norm ornstein, congratulations.you. >> bill: you're looking awfully sharp. >> really? >> bill: this is like at the white house picnic. you have to dress down for the "full court press." >> you should have seen the hawaiian shirt he had on yesterday. >> i'm just back from las vegas and in fact, i did jennifer granholm's tv show from there. >> bill: oh, cool. >> i made a confession when we first started that i was embarrassed to say i was out there to give a talk, that i was staying in a hotel owned by sheldon adelson. >> bill: you were at the venetian. >> i told her i wouldn't spend more money than i had to and i took the soap. shampoo, too. >> bill: a high roller. >> on somebody else's dime. >> bill: so tell us, some people say look, congress has always been broken. if you go back and read dish just finished robert caro's book on lyndon johnson. they talked about stalemate. is it worse today than it's ever been? >> it's worse than i have seen it. and i've been here for almost 43 years. you know, it is not as if we'v

thomas mann and norman ornstein. we'll be righ

thomas mann and norman ornstein. hello. ( applause ) >> jon: you know, our audience loves their think-tankers. you two represent... this is remarkable. you work with the brookings institute, yes? >> that's correct jon: you work with the american enterprise institute. these are the hatfields and mccoys of think tanks. yet look at this. look. look what's happening here. i don't know what's going on under the table but look at this. a book. how did you two, you know, you're both very well respecked observers of the political scene. how did you two start working together? >> we actually started a graduate school together at the university of michigan 45 years ago. we came to washington. we worked on the hill for a year as fellows. basically formed a partnership that we've been doing now for more than 40 years. writing and doing projects. >> jon: this is a follow-up to your previous best seller about congress and how it... again i'm pair phrasing with my political analyst socks. why do you feel like congressional dysfunct

i'm joined by norm ornstein and his co-author. gentlemen, welcome to the show. >> happy to be with you, michael. >> thank you, sirs. republicans stalling efforts to jump start the economy, give us your view on this. we get a sense of what your book has been about but give as you deeper insight into this conundrum. >> well, i would say you're certainly right. if you look at the history of things that have been supported by republicans in the past and the urgency of action now and transportation of course it's the summer construction jobs in particular, a market that's really hurting badly. but there's another piece of evidence that i find quite disturbing and that is a top romney economic adviser, his top economic adviser wrote an op-ed in a major german newspaper urging the germans to pursue even more their policy of austerity. that's just not anything we've seen before, interfering abroad in the middle of a campaign. and it's really pretty troubling. >> well, here's bill maher talking about it recently. >> let's be honest, the re

now for another view we are going to go to las vegas of all places and norm ornstein, co author of the book "it's even worse than it looks" thank you for coming back inside the war room? >> right from las vegas where i am embarrassed to say, jennifer i am staying at a hotel owned by sheldon adelson. it wasn't my choice. i will tell you i am not going to spend a dime there that i don't have to. >> all right. well, i am just so depressed to hear this, norm? >> there aren't too many places you can stay here that aren't owned by him. >> or donald trump. anyway, norm i know that you obviously looked at this a lot as well. i am beginning to sound like a broken record but it's so important at that people know that five months until election day and $3,000,000,000 has been raced. so you have studied this. tell us why this is bad for our political system. >> the level of corruption that this is bringing already, jennifer, to start with is astonishing and that justice anthony kennedy wrote a decision in citizens united that said: what could be corrupting about independent expenditures and money

thomas mann and norman ornstein, thank you very much for being here. shale gas. there's natural gas under my town. it's a game changer. ♪ it means cleaner, cheaper american-made energy. but we've got to be careful how we get it. design the wells to be safe. thousands of jobs. use the most advanced technology to protect our water. billions in the economy. at chevron, if we can't do it right, we won't do it at all. we've got to think long term. we've got to think long term. ♪ perfect golden color. rich in fiber. my dad taught me, and i taught my son out there. morning, pa. wait... who's driving the...? ♪ 99 bushels of wheat on the farm, 99 bushels of wheat ♪ [ male announcer ] yep, there's 8 filling layers of whole grain fiber in those fun little biscuits... so they stick with you, all morning long. kellogg's® mini-wheats cereal. [ mini ] yee haw! a big breakfast in a little biscuit. support team usa and show our olympic spirit right in our own backyard. so we combined our citi thankyou points to make it happen. tom chipped in 10,000 points. karen kicked

this assessment comes from norm ornstein writing back in 1990. what happens to that guy? i miss him. by the way, the title of the article was "the permanent democratic congress." that seems like a golden age. he said republicans or the chicago cubs of american politics. according to his hypothesis, things have changed such that to insurgent out liar in american politics. they fear polarization has become asymmetric or it is the republicans' fault. his tricycle one of the political parties and outline what happens to be at its highest level in terms of elected officials nationwide in 70 years unless you are prepared to take the next that does suggest the american people have taken leave of their senses. that does not appear in norma's book. you hardly notice the election of 2010 took place. the republicans did not win majorities until they turned to the extremists of. some people never got over the 1994 election. i want to lay down a couple of markers. his book contains a catalog of genuine republic embarrassments and hypocrisies. i thank that as susceptible but is it true

this assessment comes from norm ornstein writing back in 1990. what happens to that guy? i miss him. by the way, the title of the article was "the permanent democratic congress." that seems like a golden age. he said republicans or the chicago cubs of american politics. according to his hypothesis, things have changed such that to the republicans are and insurgent out liar in american politics. they fear polarization has become asymmetric or it is the republicans' fault. his tricycle one of the political parties and outline what happens to be at its highest level in terms of elected officials nationwide in 70 years unless you are prepared to take the next that does suggest the american people have taken leave of their senses. that does not appear in norma's book. you hardly notice the election of 2010 took place. the republicans did not win majorities until they turned to the extremists of. some people never got over the 1994 election. i want to lay down a couple of markers. his book contains a catalog of genuine republic embarrassments and hypocrisies. i thank that as su

authors thomas mann and norm ornstein say republicans are the problem and they're here tonight. >> ath down 40% in three years. wall street is back, corporations are making record profits. where is the recovery for the 99%? i'll ask former labor secretary robert reich. and should a-list white celebrities get a pass for using

mann and ornstein in their book talk about how it has disproportionately gone to the right.k at how the system works whether through the jer remandering of election districts that they can only get re-elected if they appeal to the base and the influence of money in politics. >> and here's another factor. the middle is gone. the middle has been driven out both in the democratic party, the blue dogs, remember, during the health care fight, pushed out. and certainly republican moderates are like the dinosaur now. they are almost extinct. i think of susan collins and might be the only one who's left. so now you have, particularly in the republican party, the far right tea party ideologically driven folks in the congress and they're being elected by people who are ginned up on these far right, far left extremes. >> phil's going to stay quiet on that one, i think. >> were your eyes crossing? i just want to know. >> no, i largely think our country has, you know, gone on a partisan split, and it's unfortunate, okay? i'm one of these -- my personal view is that a romney administratio

authors thomas mann and norm ornstein say republicans are the problem and they're here tonight.

>> well, there's another book by norm ornstein who say the republicans are more responsible. we don't really think it's productive to do that, even if it's right at the moment. because that's more of the same partisan polarization that is the problem, not the solution. the solution is to have grand compromises like simpson bowles and it works really well when there's polarization. >> but the tea party activists will say no, no, the solution is to believe in your principleses and act on your principleses. that's what we have lost. >> and principleses should be guideposts not roadblocks in politicsment politicians rarely go into politics because they always firmly stand on principleses and never make deals. even a majority of republicans and even at one point a majority of tea party supporters supported their own politicians making compromises in order to get out of the debt ceiling crisis. >> rose: and how much do you hold president obama responsible for this? because it is, the picture you get from some, and these are not necessarily republicans, is that a person who is not t

norman ornstein was joined by his colleague steven hayward. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon. good afternoon. my name is carly bowman and a senior fellow here at aei. i would like to welcome all of you to this american enterprise debate, is the republican party too extreme? one of the first things i learned in coming to aei many, many years ago was the institute's mission statement. 10 simple word. the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society. with this slogan aei's president, william j. brodie did not mean we simply value competition among various institutions in washington though of course we do. he was equally at home with and championed as his successors have done, spirited debates within the aei family. within the halls of aei we've had many such debates. to name just a few, our scholars have differed strongly over antitrust policy and particularly the wisdom of the microsoft case. those of a more conservative bent have disagreed with libertarians over many issues including abortion, gay marriage and even euthanasia.

. >>> we're talking with thomas mann and norm ornstein, it's even worse than it looks" about dysfunctionalashington, particularly the extremism of the republican party and how the party has evolved in such an extreme fashion, it's made governance extremely difficult, if not impossible in washington. i want to give a little empirical grounding to this. because there's one of these arguments you can have that can begin to sound very abstract about who is more extreme than whom. politicians have come up, keith poole, political scientist keith poole and howard rosenthal have come up with this now famous index, a way of analyzing where parties are in their ideological extremism and here's a graph showing house polarization 1879 to 2011. what you see is the upwards tick of the 90% republican and 10% republican, the ends of the party, they shoot up much faster than the bottom two lines. which means they're veering off to the right much faster than the democrats are veering off to the left and the same thing more or less for the senate if they can show that up. although that's a little messier. if

congressional sklar norm ornstein, charlie gonzalez from texaco and coastal worker from cliff give fyhave a great day! come back and see us tomorrow.

norman ornstein is a resident scholar and a longtime observer of politics.is columns and roll call on the streets on capitol hill. steve favre is the fk white house fellow, an important presidential biographer, and a regular blogger for power line on politics. we are fortunate to have stuart rothenberg as our moderator, editor and publisher of the political report and invaluable newsletter covering house, senate, and presidential campaigns and political development. he writes about this twice a week for a roll-call, always with an even-handed tone, perfect for our moderator. stew. [applause] >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here for this interesting debate. i feel like i am the jack of common of intellectuals. if you don't know who that is, you will have to look it up. try would be a. i am here to give you the rules and then i will leave the stage to the gentleman and be back for q&a. it's pretty simple. we will begin with in eight minute opening statement by each of our combatants followed by five minutes rebuttals by each, a 27 minute, i don't know who