in other words, this is harry truman. if you're going to be harry truman, you don't make it sound like somebody's imposing on you. >> okay. sigmund. explain to me further. you've thought this through more than i have. why does he hedge on the obvious easy ones? >> because he's maintain -- he still thinks he can get fair-minded, low-tax republicans. he's not going to get any fair-minded, low-tax republicans. he thinks he's still going to win virginia and north carolina. i don't think he's going to win virginia and north carolina. >> but plouffe does, his guy. >> i know plouffe does, but they ought to worry about pennsylvania. they ought to worry about pennsylvania and ohio, and he ought to say, damn right, we ought to tax -- >> he's reconciled himself to the, i must fight strategy -- we're not going to compromise strategy. but in his heart, he still wants to compromise. >> he ran on the promise of uniting america. he hasn't been able to do it. the republicans don't want to help him. so what should he do? >> i think -- he's

truman said something that still rings true today we can only get the democrats to act like harry truman more of what the democratic party's to do right now here and those around him ideally take. republican efforts to subvert our democracy are rampant around the world in tennessee an eighty six year old veteran is essentially forced to pay a poll tax since a new law there requires citizens in that state to get a photo id to be eligible to vote in the next election and then went to the d.m.v. to get his new photo id and was told he needed to pay eight bucks for it it's a clear violation of the twenty fourth amendment which clearly says that the right of citizens to vote shall not be a bridge with a poll tax or any other tax. state officials have since said this was a mistake and that if the man had simply made it clear they needed the i.d. to vote then it would have been free so i guess you could avoid pain for the right to vote as long as you know the secret code words meanwhile in michigan republican lawmakers are pushing through legislation to make it harder to register people to vote

act on my jobs bill or i'm going to go harry truman on you and campaign against that do-nothing congress. he even threatened to make republicans vote on the bill piece by piece, forcing them to vote no on universally popular proposals. what the president today is good politics. could it also be good policy? plus, those wall street protests, can president obama harness that energy and enthusiasm in the streets and get out in front of that parade? that may be the way for him to grab back that mantel of hope and change for himself. will he? also, baseball doesn't happen to be the only playoffs going on in town. in the republican party, the eastern conference is set right now. mitt romney's the clear winner. but the western conference, the tea party crowd, is still open. perry's still alive, cain is coming on strong, and someone is going to want michele bachmann's supporters when she finally flames out. who's going to be the anti-romney? and the legacy of steve jobs is another reminder that in america, you don't have to go to the right schools, jobs didn't, or have a rich daddy. the guy in t

harry truman comes into office. j. edgar mover had one of his agents plant a nasty rumor with truman's top military aide that truman was having an affair with his daughter-in-law. they played hard ball back then. i had to run that to the ground which was not pleasant and found that it wasn't true. donovan was very close to his daughter in law but only as a daughter in law. even so donovan had a number of affairs over the years and a number of mistresses. was common knowledge in buffalo, in washington and among oss circles and military intelligence. had no problem getting to the fbi and passed on to truman. that is not what sunk reorganization with harry truman. what probably killed it was a 59 page report that the pond, the secret espionage unit managed to get to truman's desk through an army officer in the white house serving as a conduit. that 59 page report accused donovan's agency of all manner of misdeed and malfeasance and blown operation and corruption. at one point in accused oss officers of staging a sex orgy

--- different when harry truman was running against the so-called due nothing congress. -- do-nothing congress. guest: that is true. we have a super-committee who is empowered by law to make billions of dollars of cuts that are designed to displease both parties. unless those cuts are made, congress then will be forced to make extremely high catz to things like -- high cuts to things like the defense budget. it is basically a poison pill. we do not hear too much about it now. we have heard about the tea party activism and the take back wall street activists. but that super-committee is yet to report. when it does report, i think we're going to find that the budget has been taken over by this super-committee, and that is really what is going to show what is going to happen for america to begin climbing out of the huge deficit that it has. host: will we see this occupy wall street movement spread or will be isolated to a certain population centers? guest: i think it is not the tea that i will increase. some in the media are upset that the occupy wall street movement or the anti-wall-str

truman strategy on steroids but harry reid harry truman everybody you know i mean the chicago. moses chicago sun times cyclotomic you know do we wins but it was a tie it was a squeaker i guess is the bottom line but we'll see how it plays out jim dean i'm curious from you the in the occupy and main encampment over the weekend. a couple a couple of dozen demonstrators are basically living there in the towns and somebody rolled a bomb into it into their kitchen it was in a bottle and it actually exploded this was the first terrorist incident that the occupy wall street or the ninety nine percent movement has experienced and it's been singularly i mean i read about it on the radio today for three hours but it seems to be largely in singularly absent from the news media i didn't see anything tonight. if this had happened at a tea party rally what would we be seeing. we'd be seeing headlines all over the place but here's the good news tom i think the mainstream media is finally getting this a little bit in a way that they hadn't got it when it first started a month ago and and this

presidents from harry truman to tom burnett. his 1955 recording of "autumn leaves" remains the top piano hit of all time according to "billboard." roger williams was 67 years old. also today, word that hall of fame national football league owner al davis has died at his home in oakland, california. davis was a rebel with a cause, and that cause was his beloved oakland raiders. he was instrumental in founding the nfl as we know it today. john blackstone has this profile. >> reporter: with his combative style, al davis shaped the nfl and made his team the, the oakland raiders, the bad boys of football, always following the motto, "just win, baby." >> i want to win. obviously in life, i like certain things. i like beautiful women more than unbeautiful women. >> reporter: davis spent his life in football, first coaching college teams. in 1963, he was named head coach of the raiders, then part of the upstart afl, the nfl's fledgling competitor. in 1966, davis was named commissioner of the afl, and worked hard to lure top players away

. >> su estrategia similar a la que utilizÓ el ex presidente demÓcrata harry truman, culpar al congreso en momentos en que el pÚblico estÁ furioso con los legisladores. >> de alguna manera el presidente estÁ contra la pared, no tiene opciÓn. >> pareciera que en tÉrminos polÍticos la Única opciÓn que nos queda es dar la batalla. >> que si va a dar resultados o no, obviamente no lo sabemos. >> (en inglÉs). >> el mandatario seÑala a republicanos y parece no dar treguas. >> y no hay indicios que estÉn dispuestos a ceder. >> lo que estamos viendo con presidente obama dividir la naciÓn y no traer a los dos partidos juntos para tener una soluciÓn para este momento con la crisis econÓmica. >> en el senado se vio un avance de lo que serÁ el debate sobre la propuestas de trabajo. >> el republicano acusÓ a la mayorÍa demÓcrata de querer cayoarlos. >> (en inglÉs). >> el lÍder del senado dijo que los juegos polÍticos en algÚn momento tienen que terminar. >> la esperanza de millones estadounidenses es que todo termine con un plan que a corto plazo les permita encontrar un trabaj

people were content with record high employment, but they did not attribute it to harry truman. also, global issues were eight huge factor here. one of the things that truman has been criticized in retrospect but at the time was widely praised was running a campaign of national unity in which he tried -- first of all, the idea of bipartisan foreign policy is part of thomas e. dewey's political allegis -- legacy. it is something that began in the 1944 campaign. he supported truman on the airlift to berlin. he supported truman on recognizing the state of israel. at the same time, he wanted to increase the defense budget by $5 billion. there is no doubt he would have been -- he supported the marshall plan, but he would have asked more questions before just turning american tax dollars over two left-wing governments in europe. it was a campaign that in many ways is what we claim we want in a candidates. it was not hitting below the belt, there were not a lot of possible -- personalities, there were not a lot of name- calling. >> is that showing up in the polls? in a do we vs. truman

starting with justice vincent who was chief justice at the time of harry truman and was a good friend of harry truman. >> that's correct. >> charlie: give me a sense of him. >> of course my sense of him is not as intimate by any means in my sense of the most recent three chief justices because i was a law clerk for another member of the court. >> charlie: justice rutledge. >> right. and i had limited contact with the chief justice vincent. but he was a person who apparently was very successful at a oral level but he was not himself a craftsman in writing. he relied heavily on his law clerks for all of the writing, i think. i think that comes out but he was a person would fairly broad public experience and had his own views onpecific issues. but he wa surrounded by other lawyers who are really thought of as better lawyers and better scholars. >> charlie: then justice i guess warren came after that. >> he came after that. of course my contact with justice warren was as a practicing lawyer. i did argue one case before the court and as you may have noticed in there i was startled to find

. >> president obama wants us to think not like gerald ford but harry truman. he had a tough congress tuesday with, but acted on his own. his time to starart behaving like a president, not like a politician from chigo lambasting the rich, more tax breaks -- i can deal with china. i can do with energy. it is time for him to dl with that part >. >> he did at -- if he acted unilaterally on china, prices would go up. >> absolutely. >> we are going have this debate. let's talk about the debate that is coming up. your news organization, bloomberg, is hosting the next big debate. >> that is right. we h have a debate in new hampshire, the first solely about the economy. it will be 8:00 p.m. on bloomberg television and streaming live. >> is funded by the peterson institute. >> i will be going to new york thatight to appear the next morning on fox to help cover the debate appeared >> ver good. all-star lineup and all-star coverage. we will have this debate after the debate. thank you for joining us. up next, our number for the weeeek -- 188,003 and 74. [ mr. connally ] i

in fact what it did was, it made harry truman a man in the middle. neither thurman or wallace turned out to have anywhere near the impact it was believed it would have. >> the economy at the time, what is it like? >> the economy is truman's great strength. as i say, record employment. more than that, what he did very shortly in his campaign, he does to thomas e. dewey what he did to the republican congress. the fact of the matter was, a democratic president riding the crest of prosperity in the fall of 1948 could point a finger at the republican congress and in the fact suggest people. truman was not bashful about doing it. if you return republicans to complete control of the white house and congress, you can expect to see a return to the economic policies that produced the great depression. it was not that long since the great depression. people's memories were very sharp. that came into play without a doubt. >> what about the role of communism? >> it is fascinating. truman had taken some heat for -- dewey had taken some heat for introducing this ch

truman. >> if congress does something i can't run against a do-nothing congress. if congress does nothing then it's not a matter of me running against them. i think the american people will run them out of town. >> reporter: the white house is pulling out all the stops to try to fix their economic brand these days. even using the clinton card tomorrow. secretary of state hillary clinton guest hosts the president's jobs council meeting, brian. >> chuck todd, thanks for that. up next, as we continue, the advice that may stun millions of americans who have been told they need that routine test for prostate cancer. and now the question, what are men to do now? >>> we're back with a potential game-changer in health news and here is the headline from the new york times website. got our attention tonight. dr. nancy snyderman, our chief medical editor joins us in studio. u.s. panel advises against routine prostate test. what is this story about? >> this is a little bit of a controversy that's been spinning around in the medical arenas for quite some time. the risk benefit

i want to quote harry truman. he was in the rose garden in 1948. he was asked a political question. he said, son, never kick a cow turd on a hot the day. >> that is so true. >> that is very true. >> she brought up about stepping in things. the bottom line, folks, is mickey is a mean mouse. and he has stepped into that pile in espn and they're doing this. this is my mickey, this one right here. >> hank, do you understand why using hitler was a pad idea? >> oh, yeah. i told you i'm not smart enough. disney, abc, and espn and me and the opening of monday night football are kind of like the spanish american war. they're history. >> please take off the yankee jersey. please. please. a couple things to show from you yesterday. president obama drinking beer yesterday joining four unemployed construction workers in orlando, florida. they toasted to more jobs. they were at an irish pub in downtown orlando. we're told president obama enjoying a guinness. and how about a fraternity house? rick perry stopped by the fraternity, no drinks there. just some photo-opes and a strange declaration abou

also, a look at the young harry truman and the 12 years he spent working on the family

i have harry truman's old office in the russell building and his desk on the floor of the senate. what the president wants to do is say this is a do nothing congress. what he's forgotten is his party controls half the congress. he's not giving us anything that even democrats really want to do. >> let's talk about simply the payroll tax. is that not going to get exte extended? >> it very well might be ex tended. it's not the thing i'm the most excited about. there are pieces that you might be excited about. things that encourage returning veterans to have an advantage at the hiring desk or things that look at the georgia plan where people who go -- still on the unemployment rolls get assistance. we might extend the payroll tax, but at the end of the day, that weakens social security and what this proves is once you start having people not pay into the social security fund, at what point do you say we're going to stop that holiday on paying into this fund that's going to be in big trouble. it gets a lot of support because everybody pays into it that eventually draws out of it. >> le

truman model against the do-nothing congress instead of negotiating. are you negotiating? will you? >> i am always open to negotiations. what is also true is they need to do something. so, bill, the answer... the question then is will congress do something? if congress does something, then i condition run against a do-nothing congress. if congress does nothing then it's not a matter of me running against them, i think the american people will run them out of town. >> reporter: the president defended the campaign through the key states which he'll need in 2012 as the only way to pressure republicans in congress. >> right now john boehner is the speaker of the house and mitch mcconnell is the republican leader and all i can do is make the best arguments and mobilize the american people so that they're responsive. so far they haven't been responsive to not just me but public opinion. >> reporter: and if his own efforts won't sway republicans, the president vowed to continue trying to turn public opinion. >> so there may be some skepticism that i personall

harry truman also had a sign, the buck stops here. an that's the test that obama's been failing. it may be just perception. democrats will argue that it is. but he hasn't -- there are republicans he could get if he'd move to the center on some policy. instead it's been health care and the stimulus spenng. it's been a problem for him. so, when you get to the point now where oneut of four americans has faith in his ability to run the economy, more than half don't, rest undecided, those are horrible numbers. >> mike? >> the jobs bill is full of things republicans have always pushed for in the past. it's got tax cuts on the payroll tax to try to incent people to have more money to spend to create more jobs. at the same time it goes towards infrastructure in ways that republicans and democrats on a bipartisan basis have supported building our schools and fixing our roads. we can't get republicans to even give us a chance to vote. >> let me -- >> on a way -- >> -- when bill clinton was president -- >> -- only get democrats to put the bill forward. >> let me pick up on this. your column

>> guest: well, harry truman's entourage of advisers and aides were a group of--probably the most distinguished group, i have to say--the most distinguished group of americans to enter into public service in this century. these were the ones that historians like to call 'the wise men,' men like dean acheson, who served as truman's secretary of state. c-span: in here on the left? >> guest: yeah. that's acheson that you see on the left. that, in the middle, is acheson's special ambassador at large, philip jessup. and there in the background on the right is dean rusk, who would, in a sense, inherit the mantle of the legacy of 'the wise men' of this american liberal political establishment and the responsibilities for running the cold war and for america as a superpower. c-span: so in 1947, he's a freshman senator. what committee does he go on? >> guest: he goes on a couple of small committees. he goes on, for example, the committee for--he goes on the post office committee, as i recall, the committee for the district of columbia. these are very small posts. but the other position that he gets is o

hash harry truman did a good job in 1948 at identifying the obstacle as republicans. and that's what obama has to do. we don't know if he can do it. >> a leader leads. a leader leads. part of the president's problem is that he has never, from day one, been able to really pull in bipartisan support. either make republicans afraid of him or they want to follow him. he's never been able to do it. part of the reason people are talking about chris christie is that he's in a democratic state, he's a republican governor, but he's made progress on deficits, spending, pensions, property taxes, with a democratic legislature. it's never an excuse that washes, to say, oh, the other team, the other party are bad guys, they wouldn't follow me. if you're a leader, you make them -- >> -- put the president's jobs bill on the house of the floor and senate and put a republican alternative. but let's have a choice. the president said this is what i would do. republicans aren't giving the public a chance to see what they would do. >> let me pick up this thread. i've had this discussion wi

harry truman had a republican congress to run against. the president can i get his jobs bill to the senate without major surgery. now on the other side, republicans are very upset with congress for their polling numbers are 12% favorable. so when you start looking at this, it offers possibilities that you could have something akin to 1978 where you had a bipartisan spanking that is. republicans lost seats and democrats lost seats. but when you take a look at the overall makeup of the districts, the advantages for the republicans in the house. in the senate, but one in three republican -- democrats up, -- 23 republicans up -- 23 democrats up, it is another story. a year is an eternity in politics. there will be a presidential effect on this. you traditionally kid a big scene in the house -- if the president lost reelection, and you could expect the republicans to pick up seats. if you reelect president, you tend to reelect the congress. host: we are talking with tom davis. guest: a senator from ohio and others, they were my partners this l

in fact, at one point harry truman sent over requests to get information about what the oss was spending its money on, truman was in charge of that government efficiency committee during the war, and marshall talked him out of it and truman backed off. senator harry byrd of virginia at one point tried to find out what the oss officers were getting paid, and actually, they got paid high salaries, and he wanted to cut that back. as far as the funding for the oss, it came initially out of two accounts. roosevelt in the beginning had a private slush fund, a white house secret fund that was called unvoucherred money, which was not accountable to congress, and he could pay out what he wanted. he initially paid the organization out of the private fund. he had his own little secret black intelligence unit run by a washington columnist, a guy name john franklin carter who did domestic espionage work. this was not overseen by congress. eventually, part of donovan's funds as want budget expanded into the hundreds of millions and mar came from appropriated funds from congress, but even then, congres

truman's famous brisk walks through d.c. to jimmy and rosalynn carter sneaking out to their famous chinese restaurant, first families love sneaking out of the fish bowl. something al roker asked mrs. obama about today. turns out she sneaks out all the time. >> absolutely. but quiet as it's kept -- although not so quiet -- i do it more frequently than people realize. it's amazing how people don't recognize you. they don't expect me at starbucks or chipotle. i actually took bo to petco and the cashier asked me, what kind of dog is that. i said, a portuguese water dog. he didn't recognize us because he didn't expect that we would be in petco. my secret's out, but we try to sneak out as much as possible. it helps to keep our kids' lives normal. >> that's pretty great. the first lady said that she's been to baskin robbins and said the kids behind the counter often look right through her and don't notice it's her. something tells us the baskin robbins near the white house will get a call from corporate he he headquarters about cus

henry wallace, strom thurmond, harry truman and tom dewey. big four. why are president obama and vice president biden talking down their why are they calling themselves the underdogs? be right back. chris: welcome back. this week president obama and vice president biden talked down their chances. >> the majority of americans, 55% think you'll be a one-term president. are you the underdog now? >> absolutely. >> the american people are dissatisfied with the state of the nation at the moment. that all by itself is enough to make you the underdog. chris: which brings us to this week's big question. was that smart? dan rather. >> they're not the underdogs or overdogs. it's even money and that's what they can't to cast themselves as the underdog but an incumbent president is never the underdog this early. >> katty. >> you can call yourself what you like. if you don't produce jocks by the time of next year -- produce jobs by the time of next year -- chris: talking themselves down had >> i don't think it makes a difference. >> i don't think it makes a differen

truman lately and running against a do nothing congress so far the polls haven't confirmed whether or not it's working so maybe that's why the electorate seems largely asleep and political discussions seem vapid the other side has its trusty go to platform to fall back on barring another attack on america before november twelfth two thousand and four or the o. ws movement turning violent hopefully neither will happen republicans have lost their will be a man. and as long as the tea party has controlled the house of representatives and that control remains unbroken the democrats it was the access so they're cynical meanwhile thirty years a reaganomics and clinton's insane free trade policies and she dared to destroy the american middle class as the old chinese curse goes we live in interesting times. that's the big picture first and i heard more information on the stories we covered visit our websites and thom hartmann dot com free speech dot org and our team dot com also check out our two you tube channels there are links and thom hartmann. also thom hartmann dot com check out all the