you may remember cindy sheehan who lost her son casey sheehan in the iraq war.s written, quote, the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in iraq is absolute. many observers believe president bush's refusal to meet with cindy sheehan was the beginning of his presidency unraveling. that brings us to patricia smith, the mother of sean smith, who was killed in benghazi. the tragedy of benghazi is not the tragedy of the war in iraq but is her moral authority any less than sheehan's? is her desire for answers about what happened to her son, is that somehow less important? patricia smith joins me now. thanks for being here. >> hello. >> congressman issa started off the hearing by pledging to get to the bottom of what happened in benghazi. >> our goal in this investigation is to get answers because their families deserve answers. they were promised answers at the highest level when their bodies came home. >> mrs. smith did you get the answers you were looking for at this hearing? >> no. >> did you get any answers? >> i got a lot of answers but not the one

secretary of defense sheehan who was asked well how long is this war on terror going to go and he said well it will last he says at least another ten to twenty years and many commentators said well we've already had this twelve years since nine eleven so that they're officially sort of saying that it's probably a thirty years war at least and i think the clash of civilization is very useful for that kind of thinking because it tells you that there is this a long term thing that's unceasing that's very hard to do and it makes it very hard for people to then talk about ways in which some of this can be wound down and part of it is the logic of the war on terrorism is your are constantly attacking people that leads to tremendous amounts of civilian casualties case can be made that in fact you know many more civilians are often being killed than suppose a terrorist and you're belding war and more means all along and so it just keeps keeps it going many people look at the middle east and say they're centuries behind the western world they're so barbaric when you look at countries like egypt

launch military strikes and put boots on the ground in these areas to fight them and the sham michael sheehan is you know he's a top tier d. official he was asked how long do does the white house have this is. already for and he said that probably ten to twenty years oh my goodness ok sam so that's interesting i want to talk about the obama administration have they used to justify drone u.s. do you think well they've used to justify generous and germ use and so is the bush administration i mean if these military strikes against al qaeda associated forces that it falls under the a u.n. math and this is this is a really you know this is where the constitution starts to get stretched a little bit and this is what i asked congressman keith ellison about to what his reaction to a lot of this testimony that came out of your mouth about the about yesterday the senate there's a hearing in the senate yesterday with some dear dear fishel to. give a very broad and somewhat disturbing interpretation of what the gives them something that they can pretty much put troops on the ground from yemen to congo to

. >> perhaps most dear to sheehan , the letters from vietnam soldiers who read his words and echoed his feengs. a humble man, he plans to come here to dulaney valley memorial gardens on monday to pay tribute, just like she always does. he is hoping others will take time out of their day to honor our nation's heroes. >> we have to remember that sacrifice, the pain, the devotion to duty they have given to our nation. weekend yourial day can see that legacy a world war .i veteran uncovered that is all for us at 5:00. here's a look at what is coming at new at 6:00. execute severe thunderstorms approaching maland from the southwest. president obama talked terror and national security. why some are protesting, next. >> a federal audit questioned schoolpending for dinner cruises and catered pta meetings. details knew it 6:00. >> live, local, latebreaking. is 11 news at 6:00 p.m. breaking newsth out of bethesd a man is dead and another critical condition after a parking garage partially collapsed outside the macy's store at montgomery mall. happened just before 2:00 this ternoon. authorities sa

>> who will be talking with general jack sheehan, former four-star general, what is happening in syrian terrorism. who will also be talking with paul wolfowitz about global terrorism and the options in syria as well. talking about the markets today. another record for the s&p. things appear to be getting better, don't they? gerri: i'm jealous. all right. thank you for coming on. always great to see you, and we will be watching. gerri: good to see you. thanks. gerri: now we wanted to bring you the latest developments of stories we have been following. charter school teachers have voted tea in nuys according to a "wall street journal". the united liberal organization runs 13 charter schools and city. 87 percent of its members voted to join the american federation of teachers. 12 percent of the 5,000 charter schools in the country are unionized claiming they want -- there run more efficiently without them. some much for putting the children first. in florida, permanent alimony is staying for now. the governor reached -- vetoing the bill that would have ended the practice. his main issue i

the only possible exception is the pursuit of neal sheehan who nicked the pentagon papers that nixonecute and gave up because it wasn't going to succeed. we've never had a case of seeking of information being accused of a crime. so they set it up as if it's going to be accused of a crime. of course, he hasn't, but it was a way to get and invade the e-mail in a way that you can't, if it's just looking into a journalist. of course, we understand that the administration is a huge supporter of the first amendment and the rights of the press. > >> bret: you're saying a will lf reporters and organizations have put out statements in support of rosen and in support of fox. >> i just think it's incredible that he can stand up there and say that he's a fierce defender of the first amendment which he's said before. as the press secretary of an administration that's spying on reporters, and if he's so offended by this, who has been fired? why are heads not rolling over this? i actually haven't seen the president express real outrage other than giving lip service to it, and i also think that you

there was a case involving phil sheehan, a "new york times" reporter and judy milner 2001 where there was an allegation that they had tipped off an islamist group about a raid and they wanted to know how that happened. they went to the "new york times" and said we need your phone records. they went to court, and they got a court to review that. that whole process was short-circuited here and that's so troubling, the willingness of the administration to throw that all overboard in the zeal to go after this sdpleek what do you think your recourse will be here? >> first, we want information. we want to know what was done. we want an explanation. we would like to know from the justice department what else they got from the a.p. reporters. you know, under the regs they have to disclose if they subpoena telephone records. there is nothing in the regs. these regs were passed after watergate to address a situation that happened then. nothing in the regulations requires the department of justice to disclose if they sought e-mail from the reporters, if they did other sorts of investigating on t

this is the first time, really since richard nixon's administration and the -- neil sheehan of the "new york times," the reporter who published and reported on the elseburg case, the elseburg papers about the united states deep involvement in background on vietnam which the administration then did not want published. it's the first time they've invoked a member of the press, a reporter, as a co coconspirator under the espionage act and this was what was done to jim rose of fox news and the investigation. so there has been an understandable and predictable and very loud and vocal cry on the part of the press that -- i mean, this is more than chilling, it's really punitive. >> woodruff: where is this heading, david? >> they're trying to rewrite the rules but they're handling it very ineptly, i would say. there was testimony from holder that they were not doing prosecuting of peres people at the same time they were at least walking up close to that so there's some problem with the testimony and then they've clearly signaled this week that they're uncomfortable with the rules as they exist

c-span: in another book on this program by william prochnau about neil sheehan and david halberstam and peter arnett, early in the book he says, at some point, this is the first time that john kennedy lied to us about vietnam, and it's right about the same time '62, '63, when all those reporters were over there. when did you think that john kennedy ever lied to us on this? >> guest: no, not at that time, and remember, he was killed before i got home from vietnam. c-span: but you were on your way back, though. >> guest: yeah, i was on my way back. at the end of that year and i never there was no going home halfway through your tour at that point. i was there for a whole year. hadn't seen my family or really heard much coming from home. but mcnamara had said, "we're able to bring some of the advisers home early because we're doing so well." and i was one of those advisers that came home a few weeks early because we were doing so well. and i said to myself, "my god. how could they have the impression that we are doing well? what is it they are seeing that i did not see as a captain here tr

he was is the son of cindy sheehan, she set up the camp outside bush's ranch in texas.ry -- from the neck down. came back to the united states, and, um, he started speaking out against war after he was somewhat rehabilitated. but then he threw a pulmonary embolism a few years ago, and his physical health started to deteriorate. and he is now making a decision -- we sent a camera crew into his house in kansas city with his wife, claudia, because his voice was soft, and we wanted to insure people could hear what he was saying, what he was thinking. and we had phil donahue in our studio in new york. now phil, of course, everyone knows from the phil donahue show, sort of oprah before oprah, and then he had a show on msnbc, right before the invasion and was summarily dumped even though it was the most popular show on msnbc, it was the 8:00 slot in the evening. and we got ahold of the secret nbc memo that essentially said afterwards as we move into war, we're not going to have an anti-war face on a flagship show when the other networks are waving the american flag. i think th

tragically killed at sandy hook wants to become a tool used by the left and the democrat party like cindy sheehanunctions, she's welcome to do this. the reality is this is about politics. >> first of all, i'm going to take a step back. i think you lose the argument the moment you start insulting victims of gun violence and i'm not going to do th >> listen, she jumped into the arena of politics here. >> you know what, i'm not going to engage on that, i think it's inappropriate. 90% of americans supported this background check thing, which means it's not democrat, it's not republican, it's something an overwhelming majority of americans want it. if you want to label it as democrats so you can sleep better at night, go for it, but that's not the case. >> senator ayott supports background checks, i support background checks. >> it's a moderate issue. >> well, and it's been in effect, we've had background checks since the brady bill since 1994. >> not effective. >> let me jump back in. >> e-bay didn't exist at the time of the brady bill. >> we need to update the law, that's the point. >> hang on, hang

bush peered were the protesters, code pink and cindy sheehan.nother -- drone policy, due process of law on u.s. shores. on any foreign battlefield, light them up. patricia on our independent line. caller: hello. out ofling personally personal experience. i would like to say about these drone policy -- we should be very careful about entering our red zones because united states is multicultural. i mean, the same individuals that we are waging war against -- these individuals are brought into this country. and when you start speaking aret drone attacks, you bringing something that could be integrated right here in the united states. just the you have a different political view. i think that we are inviting something that we do not really know all the consequences of. we are going to be entering into socialized medicine, and when you start speaking about attacks, we can graduate from drones to medicine. to actually take a person out using socialized medicine. like we'retacked -- having this controversy with the irs. there are all types of ways to a

republican congressman max thornberry, the vice chair of the house armed services committee, and michael sheehan, assistant secretary of defense for special operations of low intensity conflict. the groups president will moderate the event. they should get underway here in just a moment live here on c-span2. >> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> once again where live in the rayburn house office building on capitol hill. we wait the center for strategic and budgetary assessments report on the future of special operations. it should get underway in just a moment. live a moment. live coverage here on c-span2. >> a couple of administrative announcements. one is, if you haven't checked her cell phone at the door, please silence it so that we don't have the unexpected interruptions. second is during the question and answer period c-span is here today, and what we're going to do is not only take your questions but also repeat it so that the folks were watching at home can understand the question and put it in context so the response. for those of you who do