richard harris is still with us. how much a distraction is the u.s. presidential election, richard? >> well, the u.s. presidential election is always a distraction. but actually, probably quite a welcome one because we are talking certainly last year about confidence in the economy. if you've got a distraction like this that takes away some of the worry about the economy, i think that's important. we're seeing quite a bit of good news coming out from the economy, but as you saw with the announcement there, patches on the u.s. economy are weak still. but it's the old adage that if 80% of the people feel okay, 20% of the people are in trouble, then confidence is usually fine. it's been confidence that's hit by the 80%. so i think the president election will probably mean that confidence and sentiment will stay reasonably comfortable in the u.s. this year. >> yeah. and do you think that the uk economy is going to perform better than many were predicting at the beginning of the year? and there is this projection that that gdp number was weaker than many think. dare i say as we head towa

academics who are in the ivy leagues and great graduate collars all supported almost to a man, richard hot stet ler, harry kulling aer, i mean, these are seminal figures in the historical profession. they couldn't get a life. every time they worked and worked and worked there was never a prayer for adly stevenson to defeat dwight eisenhower. the first time in 52 stevenson lost by 3.5 million votes. the second time he only lost by 9.7 million votes. it when these they taught grat watt system fares. when a brat was and nixon was, and it became the stuff of the rightings, and their graduate stings and it's lattsted until now. there's a biography coming out, a man who is a journalist did an enormous amount of research. he went to dartmouth and went to the library of congress, spent considerable time in abilene. he lives in los angeles and never came to the nixon lean raer. that's the lock and the short of it. it's an ingrained nature among a certain subset of very, very influential people that looked at nixon from the beginning of his vice presidency and for that matter dwight eisenhower was a twit in the boo

super pacs and i want to ask you a question here in a second richard but first i want to play this i want to play this out here this was from harry truman in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight at the democratic national convention so you can play that the reason is that i'm a credit card is that people's party and their party is the party has ended and then. before you respond to the. republican party the party of special interest now the reason why special interests are special is because they have a lot of money and i would argue that citizens united has allowed these special interests to spend a lot of that money now president obama just came out and he said that he's going to adopt this super pac plan he's got is going to he's going to tell his supporters to not just donate to his campaign but to donate to priorities usa super pac is that the right decision or is is he going to be playing a game with special interest that alternately democrats are going to lose in the end they don't have the money that that you know the big donors are willing to spend but you know i think that there's a very interesting question i think i

. >> harry smith talks about his encounters with richard nixon and you will not want to miss his uniqueake. >>> plus. ♪ >> nice. the first lady doing the robot. you're going to see what inspired mrs. obama to get on stage with dozens of kids. >>> good morning, everyone! welcome to "weekends with alex witt." the maine caucuses and stories unfolding at this hour. this morning, both mitt romney and ron paul spoke at the same caucus site an hour apart and report today suggests a very tight race between those two candidates. romney held a town hall in portland last night and faced a number of hucklers. >> do you think it's patriotic of you to stash your money away in the caiman islands? >> that's okay. that's a good question. come on. i got to take some shots now and then or it won't be interesting. >> let's go to nbc's ron allen who is live for us in portland, maine. a good saturday morning to you. how important of a day is it for romney today, ron? >> reporter: it's a really, really important day. it was a day that romney was going to take off and have some down time but he has two events

many people have read all of harry jeff's oral histories and by the way the papers are posted in drew university in madison, new jersey. there's a cassette in 1960 with richard nixon. this is the stuff that historians, just love to see, but for whatever reason, many of my colleagues don't do the work and they've got to do the work. if they're going to be credible and if they're going to be acce acceptable, then the entire panorama has got to be what's examined and let the chips fall where they may. >> i know others of you have questions. this session is ending and i invite you to bring those questions to the panelists and we'll be circulating. and you have a session on politics. >> please thank the panelists. [ applause ] . . >> good job, thank you. thank you so much. good job you were both fabulous. thank you so much. >> please, please. please, please. >> you're watching american history tv. 48 hours of people and events that help document the american story, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. hosted by our time warner cable partner, american history tv recently visited beaumont, texas to explore the history and lit rary culture where texas got its star

harry jeffrey who did a marvelous series of about 212 interviews. but the one question that you had is when will an early life be done. and the problem of an early life of richard nixon has nothing to do with the fascination. it has to do with the state of publishing in the united states today. and it's very, very hard to get someone, especially in commercial press, to do the early life of richard nixon. >> i should say, i went, like a lot of my things i started, finish the thought, i had urged the president to consider writing a book partly because we had written a lot of it already about his early life. and he said to go and see, which was a memorable event for me, he said go see his publisher who was michael corda at simon & schuster. so that was an adventure for me. he said pretty much the same thing. and this was 25, 30 years ago. and in the wake of the success of the memoirs, that it's just -- it's not -- and even i was, again, as i say, i was suggesting it in terms of the carter books which were commercial successes. but it's a tough -- it's a tough sell. i still think it's worth doing. and the other thing is that the early life and the jeffries collecti

harris' murder. >>> just 30 minutes ago right here on 9news now, metro's general manager responded to some questions from transit passengers. richard sarles says station escalators weren't maintained according to system standards. he told our monika samtani the upcoming rate hikes will lead to better service and better equipment. >> rush plus goes into effect in july which is more rush hour service on most of our rail lines. that's a good thing. we're buying new buses to replace the oldest buses in the fleet. on the metro access vehicles, we're buying over 200 new vehicles. those are some of the things people will be seeing. >> you can watch monika's entire better view with metro's m&m richard sarles on -- metro's g.m. richard sarles on wusa9.com. >>> the super bowl ad featuring clint eastwood was a huge hit but were they trying to sell more than cars? >> that's a hot topic. erica hill is joining us live from new york. before we get started on that, i have to say congratulations on your giants. they played very well and deserved it. >> reporter: well, that's very kind and generous of you, mike. you know, it was a good game. your pa

harris falkner. for the headlines when you want them, go to knocks -- foxnews.com. >> we are back with james robison and dr. jay richards book called "indivisible." i want to talk about the fact historically when they have been great moments in which america has sort of gotten back on track from slipping away, one of the things that you come forthwith is that it's not usually a political movement, its a spiritual movement from brings america back around. tell me what you mean by a spiritual movement awakening and how does that happen? >> look at the history of the western consult -- cultural. the second great awakening is us abandoning slavery and huge social reform in the united states. we think culture and religious and faith are prior to politics. politics is a function of that but if we just look for political solutions it will at best be superficial. >> should christians only vote for avis tan in office or does it matter about the faith of the individual who is running as it does about the faith of the people of the person who is running. >> we need people to become inform and involved because half of the catholics

harris's credit card. >> a montgomery county teacher and coach is on administrative leave after police arrested him for having sex with a teenager on the track team. scott spear was echoed at a richard montgomery high school and was a teacher at julius west middle school. shocked students and parents. jummy olabanji has reaction. >> that's right. police say that the student that he allegedly had sex with was one of the students at the middle school. then she was a student at richard montgomery many also coached her on the track team. a lot of students and parents tell us he was very well-liked and they don't understand why this happened. montgomery county police say the 47-year-old scott spear was arrested early thursday morning at julius west middle school. he was a teacher there and was a well-known coach at richard montgomery high school where for several years he coached boys' varsity basketball team and cross country team. he was popular. everybody liked him. >> the form of an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old girl on the track team last spring and eventually had sex with her two straight night and a home in rockville. >> i was shocked because he is nice and cool. >

melissa harris perry is a wonderful colleague and starting her new show next week after us. finally, richarding of the week? >> we know i'm just a little bit of american pride from jeremy lin. beyond that seriously a year after the fukushima nuclear disaster, the first nuclear power plant is going to be built and loans guaranteeing this was provided by the department of energy and that ten activist groups are going to court to stop the building of these n nuclear plants. >> richard kim, thanks so much. my thanks to john and rebecca and michaela and richard for joining us this morning. richard kim is the executive editor of thenation.com." thank you for joining us today. coming up next is weekends with alex witt. join us tomorrow when i will have john sarbanes and jared bernstein as guests. thank you for getting up. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. some aerosols may just mix with them. can febreze remove it. [ moderat