and i was struck by the fact that in anything trent lott and bob kerrey, joe lieberman and the others and analyzing the voting records in "national journal" that there we see today in 2012 dramatically more polarization than existed in your time in the senate. in fact, and evidence, blockbuster "new york times" magazine piece about why he was leaving the united states senate, how frustrated he was. [inaudible] >> by the way, "vanity fair" has a new article in this months edition on just that topic, how much more polarized things are. >> it was certainly, certainly appear to be that way. but we do one other thing in a bipartisan way in the state. to redistrict our congressional boundaries. and so we do not have things making 200 miles through the state. we do not have, you know, republicans gerrymandered ohio. the democrats have gerrymandered illinois. the republicans have gerrymandered north carolina. but we have a two to one system. two people from each party, and a fifth person to break the tie. what do we know -- no, we do not have a tiebreaker. and that's the genius of our system.

well, let's hear what trent lott, who had voted with the president on the house judiciary committee, what he -- how he reacts to the transcript of the conversation we were just listening to, what became known as the smoking gun conversation. >> i remember, i got a call, i'll never forget now from a mr. falipian who was working at the white house. and i was in destine, florida, on vacation with my family. he said, there's something i think you should read. i think he maybe described it as the smoking gun. so i got on a plane, flew back in. he met me at the baltimore airport. it's the only way i could get in in july of 1974 that there are senate come to the president and say to the president it's time that he leave. the president decides to resign. he gives a speech on august 8 where he says, i will resign at noon tomorrow. then he gives another speech, which is actually the better-known speech, he gives this speech to his members of the staff, to his close associates. this speech is in the east room of the white house. some of you watching or listening today will recall the speech. be

well, let's hear what trent lott, who had voted with the president on the house judiciary committee, what he -- how he reacts to the transcript of the conversation we were just listening to, what became known as the smoking gun conversation. >> i remember, i got a call, i'll never forget now from a mr. falipian who was working at the white house. and i was in destine, florida, on vacation with my family. he said, there's something i think you should read. i think he maybe described it as the smoking gun. so i got on a plane, flew back in. he met me at the baltimore airport. it's the only way i could get in that night. i read it by car light on the way back to washington. and it was obvious to me now, at that point, that one article of impeachment for obstruction of justice was going to be unavoidable. >> so when the smoking gun transcript is released to the public on august 5, 1974, the last line of defense for the president crumbles. the leadership, the republican leadership in the house and the senate come to the president and say to the president it's time that he leave. the presi

the stereotypical notion that the slave was a lockstep conservative certainly wasn't born out and trent lott found that one enslaved it is his counsel because what he brought he had a largely homogenous group of southern conservatives and they figured that with gordon has the majority leader council he would stop and say wait a minute how is this in the rest of the country. when i check the national journal, very good day annual summary of the voting analysis. >> one of the grid lines in the commission the day after richard clark the attack we have on the deputy secretary of state richard armitage who ended up being responsible for a lot more than we knew at the time coming and he was asked whether or not he had read the book and his answer was i gave it a washington, d.c. read. >> we need to go through one episode which is a part of the history of the state and that is the discussion of the deficit and the budget. in the ronald reagan administration a spirited debate on the budget broke out and i made some kind of comment. i worry about the resources available with the diminishing number of

trent lott shut the thompson hearings down because they produced nothing. this produces nothing.a bush program, finished off by the obama white house. what's next? ken starr? but this nra vote, that's a big, big deal. it takes jim matheson from utah, makes them walk the plank and puts them in one hell of a position on november 6. it's bad for them. but they'll be able to vote the way they want. >> it's worth noting that jim matheson, as folks have deduced, this is a lot of pressure from the nra. these guys are feeling the heat. jim matheson says this is more about evasiveness and transparency. sadly it seems that it will take holding the attorney general in contempt to communicate that evasiveness is unacceptable. >> i think there's something to that. that's the issue on the overreach. in a sense the republicans did have substantive issues here and they kind of had the administration in the corner but then they went below the belt and you're like why did they do that. >> republicans, look, fast and furious is about brian terry and these hearings are about a potential cover-up. th

i spent a lot of time with the likes of olympia snow, tom dach will a -- tom daschle and trent lott.t is happening is congress is so polarized at this point. you're seeing olympia snow say enough is enough. i'm leaving. we saw that with evan bayh. he left congress. what is going on is bipartis bipartisanship is not a bad word. what is a bad word is punting. that's what you see from leaders on capitol hill. keep punting the ball down. we'll deal with it later. that's where we stand now. >> mark, will, norm, great to have a conversation with all three of you. thanks so much. coming up next, partisanship and my way or the highway ideology in congress left one of the strongest serving senators so frustrated she decided not to seek another term. as promised, olympia snow when we return. [ male announcer ] count the number of buttons in your car. now count the number of buttons on your tablet. isn't it time the automobile advanced? introducing cue in the all-new cadillac xts. the simplicity of a tablet has come to your car. ♪ the all-new cadillac xts has arrived. and it's bringing the futu

now, trent lott, former policy adviser and speechwriter for president bill clinton, examines the current debate over what constitutes the united states citizenship and ways to reimagine the process. this is about one hour 10 minutes. .. gregory in his remarkable team in creating the set of for have held the state force but it's up on all you here who decide to show up on a very nice evening that helps give me hope for citizenship. i want to thank our host here. this isn't unusual and lovely setting to be doing a gathering like this here, the petersen automotive museum, and i didn't grow up a total car not, but i have always felt like there was something physically embodied in some of the cars you see around us today of the american spirit. and i think it's rather apt we should have a conversation tonight about american character, about the meeting and content of our citizenship, knowing we're coming i got to thinking about the ad you might is in that aired first during super bowl during halftime actually, clint eastwood's much noted at for chrysler, halftime in america. the ad which was

the way in between elections where today there doesn't seem to be any at all -- but people like a trent lott george mitchell, they sat down and said okay, what do we gotta do here? how do we get it done and how can we work together to get it done? the house and the senate, the same thing. i think denny hest ra was out of that mold. you don't have them today. you don't have them today in john boehner and mitch mcconnell. >> i think john boehner would instinctively like to be a legislator. he's boxed in by his own members. there's leadership he can pursue. his other leaders are ready to take him down. the kind of leadership you can pursue is where are they going and i'll run faster to get out in front of him. the sad part now to me is you look at boehner who when he was first going to become speaker something he never thought would really happen. he was emotionally overcome but he gave a message to his new members coming in. look, we're going to bear some responsibility now. we'll be in the majority. there are things we have to do that we may not want to because it is part of our responsibilit

trent lott. senator knows the most about what you're doing in the war, and his answer, you mean, other than senator clinton? i mean, again, it's shocking. hey, can i ask you really quickly, because you worked for "the new york times" and you were kind enough to give us a heads up on a story that "the times" had written a couple of years back with john kerry, about john kerry's wealth. i would suggest as some of us would around here framed a bit differently talking about he is uncomfortable with his wealth, and he's very frugal. but what do you make -- and i would ask you, i love "the times." you know that. you worked there. what do you make of conservatives and some media people saying that come election year, they skew left? is that unfair? take us behind the curtain there and explain to us why that's not the case because we want to believe that. >> i think that's probably pretty unfair. i think a lot of people felt that in 2000, "the times" coverage of george w. bush was much, of more sympathet

practice and one takes a look at congress after congress, whether it was george mitchell, bob dole, trent lott, tom daschle, bill frist. combined here we have senator reid 50% more than the others all combined. so here we are, we've come to the floor of the senate to respond to what we heard from the majority leader this morning about obstructionism and what we do see, it is just a page from the majority leader's playbook of the electoral strategy for 2012, from the leader of the majority, "forget passing bills: the democrats just want to play the blame game in 2012." and, mr. president, that's exactly what we saw today. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. actually, mr. president, i'm not here to play the blame game. i am here to talk about a place where we in the senate have found real bipartisan consensus and it's an issue that is critical i think to us in the state of new hampshire and to all of the senators here. because in 23 days, our countr country's surface