but these are different days, bob woodward. i think in part because of the democrat strategy against judge alito. we just saw there. president obama, dick durbin, several other democrats, 25 joined a filibuster. more than that voted no. we're not going to see 98-0 vote or anything like that? >> i don't expect that. i suppose not. there's always the surprise vector. somebody may come up with something. she may say something that's controversial. she's quite capable of that. what i find interesting is how much she wants this job. if you look at her biography. she prepared all of her life for it. she really has experience, apparently, when obama met with her, she really blew him away on the constitutional law issues. which she understands. the question is, if she's confirmed, what her impact going to be on the court? and she has the potential, because she wants it so badly, she is an engaged judge. she cares about these things. becoming a playmaker on the court and having an impact beyond just one vote. >> so what's your relations

bob woodward is the award-winning journalist for "the washington post," just back from afghanistan. bob, thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> i'm deeply worried, i'm sure you are, about what's happening in afghanistan right now. the u.s. is pouring in more troops and even more troops, thousands more might be needed. is there light at the end of the tunnel? >> well, they haven't fixed it and the war continues. and i think it's something that obama and the white house and the pentagon and everyone else involved in this are deeply concerned. because, as everyone says, afghanistan is not iraq. it's not something where you can surge x-number of troops and kind of fix the problem. the big difference in walking around there, it is a primitive country. >> you went with general jim jones, the retired common dant of the marine corps, you studied this closely, did you get the sense from your conversations with him, hearing him brief u.s. military personnel, he was coming back to washington more upbeat? >> no, i think they're worried. and they want to make sure the strategy they've got is impl

we begin with famed reporter bob woodward of the "washingto post". >> here thi very young, inexperienced president haput so much the table. once i had somebody count it up and it wa 131 major initiatives legislion, mor appointmen, major ideas. the dayhis came to me 131 on the front pagof my own newspaper, the "washinon po," president obama issue an executive order sang he was going to clean up the cheseake bay. he is undertaking just about everything and all of those things are lik planesnlanded at theirport. they're circlingnd we dot know wha order they're goingto land in, whether they're going to land at all. >> we conclude with bradley gram, our "washingn post" peagon correspondent talking about his book "byhis own rules:he ambitions, successes andultimateailures of donald rumsfeld." he was very ick, witn hours after the attac, to focus on some kind o militaryction against iraq and even while planning proceeded to g intafghanistan rumsld continued to gue wiin the administration about wideni the fight atthat point. going after terroristsr sponsorsferrorismike iraq. rose: woodward and g

>>ose: bob woodward joins me tonight from washingn. he's an associedtor for the "whington post," he's considered one of the pre-eminent investitive journalists of our time and certainly the most famou his investigatn into the watergat coverup with fellow "washington post" reporterarl bernstein earned h fame and the paper a pulitzer prize. he's since gone on to write numeus books about wasngton, including on the presidenc the supre court and the militar he recently accompanied natnal security advor jim joneso afghanistan and wrote abt the tr in the "post i am pleased to have him back on this broadcast. welcome. >> tnk you. >> i want to take the temperature of washington today as you see i. what a pros saying about the president far? >> they don't know and there's a lot of politics and a lot of rhetoric get thrown around on both sides. but i think peoe are kind of... if you're looking for what going on or what's t sense,and obviousl there's never reement, but it's kin of theshakespearean dilea is the king a good king a flawed king? and p

sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information act that showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. ev

the award-winning journalist, bob woodward has just returned from the country.s is now president obama's war. >>> and one of our correspondents gets swept up in the growing fear over swine flu. why he was swept up and was put in quarantine. >>> two bomb blasts minutes apart shattering a four-year lull in terror attacks on western targets in the world's most populated country, indonesia. it killed at least six people, injured more than 50, including at least eight americans. so far, no claim of responsibility. this is what it looked like in the indonesian capital this morning. >> ritz-carlton and marriott. yes. two bombs. two bombs. ritz-carlton and marriott. >> what we know, of course, is that this is coordinated. the first bomb took place at u 45 in the marriott and the other bomb took place just minutes after, just across the street in ritz-carlton. i just heard a huge explosion, a huge blast and the building shook. so i went to the window and looked out and on the left-hand side, as i was looking out in the coroner of the building, down on the ground floor, t

did a summer internship at the "washington post," i even worked for that watergate super slooth bob woodward i put 16 years in at the "wall street journal." i picked up the "wall street journal" today, my gosh, government gone wild. look at today's government front page, i count, mygoodness, i couna total of ninetories on the front page of the journal and it's all over t place, stories on government deep and troubling intrusi into companies and industri. inside t pap, about a half-dozen more stories, gmow a vernment subsidy, boom, a government subsidy i chapter 11. u have citigroup, another vernment owned satellite, shaking up management to mollify washington, the g8 summit. health care coverage, wall street complaining about treasury and warrants and treasure to modify loans from wall street and chase telling heck with it, sell our warrants into the market and aig begging to be allowed to give its bonus contract for employees and payback time for u.s. bank, amazon in a tangle and tomorrow story on government herd iing or business and the government wants to extend the t.a.r.p. payout plan t

and bob woodward of the "washington post," he's just back from afghanistan where there are deep concernsut the future. all that, don, and a lot more coming up in "the situation room" at the top of the hour. >> looking forward to it, wolf. thank you, sir. >>> time now for your feedback. a lot of people are talking about walter cronkite. >> i remember his reports from vietnam. they were riveting. i loved his signoff. >>> i remember getting real news from walter cronkite, something we're not getting now on any of the networks. >>> i love your walter cronkite glasses, don. thank you, but i can't read the prom ter with them. >>> i remember when people used to read the news instead of treating it like they're selling a product. james says, i was watching last night. i remember a man who was captain vate -- captivating. a true profor the truth. i agree with that. >>> how about some etiquette advice from brad pitt? i'm not kidding. that is next. ♪ who's born to care this life was protected... ♪ seems you've always been right there ♪ this life was saved... ♪ soothing sadness ♪ healing pain and th

host: that is bob woodward on "charlie rose" last week. below the fold in "the new york times," jimmy diamon, "he will hold a meeting for the first time on monday with his board, including the appearance of rohm emmanuel. amid the disgrace of the industry, he has emerged as the favorite banker of obama and the envy of his wall street rivals. it reflects a good return on what he labeled his country's seventh line of business, government relations. the business of better influence in washington began in late 2007, jumped started as the financial crisis hit. mr. obama postelection brought democrats well known to mr. diamond, of one of them being mr. emanuel, who has accepted the invitation to speak to the board." a rather lengthy story this morning from "the new york times." phil, winter garden, fla. good morning. caller: a pleasure to be on this morning. i am from maryland really. but i live in central florida. host: we will be talking to your governor, martin o'malley, at 9:30 eastern time. caller: fantastic. this nation is so complex, even

in fact, in bob woodward's first book there's a scene on september 12th, the day after september 11the vice president tries to grab the steering wheel by saying, let me run a separate meeting instead of the national security council. he was also interested in being the guy who would chair the nsc meetings. and bush very specifically in that scene says no. and really shoots down the vice president and says i'm going to run it. i'm going to stay in control. i have not found the scene anywhere that would justify what we're now reading in "the new york times" and other places that david addington, that cheney's aide was the guy who was in charge of deciding who in the congress would be informed of these things, especially when the law says, as you just said, the law says the president, the president, not the vice president, the president shall ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed, including about actions they anticipate taking. where is that scene, chris? that's your first question. i don't know who has the answer to that. when did th

and bob woodward wrote about it. he wrote about the general meeting with various military figures in afghanistan. and this is what he said. this is what he reports that general jones said. if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have a whisky tango fox trot moment. everyone caught the phonetic reference for wtf, which in reference means what the blank? do you think this is sending a chilling message? >> no. we got the advice. we spent five months with the entire national security team. the chairman with the joint chiefs of staff. the secretary of state. the secretary of defense. the national security adviser. down in that tank. down in that situation room. laboriously banging out the plan. the military came with an explicit requests. the president gave them what they asked for. >> you wrote that you didn't want an expansion of troops. >> no. i did want an expansion of troops. there was a slight difference in how to layer them. how to proceed. the president, we all ended up in the, y

so it's juicy, no doubt, hopefully we'll find out before the next bob woodward book. >> that's a lotn is, panetta says he knows that the cia was doing misleading here. what if anything at the end of the day is he likely to do about it? >> well, if somebody actively misled, of course that could be investigated and could lead to prosecutions, sounds like this was largely a matter of omission. i was joking about bob woodward, but i should make clear there are a love of programs we should not know about it. there's no reason that the public should know about it. it'll be interesting if it comes out. but there's a reason that our system is built so that congress is looped in on these. congress now is trying to expand the number of people who are briefed on some of these because of the questions that have come up, the white house is resisting that. keeping it to the smaller circle. so the public by and large is going to side with the cia in this. the doesn't look good for a democratic white house and congress to be picking this fight. democrats have been looking strong on national security

bob woodward counted 150 proposals that had been thrown out there. i think the people that have been washington to know what's possible, politics possible, too much has been thrown at the wall too quickly and the american people are recoiling. when i say the american people, let me be specific, independents are. that middle group that elected barack obama, that elected george w. bush, that elected bill clinton. the people that swing elections. it's overload for this group. here is the problem. does something need to be done? yes. as i've been saying on this show every day for three or four months now, we've got to cut costs. we've got to do what some people calli call rationing. nobody is talking about the math, making hard choice. >> everybody is. nobody has the solution. >> we all have the solution. just like social security. you and i could fix social security in five minutes with a piece of paper. there's a solution out there but it's going to tell middle class americans tough choices ahead. >> and wealthy americans -- >> there's -- >> nobody wan

sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information act that showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. ev

sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information act that showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. ev

the second question is, does the recent information that was brought forward by bob woodward in one of his books regarding the information that became available to the president december of 2002, three months prior to the war, indicating knowledge of the absence of w.m.d. does that lend weight to that case? and my third question is, does mr. cheney's position regarding prosecutions reflect his own fears of possible prosecution? thank you. guest: well, these are all question that one has to address right at the start of working on any project like this. universally, everyone we speak with says there is no likelihood of direct prosecution of bush or cheney on any criminal charges at all. and even if they were pursued, the likelihood of it making its way anywhere through the courts is minimal. there is a large respect in the law for the office, certainly of the president and of the vice president and the constitution, of course, grants them particular powers. and the president in particular, has particular powers as commander in chief in time of war. it should also be said, of course, tha

sometime ago, bob woodward was able to get a hold of information through the freedom of information acthat showed the highest level of american intelligence met with high levels of iraq intelligence in jordan and came away feeling convinced that there were no weapons of mass destruction in iraq. they reported this to the president. the president responded -- used the f-word. that was in december, 2002. between december, 2002, and march, 2003 when we went in, he yet condoleezza rice and dick cheney talked about the weapons of mass destruction. they sold that idea in spite of what they knew, to the congress and the american people. don't you think that that information suggest knowledge? guest: i think probably what the bush administration would tell you was that there was other intelligence and that is what they tried to present to the american people. i stood at side the united nations the day: powell -- that colin powerll presented his case for weapons of mass destruction. the germans and french were skeptical of us going into iraq. it seemed like a lot of circumstantial evidence. even