eric ham, a response for the caller? >> thanks dave for your comments this morning. i don't think that either party is trying to in any way infringe on the constitution. and regarding the issue of voter identification fraud, it has been proven and studied and highlighted that there is no little voter

eric ham? >> guest: i think what she does is help advance this work and there is a huge battle going on between conservatives and republicans. but i think that when we talk about republicans, they typically think of the establishment candidates and if you look at the budget battle as was astutely pointed out it was very unhappy with the budget deal. and we really appreciate this debt ceiling standoff that is going to take place in congress and many republicans in the house and senate who are up for reelection are going to be looking over their shoulder in terms of how they should vote because the conservatives will be looking for them to i think not advance this debt ceiling debate and i think that what we are going to see is a longer fight within the gop. >> host: here is the front page of "the wall street journal" this morning. gop message with republican leaders and their corporate allies. this is the opening paragraph. >> guest: i wrote an article here in washington right after the shutdown

. >> we want to introduce you to eric ham who's written a new book gop civil war. before we get into the body of the book, give us your background so people know where you're coming from. >> i started out working for the senator bill nelson in the national security adviser for the armed services subcommittee on the strategic force. the center for strategic and international studies. as we are working on at csis and some of the issues involved and of course iran and a lot of work around china as well. we've gone from they're doing work for a university leading a project on the three eda security initiative talking about the peacebuilding issues and how to incorporate the peacebuilding measures and to the u.s. foreign policy but still working very closely with members of congress and members of the administration and the staff as well on a number of different issues. >> host: how did you get into that line of work? >> i started at the university of michigan where i studied economics and political science and move on to the university of chicago to get a master's from

. >> we have been talking with eric ham. here is the book: " the gop civil war" it an e-book and available at amazon.com well-educated broad minded liberal young air force officer looking after me offered chats which i find very interesting and he told me he was a liberal because he wanted to create in my mind an impression on my have gotten from the immediate at the u.s. air force academy, full of strange, radical fundamentalists. he told me he was in favor of immigration. but, he said, when people come to the country they should learn the native language. i didn't think he was speaking about comanche. i quite agree. everyone should learn spanish. >> settlement in evolution of the united states from a hispanic perspective. our america at 10:00 eastern and sunday at 9:00 on after words, part of booktv on c-span2. online at booktv's book club time to weigh on in marc levin at liberty amendment. join the conversation, go to booktv.org and click on book club to enter the chat room. >> edmund phelps argues few major innovations

eric. the facts are that right now, carter ham said he was never told to withdraw. all he did was say, you know what, guys, it looks like an attack. looks like something that was planned, there was some foresight here. he didn't say it was attached to al qaeda. he didn't say any of that. he didn't say a word like that. >> but when he was pressed, they specifically said, general ham, was it a protest? did it look like a protest? did you ever even mention protest? he said absolutely not. >> he's talking specifically about benghazi. remember that the video did spark mass protests in places like tunisia, in egypt. there were real protests in response to the video. >> the point is he distinguished it -- >> let me finish, general ham then goes on to say, american intelligence did not suggest there was any imminent threat of an attack coming in benghazi, so he wasn't on guard against it. when he saw what had taken place, he said it looked like a planned attack. >> could we blame lone survivor for the shooting in the movie theater? >> what do you mean? >> the shooting that

ham offered assistance from the african base in tripoli. everyone knows you don't step on hillary's toes. look what happened to general petraeus. thank you. host: eric, independent caller. caller: there have been several caller's this morning alluding to the question, what was the state department during their in the first place? one of the callers recently talked about it wasn't in embassy by the cia compounds. host: there was a cia annex goes to where the ambassador was staying. caller: right. wasnext day, hillary interviewed on television. i saw it. i don't remember what network or anything. but she said she had dispatched contact with the rebel fighters. host: dispatched to? caller: the ambassador. host: ok. caller: she sent him into a war zone. and this is the state department. the state department had no business being there. that was a military operation. host: what you make of the senate intelligence committee that they know that also other countries had a diplomatic presence there? caller: well, that is their problem, i guess. my issue -- it is not just about benghazi, really, but we have any number of government agencies involved in these

eric ham, a response for the caller? >> thanks dave for your comments this morning. i don't think that either party is trying to in any way infringe on the constitution. and regarding the issue of voter identification fraud, it has been proven and studied and highlighted that there is no little voter identification fraud that it will not make a dent in any state, any election, and any discussion. not even the bush-gore election was an issue of voter fraud. so it isn't i think an issue going forward. i think it is something that not only democrats but i think independents are looking at this issue because what we are seeing is we are seeing more people coming into the political process, which is what we want to see happen, and so any way we can continue to get more people engaged in the process is a good thing. >> host: jim is tweeting at dirty water and tweets 20-30 times per show tweets this in: folks, smart enough to earn more than $100,000 gave the majority to romney. 54% of $100 k plus went to romney and 44% obama. chase from arkansas is here. thanks for holding.