senator lieberman, a close friend of senator mccain's was at the top of senator mccain's wish list for a lot of the process. after they did the kind of standard weeks long background check and considered more surface way any number of others, they left themselves, you could argue inexcusably, they left themselves with no one, they could ark, would be a good pick, no one who could get through as a net plus for them. there was writing in the book serious consideration about senator lieberman, the politics of a running mate eight years before and liberal on most issues was something they really grappled wand in the end they thought was not going to be politically effective and could be a real political problem. then they turned with just a week to go -- again, as you point out, in effect squandered many months not vetting someone who in the end they wanted to pick, with a week to go they not only reached out to sarah palin but began from a standing part and not the normal due diligence you would do in such a case to look at sarah palin's background and decide in senator mccain's case to p

senator mccain had not determined who he wants to pick. we came down to the decision it would be a bit difficult set up with the election circumstances. we would be outspent by 200 million and president bush approval rating was in the thirties. obama was speaking to crowds hundreds of thousands in europe and a fervor with his candidacy to figure out how to win. i am the person who said we should look at sarah palin from alaska sam negara you proud of that moment? >> it to freezes and slows down. [laughter] we spent a couple of days that the jersey shore. i remember every aspect of the moment. i can smell the smell of long beach. i pick up the phone and i called rick davis and we should take a look at sarah palin. the vetting done, i said it is very important u.s. then charge of the process that she has been completely go through vetting, a go through a couple of days we have done over a couple of weeks. the first part you can do a documentary on this but i do want to make the part of what we're talking about. the first part was the medical

mccain/palin. real change. >> i'm john mccain and i approve this message. >> they call themselves mavericks. whoa. truth is, they're anything but. john mccain is hardly a maverick, when seven of his top campaign advisers are washington lobbyists. he's no maverick when he votes with bush 90% of the time. and sarah palin's no maverick either wide receiver she was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it. politicians lying about their records? you don't call that maverick, you call it more of the same. >> darrell west, what's interesting is that ad by the obama campaign was out within 24 hours of the mccain campaign. >> today, candidates can turn things around very quickly with the advances in editing and production values. and so what mccain was trying to do was he understood his best feature with the general public was the idea that he'd been an independent-minded republican, he had supported campaign finance reform when virtually everyone else in his party opposed it. and so he's basical

what was happening behind the scenes in team mccain? >> well, a lot. you know, the 60-day period from the time she was chosen through the election day was pretty packed. part of what attracted us to that story for the book and attracted hbo to focus on that part of the book for the film is a compact narrative of 60 days in which so much happened. sarah palin as her supporters point out and is factually true, she performed extraordinarily well at the three biggest moments a vice presidential nominee has to perform. the day she was announced as the pick and gave a speech, the convention speech we just saw a bit of. then in the debate where she held her own for the most part against one of the most experienced politicians in our national government, joe biden. she at that moment, she was giving the speech there was a lot going on. her family was having to be integrated into a national campaign. they were all getting sort of new clothes and new briefings and understanding of dealing with the secret service. she was being briefed on how to get ready to do a

john mccain wants to continue george bush's economic policy. as president he'd provide no tax bras to 101 million americans but keep tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. he wants tax breaks for big oil and would tax your health care benefits for the first time ever. look behind you. we can't afford more of the same. >> reaction or comment? >> i don't think it's a good idea for the obama administration to compare mccain and bush? it was a good strategy mplts even mccain had trouble trying to separate himself from bush. i think overall it was an effective commercial. >> let me turn to isaiah mohammed from dick kinson college. do you have a thought about this ad? >> i thought about while reading "game change," it showed the country definitely wanted something new. that ad definitely exploited that current in the country, that people wanted something different new and that mccain and the republican party couldn't provide necessarily. >> i thought it was a good strategy. >> which gets to the core points in gettysburg college before the

. >> -- tavis: john mccain. your former colleague. john mccain has now called for u.s. air strikes on syria. your thoughts about that? >> one of the things i talk about in "while america sleeps" is our tendency to invade a country rather than having a calibrated approach, so we go into afghanistan, and we know bin laden is not there anymore, and we stay there forever. i call it the in for a penny, in for a pound, where you do the whole thing. president obama did it right in libya. he did not do the ground troops. because these same principles can be applied to syria. as i do not think this is a bad idea. as invading syria or internationally or the united states. i do not think that is the right answer. i would say it is on the table. what he is doing there is criminal. even the arab league is dying to get him out of there. there needs to be an more calibrated approach, where we do not put troops there and stay there forever. that is the best way to go. >> president obama met with netanyahu at the white house. much is still being discussed. tavis: where israel is concern

. >> let's turn back to the republican race and john mccain. the answer to this might be pretty obvious. as john mccain was searching for a running mate, finally selecting sarah palin late in the process, my question to you is how much of that was a political decision and how much of it was a decision that john mccain truly felt that sarah palin was qualified to be vice president? >> well, that's a great question, steve. i'm not sure we were able to get to the bottom of that sufficiently to answer that in the spirit in which you intended. it's clear they had a lot of political problems they needed to address. given that john mccain was being tied to george bush whose record at that point was unpopular with a large number of independent and centrist voters in the election they needed a game changing pick. in a perfect world he would have found someone unambiguously able to be president. most he considered seriously, all men, i think would have been seen as instantly qualified to

john mccain was elected. sarah palin was elected. we are all in it together in terms of plane and keeping it going as effective as we do. what is fascinating about this story is one of the guys, probably the main guy who fought the hardest to get her on the ticket, steve schmidt, started thinking, this is a great idea. this is how weak and trump obama. -- we can trompe obama. a few months afterwards, he goes on "60 minutes" and implies he made a mistake. he takes blame for being part of it. that arc, of a guy who was a main proponent and a couple of weeks later said, if she runs in 2012, it will be a catastrophe. he has said, he says a more directly nowadays, he wonders if it was too big of a risk. possibly even a reckless choice, especially when you think how little of vetting they did. whatever you think of her comment to take someone in who had never been on the national stage. half of a few interviews and say yes, she should be the person next in line after john mccain. tavis: i have been fascinated to watch this year's president

people had good memory of the mccain campaign. depressing was what many people -- how did you decide to take this slice of this amazing book that don heilemann and "game change: obama and the clintons, mccain and palin, and the race of a lifetime" 11 wrote? -- the greatest primary of our lifetime? how did you decide? >> part of it was the practical reality that we only had two hours to make a movie and we learned from recounts that if you have a story where a specific group of people in a clear hunk of time and clear beginning, middle and end that can make a good political movie -- we did look at the rest of the book but such a sweeping book it does need the sort of ken burns' many part multi part miniseries. i just thought the clinton/obama which would be a one we consider doing was a bit unwieldy. it was episodic. took place over the primary and lasted a couple years. might be a two partner in a way. there was something about this story and the specific kind of structure of it was from the place where it starts with being that f

mccain's core conviction was that mccain's v.p. choice had to be a game changer. mark halperin, let me begin with you. why four years later are people still writing and talking about the 2008 campaign and now your book turned into an hbo film? >> i think in a way because it was, as we say in the book, "the race of a lifetime." you had people competing for an open race for the white house and a lot of plots and twists that if you brought to hollywood for fiction they would throw you out and say it is too implausible. the story of john mccain's collapse and then comeback and john edwards' extraordinary role only revealed far after the fact of what was going on in their lives as he was running for president and making a strong play to be the democratic nominee. >> and your take on this new hbo film that people will be talking about four years later. >> we were thrilled to work with hbo on this. they have a high quality they bring to these films. mark and i were honored and gratified when they bought the option to do the book. we knew there was going to have to be som

so, john mccain and a variety of other republicans don't like it. they feel that it takes too much of a regulatory approach and they also don't like the fact that it's being fast track to the senate floor. they think the senate should take more time on this. sir john mccain and the other republicans have introduced their own alternative measure. >> what kind of industries are interested in cybersecurity legislation? >> welcome it affects any sort of utilities. so because the idea with the lieberman-collins bill was critical infrastructure -- saddam anything say electrical grids where if you have some sort of pact could have a devastating impact, and so it would give the homeland security department regulatory authority. so many companies that are involved in something that might get labeled critical infrastructure come on t information technology companies that build these computer grids, any tech companies have an interest here. >> are they more supportive of the lieberman-collins approach or the john mccain approach? >> i think a lot of them are s

john mccain is not a trivial man. he is a serious man. he would have been a fine commander in chief. i think that the country would be in better position today had john mccain been the president. obviously the american people decided otherwise and you have to accept the verdict of the american people. >> time for one more question. the gentleman in the blue shirt and blue tie. >> kyle simmons, virginia statesman. felt like i was sitting on the staff meetings and private events during the campaign. as for mark and john, steve said earlier there were things he would never talk about that happened in the campaign but is there one moment you wish you could have heard about or been part of or seen? >> we did a creditable job describing what it was like in sarah palin's hotel suite during the week of the republican convention. those four or five days but if you ask where i would most likely to have been baked into the wall, because as chaotic as the film portrays that momentum was much more chaotic than that. one of the things these guys had to

mccain, senator mccain's val orour view point to suggest i won't get in the mud and slug it out by personal assaults. and we've seen this more recently with the assault on professor derrick bell and i'm glad i'll have his beloved widow on your show. people who are not informed well are trying to do the same thing now that they did to obama then and i think that the republicans stand up and say this is wrong. mccain's branch should prevail. >> if people believe in alabama and mississippi that the president is not a christian, will these bigoted attacks against the president get worse there year? your call. >> well, perhaps so but i think what will come in contrast to that are people who stand up and assert it's the right thing to do. i'm struck by so many white americans who see me and say keep up the great battle and the fight. they may be nixon's silent majority but a different way. out there with common sense, they understand the grand purpose of politics and know that obama is a true american and therefore i think at the voting booth they will register their most eloquent answer to this

john mccain was watching backstage.he had never given a speech with that kind of focus or the kind of audience. he is watching with mounting excitement as she gives the speech. he can believe how good she is. she finishes the speech and mccain is over the moon. one of his advisers says that partly to the speech, her teleprompter was malfunctioning. the teleprompter was moving too slowly. mccain says, "i hope that doesn't happen to me." imposed onandicappe her by the technology. the campaign was on tenterhooks. she hit it out of the park. she was an asset for the campaign. for a week or 10 days after that, she was. there was concern in the national polls. people on the democratic side were freaking out on how she injected some much freshness into that campaign. had stumblesshe and the financial crisis kicked him that the game changed again and pick began to of complications. the campaign gave obama to rise to the location. others felt confident about his abilities. >> you chronicle the preparation process as the campaign

>> why aren't there mccain-palin lawn signs in alaska. >> mr. obama has five times the money we have, five times, and alaska is only three electoral votes and it's red. >> todd and i are hearing things, i can't talk to the alaskan press. >> what are you hearing? >> things. none of it is good. can you at least do a poll to check my approval rating there? >> governor, that would cost the campaign $60,000. >> i'd feel a heck of a lot better if i knew where i was at. >> wouldn't the gutsy thing to do would be to go to john mccain at the time and say "this isn't going to work she is not prepared there has to be another woman somewhere" why didn't they deep six her if it was this bad? >> it was so bad that nicolle wallace, again, a loyal bush operative, loyal republican, said she couldn't vote in this election because of sarah palin. that is what i mean about how shocking this movie is. the book and movie is called "game change" this is politics at the highest level, responsibility for life and death of the troops, about the jobs and welfare of the am

the story of john mccain's collapsed and the comeback. john and elizabeth edwards and their extraordinary role only revealed far after the fact was going on with them. >> john heilemann, your take on this new hbo film that people will again be talking about, the race four years ago. >> we would have been thrilled to work with hbo on this. they have an incredible standard they bring to the work they do on episodic tv and the movies they make. mark and i were honored and gratified with a bought the options to do the book. we knew there would have to be some choices made. it is a big book. 500 pages. it was a big campaign. if you did not want to do a miniseries, you would have to pick a story line. jay roach and danny strong were very attracted to the palin story. a woman who was a small-town mayor and had only been governor 18 months before she was snatched out of six -- of security and put all the republican ticket. under the brightest spot light you can imagine. what that was like for her on the human level, the decisions for making that

it is a serious and solemn occasion and john mccain and only john mccain will be giving the sacred speechery presidential election since the dawn of the republican, you, sarah palin, will not change the importance of this proud american tradition. >> steve, you got a standing ovation on that climactic scene for your character in the movie. but nicole wallace had another climactic scene where she comes to you and says she couldn't bring herself to vote for this ticket because palin was on it. did you vote for this ticket? >> i did >> and did you have any struggle with that knowing at the time you voted -- what state did you vote in, steve? what was your electoral votes going? >> i voted in california. >> oh, no harm done. there was no chance. >> i had a sense of what the outcome was going to be. listen, i think john mccain would have been a fine commander in chief. i think he would have been a good president. i didn't hesitate to vote for john. but i certainly respect nicole's position on this and her integrity. you know, as you look at the race, i think there's an important story. as i've

joining us live on capitol hill tonight is senator john mccain, republican of arizona. the ranking republican on the senate armed services committee. thanks as always for being with us here on c-span. >> thank you, steve. >> let me begin with the obvious question. were you satisfied with the answer from leon panetta. >> of course not. first of all he said whether we act unilaterally or not, no one is certainly not me is in favor of acting unilaterally. they were spreading that all over town yesterday that john mccain wants to act unilaterally. in fact, it was reported as such because they told "the wall street journal" reporter that when every statement that i made indicates that that's not the case. and then he said he's got to figure out whether it would make the situation better or worse. now, here's thousands of syrians being slaughtered by ba share al asad. how do you make it worse? and, of course, the fact is that so far, they have done absolutely nothing. now, since the hearing and since a very strong editorial in the "washington post" and other organs around the

mccain's core conviction was that mccain vp choice had to be a game changer. joining us from new york, thank you for being with us on c-span. >> great to be with you, steve. >> hi, steve. >> mark halperin, let me start with you. why four years later are people talking and writing about the toile campaign and now your book turned into an hbo film? >> well, i think several reasons. the main one being it was, as we say in the subtitle of the book, the race of a lifetime. you had lots of bigger than life candidates and candidate's spouses competing for a race, open seat in the white house with the kind of plot twists and turns if you brought to hollywood as fiction, they would throw you out and say this is too implausible. i can list them off, selection of sarah palin, role of the former president as a campaign spouse of bill clinton, the story of john mccain's collapse and comeback and john and elizabeth edwards and their extraordinary role only revealed far after the fact about what was going on with him in their lives as he was running for president and making

with that, i yield back to senator mccain. mr. mccain: i agree with my colleague from south carolina, senator blumenthal was very important, one, for bipartisanship. but his background as a prosecutor at one point in all this back and forth, one of the lawyers, will be unnamed, said to senator blumenthal that, well, we probably have to go along with the advice of the lawyers. senator blumenthal, in a very succinct way said, well, maybe it's time to fire the lawyers. i want to thank senator blumenthal for his involvement and the expertise and knowledge that he brought to this whole scenario because his background as a prosecutor and attorney general of his state. i guess i wonder from my friend from connecticut if he believes that this kind of thing is something that we should really be emphasizing, these n.g.o.'s so that maybe we can prevent this in the future. for example, when we visited tunesia, the tunesians enacted a law that encourages participation of these dedicated men and women who come and live and work in their country

leaving senator john mccain's become the first u.s. politician to publicly call for airstrikes against the syrian regime uses washington has a moral and strategic obligation to force inside out thousands of syrians have fled to neighboring lebanon was government troops ago and opposition forces continue their offensive our correspondent riff and option of brings you up to date. former presidential candidate john mccain has become the first senator to publicly call for a u.s. led military strike on syria and the eleven months long conflict here in the country just copies of the things that him telling the senate that's a serious crisis has reached a decisive moment and the only realistic scenario to preserve innocent lives is with military air power we are also here. and from the free syrian army here on the ground that it's waiting for foreign weapons to arrive earlier it confirmed it had received weapons and anti aircraft missiles from u.s. and french sources meanwhile the regional media reports that more french officers have been det

senator mccain? >> general dempsey as the reports in the washington report accurate about iranian involvement? we don't need a closed session i don't think for you to say whether "the washington post" is correct or not. >> "the washington post" has parts of their reporting are accurate, yes, senator. >> thank you. serkts general mattis said the departure from asaid would be the biggest strategic set back for iran in 25 years, basicicly you're in agreement? >> i agree with that. >> by the way, the kuwaiti parliament called forearming the opposition, the saudi foreign ministry called for it, other elements in the arab league are calling for it, and clearly it's a matter of time before arab league takes a stronger position on it. general mattis told us, general dempsey, yesterday, that asaid's crackdown is gaining physical momentum, do you agree with general mattis' statement? >> i do, he has increasingly used heavier weapons. >> even though you agree sooner or later assad will fall, at the moment he ha

senator mccain? >> i want to thank the witnesses. i would ask general alexander, do you agree that secretary panetta and the fbi have said that cyberattacks may soon be the number one threats to the united states? >> absolutely, senator. >> and would you agree that a major threat to our national security come from outside the united states? specifically, obviously, from unclassified information from china? >> absolutely. >> absolutely. so then what's the logic in providing the overall authority to the department of homeland security? anyone who has been through an airport, as i do regularly, as most of us do, have no confidence in the technological capabilities of the department of homeland security. in fact, as an example, nothing has changed as far as airport security is concerned since probably september 12th, 2011. so the major threat comes from overseas. what would be the logic, then in making the lead organization the department of homeland security? >> senator, i think the issue, if i could, i want to break this out into three

senator mccain? >> general mattis, has the -- after all the sanctions have been imposed on the iranian regime, do you believe the regime has been at all dissuaded from pursuing a nuclear weapons capability? >> no, sir. i have not seen that. >> general mattis, are there strong indications that al qaeda is making a comeback in iraq? >> yes, sir. notably in the western iraq area, but the threat is extending into baghdad. >> general mattis, general berg is testified last month that the assad regime and its military remaining "viable cohesive and effective force, the same hearing james clapper director of national intelligence testified that absent some kind of external intervention, assad will," "hang in there and continue to do as he's done." do you agree with general burgess and director clapper's assessments? >> sir, assad has chosen violence. i think his military is under more pressure every day. the desertions rate is going up. but in aggregate, i general burgess' assessment. >> if current condition

troops, arizona senator john mccain. senator, welcome back. >> thank you, david. >> i want to talk about afghanistan, but i'd like to start with a little politics and where we are in this race. rick santorum was interviewed on the "today" program this week and he made a pretty strong point. watch it. what chance do we have in a general election if you can't with over whelming money advantage be able to deliver on any kind of knockout blow to other candidates? >> he's saying, how is romney going to be a general election candidate if he can't take care of these other guys? how did we get to a point where the guy who seemed to be the faith to win the nomination can't eliminate what seems to be weaker opponents? >> i think there are several reasons. obviously, mitt romney will tell you, first of all, he has to do a better job. he's working on doing a better job. he's got to focus more on the economy. he's been given major speeches on the economy and jobs. and i think he is improving dramatically as a candidate, but also the

>> i totally disagree with mccain on that. i think is he frankly just pushing for the limits on super pacs because campaign finance reform is his thing. i believe it is a good idea to get these attacks out here now because they make them old news when obama hits him the more he gets hit on bain capital. the less obama is going to be able to do it in the general election. i just remind you, remember how obama got clobbered with reverend jeremiah wright and then the general election nobody mentioned it? because it was old news. getting the stuff out there now and getting the rebuttal to it and seeing overcome it i think is ideal training for the fall. obama is going to have stale negatives to throw not fresh new ones. >> bill: it will be a class warfare deal no doubt about it congressman dennis kucinich on the obama administration actually saying they really don't want to lower gas prices. wait until you hear this. and then dennis miller on the vote last night. more crazy stuff from louis farrakhan. those reports after these mes

senator mccain? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i join you in welcoming our witnesses today and thanking them for their many years of distinguished service to our nation. i also want to extend my appreciation to the dedicated men and women serving under their commands. i especially want to recognize general fraser as this will be his final time testifying before this committee in uniform. i imagine he'll be celebrating this occasion later today. what is cheer from the testimony this subcommittee has received over the last several weeks from our various regional combat and commanders is the threats confront our nation and interests and ideals are not diminishing, rather they are increasing in focus and complexity. the prepared testimony from our witnesses illustrates this is particularly true with the situation in our own hemisphere. the horrific violence contributed to transnational criminal organizations and cartels continues to threaten the united states and erodes governance and security across the region. they exploit weak secu

even john mccain, a morrow moat figure than the star of the movie.t one point, steve schmidt, played by woody haralson saying they had smear after smear from the liberal media. looking back and since you both have heavily remped this, would you agree that the press in some ways was unfair to sarah palin? >> well, i think they were coming at her really hard. i think some of the allegations were false. i think many of the allegations were true, and in the case of what steve schmidt was talking about at the time was, you know, that the press immediately was jumping on her as the vice presidential nominee in a way that a candidate had never been jumped on before. what was actually happening was that the press was vetting her in those few days better than the mccain campaign vetted her. i feel like a majority of what was brought up not only was accurate, but it was information that the mccain -- that the campaign itself should have known but didn't. >> she needed to be vetted by the press, but at the same time there were all kinds of questions about what

senator mccain is calling for u.s. air strikes. what does his wife, cindy mccain, make of her husband's tough talk. you two often disagree, which i like. it's refreshing. >> nobody in our family agrees on anything. it's great. >> just like my family. air strikes on syria. i like that he's calling for action because at the moment there seems to be a general -- not ampthy but they don't say anything about ssi about syria. you have been to rwanda and there's a growing sense of that in syria. >> is it humanitarian? how should we do this? it's always a humanitarian crisis when civilians are being killed, slaughtered, the way they are there. i agree with my husband on this. i think it's the right tenor and way to go about this. the one thing we have to remember with my husband is that he has experience in this arena. he's been there. like all of us, who like you said i was in rwanda during the genocide and watched what happened when we stood by and did nothing. we can't do that. we simply can't do that in this case. i completely agree wi

john mccain lost 19 states. is the mccain example really one the romney people want to talk about. what happened to john mccain in november? santorum took evens to the act of god phrase. gingrich didn't seem pleased with pressure from the supporters to get out of the race. gingrich's campaign though did call alabama and mississippi both must win states and santorum has his own strategy. >> at this primary and the primary next door in mississippi, both of next week and we will once again for the ninth time reset this primary race. >> if we win mississippi, this will be a two-person race. if this is a two-person race, we will nominate a conservative as president of the united states. >> santorum's super pac is making that argument for him. saying in a super tuesday statement, based on his performance and his record, it is time for newt gingrich to exit the process. gingrich certainly fired back. >> we are staying in this race because i believe that it's going to be impossible for a moderate to win the general election. >> santorum appeared to be hands off saying the super pac is acti

lot to tell you about including senator john mccain on the future of the united states mission in afghanistan. >>> plus, senator scott brown of massachusetts gets off a pretty good line on st. patty's day, offensive to some about rick santorum. the problem is, it was somebody else's line. that story coming up later in the show. >>> first, though, let's get to the news live at 5:30 a.m. at 30 rock in new york city. >>> mitt romney heading into the illinois presidential primary on the heels of a weekend win on the isle of enchantment, puerto rico. according to the associated press, the former massachusetts governor won the u.s. territory with 83% of the vote after spending two days campaigning on the island last week, rick santorum came in a distant second with 8%. 83-8, romney takes home all of puerto rico's 20 delegates. that brings his total haul to 463 delegates. more than 270 more than santorum. the romney campaign is hoping it will help attract more of the latino vote moving forward. this is important because the santorum -- the romney campaign, i should say, it's all about delegates and

senator mccain. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i join us in welcoming our witnesses today and thanking them for their many years of distinguished service to our nation. als want to extend my appreciation to the dedicated men and women under their commands. i want to recognize general frazier as this will be his final time testifying before this committee in uniform. i imagine he'll be celebrating this occasion later today. what is clear from the testimony this committee has received over the last several weeks from the combatant commanders is the threats confronting our nation, our interests and ideals are not diminished. rather they increase inoscopy and complexity. the work of the armed forces is important to the national security. as a comparison illustrates this is true of the speculation in the hemisphere. it contributed to transnational criminal organizations and cartels and continues to threaten the united states and road governance and security across the region. they exploit whale security forces and bribe corrupt officia

in some ways i think mccain's choice of palin wasn't a cynical move. he thought he could transfer the hillary love to palin. didn't work for him. but they're going to have to look at folks like nicky haley and saws san martinez. chris: you look at santorum. he said he was going to bring it up in a campaign. then you have roy blunt leaving a fight on the floor, losing, he and rubio pushing this thing on the floor about contraception. >> and you have rush limbaugh, too, making a series of remarks. from romney's perspective, it's like guys, you're killing me here. he wants to have a conversation about anything other than this, romney. he wants to talk about nothing except jobs in the economy and you saw him backpedaling on the limbaugh issue. chris: rush limbaugh made him look weaker, because he wasn't take him on. >> we were talking about this last night. if ever there was a riskless opportunity for mitt romney to have a moment by going after somebody in his own party the way bill clinton did, went after his own base, romney could have, without risk, gon