forces in the ground division to force iraqi troops out of kuwait in 1991 and also commanded forces in grenada and won 3 suncoast -- silver stars and vietnam. president george h. w. bush released a statement saying schwarzkopf -- alabama governor is touring the devastation after a christmas day tornado. he began and i high-school auditorium and mobile where there was significant with damage. the tornado had winds up to 135 miles an hour. even though the damage is widespread governor bentley says there is still a silver lining to the storm. >> it is a shame to see the damage. but the good thing we have to remember is we did not lose any lives, and we do not have any serious injuries. >> the governor says he in not certain whether there will be a federal disaster declaration. state officials still have to review damage estimates first. steve rudin 12:17 this friday. we have an okay day out but everybody is talking about tomorrow. >> a little snow can go a long way but it will not be anything huge. >> no need to panic. >> and looks like more remixing and. outside it is quiet and try. clouds begin

it is hard for people to believe but on the sunday preceding the tuesday that we went into grenada. sat in a meeting and the plan was to introduce the press -- >> after? >> the military was going to go in and do its thing and not announce it because we wanted to protect the element of surprise. then the press would be introduced at 5:00 that afternoon. but of course what happened is the whole thing went to hell in a handbag. the enemy was supposed to fold and they didn't. by 5:00 the first afternoon, the fog of war was very thick. we didn't know what was going on. there was no way to protect anybody if we introduced the press so that sort of thing. so metcalf made the decision, it is not going to happen. some members of the press did come in and got in the way, quite frankly, of a military operation. but the lesson we learned from granada we have to come up with a better way to deal with the press than what happened over there. it was after granada that the -- it was after grenada that the panel met with members of the media to device the system that we used in desert storm, the poo

moved to joke about blowing up small countries why did he not find something funny in his heros of grenadarge w. bush was a tax cutter. so he didn't hate him. what does he think of the fiscal cliff crisis? >> this fight, on the fiscal cliff is a sqirmish. >> when you are losing a big fight the fight of your life, pretend it is not important at all. that is now his performance choice as he sees his pledge becoming meaningless. as you can tell, from what you saw, he thinks he is a clever boy. very clever he is the kind of clever republican boy with no sympathies for any hardship he himself has not experiences and seems to have experienced none and thinks he can make jokes about blowing up small countries. he never considered joining the military himself. so people being killed in war and bodies being blown up that is a joke for him. he doesn't say those things because he is losing or desperate. because he is so often mean and inhumane. that is what allows him to be an, anti-tax fanatic. he cares about no one that he does not know or is not related to. he does not believe in community or a sh

but ronald reagan didn't get us into any wars, we had a police action in grenada, in eight years, thatas it, yeah, you got to be strong, you got to maintain a strong national defense, fight against budget cuts and so forth. but unless there's a very large national interest involved, it can -- it's sometimes very counter productive to engage in some of these activities overseas, where right now, for instance, there's a lot of pressure on president obama to intervene militarily in syria, that would be the worst thing in the world we could do in my opinion. we should support the syrian opposition, politically, diplomatically, economically, but not militarily, because t t that's a slippery slope once you get into it. >> not even a no fly zone? >> i don't know, if you start a no fly zone, you got to get into the anti-aircraft batteries. but the government is going to fall. so i think the policy that the administration's following on syria is absolutely the right policy to follow. and i think american people are going to begin to demand more and more that there be a significant national inte

. >> grenada. a knew he knew he was going to win. >> your thought was, meacham? >> my thought was great wartime presidents are ones for whom war is total. and they are able to inspire and move a democracy as doris talks about, lincoln. small wars tend not to work out well for democracies, with one exception. one comes to mind, which is the 1990-91 war in the gulf, which george h.w. bush treated as a full-scale war. >> but limited all the way, all or nothing, 500,000 men, but then when it was over it was over. no creep. no -- >> it's -- >> eisenhower understood that war is a mutating monster. >> right. >> president who is think they can control it are kidding themselves. >> what you've talking about is what colin powell talked about after that war, and it's the powell doctrine. you go in with everything, you win, and you bring them home. if you don't -- >> or you shouldn't go in in the first place if you're not willing to make that commitment. >> let's talk, doris, also about the dirtier side of war as it comes to presidential legacies. wars have a way of having p

learn and other colleagues of yours from the vietnam experience about the press that you applied to grenadahere were, or to desert storm? >> i dealt with the press on a different level in vietnam than when i did in grana da and the zest war. i came away disappointed from the press coverage of vietnam. i saw what i call cook stories. military operations that were well-planned and well-executed and made dull reading. so you throe in a few short rounds or something like that and it becomes a sexy story that sells. i saw that happen. it was bold-face lies. so i came away disappointed and i will confess somewhat prejudice. having said that, by the time grana da came around i had matured beyond that. i learned from my vietnam experience but i believe very much in the public's right to know. it is hard for people to believe but on the sunday preceding the tuesday that we went into grana da. i sat in a meeting and the plan was to introduce the press -- >> after? >> the military was going to go in and do its thing and not announce it because we wanted to protect the element of surprise. then the pre