e.j. dionne. great to have all of you with us tonight. best panel on sunday is right here. katrina, darrell issa, they have had nine hearings on this. now he wants to take mr. pickering to testify behind closed doors, give deposition behind closed doors. what's wrong with mr. pickering coming out and talking to everybody, like all the other folks did? >> nothing wrong. i think today what we saw on these sunday talk shows was, again, what we've seen over the years, which is a great disconnect between what the elite, the politicians inside the beltway are talking about, and what people in this country are caring about. and darrell issa and the republicans are not interested in sober fact finding. there is a role for sober fact finding, but they are seeking an issue, ginning up the base, fund-raising on benghazi, and they're driving delusional conspiracies. there is a lack of history, context, and fact that if we are going to talk about benghazi, we deserve. one is that america embassy's cons

joining me is e.j. dionne and bob shrum.hank you for your time this evening. >> glad to be with you. >> e.j., repeal, repeal, but for what reason? >> well, you know, reverend, i think we can all agree, republicans enjoy voting to repeal obama care. and if they did it a few times, you know, it unifies the base and most of them vote the same time but 45 times becomes a case of self-parody. this is a very different republican party from the past. in the past, all kinds of republicans, from john chaffey to bob dole to richard dixon recognize that having this many uninsured people is bad for the country and they were all willing to acknowledge a government role in it and the other shame here is obama care can be improved. the social security act was amended many times to make the program better. but we can't even have a conversation about how to make obama care work better because all we're going to get are votes to repeal and it's just not the way the government should work. >> bob, it is the law. it is going to be implemented f

the state where that bridge collapsed and "the washington post" e.j. dionne. thank you both for coming on the show tonight. >> good to be with you, reverend. >> congressman, let me go to you first. isn't it in the republican's interest to deal with this and if they focused on building up america, isn't it in the interest than trying to tear down the president? >> well, they've clearly spent the last five years trying to tear the president down but they have done it by throwing society under the bus. we have the most long-term unemployed that we've had since the 1930s and there's no excuse for that. there's plenty of work in this society that needs to be done and all it means is that the congress has to step up, put the money up, and we can have it. we haven't raised the gas tax for bridges and highways since 1993. and there's just no reason that we shouldn't be doing this and putting america back to work. all the other problems that face us would be gone if we had put people back to work. >> now, e.j., you wrote earlier this week that the focus on scandal is t

does the narrative to use e.j.nne's favorite word actually come together to some final point, and if it does, then you're going to have more political and historical resonance. you talk about monicagate. about the weakness for women. when you talk about iraq, that was about bush, all that we need in our gut, we don't need to actually need to read books and find out what's going on. this going to coalesce into something larger? i don't think so. i don't know if we have to wait to see, but nothing is there yet. and maybe it will come out and it will be incorrect but, you know, it's got to coalesce into something. >> i think you're both wrong. i think number one, there are 2.8 million people in the federal government. a range of activities at a low level that even an effective president will not know about. with regard to the doj investigation in particular, this has happened so far on the information flow exactly how it should. there are only seven people in the internal guidelines authorized to have contacts between

as e.j. mentioned before, you know, what the proponents are doing here is saying that, look, we can address this as part of this larger package. the reason being is we've already heard some of the critics of this bill try to slow down and stop this bill because of what they see as the problems in boston need to be addressed separately and not try to move forward on this comprehensive bill. i think you're going to see some proponents of this measure be open to some change, even if they're cosmetic changes, to at least appear they're addressing some of the problems that happened in boston and with these suspects and friends. so we'll see exactly how that plays out, but you're going to see capitol hill take some -- have hearings and look at this closely to see wether or not there needs to be any sort of legislative approach or whether or not there just needs to be more scrutiny on the system. >> something on that, chris. if you can solve -- that is to say, if you can put 11 million or so illegal

. >>> let me bring in e.j. dionne and lois romano. first terrorism speech by the president in his second term, e.j. why this, why now? >> i think he's been working on this for a long time. this is a big deal speech. at first, as he's renewing his efforts to close guantanamo, he had himself severely restricted by congress in his efforts to close it and then he basically gave up, put the issue on the shelf. i think he's going to announce release of more than half of the guantanamo detainees over time and he's going to say, look, some of these detainees that have been released under president bush and obama have returned to terrorism but the existence of guantanamo is a much bigger threat to us because it's a recruiting tool. i think he's going to try to put some restrictions on his own ability to use drones. and he's going to move the drone program to the military where it belongs. my hunch is that the civil libertarians will be happy about some of the moves in this speech but it won't go far enough for them. i think others on the other

joining me now is e.j.is congressman ryan still suffering from romnesia? >> is would hoping that we could compete for $100,000 in the plaming game when they want to talk about how successfully they are cutting government, then they say we are for the sequester, we are not going to give in to obama but when any particular thing comes up, they say, well, he's really the author of the sequester, even though ryan and almost all of the other voted for it. it's a game and they keep have to being getting called on it. but they thought with the steep cuts, the republicans would never let the sequester go into effect and that was a mistake. and i think also the administration left the impression that this was going to hit hard at the beginning. no, it wasn't, but it's really debilitating and i think they need to recalibrate their strategy, just like my boston celtics and your brooklyn nets did. but i think they can do it. >> you know, when you hear ryan blame the president for budget cuts now, but that's not what he

and i read a lot of literature and as e.j. suggested i' i've nt been reading for a while, and one of, one of for me the interesting parts was to explore more fully, debates outside the traditional foreign policy national security landscape. it increasingly became clear before the principal drivers. so if you're going to make a list of what was driving things, this is where i came out. i think ultimately you can have almost an unlimited list. if you look at the budget, every category of things were spending on them you could look at all sorts of political arrangements. and i chose the ones i did simply based on what i thought explained most where we were. i'm not saying a message on the right. you know, look, whenever you write a book you never expect to have -- i would love for that debate to happen. i would love to have more people look at more aspects of our society or economy, and basically say, hey, we've got to do this differently because here's the connection, here's the repercussions are implications for u.s. on nationa

e.j. deon said this in "the washington post" today. do we have the graphic.s he does control, obama has to talk less about hurdles he faces and more forcefully about what he's going to get. where does he go now? where can he move on this stuff? >> think it's hard for him to move. i love e.j. he's a genuine friend not one of those people you say is your friend. he's a rell frieal friend. i agree with him all the time. we're beating on this president when you have to go back to that pat toomey quote go guns that shows liberal fantasies about how the president has to get back in the game, be tougher, make better deals, it is not going to work. he's really got people who are determined to see him fail. i do agree with the tone, however. the tone of late has been little wi whinier than we would like to hear. in terms of what he can do, it's hard. >> there seems to be this sort of mindset from him, you said whining but this sort of i'm done with it. you see the way the people treat me. what am i supposed to do? that's not good for democrats to have that opinion in

get on board in order to make it possible for regular american families to put food on the table. >> e.j. to get that done yesterday you need governors and mayors. you may also need a new congress. let me ask you the question. the headline in politico today was rising economy shifts 2014 election landscape. quote, the altered terrain, if it hold, could benefit democrats and challenge republicans. your view on that and will it be enough to change the majority in the house? >> with that majority in the house will be a heavy lift because of the way mostly republicans drew these districts. they are in pretty safe districts. they have a strategy where they, the democrats, where they take a number of these republicans are vulnerable. they are still sitting on seats with fair number of democrats in them, significant minority populations. i think a rising tide could lift a number of democratic candidates and could help save the senate. democrats are vulnerable in the senate and a few other close races could tip their way if the economy stays on this track. >> wouldn't the president have to reall

i myself your servant spent twelve years in iraq e.j. lost my family only received news of me one or two years after i was released. i was even afraid of my own brother i thought he was an officer who come to interrogate me all of us we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias only when the f.b.i. . leaving kabbalah is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of shia mountains fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed their. little bit of. a hospital. on the back the bass run highway in the middle of the desert our faithful taxi finally gives up the ghost. i feel suddenly vulnerable alone in the wilderness. as if by magic a man appears from the sands to help us out babs this is the right now the desert hospitality. we had for a camp for the men who maintained the highway once they were all soldiers in saddam's army. when the americans came many deserted. without knowing who we all go. to make room for us to share that. with out of my take iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. remember your family was take

e.j.? >> well, thank you for reading that.ck obama might well identify with kermit the frog, it's just not easy being barack obama. i mean, he is crosswise to so many things in the country right now. in particular, he is presented by republicans in congress as some kind of ultra left winger when people on this show know how often people on the left have been impatient with his efforts to get grand bargains. and jim vandehei was talking about john boehner. if you -- if joe scarborough were in this particular republican caucus, he would be seen as a socialist. i mean, this is a very different time that obama has to govern in. trying to be a middle of the road liberal. he's cast as an ultra leftist. >> i'm sure you love hearing that. >> i tend to disagree. but, just -- could i ask e.j.? >> why do you think he lets himself be passed that way. it is surprising because he is a centrist and he has allowed himself to be painted in another way. so what does that say about the politics of it? or the -- his ability to define the agenda?

she's not an effective congressperson. >> the point e.j.e makes, it is a good one, she's not an isolated case. what you really do have right now is a policy party in the democrats and emotionalism party, a talk radio party in the republicans. they haven't proposed, like, a solid sort of tangible new idea that i can remember in a very long time, but barack obama gave them this emotional sort of crucible where they could direct all of their energy and all their anger at this one person. this is the guy who crystalizes everything you hate about where this country is going. so they don't have to have policy. they can do what you do in entertainment. they can constantly harp on something about obama is not right to you, right? >> i've got you wrapped up, now. i have to ask you the obvious question. i know what your wonderful answer is going to be, i think. do you think the ted cruz who was born, nobody denies this, not an accusation which is absurd. he was born actually in canada. >> yeah. >> to an american mother. >> obama was born, and everybo

will it come to that e.j. you want to answer this question scandal or incompetence or both. some of both but i think it's vastly overblown as to its importance when you have u.s. personnel and it with what is essentially a war zone and been gazi. chris stevens knew the risk he was taking when he put himself in that situation the state department. let him make his own decisions about where he went and how much security he took with them because they trusted him as the in this country expert. he bade a bad choice a bad decision but to turn that into a a major political scandal i think it is vastly exaggerated reporting of what happened there when mcgovern what do you think was actually happening there why did this story change with the cia doing something there. no they don't want to talk about they don't want to talk about you know. well i'm free to talk about things because all i know comes out of that in the public media but we do have people like david brooks saying david brooks the conservative commentator in the new york times saying that this was a cia installation a ci

. >> joining me now is washington post columnist e.j. dionne. so no changed facts.hing in the condition of this benghazi situation here in washington changed as a result of this hearing unless i missed something. >> well, i missed it too. i mean, we're almost at the point where some people seem to believe if you say benghazi backwards five times, a conspiracy will magically appear. if you look at today, a piece is up tonight where i think they got it right, he said they summoned whistle-blower to capitol hill, but instead they got a virtuoso storyteller. mr. hicks was amazing. you could see it in the -- in that video, and as he goes on to say, his gripes were about bureaucratic squabbling more than political scandal. yes there are questions to ask and as you suggest there are answers we might get, but these hearings don't seem to be about that. what struck me is the difference between this hearing and the actual watergate hearing. i keep trying to compare this to watergate. if you go back to sam irvin, a conservative democrat who is very nonpartisan, those are bipar

which is to say, michele bachmann may be gone, but i will read from the great e.j. die yuan, the minnesota right-winger deserves to be memorialized, she perfected a tactic well-suited to the current environment, toss out baseless charges and eventually some of them will end up in the mainstream media get a handful if of your accusations and strange takes on reality into the political bloodstream and you've won. bachmann's method is now current currency and a great way to raise money. in the first months of 2013, members of the house have collected $68 million, boehner is at the top. $2.4 million. cantor, $1.2 million. bachmann at a respectable $678,000. >> they have institutionalized the concept of the ceremonial vote. right. we're going to vote for the 37th time against the affordable care act because some people didn't get to vote against it before. now we're going to do it now and raise money off of that we're not going to try to fix the problem. we're not going to sit down and tell you here's, these are the things we would change. no, no, no we're going to have

e.j.? >> thank you. i want to thank jonathan. there is no one more enthusiastic among the people who work with him as jonathan. andnt to thank karen davis ross who checked all our numbers. this paper is full of numbers. if there is anything wrong in here, it is surely not their fault, and i'm grateful. and lastly, mike and make -- and and a greenberg, mike of anna -- mike was extraordinarily helpful. and some of the other people at brookings i could think. the fact that this room looks a lot younger than most brookings rooms suggests one of two things. either lots of in terms have started arriving in washington, or our analysis in the paper is correct -- and maybe both are true. because when you look at this theretoward legalization, are two important facts. one you can see if you have the paper on the chart on page two. where the movement, even in the last few years, since 2010, in favor of legalization crosses all groups, and is marked among older respondents. it is important among middle- age respondents, and there is even an

because people, you know, when my last book came out, e.j. dion wrote a column about jeff maya wright, and he said jeremiah wright isn't martin luther king, we're not turning him into that. and neither is rieder. but there's more in king that resonates with jeremiah wright if you read most of wright's speeches which is something tavis smiley also said. so, yes, i know -- see, diane can be a bad ass as well, so you're pushing me. but it's a good point that there is a long tradition in african-american theology, in preaching that has prophetic chastisement, and there is the loving grace of the savior, and they're all part of king. they're all there. the rebuke and the love. and that's why c.t. said to me, he said, look, he's telling them of their evil because that's what a preacher does and a prophet does because they can be redeemed. and one way to think about it is, you know, that's why that transition at the midpoint when king is basically done explaining x. that, to me, is the most significant part. he gets all that reasonable part under th

e.j. distinguished scholars of public opinion, and that helps, but it also helps that they have access more information than anyone has had on this issue before. they crossed tabs in ways that no one has ever even conceived of. you will get the fruits of their research in just a moment. a word about each of them -- you can read bios on your own, so i will keep the short. phil is a senior fellow here at the holder of the chair in brookings governance studies programs. he is a participant in six presidential campaigns. i'm trying to work out how you get to six. smithgoing to say, was it or was it rosenfeld? [laughter] he is the author of eight books. alsodionne, to his left, well known to you as the syndicated columnist for the "washington post," well known to us at brookings as a senior fellow here and a professor in the foundations of democracy and culture at georgetown university -- a great title, by the way. i would like to have that on my business card. about 10 each talk for minutes ea

i read a lot of literature as e.j. suggested that i had not been reading for a while.ne of the interesting parts of us to explore more fully debates outside the traditional aren't policy and national security landscape in an increasingly became clear these are the principal drivers if you make a list of what was driving things, this is where i came out. ultimately you can have an unlimited list if you look at the budget, every category of things there is spending on. you could look at all sorts of political arrangements. i chose the ones i did based upon what i thought explained where we were. whenever an author writes a book, you never expect -- i would love that debate to happen. i would love to have poor people look at our economy and say we've got to do this differently because here's the connections and repercussions for u.s. national security. one thing i read about in the book is beyond k-12 education is we don't have a very good capacity to think about life on education. most of the education in this country is front loaded, whether high school, college, no mat

e.j. dionne, to his left, also well known to you as the syndicated columnist for the "washington post," well known to us at brookings as a senior fellow here and a professor in the foundations of democracy and culture at georgetown university a great title, by the way. i would like to have that on my business card. they will each talk for about 10 minutes each on different aspects of their findings. our two, enters just really could not be better. -- our two commenters. anna greenberg has 15 years' experience in polling and public research and the methodology thereof. she has worked with many elected officials, many advocacy groups. directly on point for us, she has done extensive polling and research for advocates in drug policy reform including, among many other things, she led the research supporting washington's successful initiative 502, which is the initiative that passed in november. she has also been active on the issue in other states. she has a work in california, oregon, alaska,

i read a lot of literature as e.j. suggested that i had not been reading for a while.one of the interesting parts of us to explore more fully debates outside the traditional aren't policy and national security landscape in an increasingly became clear these are the principal drivers if you make a list of what was driving things, this is where i came out. ultimately you can have an unlimited list if you look at the budget, every category of things there is spending on. you could look at all sorts of political arrangements. i chose the ones i did based upon what i thought explained where we were. whenever an author writes a book, you never expect -- i would love that debate to happen. i would love to have poor people look at our economy and say we've got to do this differently because here's the connections and repercussions for u.s. national security. one thing i read about in the book is beyond k-12 education is we don't have a very good capacity to think about life on education. most of the education in this country is front loaded, whether high school, college, no ma