p.j. crowley joins me now.ve been there, been at the white house, been at the state department, been at the pentagon, been all sides of this. you've seen it in the past. our institutions don't seem to have a way of responding to a situation where there is no clear-cut opposition and where there's no will to get involved in another shooting war. >> well, i think it goes back a little bit to that terminology from 25 years ago, vital interests. we went through with the powell doctrine, and weinberg doctrine. we're getting better at assessing how to intervene militarily and getting smarter in terms of what kind of costs. so to some extent, syria's a victim of libya. we've set a bar in terms of how we want to manage costs here with compelling, clear call from the region. u.n. security council resolution and willing allies. we don't have those ingredients in syria yet. >> we've seen a war of words between the u.s. and russia. obviously, not a great meeting yesterday between vladimir putin and president obama. russia

p.j. crowley.he conflicting reports about mubarak's health and to what degree is that fueling some of the protests and sort of the uprisings in tahrir square? >> he's in declining health and his political career obviously is in steep decline. he was humiliated publicly by the trial earlier this year, the life sentence that he's received. i think most egyptians are focused on the life and death of the regime that he once led. he's not, i don't think, a significant factor in what's going on now. >> i was talking about this earlier today. i thought a really interesting assessment of what happened in the middle east and the confusion i think in some parts of the west with populism with democracy. let's take a listen. >> not every populous revolutions a democratic revolution. for it to be a democratic revolution, you have to have enlightened democratic leadership and some traditional sense of constitutionalism. what we're dealing with in egypt is a revolution against dictatorship, against corruption and

p.j. crowley. they parade the european lists out to the spot where the syrian television station got bombed, and that is startling. >>guest: well, unfortunately it is something that as you know, in conflict situations, journalists are at great risk in every conflict we have seen around the world, unfortunately, we have seen tragedies of this kind. >>shepard: secretary hillary clinton is hopeful of the meeting. is "hope," all we have or is there a strategy? >>guest: well, the kofi annan plan is on life support and we have a dichotomy, that plan on the one hand is a ceasefire and a peaceful democratic transition. as you said, yesterday, bashar al-assad said he considers this "war." one of the reasons why we see the escalation is the opposition is getting better. you do have the defections we have seen last week, for example, the defection of the pilot with his airplane over to jordan. and the opposition now is controlling territory. they getting some arms from friends in the neighborhood. so, i do th

p.j. crowley right here. good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington.y is wrapping up his battleground bus tour in michigan t state where he was born, which today, romney said he believes he can win. chris cillizza is an msnbc contributor and managing editor of postpolitics.com. there has been a lot of discussion overnight about a conversation you and i had yesterday. we ran clips of mitt romney in cornwall, pennsylvania, talking about his trip to a wawa. the rnc and campaign both reached out to us, saying romney had more to say about that visit, about federal bureaucracy. >> i was at wawa's. i went in to order a sandwich. you press a touch-tone keypad. you just touch that and the sandwich comes at you, touch this, touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier, there's your sandwich. it's amazing. people in the private sector have learned how to compete. it's time to bring competition to the federal government and to get it smaller and have it respond to the customers, which are you. >> now on to that other subject, immigration, because that was a big topi