kathleen parker is a "washington post" columnist. and andrew ross sorkin covers wall street. for "the new york times." first up, right now, maybe all about getting health care passed but what happens next? number one, unemployment will stay very high for quite a while. number two, that means there may be a move for a second stimulus. and more federal spending to fund jobs. number three, taxes may go up to pay for all of this. but can president obama get more, especially after he's pushed health care through? he may have exhausted his political capital at a crucial time when he needs the second wind. a "washington post," abc news poll, obama has lost huge ground. in february obama was trusted to handle the economy by a big margin over republicans. 61-26. but now that number is much closer. 48-37. trish, i look at the high unemployment rate and it's coming out next week with more bad news probably. now is he going to deal with that big fact in front of him? double digit unemployment. as far as the eye can see. >> well, unfortunately there's not a whole lot he can do right now.

against anyone and may the best car win. >> schieffer: we're back now with syndicated columnist kathleen parker and politico's roger simon. has the president taken the public option off the table or hasn't he? and if he hasn't, why hasn't he? >> go ahead. >> thank you, kathleen. i think he's going to let the u.s. senate take the public option off the table for him. >> yeah. >> the publics option is popular in his party. it's a misconception that the left wing of the democratic party wants the public option. the left wing of the democratic party wants single- payor, what they have in canada. it's the democratic wing of the democratic party that wants the public option. and that is the wing that barack obama slowly has to use. he's going to use the senate and say we can't get it passed. we're not going to lose this whole bill over it. >> i agree with that. that's exactly right. why would he remove it? as roger says, somebody else is going to do it for him. he can say, look, i did my best. he doesn't alienate, you know, his own party. in the process. it's off the table clearly. but it's not his fa

kathleen parker is a "washington post" columnist and rick stengel is editor of "time" magazine and helene cooper covers "the new york times" and david david brooks of the news hour. there is a stream of anti-obama talk that's been going on for months now. one of the biggest talkers fueling the outrage is glen beck who made this infamous charge. >> this president i think has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seeded hatred for white people or the white culture, i don't know what it is. this guy, i believe, is a racist. chris: and rush limbaugh was back at it with this? >> it's obama's america, is it not? obama's america, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. you put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in obama's america, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, right on, right on, right on. chris: jimmy carter is talking. let's listen. >> i think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward president barack obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's african-american. chr

cynthia tucker is a columnist and kathleen parker from the "washington post." heavily syndicated around the country. both of you ladies, thank you. is it a factor in the anger we're seeing in the faces of these people at the rallies? >> of course race is a factor, chris. you and i have talked about this before. it can't be measured in polls so it's hard to determine how much of a factor it is. now, that certainly doesn't mean that everybody who objects to president obama's policies or health care reform is a racist, but race is certainly a factor. you saw it in some of those signs. >> these clowns that bring the signs out, they have a right to, free speech. they have a point of view. kathleen, here's the point of view. the zoo has an african and the white house has an african, undocumented worker with the picture there. unlogical conclusion of the people who said he wasn't born here. he wasn't sworn in as an american, so i guess he's here illegally, according to their logic. we've been hijacked. that could mean anything. the zoo stuff, the undocumented worker s

cynthia tucker is a columnist and kathleen parker from the "washington post." heavily syndicated around the country. both of you ladies, thank you. is it a factor in the face we are seeing at people in the rallies. >> of course race is a factor, chris. you and i have talked about this before. it can't be measured in polls so it is hard to determine how much of a factor it is. that doesn't mean everybody who rejects to president obama's health care reform or policies is racist. >> these clowns that bring the sin signs out. the zoo has a lion, and the white house has a lying african. people say he should be deported. we've been hijacked. that could mean anything. the zoo stuff, the undocumented worker stuff. in the american south most southerners polled admittedly it was a daily kos poll. a majority of them aren't sure or are sure he is not from here. in other words a minority of white southerners think he is from america. is that race, that point of view? >> i think that is. that is another way of saying he is not one of us. that concerned me during the campaign

wilson, by kathleen parker. it happened. and thus -- >> tina brown.m. >> there's a very amusing piece by a british journalist who is says, what a bunch of prissies you are in america. we're used to in the house of commons, the total abuse and heckling time in which the president has to appear and everybody has to go at him. and he seems to complain about the fact that we've sort of elected a monarch. the head of the executive branch, everybody sit there nodding and agreeing and clapping. and he says, what's the matter with everybody here that we can't just deal with a little bit of friction. >> what do you think? somebody that grew up in great britain and used to seeing the prime minister abused once a week. what do you think? >> i like the healthy business of the gladiator nature of appearing before your peers and getting a little roughed up. there's nothing like the bubble to make you forget how people really feelth and i must say when obama entered the chamber and there was like that endless kind of astronaut welcome that he got -- it went on and o