>> rosa brooks has written about this.alled no girls allowed, and why the obama administration needs hormone therapy. rosa brooks is a national security law professor at georgetown. she spent two years working for michelle flournoy at the pentagon. great to see you. thanks for your time. >> glad to be here, rachel. >> in terms of the raw numbers, the obama administration is roughly equivalent to the clinton administration in terms of female appointees. it is doing better than the bush administration. but you feel like they're worthy of some criticism on this subject? >> oh, i hold president obama to a pretty high standard. i would like to think after the eight years of the bush administration, we could do a little better than the clinton administration, not just go back to the clinton administration. although i have to say, if i were valerie jarrett and i were about to go off the fiscal cliff, i would hide behind jay carney too. >> on the issue of michelle flournoy, you're not totally objecting on this. she is highly regar

i hope it will, but i don't expect it. >> rosa brooks, nice to see you, thank you for joining us. >> thanks, rachel. >>> up next, we have an exclusive on something going on in alaska that has rather captured our imaginations around here. hold on, that is coming up. [ female announcer ] going to sleep may be easy, but when you wake up in the middle of the night it can be frustrating. it's hard to turn off and go back to sleep. intermezzo is the first and only prescription sleep aid approved for use as needed in the middle of the night when you can't get back to sleep. it's an effective sleep medicine you don't take before bedtime. take it in bed only when you need it and have at least four hours left for sleep. do not take intermezzo if you have had an allergic reaction to drugs containing zolpidem, such as ambien. allergic reactions such as shortness of breath or swelling of your tongue or throat may occur and may be fatal. intermezzo should not be taken if you have taken another sleep medicine at bedtime or in the middle of the night or drank alcohol that day. do not drive or operat

rosa brooks hasn't just talked about diversity and representativeness in the cabinet.as also talked about deeper problems with president obama's national security team and his national security approach. i wonder if this is emblematic of a deeper problem. >> now that there's a scrutiny and you know, i understand roland's point about the cabinet overall, but defense secretary and epa chief are two very different things in the public eye in terms of the attention that they get, the authority that they have. at this point, would a woman want to be nominated? if the president comes out for the next thing and nominates a woman, is she going to feel whether it's true or not, everyone will think she's just getting it because she's a woman? >> it's possible but i think it wouldn't be true. i think there are fantastic women out there. i think that they know that they're good and they are good. there would be plenty of people who would rise to their defense. i think that that earlier point is a really important one. this isn't just about being nice to women or something. there's

"outfront" tonight, rosa brooks, a columnist for foreign policy and has worked in the pentagon underhe obama administration and david frum, former speech writer for george w. bush and critter for us. right now, 40% of active duty are women. this could be hundreds of thousand of jobs suddenly would be open to women. am i right in saying this is hublgly significant? >> it's absolutely enormous. the one thing i would say though, the it's not that we don't have women in combat positions. we have women who are ineligible under the former policy, but there really isn't any front line in today's wars. fighting heroically in combat, women who have died in combat. this change just recognizes what's already a reality, frankly. >> david, please be blunt. i know what you have to say is, might offend some people, but this is important. why do you think women in combat is not a good idea? >> i think we need to stress, this is quite an abstract notion. the number of women who will speak and equally is likely to be quite low, but of those who do, i think there are three concerns. the first, the firs

"outfront" tonight, charles blow and former pentagon official, rosa brooks.harles, let me start on this first hilda solis resigning. there's always a lot of turnover. there's one fewer woman in the cabinet. was very interesting that the white house then announced that a woman, an african-american and an asian were staying. so clearly this conversation is is being registered there. >> absolutely. i think that you would like to see as much diversity as possible. gender diversity, racial diversity, whatever else kind of diversity, in any cabinet, this one included. that said though, i think that you know, it's important to understand the entire context of what "the new york times" said in that story. one thing they said was that 46% of obama's appointees have been women and that's a very important issue. half of the people who work in the white house have been women. and that you know, he has had two big appointments, you know, the biggest thing a president can do is to nominate a supreme court justice. obama's had two shots. >> fair point. >> both have been wom

national security network, and former pentagon official and current foreign policy magazine columnist, rosa brookss good to have you here with us. michelle, who i believe you worked with at the pentagon, tell me why i have it wrong or at least why you worry that hagel wouldn't be the right pick for this position. >> i don't know i would say ezra that hagel is the wrong pick, i just don't think he is the best pick. i think there are others around there who would have many of the upsides that hagel has, without the down sides that hagel has. if mitt romney had won and chosen him, i would have applauded him as real courage. chuck hagel has a lot going for him. he is a brave guy, a principled guy. there is a lot to like about him. he is also a republican, and the democratic party has worked really, really hard over past decades to erase the deficit, in which voters consistently said they trusted republicans more than democrats on national security. democrats have worked really hard to erase that gap, but picking chuck hagel seems to me to be sending a message i can't figure out president obama wants t

eric, former obama administration official rosa brooks, and our legal analyst, paul cowin. who has 2016 ambitions who is stepping out in the gun law fray. louisiana republican governor bobby jindal wants a law to keep guns away from the mentally ill. how much is this push really about positioning for 2016? >> i think some of it definitely is about 2016. some of it is they want to be doing something. they hope if they're seen as doing something now, by 2016, the particulars may be forgotten, particularly by gun rights advocates and a lot in the democratic party as well as the republican party. they'll look at them as doing something. i don't think we should downplay that a lot of democrats for a long time have wanted to do something about guns. with the incident in sandy hook and this past summer's incident in colorado, they feel they have momentum on their side. >> house minority leader anthony o'donnell is from the eastern shore of the state. that's where i grew up. there are a lot of people there who are passionate about their guns. i was there this weekend and i never he