let's now go to missy ryan from reuters. te us about where you are and what you're seeing. >> i am among about two dozen foreign journalists at the hotel where we have essentially been confined since the beginning of the conflict. we have been under the watchful eye of government minders for months now, but most of those people seem to have melted away in the last 24 hours when it became clear that rebels were entering the city. the mood has changed dramatically in the last two .ays th the confidence of the gaddafi government has folded when it became clear the rebels were more orgized and people expected and they were met with little resistance. host: we are hearing reports of explosions around the gaddafi compound. it sounds like the rebels have reached that area. what are you watching to see happen? >> we also have reports there are tanks around gaddafi's headquarters. if there is going to be a last stand, this is where it will happen. what remains to be clear is how much precision there is amongst the military and how wi

host: missy ryan reports for reuters in tripoli. thank you.ack to our question as far as independentss and how you see the 2012 campaign so far. caller: i discovered that i was an independent when i realize that with the exception of richard nixon, who i never voted for, i have voted least once for every person who has been president, since i cast my first vote for john f. kennedy. looking back on that and wondering why that is so, i realized that finding yourself labeled as a democrat or republican or a liberal, it sometimes causes you to get yourself into a box. i like to be able to assess each ticket, the individuals on it, the issues, to try to take that into account in terms of what we can no at the time. i did vote for barack obama. i recall seeing colin powell saying he would cast his vote that way. i had approximately the same reasons. i really thought that he was the right person at that time. i was impressed with his thoughtfulness. my primary disappointment has been that i think was too optimistic, that the system and the politics a

let's now go to missy ryan from reuters.l us about where you are and what you're seeing. >> i am among about two dozen foreign journalists at the hotel where we have essentially been confined since the beginning of the conflict. we have been under the watchful eye of government minders for months now, but most of those people seem to have melted away in the last 24 hours when it became clear that rebels were entering the city. the mood has changed dramatically in the last two .ays th the confidence of the gaddafi government has folded when it became clear the rebels were more organized and people expected and they were met with little resistance. host: we are hearing reports of explosions around the gaddafi compound. it sounds like the rebels have reached that area. what are you watching to see happen? >> we also have reports there are tanks around gaddafi's headquarters. if there is going to be a last stand, this is where it will happen. what remains to be clear is how much precision there is amongst the military and how wi

joining me now, missy ryan, thank you for joining me, missy, missy, at what point did you realize you were being held captive? >> well, thank you for having me. it was sort of an odd situation, because to begin with as a reporter in gadhafi's tripoli, we didn't have very much freedom even before the sort of climax of the military campaign over the past few days. we were generally kept from reporting freely, we were only allowed out on sort of government-organized trips, but things really did take a turn for the worst around august 13, when the coastal highway towards tunisia, the only way in and out of tripoli was cut off, meaning journalists who were there couldn't leave, but it didn't seem like a crisis situation until last saturday when rebels entered tripoli and the heavy fighting began, and at that point, the government officials who had been sort of watching over us melted away. the hotel staff disappeared, and suddenly we were in a big empty hotel in a government-controlled area with only a number of armed gadhafi volunteers who were prohibiting us from leaving. >> when you say