he got it through the bailout of citicorp by the u.s. government. he produces disaster profits, we pay him bonuses for causing the disaster, and then we have the absurdity -- the president saying this is the man with a track record of unmitigated success. it is exactly the opposite in terms of finance. he is a worthy successor to tim geithner and that he has screwed up everything substantively he has ever touched. >> william black, a want to ask about another aspect of lew's portfolio. his stance on austerity? you have raised questions in terms of his continued support of austerity measures as opposed to efforts by the government to stimulate the economy. could you talk about that? >> this is an army as well in terms of the political aspects and obama. under lew and his new incarnation of a while back as omb head for obama, i have a piece that talks about how omb under obama sounds almost exactly like the tea party. it adopts all of their rubric about these terrible social programs, these terrible safety net, and how it is going to imperil our natio

widner geithner in heading treasury after a stint on wall street, working at the financial giant citicorpen 2006 and 2010. the u.n. arab league envoy to syria has issued his strongest words to date against the regime of syrian president bashar al- assad. speaking to bbc news, lakhdar brahimi appeared to endorse al- assad's departure from government as part of any political solution in syria. >> what people are saying, it is a little bit too long. so the change has to be real. i think president assad could for what hislead an people want, rather than resisting it. >> afghan president karzai is in the u.s. for talks with president obama on u.s. troops levels in afghanistan after the withdrawal deadline of 2014. obama administration officials have recently floated troop numbers ranging from zero to 20,000 after combat operations formally come to an end. karzai kicked off his visit on wednesday by meeting a group of senators. >> the trip has just begun and the meeting over today's the ledge to the days. [indiscernible] afghan president karzai in washington. in india, the identity of the woman