and it's time now for our sunday panel, bill sammon, washington managing editor of fox news and fox contributors mara liasson of national public radio, bill kristol of "the weekly standard," and juan williams also from national public radio. well, bill kristol, what do you think of attorney general holder's decision to launch this inquiry and what about the contention from vice president cheney that this is all about politics, the president trying to play to his left wing? >> i think eric holder is a weak attorney general. the justice department wanted to investigate the cia. holder talked about doing that in 2008 during the campaign. obama in 2007 talked about how we need to set the record straight and explore what really happened. and ignoring the fact that career prosecutors in the eastern district of virginia investigated this issue. the i.g. report was available. they issued formal declination memos explaining why they were not prosecutable crimes. these are from career prosecutors from the justice department, not bush political appointees. eric holder established the terrible precedent tha

and it's time now for our sunday panel, bill sammon, washington managing editor of fox news and fox contributor, mara liasson of national public radio. bill kristol of the weekly standard, and juan williams also from national public radio. bill kristol what do you think of attorney general holder's decision to launch the inquiry, and what about this contentious from vice president cheney, that this is really all about policy bix and the president trying to play to his left wing. >> the justice department i think is -- eric holder a weak attorney general and never has been a strong man to stand up to pressure and they justice department is full of left wing ideologues and they wanted to investigate the cia and he talked about doing that in 2008 during the campaign and obama in 2007 talked about how we need to, you know, set the record straight and explore what really happened, and they are ignoring the fact, the career prosecutors and the eastern district of virginia investigated this issue, and the cia report and the ig report, released this week, from 2004, it was available to the career prose

had bill sammon, thank you.bout hurricane bill now. >> it is expected to become a category three shortly. you can see that well defined eye and satellite imagery. this is the storm to watch. very well defined eye. this could be strengthening as we speak and is expected to become a category three. there is the track. yesterday, we were talking about a storm that came close to a bermuda. the east coast needs to be paying attention to this, especially kate caught. that cone of uncertainty is now brushing that area. we are still uncertain about what is going to go on. we have hurricane hunters flying through this to get more data, but the important thing is folks across the eastern coast need to be paying attention. 105 sustained winds right now, and it is expected to strengthen. it will be moving through some very warm, deep water, so we could have some rapid identification. we could be dealing with a category 3 or higher. also, we have a lot of variables left in the track of this storm. if the storm is weaker or s

bill: thank you, bill sammon. ç-- megyn: thank you, bill sammon. bill: this is a fox news alert.ed from federal prison in fort worth, texas at the age of 60. your governor is supposed to use stimulus money to create jobs. now some of that money is reportedly being used to buy cigarettes, beer, and cell phones. so when kids in the state of new york? megyn: do you see a family resemblance between john edwards and this baby? he admitted to having an affair with this woman. is he ready to admit that he is this girl's father? what does that mean for the kremlin grand jury investigation against him? -- criminal grand jury investigation against him? mr. evans? this is janice from onstar. i have received an automatic signal you've been in a front-end crash. do you need help? yeah. i'll contact emergency services and stay with you. you okay? yeah. onstar. standard for one year on 14 chevy models. medicare supplement insurance plan card. you know what's great about this card? wherever you go, nationwide, your coverage travels with you. and that's just one of the many reasons... you need th

bill sammon, from fox news, a.b. stoddard, charles krauthammer, and ceci connolly. let's talk about how the town hall protests are affecting health care reform. 34% say that demonstrations at the town halls have made them more sympathetic to the protestors' views. 21% say it's made them less sympathetic. bill sammon, how important do you think these town halls have been in building opposition to -- it's interesting, i was going to say president obama's plan, but i've been corrected by one of the leading democratic negotiators in the senate who says he doesn't have a plan. >> that's a telling piece of information. i think they've been a game changer. i think they've been very important because a couple weeks ago we wondered would these town halls build support for obama's plan or would they undermine support for his plan? the empirical evidence is starting to roll in, gallup, fox. everybody's poll is showing america is breaking against the health care plan. >> a.b.? >> i think it's -- you already see two freshmen members, democrats, who won republican seats in virgin

trace: bill sammon, thank you. jamie: there's fear and bloodshed on the eve of election day that will happen in afghanistan within 24 hours. afghans prepared to head to the polls tomorrow. their blood to elect a president and provincial leaders. -- they are going to elect a president and provincial leaders. this is the scene at one of the largest banks in kabuls. militants took the branch by storm. it is just one in a series of deadly attacks. the taliban fighters unleashing terror across the country. six election workers have been killed in the last 24 hours. the afghan military is using helicopters to deliver a election materials. the death toll in the bombings in baghdad has gone up to 95. the attacks targeted commercial and government buildings in the capital city to the deadliest was a truck bomb outside the foreign ministry right next to the heavily fortified green zone. that is generally considered the safest section of the country. david piper is joining us live from baghdad. this violence is a little too c

bill sammon is our managing editor and vice president of news.as this town hall meeting -- i have to tell you, today we had this whole show planned, and then we had this arlen specter town hall on folding, and it was very compelling. was it a watershed moment in the health care debate? >> i think not just this one, but every town hall has been a watershed moment. the empirical evidence is starting to come in. we had some polls that show two-one independent voters look up these things as favorable. president obama's approval rating is falling. so i think you can start to conclude that this debate over whether these town hall meetings would hurt or help the democrats is coming into focus, and it looks like it is hurting them, at least in respect to health care. megyn: i want to ask you about both of those points, swaying the mind of independence, and the polling data. in an editorial in the "washington post" they talk about how health care protesters are playing with fire. you can see all of these protesters, but "what does not make the news is the

martha: bill sammon is with me now from washington. there is so much in this interview. i want to ask you about the direct allegation that the reason for reopening this is political. that is a strong charge against the justice department, as well as the president. >> i think it is based on the fact that these cases were already investigated by career lawyers. those career lawyers, not political appointees, the sun and that they were not prosecutable offenses. there was one person, a contractor, who did go over the line, and he is jailed. the ones being looked at now have already been seen, and that is why he says the only possible motivation has to be political. martha: the administration says that you cannot make a direct link between the fact nothing has happened in the last eight years and the methods that were used to clean the information, and specific, in an endangered. >> i do not know if that is going to work. there is an element of common sense that has to come into play here. before these terrorist were not more border, and they would not give up information. a

bill sammon is our acting washington bureau chief. what else does the establishment of this new unit accomplished, bill? >> it does not accomplish a lot in terms of specific changes to interrogation techniques. i think what it accomplishes is it changes the controlling of those interrogations' from the cia to the fbi, and more specifically, to put the white house in direct control of interrogations' now. the white house has formed an elite unit of interrogators from different agencies. they will have direct control over it. it is more an assertion of executive authority over this controversial practice. jon: there are supposed to be new guidelines in place as to whether sleep deprivation will be allowed and things like playing of loud music. >> this kind of stuff -- remember during the campaign last year when candidate john mccain was coming out against torture and everyone was talking about we have to go back to the army field manual, this is essentially the same thing. not only do you have this report coming out that the white house

. -- bill sammon back in. ted kennedy was very instrumental in passing cobra. we also know that he was in favor of a single payer option. he was quite outspoken of that. up until what point the president might have had substantive conversations about where the areas of negotiations should be with senator kennedy. >> it is often said that senator kennedy was the kind of guy who was a shrewd enough politician to take half a loaf instead of not getting any of it. once you have the basis of what you want past in terms of your legislation, you could always at on things incrementally. we saw a little bit of that in the wake of the failed hillarycare experience some years ago. i remember back during the reagan administration when ted kennedy was closely associated with nationalized health care. that was still considered kind of a fringe idea. conservatives would snicker about it. it has become a much more acceptable, at least debatable idea in the decades since then where we have pretty evenly divided country talking about this right now. he has hung in there all thes

we did the math, and bill sammon is here.to nail down since scandals are hard to see. 361 members of congress on the house side willç not hold a ton hall meeting. that is 67%. we have been told this legislation could be the most critical bill that these people vote on in their political careers,ç so why are more peope not answering the question of their constituents? >> in fairness, you alluded to schedule changes, and they could get it will meetings in the coming weeks, but it certainly raises the question whether congress people are hiding from their constituents. they are seeing how he did these exchanges are and are saying i do not want to have a taj mahal. in some cases meetings have been canceled, in other cases, getting turned into teleconferences, youtube presentations. even when town halls are allowed to go forward, there isç more security, asking people to go through metal detectors -- which is prudent and proper -- and there are warned not to shout. that canç have a chilling effet on the free-flowing nature of

in the meantime, we want to bring in bill sammon. he is the vice president of news.urn deficit. [laughter] rasmussen polls show that the number one priority of this administration is to lower the deficit. when you see these numbers come out, much worse than anyone thought. suddenly, health care seems to be in jeopardy. >> what is worrisome about the deficit in this is bad news for his health-care plan. even the cbo, the non-partisan budget experts, they said that health care reform will add to the deficit. it is not exactly like he is proposing something that is deficit-neutral. we have weeks and weeks of town halls on health care, but all of a sudden it is about security. i am sure there will be held for questioned at these meetings, but i also wonder if they will talk about these cia investigations. both of these things are very much on the minds of american people. martha: what your talking to is this question of whether or not president obama at this point consider switching gears. some have suggested that on the investigation to go forward may be drawing attenti

with us more -- with us now with more is bill sammon, our washington editor.ust to expound, we are not saying this company said ms. e- mails, because we do not know that, that if they did, there is a good point here that someone had to approve them sending out days e-mails. >> that is a good point. also the fact that they have apparently been working with cabinet level agencies anyways. you are starting to get a little close for comfort. we do not want to accuse the white house of doing something that has not been demonstrated that, but they're taking significant action to our reporting, specifically to major garrett over the weekend which has now said that they have changed policy on how they obtained e-mails. on another front, the white house had shut down a site -- a site that it was using to invite sympathetic readers to forward the comments of people who opposed the health care plan. that site had been set up to collect these fishy e-mails. there are a lot of things popping on this front. again, all of it comes from our reporting. juliet: these people who

let's bring in bill sammon. you watched the white house briefing just like we did.ert disappearegibbs did not e polls. he said it was not that americans -- he said americans just do not understand. he used the word misconception on four occasions. >> yes, those poor, dumb americans. they just do not get it. the reason he did not dispute the polls because there are so many of them. there was a gallup poll and the rest andasmussen poll. it is basically all shelly -- would these town halls were in favor of the democrats or against the democrats? it is now answered. the town hall meetings are working against the democrats. support is falling. despite the efforts by the white house democrats to demonize those who participate in town hall meetings, the reality is that the democrats themselves may have been the ones who overreached in their demonization by colleen people knottiest -- by calling people nazis and mobs. that was the overreach. people are reacting to the white house going to far in demonizing the protesters. trace: is the administration laid to the debate? did

rick: let's bring in bill sammon. good to see you.or the amount of money that is being spent on these ads, we could pretty much get health insurance for all those people who were uninsured. >> we could also do away with this 1000 page bill. i think basically, they got at the highlights at the conflicting arguments. the question is, will the ads make a difference at this stage of the game? the public is breaking against health care. other surveys have shown that independent voters and even some democrats and certainly republicans are breaking against it. that is because the public has been mesmerized by these town halls throughout this long month of august. that is what is influencing people, not the spin from the white house or the spin from fox news. i think it is the real reality show that we're seeing playing out on our televisions. rick: remember back in the 1990's during the health care reform debate, those harry and louise ads helped to sway a lot of people's opinions back then. this is just the beginning of these ads. we're goi

bills. what's the secret to being able to maintain a family of this size and do it with financial integrity to give back about 20 years ago, we went to jim sammonscial freedom seminar and we were to get out of debt instead of that and follow the level principles of finances. it was life-changing. so if we want to buy something at a newer car or whatever, we buy used and save the difference. that is just saved us from so many financial disasters. i don't know how it would make up for this many children if we have a lot of debt. when you add 10%-20% on everything you buy with that it makes it difficult to repay it. >> mike: a biblical principle is you don't go for things you can't afford to have. >> right behind could you teach that to the federal government to do *applause . >> mike: i know it would try to teach the state government when you were a legislator. another question some of. having many, many children does not just say, we can biologically do it, it's a spiritual conviction for you. about that. >> we were first married i was on the birth control pill for three 1/2 years. then we decided we would have children. so we had our first son,