cnn contributor spooider marks, you may say this is his wheelhouse. did i say general?a. was this dismiss civil? should i take the conservatives at their word this was dismiss active? you're the military man. >> i would say it was very flip. i can't wait for the "saturday night live" skit that will demonstrate horses and irrelevant to horses and bayonets. i think he missed an opportunity to say, look, our military is incredibly adaptable and let's not forget very arcane point that when our special operations forces first went into afghanistan and linked up with partisans in afghanistan, post 9/11, they did that by horse back. that's just a small fact. my point is of course the military adapts. the navy is incredibly adaptive and needs to maintain a very robust presence if the economy and if our debt is the number one national security challenge, i would suggest that it is, then we must be able to export and trade internationally and our sea lanes have to be protected and that is the mission of our neighbor. >> i understood what the president was saying when he said hors

is this in his wheelhouse? and could he go overboard? >> the big argument that romney has put all his money on for the last two years has been about the economy. the reason ohio is doing so much better for this president and for democrats in general is because of the economy. the president actually has a good economic story to tell right now. he's been burdened by expectations. obviously, there's a lot of people out there looking for work. but the bigger trend in the election isn't about debate performance or the latest ad. it's about rising economic confidence. we're seeing it across the board and in the president's approval numbers. so he needs to be forceful not just about mitt romney, but about how far this country has traveled in four years. >> we're seeing the good numbers and the trends and also the denial coming from the conservatives. great to have you with us. remember to answer tonight's question. share your thoughts on twitter @edshow and on facebook. >>> a romney adviser runs into trouble trying to sell the lies to fox news.

because this debate was right in his wheelhouse. soul-crushing. in fact, it was so tedious i think man in the front row fell asleep. (laughter) the first half hour, the first half hour, folks. (applause) the first half hour was an or geoof tax policy minutish-- orgy was tax policy minutia, and they moved on to the intricacies of medicare solvency it was off the hook, in that it would have been more interesting to listen to a dial tone. (laughter) but however wonky it got last night there was no miss tacking that there was a fire breathing leftie on that stage spewing heated socialist rhetoric. >> i will not reduce the taxes paid by high income americans. regulation is essential. you can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation. preexisting conditions are covered under my plan. and with regards to health care wa, we did in massachusetts is a model for the nation, state-by-state. >> stephen: yes, mitt romney's health-care plan is just like his positions, the details change state-by-state. (laughter) now-- folks, you know me-- you watch

accessibility in voter outreach and education, which is more my wheelhouse, we have materials that we provide to the public, large print election flyers, i have some samples here today, and we provide those in english, chinese, spanish and russian. we have options presented in all the presentations that we do. we have an accessible web site with screen reader capability and we have a large print voter information pamphlet. we advertise that we have this in our outreach, we take requests and we make it available in english, chinese and spanish in large print and in audio format in english, cantonese, mandarin and spanish. we did get a number of requests and this year we produced a total of 120 audio formats of our voter information pamphlet and 130 large print in various languages. we have some in the office at room 48 of city hall if anyone would like one and did not request one earlier. they can contact us and we can get one to anyone who needs one. we also have some at the lighthouse for the blind. and also in your printed material are excerpts from the voter information pamphlet wh

. >> it's a heavy lift, howard, i agree, but it's also right in his wheelhouse.veryone in this country knows his middle class background. he is true to his value of helping the middle class. he legislated that way for 30 years in the senate. some think that joe biden's been put in an untenable position, a tough position. but isn't this good for biden? and i think for the president to come out and say joe's got to be joe, that's kind of saying, joe, you go out there and let them have it, isn't it? >> well, yeah, and joe biden, after all, was in the senate for 37 years. he was very much a part of the democratic party establishment and democratic party ideology about the role of helping the poor and the middle class through cooperative effort and through government programs. and he's going to defend it. i think maybe one of his strongest avenues of attack on paul ryan is the fact that paul ryan himself, paul ryan's family, paul ryan's business, paul ryan's whole life in janisville, wisconsin, when he was busy sitting there reading ayn rand and dreaming of a libertar

been offered something that made sense or everything that was offered to me but was already in my wheelhouse. i don't need to play madea three, i kind of got that character already so i am looking for something very different and this intrigued me on so many levels because of that. >> rose: gergiev and perry, coming up. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. >> rose: additional funding provided by these funders. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: valery gergiev is here, one of the world's most dynamic, admired and busiest conductors director of the treasured mariinsky theatre in russia, here he is performing tchaikovsky's fourth symphony with the orchestra. >> rose: he is in new york to lead the world orchestra for peace in tribute to the late george schultz at carnegie hall and also conduct the london symphony orchestra in a series of concerts devoted to brams, i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcom

it was not in my wheelhouse. i mean, i had other issues to deal with. >> reporter: those other issues included more than 40 years in a wheelchair. an athletic teenager, tada broke her neck in a diving accident when she was 17. her spinal cord was severed, and she became paralyzed from the shoulders down. she has limited arm motion, but can't use her hands or her legs. in addition to her quadriplegia, she suffers from chronic pain. it had been nine years since her last mammogram when in 2010, one of the women who helps get tada up in the mornings noticed a mass in her right breast. tada and ken, her husband of 30 years, went to have it checked out and got the devastating dinos -- a malignant tumor. stage three breast cancer. >> any woman who is scratching her heard wondering if she's got enough time to make a mammogram appointment. well, i'll tell her -- do it. >> reporter: i last interviewed tada just after the diagnosis, before she had begun treatment. she spoke of the uncertainty ahead. >> privately i've wonder

the women and latino voters, but talking foreign policy, that might not necessarily be in their wheelhouse of interest. a lot of people would probably in those groups rather hear more about the economy. do you see president obama trying to spin this thing around and score some points domestically? >> he might, brian, but normally foreign policy is not necessarily a strength of the democrats but this year, no question it is. if they are talking about it tomorrow, that's fine with president obama. look, he's got a good record to run object. he said he would win the war in iraq, did he. he said he would kill osama bin laden, he did. of course there's going to be the concern about libya. a lot of back and forth about that. but overall i think he's got a very strong record. >> it's funny, speaking is about the mideast, the mideast is about as screwed up it is a could possibly be. if you take mubarak, the center piece of our policy, that was locked down for 30 years. obama unlocked it. now we have egypt ready to go the war. i really think the democrats would have more credibility if they admit t

ly say part of what helped martha and it definite will is more in her wheelhouse because she's wantsered and move on to the next thing, and that's what you do as a reporter. you can't have a lengthy -- hey, let's talk about. this think part of it was her experience as a reporter but it helps when they're sitting a i cross the table from you. you and i know it's so much easier to talk to somebody who's here because through your body language and everything else you can tell i'm getting close to done. when you're up at a big lectern, you're a mile and a half away. >> exactly. i was in the room with the jim lehrer debate. not only was he a mile away but he was down. that kind of thing does matter and also it's a presidential debate and it's a little bit tougher to say to the president, would you be quiet for a minute. >> yeah, would you zip it. >> there's a way to do these things. >> are you buried in blue cards, up late making all kinds of notes? >> i have them in every place in my house. the truthcy'll only need 1% of what's going in here. you have to get 100% and hope -- things are g

holding his own in a debate that was predominantly foreign policy which has been joe biden's kind of wheelhouse during his entire long career in politics. you know, for me, for paul ryan to hold his own in that kind of environment, even if he's got to drink a lot of water to kind of keep cool and just stay level-headed, i think he did a good job. i'm proud that paul ryan's on our ticket. >> carol, would you rather have a presidential, vice presidential candidate who drinks a lot of water in a nervous way or one like joe biden who toughs it out? >> i think joe biden clearly had a lot of mountain dew before he went on the debate, where paul ryan favored the water. obviously, the experience factor played in here. paul ryan was so focused on making the key points that he wanted to make that he didn't retort back, he didn't push back on biden the way that romney did against obama. he didn't put him on the defense. he did -- >> but the problem he had, i'll put this to mike, as we can see here from a montage of joe biden, biden kept laughing at him in this sort of outrageously dismissive way. when i f

it's in his wheelhouse, and mitt romney has been clumsy at times in discussing foreign policy. if romney can come through with simply a tie, he should leave the evening happy because then he can go on but if the president wins and he could win big in this kind of thing, he's got a story to tell about bin laden, of course, then i think -- i think there are only three big things happening between now and the election. there's the debate, we have one more economic number and then we have the big get out the vote effort. right now, i think the president has a slight upper hand going into the debate but we'll see. >> jim acosta, jessica yellin, david gergen, thanks so much. >>> congressman of illinois under fire for saying abortion is never necessary to save the health or life of the mother. leading doctors say he's wrong. just ahead, a congresswoman for whom this issue hits close to home speaks out. >>> did the boy scouts of america keep the names of known child molesters hidden from police? we have the documents they didn't want you to see ahead. >>> tonight the uproar over what c

while i said last week to you that this first format was romney's wheelhouse, this next town hall, it could be said that he's not the master of this domain so i think that there needs to be some foundational work done at the retail politic level going into next week's debate. >> we will talk to a gentleman who has coached romney in debates just to kind of give an inside look at what he may be doing and what president obama may be doing. but paul, we all saw signs this week there's suddenly a lot more states in play, including states that have supposedly been in the obama column for months. whether or not that's a temporary shift, what does it say about the strength of the president's support that those leads which, you know, two weeks ago seemed solid, evaporated so quickly? >> well, you still are 25 days out and you're going to have -- the movement has been very narrow. but the lead was very narrow. so there's not very many people actually in play, even in those swing states. you're only talking about 4% probably of the vote and probably really only six states. i'm kind of with king

this is in his wheelhouse. this is not ryan's strength at all. there will be an attempt with this speech to take some of the oxygen out of joe biden's -- if at all possible but it's a tough act because joe biden knows the stuff. he can rattle off the names and phone numbers of world leaders and -- >> he just may. >> he just may. he's folksy enough to do it. we'll take a quick break right here. waiting and watching for mitt romney from the vmi. quick break. we're back right after this. >>> time for the "your business" entrepreneur of the week. a fashion marketplace that helps local boutique that is don't have a site sell online. she knows content sells so she also lodged a companion online magazine as an ultimate source for what's in. for more watch "your business" sunday mornings on msnbc. i gave birth to my daughter on may 18th, five days later, i had a massive heart attack. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regime

mitt romney was really strong in terms of when he came to talking about in the wheelhouse, the economy language open, strong, very comfortable. the power zones. it's all open toward us. he felt very comfortable and we'll see what happens for him moving forward where he struggled was in the foreign policy element of this. libya and really attacking the president on what he's vulnerable on and his body language, nervous, all over the place. so we'll see if that translates and moves forward in to the final debate for him at his weakest on foreign policy. >> thank you very much. we'll be working on the power thumb. >> my hand down. disagreement. >> s.e. tell the rest of them, hey, wait a minute. >> hey. i disagree. >> she does that all the time, chris. >> she doesn't need help. she's got this. thank you, brother. >> thank you for having me. >>> i loved the libya moment! romney fact timed in realtime. it's happened to me on this show. thank you, steve. brush up on uzbekistan. we'll talk about the brouhaha in boca next. [ female announcer ] ready for a taste of what's hot? check out the late