--sam rayburn. >> "rayburn's opposition faded, and i do not pretend in all honesty to know the reasonsbut i do know that he and johnson had many long discussions on the subject before the path was clear." --bob bartlett. >> was it because of johnson's presidential ambitions? most people i've talked to have said it was because of his friendship to bartlett. >> narrator: perhaps rayburn and johnson could bridge the divide with dixiecrats over alaska, but there was still the question of hawaii. in the past, tying the two together in one bill had always defeated both. >> we decided to let alaska's bill go forward first, and we thought that once we got the alaska bill through, the hawaii bill would pass without any objection. >> narrator: but that strategy required support from hawaii's delegate to congress, john burns. >> "jack burns realizes that hawaii's only chance is to get the alaska statehood bill passed in this session of congress. then with the precedent of having admitted a noncontiguous territory, hawaii's chances would be much better at a future congress." --ernest gruening. >>

you know, i guess sam rayburn had this line, to go along you have to get along. that's what politics used to do. i used to make a point out, the loss the court would experience by not having these type of politicians on it. and in a draft of the book, which the draft was written before the 2008 elections, sort, the 2012 elections, i listed some potential nominees and included politicians as possible nominees, one of whom was, and this was i think relevant, then candidate and potential ted cruz. he had announced for the senate but hadn't been elected. and he got sort of symbolic of what current politicians are like. they don't have this icon dating era, and so i'm less enthusiastic than it used to be about the idea of appointing politicians. i should say, i use an example from the republican side, but the same is true on the democratic side. >> host: you say arise. what you would mention some particular groups that are sort of clamoring to representation on the supreme court. asian-americans or maybe another african-american justice who would be liberal as opposed

>> sam rayburn said to lyndon johnson that he wished all of jfk's wisemen had run for dog catcher and they would understand politics. i think how we do it is important, probably more important than what we do. in some respects, the train has already left the station. israel has retaliated pretty harshly against syria in the past. they just do it and don't wave the flag and take huge amounts of credit. they are confident their message has gotten across and it is a significant deterrent message. i think what we do will play into the response of the retaliation. in terms of the capabilities of our advertiser -- of our advert sherries to -- other adversaries to mentor retaliation, it is there in hexbollah. it would be enormously consequential. should that be a deterrent? i don't think so but that's something we have to bear in mind. the consequences of not doing anything -- that i cannot answer. it gets into the realm of guesswork and we just don't know. i can also tell you all sorts of bad outcomes given the scenario of has the law if we do something. -- of hexbollah if we do we are caug

but go back to the greats in history, sam rayburn, legislation routinely passed with members of bothreally about will speaker boehner man up here and do what he has to do? >> let's talk about what is law already, perry because even if o'the government shuts down obama care is still in effect. it goes into effect a week from tuesday, october 1st. so what is the republican strategy here? >> the republican strategy is to use these two processes, the debt ceiling process later on, the government shutdown process right now. their view is this is the last chance to somehow delay or defund or stop the law. so they're not going to succeed in defunding it. president obama's never going to agree to this. the long-term look is republicans think they can get some kind of delay in some parts of the law. one of their plans is to try to get a one-year delay of the individual mandate, which is the requirement everyone buy insurance. so they want to try to nick at parts of the law through this process. that's what their long-term goal is here over the next month. >> before we switch and talk about fo