on the wall are portraits of john sherman cooper a republican and john bartlett a democrat. below is a bust of henry clay. each of these senators and each of these kentuckians came from a different political party. each viewed view the world through different ideological lens but all of them believed in the senate and all of them left behind important lessons for today. clay about putting country the country first in pursuing principled compromise. cooper about choosing when to make a stand and making it and berkeley barkley about having the courage to think differently than a president from the same party he served dutifully for years. lessons like those at go into the presence and they help mark the way toward a better functioning government. a senate and the congress that functions again will help move us pass an arab government in crisis. it doesn't mean everything will be perfect. it doesn't mean we will never come up against a deadline and it doesn't mean we will always agree but together we can commit to change in the way washington operates. this can be done. it can

bartlett joins us this morning from our washington news bureau. we have talked about this many times before. what is the challenge that john has so different from the time of reagan, bush? >> the party has been greatly radicalized. you have a certain number of people who really don't want to govern they just don't care they vote no on everything. their idea of the ideal government policy that just shut down the government and leave it shut down. i mean, it is absurd to see these fellows yesterday voting against john boehner, the speaker of the house of their party, and then he punishes them and they are astonished. oh, we are standing for principle. i mean, these people are crackpots an idiot. >> how does that play out over the next 90 days? we will talk later in the hour about the trip to 2016, but what does bruce bartlett presume your republicans will do just to get to march 31? >> good question. that is john boehner's and mitch mcconnell's challenge. the republicans have said for some time they want to prove that they can legislate and be responsible because the people are not going to elect another president of the rep