morning in "the new york times" including bob herbert's piece saying, among other things, the insurance companies and big pharma are way too happy what is going on. say more about that. are you saying that the man you advised, president obama, needs to be significantly tough oar them? >> well, carlos, not only are they happy, but yesterday, insurance stocks and health care stocks went roar be upwards and otherwise a lackluster stock market because they now believe on the basis of backtracking last weekend the administration is going to of have and not push a public plan option and therefore, thee can count on big options in the future. >> you know they were surprised by the ultimate result that going into, for example, welfare reform, no one could have predicted exactly what happened. people skernl certainly had concerns and models but no one predicted what ultimately occurred. is it possible that co-ops, something that, right now, seems somewhat of a what people assume

pat buchanan on bob herbert with the new york times. mr. herbert, you almost lost me the other day. let's go into where we can find common ground here. let's talk about this thing. bill clinton, there was something very emotional that happened that grabbed me. i'm not the softest touch although i do throw up my leg once in awhile. this is what the freed journalist laura ling said today about this epiphany with bill clinton. >> we were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us president bill clinton. we were shocked. but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. and now, we stand here home and free. >> wow. bob herbert, your thoughts about what that moment means. >> we should enjoy this moment, chris. it's not just bill and hillary clinton and al gore and president obama although it is true they all worked together successfully on this. but you get the feel looking at this of the country at least for a moment pulling together here. people have to be happy that these young women have been ret

with me live to talk about this is bob herbert. good to see you. >> how are you? rt of the overall madness of what is a critical debate? >> it is a critical debate. and i think that the debate is not -- american public has not been well served. i don't think the coverage has been sterling. some coverage has been good but overall i don't think the media coverage has been great and think there is too much focus on the crazies disrupting those meetings and that sort of thing. it's a legitimate news story but i don't think that should have dominated the discussions. >> what is the way forward? your mind? morted and i have been talking about how obama can take the situation where it is today and still get it across the goal line. we've seen him do this before in difficult situations including during the campaign. >> i think a couple of important questions have not been sufficiently answered. the first is whether the country really wants in the midst of severe economic downturn to do comprehensive health reform. i don't think that's clear at all. the second is if you do

bob herbert chastised the president for taking a vacation while the country was at war. mr. president, there is a war on. he might consider hopping on a plan to washington. at the washington post the said that if he concentrates really hard and stays in shape regularly, that he will be able to summon a miracle. there was another person who spoke out against mr. bush's presidential vacations from the beginning. he said in 2001 -- sean: i wondered if he shared those thoughts with president obama. hear discussed this ridiculous double standard, the author of "catastrophe" dick morris. this is the land of the liberals, martha's vineyard. >> in 1993 and 1994 bill clinton took vacations in martha's vineyard. i told him going into the summer of '95, cut it out. the photographs of you and starlet's are not doing you any good. you look like a beverly hillbilly. he laughed. they want you to go to the rockies in camping on vacation. i tested each activity. there is biking, which he could do, golfing he could do. the real reason he hated it was that he had to live in this three-person t

one more bit from bob herbert's column, black people need to roar out anger at such treatment, lift uphange. anyone count counseling a less militant approach is counseling self-defeat. your take on that? has this controversy got ain't lot of fodder at your conference or focused on issues that you were just addressing earlier? >> well, people -- i think what we hear, because this has been our focus, we hear a lot of people, and what we've asked for is that the congress pass the end racial profiling ability. this is a teachable moment for people to understand where the line should be drawn with the police, what the relationship between police and citizens should be. but it can't be solved, we can't move forward unless there's something substantive. the end racial profiling ability, proposed in 2001 by senator fine goal and representative conyers, lost w momentum after 9/11. we think it's time congress pick that up, it would ban racial profile, set up a data collection system, it would encourage the use of things like cameras, and i think that is the kind of step that we should take. and

bob herbert, "the new york times" columnist talks about the unemployment numbers masking far more worrisome reality encall it a scary reality. how concerned are thaw despite the good news on wall street we're not doing enough to turn the unemployment picket and what do you think we can do right now to get the number down from 9.5% closer to 5%? >> my concern, carlos, is we're going through a first wave of the recession and we may well be, you know, leveling out. the problem is now we have to deal with the big problem in front of us which is the deficit. are we going to take care of that deficit by increasing taxes to the point where we cripple the economy? how are we going to incentivize businesses when our tax rates are extremely high? this isn't over yet, because on top of the deficit, we do this 1.5 trillion dollar health care plan that's being debated. so my concern is what comes next? where do we go from here? and is there a second wave that we're going to have to deal with? >> but, mr. secretary, what do you say to people who previously had jobs that paid them $30,000 or more and been

"the new york times'" bob herbert writes the president of the united states has suggested that we use these flare-up as a teachable moment but so far exactly the wrong lessons are being drawn from it, especially for black people. the message that's gone out to the public is that the powerful and african-american leaders like mr. gates and president obama will be slapped down for speaking up and speaking out about police misbehavior. then in "the washington post," colbert king writes unfortunately obama the politician trumped obama the law professor and he punted on the opportunity to teach an important lesson to the american people about the first amendment, police powers and citizens' rights. let's bring in carl jeffers right now. good morning, carl, good to see you. >> hi, alex. great to join you again this weekend. >> i'm glad you're here. can i get your reaction to all this? do you think the opportunity of the so-called teachable moment has been missed? >> well, first of all, let's say very clearly that the note that professor gates sent to the lady who called in on 911 was the be

california representative linda sanchez and don brown is with us and "the new york times" columnist bob herbertan where the elections going on and savannah guthrie live at the white house. kelly chao is with us this morning and joins us to preview tonight's big finale. >>> as we always do, i want to fast forward through the top three headlines we're following. 75 people killed in a series of baghdad blasts. truck bombing explode inside iraq's foreign ministrministry. it was by far the deadliest day in baghdad since the u.s. troops withdraw from the city in july 30th. >>> a body was found stuffed notice a suitcase inside orange county trash bin as that of a missing model who disappeared over the weekend. police say she has been strangled. >>> richard hatch is back and behind bars. the original "survivor" winner taken back to jail hours after giving a "usa today" "today" interview. this morning on the "today" show they don't know why hatch was arrested. >> i really don't know what the grounds are for why they have him back in jail. i haven't had any respons

in a lot of ways dove tailing and mirroring what bob herbert said.aking place in washington now for a variety of reasons, whether once we get past this kind of strange and difficult hardship moment now, whether we begin tonight gauge in fiscal discipline that gripped washington for a time while we were there, eluded, but has to come back long-term, whether investment in new energy, new technology will produce a kind of drive and growth for the economy. that's the question for this president and maybe even if he's reelected president after that will have to continue that kind of growth platform for the country. >> you know, and i heard mika in your newscast, 90% of economists think the downturn is going to end this quarter. >> yeah. >> i can tell you, there's a disconnect here, and we hear it every morning. we get reports from wall street and we have some experts coming on that will say, hey, things are getting better. things are getting better. first of all, i talked to the wealthiest men and women in america who quietly tell me things are worse. and