republicans, if you read even peggy noonan's column, they seem to be putting themselves in a win columnsome big error on romney's part. he seems to be running more as a way to avoid unforced errors. offending as few new poem as possible and just being quiet and hoping for more bad economic news. >> ken, to joy's point, getting back to peggy noonan, she writes about romney, he's got to give up the applause line speeches and deliver substance. but isn't today just a perfect encapsulation of his problem? he has nothing to say aside from routine attacks about the pressing issue of immigration. he knows he's down something like 63%. he conceded 63% advantage to the president on latino voters and yet today of all days, he says nothing on the issue apart from a written statement. >> it is a little puzzling. >> puzzling, ken, it's almost a failure of his duty as a candidate. >> yeah, and certainly you know, it would seem that if you were going to make the decision, a calculated decision that these are the issues, the executive order deportations of children brought to the country illegally, to

david corn, peggy noonan took romney to task for his pandering speeches. writes applause line speeches are not right for a time of crisis because they do not allow for a development of a thought, a point of view and insight. people like to listen if you're saying something interesting. now, i can tell you, my staff and i have to watch mitt romney every day. and aside from the fact that we could market his speeches as a cure for insomnia, we're growing desperate for him to say something interesting. don't voters feel the same? >> first off, congratulations on moving to the cocktail hour. it's a great step up here. >> thank you very much. >> i don't know why you insist that mitt romney intervene in political and policy debates in this country just because he's running for president. he's under no obligation to say anything about anything. other than that he likes freedom. it's brought him very far so far. and he's very close to the president. so there is, there's no incentive for him to go out there and say again and again, for instance, i think we should de

later on i read peggy noonan's book. and she talked about how it was put together.y speech. it's interesting how involved president reagan was, he wanted to get the message right to honor heroes. >> eric: interesting story about d-day. a window, they could only attack, we can only hit beaches on or around the full moon. window opened on june 5, 1944. closed immediately because of the weather. opened up for a couple of hours on june 6. it allowed them to get in there. it is of note that president reagan went there and made the speech on d-day. nowhere is president obama near there. >> greg: at least you're not making it political. >> eric: he would never attack -- just he would never attack president obama. when it's 70 -- >> dana: then president romney can do it. >> juan: stop. this is interesting to me. in this, he is quoting from fdr. this is on the day of the invasion. it's on the radio. guess what? he is delivering a prayer. he says almighty god, our sons pride of our nation. this day set upon mighty endeavor, struck to preserve the republic, religion and the ci

but peggy noonan is right, the things are mounting. sending a message about the leftism and liberalism after the recall, occupy wall street. people are sick and tired of big government. >> eric: you know why it matters, robert? when we find out yesterday and today the fundraising for the two catches, romney for the first time outraised president obama because they are going in the wrong direction. >> dana: those are 90% of the contributions under $250. >> bob: excuse me. >> kimberly: that is significant. >> bob: under $200 are under 9% for romney. 48% for president obama. >> dana: i must have read it wrong. >> bob: the fact is that romney -- >> kimberly: in may? >> bob: overall. >> kimberly: i know you like polls. you a poll master. fox news poll tries to do a better job on taxes, economy, job creating, immigration, government spending. you look across the board, and romney is doing very well on these numbers. plus or minus three. >> bob: eric bolling would be doing well against obama right now. he is not winning in every category. wha

along with george will, hilary rosen, peggy noonan, major garrett. and that provocative new essay about women who still cannot have it all. we got the most debate and the best analysis. >>> good morning, george stephanopoulos has a well-deserved morning off. here to discuss this stand-off between the president and the congress we're joined by the chair of the house oversight committee, darrell issa. good morning. >> good morning, jake. thank you for having me. >> i have a lot of questions. mr. chairman, let's take a quick look at ou we got to this point. just like the movie it was named after, it was fast, furious and deadly. the operation -- u.s. government agents allowed guns to pour across the border in mexico in an effort to track drug cartels. the problem, they lost track of 2,000 of those guns, including deadly assault weapons. two of those weapons were found at a murder scene of border patrol agent brian terry. >> my son believed in justice and telling the truth. >> reporter: congress outraged launched an investigation. but the justice departm

republican columnist peggy noonan writes, "the romney strategy in the past eight weeks has been in a way, shrewd. have the candidate out there talking in candidate-like manner, but not let minimum say anything so interesting that it will take the cameras off mr. obama. it's working, but won't for long. people want meaning, a higher and declared purpose." joining me now are karen finney, former dnc communications director and msnbc political analyst and sam stein, "huffington post" political editor and reporter. karen, this is an odd night for us. it is usually, at this stage of the campaign, for that matter, at any stage of the campaign, professional democrats who are publicly worrying about the democratic campaign and why the democratic candidate is doing everything wrong and if the democratic candidate would just listen to these professional pundit democrats, everything would be okay. but here, it's happening to mitt romney. how did we get here? >> indeed. but don't worry, lawrence, there's plenty of time for democrats to do that. don't worry. >> yes, they will. >> look, we got her

. >> schieffer: back with peggy noonan of the "wall street journal," richard lowry is the editor of thenal review," a "time" magazine columnist and also a fox news contributor. what do you do in your spare time? and our own john dickerson and our-- who is our political director, and jan crawford, our chief political correspondent who also looks after the supreme court for us. john, let me go to you first. this whole thing, what exactly did mitt romney say here on immigration? >> well you tried to pin him down four times and he wouldn't say it. he basically ducked. he believes, it appears, on what the president did on the merits. he just doesn't like the way he did it. we saw in his answers kind of the romney approach, which is to basically point out what the president has done wrong, stay pretty nonspecific about what he would do. in the primaries he talked about his position on immigration was pretty hard line. he talked about self-deportation, the idea of enforcing the immigrations law so strictly, the illegal immigrants would leave the country. he also said provision like this might

there are 59 steps, but people like peggy noonan, who is no obama supporter, i think it is fair to say, says what mitt romney has to do is put something out there about the economy that people can put their arms around, that they can understand what he's talking about. and she and a lot of conservatives don't see that happening yet. >> well, let's talk about two specific proposals that mitt romney has brought forward with respect to creating a more attractive place for job creators, and that is to get is this corporate tax rate lower. we have the highest corporate tax rate of any developed nation in the world. we need to get that down. we have companies that do business overseas and yet they get double tax. they get taxed by the foreign country in which they're doing business and when they try to bring the profit backs to the united states, they get taxed again. that's something mitt romney would address and something this president has not taken on, and as a result, this economy, as you can see, is sort of bumping along. there's very little growth. g.d.p. in the first quarter has been

peggy noonan. i talked to her about this. lunch with her and she went through book and she was enthusiastic and i said "i don't have a title." and peggy without missing a beat said "exit interview." she didn't even have to think about it. that's how good she is. >> rose: why did she they? >> because given what i told her what the book was going to be it was my attempt to be honest on the way out the door about what i saw when i was there which is what an exit interview is. >> rose: let me talk about going to abc. you were a lawyer in private practice. you come to new york to be general council in >> yes, they recruited me out of the blue. i had not done any work in communications or journalism or anything like that in washington. they called me up pretty much out of the blue and said "we'd like you to be general council" and i did. really because it seemed so exciting and new and friend and i thought i would do it for three or four years and go back to practice law. >> rose: and you found it satisfying to be involved in that

remember how he made his promise -- peggy noonan wrote the speech in new orleans "read my lips: no new the fiscal deal back in '90, you know, with darmen and baker, he was whacked and pillied through history. it's not so easy to break these shackles once you cut the deal. >> let's keep in minds, as the supreme court handed down its decision, the romney campaign started tweeting out the fact they were getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. setting aside the actual fiscal reality -- >> we don't know if they raised a nickel. >> the reality is, they are -- the romney campaign -- whoever it is, moneyed interests, as mark said, play a huge role in dictating -- >> the koch brothers. >> it cuts both ways. the obama team has, i'm sure, as well. their political operations prepared should this have fallen the other way. >> the jim messina e-mail went out before the -- messina sent it out this morning. >> we're not going to blame these guys for the politics of what their campaigns are going to do to get the money in the door. we know how that'sç played. i think the broader questio

hey, larry, peggy noonan wrote a great editorial at the conclusion of last week where she was talkingeally not saying anything. is that a good solution for him right now at this point in the campaign? >> obviously he's going to get criticism as did he from peggy for not filling in the details and being responsible and telling us more. but you know, that kind of criticism is probably better than the other criticism he'd get by providing the details. your opponent always asks for more. tell us more. tell us what you're really going to do. and the instant you do, they pounce. this entire election really is a battle between romney's insistence that it's a reference on president obama's performance and president obama's insistence that it's a choice between obama and romney. why should romney cooperate with the obama campaign theme? >> steve: so every time that the romney camp is knocked off the hey, are you better now than you were four years ago, and instead, you're talking about eric holder, contempt of congress, or the president with that executive fiat, saying we're not going to depor

just from the press corps, frustrated by the total lack of nourishment, but from conservatives, peggy noonan, a slew of governors, bill kristol arguing that he can't simply run as an anti-obama. the romney campaign says they've been specific, but the specifics are the kind like we see in drug ads, where they show a pretty picture of improved health, but then you get two pages of fine print, and it's that fine print that romney never talks about and that the election should be about. >> john dickerson, thank you very much. >> thanks, charlie. >>> florida is under a state of emergency this morning as tropical storm debby sits off the gulf coast in no apparent rush to make landfall. >> debby has barely budged, in fact, in the past 72 hours, just socking florida with flood-producing rains, winds, high winds and tornadoes, and it is not over yet. another eight inches of rain is possible over the next few days. michelle miller is in st. petersburg. michelle, good morning. we have michelle there. we may be having a problem with the audio. >> reporter: winds are ferocious here, as they are through m

this were to be overturned, it's hard to figure out how that could ever be spun positively but peggy noonan has an interesting article in "the new york post" in which she says that mitt romney is actually failing to capitalize on what could be the president's worse week. basically, she says, that mitt romney has been out on the campaign trail and playing it too safe in her opinion. that he's just delivering applause lines, he's playing it so safe because let the president's problems, you know, do him in as opposed to what mitt romney is saying, she says at some point very soon, she predicts, voters tire of that and they really do want substance and they want to hear actual answers. you can't just always tell them what they want to hear. >> that particular strategy for mr. romney has actually worked thus far. going forward, what people need is she says people want meaning. mr. romney needs to present the meaning of his run, she says, he needs to explain, i will be president for this reason and that. i will move this forward and that. >> declare a purpose. >> only when people see the larger p

bill: peggy noonan, people want higher and declared purpose. she concludes they want to know how america can come back because they're pretty sure down deep america has another comeback in her. has mitt romney captured and delivered on that message? >> not quite yet. i think he needs to revive the message he is the guy that took the olympics when it was in the tank, near bankruptcy after 9/11. huge costs. turned it around. made it not only a profit center but also made it the pride of america and a great moment of american celebration, having gone just a few months past 9/11. it was remarkable --. bill: i have to think we'll start hearing those stories. i will offer as evidence, 20 years ago this summer, at madison square garden when bill clinton was introduced to america on a 20-minute hollywood production roleout as the boy from hope. hope, arkansas. >> yeah. bill: i would venture people outside of hardcore democratic circles did not know that about bill clinton. >> that's right. bill: whoa, who is this guy. >> it was remarkable film. i will

drifting a few feet from the rest of the panel on a cloud made of sweet memories and old chardonnay, peggy noonano grasp him. >> stephanie: god, i love you so much in an unholy way, charlie pierce. >> caller: maybe there is a willard she wants to hang on to. >> stephanie: oh, then you commented on the same thing did i earlier. romney saying he does not consider himself a politician because he's a businessman. you say romney has been nothing but a politician from the moment he closed down the olympics. he has been running for president for 17 damn years. i thought since the beginning of time. >> caller: he was governor of massachusetts for four years and essentially quit that job two years in to start running for president. he has been running for president since about 2005. >> stephanie: oh, chris, you know what we have to do for fun when we come back? that pious bologna newt gringrich sound byte. can we caught the pious baloney already. >> caller: he needs to cut the pious balone because he needs a slice because's hungry. newt was the guy that mitt dispatched to the auto convention. >> stephanie

as peggy noonan said last week, the national security doesn't exist to help the president's winning elections. it's not a plaything to advance one's prospects, and yet this administration seems more interested in advancing the prospects of the president's reelection and being now reached by the criminal weeks. this is a bipartisan concern at least in the senate. senator mccain quoted chairman feinstein. she says this has to stop. when people say they don't want to work with you in the united states because they can't trust us to keep secrets that serious. and senator feinstein further said that as she led the sanger book, her heart stopped. you learn from the book than i did as chairman and the intelligence committee and that's very disturbing to quote the chair of the intelligence committee this is not going to be adequately investigated unless we have an independent special counsel. there's a lot going on in this building this week and a lot going on the rest of the year. we had a reaction by the administration that have health care coming in 48 hours trying to wrap up the fourth of july as

round tables after that discussion both on cbs and a bit on nbc, the reporters even people like peggy noonan and rich laurie said he has to get specific and answer the questions. can't go through this campaign dealing in generalities. >> check back with his staff. i mean every time he does this -- >> worse than that. looks like he will check back with his political pollster. >> whatever. >> he's got no convictions when he loses out on answering questions he shows he has no convictions. >> mika, i would agree with you on that and i think that's my whole point. that's the political box he's been put into, that's the got you, i tweeted that on friday when it happened that this was a got you moment and they knew exactly what the romney team was going to do. you were between a rock and a hard place here and it showed in that shaffer interview. the reality the fundamentals of immigration reform in this country has still not been addressed, this is a band-aid on a big problem. it makes folks feel good at the surface but doesn't fundamentally deal with the fact that we have 11 million people in this

as peggy noonan said last week, national security doesn't exist to help presidents win elections. it's not a play thing or a tool to advance one's prospects, and yet this administration, it seems-is more interested in advancing the pros does prospects of the president's re-election than being outraged be criminal leaks. this is a bipartisan concern, at least in the senate. and senator mccain quoted chairman feinstein -- let me quote further. she says, this has to stop. when people say they don't want to work with the united states because they can't trust to us keep a secret, that's serious. amen to senator feinstein. she further said, as she read the book, her heart stopped at points during the reading of this book. she said, you learn more from the book than i did as chairman of the intelligence committee, and that is very disturbing. to quote the chair of the intelligence committee, this is not going to be adequately investigated unless we have an independent special counsel. senator mccain is lot. there's a lot going on in this building this week and a lot going on the rest of

as peggy noonan said last week, national security doesn't exist to help presidents win elections. it's not a play thing or a tool to advance one's prospects. and yet this administration, it seems, is more interested in advance this -- advancing the prospects of the president's he--- re-election than being outraged by criminal leaks. this is a bipartisan concern at least in the senate. senator mccain quoted chairman feinstein, let me quote further. she says, this has to stop. when people say they don't want to work with the united states because they can't trust us to keep secret, that's serious. amen to senator feinstein. she further said that as she read thing an sanger book, her heart stopped at points during the reading of this book. she said, you learn more from the book than i did as chairman of the intelligence committee. and that's very disturbing. to quote the chair of the intelligence committee. this is not going to be adequately investigated unless we have an independent special counsel. senator mccain is right, there's a lot going on in this building this week and a lot