that's all for us tonight. "ac 360" later starts right now. good evening, everyone. welcome to "ac 360." we're going to get to our panel in just a moment. breaking news at the top of the hour to update you on. a massive fire in the jersey shore this hour continuing to tear across the boardwalk in the town of seaside park just recovered from hurricane sandy. wooden buildings an open boardwalk, gusty winds, blowing embers all making this a monster. it started at an ice cream stand, eventually spreading to 20 buildings growing to six alarms. crews coming from all across the area, around 400 firefighters compounding the misery this stretch of shoreline as i said was just getting back on its feet after superstorm sandy. joining us now on the phone is seaside park mayor, robert matthews. mr. mayor, thank you very much for being with us.

what is the latest? how bad is the fire at this point? >> we're continuing to try to extinguish the fire. we have approximately 37 companies here, over 400 personnel firefighters trying to do their job. >> when we talked earlier, you had said this was a fire over basically an eight-block area. is it contained still in that eight-block area? >> yes, it is. the fire has been contained or stopped the spread of the northern advancement of that fire in seaside heights. >> in terms of the status of the fire, though, it is still very much out of control, correct? >> there's been no declaration that it is under control. but i will say to you just from my observation that it looks like the good efforts of the fire companies and the responders and the coordination and teamwork have this thing

where it's starting to diminish. >> can you explain just how it was able to spread so quickly for people who haven't been there, a lot of the buildings are all connected, correct? >> well, they are all connected. but probably the most significant situation was there was a 25 or 30-mile-per-hour wind blowing from the south and east. and once that fire started, the velocity of the wind just moved it forward to the northern parts of seaside heights. >> your community has stood strong in the wake of hurricane sandy. you re built, you reopened. do you have any doubt you're going to rebuild and reopen again on this boardwalk? >> i have no doubt at all. we're pretty resilient here. and we have had the great support of our governor,

governor christie to make sure we had the resources necessary to have a summer season. we just accomplished that. we're i think pretty satisfied with the degree in which we could entertain tourists and summer residents and so on. but this will be a difficult challenge, because this is an area that attracts many, many of the people that come to seaside park and seaside heights for their summer vacations. >> well, mayor mathies i know you have to go. our thoughts and prayers are with you and all the firefighters right now battling so hard. i wish they'd stay safe and get this thing under control quickly. thank you very much for joining us. we're going to continue to monitor developments throughout this evening. now the show thedodow showd

to talk about. one involving syria turning over its arsenal. secretary of state kerry in geneva tonight still deciding what to do if syria reneges on its plan. syria today making moves to sign onto the international treaty barring chemical weapons. accusations by the opposition that the assad regime is already trying to hide chemical weapons in lebanon and iraq. here at home backlash to russian president vladimir putin's op ed in the "new york times." the panel christiane amanpour, charles blow, and later in the fifth chair writer, one of the best in the business christopher dickey joins us as well. a lot to talk about. what do you make of what came out of what we know came out of the talks today? >> well, i think that secretary kerry gave a very stern, stiff and serious declaration at the beginning, going into the

meeting with sergei lavrov. he said this has to be serious we're not playing around here. it has to be credible, timely. we're not going to wait forever to see whether assad is going to play ball. it has to be verifiable and has to have consequences if assad reanything and if the russians don't keep him on the straight and narrow. assad himself gave an interview to russian television today where he basically admitted he had chemical weapons. >> also in that interview, which to me that's the headline of this interview that he gave. he said not only does the threat of military forces have to be off the table but the international community cannot arm the rebels. >> this is the thing. that's why secretary kerry has to negotiate very hard in that room with lavrov and not take his only piece of leverage off the table if you're going to get this chemical weapons thing even have a chance of getting done. and i thought secretary kerry was quite bold. because in his statement going in, he basically said, he dispensed with diplomacy.

he said our military posture remains. it is only the threat of force that's brought to us this dip make the point and brought president putin and the russians here. he said that to lavrov. >> but andrew if assad is saying now we have this other part of it not just the threat of military force that can't be on the table you can't fund the rebels or arm the rebels. >> we shouldn't arm the rebels. >> the cia is. >> it shouldn't. the president said we are not putting boots on the ground. where are the cia? we have no interest in the future or the resolution of that conflict. it is a civil war in a country divided and has been divided for decades if not centuries by these sectarian differences, and the government just as in iraq is led by a minority of alowiets who the british and the french set up to control the majority. [ overlapping speakers ] >> hold on a second. and that's how the colonial powers set it up.

that minority like the sunnis in iraq got all the privileges, they suppressed brutally the majority as well they might because they fear the majority. and now we're ending the order placed and installed by assad as we did with saddam. what's going to happen in that wake is an almighty sectarian civil war, like we've had in iraq. and i don't think we have a dog in that fight at all. >> i want to quickly bring in jim sciutto traveling with secretary of state kerry. what jumped out at you from today's meeting, jim? >> reporter: well, i think as christiane referenced the disagreements coming out very early, one on the use of force. the u.s. saying it's not going to take force off the table. russia saying that now force should be off the table. the other one on how quickly syria has to comply. president assad said in his interview he should have 30 days to report all his chemical weapons. that would be standard.

secretary kerry saying there is nothing standard about these talks bass syria has already used these weapons against his people. one thing that struck me herer what they're speaking about, they're going to focus very much on the nuts and bolts of this, on cataloging syria's chemical weapons, finding them and also destroying them. and that's why you have the working level groups getting at those details right now. they want to focus on that. because they believe they could leave geneva with a work plan for the nuts and bolts. the bigger picture issues they say they won't be negotiating a u.n. security council question here to the question of force. they want to focus on nuts and bolts because they believe that's an achievable goal. >> jim readout of how their first meeting went? is kerry sticking with that position? >> reporter: so far they're being mum. both sides have agreed not to give a readout to the press tonight. we do know that kerry and lavrov

met quietly the two of them for din where a small staff like the working groups kept going at the nuts and bolts issues. they're going to start first thing tomorrow morning. we also know that kerry met with ibrahimi talking about the broader issue of resolving the crisis there. they're setting a low bar because they want to make it achievable during this time frame. that's really focusing about how they can catalog these weapons. they also say if i can add that they have two early tests as to whether syria is sincere. one of those is how forthcoming syria is with all the information about their chemical weapons sites. that's going to be one of the first tests they're looking for. >> the administration has always con tended that the ultimate goal in syria was to have a diplomatic solution where assad would no longer be in power. the implicit suggestion of these talks that no one is saying is that what we're working towards is a situation where the chemical weapons would be removed but assad would remain.

and that seems to be the overall framework. and that is i think andrew is that your understanding of where we are moving toward and is the administration giving up on this what they have always contended was that assad should go in a diplomatic solution? >> reporter: he is the missing participant here. and everything depend on him. and what the u.s. is saying is that are going to rely on the russians to keep assad to his word. of course, assad says he doesn't want to deal with the u.s. because he doesn't trust them. of course there are trust issues between the u.s. and russia as well. that's the background. and we saw some awkward moments between lauf love -- lavrov and kerry where you saw trust issues come out. the key participant who is absent from these talks is president assad. >> obvious lit americans are not going to be negotiating, they say, with bashar al assad. they have to negotiate with his

patrons, with russia. get putin to put the pressure on and, interestingly, although the u.s. is a little bit touchy about this, the u.n. and the chief political officer has been to tehran, wants iran involved in this. >> absolutely. iran should be. >> to put pressure on assad and to make sure that they comply with all this. >> which gives the united states a great opening to start talking to the moderate elements in that regime, to work on common areas of interest. >> i think that's absolutely right. i know we're digressing a little bit but it's very, very pertinent. president rohani a reform president and who's already made changes in tone as well as some substance -- >> we tweeting out about rosh hashanah. >> and he's come together u.n. and he's probably going to show a much different face for sure. >> i want to bring you back to this conversation. want to bring in ramul garek in the cia.

currently he writes for the weekly standard and is a senior fellow the foundation for defense of democrat says. andrew was just saying he doesn't believe there is a national interest in arming the rebels. do you agree with that? and if not why? >> no, i think there are many interests with arming the rebels. i would be a little bit more aggressive than that. i think that one, bashar al assad should pay for what he did in iraq. he aided and abetted and sent jihadis over to kill american civilians and soldiers. i think we should recall the hobart towers event in 1996 the saudi shiites directed by the iranians, where did they go? they went to syria. there's a reason for that. syria has aided and abetted terrorism in that region, particularly terrorism by the hezbollah and the iranians for decades. so i think having assad go down is a very good idea. >> hold on. what happens then? i know you don't want to discuss

what happens when we get rid of saddam or assad but what happens then? who runs the country if there is a country? >> i think you obviously are going to have a recalibration there. and i think the americans should be in there. >> recalibration. we're talking about a massive civil war like we had in iraq. >> let him answer. let him answer. >> i think the primary issue is if you think there is a threat, sunni radical extremist threat in syria, it's developing because of what assad is doing. it will only get worse. because what assad is doing. they probably represent between 10 to 15% of the opposition. that number will grow. the terrain they hold will grow. if you want to stop that threat then you've got to bring down assad. the sooner you do it the better. >> you think that bringing down saddam managed to calm down all the sunni extremists in iraq? >> you know why that didn't happen, right? it's because the post-war plan

was a complete ballser. >> you have no plan. no one has thought through what has when we get rid of this guy. >> that is the worry. however i would just say one thing. [ overlapping speakers ] >> i don't know how you can be so sanguine about carnage. >> i am not you are. you just said charles blow we don't have a dog in this fight. >> i said it. >> one of you said it. i'm sorry you said that. >> whose dog are you for? >> you said and you said that we need assad to patrol this. go back to bosnia. >> that's not what i'm saying. what i'm saying is this very specifically. >> that is what you said. we need assad to police this. >> i didn't say that. i said what i'm saying is that no one wants assad to go right now, right? >> okay fine. okay. you need assad now to police this. that's what i just said. >> okay. >> let me just say something. in 1991, mark, and you'll remember this, president george

bush i and his secretary of state said the same thing about another famously fractious place the balkans in serbia. they decided milosevich was needed and it exploded beyond everyone's control. it was the foreign policy nightmare that sucked up all the oxygen of the united states and the rest of the europe for the entire period of the 90s. and then guess what happened. the united states finally got tough. and then guess what happened? the united states went and got rid of him with no boots on the ground, none, not only did they stop a carnage but they got rid of milosevich and now in serbia the democratic -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> you can argue during commercial break i have no doubt. guys, guys. we've got to take a break. we'll be right back. mark can stick around. we'll be right back. i'm beth...

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♪ appreciate your tweets joining in the conversation online at ac 360.com and on twitter. the videos showing the youngest victims of last month's chemical weapons attack in syria are horrifying in make its case for military strikes, the white house has repeatedly invoked the images of the dead and dying children. >> i ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity

for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor. >> we believe our global security is advanced when children cannot be gassed to death by a dictator. >> instead of being tucked safely in their beds at home, we saw rows of children lying side by side, sprawled on a hospital floor. >> if we begin to erode the moral outrage of gassing children in their bed, we open ourselves up to eastern moto ev fearsome consequences. >> delivering chemical weapons against children is not something we do. >> and just today, new disturbing pictures in a photo essay published by "time" magazine showing up close the brutalities of the civil war in

syria. they show islamic militants publicly decapitating a young syrian man. we're not going to show you that. the question on the table should these images with their power to overwhelm be off-limits in this debate. that was an idea on andrew sullivan's blog. he's back with us with our panel. this whole idea was prompted really by something i read on your web site today. explain why you don't think it's fair to kind of throw these images out there and use them in this debate. >> it is absolutely fair and important for us to observe this horrifying thing. we should. i'm not saying we shouldn't. i think we should feel it, see it, absorb it, think about it, and face up to it. but state craft is not about emotional visceral responses. state craft requires someone to seat world as it is but then to

make serious judgements about our interests, the future, unintended consequences. you cannot run foreign policy by emotional spasms. and my fear is that that emotional spasm threw obama off his essential trajectory of keeping out of this. >> christopher, what do you think about this? >> i think first of all the thing to understand about american policy is that you can't motivate the american people unless you motivate them with fear or anger or pity. all very short-lived emotions. it's one of the reasons we don't have a great long-term policy, foreign policy in this country except when we're up against russia in the cold war or we've got some great evil terrorist like osama bin laden. what the government is trying to do, what obama's trying to do, what kerry is trying to do, is in fact reach an emotional pitch that will cause the american people to be interested enough in syria to then allow the

government of the united states to pursue what it thinks is a wise policy there. andrew doesn't think it's a wise policy. i have my doubts also. but i don't see that it's an error for the president of the democracy to try and motivate the people to support the war. >> but can you separate the reality of what is happening on the ground? i mean, i know you acknowledge that it's important to seat images, it's important to know the suffering of the hundreds of -- the hundred thousand people who have been killed and their family members who are still alive and suffering. but can you separate? >> you have to. that's what being in public office and holding positions of power means. >> you can't be moved -- >> you have to be a moral man in immoral society. >> i can barely contain myself at this point. how many more times do we have to say that weapons of mass destruction were used? and as bad as it is to decapitate somebody, it is by no means equal. we can't use this false moral equivalence about what's going

on right now. they tried to do it in the second world war. they've tried to do it in bosnia. tried to do it in rwanda and they're trying to do it now. there is no moral equivalence. [ overlapping speakers ] >> wait just a second. excuse me. excuse me. the president of the united states and the most moral country in the world based on the most moral principles in the world, at least that's the fundamental principle that the united states rests on, cannot allow this to go unchecked. cannot allow this to go unchecked. and i'll tell you what. president clinton, 15, 16 years later, is still apologizing for rwanda. i just spoke to lanny davis who was once his -- once his ally and his -- i'm so emotional about this. >> exactly. and you're right to be. but that is not the state of mind to be thinking right about strategy and policy.

>> excuse me. i'm going to finish. i'm going to finish. [ overlapping speakers ] >> it's not emotion. this is history coming out. we have turned our eyes away from some of the most terrible crimes, some of the most terrible crimes. and that is not in america's national interests. >> it is sometimes. >> no, it isn't, andrew. no, it isn't. >> false choices say if you do not care -- i'm sorry. >> let him speak. >> it's a false choice to suggest that if i don't want the united states to drop bombs on syria that i do not care about the death of children. >> exactly. >> nobody's saying that. you're playing rhetorical games. this is really really important. [ overlapping speakers ] >> one at a time. one at a time. guys guys guys. mark, go ahead. you're long distance. you're at a disadvantage. >> let me just say one thing. a great part of state craft is soul craft. if a tyrant kills 10,000 men

it's bad, if he kills 10,000 women it's worse. if he kills 10,000 children it's the essence of pure evil. i think we need to say something about chemical weapons. there's a reason why bashar al assad used them. he needed to. he needs to keep using them. if you look at the casualty rates in syria, the regime is not doing very well. jeffrey white who's a first rate military analyst had the arduous job of compiling them. roughly 230,000 regime forces both regular and irregular have been wounded or died in this conflict. around 90,000 of the opposition have. that is soldiers -- that is defectors, opposition forces, islamists all put together. now if you do the ma, the alowites have roughly 50% of the population to draw on. sunnis have 70 to 75% of the population. assad has to change that kill rate. he has to make his side kill more from the other with fewer losses. he has to come back to chemical

weapons. we've only seen the beginning of this. >> chris? >> i agree with mark. but let's make it simple. if assad can use chemical weapons he will win this war. he will win it if it means depopulating large parts of his country by terrorizing people with chemical weapons. very much the way -- you remember when saddam used chemical weapons in 1988 and three years later he didn't even have to use them and he drove hundreds of thousands of kurds out of kurdis tan and nobody stood in his way. the real question for the state craft of this, do you want to allow bashar al assad to use weapons of mass destruction to win this war? >> we obviously don't. >> from the point of view of state craft you absolutely do not. >> even better with state craft -- >> we have a commitment from russia and now possibly the u.n. security council to take care of those weapons.

>> oh, andrew, that's not serious. that's just not serious. i mean, this is surreal. the entire stage play. i think what the president of the united states really wants to happen in these talks is that he can walk away from the fact that de facto he was slapped down by the house and senate. the only way i think president obama is going to come back to this issue with any type of military force is if assad uses those weapons during these talks. >> exactly. >> otherwise -- >> or ever. >> not ever. putin has no intention whatsoever of disarming his primary client. he will not do so. >> well, i think it's in putin's interests to prevent those chemical weapons getting in the hands of the rebels. and if you're right against all the reports i'm reading that assad is losing, then it makes it even more important for russia to contain those chemical weapons. >> look. putin i agree again with mark, i almost never agree with you, mark. i don't know why i'm agreeing with you so much tonight. >> it's shocking.

it's shocking. >> but basically putin saved obama's ass in this one. completely saved him. >> putin owns that conflict. [ overlapping speakers ] >> unfortunately we own that conflict now. >> no, we do not. because he is the one that's come and said i want to enforce the control and securing of the chemical weapons. i want to do it. and i've got assad to agree to it. he's responsible for that. >> we will see. we will see. >> i think the great achievement of the last week is that obama has passed this ghastly to bomb putin and putin has it. putin has the worst end of that deal. if you can just leave aside the whole like my member is big than your this whole like zero sum big politics i'm bigger man than you kind of idea behind politics. >> everything is a game to you, andrew. everything is a game. >> it's not. i'm saying leave behind that game and look at the result. the result is that putin is now responsible for this happening

and not us. >> no, he's not. no, he's not. [ overlapping speakers ] >> otherwise it's not going to work. >> he said that he will take responsibility of the u.n. security council to ensure that these weapons are secured and eventually destroyed. he said that publicly. >> he was going to take responsibility for milosevich, too. not he but russia. >> andrew, when we seers when assad fails to honor his commitments, when we see the shifty terrain in which all this is built, in fact whether you want it to be the case or not, obama is going to be in a better position to launch air strikes or do whatever he wants. [ overlapping speakers ] >> there are people who completely disagree with that. mccain, clearly mark doesn't think so. thinks that by then the moment will have passed. >> no, no, no. i mean again we don't want to keep going back to balkan history. but if you look at kosovo, milosevich had been there for

seven years raping the balkans. nobody had done anything about it but there was a sense it had to end, it had to be ended. and there was eventually very substantialsh substantial support for the kosovo war. we have to take a break. what president putin wrote on the op ed wrote "we must not forget god created us as equal" this from the country who passed a radical anti-gay law. we'll take that up with the panel next.

welcome back to "360 later" lie. shot of the statue of liberty. president putin's op ed in the "new york times" had many points. he closed the op ed with a point about big countries and small countries, rich and poor, each with its own policies and then this quote he said quote we all different but when we ask for the lord's blessings we must not forget that god created us equal. certainly a nice sentiment but pretty hypocritical you could say coming from a man who recently signed into law an anti-gay measure in his country that bans public discussion of equal rights for gays and relationships with gay people anywhere children might hear it

to stop so-called propoganda. did that jump out at you, andrew? >> no. i thought it was in the context of countries. i didn't leap to that. >> you're not a big fan of boycotts. >> no. >> do you support some sort of action at the olympics? >> i think that openly standing openly proud as a gay person in that olympics or as a friend of a gay person in that olympics in a small way a rainbow flag, a symbol of presence and a visibility is by far the best way to handle this. and i also think we need to be a little -- i mean, i absolutely agree with you. it is a disgusting law and obviously an attempt to shore up certainly the orthodox church and general legitimacy of the government by pressing these buttons. but i wouldn't respond to that op ed with that thought. myself. >> i want to bring in marcia gaston an openly gay journalist who lives in russia. she recently fled the country

with her family, her children in the aftermath of this law. why did you feel the need to actually leave russia? >> his it's good to be here. well, we haven't left yet. we're actually in the process of leaving. the reason we're in the process of leaving is that not only has russia passed a law against so-called homosexual propaganda but the parliament is considering a law that will remove children from parents known or suspected to be homosexual. that applies to me and my girlfriend and our three kids. >> not just adopted children but biological children? >> right. not that it should make a difference. but yes. we first feared for our adopted child who is our oldest son. he has now left the country. he is in boarding school in michigan. but last week on the same day that putin was telling the associated press that there's no anti-gay discrimination in russia, the duma introduced --

actually his party, the ruling united russian party, putin's party, introduced a bill in the duma that will remove children, any children including biological children from parents known or suspected or being homosexual. >> masha, sometimes when we see these appalling laws and these things that putin and the government are doing, some of us actually can't even believe it, that it's serious. and is it just to shore up his own government, his own support. but tell me what it's like on the streets. does it trigger aggression? does it trigger violence and backlash against you and other gays? >> absolutely. there's been a hoounl huge jump in anti-gay violence all over the country. and in many different ways. i mean, there are three different kinds of violence that we have seen just in the last few months. the first kind is the public kind for the cameras when people come out to protest these anti-gay laws. and they're -- we're beaten up. i was personally beaten up in front of the duma.

many other people have been beaten many times. and the police do not interfere or at most they interfere by taking the gay protesters into custody and leaving the gay bashers out in the street to continue. the second kind of violence is the kind of violence that clearly results from the hate campaign that has been launched by the kremlin that's on television at this point day in and day out. an example of that is a recent murder in bolgagrad where a young man was drinking beer with his buddies, people that he had grown up with. he came out to them. they raped him with their beer bottles and then they crushed his skull. this sort of thing is being reported all over the country. and it's very clear that that conversation started because of the anti-gay campaign on television. and that violence occurred because of the anti-gay campaign. and one of the men detained in connection with this murder said he said he's an fagot and it

offended my patriotic feelings. >> what is your take on the olympics on what anybody can do about this? is there something that can be done internationally? >> absolutely. and the olympics are putin's personal project. it is extremely important for him that the olympics go off without a hitch. putin personally lobbied the international olympic committee to get the olympics to russia. and at the same time, he thinks that he can get away with attacking minority in his own country and still have the olympics. it should be made very clear to him through as many ways as possible that that's not going to happen. and that means economic boycotts, that means boycotts on the level of the delegations that go to the olympics. the first lady should refuse to go to the olympics and should explain why she is not going. that sort of thing. >> i think the first lady should go and wear a rainbow button. i think, look, the olympics are always going to be this kind of -- always going to be controversy about them. we had them in the authoritarian

china which represses freedom of speech and all sorts of other political and civil rights. i just think that the way forward is to actually engage and to stand up as international people in that country for gay visibility. i think boycotting is a little futile. i don't think it necessarily helps rush why's gays. >> andrew, i disagree. >> i would defer to you, masha, to be honest with you you live there and i don't. i respect you enormously. so tell me why i'm wrong. >> thank you. you're wrong because what you're talking about would be very effective if the problem were with the russian people. if what we wanted to confront was societal homophobia wearing a rainbow pin, engaging might work. the problem is not with societal homo folk yeaphobia but the kre hate campaign. it's coming from up top not from the public. the message to the kremlin that really gets across is snubbing. it's telling putin that his life is going to be hell as long as

these laws stand. wearing a rainbow pin does not make his life hell. not showing up for the olympics makes his life hell. >> reports are this was woven into the context of him trying to chastise president obama on kind of being open and not -- his world view. i think in the context of that particular op ed is very striking. i think it is -- i take it at that level. i look at masha and i'm thinking, how is this person the person who has any moral authority to chastise our president on anything? >> absolutely he doesn't. >> my question to masha would be, if it's coming from top down, why? what's in it for putin to do this? is he just crazy on this subject? or is there some political calculation here? >> it's a little bit of both. i don't think he's crazy on the

subject of gays and lesbians. he is crazy on the subject of what he perceives as western influence as foreign agents. this is part of a broad crackdown on civil society. and that crackdown has had two themes, one of think is fighting so-called foreign agents. and putin sincerely believes that hillary clinton personally inspired the protest that began in december of 2011. he looks at those protests and he sees enemies of the state, he sees foreigners, he sees again foreign agents. and to him lgbt people are the quintessential foreign agents. and that's why we have ended up the prime target. >> just a quickie, masha. do you think the political pressure can let up at all, for instance, with the very close defeat of the reform candidate as mayor of moscow? do you think there's any chance of that kind of reform politics breaking through and mitigating this kind of situation? >> unfortunately i don't. i think putin's regime at this point is acting like a cornered

animal. it's lashing out. sometimes it retreats for a very short time as happened when navoni was sentenced to five years in prison and released. i am absolutely certain navoni will be incarcerated as soon as the attention dies down a little bit. that business about attention is key. as long as the world is paying attention to what's happening to lgbt people in russia and to other parts of civil society, that makes us just a little bit safer. >> i wish you and your wife and your kids the best. i hope you're able to get out and find sanctuary. there's been a lot of talk on syria and for good reason tonight. there's a lot of other things going on in the world and in the united states we haven't talked about. a great panel here. gooeg talk about the stories that might have gone unnoticed today maybe to you and maybe to me but not to them. we'll talk about that ahead. mine was earned in djibouti, africa. 2004.

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. thanks for all your tweets about the show. we're back with our panel. i want to switch gears. one of the things i like about

andrew sullivan's web site is the variety of stories you kind of come across stories you don't see anywhere else. we thought on this show we should have everybody on the panel kind of talk about the stories of the day they think have gone uncovered. charles, what story do you think has not been -- >> this is not uncovered exactly. and it's this week, not today. but i think that the image that comes out of george zimmerman's newest arrest with domestic violence situation with his soon-to-be ex-wife. >> allegations of domestic violence. >> whatever happened at her, shellie zimmerman's father's house. whatever happened he was handcuffed, taken to detention. but what it showed us, though, both 911 call and the images we had from dashcam videos and who have you is that this is a person who can be explosive. and that is a very different image than what we were shown and what we were led to believe

the trial. >> i actually talked to his attorney who's now sort of quit his larger case but is still his attorney on some smaller things. he said -- i said, are you concerned about your client? are you concerned? this guy's been pulled over twice now for speeding. he has a gun in the car both times in the last month or two since the trial. had this incident. there was obviously the trayvon martin incident and what occurred before that is his interaction with the police which i think the charges were dropped on that. so this is a guy who has had a lot of involvement with the police. >> this is the first time we have documentary kind of evidence. what we had during the trial was he was presented as soft. he was soft spoken. one of the people who listened to him in the police precinct said he came in and talked about his catholic faith. he was very soft spoken. >> you're saying we're seeing a different side of him. >> we're seeing a very different side. the first jurors came out gave him this kind of very affectionate nickname. she kept calling him georgie. this is not georgie. he shows up with a 400-pound

bodyguard, with the woman who should know george better than any person on this planet believes that he is angry enough to shoot her and her father. >> we can't retry the guy. so why are we talking about this? >> because i think it is important -- >> it's interesting. >> i'm just saying it is fascinating. i will say that. i'm just like i don't know quite what one wants to get out of that. >> i want to go to the story i think is interesting. >> i didn't mean to say it that way. >> but you did say it that way. the story i think is interesting and hasn't got a lot of attention this woman dr. elizabeth o'bagy allegedly a syria expert, allegedly a doctor, a ph.d, who has now been widely quoted not only by john kerry and senator mccain in hearings as being kind of an expert on the rebel movement in syria, turns out she lied about having a ph.d at all. so she's not a doctor, she doesn't have a ph.d. she started off as like an intern about a year ago. and to me it just -- i think you talk about this on your web site. it's very much an insight into

washington. >> it is. it's how you gin up a war that is not in in the country's interest. >> i look at it as more a personal story a wanna-be imposter. i'm fascinated by imposters. i just think her story is -- she's on another network on fox. but no we did not have her on the show. for you what is on the story. >> i did interview maclemore. he is a white rapper, hiphop. and in north carolina a middle school teacher was suspended for having shown his video, which is called "same love" to the school, to the class. >> we have the video. let's play a little bit of the video. ♪ somehow forgotten but we paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago. i don't know ♪ ♪ i can't change even if i try >> so a teacher played that in a class. >> yeah. and maclemore did something quite brave.

the hiphop culture as he told me is very testosterone, homophobic, fuelled by anti-gay sentiments. and he came out and made a very, very powerful video. he said he had two gay uncles. his god father was gay. he was very moved by the story of the young 13-year-old gay boy you remember who committed suicide after being bullied. and he decided to come out and use his music to send a message. and in fact, he got the award at mtv just recently for the best video with a social message. and he's a really charming fellow. and i had a great interview with him. i thought it was really brave to do what he he did. >> i like christiane amanpour's untold story is about a white rapper. >> on september 30th the federal government runs out of money. >> way to bring it down, andrew. >> that's an important moment. unless the republican party and the house can actually get its act together and figure out what it wants to do, we're going to have a series of pretty major

cry crisis. a crisis over the government shut down, a crisis over the debt ceiling which could bring our credit rating again at stake. the country is bankrupt. it doesn't know what to do about that. yet we are still talking about going into places we cannot know and cannot control in ways we did before that cost us and bankrupted us in the first place. and that's a useful reality check. >> can we just talk about the rapper again? >> andrew is wrong. we're not talking about going into any country. and we do have to think about -- and i butchered lanny davis's title. he was president clinton's special counsel. he said to me tonight and he wrote a very powerful article that the president has been apologizing for years and so have the u.n. for leaving that untouched and seeing those piles and piles of bodies. and i think the question is -- seriously. the question is what kind of a world do we want to live in? we want to live in a world that has american values, western values, democratic values, moral values. >> imposed by bombs?

>> no, we're not talking about that. [ overlapping speakers ] >> i want that kind of world, too. christiane, you've covered the same wars i have. more wars than i have. our experience in trying to take those things to the rest of the world through force either by stopping bad guys or installing good guys -- >> sometimes it's minimal action work as the president himself said. >> please. when? >> targeted action works. >> about 30 seconds. do you have an untold story? >> actually i would agree with andrew, not that just that we're going bankrupt. but i was just going to take the train up from washington yesterday. and all the trains were canceled. because power lines were down on the train tracks. now, that in itself is not a big story. but the fact that america's falling apart is a big story. and people just don't cover it. it's one of those gradual things like some kind of wasting disease. and the fact that we're running out of money, the fact that we're talking about another war because there's always money for a war, obscures the fact that we don't want to spend any money to make this a better country to live in. >> that's the story that does

not get covered on the nightly news because it's not one of those day out stories. good discussion tonight. next time a little less talking over each other. viewers are complaining and as we get a break more from christiane amanpour's mad crush maclemore. ♪ i describe myself as a mother,

a writer and a performer. i'm also a survivor of ovarian and uterine cancers. i even wrote a play about that. my symptoms were a pain in my abdomen and periods that were heavier and longer than usual for me. if you have symptoms that last two weeks or longer, be brave, go to the doctor. ovarian and uterine cancers are gynecologic cancers. symptoms are not the same for everyone. i got sick... and then i got better. i'm bethand i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase.

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