that growed on were barnacles we let grow. and i thought we were operating comfortably, sort of in the middle of our authorizations and certainly not pushing the edge. so we've got several initiatives in our headquarters to provide more agility internally along the way. we've sought and been granted relief from participation in some of the servicewide joint ago decision -- acquisition processes which have been applied to special operations programs so vice chairman of the joint chiefs who runs some of this process, relieved us of those where the acquisition project is programmed is a special operations peculiar program. we do operate under those same laws and policies and reporting requirements. we've got a ways to go. in terms of continuing to scrape the barnacles off but i think we're making progress in that regard and we'll certainly continue to report to you how that is going. but i'm encouraged by what we've seen here just in the last few months. with respect to the d.o.d., the i.g. report, that was not an acquisition con

operate under the same law and policy, we have a way to go, in terms of continuing to scrape off the barnacles, but we are making progress in this regard. and we will continue to report how this is going. i am encouraged by what we have seen. this was not an acquisition contrasting issue, this was a contract that we led with a single provider of many services to the special operations committee, to modify the equipment, they maintain the equipment, and they repair the equipment, and they store the equipment, and they build small items, and design and build those, and this is a comprehensive set of activities, that they perform for us, and the department of defense -- they look into this, and i highlighted three findings, two of them we concurred with, and have said in several actions to resolve working with them, to their satisfaction. the third one, had to do with a potential anti deficiency violation, and we needed to conduct a review of this, and we identified that the finding had some merit, and there is the potential for a violation and so this week, the comptroller has initiated an inves

instance, if you say something somewhere -- there's a great peggy noonan quote mechem, chris, myself, barnacle we will all have e-mail without to each other five minutes after it goes on the wires. and the reason why is it's not work. it's just we love it. >> host: so the nature of prep for a show has changed. you're not doing two hours of pratt, you're doing prep 24 hours a day with blackberrys, twitter -- >> guest: whenever we call it. and also, i will wake up in the middle of the night and this might seem hartel to some people, but if you love this stuff it's exciting. and i will roll over, pick up the blackberry and seat is anything happening? one of the people that came in at midnight, what are they digging around on? i will look for two minutes, put it down and go back to sleep but when i wake up i'm still -- it's just all sort of brewing. "morning joe" is borrowing 24 hours a day, so we are ready to go when it's the top of the show. >> host: let's start with facts and to your life. where were you born, educated and raised? >> guest: i was born in atlanta, georgia. actually, a suburb of