leslie sanchez, karen finney.hank you. >> ifill: now, video games and free speech-- today's arguments at the supreme court-- and to jeffrey brown. >> brown: the case is schwarzenegger versus entertainment merchants association. the issue is whether california can ban the sale of violent individual video games to minors. marcia coyle of the national law journal was of course in the courtroom and joins us now. start with some background on this california law. >> the law was enacted in 2005. it bans the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. it defines violent video games as involving killing, maiming, dismembering, and sexually assaulting the image of a human being. the law never took effect because shortly after it was enacted the video game industry brought a challenge in federal court. the federal courts found that the law violated the first amendment. >> brown: that means california is appealing bringing the case to the supreme court. its lawyer went first today. what's the argumen

from the left, democratic strategist karen finney. on the right, gop strategist, brian donahue and as always, our washington insider and man of the money, lobbiest jimmy willi williams. don't say a bad thing about lobbyists. just about lobbyists with money. there's a difference. right. we will begin with dr. rangel himself and james, the only real question that occurs to me is charlie rangel indicative of wh what happen to a politician? >> here's what i know. there are 435 members of the house representatives. 100 senators. two ethics trials going on right nouchlt one member has been found guilty. another, her fate awaits her. this is not indicative. the republicans when they held the congress, they had way more than this. the democratically led ethics panel has now convicted mr. rangel and so after however many years, 40 years in congress, this is a sad way to end your career. >> i would agree with that. what is your view on -- does something like this restore anybody's confidence? is there any benefit to at least bringing this to a

and karen finney, an independent consultant. served as director of communications at the democratic national committee. thank you both for being with us. we just heard about the role of money that poured into this campaign. karen finney, we hear so much about how democrats are not as enthusiastic. in this election cycle. why is that? >> you know, i actually don't buy that because i think when we've talked about or we've heard about the enthusiasm gap, people fail to actually recognize that the enthusiasm that we saw is really tea party enthusiasm against the republican party. i think what we have seen is very strong democratic enthusiasm in the early vote and so i'm not so convinced. maybe we were a little bit late to show our enthusiasm, but i'm not completely convinced that there was a true gap. >> woodruff: how much of a gap do you see, leslie? >> wide. a very wide and very dramatic... i respectfully disagree from my brilliant colleague. i would say that what we realize is a very simple lesson. the message was less government

. >> let's see if joe watkins, republican strategist, msnbc analyst and karen finney, former communicationseling it. good morning to you, both. how are you, guys? >> good morning, alex. >> joe, you're in the same party. in sarah palin decides to run in 2012 does this help or hurt her chances of doing so? >> i'll just say this. i've been around politics for a long time. i've worked in politics for a long time as has karen and i worked in the white house as has karenful we both know if you run for the presidency, this time before the important year, 2011, you want to be in iowa and. >> announcer: buijoorks new hampshire joochlt you don't sign a contract and do a reality show. >> okay. your thoughts karen? i mean if you were advising palin, you'd be thinking you have to stop this or take the chance this is going to help? >> probably my initial reaction would be what are you thinking? actually it could be very smart. we heard from friends who live in alaska. people underestimate her all the time. she may be onto something. i think aboutet i. it's about an eight-week campaign commercial. it's a

let's bring in karen finney and vin webber. welcome both. o you, how is the democratic base going to feel if the white house caves in on this extension of the bush tax cuts? >> yeah, not good and it looks like and i think there's a meeting on thursday with congressional leadership and the white house and i think it's going to be very important that going into that meeting and coming out of the meeting, the white house and democratic leaders make it clear that the middle class tax cuts are sort of nongauchable. there are some rumblings today, you've heard some members of the progressive community calling on the white house and democratic leadership to say middle class tax cuts only. not sure if that's where we'll end up, but it's critical that no matter what, the middle class tax portion is in the final bill. >> vin webber, you've been watch ing the budget and deficit commission report. along with everyone else and you have a real expertise in this. what do you think is the tolerance level among republicans for doing something really important

our lefty democratic strategist, karen finney, washington lobbiest, jimmy williams and john harris. a pleasure to have all four of you. the it's big story today. president bush unapologetic on everything from war to bailouts in his first interview since leaving office. >> let's talk about water boarding. we believe america's going to be attacked again. all kinds of intelligence coming in. i said, are the techniques legal and a legal team says, yes, they are. >> was dick cheney pushing you to go to war with iraq? >> it didn't matter whether he was or not. i am the guy who makes the decisions as to when we move. >> you knew then what you know now -- >> that's right. >> you would still go to war in iraq. >> i first of all didn't have that luxury. i will say, definitely the world is better off without saddam hussein in power. >> if you were president again though and t.a.r.p. came up, you would do the same thing? >> absolutely given the same circumstances. >> before we get into the policy difference, one thing when you see the former president like that, that strikes you as a stylistic

. >> pat buchanan is an msnbc political strategist and democratic analyst karen finney. good morning to the both of you. pat, do you think we'd be hearing complaints about this if we weren't so far removed from 9/11? >> we'd hear fewer complaints about it, alex. you have a very good point. that detroit christmas bomber was carrying the would-be explosive in his underwear. and in saudi arabia, actually an individual came to meet the security minister and he had it in a body cavity and exploded it. so these things are very important. this is why we're getting the enhanced security, but your point is very valid. we haven't had one of these airliners blowing up in a long time killing 300 people. if we did, some of the protests would diminish. but it is very intrusive, invasion of privacy and some of these characters doing it i'm sure go too far. but this is the world and these are the times we live in. >> but karen, rick santorum saying that these things are too invasive. isn't that easy to say that? because in a practical sense we all get slightly creeped out as strangers r

let's bring in karen finney. she's an msnbc contributor and dire director.st and former mccain spokesman. good to see you both. we'll do ladies first things here. if you were to advise the president, what is the way forward for the white house and what was happening to that end in the white house in his absence? >> yeah, welling look. i think it's a good thing that people were taking the time to sort of think about what was going on and what needs to happen. i think there are a couple of key things he needs do in the next couple of months. next cupping of months are really critical in terms of the success over the next two years. the first thing he need os do is make the republicans put their money where their mouth is. they've been saying a lot of the right rhetoric, but we've got three key things coming up. that is the unemployment extension benefits. those will run out at the end of november. what are we going to do about that? >> that's about a $65 billion lot. a lot different than the $700 billion that the republicans are talking. what about the warner

also democratic strategist and msnbc contributor karen finney joins us.ning to the two of you again. pat, republicans are talking about compromise, but are they following through on it? i mean, they wouldn't even meet with the president at the white house this week? >> the reason they didn't is they don't want to be used as a foil for the president before they got all their ducks in a row. the situation here is sort of odd. what you got is the country voted in november to move in a strongly conservative direction, but nancy pelosi still retains an 80-seat majority in the house and harry reid's got a 20-seat majority in the senate, just about that until january. but i think the republicans are united on this issue. they want all the tax cuts extended temporarily or permanently, and the democrats got six different positions, but the republicans are playing from a weaker hand until january 5th. and i think they're playing it very well. >> let's see if karen agrees with that. because here's what karen, if she weighed in on the republicans holding out on the p

finney and republican kevin madden. good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> karen, let me start with you. i'm sure kevin will be mad at me for starting with issue num inomy of course. so is there any hope? hen o for two s to1 o&tand hinh issue? >> yeah, i think they're going have lesti enou of boehner and the house are actually more aligned with the white house than you both are up for re-election in two years and nee you know, the election results were not really a mandate other than to say, we want you to get somethini apn pars i think they will be able to g some things donvio goio be they're also that the american people do not want to be used as political pawns. they really want to see results. ve so utora want to see results. being the party of opposition. so why should they change th >> well, because i think karen is right. i think that the republicans recognize >> you arecf1 >> yet's e even on a sung. >> mark that. >> we do recognize that it was not a mandate and that what we've got on election day was the job offer, and whether or not we keep the job is up to us. so there has to b

so 7 on your side's michael finney stepped in to help. >> karen chow and paul willard looked forwarding to their friend's wedding in mexico. the couple used orbitz to book a flight from san francisco to mexico on aeromexico and a return flight on mexicanna airlines. >> all set. had the airline booked and all of a sudden i get an e-mail from orbitz saying mexicanna has -- the flight is cancelled. and so that was shocking. >> aeromexico had a co-sharing agreement with mexican no. so the money the couple paid was build through aeromexico. they first charged $300 in change fees and the higher fare. >> just frustrating. i feel our ticket is being held hostage. we can go and not have a return trip or we can go and pay an extra $400 to get home after the fact, after we bought the ticket. >> travel attorney al analan says the fee is unjustified for two reasons. >> the reason air mexico can't charge them is it hasn't warned the customer that these are charges. >> he says such charges need to be outlined in the airline's contract which he says it is not. secondly, he says air mexico must stand