carlos lozada, molly ball and jim warren, washington bureau chief for the "new york daily news" all joinrlos, how fair would you say that last characterization is of the way in which the washington press corps, the political press here in d.c. operates? >> i think he makes the case well enough. part of what he's saying applies more broadly to -- part of it applies to the washington press corps in particular but if he's taking that criticism broadly to the press corps, i think there might be some problems with it. the book came out at a time when the administration is aggressively pursuing leak investigations. when the press is revealing surveillance programs that are top secret. >> national security things. >> exactly. so i think his criticism applies to a certain kind of reporter. the fre nettic political blogger, perhaps, but not necessarily to the press corps as a whole. >> molly ball, there's a real criticism of politico in here. politico at one time was a relatively new entry. now it seems like part of the establishment here in d.c. mark salter says they have taken every worst trend

harwood of cnbc and "the new york times," carrie johnson of npr, martha raddatz of abc news and molly ball of "the atlantic." >> award-winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens, live from our nation's capitol, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we went out and asked people a simple question -- how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who has lived well into their 90's, and that's a great thing. even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed -- the official retirement age. the question is, how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years? >> additional funding for "washington week" is provided by the anenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again live from washington, sitting in for gwen ifill this week, pete williams of nbc news. pete: good evening. president obama this

i want to bring in molly ball, staff writer with "atlantic magazine" bob herbert and now at the progressive think take perry bacon jr. and political editor of our sister site grio.com. so, perry, this statement yesterday really sort of came out of no where, at least from the press' stand point they're sitting there and the president walks in and addresses something that i think a lot of people didn't expect he was going to address like this. >> we thought he would address it at some point, but not for 18 minutes and extended remarks in which he talked about himself personally and his own experience as a racial profiling. he hasn't spoken about race in this details way since the 2008 campaign and that's why people were shocked he not only brought this up but spoke on personal terms, spoke so long and spoke so eloquently about it and changed the discussion about what's happening here. also said some things that were brave and pretty controversial. people talking all week about conversation led by race and the president said, no, that's not my role. he talked about his children experiencing a