obama a couple of weeks ago who said president obama, i'm tired of defending you. of course with democrats, that's part of their nature. but we were trying to make the point that a disappointing friend is more important than a deadly enemy. maybe you should reconsider how you're going to react just because president obama has not been everything you thought he might be. you know, the democrats get into this problem because they use their base as nothing more than a cash machine. >> i got to interrupt you, unfortunately, we're over our time, but bill will be back with us tomorrow night. "parker spitzer" starts right now. good evening, i'm kathleen parker. >> and i'm eliot spitzer. i finally figured out just who you are, rational conservative from the south. >> and you're a new york liberal with a funny accent. >> your talking accents just

proves everything in life is where you stand and where your perspectives are. we're not only going to have tough conversations but try to come up with some answers. >> we'll bring on some -- we'll both get in a fight with that guy that wrote that controversial book, "the roots of obama's rage." >> that was quite a book, i got to tell you. and we're going to figure out why you misspell clinton, right? >> all right, so i miss bill clinton. >> we get to the office with something big on our minds that we want to talk to the public about. right now in politics, it's game time. time to cut to the chase. a couple of simple facts are driving our politics right now. one unemployment is stuck at 9.6%, heading the right way. two ecoinequality worst than

it's been in decades. a lot of them were in the middle class until recently. and the rich are getting richer. president obama is trying to turn a battleship in a bathtub, it's hard, but he's trying to get our economy going and he's done a lot of the right stuff. he stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs, we have all been critical of a couple of the things he's done, me too. he's way too close to wall street for my taste. but let's stay with this doctor a bit. after all, you remember the last doctor? w.? he put us into the e.r. in the first place, let's show one of our great american virtues, patience, all things in life don't require instant gratification. kathle kathleen? >> elliott, there's lots of buzz true or not that hillary clinton might be president obama's running mate in 2012. the all seeing all hearing bob woodward dropped this bomb on larry king. hillary clinton as obama's running mate would be the gop's

worst nightmare, which means it's better than a good idea. here's several reasons why. first there's a lot of buyers remorse out there from obama voters and getting hillary on the ticket might soothe some anxiety among the disillusioned. the irony is, rich. hillary clinton created sarah palin, that is when palen was picked as john mccain's running mate, it was at least in part to offset the hillary effect. and palin is re-creating hillary. women just might flock back to obama if hillary were at his side. no offense to joe, may i call you joe? but stepping aside might be the best thing you could do for your party. no one would fault you for wanting to spend more time with your family. >> i got to tell you, he's clever. it's all nice inside the belt way politics. but let me tell you something really simple. every remarkable great president in our history had had a rough patch at this point in his term.

fdr had an enormous problem, reagan in 1982, bill clinton in 1994. they kept the same running mates because joe biden, hillary clinton, barack obama is going to be elected on his record an he's the one he's going to be voting for or against and it's not going to matter who the vice presidential candidate is. >> did you just write that speech on the spot? that's amazamazing. first of all, i don't know if it's going to happen, it's probably not going happen. people don't generally drop their vice president in the middle of the stream. however, there is this sense out there, and you even mention it yours in our opening statements, there's this nostalgia for the clintons. and with hillary it was always a two-fer. republicans are saying well we would be happy with her on a number of scores. hillary clinton now is very

popular. she has established herself as a leading figure in american politics beyond which she was when she was running against obama. >> i love hillary clinton, she's done a great job as secretary of state. joe biden is also building a great record for himself. interestingly he's the one who was probably closest to being right about afghanistan. when you look back and we're right in a bind, and we're going to talk about it later "today" "today" -- joe biden said don't send a whole lot of troops. joe biden is getting a lot of points inside washington for being smart and on the point. >> he has got a lot of credit for being ahead of the curve on the afghanistan situation and he's well liked and it's not personal, joe. and i didn't bring it up, by the way, i'm just saying, hillary clinton as obama's running mate and it will depend on where we are and it will all depend on the economy no matter what. >> it goes back to what i said, the economy drives politics and we need a little bit more

patience. we're living in an age right now we expect everything to happen right away. >> i agree, i'm completely on your side when we talk about being more patient. i love nieche. it was one word. >> i couldn't figure it out. professor, i didn't do my home work that week, i couldn't figure it out. >> his philosophy was wait, wait, wait. obama didn't wait. you know, he should have -- he waited on getting to the economy. but he didn't wait on introducing this huge health care, obama care. at a time when he should have been focusing on the economy and on jobs. >> barack obama has gone -- >> and by the way, dr. bush put us in the e.r.? you're the one that's always made the case that this is a 30-year trend line. >> the last doctor was bush. it was president bush's tenure that created the -- that's why

the middle class tax cut is what we need to get folks out there buying again so that we can get jobs back in the economy. >> let's talk about some of these issues with our great guests coming up including michael gersen. let's get into the arena. >> joining us tonight is michael gersen, former speechwriter for president bush, and columbia university professor. welcome to both of you. good to see you. no hug for me? >> hi, how are you? so nice to see you. >> good, good. you too. >> before we move straight to some of our favorite topics, michael would you like to respond to elliottiot spitzer pe economy in the emergency room? >> after six years of unprecedented growth and a fairly healthy any? >> you're talking about the

clinton administration? >> exactly. but there were a lot of problems and a lot of shared responsibility for those problems with democrats on the hill and i think some shortsighteded government policies as well. >> tell us what your thoughts are on obama's communications skills, we thought he was the best ever when he was leading a stadium of people. >> i think it will be interesting for historians to look at this because many of the virtues that he had in the election, particularly during the financial crisis is coolness under pressure, his rationality have not worn well in these debates particularly in a time that demands a more populous approach. you look at his "rolling stones" interview, he has a lecture or a -- you know a suggestions for improvement for everybody, for the right, for the republicans, for the progressives. he's constantly in a mode where

p pop lew him is -- >> the difference between obama and say franklin roosevelt was that roosevelt knew how to be somewhat philosophical on campaign, but while he knew when to put on the brass knuckles, actually in office, normally you would think that you would need to be populous campaigning and you need to be philosophical in government. you have to know who your enemies are. people respect a president who's willing to have enough toughness that it tells you that there's something you're willing to fight for. not to draw blood. >> it's so true, the defining moment is when president obama had the ceos of wall street down at the white house and they all were happy together. fdr in that context was saying you are the enemy.

and barack obama said we are all in this together. >> obama wants to be liked ultimately, he is a pleaser and i think that's the problem. and that gets in the way. >> it's not just toughness, it's also empathy. we have had two immediate presidents george w. bush and bill clinton who could show public empathy very effectively. it's not a skill obama has. you saw it after the ft. hood attacks, you saw it in other circumstances. i don't fault him for that but it's not a political skill that he has. >> the thing that president obama needs right now is patience. he needs to say to the public, give me some time. because to a great extent, and i'm not saying this is a partisan issue obviously. he inherited an economy that was bleeding 700,000 jobs a month. now it's stabilized. he's saying to the folks, give me a few more months or a year or two to make my case. how do you communicate that in an era where we don't -- >> the midterms. just say, i know you're upset,

but i'm going to get there. nobody wants to hear that. he needs to say, listen, i have had enough of the lies and claptrap and half truths, let me tell you who got us into this mess and 700,000 jobs are being lost every month, we are gaining jobs in the private sector now. he used to say over and over and over again, he can do patience and calm after the election is over. he may have to. >> but he's not very good at it. >> michael's quite right, he's never going to be turned into the guy sitting on the duncan doughnuts stool. but he's been very badly advised i think by the departing rahm emanuel and david axelrod. all the great presidents, lincoln who we think of as supremely philosophical, could do the offcolor jokes, he had an instinct about how to talk to the average joe. he has to find a way to be able

to do that. >> what do our friends across the pond think of all this over here? the tea party. >> they look at it as an eexplicable moment of evangelical -- the kind that happened in the 18th century and they tend to be actually excessively condescending about the american religion. don't snicker and snare at all this, it's been a great creative force, but they also do see that it makes for a kind of communal hysteria. >> this idea of constitutionalism that they talked about is really extreme form of libertarianism. that's not the agenda that most people are going to accept. and some of the candidates have gotten in trouble on some of these things and had to retreat from some of them.

>> the republicans are frightened, the democrats are even more frightened. there's a sort of epidemic of what's going around. the constitutionists ought to raid the bloody constitution. >> the problem with the tea party is that tea party momentum is helping with the republican party. tea party victories are not helping with the republican party. so that's a fine line for republicans who want that enthusiasm, who would have thought two years ago that the biggest grass roots movement in american politics would be a conservative movement, okay? you know, it creates it's own challenges and problems. >> this is going to sound a little contrary to the general theory out there. is it a movement of anxiety, movement and frustration. it's populous at its core. those at the white house who have been guiding the president's communications effort, got it fundamentally wrong. he spoke to the elites, he

didn't speak to the middle class. give us your articulation? >> i would say you know, the government is not your enemy, the government is a great thing. >> it's you. >> exactly. we live in america. the government is by the people. and people can be removed from election elections, they are there at your pleasure. the founding fathers about whom you're misleading or raters rant about jefferson who was deeply suspicious about government and hamilton who was idealistic about the good that central government could do. that is what federalist papers do. we are so lucky we are living in a country where we are wary of government. >> we hope you will come back and join us at our table again. >> up next, we'll talk to a guy i think i have some strong disagreements with. >> the amazingly controversial book, the roots of obama's rage. >> and the wonderful fareed

zakaria, we'll talk to him about those talks with the taliban going on "today." >> don't go away, we'll be back in 60 seconds. >> my theory is that obama gets hiss anti-colonial dream, his anti-colonial ideology from his father and i have a very important source for this, his name is barack obama. >> people underestimate america's staying power, we are still on the banks of the rhine? could there be 20,000 troops in afghanistan, 10, 15 years from now? sure.

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world. >> that's quite an introduction. >> i can tell you, it's not hard to do, you've been all over forbes, your new book is cominc. a lot of us have read the forbes article. where do you get this stuff in i find it completely based upon supposition, venom and counter factor. where do you possibly come up -- >> obama gets his anti-colonial theology from his father and i have a very important source for this, it's barack obama. if you pick up his auto biography, it's called dreams from my father. it's dreams he got from his dad, and the book is about how he was obsessed with his father, even though his father wasn't around. >> his mother cultivated in him

a mystical image. and obama was obsessed with it. and ultimately in his book, he describes, he goes to africa, he goes to his father's grave, he weeps, he says i put my hand on the ground and i threw africa's red soil and i tried to commune with his father. it's not the first time a child has shaped their identity in the image of an absent father. >> in your forbes article, which was the cliff notes version of your book. the first factual assertion relates to a -- to permit some u.s. companies to sell machine write to a foreign oil company. and you used that as the fulcrum for your whole debate. that approval was done by bush appointees. all done before barack obama was president. >> that's absolutely not true. >> it is.

they were appointed by president bush. >> no, look, i work in the white house. you know how the government works. federal agencies often have leftover appointees. the petro brass decision that was made by the export-import bank that was made in april or may of 2009. >> five bush appointees. >> bush appointees can propose it. >> do the bush appointees approve that? >> they might have. >> the point seems to be that obama is not really one of us. so talk to us about who are we exactly? >> i think -- the point is the point. the point is that anti-coloni anti-colonialism. i grew up in post colonial independent india. anti-colonialism is the idea that there are rich and poor countries in the world. and the rich countries got rich by invading and looting the poor countries. banks, pharmaceutical companies, drug companies, energy companies and these are the greedy profit tiers who take advantage of the ordinary guys in america and in

the rest of the world. now i ask you, here's barack obama and he's doing as far as i can see two things. he is greatly expanding federal power domestically and he's contracting american power in the world. here's pulling us out of iraq and afghanistan. >> so you're suggesting that barack obama is hostile to the forces of the u.s. banks that we just bailed out to the tune of several trillion dollars? >> i'm saying, and this is where you have it wrong, it was bush that bailed out the banks. >> the bank bailout has continued through the treasury department with tim geithner primarily through the -- >> i'm saying what obama's doing is -- for obama is issue isn't bailout, it's federal control. there are banks that want to pay their bailout back and the obama administration won't let them. >> again facts matter here, they were able to pay back once they passed the stress test because the stress test was the critical

demarcation point of solvency. >> but the lenders don't usually say you've got to go through a stress test. the stress test you go through before you get the loan. >> you are -- >> do you really believe that obama bawl wabarack obama wants a nuclear bomb? >> say from the anti-colonial point of view, from obama's point of view as i understand it, if you look at the middle east, how many bombs are there? none. if you look at tworld, who has the big nuclear arsenal, we do. from obama's point of view, we are the rogue elephant that is feeding around the world. >> how about pakistan. >> pakistan is not in the middle east. is it? >> you talk about nuclear powers it sounds as if they only work regionally.

>> if iran got the bomb they would be -- the united states is very involved in the middle east. so here's my point, obama held a nuclear summit and announced deep cuts in america's nuclear arsenal. he has been more successful in reducing our arsenal than he has been in blocking iran from going from zero to one. >> that's been supported by every single analyst. >> what is it you want people to take from your book? >> i think i would like people to realize that obama is the most unknown guy to come into the white house. a set of very unique circumstances put him there. two years later, we still don't have a very good compass, a good handle on obama, what motivates him, what drives him? the conventional theory is he's a muslim, he's not an american, he's a socialist. i don't think that really works. i'm a college president, i'm not trying to bash obama in a crude way, i'm trying to give an

explain tair frame work. it explains a lot of little things he's doing that no other i'd idealogy can explain. >> kathleen, looking at this white house and some these midterm races it kind of all makes us miss the good old days. >> i knew you would miss reagan. >> that's not what i'm talking about, i'm talking about mr. bill clinton. reples tiles, moldingand half y.

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the latest polls show 5% of americans agree that william jefferson clinton is the most popular politician in the world "today." >> he was good. when you're in a business, i don't care if it's sports or politics or journalism, you know who is good at what you're doing.

bill clinton is what everyone looked to and said i want to be like bill clinton. >> he was a master communicator. i didn't cover that administration, but i did meet the president once, i was in an audience and he was giving a speech and he was with this large group of editors and i counted the number of times we made eye contact. it was 23 times. i'm a little ocd so i count everything. i count the box dots on the highway. so after the speech we -- without looking at my name tag, he said kathleen, nice to meet you, i know that this is probably something all you politicians do you have learned to read the name tags. but he's a pro at making you feel like you're the most important person in the room. >> when he talks to you, he talks to you. when bill clinton spoke to an audience, you know the amazie i

thing, we do want him back, if we could repeal the 22nd amendment and let bill clinton run for president, it would go through every state legislature in a heart beat. >> i don't know about that, but the second best thing might be to have hillary clinton be the running mate for barack obama. >> is this your idea or are you just talking? >> it's always been a situation with bill clinton. he advertised that way. >> one vote, you get two of us. i'm not betting on that yet. bill clinton could be back in the white house. different job, but he'll be back in the white house. >> i have always thought that the picture in bill clinton's mind that he most covets is the cover of "vanity fair" magazine wearing an apron baking cookies. >> whenever we leave afghanistan, it's going to look messy, so if we left today it would look messy, it's going to look messy three years from now. if the idea was some kind of massive military victory, like world war ii, that's not going

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with investment objectives, risks, fees, expenses and other information to read and consider carefully before investing. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. tomorrow marks the ninth anniversary of the war in afghanistan. it starts with american troops removing the taliban from power

that may now end in bringing them back to the government. >> joining us to talk about all this is cnn's fareed zakaria, host of gps. >> this whole idea of bringing the taliban into the government, is this just the best exit strategy for us? >> i don't think we should think of it that way and it isn't really. there's a couple of very good studies of civil wars. most civil wars end through negotiations. it's very rare that the north wins over the south like it did in the american civil war. most of the time you have some messy political outcome with the negotiation. and particularly with the taliban. this is a little bit different from people's imagination, these are not arab who is sort of entered the country. the taliban represents 50% of afghanistan. in other words these guy right side here to stay. >> the timing of this seems to be such that we are negotiating from complete weakness, we have

not shown any military success. we have announced a departure date and the taliban knows that politically, domestically, the american public has lost all confidence in this war, so we are not negotiating in a position that we can bring anything to the table to demand that they give anything on the significant issues. >> i'm not sure we're as weak as it seems. obviously it would be better if we had somehow broken the taliban's momentum the way the president had talked about, the way pet tray you had talked about. afghanistan is this vast mountainous country. i think we have some real threats. we can stay there are to a long time. we can't stay there in these numbers, but we can play whac-a-mole for a long time. >> the american public has no patience for it and it is certainly not the sort of military success that we had anticipated in terms of nation building or re-creating a

political society there. >> we have almost forgotten why we were there. we went into afghanistan to topple the taliban because they were sheltering al qaeda. mission accomplished. now we are stuck there. >> but we're stuck, you really believe mission accomplished? >> in the sense that we toppled the taliban which was shielding al qaeda and we have been chasing al qaeda all around the world. the second mission became now we're going to turn afghanistan into such a stable developed country that none of this can ever happen again. we will probably have to be there with an over the horizon presence, we will probably have to be watching it the way we are watching other parts of the world. it's important to understand this is one battlefield in a war on terror. we can't get obsessed with the geography of the taliban. >> the taliban, there's a lot of different pieces of of it so how you negotiate with an organization where there's no

clear hierarchy. >> that's proved to be one of the difficulties my guess is actually the nodes of control are all in pakistan and that's one of the problems we're finding. >> we went in because we were concerned about al qaeda. part of the reason is that al qaeda has left and gone to pakistan or somali or yemen. so we have to chase them there and what is to prevent al qaeda from going back into afghanistan, how long does this last? >> the president had said that he's not going to keep 100,000 troops in combat forever, there's actually 150,000 when you count nato. that doesn't mean we won't be there, people underestimate america's staying power. we're still in okinawa, we're still in south korea. could there be 20,000 american troops in afghanistan ten, 15 years from now? sure. and you can play whac-a-mole very effectively at that point.

>> is thwhenever we leave afghan it's going to look messy. and if we leave "todatoday, it' going to look messy. if it was -- >> i want to pick up on your metaphor, playing wham a mole, does that suggest that joe biden's policy would have been better? do it with drones, do it with counter terrorism. not what the military wanted 100,000 troops. >> in my view, biden's strategy which was a counter terrorism option, coupled with something i have been arguing for two or three years would have gotten you to a place where the united states could have investments in afghanistan that are commensurate with the threat. there are only 100 members of al qaeda left in afghanistan. >> it's amazing thing. the idea that we have 150,000 western troops in there chasing 100 terrorists.

there's something out of whack there. the political reality, which you appreciate, the military boxed the president in, he created, i think a reasonable compromise which is to say, okay, guys, you get your troops, but you get them for 18 months. >> and we have had enormous conflicts getting our troops and fuel into afghanistan. where are our troops right now. >> at this point al qaeda is headquartered not in afghanistan but pakistan. there are many more al qaeda troops or people in pakistan and it remains clear that the pakistani military in some way is making it possible for them to operate out of there. the pakistani military has still not launched a single military offensive against the taliban in northern waziristan. so at the end of the day, the question is what can you do in a country that you can't invade, that is a very large country, this is a serious place, and --

>> 100 nukes. >> that has 100 nukes, i think keeping up the pressure on them the way the obama administration, now the number of drone attacks has gone up dramatically, the president has ordered more drone attacks in his two years of presidency than bush did in his eight years. but at the same time reaching out to them and saying we want to try and help you build a civil society, we want to help you educationally. it's probably the best idea -- >> so we're back to nation building. >> nation building through foreign aid, not nation building through troops on the ground. i admit, pakistan is a very messed up place and this is not a perfect solution. but sometimes there are some problems that don't have solutions and this is probably -- when managing pakistan, about as well as we can, given that this is a very, very screwed up country to use a technical term. >> fareed, thank you so much. we'll be right back. ♪

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okay, it's time for -- >> the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. the jeany co-efficient goes from zero to one, at zero, there is perfect income equality, everybody gets the same amount of money. at one, perfect inequality, one person gets all the income. think bill gates, warren buffett. so the jeanne co-efficient is one way to measure income and how it's distributed. let's compare the united states

to the other nations. down here closer to zero, you see some nations like sweden and germany where income is distributed a lot more equally than it is in the united states. then you come up here to jama a jamaica -- do we want to be closer to them in terms of inco income -- over time in the past 30 years, income in the united states is getting less and les ek quitably distributed. that jamaicany co-efficient is up there at .46. when they say the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, that's actually what's going on in the united states. >> i don't want to live in a banana republic, but i also don't want to live in a socialist country. so what's a happy medium here. >> i believe in markets an competition, the question is all the money just going to a few people and the middle class is

being killed because of competition from china? something we'll talk about a lot in the course of here. but that number .46, and the fact that income is being distributed less equally, that's what's driving our politics right now. >> we'll be right back.

and welcome to our political party and offbeat conversation with people who have strong opinions on a whole range of topics. a great guest list tonight. let's go around the table. >> first we have matt miller who's the host of left, right and center, an old friend who conceived his first child in bore are bore are. >> and nancy giles who's a commentator on cbs sunday morning. >> and then we have got sam cedar who was a host on air america radar. and steve is very proud of the fact that his b.u. football team hasn't lost in 13 years. >> it might be because they discontinued the program 13 years ago. >> our first question, we have all heard bob woodward drop the bomb yesterday that hillary clinton might be up for to be running mate for barack obama 2012. so whether or not that's ever

going to happen, what's your dream ticket for 2012? it doesn't have to be a democrat or republican, just who's the best that you can think of. >> can it be anybody? >> no limits. >> no limits, exclude people at the table. >> even dead people. >> i would say to start with, anybody who will just not talk to bob woodward won't have to deal with these stories. >> you'll have to be anybody who will talk to bob woodward. >> if i was going to do a dream team, i have two ideas i would think obama-obama, because i think michelle is fantastic. >> she would be president and he would be vice president? >> yes. >> mike bloomberg and a billionaire to be named later. i think we need a kind of third force in this country. once we get past november, the polarization and the sense of finger pointing and the partisan pickiness is going to -- >> the motion is the plu plutocrats --

>> in the system we have today because of the lock the two parties have on ballot access it would take somebody with a lot of money to try and get -- >> but what is a theory that somehow a third party president is going to be able to do more than any other president? i mean what makes you think that the right is going to accept bloomberg any any more than they would expect barack obama. >> there's such a debate because much of the country is the 20% on both sides. there's just a wide open terrain for somebody who's common sense person who's going to synthesize the -- >> there is a desperate need for somebody in the middle who can disregard either fringe that traditional politics would suggest. i think that's the debate. i think many think barack obama was trying to do that. why would a third party

candidate be able to get anytng through congress at all? >> what would the campaign and the debate sound like, perot in '92 fundamentally changed the direction of the country. and bloomberg, the idea of a candidate like that -- >> and bloomberg who is a very popular mayor, i think to much of the country he is way left and to many his -- i don't think he brings that constituency. >> predictions are hard to make, but some have been worse than others. what's the worst political prediction in history? >> in history? >> do we win? >> in this year, it say, i have to say it was when bill clinton said, i think it was this year, it might have actually been last year, but he said you know what? as soon as barack obama signs health care reform, his approval

rating is going to shoot up 10%. there would be this big pay off for the democrats once you get the signature on it and then no. >> but you really believe that? bill clinton. >> bill clinton absolutely did. what did bill clinton know? he probably thought the same thing would happen to him. >> i thought the worst prediction had to be whoever whispered to meg whitman a while ago, don't worry, we can muscle through this illegal manny thing whenever it explodes becauwas c. they didn't look like they had their act together. it's audacious not to figure this out in advance. >> we need to figure out nanny eruptions. >> it was so bad on so many different levels, but when the story came out, she was willing to cut her loose. i think the worst prediction was the one we just talked about of hillary clinton and -- >> really?

>> you don't think it's going to happen. >> no, god no. >> you're really scoffing at that one. >> it's crazy. >> it was just spinning, it was just him sort of laying on thick some idea that he had. >> actually it wasn't a prediction, he was just reporting that someone -- >> it didn't look that he was reporting that. >> the tables are really, really big. >> my prediction, the worst one i think was either martha cokley wins, no problem. or tea party's going to be good for republicans in the off year. >> let me ask you another one, what is the senate race out there right now, which on november 3 we're going to say wow this is the martha cokley race of this year? >> that's a good question. does reid go down? blumenthal in connecticut? >> everybody's going in with their eyes open. everybody knows it's a tough fight. everybody knows that russ feingold as crazy as it seems is in a tough fight in wisconsin. i don't think there's going to

be any massive surprises. i think there's going to be -- >> i think there is one, west virginia where the governor has an approval rating approaching 70% is now losilosing. he lost three times before he ever won a race. >> i think in west virginia, they want to keep him as governor, manchin is popular, a good guy, i got to know him, really a very decent, good person. >> but he'll be term limited out in 2010 anyway. >> i seem to be the designated party pooper, but we're going to have a party every night on "parker spitzer." thank you all for being with us, we'll be right back.

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a sheriff described the damage from one of at least two twisters that struck near flagstaff, arizona. the white house commission appointed to study the bp oil spill disaster blasted the obama administration in a report issuissue ed today slamming government officials for vastly underestimating the amount of oil smelling into the gulf of mexico. the white house office of

management and budget squelched higher management. the college student who's seeking a protective order against a michigan assistant attorney general, speaks out tonight on "a.c. 360." we'll hear what it's been like for him to be the target of an attack blog operated by the assistant attorney general. i'll see you at 10:00 p.m. on "a.c. 360." >> we have talked a lot about anxiety, there's a sense of fear about what's going on in our society. but it used to be worse, didn't it? >> "today" almost 50 years ago, president kennedy went on tv and told americans to build a bomb shelter. i was growing up in florida, we did with a bomb shelter, on weekends, my family had drilled, we filled water bottles. and at school we had to dive under desks. >> and