can i bring you the "the washington post" article. >> bill: you are going on a "the washington post" article, okay? and thought boy's family, by the way, who died, this kid died, says it's not really what happened. so, let's assume the story is true, which is a huge assumption, okay? for me. because i didn't believe the "the washington post" really really. let's assume it's true. he is 18, romney. how old is he now? >> born in 1947. >> bill: is he 65, okay? he is 18. he is 65. from 18 to 65, we don't have any other hazing. we don't have any incidents. we don't have any. zero. so you are going it sit there and condemn romney and say he is not fit to be president for what he did at 18? >> i think for what he did at 18. if it's a pattern of behavior, i agree. >> bill: is there any other evidence that it is. >> doesn't it disturb you that he didn't remember it. >> bill: no, i don't know what he did or didn't do. >> do you remember incidents when you were 12 and 14? >> bill: some i do. but i was a pretty zoo man in college. >> knocking a kid to the ground and cutting his hair and making h

a massive fraud have been perpetrated on the "washington post." and on the post's public. what do you do? what you do? if you are ben bradlee. ben had been part of what kay graham was pushing, something we are all familiar with now. he said everybody at the paper is going to cooperate with this inquiry. there's not going to be one sordid facts about this falsehood that we are not going to get first. when people asked him about that at the time, and when i asked him about it, what he says he learned a lesson at watergate. the lesson of watergate is that it is not always a crime that gets you in that much trouble. it's what you do after. what then did afterwards, with john grahams complete participation, he wrote a piece for the sunday paper after they had found out. it is one of the most stunning pieces of journalism you will ever come across i relied on it very heavily. at that moment when ben said were not going to cover this up, were going to get it ourselves, that saved him and the "washington post." at least for a time. one of my favorite letters, and then i will get o

can i bring you the "the washington post" article. >> bill: you are going on a "the washington post" article, okay? and thought boy's family, by the way, who died, this kid died, says it's not really what happened. so, let's assume the story is true, which is a huge assumption, okay? for me. because i didn't believe the "the washington post" really really. let's assume it's true. he is 18, romney. how old is he now? >> born in 1947. >> bill: is he 65, okay? he is 18. he is 65. from 18 to 65, we don't have any other hazing. we don't have any incidents. we don't have any. zero. so you are going it sit there and condemn romney and say he is not fit to be president for what he did at 18? >> i think for what he did at 18. if it's a pattern of behavior, i agree. >> bill: is there any other evidence that it is. >> doesn't it disturb you that he didn't remember it. >> bill: no, i don't know what he did or didn't do. >> do you remember incidents when you were 12 and 14? >> bill: some i do. but i was a pretty zoo man in college. >> knocking a kid to the ground and cutting his hair and making h

that helped the "washington post" when the family came out and said that.read that piece, i read it wall to wall. there are a lot of flaws in that. the five people who allegedly were part of it turns out it may have been four. one of whom worked voluntarily on the obama campaign. all of them lean left, the exception is one who was a teacher. big change. one of the guys who said it haunted him for a whole time. then it had to be rewritten to, well, since he was hold about it a couple of weeks ago. >> kimberly: by the "post." >> eric: it sounds like, bob, this was a rush job to get this out there and in the nick of time. >> greg: i'll tell you what. this is the "washington post," give them credit for doing obama campaign work. they are going to get what they wanted which is the next dibs on the next national security leak. >> andrea: this was a paper that turn down nixon. now they're doing drive-by journalism. the family of genre leased a statement and said it's factually incorrect. right? >> kimberly: they said it didn't happen. what kind of credibility does

it was a better newspaper than the washington post at the time. this was 1960 and the beginning of the kennedy years. what did they see in a 16-year-old? i know there are always-- there's always room for copy boys and rewrite kids. i could type. actually it's really true. the smartest thing i ever did in my life is, i got sick of taking shop with the boys, so i took typing with the girls. and... [laughing] that opened it up, huh? that's right. no, actually, i think they did see some--some talent that i had. and one of the great things about the star was, they nurtured young people. and even though i was a few years younger than the next youngest, they let me cover things gradually, and i became a dictationist, meaning that i sat with a headset on and took the dictation of reporters calling in their stories, including david broder's story from dallas. you have to talk about that. i remember it indelibly. i mean, david dictated: "two priests walked out of dallas memorial parkland hospital at 2:34 p.m. today and announced, the president is dead." you

private companies to gain more access to one takes place on the web here's a headline in the washington post today the pentagon expands a cyber security exchange essentially as many as a thousand defense contractors may volunteer to share some previously classified information with the pentagon to try to crack down on cyber threats and according to the washington post this new relationship is being hailed as

washington post. big story. mitt romney is a bully.o back to 1965 we got to go back and do it for both candidates so i will do the job of the mainstream media. here is barack obama in his younger days in his own words. >> i spent the last two years of high school in a daze. locking away the questions that life seemed insistent on posing. i kept playing basketball. attended classes sparingly. drank beer heavily and tried drugs enthusiastically. i discovered it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van or in the dorm room of some brother you met down the hall. >> sean: everything they do it backfires. war on women and then becomes about bill maher. every trick they are trying. >> shay musshamus the dog and e ate dog. >> sean: dog was a little tough. grasshoppers are crunchy. >> it all backfires but this is even worse. pushed around a woman in the book. i'm shocked. >> i think what he did on the coming out with the gay marriage acceptance i think he did this because you guys tonight as

a connection that ran in the washington post. paul, did they have an obligation to explain the difference in the versions? >> i think it would have helped them if they could have done that. we all made those mistakes. my newspaper has and i have as an editor and reporter. the reason they went with the anecdote is because the rest of the 5,000 words were so boring. it was 5,000 words about nothing. his high school years. went to an elite prep school. he was a leader of the prankster group. so what. in is the only anecdote that they found that was actually kind of edgy and they put it up front and made a big deal of it and made more of it than it actually is. if this is the worst thing the american people find out about mitt romney in the next five months he is going to be a very happy man. >> it was upsetting to the young man abouts family as well. >> the story was upsetting. >> shannon: the portrayial of john is factuallily incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. there will be no more c

as someone who has been reading the "the washington post" for, what, 85 years? [ laughter ] why did they do it? why did the paper do it. >> look, haven't interviewed those who participated in it. this is my thought about that from reading the paper over the years and watching this, how things work in this town. a story about -- the facts about barack obama's youthful drug use, they don't strike the "the washington post" and other similar news organizations as particularly interesting. they think well, he was just a young guy, experimented with drugs, lots of people did, no big deal. i agree with that assessment. mitt romney on the other hand who is a republic and a rich republic at that, who had a rather privileged upbringing picked on some kid when he was a young man. that strikes them as more important. i don't think they are looking at that and saying how can we help obama? how can we harm romney? it doesn't work that way. it's just that the story genuinely strikes them differently. romney gets a -- >> bill: why is that? i'm trying to look back as an editor a

times," "washington post" news service, but they couldn't go deep and they probably didn't have great substance. today if you live in any town in america with an internet connection you can go as deep as you want to go on any subject. people's habits have changed. people no longer start their day by reading a newspaper with us sort of beginning to end the briefing you need for that day. in fact, they may want to go really deep on the area that interests them and they may not care all that much about the other things that pass them by that they once might have read. and i'm not sure that that's necessarily a bad thing. there's a line out there that somehow, you know, what's going on today with information in the way young people are consuming information is somehow bad for our democracy. and i don't buy that. i think that people will seek out the information that they need in order to make good civic or economic decisions because the motivations they have are very powerful. and i think that they do that today. i think if you ask the average, you know, person in his early 20s who voted

as someone who has been reading the "the washington post" for, what, 85 years?did they do it? why did the paper do it. >> look, haven't interviewed those who participated in it. this is my thought about that from reading the paper over the years and watching this, how things work in this town. a story about -- the facts about barack obama's youthful drug use, they don't strike the "the washington post" and other similar news organizations as particularly interesting. they think well, he was just a young guy, experimented with drugs, lots of people did, no big deal. i agree with that assessment. mitt romney on the other hand who is a republic and a rich republic at that, who had a rather privileged upbringing picked on some kid when he was a young man. that strikes them as more important. i don't think they are looking at that and saying how can we help obama? how can we harm romney? it doesn't work that way. it's just that the story genuinely strikes them differently. romney gets a -- >> bill: why is that? i'm trying to look back as an editor as well. everybody

>> for the washington post? post. >> my view is, he's been president and what he's running on. >> thank you very much, panel. see you next week. don't forget to check out panel plus and the group will pick up with this discussion on the website on fox newssunday.com. make sure to follow us on twitter @ foxnewssunday. and check this out. alec trebek. chris's appearance on the show next wednesday night. don't miss that. we'll be right back. >> we heard that vice-president biden blurted out his support for gay marriage ahead of the president . thank to saturday night live we can see. what is wrong? are you serious in do you really not get it? >> is that something to do with the gay marriage thing? >> it is not fair, okay. i was the first one to said it to be legal and now you are getting all of the credit. >> that's not true. >> oh, yeah. oh, yeah. really, why are you all dressed up? to a gala with lady gaga and elton john. >> you think that really happened. >> we'll never know. >> whaver. that's it for today. chri

-egypt relations and later, a conversation with a washington post columnist. "washington journal" is next. ♪ good morning a on this memorial day weekend with ceremonies in the nation's capital and those around the country. president obama will pay tribute tomorrow at arlington national cemetery. the senate is in recess for a holiday weekend and a house is back midweek for votes. it is sunday, may 27. will take a look back and look ahead at the class of 2012 and what to expect in this economic climate. our phone lines are open and the numbers are on your screen. you can always join the conversation on line let's begin with the lead story this morning on the front page of " the new york times" and" washington post." this is a photograph inside " the new york times." many children were among those who were killed. these are the bodies and the confirmation from the united nations. we want to continue with your calls on the issue of the future of the class of 2012. we will also share some commencement speeches we have been covering the last couple of weeks and we wi

the "washington post" probably have the this cooking and realized like biden forced obama's hand, "washingtont"'s hand was forced. they could have come out with this in september. >> bob: you think they put the story together yesterday? >> dana: they were building it and holing it until opportune time. >> eric: we have to go. this story is a huge piece, right, greg? pages, pages long. >> greg: read like a boring issue shoe of "archie." let's pull a prank. >> eric: but the timing to release on, literally the day after president obama said -- >> bob: i don't care when you release something. a guy that bullies a gay guy with a bunch of other people and cuts his hair is outrageous and incendiary. >> andrea: no facts to support it. >> dana: do you think going after something for something that may or may -- after somebody for something that may or may not have had happen in high school? >> bob: yes. >> dana: we'll keep that in mind if you ever run for anybody. >> eric: what do you call a guy that dealt cocaine or used it in high school? >> bob: i am not calling names. >> greg: you are! >> bob: he

jobs back. >> our numbers contradict what was in the washington post article. we have two employees who had originally said they were going to resign that have come back and said they're going to challenge that. >> reporter: director sullivan said the agency will work to permanently revoke security clearance for those two agents. danielle nottingham, cbs news washington. >> the inspector general for the department of homeland security also testified at today's hearing and assured the committee his department will conduct its own independent investigation. >>> dealing with the death of a loved one can be very tough, stressful, emotional, all that grief. we found out one local family is having to jump through hoops just to get a little help in what is already a very trying time. 9 wants to know why that's happening, so we sent our own surae chinn to find out. >> d.c. as a program to help low income families pay for funeral costs. it's not as simple as it sounds because funeral homes you have to be careful which ones you pick and one family is learning the hard wa

warn washington post let's get facts straight straight. okay?spent all of the time talking to you, sean. >> sean: he doesn't spend enough time speaking to me. more times talking to cbs news. >> bottom line is that if you want to talk about mitt romney's record let's talk about mitt romney's record. if you want to talk about the economy he was 47th in the nation. if you want to talk about the private equity world? >> sean: are we better off than $5 trillion ago? >> yes. because when barack obama came to office we were missing 800,000 jobs. >> we're doing two million viewer people. >> what was the unemployment? sean? sean, you're talking about an economy run into the ground, then then all of a sudden. >> and there is $5 trillion, labor participation. five million left the work force. and unemployed one and a half million college students graduated. >> we've got to roll. >> sean: we'll continue to play the president in his own words. if press secretaries want to keep bringing it up we'll keep playing obama from the old days coming up, the cover mom

mitt romney had a serial explanation for "the washington post" or in response to "the washington post" story about cranbrooke, the prep school time of mitt romney what do we make of this? one bottom line it tells everybody as they are beginning to define mitt romney that he was a prep school guy, which is hardly the economic message you want to send. at the same time, the response didn't -- did the response seem insensitive or ham-handed? >> my take away, clearly both campaigns would rather be talking about something else. i think obviously gay marriage is the issue of the day. now some kind of gay bullying is sort of now a part of that. this is not something they want to be talking about. this "the washington post" story that came out today, it was released online yesterday was quite a blockbuster. the question of whether high school behavior is really relevant in a presidential campaign. when you have mitt romney who is pretty hazily defined in the mind of voters, this can fill a gap in. i think people are sensitive. the romney campaign is very sensitive of appearing to be somewhat

incident, five of romney's classmates remembered it well enough to go into great detail to the washington post in separate accounts, all these years later. we can't ask john lauber to corroborate the details. the post reports his sister says he died in 2004. memories can fail, no disputing that or the fact that a lot of people do stupid things in high school. romney's far from alone in that admission. which seems contradictory in romney's statement, however, saying on the one hand he does not recall the incident and on the other hand recalling that he had no idea whether john lauber's sexual orientation was what what the sexual orientation was per received to be back then. as for saying he's sorry if anyone is hurt or offended, can we retire that apology. we hear it time and time again. it makes it a none apology, a watered down way to say you're sorry that makes it seem like you're not really sorry, even though you may be. most people see right through it because we heard it before, a lot of times. listen. >> i'm sorry that there is at least one of my colleagues that can't take a joke and so

joining me now, washington post columnist e.j. dion and linda lake.hank you both for joining me. >> good to be with you. >> let me start with you salinda. are the american people ready for this from their president? >> absolutely. and the people who are going to vote for president obama are more than ready. you'll never have a presidential nominee nor someone who doesn't support equality and the same rights for loving couples. >> now, if you look at the polling of supporters of same-sex marriage, 18 and 34 years old, 66%. democrats, 65%. moderates, 58%. independents, 57%. women, 56%. catholics, 51%. quite an impressive majority in these areas, celinda. >> that's right. i also think what is interesting here is, first of all, mitt romney yet again flip-flopping but more to the point, his position would take away health care benefits, benefits, hospital visitation rights and benefits in a number of states. his position is one for a century ago, not today. >> now, e.j., you wrote a very compelling column about your own change of heart. the president talke

is that a decision made at the "washington post" that we should focus on chen guangcheng, it's more spicy? >> so happily for us we had sent a reporter with hillary clinton and the team from washington. so we were able to cover that. it's just a relative news value issue. one story was a far more interesting and compelling story than the other. as important as the strategic dialogue talks may have been. and we were -- we went with the one that was the human drama, and we played that bigger. as did everybody else. great powers can walk and chew gum at the same time. and so we in the news media try to do that too. i felt like the choice we made and the choice other newspapers in this country made was probably the right choice, which was to focus on the story that was surprising, dramatic, challenged the u.s., challenged china, and where the outcome was unknown as opposed to strategic economic dialogue. >> i was in beijing as part of the strategic and economic dialogue. and the thing that impressed me was the fact there was sort of a parallel universe, this incredible drama happening in the e

first reported by the "washington post." that romney in his high school days singled out a fellow student thought in some quarter toes be gay. for ver ral and physical abuse. >> governor romney said mog more about it today. he spent yesterday acknowledging he played pranks in high school, some were dumb and probably went too far. apologizing to anyone offended by them. romney also said he does not remember ganging up with other students to tinge the ground the student seen in the photo. using scissors to cut off his newly bleached hair. romney said he never gave a thought to the sexual orientation who died eight years ago. the sister released a statement saying the family of john says portrayal of john is factually incorrect and aggrieved he would be used to further political agenda. there will be no more comments from his family. it's worth pointing out one of the classmates the "washington post" reported as having been long bothered by the prank told abc news he did not witness it. he only learned of it earlier in year, br

the 85-year-old journalist dismissed the criticism as minor, telling the "washington post" i can't believesking me these questions but the washington times says that the wrer was taking a three-month leave while it examines the allegations which certainly look, feel and smell like play jarrism. that is it for this edition of reliable sources. i'm howard kertz, hope you are enjoying your memorial day weekend. check out all of our segments and more on our website, cnn.com/reliable sources. state of the union with candy crowley begins right now. >>> on memorial day weekend, a new wave of veterans fall through the cracks of bureaucracy and presidential politics tied up and fired up. today, campaign 2012 with former presidential candidate rudy giuliani and democratic national committee chairwoman debbie wasserman schultz. i'm candy crowley, and this is "state of the union." >>> before we turn to memorial

the washington post posted it online ahead of today's printed edition. we did not talk about it last night on this program because we had questions about how valid it is to bring up something someone did nearly 50 years ago when they were in high school. those questions, though have not gone away. so we'll let you decide for yourself tonight whether this story itself is relevant to a presidential campaign or not. what we want to focus on is romney's response to the story. we heard what he said in north carolina today, aapologizing, quote, if anyone feels they were offended, but on fox news yesterday, romney said more, including response to accusations the incident amounted to gay bullying since the victim was thought to be gay. take a look. >> i had no idea what that individual's sexual orientation might be. going back to the 1960s, that wasn't something that we all discussed or considered. so that's simply just not accurate. i don't recall the incident myself, but i've seen the reports and not going to argue with that. there is no question but that i di

joining us here in washington ann, deputy national political editor of the washington post, and roger simon, political columnist for politico. roger simon, why do liberal commentators complain when a politician like cory booker actually says something interesting as opposed to towing the party line? >> because it's off message. >> how is it our job to enforce politicians being on message? >> it's the exact opposite of our job, but whenever we see a politician actually getting off message, we say, oh, my gosh, that campaign has screwed up. he is making a mistake. and, of course, the white house didn't hope by publicly taking cory booker to the wood shed, which it's done a number of times in this campaign, and forcing cory booker to humiliate himself on national media and twitter. >> ann, we in the press, it seems to me, often complain that politicians stick to the talking points. they're so predictable and don't deviate from the script. then we take their heads off when they do? >> do we that i their heads off or relish in it? i think there were other liberals and democrats who were th

they don't come with the same regularity to human rights watch as they do to the "washington post." i think they're scared to even come in the building sometimes. but i was visited by someone from -- i think it was chun du wambao. the evening paper of chengdu city. i had no idea why he was there to see me. i said how is it being a wang bo, an evening paper? how is your competition with the morning paper? he said i come out in the morning too. i said but you're a wang bo. he said oh, but wang bo means you're not controlled by the party. here at evening paper it means you're less under communist party control. >> marcus, you mentioned pr. >> yeah. >> and of course close sibling to pr in the minds of many chinese is soft power. how do you get soft power? where in a society such as our own it's something that either generates or doesn't generate. it isn't something you can manipulate. i'm wondering how you -- when you look at china and your correspondents look at china how they see that playing out. >> how china gains soft power in the world. >> yes. and do you think there's a confusion