tom robinson, a human being. she must put tom robinson away from her. tom robinson was her daily reminder of what she did. what did she do? she tempted a negro. she was white, and she tempted a negro. she did something that in our society is unspeakable. she kissed a black man. not an old uncle but a strong, young, negro man. no code mattered to her before she broke it but it came crashing down on her afterwards. her father saw it and the defendant has testified as to his remarks. what did her father do? we don't know, but there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that mae ella was beaten savagely by someone who was used almost exclusively to his left. we know in part what mr. yule did. he did what any god-fearing, persevering, respectable white man would do in the circumstances. he swore out a warrant. no doubt signing it with his left hand. and tom robinson now sits before you having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses. his right hand. so humble, respectable, quiet negro who had the unmitigated at the merit to feel sore -- temerity

they're willing to go out and try to lynch tom robinson, right? they have taken one of their upstanding citizens, bo radley, and locked him in the attic. he's been there for god knows how many years. has anybody in town done anything about it? no. lock your kids in the attic. that's the kind of town you're dealing with. as we're seeing this through the idse of scout, a child, we have -- through the eyes of scout, a child, we have to dig into it ourselves to see what's going on and once you do you realize that atticus doesn't have a chance. there's nobody to appeal to. he's going to lose. and the moral of "to kill a mockingbird" isn't that atticus finch is a great lawyer or the lawyer that we should follow. the moral of the book and the movie is that the republican lawyer won't work any more. we need a new kind of lawyer. the only way to clean up a town like this is to bring in the federales. you know, everybody's got to go to jail. i mean, these -- you know, if you think about it, who is the real hero of "to kill a mockingbird"? who's the one who

the state has produced not one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime tom robinson is charged with ever took place. it has relied instead on the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence is not only been called into serious question on cross-examination but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. the defendant is not guilty. but somebody in this courtroom is. i have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the state, but my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at risk which is what she has done in an effort to get rid of her guilt. i say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her . she has committed no crime. she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. she is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance but i cannot pity her. she is white. she understood full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking she persisted in breaking it. she persisted,

tom friedman guy, i kind of like him. he's got it going on. a smart guy. >> eugene robinson. >> i'm voting for tom friedman i think. >> there you go. >> and, joe, are you announcing a candidacy now? >> you know what? i'm just sitting here hawking coffee for education. that's all i'm doing. >> there you go. >> let's go back to the debate quickly because we have chuck. i want chuck's final thoughts as well as yours. chuck, obviously it was a romney versus perry battle last night but michele bachmann seemed to come back a little bit, focusing again on rick perry. >> we did. and she did it using social issues. we've been wondering when would some of the social conservative issues pop up and with perry in particular, both -- he was hit from the right. you know, that was the other part of it. last night the crowd played an interesting role in this. they were very raucous in many cases, newt gingrich was very effective for instance playing to the crowd. got a lot of good applause lines. jon huntsman tried. they fell incredibly flat. >> yes. >> jokingly so. the curt cobain reference

tom brokaw. president obama's top economic adviser james sperling, eugene robinson and david remnick. after the break, politico's top story. first, let's go to bill karins with the weekend forecast. bill. >> good morning, everyone. we are getting the pictures in from all the devastation in pennsylvania and new york. the country's latest billion dollar disaster took place yesterday. clean up is going to be massive. thousands and thousands of homes under water. thousands of people evacuated. the river is crested. the damage is done, especially in southern new york. a whole town had three feet through downtown. hopefully people will be back in their houses through the upcoming weekend. as far as what we are dealing with, showers around d.c. and baltimore. not the heavy torrential rains like yesterday. three tropical systems, hurricane katia is going to push away from new england today. nate and maria to worry about. nate looks like it's going to be mexico's problem. the storm i'm worried about that we have to watch for the southeast united states is tropical storm maria. this is forecast