carlos watkins, stephanie miller and michael medved.at police department. a pretty gross mistake. did the president have to go down the road last night? >> i think he did. he got a direct question from lynn sweet. the white house expected the question. i think the president spent a lot of time on this individussu individual and state legislator. i read what james crowley said before. i understand for five years he taught some diversity training. when i heard the radio thing, i was sad. i don't know how else to say it. i wasn't angry or frustrated. the whole notion of never an apology from me, now he says if you truly understand the story as i did, you would understand how i feel. but i have to know skip gates, a guy in his 60s, mid of of the dale -- >> why didn't he defuse the situation, no comment right now, but for him to say what he did i found rather amazing. michael, you pointed out earlier it was president obama's strongest response on the night, but he did personalize it, and i think that connected with a lot of people in america

stephanie miller is with us, syndicated radio talk show host from los angeles. sam stein, political reporter for "the huffington post." michael medved is here, nationally syndicated radio talk show host. sam, what do you make of the president stepping out at 3:15 p.m., trying to set the tone for the weekend? winning, losing, what do you think? >> that was remarkable, ed. never have i seen the testimony of an obscure cbo official about incomplete health care legislation cause so much commotion. we're talking about judging a product in the fifth inis. clearly there's political ramifications. the president thought he was losing the debate, he wanted to calm nerves. sort of reminiscent of the campaign, people getting nervous about him not getting aggressive enough, tloelg them a bone saying, calm down, we've got a ways to go. i think the white house feels they have this thing in hand. they're going to get health care legislation, it depends what the final product will look like. >> michael medved, i want to ask you about this most recent news that the house intellig

radio talk show host lionel, and also stephanie miller, who is known in the industry as naming sarah palin as caribou barbie. now, stephanie, you know, she could get it done for one day, couldn't she? but the question is could she get it done for one week? two weeks is it a month? what do you think? >> i can't think of a more soothing voice to listen to for about three hours. i think she should take your offer. i think you could cut a hole in the ice for ice fishing. where you fish up in minnesota, north dakota, i think that could come in handy, is all i'm thinking. >> lionel, where are we on this? >> well, we're here, ed, but more importantly i can't believe the disdain you have for your legions of fans. that's like a pilot say, i'm going to take off, you in aisle 3, come up and fly the plane? you see the you betcha, you know where that comes from? shooting caribou for years. it stuck. i would love to see her try the first 20 minutes. she would have to have call screening that would making getting a tarpload like a walk in the park. people like me would call up and destroy her. witho

with us are tom walsh of the "detroit free press," radio talk show host, stephanie miller, elan from "the washington post," and julie bryant fisher from the atlanta business chronicle. elan, you cover business for "the washington post." what's going on in that sector? >> i think we really saw a case where numbers can really be acciden deceptive. the commerce department said that retail sales were up, but most of that came from gas prices and gas prices being higher is not a good thing for shoppers at all. the consumers are still feeling pretty stressed right now. >> still feeling pretty stressed. let's go to detroit, where tom watches the auto industry. tom, latest jobless claims numbers. actually, they're saying helped buy car plants opening earlier than usual because gm and chrysler emerged rapidly from chapter 11 and new car production, they say it's expected to add 0.7% to gdp in the second half. are you feeling any of that hope yet? >> well, we're feeling hope, we're not feeling much retail support yet. it's -- you still got 15% unemployment here. >> 15% unemployment, yeah. and