i've been asked to ask you this: you wrote about elizabeth hurley and steve bing, you wrote about their private life. if, as you say, in the tabloids have become overzealous about reporting, why did you yourself write articles about these celebrities? >> because i've been writing, um, since the 1990s about, um, the mistake i think that celebrities make of putting too much of their private life in the public domain. and, of course, i didn't want go and doorstep them. i didn't want ask them about their private life. they had put that in the public domain. and if you read the article, what i'm saying in it is that this is a very dangerous thing to do. i mean, i said the same thing about the late britain ice diana -- princess diana. people think they can put their private life in the public domain and still control what's said about them. and what worries me is that given the underlying certainty of the tabloids, at the time elizabeth hurley was pregnant, and i thought they was? a -- she was in a very vulnerable state, i thought it was actually quite a dangerous track that she was on. and i

for our christmas special it would have been a great segment to have bing crosby, andy williams, all those specials, king family. >> stevet afford it because we need the rights for it. >> gretchen: andy williams is still down in branson. >> steve: we just saw the christmas trees in front of our world headquarters here at 48th and 6th avenue and tonight here in rockefeller center, they'll be lighting the big christmas tree. we were talking about how up in the state house of rhode island, they don't have a christmas tree. they got a holiday tree. over the last couple of years, we've noticed a lot of companies haven't been saying merry christmas. they've been going happy holidays, and there has been some push back and the good news is now some retailers are going back to using the word christmas again. >> gretchen: it's about time. let's see, walgreen's, kohl's, best buy, cvs, target. >> brian: they're actually saying christmas? >> gretchen: they are. >> gretchen: martha stewart logo. yeah. you got to wonder if it's having some sort of an effect, if you speak up, does it have an effect? i don't know. >> steve: well, there h

binge like we've never seen before. we were trying to get that spending under control, but the democrats were insistent h to have a trillion dollars tax increase. >> stevean that dick durbin briefly said was a breakthrough. where did the wheels come off? was he then muzzled? >> i think there was some initial interest in the plan that i offered which was to say if you absolutely have to come up with revenue, the way to do it is by reforming our tax code, simplify it, lower marginal rates, get rid of some of the loopholes and specifically explicitly avoid the big tax increase that's coming in 14 months. for that you shouldn't have to pay a price, but if we did, we'd be willing to. and the democrats just said no, not if it's not a trillion dollars. >> gretchen: so yesterday on the show senator john kerry was here and this is before you decided that this thing would end in defeat. right here on this show, he offered a new deal to you. listen to this. >> we will take senator toomey's $350 billion. we will accept that amount of money. we will do it slightly differently, but through deductions. we'll accept his methodology of deductions, and then we will do a