usually. >> brown: ron charles of t "washington post" book world.nks so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: vast crowds of north koreans turned out in the cold and snow of pyongyang for the funeral procession of kim jong-il. the u.s. military warned iran against trying to choke off oil traffic from the persian gulf. iran has threatened to make that move if there's an oil embargo over its nuclear program. and stocks slumped on new and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the "newshour" online. hari? >> sreenivasan: all this week, our political team is covering the lead-up to the iowa caucuses in "the morning line." find a link to sign up for our daily emails on our politics page. we also have more from fred de sam lazaro on local and global efforts to fight wheat rust. that's on our "world" page. on "art beat," we talk to the man behind the lovable red monster, elmo-- master puppeteer kevin clash-- about a new documentary on his life and work. all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill:

also there, jeff recaps the year in fiction with "washington post" book critic ron charles.s with the former mayor of tampa about her book urging the political middle to re- engage. that's on the rundown. and there's more on morocco including ray's reporter's notebook and a pair of slideshows. all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at stores catering this holiday season to high and low end shoppers, but less to those in the middle. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

also there, jeff recaps the year in fiction with "washington post" book critic ron charles.s with the former mayor of tampa about her book urging the political middle to re- engage. that's on the rundown. and there's more on morocco including ray's reporter's notebook and a pair of slideshows. all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at stores catering this holiday season to high and low end shoppers, but less to those in the middle. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

. -- there is a look, a lull in the rain, there is ron on north charles street. it is not raining. >> how you doing? >> we are doing well, how about you? >> the movie diner, baltimore's own, 30 years young! a screening here, on saturday, the campus, the diner guys, more on the real guys, that and the guys that will be there. >>> it will be union amazing celebration. when this came out in 1981, no one knew anybody in cast. >> it was everybody's first film. you look at what came from the film, not just the films, this and tim daily, the producer and director, the idea of making a movie about adolescents trying to find out more about growing up, think about where seinfeld came from. it came from the movie. >> if you have not seen diner, it is not just a baltimore classic, it is a well-acted movie with young men trying to find their way. >> and more on the move in the community, about the whole four movies about growing up in baltimore, in the light year, how lucky is the city to have a biographer like this. you don't think about that like this, but he is a biographe

gingrich or romney as the nominee should paul consider running for a third party ticket for charles said ron paul should still run in a third party take it any attempt at real change is worth a shot jim davis added ron paul should run republican or democrat or even third party we can't keep kicking the can down the road for more years hoping that one of the parties will finally get it and i get on with and foreign policy alex said it would definitely be taking votes from the g.o.p. nominee and may even have a shot at winning but not everyone agrees jeffrey told us third party candidates are never successful and ron paul will not be any more successful regardless of his party has ever said i don't think ron paul can beat obama and he is still part of the same political machine as the others so we saw opinions in both directions from our viewers and up until now ron paul has said he doesn't think a third party ticket is the way to go but we'll just have to wait to see what happens when the primaries get underway. now as always we appreciate your responses and here's our next question for you o

. >> thank you so much, charles, ron, gentlemen. it's good to see you bright and early. >>> we have breaking news to tell you about. a hot button issue in this presidential campaign, which is immigration. the supreme court has just agreed to hear the controversy over arizona's tough new laws to curb illegal immigration. it will affect a lot of enforcement plans in other states, and we'll get a lot more from pete williams coming up a bit later in this hour. >>> in the meanwhile president obama and speaker boehner agree that they both want the payroll tax cuts to continue, but the battle lines are drawn over how to do it. "the washington post" ezra kline will join me to talk about what it means for 160 million americans whose paychecks hang in the balance. >>> busy day at the white house for the president as he welcomes iraqi prime minister al maliki for extended talks about u.s. troop withdrawal and the future of our relationship with iraq. they will hold a press conference in little over an hour. we will have that for you live. >>>

split, that maybe romney is doing better, but i would still say that ron paul wins by at least a small amount. >> across the board, charles, people acknowledge that he has what he takes, people on the ground. is that enough come caucus day next u.s.? >> from what the polls are telling us it's ron paul and romney in the lead with gingrich fading a bit in iowa under the barrage of negative ads. the question is, can ron paul add to his base? i think the revelations about the newsletters will not affect his base. his base probably knows about it and doesn't care one way or another. it's a question of whether can town hall expand the base in the final days to overtake romney. there it might have an evening. the reason is if you're an undecided voter, you're looking at this, it's one thing to believe he didn't write what ended up under his name, it's another to believe that he didn't read it, what was in his own newsletter, which implies either that he's not telling the truth, or if he is that he was running his own enterprise in a way that way that doesn't reflect well on someone that wants to run the united states of america.

ron paul ad. go interesting messages there. charles? >> notice who perry is attacking. attacking gingrich.aul ad but he has had the single most devastating ad of all. one called serial hypocrisy. perry every 60 seconds. >> bret: sioux city, we saw it nonstop. >> negative newt ad, onslaught unseen in a long time. newt provided material. there is money used to accentuate the negative. checkered history ideologically. if you look at how this is affecting gingrich he is in the decline. in the two national polls they have gingrich and romney tight at the top. ron paul with half of that. we have perry and bachmann with half of that. then santorum and huntsman at half of that. all of those tears are viz -- all the tiers are visible. you know paul will do well in iowa. will anybody emerge in third tier? the bachmann and perry, possibly santorum. it's likely as a.b. said the vote will be so split. if newt doesn't win he is the loser objectively speaking. >> bret: quickly, steve. this is not a quick question, unfortunately. you have written about all the talk about a brokered convention and the fact

charles. first of all, iran, that's front and center, israel, i mean basically is ron paul too isolationist inamental positions to end up as the republican uñnominee? >> well, shaping up as a real problem. in many ways the party has grown closer to ron paul and ron paul has run more mainstream marked by campaign atd ads and robust ground ç5uá the one sticking point when you talk to voters in iowa is the discomfort or unease over the foreign policy positions, whether talking about iran or iraq or 9/11 or various sorts of national security positions and that right now is a big stumbling block for him in iowa. and certainly it's going to be a bigger stumbling block going forward out of iowa. >> and in fact, if he gets through iowa and then has traction perhaps his libertarian policies or his budget policies in new hampshire, he hits south carolina, a strong military state. a lot of veterans and military installations, that's going to be a problem for him. >> that's a great point, iowa and sk sg are different in many ways. one important difference is that iowa is a historically dubbish state and

charles raises this. >> and year end we had a democratic senator, by joining ron paul and paul ryan, in a reworked medicare, that was bipartisan, by very definition, so, maybe paul ryan gets the ultimate revenge and the strategy, i think, adam is right, it won't be resolved next year, but a bipartisan approach to recognize the fact that medicare as it's going down, can't, can't keep going as it's going. >> one of the ironies about how the way this tax cut thing played out. they do want bipartisanship and maybe people are getting it wrong and won't be how negative ads can get and getting things right. >> in could be one of them. >> next year is going to be brutally negative and this president has to go massively negative to spin how lousy job he's done on the economy and it's going to be, now what? bring it on and i'll tell the republicans this, don't show up to a gun battle with a knife. af got to play ball. >> this president is more savvy than anybody standing on the platform with social media and that hard gorilla marketing and that's where he's going to win again. >> and adam, here is where i think the

we're going to get some instant reaction from ron williams with the hill and syndicated columnist charlesrauthammer. your thoughts on this debate. >> very interesting debate. it had the ritdz images of the whole campaign. romney was very steady. he resisted all attacks and on the right wing social engineering. didn't attack gingrich. gingrich at times very strong, at times very weak. very strong attacking judges and attacking obama on we stone but very weak on freddie mac $1.6 million. who did the attacking, bachmann. strong attacks on gingrich as opposed to others. she went right after this them. strong attack on him at the end upon late term abortion. then there was interesting ron paul who i thought was impressive in resisting the mob on judges, but then he did a lot on nukes he was off the rails. i thought it had all the elements we have seen in this campaign, romney, neutral. gingrich, up and down. bachmann, strong. reasserting herself and paul wacky and yet impressive at times. >>> ron, your thoughts. >> if you make a judgment right now. you would say we are down to a three-man fiel

charles is right. it does make it more likely that it happened in the future. that's why ronpaul and dan burton have a point. you are talking about saving people from their own bad behavior in many respects. this is exactly the kind of precedent that was set i think in the financial crisis in 2008. where you have the government and takes such a large role. now this is the expectation. i think you have that, whether it's in the united states, you've got states like california or illinois that are at some point likely to be come and ask for federal bail-out or in europe where you have the countries seeing what happened in greece. italy and spain. saying we need to be next. >> bret:s this for the politics of this, is this a powerful political campaign, neap the g.o.p. campaign, the audit of the fed? and all of the action that the fed is doing, this comes out to the foi request where $7 trillion of loans was the number that went to u.s. banks in the collapse of 2008. >> yeah, well, that has become a potent issue this time around. the fed. ron paul started this a while back. now s

ron paul is now sliding to some extent. based on the newsletter story. >> real quickly. we have a minute left. mitt romney leaving in all -- leading in all the polls. charles points out some well within the margin of error. but the tell as they say in poker is his campaign announced he is going to spend caucus night not in new hampshire but iowa. he thinks he will have a gad night. >> i think so. if you listen to what he is talking about, the way the campaign is talking makes you think they have internal polls that are telling them that they are going to win. because you -- a good campaign doesn't go out and basically say we're going to do really well unless they are expecting essentially to win. i don't think at this point coming in second to paul the way they are talking is going to meet expectations they're setting. >> slow. this is a slow and cautious romney putting a lot of chips on the table. he will have to do this. he has a sense he will do really well. >> interesting enough, on saturday -- it's friday night, flying to new hampshire, doing two events and coming back the next day. >> he is risking a lot here. but i think if he thinks it will be a su

ron, train garden and automobile body shop, take it away, brother. >> i got so many e-mails about the train garden and guess what, all of them were right. charles this altogether. how are you doing? >> good. how are you? >> great. the 14th year, how did this start. >> in the front window with 2 1/2 sheets of plywood and it grew from there and it got crazy. crazy, crazy, crazy. >> the detail is amazing. >> it will take about a month to do once i get into it and it will lead to other things. >> you have the channel 13 van there. >> you and mini me and you and we are doing the speaker view in there. >> unbelievable. you have a great job and a lot of children come through. >> we have trains at the lower level and the cars to movies and the slot car races and they love it. >> i have to talk to chuck over here. that is chuck, you did the channel 13 candle tower. what is that made of? >> flowers, it is a kit. you bit it -- build from a kit. it is great. the sky-scrapers, i have never seen a train garden with scry scrapers. >> we will give you more on this. let's move over here. henry, come over here. >> that is great! (laughs). >> the ravens are playi

charles krauthammer, fox news resident wise man. >> imagine if you had had a race with mitch daniels, with a ron -- with a paul ryan, christie, jindald others, senator bethune. we would have had a completely different complexion. and i think with some of the sort of embarrassing candidates like cain and others along the way, it has made the president, who is by -- by who he is presidential look better. >> joining me now from iowa, aol "huffington post" editorial director and political analyst howard fineman. also from iowa, national fairs editor for new york magazine and msnbc political analyst, john heilemann. thank you both for joining me tonight. >> good evening, lawrence. >> howard, you 2003ed on this issue of the santorum surge. you tweeted in des moines romney circle says it's okay if santorum surges a little. they'd rather have him as the cultural right foe than newt ori >> yes. well, i suppose maybe they should be careful what they wish for. >> yeah. >> but their reasoning was was this. their reasoning was this, that south carolina's the place where mitt romney's almost certainly going to lose. that's the third leg of the tr

ron paul building on his base. >> thank you. >>> 34 minutes past the hour. charlesrning with another check of headlines. good morning. >> good morning. north koreans mourning the death of kim jong-il. he died of a heart attack on saturday at the age of 69. this raises concerns about the future of north korean. his son is expected to take over as >>> comi >>> coming up we look at the tough campaign ads in the gop presidential race. >> and the top political ad man if the ads work. what makes for a good political ad what impact is this current crop having on the campaign? that's ahead, you're watching "the early show" on cbs. ly show" on cbs. (greenery) hey cheese log. (cheese log) hello centerpiece. (greenery) fruit cake. how are ya? [fruit cake] dry. (greenery) who's the new guy? edible arrangements bouquets beautiful like flowers but unforgettably delicious visit, call, or go to ediblearrangements.com jiggle bells, jiggle bells, jiggle all the way, oh how i wish i could resist jiggling this holiday. oh joy oh natural joy! truvia®, box of bliss zero calorie sweetness

ron paul what his take is on the news. scare mongering going on. this is scary stuff. high-level connections between iran and the leading terrorist group. >> bret: charlesis a big deal, and part of the way you see it is the price on his head is second highest in the world. only one with a higher price is al-zawahiri, the new head of al-qaeda. he is with the same rank. in terms of his prices. omar, head of the taliban. so it tells you this is no minor official. it is one of the rare admissions by any u.s. administration of the direct link. again, it explodes the myth because al-qaeda is sunni and iran is shiite, can't have an alliance, which is almost article of faith on the left. in fact, it has been proven untrue for years because it's the principle supporters of hamas. islamicjy had in gaza are sunni. it's willing to make alliances like hitler and stallen when it suits political purposes. this is important because it links iran directly with the killing of americans in afghanistan. and secondly, it tells you that if it has a link with al-qaeda, and it becomes a nuclear state, that endangers the whole world. >> bret: we will follow this closely. we hav

charles j. he was on the ballot in three states was a certified write in several more and i believe he was actually more libertarian than the libertarian party nominee bob barr and beyond ron paul from your perspective what do you make of the presidential campaign so far well. this is just my opinion the only other good to be candid it within the two major parties is dorsey richardson and he's opposing barack obama in the democratic party primaries. thank you so much for weighing in on this that was the chair of the boston tea party darrell perry. just to have the nato and u.s. mission in libya is over but the country is facing lots of changes and struggling to determine who's really in charge party is on the ground in libya when we come back. to the. people calling what you said for free and fair elections. again we're still reporting from the. as you can hear behind me loud explosions. i don't. know you got it. thank you there's always the red you know. what the test the body seems to know. that never pepper sprayed the face of the argument that they're being overly dramatic. to the company like now because i'm lauren lyster. well libya is heading heading into two thousa

ron paul. you can see that romney is the strongest candidate there. i am joined by msnbc contributor and pulitzer prize winning journalist chris hunter, and charles blow. and you have a president with approval rating up to 46%, but he beats every candidate head-to-head, and karen, what is going en? >> we like an episode of "big brother" and expect the unexpected, because i don't understand what is going on to be honest with you, but the president has helped himself in many ways. first of all the unemployment rate went down slightly and we can argue the numbers, and he has been out on the campaign trail trumpeting the message and on "60 minutes" and leading into this and coupled with the fact that the the republicans as we shown have a horrible field of candidates, it is looking good for president obama. >> well, the democrats believe that the longer the primary fight goes on the better for them. and let the republicans beat each other up, and in the meantime, we will build our organization in the primary states. are they right? >> well, long primaries are always good for other guy, but what is really kind of interesting that is happening now is that t

charles krauthammer. welcome. we have a new poll today from cnn/times looking at what is going on in iowa. they put romney at top. 25%. followed close by by ron2%. a lot of people say that rick santorum is 16%, how big is that for him days out? >> it could be significant. the different in the way the poll is conducted with this poll is they didn't include democrat and independents which would mean that rick santorum and mitt romney would do better because they have stronger support from republican and do less well from democrat and independents who can show up and become republicans that night. having said that, this is big news for rick santorum. there has always been a question of who will emerge from that bottom three. when i was in iowa, we talked about it here on "special report" several times talking to voters, the number of them who offered rick santorum as someone they identify with and agree with on issues and they like personally and they can support. the number of voters who i talk to, who made the case was tremendous. the one thing holding them back repeatedly is the question of whether or not he can win. is he electable? can he w