joining me "new york times" columnist david brooks, presidential historian doris kearns goodwin, npr'sle morris, former governor of mississippi, haley barbour and the president of the naacp, ben jealous. welcome to all of you. this has been a very difficult week. this trayvon martin story is so painful for so many people and the president talked about it, as we say, in such personal terms. this is a portion of what he said on friday. >> i think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen? that means we examine the laws and the context for what happened. as well as the specifics of the incident. >> ben jealous, what does it mean that the president lent his voice to this in the way that he did? >> look, he spoke to the specific pain by the family when you look at the whole remarks. universal pain felt by the human family, but he also, i think, put out a call for us to really look at how this happens in our country. the reality is that for too many years and too many places and too many cases, it's been the case that we have given permission

i happen to love doris kearns-goodwin and not just because she was a red sox fan. she had talked about t.r. but claim it came before that. it seems to me that if you are -- i do not know what i'm about to say, from sort of inside knowledge, but it is my assumption that if you want to make the next campaign a big argument about the role of government and the progressive position, you are wiser to go back to the progressive era when this all started. >> right. >> than to stop -- >> that was my point. >> and roosevelt and the new deal. i think it's logical that he did this. >> i completely agree. i think that's consistent with where he's coming from. i think that's his thinking is naturally to go back to the progressive thinking. i think this establishes that. >> mr. cohen? >> david cohen. picking up on javitz and ancestors, even if theodore roosevelt is a distant ancestor to president obama, there's an effort at making him an ancestor. and so i wonder if you could all comment on another missed opportunity which is theodore roosevelt laid the basis for dealing with th