and joining us dan henninger, mary anastasia o'grady and, with the anti-american protests across the arab world this week, tell us about our standing in that part of the world, and the ferment in arabia? >> well, i think, paul, what's happening here is where essentially we came in when the arab spring began in egy egypt, tunisia and spread to other countries and the feeling at that time that came out the united states couldn't really support any of these movements in the arab spring because quote unquote, we don't know who these people are, which is to say that the united states, and including the state department, just was not that engaged with these countries at that time. now, when you think of how, to what extent egypt or libya since these transitions have been in the news, it's been basically not at all on their own, and still a piece with the obama administration's policy on foreign policy, to lower america's direct engagement rather than let international institutions deal with it. what we're seeing is the result of the united states, kind of the not withdrawing entirely, but

and joining us dan henninger, mary anastasia o'grady and, with the anti-american protests across the arab world this week, tell us about our standing in that part of the world, and the ferment in arabia? >> well, i think, paul, what's happening here is where essentially we came in when the arab spring began in egy egypt, tunisia and spread to other countries and the feeling at that time that came out the united states couldn't really support any of these movements in the arab spring because quote unquote, we don't know who these people are, which is to say that the united states, and including the state department, just was not that engaged with these countries at that time. now, when you think of how, to what extent egypt or libya since these transitions have been in the news, it's been basically not at all on their own, and still a piece with the obama administration's policy on foreign policy, to lower america's direct engagement rather than let international institutions deal with it. what we're seeing is the result of the united states, kind of the not withdrawing entirely, but

we're back with dan henninger, james freeman and kim strassel. , dan, bill clinton says that was all about expanding work. is that true? >> no, it's not true. the actual, you know, progressives to have been upset about welfare reform since bill clinton passed it. i was going to say it's a little shameless for the president, but clinton, you know. >> paul: that's what he does. >> that's what he does. it's all about the-- i mean, it's very kind of bureaucrat particular, but it's about the definition of what the work requirement is and they are proposing to expand it in such a way that it virtually has no meaning. as for that 20% increase in employment, this is the sort of thing that the bureaucracies themselves self-define. and the problem, the biggest problem here, paul, is thatted good thing about clinton's welfare reform, it prevented the states or anyone, hhs from gaming the system like this and causing spending to increase. >> it was one of the forms of this sort that doesn't let the bureaucracies, game it and that's why spending always rises.

let's welcome the wall street journal columnist, dan henninger, dorothy rabinowitz, kim strassel. n one of the main goals of the convention to improve the image of mitt romney with independent voters, undecided voters. did they accomplish that? >> they most personal accomplished that, they have proven, i think, with all of the testimonials from people that mitt romney is a good person, a great guy, and even a caring businessman. now, this is a political event. so, why did they spend so much time doing that? they did that because the obama campaign and democratic surrogates had spent the previous four months. >> paul: and 100 million dollars. >> 100 million dollars worth of tv commercials saying precisely the opposite. the romney campaign has brought themselves back to even in the image wars with president obama. with only skimmed in his speech were the policy wars ei want to get to that, but let's talk about that speech. >> as a result the campaign is going to pitch forward and going to be decided in the debates and the hundreds of millions of tv ads. >> paul: what about the speech

census bureau median haus hold income fell and americans living in poverty, and we're back with dan henninger, jason, and mary. not a good story from the census. >> no, as you you mentioned the poverty rate itself not much moved, but income down again, despite productivity increases, paul. and again, it's more evidence that the problem is the slowness of this recovery. >> yeah, nobody expected obama to bring us back to where we were prior to his election, but how are we doing in terms of the recovery? more evidence that it's just not there. it's just not there, mary? >> i'm a little surprised that anyone is surprised because if you look at-- what's driving this is unemployment and you're out of work uyou're not having an income your household income is going to fall and unemployment over 8% for an extended period of time. we have underemployment around 15%, we have 40.7% of people who are out of work have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, fewer americans are working today than they were in 2000. and even though there's 31 more million people. >> that's an aamazing statistic. >> this is

let's ask wall street journal columnist and deputy editor dan henninger, james freeman and washingtonolumnist kim strassel. so, kim, what do you think about this new strategy? and i guess maybe start with the question of what does it say about the campaign that they feel they need a new strategy or a new direction focus two weeks after-- three weeks after the republican convention? >> well, they have had this perfect form over the last couple of weeks, they saw their poll numbers going down, following the democratic convention. there was this flap over mr. romney and his comments about egypt and libya, and then, you know, now the latest thing that he said about the 47% out there. so, there's been a lot of nervousness in the republican field and the silver lining of this, if there is one, it does give them an opportunity to go out and reboot and try to buck up some of those conservatives who are worried. what their strategy seems to be, is more mitt. we're going to put him out there more and have him talking more. i think the test is going to be, whether or not people are just seeing h

dan henninger, thank you very much.eachers back on the job but the consensus seems to be the union won the fight. how much power do the unions have? john stossel joins us next and he is not afraid to ask that question. >> tell me how much money i need. right out of high school into college. you know nothing about us here. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see wh criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments. the expert strategies feature is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. with features like scanning a barcode to get detailed stock quotes to voice recognition. e-trade leads the way in wherever, whenever investing. download the ultimate in mobile investing apps, free, at e-trade. stuart: joining the company is larry levine. explain s