but first, jon meacham, your cover of "newsweek," tell us about it.and looking ahead to elections there. >> yes, the liberal media has done this, just keeping score for those at home. our reporting has shown, in a piece written by chris dickey, that, in fact, there is a level of stability and a kind of political culture taking hold that's a lot like what we just talked about, in the sense that there are -- there's a core of both sunni and shia politicians who want to be politicians, as opposed to insurgents or warriors. and they are creating a culture of deal making. and suddenly power, authority, the ability to deliver basic services and security has become an organizing value. so the election's on sunday. one step back, remember, we did fight a war in iraq, which is virtually has not been discussed in most of the year for all the obvious reasons, but what general petraeus did and what president bush came to does seem to have worked. >> how did this happen? >> i think that -- what the reporting shows is that enough people got tired of an insurgency i

now we're there. >> previous presidents couldn't achieve this, jon meacham. there was this photo between secretary of state hillary clinton and the president. look at that embrace. she and her husband, former president clinton tried to achieve this and could not. to what extent is this what puts barack obama in the history books? >> it certainly changes the short-term narrative. rumored about a month ago he was dead, dead, dead. now he's -- you're asking where he's going to be in the history book. i think it's a cautionary lesson to all of us who render instant judgments. he managed to do something they've been trying to do since theodore roosevelt. for all the rage and all the rawness out there which is very ugly and very disturbing and to my mind disproportionate to the legislation, this is, as john dingell has said, somewhere to the right of where richard nixon was. i think we should remember, as important this is, we need to look at it proportionately and with a sense of balance. >> speaking about balance, mike murphy, there are a lot of republicans who s

the type of money they need during this crucial election, that will probably force his hand. >> jon meachaming midterm elections which is tricky. it's happened a couple of times historically. but to some extent does steele matter? i can only think of two republican national committee chairmen who went on to grander and glorious things. one became president and one became the nominee. but does, is, steele a useful foyle for democrats or is this something you think we won't remember in a week? >> i think that's a very good point. it's a distraction at the national level at a time when the congress is on break. will this really matter at the end of the day when we're talking about in crucial districts whether the democrats are going to hold the congress or not? frankly no. what's going to matter more is going to be the health care debate, the jobs picture, what's going on there. and more importantly today, i think what's looking like a shrewd move by this white house is the announcement they're doing on energy and offshore oil drilling, the type of measures you expect a white house to take in