we'll bring in peter baker of the "new york times" and our chief legal correspondent jan crawford for analysis. and i'll have a final word on man's best teacher. dogs. but first trouble in the senate and the war on terror. on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs "face the nation" with cbs news chief washington correspondent bob schieffer. and now from washington, bob schieffer. >> schieffer: good morning again. washington has been fixated on the war on terror, but yesterday one of those weird stories cropped up that set washington on its ear. a new book claim bing by mark halpern and john hidealman reports that during the campaign last year senate majority harry reid was telling people privately that barack obama's campaign would be helped because he was, quote, a light-skinned african- american with no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one." reed spent all day yesterday apologizing to the president who said he accepted the apology and to a score of black politicians and leaders. but the episode does recall a very similar incident when then republican leader trent lott

national security system in place is the same one under, that president bush had, your colleague, peter baker, writes for "the new york times"es magazine that inside obama's war on terrorism that much of the personnel under the higher-profile people are also from president bush's administration. >> guest: right. when you have a turnover in administration the names we write about, you know, the top political appointees change but really, essentially, you know, there's hundreds of thousands of federal employees that work at these agencies, and basically they're civilians who go from one administration to the next. they're the ones who are really actively engaged every day in running the show, and there's a lot of continuity there. there's some modest changes in the policies and the people at the top, but essentially the system that was built was built by the bush administration. obama in the process of modifying it in modest ways. >> host: willlas vegas, alberton the democratic line. good morning. >> caller: my question goes back with the other person that just called in, the fort hood incident

host: peter baker with the president in honolulu said in the "new york times". first of all general a try us said the u.s. would double the security sent to yemen to help fight al qaeda. great brittain announcing it and u.s. would jointly finance a counter terrorism police unit in yemen. news services and reported. further into the body of the story is to your point that mr. obama indicated he and government largely accepted the accounts offered by the alleged terrorists and on a statement on the web the national security agency had intercepted communication as among al qaeda leading months ago talking about an unnamed nigerian prepare together attack but the government never correlated. republican line. good morning your on the air. caller: wanted to comment on the first caller talking about the caller. all the people that moderate the calls do an excellent job. someone said to call and talk about the topic. i'm glad you can distinguish when someone is going off on a tangent. i think that the yemen is afroing concerned. i don't think it should be considered the

host: peter baker in a "the new york times" setting obama trying to turn around his presidency. inside the white house a debate ensued about what lessons to draw. trying to annette to much change our not enough? too liberal or too close to financial institutions? that is all we're asking you this morning. the next call is from detroit, randall on the independent line. caller: thank you for c-span. i think the real problem is the parties in control republicans are in, they are in a year and we don't get anything done, then it put in democrats. i'm an independent. i think the real problem is everyone now thinks in terms only of their party. when do we start thinking about america, the whole of us? i thought health care reform was really about the 15% of the u.s. population that has no health insurance. these people are going in medical units and being stabilized and going home to die. we can do better than that. that is what all of these politicians ought to be working for. this thing is at a point -- there is a tipping point probably around 20%, the whole system will collapse and

it is something that your colleague, peter baker, writes about.resident obama intentionally takes a different tone and reacts differently, even to the christmas day bomber. guest: that was a shift that was occurring in the bush administration, as well. if you look at the first homeland security security, tom ridge, and to look at michael chertoff, chertoff really shifted with the color alert system. basically, it did not happen under chertoff, except when there was the liquid bomber's threat from london. michael chertoff was already intent upon bringing down the kind of hyperventilations that occurred. i think that obama has continued to that. to some extent, terrorists succeed if they get the united states into a frenzy, even if they are not successful. terrorism is as much about the killing of people as it is about the terror and the destruction that it causes. the administration has to be careful to not overdo its response. if the president would have gotten on a plane and come back to washington from his vacation -- to some extent, that would

. >> peter baker' witness a rare public meeting today. what prompted today's meeting? and reporters? >> this is the annual house republican retreat. the president wanted to appear there to make his point that it is time to work across party lines again. his first years in office was marked by very polarized partisanship in washington. he wants to recapture the magic he had in the campaign. it was a remarkable moment in front of the cameras. the white house told the republican caucus that they wanted to keep the cameras in there for the session. that is unusual. use of their only there for the president's opening remarks. -- usually, they are only there for the president's opening remarks. >> what issues did the gop members pressed the president on? >> it is almost all domestic issues, particularly health care and the economy. the dialogue went basically with republicans pressing the president on why he did not listen to more of their ideas and why did he not knowledge they had ideas. he said i incorporated some of them into my ideas. i did not like the other ones. he w

arlene holt baker and a guest of our speaker. peter van fleet of ap broadcast. the need a nod, chief research analyst in the office of investment for the afl-cio. and finally, a roderigo valderrama a freelance op-ed writer. [applause] thirty years ago, working in the coal mines of western oklahoma our guest today didn't envision standing before the national press club at a newly elected president of the afl-cio. richard trumka went to work in the mines for the same reasons most miners do because his father and his grandfather had worked there before him. but trumka along the way worked through college and law school, joined the labor movement and eventually led the united mineworkers union. as president of the umw way, trumka led the union and one of the most successful strikes in american history i guess the princeton coal company which i'd try to avoid pain into an industrywide health and pension fund. the strike resulted in significant advances in employer employee cooperation and enhanced mineworkers job security pensions and benefits. breaking with decades

[applause] >> our next baker that i want to invite to the podium is peter wallison who is a residentellow at the american enterprise institute. he is the author of numerous books. he is the former general counsel at the treasury department during the first reagan administration term. and now he is the co-director of aei's program on financial market deregulation. peter. >> thanks very much. a pleasure to be here. i would actually like to thank ralph for inviting me. naturally ralph and i go back a long way on gse's strange edley nut. someone asked me this morning in fact, you are going to be speaking at a nadir conference. why is that? and i said well, ralph i thank has always seen fannie mae and freddie mac is poster children for corporate welfare and that is about the way i have always seen them too. so we always had a common view of fannie and freddie in that sense and i suppose that is the one of the reasons why ralph has been kind enough to invite me here. i want to start off i think by saying some things that are somewhat different from what sarah said when she talks about her

arlene baker executive vice president of the alf-cio and guest of the speaker. peter archives@press.org of ap broadcast. venita, chief research analyst in the office of investment for the alf-cio, and finally, rodrigo valdiron, freelance op-ed writer. [applause] laws >> 30 years ago working in declines of western pennsylvania, our guest today probably didn't envision standing before the national press club of the newly elected president of the alf-cio. richard keene to work in the mines for the same reason most miners do because his father and his grandfather had worked there before him. but trumka of the way worked through college and law school, joined the labour movement and eventually led the united mine workers union. as president of the umda, trumka led the union and one of the most successful strikes in history against the pittston coal company which tried to avoid paying into an industrywide health and pension fund. the strike resulted in significant advances and employ your employee cooperation and enhanced line workers job security pensions and benefits. bre