with us now, joe klein. joe, thank you so much for joining us.principals are gathering today and tomorrow at the white house, principally tomorrow but there are meeting today, what are the divisions and the thought line within the foreign policy team on what to do about afghanistan? >> i think that you, obviously, have the military on one side in favor of an augmented counterinsurgency approach. what i understand is that both the secretaries of state and defense are kind of leaning in that direction, but aren't sold on it. as is the national security adviser general jim jones. on the other side, you have vice president joe biden who is in favor of a more counterterrorism sort of approach of scaling back military effort and using drones and special forces and so on to attack al qaeda where it actually is in pakistan. but, various people who will be in this meeting tomorrow have said to me that the absolute key here, the thing that we don't know is what the afghan government is going to be like when it finally emerges from this lelectoral mess. if

. >> joe klein, new york and the country came together then probably not in a way it came together since world war ii. i remember coming to new york a month later and seeing firefighters from alabama or kansas. i remember giving a speech two weeks after 9/11, and, you know, we in the south love making fun of new york city. i remember the biggest line -- applause line was today we all love new york, and the entire place exploded. new york, that day, that time, that week, really connected with the rest of america in a way it probably never has. >> yeah, and it was also, you know, probably the high point of george bush's presidency. i remember when he came out and threw out the first pitch at yankee stadium of the first ball game that was played after the tragedy. that first speech that he gave, you know, he had the whole country with him at that point. i guess one of the enduring tragedies of his presidency, he could have asked us to do anything then and he didn't ask us to do anything. >> do you remember, willie, him throwing out that pitch? >> yeah, he warmed up in the yankee stadium wit

he writes this. >> thank you so much for being with us, joe klein.gnancy that threatened the fabric of the country. explain. >> can i say before that since it's september 11th, eight years ago today, nine of my neighbors did not come home and i want to tell their widows and children we are still thinking about that, and the firefighters and police officers, it was a day that hit me like a 10-ton truck and it should not be forgotten. >> thank you, so much. >> as for the malignancy, i was in arkansas and a state where the parality of voters that do not believe that barack obama is a u.s. citizen. most of them did not believe a word that was being said about the bill. most of them thought that the president of the united states is some kind of subversive. we could have arguments about this bill, because there are things in it i don't like. there are really good conservative arguments with proceeding against universal health care in this way. i don't agree with many of them and those arguments exist and that's where the debates believe. it should not be

joe klein. the wars in afghanistan and political wars in new york state. >>> joining us is congresswoman jane harman. congresswoman, thanks for joining us. let's talk about bob woodward's big story in the "washington post" on what stanley mccrystal is recommending for afghanistan saying there could be mission failure if there isn't what some would call mission creep. how does the president resolve this conflicting problem given the lack of support for an expanding war in afghanistan? >> andrea, i have the report here in my hand. it is on the internet as well as a report called civilian military campaign plan put together by mccrystal and our ambassador to afghanistan. it is not just about military resources. i agree with what joe klein said and president obama, strategy first, resources after. this report is more nuanced and it says we have to do more to increase the capability of the afghan security forces, both police and military, up to 400,000. we have to do a lot more to deal with the crisi

time magazine's joe klein is in new york and joins us live.sed by this contractor in afghanistan is as bad to that war effort as abu ghraib was in iraq. pretty strong stuff. and that the state department's answer is not adequate they get the message. because they renewed the contract after knowing a lot of this stuff. >> i think it's easy to overemphasize this stuff. these contractors were making fools of themselves in abu ghraib. we were torturing other human beings in ail way that it is inhuman by international standards. when you put this together with the larger picture in afghanistan, the trouble that we're having resolving that election, the question of whether you're going to actually have a government, the question of whether -- what sort of government it's going to be. the question of whether the government has to add more troops. it seems this is a perfect storm. everything that can go wrong is going wrong at the same time. >> you spent so much time on the ground. you've spoken to our diplomats and our commanders. where do you come d

ceci connolly, joe klein, helene cooper covers "the new york times" and howard fineman, from "newsweek." president obama stealing the scene in the health care debate. his wednesday night speech to congress showed the president knew he needed to take become control. >> the time for games has pass is! now is the season for action. now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together and show the american people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. now is the time to deliver on health care. norah: polls taken since then showed that the president did have some success and of course there was that outburst from congress joe wilson, the guy who yelled "you lied." other republicans were more polite, but still -- listen to what rush bill -- limbaugh said. >> that speech last night was a fraud. it was dishonest. it demeaned theoffs of the -- office of the presidency. having attacked and lied throughout this thing he claims he wants to work with republicans, with whom he has not met since prim. norah: you can always count on rush. how's the president doing with his own

"time" magazine's joe kleine and others have written about the president's standing overseas. mr. obama has had some success on the domestic front, he's facing many frustration as broad from iran to afghanistan and, of course, even the global financial crisis, which he is going to be addressing tonight at the g-20 summit. joining us now live is mark whitaker, nbc's washington bureau chief. mark, let's use this piece that joe kleine wrote about in "time" magazine as a jumping off point for this discussion. what about that, that he may end this year with some great domestic accomplishments. whether it's a huge stimulus proposal and then perhaps the health care bill. but on the foreign policy front, he's really having some tough times. >> well, another point that joe was make sthag ing is that as ps barack obama is around the world, as excited as people were throughout the globe by his election, ultimately the leaders he has to deal with are going to judge him and his political clout based on what he can accomplish on the home front. so if he doesn't get health care, if he didn't get

joe klein writes in "time" magazine about the president's problems in afghanistan and across the globeally that what the domestic programs that obama is doing are actually going to do well and pass and we're going to have a health care plan, and lots of presidents actually would treat from the domestic to international relations. what joe is saying is that the international area is actually going to be much more difficult. we're so focused on health care now so it is the fall that he will never figure out. what joe is saying that afghanistan, pakistan, is the real nut that needs to be solved. that is the most challenging one. >> that in fact his momentum, he will get momentum in domestic policy that will help. >> also we had ahmadinejad yesterday. and chuck todd, the white house has to be more concerned right now about iran, about what's happening with israel. you said that we had a closer relationship perhaps between netanyahu and obama than it seems. it seems to me if netanyahu is filling the need to go to russia, to strike a deal with the russians, i think we've got a real problem r

you're in the calvin klein underwear ads. that's true. i saw joe dimaggio in dinky doughnuts again, but this time, i went in. oh! uh, where's the bathroom? go down the hall. it's on the right at the very end. yeah. be right back. [groaning] man: sorry, buddy, full house. man: sorry. customers only. woman: hey, you need a ticket. oh! oh! oh! oh! so who's playing elaine? oh, don't worry about it. very talented young actress. really? who is it? she's an eskimo, actually. oh, god. she was in the iditarod, got to the finish line, just kept going. she's got the dogs with her in the hotel room. listen, was russell at the casting? no, he didn't show up. you know, i'm a little bit worried about him. we had one date two months ago. am i that charming and beautiful? no. no, you're not. why do i keep setting you up? could we get a little more? ever since this new owner took over, the service here is really slow. yeah. have you noticed anything else that's different since the new management? mmm. they're putting lemon in the tuna. i love that. besides that. loo

profit margins, ezra klein wrote yesterday our agency is ranked 86th in the country in profit margins and that's not what is driving health care costs. that's a smoke screen. >> joelism? it's a very important conversation, i think. the difference is when a business makes money by competing to provide a better product to the customer. airline tries to be a better airline, a restaurant tries to serve a better burger, a tv station tries to provide better news or health insurance company tries to provide better health care, that's when capitalism is working. but when the profit motive is in direct opposition to the benefit of the customers, when i make more money by collecting more from you and giving you less, whether i am a restaurant, an insurance company, whatever it is, now capitalism has been corrupted to the detriment of people as opposed to its benefit. that's been the concern with health insurance. >> health plans do well the same way any other entity does well, by serving their customers. >> isn't that the point of contest, though? that that's not true? >> dylan, your average physician in the united states contract with his 12 health plans. according to the