up to reagan.nography o on the the-shirts. >> bob: what? >> andrea: the pictures of barack obama looking like che guevara on t-shirt. they look at him like a hero. you are saying he is a figurehead of a generation. we have to ask what are the expectation of the future? prosperity the way reagan spoke of or just getting by. obama subsidy or check here to get by. what do we want in the end. depen den politics, not what reagan was about. >> bob: i think reagan is overstated. not on tax cut. i understand that. >> eric: what about growth? >> bob: it wasn't even close. >> eric: don't go there. please don't go there. >> bob: unemployment was 10.5%. >> eric: the eight years of reagan brought unemployment from 13% down to 5%. no one in the history has done anything near that. brought influence down from 11% to six or 7%. no one in history -- >> bob: you are saying growth under reagan -- >> eric: do growth. negative growth, turns in to 8% gdp. >> greg: let me google it on my phone. hold on. >> bob: one thing

tip o'neal and reagan could deal. reagan could get some of what he wanted. but the problem is, the republicans in the house now are quite committed. the tea party wing has really prevented anything from being produced. and they go back home and brag about it that they blocked up legislation, or blocked up passing and spending. >> am i not correct in saying owe obama first delegated to harry reid and when mcconnell felt frustrated reid wasn't serious, he delegated to biten. obama -- biden. obama announced this was the way it was going to be. that's his assumption going in. he's not a negotiator. es a' lecturer -- he's a lecturer. >> he's not an lbj type that grabs lapels. >> i think he feels he has the answer. he thought about this. this is the way it s. he has a high iq. we all admit to that. he's gifted in many rays but he's -- many ways but he's got the answer. >> one of the thing, he's trying to-- >> how can you say if you don't conform to him, it doesn't work when you set the whole thing up saying the democrats -- excuse me. let me finish. that the democ

it was goldwater who approved reagan's famous a time for choosing television address which made reagan political star overnight and led to his running for governor of california and eventually president of the united states. david recounts how william rusher short up the goldwater committee when money ran short and spirits sagged. skillfully guided young americans for freedom and his early chaotic days and forced some order and discipline on the blithe spirits who ran "national review," expanded the national movement, his newspaper column and lectures and championed ronald reagan when other conservatives were somewhat skeptical about the actor turned politician. william rusher love the american politics. rear wines traveling to distant lands and national review's effervescent editor bill buckley of whom he once said, quote, the most exasperatingly people in the world are so often the most beloved and he is no exception. david frisk has captured all of this and more in this splendid overdue biography of the other bill, william rusher. david frisk is a former award winning reporter who r

the vote twice and today he signaled a major political shift in america first here's what ronald reagan said about government in his inaugural we don't have a so ok well i'll just tell you. came out in his first inaugural address and he said government is not the solution of the problem government is the problem and that was a major is shit. from the notion that was that on which this country was founded when when thomas jefferson and his compatriots when he and and george mason and john adams the two of them along with ben franklin edited the declaration of independence and then we was forty three people signed it every one of them the moment that they signed it became traitors to great britain and were doing and the declaration was that they would be hung until dead every single one of them these men fought in a revolutionary war at least many of them fought revolutionary war about a third of them watched everything they had as a consequence of that revolution and they did it because they believed in a nation of by and for the people and an active government that could actually produc

the problem with that because then reagan tax the space. revenues doubled under reagan they spending tripled and the democrats controlled spent and he cut taxes to cut the top and why does that revenue is double time because the government got bigger because the economy grew because inflation was so it's ok so why was a large part of it actually was inflation or deflation it was when reagan came into office it was like two. thirty percent of the the my point is that the spending program is inflation adjusted numbers it didn't always know about defense spending to meet it what sort of spending were terrible but in any case you were it was spending in the budget the the social programs actually damage the people that they're designed to help and that we've been dumping billions of dollars into our inner cities and and these people haven't moved there hasn't moved the needle and increasing their quality of life so we had to i'm going to billions of dollars on yourself and all your solar wind pork and it hasn't created new industries that it wa

host: as the head of the reagan library, you had a chance to sit ronald reagan in the early in office? guest: he loved to tell stories. washington stories. he told lots of hollywood stories, lots of dixon, illinois stories. after his illness was diagnosed, you could almost measure his progress because the repertoire of stories narrowed. at the end, i am told he would still talk about -- the thing he was proudest of was a lifeguard in dixon, illinois saving 77 lives. host: caller from silver lake, illinois. caller: i have a few comments to make. all this time, there is a split in the united states on political parties. big divide? i do not see any future of obama trying to get with the other party. he wants to heckle them, probe them like you would a mad cow orhost: is it more partisan than it has been in the past? it feels. you cannot escape it. the nature of cable tv, which is enormously significant disproportionate to its audience in studying the tone for the debate. differences. it is all about conflict. everything else contributes to the sense that people have that we are more div

during the reagan administration. as richard brook heister, who is still a major figure at "national revow" and was a writer then, and a good friend of rusher, said to me, when reagan was elected rusher decided to defend him on every single thing, and his reasoning was, in terms of presidents, this is the best guy we're going to get. it will never be better, and it will never be as good. so you have to back this guy up on everything. he had some concerns about reagan's first chief of staff, james baker, who had come from the other wing of the party, of course. he was -- he questioned whether someone like that could really put his heart into a reaganite program. a couple years after that, rusher was very upset about some -- i guess you'd call them technical p.r. mistakes on the part of communications people in the white house and says, so and so ought to be fired. didn't happen. his main concern in giving advice to reagan -- which he didn't do a lot of -- but his main concern seemed to be, let's make sure we're effecti

i mean, reagan -- even reagan, as republicans paint him today, but reagan was very clear.want to see government solutions to people's problems. he wanted to shrink the size of government that details the side. his philosophy was to shrink the government, was to starve it. and that was very attractive to conservatives and extremely attractive to conservatives today. but anybody who listened to president obama's second inaugural speech that we just heard really was the exact opposite of that governing philosophy. >> and i think that's what's bothering them. >> it's not that he thinks -- i think it's absolutely what's bothering them. it's not that obama thinks that government is the solution to everybody problem, but it is that he believes government can be a piece of the solution to many problems. and that is something that has conservatives so exercised to the point that i do think they buy into something that is such a perfect metaphor that obama would raise his childhood home. not only is that not the case, but they have radically different philosophies. >> but i think th

reagan, clinton, and bush.uest: this is the second time in our history when we have had three successive two-term presidencies. three men going to their second inaugural in a row. the only other time that happened was in the 19th century. jefferson, madison, and monroe. you're right. it is an interesting counterpoint to the polarization we talk about. host: i want you to listen to an interview we conducted on december 18, 2008 with outgoing president george w. bush. listen to what he said, also his body language. [video clip] >> you said, i am optimistic that we can change the tone in washington. >> that was a hopeful person saying that. >> are you less hopeful? >> we work together, there were some bipartisan accomplishments but the rhetoric got very tough. some people here in this town use the politics of personal destruction to advance their agenda. i do not want to sound self- serving, but i have not. i do not think a president should. i was hoping for better tone, and it did not happen. host: as you reflect

you think, oh, it's somebody -- who is this in a reagan mask, but it was ronald reagan, and he was drinking a screwdriver, and so, like, there was not any really secret service people there, and i was standing there, and he was just standing there, and there was a couple people there with a photographer there. it's not like now where everybody's like this. there was, you know, unless they had a twitch. [laughter] i, like, did what i would normally, i said hello to him, but i didn't say hello, i said, [inaudible] [laughter] he just looked at me and probably has, you know, it's nice that they have those people come to these dinners. [laughter] how compassionate. [laughter] anyway, i ended up in the kitchen. i ate his dinner, talked to the secret service guy. it was raining. they played piano. don't worry. it's fitting i'm here. i think i have some things in common with ronald reagan. he was governor of california. i lived in california. [laughter] he was once a democrat. i once bought a counterfeit watch in times square. same thing. everybody makes mistakes. [laughter] as an actor, he starred

and he advised reagan to do this. he knew both reagan and the first president bush pretty well. he had known reagan since the 60s. he flies both reagan and then vice president bush some years later to do this. he was successful in that although i don't think reagan really needed to be -- i'm not sure that reagan really needed to be told that the certainly encouraging from someone who he respected as much as he respected rusher. rusher also wanted reagan to be the head of this new conservative party. will, to make a long story short reagan uses probably prudently the most liberal scientists will tell you that if a third party is going to be big on a national level they cannot start small. it's got to start big. probably with a superstar like reagan so once reagan refused in mid-75 or mitt 75 to join this third party project rusher got going and wrote a book about, it was probably curtains for that particular idea. but rusher had succeeded in getting conservatives to think more about the need to expand the republican party and for the republican party to be more coherent. not so i

ronald reagan, this great video -- ronald reagan said my feet are in concrete. seeing if he could get away with going to the press conference and saying that the sound you're hearing is concrete breaking. as governor, he concluded that he had no choice to meet a state requirement. but he was totally up front and went to the country and people in california and said here is where we are. i think we have to do this. he did that after creating a commission which fundamentally cut costs and spending. nobody thought ronald reagan was doing not create a bigger government. if he needed it, he must be very serious. what we have today is no innovation for reform or new thinking and creativity and no hearings on waste. you live in the age of the ipad an iphone and google and facebook and twitter. in the face of federal government which currently runs at the pace of a manual typewriter. and you have no serious effort in either party to fundamentally overhaul the system. in that sense we are told by people who are running a disaster that we need more of your money to prop u

reagan fired me. the courses, among other things, the president doesn't fire people who are in an independent agency or what starting him. they're not giving you pleasure. or not supposed to be giving him pleasure. we're supposed to be monitoring what he does. i found to be an affable person. a nice guy to have to deal with. >> professor barry, what -- of what are you most proud of your service? >> well, i thought you were going to ask me what i was most proud of. what i am most proud of. a lot of things. key anti-apartheid movement and in the south africa. as far as the commission is concerned i am very proud of the hearings we did in florida of the 2000 election because we heard again from people that nobody would listen to and we found out that there were thousands of people who were registered to vote, legal voters. they just would not let them vote. when he went down to vote with his family the tilden that he was a convicted felon and he could not vote. he said, well, that's not true. the only ti

i don't think ronald reagan was hip. people talk about ronald reagan to this day, how conservative he was, was he not conservative enough, he raised taxes. but for some reason he exemplified what was special about the american idea, and i do think that -- no one would ever describe reagan as hip but he could articulate something that nobody else could. i had a strong feeling that mitt was getting there after the first debate, and when he said that line i have been doing this for 25 years and i have no idea what you're talking sunset it was like an amazing line. his mistake -- and i said this over and over again -- why did he drop libya? i don't know why. he got scared, and then i think that he had a glimpse of what he could do with the aggression and that stuff, and maybe he was too nice. i agree with you. i think when you remember back in the primary, and there was 13 people, bill the way, and i bet you can't name them all. i tried to name them before i went to wikipedia, but there were 13 candidates, not including -- t

and he advised ronald reagan to do this. he knew both ronald reagan and the first president bush pretty well. he advised ronald reagan and then the vice president bush some years later to do this. he was successful in that although i don't think that reagan really needed to be -- i don't think that he needed to be told about but certainly it is for the falling and encouraging to hear that from someone who respected him as much as rusher. rusher also wanted ronald reagan to be the head of this new conservative party. well, to make a long story short, she refuses probably prudently most liberal scientists and i've had training in political science the will tell you if a third party is going to be big on the national level it cannot start small. it's got to start big probably with a superstar like ronald reagan. so once he refused in early 75 to join this third party project rusher had going and wrote a book about, it was probably curtains for that particular idea. but rusher had succeeded in getting them to think more about th

>> yes, ronald reagan tried do that. he came in to office and it amazes me. reagan has become one of my most beloved presidents in the polls and everything. people forget some of the stuff that happened. and he wanted to change the direction of civil rights. he wanted to make sure that the civil rights was weren't enforced the way they were supposed to be enforced. he decided that he would first thing they decided to do is replace the commissioners. because the commission was standing up and watchdogging measure and they didn't want anybody watchdogging them he said we'll change the member. and we got in to a big fight. when they got to me and got ready to change me. i sued them. i sued them and i won the lawsuit, the court said that the commission is supposed to be as father put it, a watchdog. and i said it should be a watchdog and not a lap dog for the administration. so that they succeeded though in changing the direction of the commission. and even though later we were able to get some traction during my time there, we did things like bush v. gore. the g

reagan, clinton, and bush. is the second time in our history when we have had three successive two-term presidencies. three men going to their second inaugural in a row. the only other time that happened was in the 19th century. jefferson, madison, and monroe. you're right. it is an interesting counterpoint to the polarization we talk about. host: i want you to listen to an interview we conducted on december 18, 2008 with outgoing president george w. bush. listen to what he said, also his body language. [video clip] >> you said, i am optimistic that we can change the tone in washington. >> that was a hopeful person saying that. >> are you less hopeful? >> we work together, there were some bipartisan accomplishments but the rhetoric got very tough. some people here in this town use the politics of personal destruction to advance their agenda. i do not want to sound self- serving, but i have not. i do not think a president should. i was hoping for better tone, and it did not happen. host: as you reflect on george

being reagan unless reagan is being reagan in a way that reagan

or were continued during the reagan years. >> that was a clip from the documentary series, the reaganncy coming to pbs. with us now the filmmaker behind the project, chip duncan. howard dean, katty kay all back with us. that's a fascinating introduction to a documentary, mobilely focused on reagan's foreign policy as it pertains to the soviet union and prevailing a 50-year cold war. >> yeah, in this case, it was all based on a comment from george schulze during our interview with schulze who said, and i'm more or less quoting that he felt that the reagan administration didn't make a lot of accomplishments in the middle east but at least things didn't go backwards. we decided to explore the notion of whether things actually went backwards. >> it's interesting that reagan as he was leaving the oval office, pat buchanan had said reagan leaving the oval office turned around and looked back right as george h.w. bush is being sworn in and went back to that day in lebanon and said that was the one day that he wished he could have had back. that was the low point of his remarkable presidency.

i worked for reagan, okay. reagan was a big tent guy. he was inclusive.e had moderate republicans, we had conservative republicans, we had supply siders like myself, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. can we go back to reagan's model, can we open up the party a little bit. you know what i'm thinking about particularly. this whole issue about immigration, latino, african-americans, young people, joe the whole party is missing a whole demonstrato graphic in this country? >> no doubt about it. one of my biggest criticisms about mitt romney over the past couple of years i never really thought he understood freeman or thatcher or reagan because if you do get it, if you understand what you understand at your gut level, what i understand and many other conservatives, free market conservatives get, that is that what we believe in conservatism applies equally to an 18-year-old latino voter in los angeles as it does to a 65-year-old hedge fund manager in greenwich, connecticut. but too many conservatives don't get that. they haven't gotten it. so we've got to be a bi

you know the expression let reagan be reagan. i think we're seeing barack obama be barack obama.n in your face challenge to the right wing. he's putting in a guy who knows the lessons of vietnam and iraq and putting him out front, making him his point man as he goes into the war of hawkish republicans who count the months between wars as an unwanted time-out. who like nothing more than the next war to fight. meet barack obama two. he's going to run the way he believes to do it. i like it. i think there's one guy out there by the way ironically rooting for obama. it's the guy who got used by the hawks, saw his place ruined by their lies. his name is george w. bush. and he's sitting down there in texas watching the same old predictable crowd of war hawks trying good their number one more time. only this time there's someone in the white house wise to their game. joining me now is msnbc politcal analyst david corn from mother jones. and john feehery. you can throw in your ideas. my idea is this. he picked chuck hagel after watching two or three weeks of him trying to be destroyed by

>> okay, all right. >> reagan or -- >> i'm not putting up reagan at all.eady to put up obama, i think he had a very strong first term, saving detroit, ending two wars, changed american fundamental ways, especially as much as you could from the dump that bush left us with. but i want to see more, what are you going to be able to do on gun control, gay rights, so we can fundamentally change america for a larger group of americans. >> all right, he says he is not ready yet. >> that is really shocking, this is a very premature celebration, a lot like the nobel prize that obama won -- >> we're not having a celebration, we're having a discussion. >> but even talking about it, i think it is premature. because it takes time. i mean, the difference between politics and history is time. history is really the best way to judge presidents. and it takes time to judge, as you know, if the policies that barack obama is putting in place right now, will affect people down the road. >> then by that math, clearly we're not putting reagan on any mount rushmore. >> wait a minu

reagan, clinton, and bush.: this is the second time in our history when we have had three successive two-term presidencies. three men going to their second inaugural in a row. the only other time that happened was in the 19th century. jefferson, madison, and monroe. on your right. it is an interesting counterpoint to the polarization we talk about. host:, you to listen to an interview we conducted on december 18, 2008 with outgoing president george w. bush. listen to what he said, also his body language. [video clip]journ >> instead, i am optimistic that we can change the tone in washington. -- you said, i am optimistic that we can change the tone in washington. >> that was a hopeful person saying that. courts are you less hopeful? -- clerks are you less hopeful? >> we work together, there were some bipartisan accomplishments but the rhetoric got very tough. some people here in this town use the politics of personal destruction to advance their agenda. i do not want to sound self- serving, but i have not. i do

ron reagan, what do you make of this? >> well, as far as those provisions being in there in the first place, unfortunately, that's how sausages are made in washington, d.c. let's remember, we're talking about an appropriation that is some 10,000 million dollars. you cited less than $200 million out of that that is questionable. it was stripped out, but even if it wasn't stripped out, even if that was the price you pay for greasing the skids of government to get needed aid to people, i would argue that it is necessary, that you must do that. it's unfortunate, but we must do that. now, look, if you want to have a discussion about flood insurance in this country or what fema does or how it does it or how effectively it does it, that's fine. but you don't do it when you have thousands of people in desperate need. you don't hold those people hostage in a sense to your ideological predispositions. that is an ugly, thuggish way to do business. >> barney, he's essentially saying when the house is on fire, put the water on it, and

republicans refused to raise the debt limit how much damage will that inflict on our economy and reagan created tons of public sector jobs to help lift america out of recession in the early one nine hundred eighty s. and republicans happily went along with it then so why are they providing president obama for doing the exact same thing today. you need to know this want to tell you about a war being waged in america today. history is littered with the corpses of those who thought they could conquer the world or at least the known or important world through force of arms alexander the great caesar hitler the celts the ottomans the catholics various european asian and american empires in the seventeenth century dutch the eighteenth century french to the one nine hundred centuries british and the twentieth century soviets and americans others like the aztecs are less well known to westerners europeans and asians but no less ambitious all use some variation on war force of military power to accomplish their goal all won over the short term and then collapsed over the long term making the rel

action to day to wipe out poverty and get consumer demand back in our economy by rolling back the reagan tax cuts for billionaires so any income over nine hundred ninety nine million dollars actually over a one million dollars is taxed at ninety one percent that way it can be funneled back through our economy rather than just sit in mitt romney's swiss bank account president obama said happiness shouldn't be reserved for the few well then let's do something about it let's have a serious discussion about redistribution of wealth joining me now for a big picture politics panel is chris allman conservative commentator and activist richard follower progressive strategist and host of the richard fowler show and neil munro white house correspondent over at the daily caller so chris let me just lay it out chris you look like you're you want to grab this what what good are billionaires anyway well they're not really good for anything other than creating jobs so that other people can get wealthy i mean put away your magic wand you can't possibly believe this you are just bent one trillion dollars

all right. >> reagan or obama? >> i'll put up reagan, you can put up obama.ll chisel together. >> i think he had a very strong first term, saving detroit, ending two wars, aca, changed americans fundamentally, as best he could from the dump that bush left us. but i want to see a little bit more. what are you going to be able to do with immigration and gay rights so that we can fundamentally change america. all right. isn't that surprising? >> that is very shocking. a lot like the nobel peace prize. >> we're having a discussion. nobody celebrated it yet. >> but even talking, i think it's premature because it takes time. the difference between politics and history is time. and i think the best way -- history is really the best way to judge presidents. and it takes time, as you say, to know if the policies that president obama is putting in place right now, how it's going to affect people down the road. >> wait a minute. wait a minute. the national journal, how much will it affect the future of the country. and how did teddy roosevelt get up there? >> i mean, yo

president reagan he too was a lifeguard.e saved 77 lives on the rock river in illinois and always saw himself in hero i can role. he was able to swim out and save people. what we haven't seen with president obama yet is whether he is able to save us in that metaphor but to lead us, to make us make these hard choices. and, it just has not happened. i worry all the time if we do not find a growth agenda in the country to secure the middle class, which is one of the great economic and cultural achievements in history, building the post war middle class where we guarantee equality of opportunity. not equality of outcome. but equality of opportunity, that's the burden to me, the burden and the great possibility of american leadership. my own view is that the president does not know how to lead us to that place. >> bill: okay. but you know what the irony of it is. with all the social justice and all the enormous spending and all of his martin luther king type rhetoric, the middle class is a lot worse off now than it was when he ca

ronald reagan comes to power. ronald reagan was the great antagonist of medicare. you find it on youtube in a wonderful recording fighting against medicare. if this passes will tell her children and children's children what it was like in america when men were free. and he's one of the people who call it socialism. we've got to passed catastrophic care for the old people and i hope i can do something for the working stiff to. we were sitting reading his diary thinking what is going on? sure enough republicans in his administration hate the idea of expanding medicare to cover catastrophic costs and in the cabinet meeting, one officer goes for him. all the rest try to talk them out of it. reagan, were going for it and sends the bills. the collapses as bush takes over were going to cut this. this is very unpopular piece of legislation because it is this has democratic, house republicans. but notice it was ronald reagan who had the largest six inches of medicare up to that point in history and he's the next largest? george w. bush. the guy the liberals love to hate. hi

after passes to have tartly in forty seven but they really started dropping fast after after the reagan presidency. so has the middle class is sure of income you know wealth goes down and as you know the wealth of individuals in fact we have a chart of this i believe unionization rates here we go you notice the the red line is union membership rate the blue line is aggregate income of the middle class those two follow each other and then the green line is the income of the top one percent of the percentage of sitcoms on radio i think that also felt the same rates this is starting in sixty seven by that time all those accounts were going to radio jean shepherd you know he was tottering by that point but this is this is a really important thing is it not i mean that when workers have a say in the workplace when there's democracy in the workplace you have a middle class when you don't have democracy in the workplace you have the world the charles the charles dickens wrote about and you know we've please mr graduate arab and mr scrooge we have a lump of gold i am not elastic bands but if ma

you're absolutely right and all you had to do to look at it during the reagan administration reagan basically was going to see in the economy was stimulus he was doing good old fashioned keynesian stimulus he borrowed three trillion dollars and spent it and it created jobs and he left the debt for i mean you are still paying off reagan's death he left the debt for everybody else but bush. cut taxes also and everybody thought oh cutting taxes during the reagan time that most are created some prosperity because there was you know. the economy kind of grew during the reagan presidency although there was a pretty severe recession in the early years but you know as i said it turns out it had nothing to do with tax cuts it had to stimulate a spending bush was unable to do that stimulative spending as the as the market was disintegrating and then we saw a you know tax cuts don't do anything you're absolutely right betty in staten island new york betty thanks for calling. yes thank you oh i'm sorry i'm in and i wanted like you know to enjoy your show. the reason is i mean how. could you all preach i

what a great thing that reagan did.he view from the platform, looking down the mall at the washington monument is nothing short of spectacular. on the platform, we are watching final rehearsals. james taylor left the stage. kelley clarkson and beyonce will be here later today and then the big party tomorrow, as we inaugurate the 57th president of the united states. the official theme is faith in america's future. it was a,a ded -- adopt bide sharlz schumer who believes in the next few years, the atmosphere of toxic partisanship will begin to fade here in washington. >> one of the messages -- there are a bunch in this election -- please, no more obstruction, try to work together. i think people are beginning to feel that. not everybody. there are 50 people, way out there in the house. but speaker boehner has resolved not to let them dictate policy. >> not everyone is as optimistic as shiewp schumer is. tomorrow, they will be here, 1600 people up here, representing all three branches of government. most people expect comi

reagan had reagan democrats and there is almost non existent in this country right now. went through this address in a confrontational way sets up barriers for him. that was something that reagan was fantastic about. right now, obama has fractured capitol hill that not much is getting done. that is the challenge. >> we have to get out of here. he says the shrinking few do well while the growing group have trouble making it. and it isn't cleverly disguised. he won i get that. ramesh, thank you very much kevin and mark. top golfer complaining that he has a personal tax rate of 62%. because of the tax hike enacted in his home state of california. of course he is right on track. we have the answers next up. would define you as an innovator. to hold more than one patent of this caliber... would define you as a true leader. ♪ to hold over 80,000... well, that would make you... the creators of the 2013 mercedes-benz e-class... quite possibly the most advanced luxury sedan ever. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial servi

this was answering ronald reagan from 32 years ago.vidualistic. president obama answered that today. and he said an old speech writers device. to repeat again and again, we the people, we the people. the first three words of our founding document. he embraces that for a communitarian argument, he said to ronald reagan, we're stronger together. and i thought it was powerful but philosophical. i thought this was obama at his best. >> i saw a lot of tweets from republicans saying this was a call for big government that he didn't reach out enough. >> there was partisanship. it is hard to deny when he directly rebuked the gop by saying we are not a country of takers. by defending big government level of programs, social security, medicare, medicaid. but directly rebuking paul ryan and the 47% comment that got mitt romney in trouble. there may have been high-arching philosophical tones but there were also those tones. >> are you embracing the 47% comment? >> no, no, i wouldn't say, i don't know if it is fair to say it wasn't partisan at all.

reagan had it too. he was an actor. he knew how to do the ceremonial duties of president, whatever you thought of his job performance. >> ladies and gentlemen, i present you with the gold standard. i think we'll agree on this. there he is, the big dog. dana milbank, he has that quality? >> right. it's hard to hear the name bill clinton without immediately thinking "i feel your pain". he is the human empath. that's the standard by which all since have been judged and have failed. >> you mentioned bill clinton in a funny way and a good way. i think of "snl" and him jogging through a mickey d's in a sweatsuit. >> no matter what he did, it was classic bubba. elvis is definitely at the top of the scale. >> i love bush 41. i don't know i can say he had it. but bush 43, we'll put the image up of him working the stump. i think he had those characteristics. joy, would you disagree or agree with that? >> again, "clerks." that's all i'm going to say. he is the regular dude you know even if you don't think he is too compliment. >>