super pac. >> well, i won't take all the blame. the president, from what i read, has not changed his position as to whether or not campaign finance ought to be reformed. but the difference is people look and say we want unlimited donations and full diz clossclo and we think major league baseball, they say they are going to move it to ten innings, and that doesn't mean we will put our team

>> i think the key word that andrew sullivan said in that clip is accidentally. but i think this is extremely fortuitous. you talk about the power of timing. and yet the timing right now for a lot of things is really fortuitous for the white house. this is sort of the lowest moment mitt romney has had as a candidate. if you still think mitt romney's likely to be the nominee. and it's coinciding with really the best period of barack obama's presidency in terms of the economic news. some of the most recent polling data is kind of staggering when you think about it. romney's standing with independent voters in the past month or two has crashed about 10 or 15 points. he's now trailing by the same margin that santorum is in head-to-head trial heats with obama, and obama's rate is close to the or over 50% in most polls. and i kind of think we've seen this before. it was 16 years ago when bob dole started out and everyone said, bill clinton can't possibly get re-elected because of what happened in 1994. and when that republican process ended in '96, dole was a very woun

the article is by andrew sullivan conservative writer and clearly i was a provacative headline, and itas tilted towards being for obama. he even said i have a bias toward obama. so they asked me what do you think about this they are being biased? and i said yeah, probably a little bit to the left, but i said we're sitting here on fox news and you bash busch every single day -- excuse me, they bash obama every single day. i shouldn't win a pulletzer prize for that. >> do we have any incite -- we know why the people in charge of this do that. it is a litmus test so you can throw everything else out. and that tells me why. the bosses are doing it. but why do these people who work there do it? my theory has also been we have all encountered people on television who must be on television. and i'm wondering are they taking advantage of the people who have to be on tv? like the gretchen carlsons and the briangy in the morning as well? >> well, i think what happens is you become part of the culture. and everyone around you is espousing that point of view day in and day our, and after a while y

. >> before we go, andrew sullivan has written the cover "the politics of sex."n this sense. and we've been saying this around the table for some time. that last week this was about freedom of religion. this week it's about contraception. and as i've been saying to my conservative friends, if republicans keep this battle going when the catholic church itself is now divided on the issue, they get creamed. >> look at this new poll coming out that says most voters support the new federal directive. ultimately, andrew argues and it's very interesting that it's going to work well for obama. he made the adjustment which shows he wasn't, you know, in any way, you know, a stuck -- a person stuck on his point of view, and at the same time he's really stepped into in divide between catholics themselves. more catholics wanted the birth control issue than didn't. so actually -- andrew's piece which caused an enormous amount of debate, actually, on the "daily beast" where it's posted is about whether or not in the end it's going to be helpful to obama. >> i agree with the "wa

we have our panel andrew jackson head of automotive analysis, the vice president automotive and transportation at ross and sullivanthank you for being with us. last year was terrible for japanese automakers. we had the disruption coming from the earthquake. we had the floods over in thailand. we had the strong yen. is 2012 going to be the year with japanese automakers coming back in a big way? >> i believe so and that's what we are betting on. the reason is last year the disruptions were mainly due to natural causes and if you take that as a base then 2013, the next year, will be better because automotive products backed by companies are pretty relaxed. there is nothing wrong except for the supply chain disruptions and they'll learn from their mistakes. if you consider 2012 as a base, 2013 is the year. >> the japanese yen is so strong. is this going to spark any structural changes in the japanese auto industry in the long term? will we come to a day when we see oil production down outside of japan? >> it may not be all but the new capacity will definitely stop -- will definitely halt, the yen has a significant cor

andrew young and his wife. hunter lived with them, that couple, when she's pregnant with john edwards' child. she was ordered to destroy the tape within 30 days. >>> oklahoma congressman john sullivanpoor choice of words at a recent town hall meeting. sullivan who is a republican was answering a question about fellow congressman paul ryan's budget plan and what it would take to get it passed. when these words came out. >> i believe in that, i support it, the paul ryan budget. send it over to the senate. now, i live with some senators. i yell at them all the time. i grabbed one the other day and shook them. i would love to get them to vote for it. boy, i would love that. you know other than me going over there with a gun and holding it to their head and maybe killing a couple of them, i don't think they're going to listen unless they get beat. >> congressman sullivan's office says despite the rhetoric he doesn't condone violence to fix what's broken in washington. >>> check your flights this morning. a winter blast hitting the windy city in the upper midwest. the third big snowstorm of the season. they're expecting seven to nine inches when this is all said and done. it's still snow