bush and founder of frumforum.com, david frum.rd wolffe, i've been suggesting for the last couple of weeks there were just too many incentives to get nothing here and that nothing was a very likely outcome under the circumstance, the president has successfully portrayed himself as the reasonable man, willing to make compromises that were very painful for him, and in the end he doesn't have to make any painful compromises at all because john boehner walks out, the deal's blown up, there's the president, the last man standing asking to be perceived as the most reasonable man. i think he's won that perception. how does it look to you? >> very cynical and turns out quite realistic of you to think that way. the white house has planned this out for many months. not just weeks here. first off, they wanted to do the deal, they wanted to be reasonable, not just look reasonable, they wanted to reach out and find the common ground and deal with deficits, but in the event of failure, which they expected would happen, this was the most favorab

bush and founder of frumforum.com, david frum. the president said he'd sign -- the only debt ceiling increase he'd sign is one that goes to 2013. he used the phrase "one that gets us past the election." and he was able to say that without sounding political to most ears, because he has won so masterfully this perception of being the reasonable man. it clearly is a political issue that he does not want to be dealing with at any point during the next year, 2012, the campaign year, isn't? >> that's plainly reasonable. if washington is this dysfunctional now, how much more dysfunctional is it going to be next year? and when you look at the reasonable fight, the fight to look reasonable, you have to remember it's republicans who have repeatedly walked away from these talks. that never looks good. no matter what the numbers debate is, what who said when, if you look out of talks, you're talking a hardlined approach and looking unreasonable by the very nature. yes, you want to get this done, unfortunately, the president said the american

david frum is still with us. ary stuff when you hear the president of the united states if he's going to say that the nation, the united states is in imminent threat of default >> i think there are four things that people need to keep in mind as they watch the president's speech. first as john said, this is a political crisis, not a debt crisis. for all that you hear of the unsustainability of the debt, this is a planet full of people ready to lend the united states government money for ten years at 3%. lenders are confident, it's the borrowers that are a problem. second, people need to understand it is not the debt that is causing our economic problem, and you will not solve the economy by fixing the debt. in fact, it's the other way around. it's the economy that's causing the debt problems that's driving collections down and forcing expenses up. when economy is better, the debt situation is bert. i think third, people need to bear in mind that the president's behavior, as bad as the republicans have been, is now

joining me now is david frum, the founder of frumforum.com, thanks for joining me tonight, david. >> you should be answering questions tonight. that was a very acute analysis. >> david, can't the republicans see that when the president jumped over that fence and said awhile ago, i'm for the $4 trillion, let's do the grand bargain, and by the way, i'm going to need tax revenue increases. couldn't they see from the start that the grand bargain was impossible, the president was not really committed to a big deficit reduction package because he was always going to include something that was impossible for house republicans? >> but that was -- this is where i bang head on table, right? because i am -- i'm basically a right wing person and if i can get a deal where you preserve the infrastructure of tax rates, you give up something on deductions, schedules, and credits, and you get a democratic president to say i'll go first on medicare, i'll squeeze the providers, or i will make some changes on social security, it won't work when george w. bush leads, but when a democrat leads, okay, but

my point is david frum came along on marriage because the facts weren't there. >> i want to give dennis to respond. >> i never said that in my life. i don't know anybody who's ever said, anybody responsible that if there's same-sex marriage, heterosexual marriages will fall apart. we've said other things, for example, the notion that male and female don't matter, there is a war against the notion of gender identity. so that you have lgbt, why is there a "t" there? there's a celebration of the removal of male/female distinctions. this is what worries me, not same-sex marriage in and of itself. >> that's just bizarre. >> gays are humans like everybody else. the notion that it doesn't matter, for example, was it reported widely, is it john, i'm sorry? forgive me. >> yes. that's okay. >> was it reported widely that catholic charities has stopped after 100 years of providing adoption services in massachusetts, that it's happening now with illinois? >> the sail thing happened in illinois. it was a huge story and we reported on it. >> let me finish one sentence. >> let him finish. go ahead, de

. >> you know, it's interesting, mark, earlier this week, david frum, he said he thought this whole debt ceiling showdown was a way to step back from the whole jobs debate. when do we move away from how we're going to create jobs, creating jobs, issue number one and suddenly it's the debt ceiling crisis? do you see what i mean about -- it was all about jobs before. now suddenly it's all about the debt ceiling. >> it's all about the debt because we're facing this deadline of august 2nd. and certainly the politicians behind me want to talk about the future and can we leave our grandchildren with this huge problem? but the fact of the matter is, we're americans, right? and we live in the now and we only want to talk about what's really going to affect us. so it's going to swing back. once a deal is struck -- bottom line, we all know a deal is going to be struck. the question is, what is the final number going to be? it's going to swing back to the economy in the now and it's going to swing back to jobs because that's how you win elections. unfortunately, that's the best thing about america

. >> let's go to roland martin and former bush speech writer david frum, the editor of frumforum.com.eal is it that some of these republican candidates are signing this traditional values pledge, if you will, opposing same-sex marriage in iowa as opposed to others refusing to sign? >> it says some other things than that. this just drives hope what a great point it would be to move this first republican primary to florida, the way the florida state wants and have it in a big urban state. the people who are signing this are the people pinning their hopes on iowa. social conservatives are very strong. you have to spend a lot of time in those caucuses. people who are not signing are not making the big commitment to iowa. the republican party almost -- you must not win iowa. >> i hear 24 about dumping iowa caucus every four years. hasn't happened. probably won't happen. it looks like iowa has a lock. >> i'm an evangelical. my wife is an ordained minister, i'm a christian author. i think this pledge is stupid and idiotic. so for those republicans who are refusing to sign it, i agree with th

here to weigh in on that in today's strategy session, cnn political analyst roland martin and david frum up from forum.com. thank you, gentlemen. let me just give you and our viewers a little taste of this add to come. >> left turn after left turn. america is headed the wrong way fast. 6 million foreclosures, 14 trillion in debt, $500 billion in higher taxes, and the worst long-term unemployment in generations. don't let obama drive us to disaster, change direction. >> okay, that's an ad, but let me put up some factoids here. january 2009, when the president took office unemployment was 7.6%. now 9.1. black unemployment, 12.8% when he took office, 16.2% now. national debt was $10.6 trillion when he took office. $14.3 trillion now. all of which is to say, is he pretty vulnerable here when he comes to these economic statistics? >> obviously when you look at 192, george bush, 97% approval rating. a year later, he was packing. one of the issues you hear democrats lay out is that you can say the unemployment rate had gone up, we lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, 500,000 in december alone. and th

. >> joining me now is david frum, an editor from forum.com. megan is an editor for "the atlantic."riticism of the way republicans, conservatives, and tea party influence members of congress are handling these negotiations. there's some sense that democrats have started to make some moves. republicans are making no moves whatsoever. what is your take on this? >> well, i think at this point, we really don't know whether this is just, you know, a tough negotiating strategy or whether they are actually serious and they have no intention of moving off of their position, which is no revenue increases whatsoever. even things like getting rid of the ethanol tax credit which most people pretty much agree is a terrible idea. i mean, if it's the former, then it's sort of difficult and i think the democrats are going to be really angry about it, but probably eventually we will get to a deal. if it's the lat, that is really ill for the future. >> i keep trying to remind people, david, that guessing about what effect this is going to have on the global economy is a tough one. we guessed wrong on