ben white, you're the attorney for the family. a fascinating case. people know my view about gun control but that doesn't extend to a blanket hatred of all things nra, i have a problem with leadership and the red trick they use and exploded and i know you're both aware of my position on that but you still come on the show because my view about this is he's entitled to freedom of expression, freedom of speech. if he wants to wear a t-shirt supporting he's a member of a legal organization, i don't have a problem with that. why, ben white, do you think the school or does the school -- interesting question, is it just a rogue teacher or does the school have a real problem? because he went back and wore it again after his suspension ended. >> absolutely he wore the shirt again and piers, 100 additional students wore that same shirt throughout the entire school system, grade school, middle school and various high schools in the county without incident. did meet with the local attorney for the school bored and we went through the policy ourselves with her,

but over the next year or so -- >> going up. >> they'll go from 4% to 5% to 6% on the 30-year. >> ben whitehe's good on twitt twitter @morningmoney. ben, thanks for coming in. of course, with a second consecutive day of triple-digit losses, we want to sask the question here. if the stock market is not a safe investment right now, you should be putting your money in blank? use the #waytooearly. people have already said bacon, right? i said i want to reinvest in cronuts. the best tweets will get a shout-out later in the show. >>> other news this friday, republicans are blaming democrats -- wait, don't they blame them for everything and the democrats blame the republicans for everything? anywhere, they are blaming them for the surprise defeat of a farm bill, but the vote count shows it's not that cut and dry. 62 members of the gop broke ranks with their own party leaders to knock down the legislation. many in the conservative wing said the measure was too expensive, while democrats opposed the planned cuts to the food stamp program. republican leaders accuse democrats of withdrawing their supp

we have reuters dan collaruso, joe wisenthal and ben white. they are all ready to tackle the big stories. first up, the nikkei bouncing back from a two-month low. japan's benchmark index rising 5% to close at a session high. you may think this is a huge deal. it is to a certain extent, but boy, have we seen some volatility in the nikkei. we've been watching this market really closely over the last couple weeks, and it almost is starting to feel like big moves like this are standard plays. there was a revised gdp that surpassed market forecasts. analysts say the data confirmed abe's policies are strengthening the economy. the financial markets in china were closed for a public holiday today, but there was important data released during the weekend. we are not talking about the snowden type of data. these were numbers that showed unexpected weaken in trade and domestic activity. struggling to pick up. the inflation rate fell. meantime, growth in new loans slowed, and industrial output slightly undershot expectations. we will have more from our c

at here is our correspondent ben white. >> for decades college campuses have been the frontline of america's struggle with race. >> now i finally tonight you admission to the university of mississippi. meredithrs ago james was denied a position at the university of mississippi because he was black. in the years sense, the u.s. has tried to level opportunities were black and minority students through affirmative action. and that is why campuses like this one better reflect the racial mix of america. it has always been contentious. is its role now redundant? >> i think in the united states which is increasingly diverse, we cannot have a legal regime that sorts people according to skin color and national origin. >> critics hope that abigail fisher's argument persuades the court to pass a sweeping judgment that strikes down affirmative action. aresupreme court decisions not just dry legal rulings. they changed american life, its culture and its value. it was only 60 years ago that the courts ruled that segregated schools for blacks and whites were unlawful. now the question is whether colleges a

so it's time to focus on whos next chairman might be. >> reacting to all this this morning, ben whitenomic correspondent. so who is right? >> larry meyer is not right. he didn't fire ben bernanke on the spot. what he was trying to say is the guy has done a great job, i appreciate what did he in the financial crisis, we've talked, he doesn't really want a third term. you know, and the white house basically the next morning were all over the place people saying, look, this was not meant to be a firing of ben bernanke, he doesn't want a third term. >> why isn't right in sn fed chief likely to be allowed to go. just the same thing. he should have been saying please stay. >> the big point is during the height of the 2012 campaign, there were questions about whether bernanke would go ahead with qe-3, is it too sensitive. and he went ahead and did it. >> you remember hw's relationship with greenspan. >> exactly. >> he doesn't want it play into that whole conspiracy theory about whether this was some politicalization. my guess is if bernanke wanted to say, it would be his place to stay. >> do

i actually spoke to marcum's attorney ben white today and he said last night the prosecution filed an and ben white spoke and they're trying to work something out in the next ten days or so. now, ben white did say that jared marcum was disruptive, but he said he didn't deserve to be charged with obstruction. >> there are first amendment issues here, second amendment issues here. something tells me this may not get sorted out right away at the local level. thank you. >>> coming up, what is a visit to ireland without seeing bono? that's a good question. details on the first lady's pub lunch with the u2 star. and we'll talk to a police officer who's been searching for jimmy hoffa for decades. [ male announcer ] we've been conditioned to accept less and less in the name of style and sophistication. but to us, less isn't more. more is more. abundant space, available leading-edge technology, impeccable design, and more than you've come to expect from a luxury vehicle. the lexus es350 and epa-estimated 40 mpg es hybrid. this is the pursuit of perfection. even in stupid loud places. to prove

ben white, chief economic correspondent for politico. ben, thank you.ut and says things are getting better. >> and the stock market tanks. >> you say what's wrong with these crazy people on wall street? americans say -- 44% of americans say they're worse off than they were a year ago. >> i think what it means for people who have a house who might want to refinance it, they should probably do it, because interest rates will go higher if the fed stops doing all this drug giving to the economy. so if you're going to refinance, do it now. if you're looking at a new home purchase, do it sooner than later. but in terms of stocks, hold on to them. wait this out. it's going to be crazy while the market tries to figure out when the fed will take this drug away. if you're really risk averse and nervous, you might take some money out of stocks. >> and i believe your refieing, right? >> i'm buying a house for the first time. it was ben bernanke who encouraged me to do it. i looked at the rates and said they're at 3.9, they might go higher. >> what about that chart

outfront ben white chief economic correspondentic. says things are getting better. >> and the stock market tanks. >> americans say they are worse off now than they were a year ago. that is more than say they were betterer off. what does today's news mean for people with a nest egg and a house under water. >> people with a house who want to refinance should probably do it because interest rates will be going a little higher if the fed stops this drug giving to the economy. if you are going to refinance do it now. a new home purchase do it sooner rather than later. in terms of stocks hold on to them. wait this out. it is going to be crazy while the market tries to figure out when the fed is going to take the drug away. if you are really nervous about it you might take money out. my advice is sit tight and let the fed figure it out and the market will get back to balance. >> i am buying a house for the first time. it was ben bernanke who encouraged me to do it sooner than later. >> take advantage it. what about the chart earliert that ev

joining me now is politico's ben white. e can, give us a sense what happened in the markets yesterday. >> already in the red today. i think what you're seeing is ben bernanke is taking the training wheels off the economy. or will eventually be taking the training wheels often by pulling out all the quantitative easing, all the bond buying the fed has been doing. several rounds of this quantitative easing. it's boosted house prices. it's kept mortgage rates down. everybody's nervous when the fed stops buying up all these bond, the economy might not perform all that well and stocks are going to look a little expensive. so that's why you're seeing stocks sell off. that's why you're seeing mortgage rates go up. the ten-year treasury note is rising. the highest it's been in a couple years. think of ben bernanke as a drug dealer, he's taking the drugs away from the economy. >> everybody coming down from that high, as it were. the president in a conversation with charlie rose hinted bernanke would not serve a third term as fed chai

we have reuters dan collaruso, joe wisenthal and ben white.p, the nikkei bouncing back from a two-month low. japan's benchmark index rising 5% to close at a session high. you may think this is a huge deal. it is to a certain extent, but boy, have we seen some volatility in the nikkei. we've been watching this market really closely over the last couple weeks, and it almost is starting to feel like big moves like this are standard plays. there was a revised gdp that surpassed market forecasts. analysts say the data confirmed abe's policies are strengthening the economy. the financial markets in china were closed for a public holiday today, but there was

. >> ben white?he lives in new york. >> pause the economy is doing better and because michele bachmann is gone, that means they're going to re-take the house. >> you better go back and check. >> i don't think he thinks it's likely either. >> but he said i don't know if it will be enough to retake the house. you have three scan tals. who knows where those are going to go. and obama care in 2014. >> but the president is making a big push. they were talking about because the president was addressing congress saying if all of you fought as hard as we did we would have a shot. >>> larry will be with us the rest of the program. we have much more to talk about. >> i'm sure people will have comments for me after that, but i welcome them. >>> are you tweeting yet, larry? >> no, i don't tweet. >> you just don't like pork. the party in power tries to overhaul the country's constitution. find out why >> former apple ceo talks about the future of tech and wearables. >>> and a special announcement to share with yo

ben white, thank you, sir. >> eric: a man thought he would never see this dog again.hey made the match. >> steve: maria found out what's it is like to be in the middle of a hurricane. look at that! now she's checking out ways to storm proof your house to make sure things don't blow away. believe me, it could make a difference between big damage and disaster. ♪ hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy. to support strong bones. and the brand most recommended by... my doctor. my gynecologist. my pharmacist. citracal. citracal. [ female announcer ] you trust your doctor. doctors trust citracal. and let's say you bought cut rate insurance and you weren't covered. oh, and your car is a time machine. [ beeping ] ♪ would you go back to when you got that less than amazing policy and go with esurance instead? well, they do have tools like coverage counselor to help you choose the coverage

this is off ben white's morning money, he is quoting john west from the eour-asia group.hink of the politics as a break on growth rather than an enabler. right. well, politics is ugly, there is a hidden growth consensus setting the u.s. up for a much more productive future. no big legislative overhaul is need, they're saying we should recognize a political shift is under way from democrats getting serious pressure from energy-related jobs. they go into trade and other things. they are suggesting basically the opposite, basically, the politics is enabling whatever growth is out there. do you think that makes any sense to you? >> right now? >> now i'm trying to play contrarian. >> you know, i really, if you take the stockmarket, there is only one place to be. that's in it. because you can't go anywhere else. if you take the economy, we could be growing a lot faster with less regulation, that is clear. these projects are being delayed, delayed. >> did you treed blinder piece today? >> i saw that. give it 10%. >> the only way you bring back the money, or the only way, okay, i

ben tracy. >> reporter: that moving white dot is officially called "1998 qe2."massive asteroid that has its own moon. scientists believe it's older than planet earth. >> it's a visitor from the outer asteroid belt. >> reporter: he is a scientist at nasa's jet propulsion laboratories. researchers are using high- powered telescopes to track the 1.7 mile long asteroid. i'm suring people are relieved that this is not going to hit ut if it did, what kind of damage would an asteroid like this do? >> this is getting close to the size of the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs so if an asteroid of this size should hit the earth it would be millions of megatons, global catastrophe. so we want to find as of these as early as possible. find them before they find us. >> reporter: researchers in nasa's asteroid program find about 80 new asteroids every night. they believe they have identified 95% of the large ones in the solar system. but smaller asteroids are harder to find, like the one that streaked across russia at 41,000 miles per hour in february. ( sc

chief white house correspondent ed henry reports there's one man that remains on the hot seat, federal reserve chairman ben bernanke. >> reporter: after two days of market melt downs and high anxiety about 401(k)s plunging again, the last thing president obama or his aides wanted to do today was try to decipher the words of the fed chairman, ben bernanke. >> how is the white house sorting out what he said? >> here is what i have to say about the markets and the fed chairman and fed policy. >> reporter: nothing to say. probably smart because the market settled today, with modest gains for the dow and s&p 500 and a small drop for nasdaq, after a two day global selloff for stocks, bonds, and commodities, sparked by a massive credit crunch in china, refusal by communist leaders to intervene by pumping cash into the system, coupled with bernanke's comment that the fed may pull back on massive bond buying. >> he is like drunk driving, jerking the wheel back and forth, market doesn't know what to make of it. >> reporter: others sharply disagree, saying his message was upbeat, and as interest rates start to rise,

has been shot down as far as an option as of right now according to people talking at the white house tonight. bensays chemical weapons have been used on a small scale. president says these would change his calculus and it has. the assad regime should know the actions have led us to increase the scope and scale that we provide to the opposition. as far as specifics we don't have any specifics. he went on to say that the president will be consulting with partners in the u.k. and will continue to have discussions with friends and allies. let's bring in our panel. >> when i heard that report earlier in the show that obama would be discussing this with allies next week at the summit it was like gregory hix watching susan rice on the sunday talk shows. my jaw dropped. here is a president saying for months that a red line is the use of chemical weapons. finally after allies determined it was used after applying csi standards he gets his own report that it was used. that is announced today. the red line is now officially across you would think they would have considered what you do on the day the red lin

deputy national security adviser in the white house ben rhodes answered that question this week.ere's what he said. >> we have relationships today in syria that we didn't have six months ago that gives us greater certainty not just that we can get stuff into the country but also that we can put it in the right hands so that it's not falling into the hands of extremists. >> senator udall, do you believe him? >> i agree with senator graham and senator chambliss that we ought to ensure that our ultimate goal is a political settlement. we've got to tie up the unconventional and advanced conventional weapons that are there, we've got to protect the syrian people, and above all, we've got to make sure that al qaeda and other terrorist groups don't take root in syria. david, i'm open to all options, but i think that we ought to be listening to the president, we ought to be listening to military leadership. know, though, a no-fly zone and other involvement may lead to the slippery slope that others talked about, but this is a very dangerous, very fragile situation. if jordan falls, i fea

suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ >>> moments ago, white house deputy -- national security adviser benwing statement on plans to increase support for syrian rebels. this comes as the white house expresses, quote, high confidence, close quote, that the assad regime has used chemical weapons. quite simply, the assad regime should let us know that their actions have led us to increase the scale and scope of assistance that we have provided. these efforts will increase going forward. joining me gene robinson. it looks like we're giving them more including lethal armaments. >> it looks like we're going to do that, and perhaps other assistance. obviously, the pentagon has been planning for this moment. and one assume there's is no reason for the white house to announce the red line has been crossed unless they have some idea what they want to do. we're just not quite sure yet how far they go. is there some sort of even limited no-fly zone. do they help -- you know, the rebels will need a place to train. and equip themselves, some sort of safe haven if we're really going to materially aid the

that's all the advice i would give the president. >> ben rhodes said the president, the white house, would be reaching to congress. if congress were to approach you, say we need support for $50 million, for instance, for a no fly zone, would you say yes to that. >> for a no fly zone, yes. i do believe that that is one of the things we ought to be looking at. i don't know what the dollar figure will be, but i think if it is a fact that assad is using chemical weapons there in syria, a no fly zone at a minimum ought to be employed. >> i want to switch to immigration while we have you here, congressman. debate started this week in the senate. we already missed several lines in the sand, shall we say, deadlines made by lawmakers. is it losing steam now, and because of that not having intensity it needs from the house to make it through? >> i do believe that senate action will determine whether or not we get the kind of encouragement, intensity if you please, that the house will develop. i think senator reid made it clear he will push this before the july break. i hope he does, and i hope

let's go to jessica yellin who is at the white house. ben wrapped up a conference call with reporters. what did he have to say? >> reporter: jim, ben rhodes confirmed that the intelligence community has determined that the use of sarin gas has occurred on multiple occasions, has been deployed by the syrian regime and has killed 100 to 150 people. that this is -- this has crossed the president's red line and this is changing the president's calculus on syria. the president has decided to change his response to the syrian crisis and has agreed to engage in some sort of military support for the syrian rebels there but ben rhodes, one of the president's senior officials and his national security council, would not specify exactly what they will be doing next. that leaves open the option of directly arming the rebels there, providing training to the rebels, or perhaps offering even more aid. we'll have to see in the coming days. jim, one of the reasons this might be happening right now is because in just a few days the president leaves to go to e

already assented to senator mccain's demands without going to congress first the white house's deputy national security adviser ben rhodes made this comment during a conference call with reporters on thursday and the assad regime should know that its actions have already let us increase both the scope and scale of the assistance that we're providing to the opposition including direct support to the s.m.c. the military option on the ground in other words increased military support for the rebels is already taking place on the ground and so the united states is once again jumping into a war on the other side of the world and picking an ally only it's not the 1980's and it's not in afghanistan this time we have senator john mccain at the helm not congressman charlie wilson the savior of the afghan mujahideen in the 1980's two different men but a. it's the same story a story that's been repeated often throughout history whenever the united states thinks that a steady stream of deadly weapons will somehow bring about peace quicker or set up a stable political solution it hasn't worked yet and so as the president at the

voters and older white voters do tend to vote republican. >> what do you make of this, ben>> well, that's certainly true, but i think you're going to have to see at some point a ground shift in terms of some of the minority vote, because at a certain point, young minority people are going to get tired of paying the bills for old white folks on social security. >> but will we see a shift? if the stats now, juan, are that we have more whites graduating from college than you have latinos or blacks, once they rise into the majority, do we expect that to change? do we expect those numbers to be reversed? >> historically, that's the trend. if you look back at everything from, you know, the irish, the italians, the poles, everybody as they, in fact, get more established, as their numbers rise, as they become more affluent, and everybody here is predicting that this influx of new people, both immigrants and the rise of minorities is going to be an economic generator for the giants. i think those people then reach and achieve higher levels of education. just earlier this week, we sa

we talk china, and edward snowden debacle and how ben bernanke is treated by the white house.te. back in a moment. ave people a sr and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed: the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪ athey wonder how much fastere justthis thing could go?be.. what if i took it down that hill? what if it weighed less or turned sharper? they know that things can always be better. we count ourselves among those people. introducing the quicker, sleeker, smarter, best civic si yet. made possible by honda. a lot can happen in a second. with fidelity's guaranteed one-second trade execution, we route your order to up to 75 market centers to look for the best possible price -- maybe even better than you expected. it's all part of our goal to execute your trade in one second. i'm derrick chan of fidelity investments. our one-second trade execu

ben baya says he went to the white house this month to meet with national security council staff.lobby the obama administration to do more to help syrian rebels. here is a picture of the meeting. you can see him on the left in a white turban. the obama administration tells fox he spoke out against al qaeda in 2010 and said the meeting was meant to, quote, discuss a wide range of issues including poverty, global health efforts and his efforts to counter the al qaeda narrative. bin bay yah has been outspoken in an islamic state in place of israel and they voiced supports for u.s. attacks in iraq. one middle east analyst says the obama stras is, quote, naive to engage with him. >> i think the sheikh goes out of his way to sound moderate in english. in arabic, i think he is very much an islamist radical and opposed to u.s. policy, to many of our allies including israel. >> reporter: bin bayyah called for the united nations to crimin criminalize any blasphemy of islam and the prophet muhammed. >> talk about holding your mail. a man gets letters from his soldier father 70 years late. on

neil: or at the time thought they were telling us the truth. >> but this white house is backtracking. what they said about benrgia si isn't what they said six weeks ago or six days ago. the same thing with the irs, with the "associated press" and it's now proving to be the same thing with the nsa. on each one of these, what they said changes over time, and that is what drives this cynicism and anger towards washington. >> neil: you told me a long time ago that people develop a collective sense of a person over little incidents. but do you think that all these little incidents, desspirit and very, very different as they are, are forming a collective image of this president that's not good? >> this time, yes, i do. and i'm waiting for someone in washington to put the pieces together. there are four or five or six, depending on howl you define it, of these scandals. a half dozen times when the white house did not tell us the truth and had to change its story, and the more personal they are, and look, benghazi is permanent as well. when an american, someone who wears the american seal, is defending mr. america in

white house around the scenes but not to the public. he came out last neath and announced this. not the president. but bene did on a conference call with the media at 5:00 p.m. eastern time and he never directly said we were arming the rebels. he hinted but never said it. today he came before the cameras and suggested, yes, we are arming the rebels but would not speaks. -- would not specify. the suggestion we're sending light arms, machine guns, but not heavy arms that john mccain and others have been calling for, artillery, antiair craft, et cetera. i pressed ben rose on whether this is why they're being transparent about the details because they're not sending heavy arms. >> why is there secrecy around >> when you get into the question of provision of assistance to opposition groups, we just are more limited in our ability to say, well, here's the inventory of everything we're doing. i'm sympathetic to it. >> but they just won't lay it out. the bottom line is, another issue they're facing is that one robe the president tide not earlier want to send arms to the syrian rebels, we didn't know whether the a

the president said to charlie rose on pbs was the most open statement signal that ben bernanke is probably -- told the whiteity treasury, rather that after the tough time that he's had, that he's probably ending his term when it ends rather than seeking a reappointment. so who is in line, do you think? what's your reporting showing? >> well, i think the odds-on favorite out there, andrea is the vice chairman, janet yellen. but there are some other contendsers out there, including christina roamer, advising the president. larry summers' name comes up. roger ferguson, former vice chairman under allen greenspan of the federal reserve is another person who comes up. but right now i think yellen and probably christina roamer. and it's interesting, andrea. i think in today's world, this was not true maybe when paul volcker was appointed. today's world, you're going to have a monetary policy expert in that job. it's become much more of a technocratic position, if you will. and, i don't it's interesting to think about. would paul volcker even get the job today, given what the credentials out there, and roamer and y

and when was the white house made aware of this? >> i will turn that over to ben not aware of like any discussions that may have happened with mr. kraft. this did not come up in the meeting between the presidents. >> that was white house press secretary jay carney and deputy national security adviser ben rhodes in ireland today responding to a question about ring-gate. the owner of the new england patriots, robert kraft, revealed last week that when he met vladimir putin in st. petersburg in 2005 putin took his super bowl ring. kraft says he showed the ring to putin, who then put it on and said, "i can kill someone with this ring." the kgb then ushered putin out of the room before kraft could get it back. kraft says the bush administration asked him to let the russians have the ring to avoid an international incident. it is now on a display in a museum in the kremlin along with other state gifts. the kremlin was surprised by the announcement, and today a spokesman for mr. kraft released a statement. "it is a humorous, anecdotal story that robert retells for laughs

. >> john: ben, there has to be concern in the white house over the nsa sticking to this president, ande the same images of the berlin crowd today over 200837 do you 2008. do you think the president needs to come out and make a speech about what is monitored and specifically what information is being gathered. >> i'm not sure how much of a speech would help. it seems like every time he has talked about this issue, it seemed only to add to the mystery. i think there is kind of a basic underlying issue going on here, which is, most americans do not have a good way to figure out right now what does a terrorist threat look like? and if we're supposed to be judging in a cost-benefit way all of the measures of the perceived threat it would be helpful to have a better sense of what that threat is. a couple of months ago the president gave a very detailed and clearly well thought out speech about the state of--the state of terror. and he sort of said, we've moved back to a pre-9/11 scenario. we no longer have the big structure of al-qaeda out there. we have instead all of these self-starting, s

as ben tracy reports, there is a lot to learn from all this. >> that moving white dot is officially called, 1998, qe2. it is a massive asteroid that has its own moon. scientists believe it is older than planet earth. >> it is a visitor from the outer asteroid belt. >> paul is a scientist at nasa's laboratory. researchers there are using gh powered telescopes and radar to track the 1.7-mile long asteroid. >> i'm sure people are relieved this is not going to hit the earth, but if it did, what kind of damage would an asteroid like this do? >> this is getting up close to the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, if an asteroid would hit this, it would be a catastrophe. we want to find as many of these as early as possible. >> researchers in the program find about 08 new asteroids every night. they believe they have identified 95% of the large ones in the solar system. but smaller asteroids are harder to find. like the one that streaked across russia at 41,000 miles per hour in february. the shock wave damaged 7,000 buildings and injured 1500 people. >> the russian asteroid was

cheryl: the "wall street journal" is reporting that the white house is pressing a potential kendis to replace federal board chairman benows better than just about everybody about what is going on, jon hilsenbrath you will be joining us to tell us who may be our next federal president. ♪ we went out and asked people a simple question: how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot us have known someo who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living lger, one thing that hasn't changed much is the officiaretirement age. ♪ the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: i'm jo ling kent with your fox business brief. stocks extended gains for a third straight day following strong reports on the u.s. economy. the closing bell, the dow finished 114 points higher at 15024. bank of america of rejecting the request to renegotiate the eight and half billion dollars settlement with investors in mortgage securities issued by countrywide. earlier this month in new york judg

today ben rhodes, national security spokesperson for the white house downplayed that idea.o you think, are we worried that we're headed toward an inevitable escalation toward a no-fly zone if we take this first incremental step of arming the rebels and it, quote, doesn't work because it doesn't change the balance of power? >> well there's the problem. given the fact we have waited this long, you can't just hand the rebels a bunch of automatic weapons and expect you're going to change the balance. mccain is right that you have to do much more than that. but a no-fly zone in syria is fundamentally different than providing air support in libya. you were talking about sophisticated russian-built air defense systems that are going to take a lot of american firepower to take down in order to allow for our planes to fly overhead in the first place. this is a very complicated, very expensive endeavor. and i am worried, "a" at the cost to americans in terms of money and lives to a no-fly zone and then to put powerful arms on the ground to change the power. al qaeda are intricately i