sports and jim gray who talks about tiger woods and the n.b.a. finals. tomorrow the blix visit the los angeles lakers and we get a preview. >> a couple years ago when they faced each other they were both looking for championships. now they have them. boston beat the lakers in the series, humiliated them if the final game and the lakers came back last year and beat orlando. so it's a different series this time around because they each have championships so they're not seeking the holy grail. now they're trying to get one more added on to it. >> rose: biden and gray next. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: joe biden is here. he is at the center of the administration's foreign and we domestic policy decisions. a host of grave issues confront the administration at this moment, from the israeli raid off the gaza coast to oil spill in the gulf coast. on tuesday, attorney general eric holder announced a criminal investigation into the spill, which is now the worst in u.s. history. it is the latest move by the white house to be more aggressive in its response to the disaster. meanwhile, the israeli raid has heightened tensions with allies like turkey and could threaten the already fragile proximity talks between palestinians and israelis. the incident also led to the cancellation of a planned meeting on tuesday between president obama and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. vice president biden joins me to talk about all of. this he is in new york today to discuss the government's efforts to create jobs and improve infrastructure. i am pleased to have him back at this table. welcome back. >> good to be back here, charlie. >> rose: i remember the good old days when we could have an hour and a half here at the table. >> (laughs) i remember those as well. sometimes i long for them. >> rose: other than being the last man in the room-- your request-- what has the president president not on a policy but on a relationship ask of you? >> well, you know, what he's asked for me is... which is easy to give. my loyalty and my friendship. but he's mostly asked for my candor. he jokes about it, but you know i have that bad reputation of saying... meaning what i say and sometimes saying more than i should. >> rose: (laughs) yes. >> but it really is... i think he would tell you, he says it publicly, he views it as a real asset. i have no reluctance out of respect to tell the president in private exactly what i think, if i think... if he asks me his opinion and sometimes he f he doesn't. and i think he values that. this is a guy who... you know, he kind of reminds me of... he's one of those guys who is so certain of his intellectual capacity that he's not at all reluctant to acknowledge what he doesn't know. and he genuinely seeks opinions that are diverse in order to inform his final judgment. and that's a beautiful thing to watch. and it really is. he does not discourage dissent. he encourages informed dissent. >> rose: it's said by rahm emanuel and others that you, in fact, serve as a catalyst so that he can listen because you will raise the questions that others might not be prepared to raise. >> well, i think they're capable of raising it but i kid. there's a joke inside. i'm the only constitutional officer. he can't fire me. >> rose: (laughs) that's true. >> so i say things times... >> you are a constituency of one but nevertheless the constitution says he can't fire you. >> that's right. so i say things that every once in a while i can see others go, ooh, god, i wish victim asked that or said that. but the president... i know as a friend... i've become his friend, he's become my friend. i know that's what he is looking for. i'm always respectful. he is the president of the united states of america and... but the fact of the matter is, he's also my friend barack obama and i do raise things. and i will deliberately raise contrarian views. >> rose: and the he wasn't doing well in your judgment you would tell him? >> i would tell him. but you know what? i do tell him. i mean, look, we have lunch. i spend... when he's in the country and i'm in the country i spend somewhere between three and five hours a day with him everyday. start off with the presidential daily briefing on the national security, one on the economy, meetings with heads of state, meets with the secretary of state and/or with the secretary of defense, which are regularized, etc. then we have a private lunch once a week. and we talk about everything from the fact that his youngest child and my number three granddaughter play in the same basketball team, so we'll be sitting in a suburban maryland junior high school gymnasium the two of us on saturday mornings. we talk about everything from that to... you know, he'll ask my opinion. and, by the way, he will give me his opinion as to how i'm doing my job or what he'd like me to do or didn't like what i did. so it really has matureed into a relationship where i would be not be loyal to him if i did not tell him if i thought he were... >> rose: here is the things you're beginning to read more and more. mainly because, i think, of the oil spill and the inability to stop the flow of the oil. it is he's lost his narrative. maureen dowd today. it is that this administration looks a bit like the carter administration in the iranian crisis because it can't get its will. it seems paralyzed. >> no. first of all, i don't think they're legitimate criticisms. and, look, any one in the press can make a criticism from their perspective and, you know, and i'm viewing it from my perspective. from my perspective, i think if there's my mistake made that we haven't communicated clearly enough, what the president has done on this oil spill from the beginning. we were there the first day. the first morning after the well had blew and the platform collapsed. we were in the oval office, he mobilized everyone in the white house and the west wing, made it clear thatter singing asset of the federal government should be made available. when i sit down and talk to him about this-- which is constant. i mean, he talks about... he talks with such empathy about... this is not just merely an economic catastrophe, this is potentially going to ruin a way of life. this is a unique bayou culture that's down there. >> rose: there's an ecosystem at risk. >> there's an ecosystem but there's also a way of life at risk. it's more than just you may not be able to shrimp. it's more this is my way of life. there's an entire culture. i've been through the bayou. when i was a senator down there, as vice president dealing with... in the beginning dealing with the aftermath of hurricane katrina, all the way from port charles over to the bayou, this is a different way of life. this is something that needs to be preserved. and he talks about that. but, look, here's what he did. >> rose: but has he talked about that in a way that it has resonateed with the american people from the get-go or did the administration not want to own the problem? >> he talked about it privately with me from the get-go. >> rose: that's one thing. >> i agree. but here's what he did. he immediately authorized the callup of the national guard. he immediately mobilized 20,000 paid personnel to be engaged in the cleanup down there. he immediately moved and put which you in charge and took 100 of the smartest minds on our science side of the ledger in this administration and brought them together under chu to fly spec what b.p. is doing. he ordered a review right from the beginning of what, in fact, we should do resulting in him deciding last week no more deep water drilling until we have a thorough analysis of how this happened and how it could be prevented. he set up a commission with graham and the former... riley of the e.p.a. and the republican administration. he had the coast guard... he personally told the coast guard to go out and find every boom you can in the world to try to get it in here. so he has mobilized every single solitary resource. i think part of the problem here, charlie, is that one of the things that i think the american people understand-- presumption of me to say this-- is this is a well that doesn't even begin until you go down a mile into the water before you hit the bottom. and then you go down four miles beyond that to get to where the oil is. and so this is something that has never happened before in the sense of being able to be capped other than digging a parallel well. he's ordered two wells to be dug simultaneously in case... so there's redundancy. and so he has acted swiftly, preemptively, and... but, look... >> rose: the federal government is in charge of this rescue, not b.p.? >> the federal government is in charge. b.p. is not in charge. the federal government, the president of the united states is in charge of this rescue. we're using, coordinating b.p. assets. they're the ones that had the well dug. they're the ones that had the equipment on the spot. they're the ones that, in fact... >> rose: so, now characterize their cooperation. characterize their performance. characterize what they have and have not done after the catastrophe happened. >> all right. the one... the way i would characterize it is this: it's obviously overwhelmingly in b.p.'s interest to cap this well they have responded to almost every request i'm aware of from going out and putting 20,000 people on the payroll and hazmat suits and beginning to clean up where it's gone ashore. they have laid out exactly what they thought they could do to contain this in consultation with the federal authorities. they have cooperated with everything i'm aware of that's been asked. the one place that they were slow, in my view, was in characterizing the number of barrels of oil that are spewing from that pipe 5,000 feet down. and that's why we did it independently because there is a vested interest in b.p. conclude there had's a lower number. their initial analysis-- and maybe they believed it accurately-- was 5,000 barrels. our conclusion is it's somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 barrels. so by and large, since the spill, since we've been on site i think they have been... they've responded to... >> rose: done the best they could, would you say? >> well, it's not being an oil man or an expert in this area, i think they have done the best they could. and having started at a... well, i shouldn't make judgments about why the platform exploded. but i think we're going to find... >> rose: go ahead. >> there's a thorough investigation going on. >> rose: you think we'll find, you started to say. >> well, my guess is that there are all kinds of discussions about whether or not they pushed the envelope with the rig operator beyond what it should be pushed to safely pursue. >> rose: and if they did do that they'll be civilly and criminally liable, perhaps? >> if there is a violation of either civil laws on the books and/or the criminal sach commutes they will be pursued to the extent of the law. >> there is this question that comes out of it. we just came out of a financial crisis in which serious questions were raised about whether the regulatory process did the job. >> yup. well, clearly... look, right if the beginning what people don't realize is secretary salazar went right in. and the operation that was managing is in charge of leasing these wells and making these judgments was, in fact, in disarray. there was some real scandal associated with it in the last administration. salazar went in and immediately took out a number of the bad actors and began the reorganization process. the president himself has said if he had any regret, that reorganization and the reconstituting of that particular agency did not go quickly enough. but that's easy to monday morning quarterback about when, in fact, here you had for the last 20 years deep water wells being dug, nothing like this having happened before. so it does matter. it does matter who is regulating the process, whatever the process is when corporate america and the independent contractor is engaged because their motivation isn't always the same as the motivation of the government, which is to protect the public. >> rose: but the accusations that come out of these kinds of things, as you know, is there's too much coziness between the regulator and those being regulated. too many favors... >> we believe that as well. that's why immediately salazar, the secretary of the interior, went in and made changes immediately. the question is, did he make sufficient changes in reorganizing? we are now reorganizing that entity within the government, within the department of interior so that the people who are letting the lease or a k not make judgments about collecting the money, et cetera. we've separated the responsibilities. that process is under way right now. because, look, there's two pieces, charlie. the most urgent piece... every time i have lunch, the president says "we've got to stop the leak." okay, well, that's true. that's number one. secondly, you've got to do everything possible to mitigate the dow jones being done now and damage potentially being done. but in the process of this, simultaneously, what the president wants to do is take a hard look at how do you reorganize the total oversight of this process? that is under way. that's why he went to former senator graham of florida and e.p.a. director riley, former director, to come up with a commission to give us hard-nosed assessments of how to proceed. not unlike the reorganization of the financial industry. >> rose: do you think it's necessary that we have offshore drilling in order to meet our energy demands? >> well, look, i think... one of the things people... you know, i admire very much tom friedman, for example. and tom talks about why we use this opportunity to take this way above. well, the truth of the matter is, we already have. this now allows us to show it. in the recovery act-- which i'm in charge of-- there's $90 billion in alternative energy investments here. we are making... the president got the house to pass a major piece of legislation on cap and trade to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel. >> rose: but it's unlikely to pass. >> well, it has been unlikely to pass. >> rose: so that's changed? >> i don't know this. what i do know that's changed is that many of the folks that have nothing to do with the industry who thought we were putting too much emphasis on finding alternative sources of energy beyond fossil fuel, i think they're going to have a second thought about this now. i think this is an opportunity for us now to sort of rehighlight what we've already been doing and what our long-term plans are. and how we have to take this country off the oil... intravenous feeding of oil. here's what the president's view was. the president's view is, charlie, that we are going to have to have a transition here. we're going to continue to need oil and natural gas as we move to a different energy economy. and if we're going to do it, it might as well be our oil and gas, not importing from folks who don't have our interests at heart. and so that's why the president decided that we should be looking at offshore. but everything is on hold in terms of deep water. we're not going to... we're not going to get another permit issued until we are clear what happened and how it could be prevented from happening again. >> rose: do we have an energy policy? >> we do have an energy policy and the energy policy we have is set out clearly. the president has laid out that he wants to make sure 20% of all our energy is generated by renewables. we are moving in the near term. we're moving in the direction of putting a billion dollars worth of solar energy panels in the mohave desert. there's a major new multimillion dollar project of wind and energy. this is a process that is beginning... it goes all the way, charlie, to us incentivizing in the tax structure. there's an outfield called key, a corporation called key in... cree in north carolina. i went down to see them. they make a little tiny new light, if you took the top of that paper clip, that little tiny light looks like the eye of a fly. it looks like it has a thousand little pieces in it. it can light up this whole room. and i asked the head of cree, i said now is it because you're getting a $40 million tax credit for investing in this? that you're doing this? he said no, it's because president obama said we must change the way we consume energy. we have a whole weatherization program going on. the single-biggest bang for the buck. if you could weatherize every home in america right now, you would radically reduce the consumption of energy. >> rose: with respect to the recovery act. how do you assess the success of the stimulus program in creating jobs first or preventing more job loss? >> an absolute success. >> rose: how do you measure it? what's the metric? >> here's the best way i think to lay it out, without getting all the economic terms. when i raised my right hand on january 20 before a million people on that cold day along with the president, before that hand went down, we had already lost 740,000 jobs that month, charlie. we averaged losing 740,000 jobs for that quarter. we had a negative g.d.p. we were contracting at 6.4%. housing prices dipped for 24, 25 months in a row, bottoming out at 32. here we are 18 months later. we now have in the last four quarters... three quarters economic growth. last quarter over the 3%, quarter before that 5.6%, quarter before that 4 something. and that's real economic growth. the g.d.p. is actually growing, number one. number two, just in the last two months we have created 500,000 new jobs. hasn't happened for four years. under the recovery act, every expert acknowledges-- that is open minded about this, left, right, and center-- that we've created between and/or saved between 2.2 million and 2.8 million new jobs. we will create over 3.5 million or save over 3.5 million jobs before this is over. >> rose: as you know, the unemployment rate went up to 10%. >> that's right. >> rose: above 10%. there were predictions it would only go up to 8.5%. >> right. >> >> rose: the president and you have acknowledged you were wrong in those predictions. >> by the way, not only us. every major blue chip index said that because we didn't understand just how bad the economy we were inheriting was. i mean, i'm not... we're responsible. but that prediction was not a... that was a consensus prediction of the blue chip measurements out there as to what would happen in terms of unemployment. it was higher. >> rose: okay, so when do you see it getting back? is it five years? -to-the level it was in say 2007 before we hit the skids? >> before we hit the skids we lost eight million brand new jobs since... eight million new jobs since we hit the skids. and on top of what people... the number of people under 6% unemployment, what was already unemployed. it took us several years to get there. it's going to take us several years to get back to that number. >> rose: several years meaning 2013? >> here's what i can tell you. i predict to you-- and i got in trouble for predicting this but i turned out to be right, as i might very vainfully point out-- that we're going to be creating jobs. i said in january in new york on another show, i said we are going to be creating jobs by the middle or the end of the first quarter. we are. i predicted we'd create... >> rose: first quarter of 2010? >> of 2010. that we'd continue to create jobs and i predicted we'd create over 250,000 jobs last month. we created 280 something. i think we'll create between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs on average all the way through this year, increasing it next year beyond that. so i think... >> rose: so if we create 100,000 to 200,000 per month, how long will it take us then in your calculation to get to a place where we were wherever it was, 6%. >> the answer to that question is unknowable for three reasons. one we don't know what's going to happen if europe and what impact that could have on the international economy, what could happen in the marketplace, what it could have on confidence. we also have never been able to accurately measure what is the ultimate edgen in this economic growth-- consumer conference. my mantra with our economic team is-- and they think i'm an optimist-- america caught every bad break on the way down. it's time we catch some good breaks on the way up. just a change in consumer confidence and their willingness to go out and spend can significantly increase and change the rapidity with which we bring down that unemployment rate. it's unknowable, charlie. i don't know anybody who would... with any degree of confidence predict any hard number. but it will get better. it will get better. >> rose: i raise it because people talk about a new norm in which we will never again... >> i do not by that. i do not buy, for does the president this idea of a new norm. there's the same folks that tell us there's certain realities we have to accept. where is it written that says we won't make more automobiles in the world than any other country in the next ten years in i don't agree we have to assume certain things are never going to be the same. we have to build a new economy, charlie, built on new platforms. and it relates primarily to investments in energy and new technologies. you're not going to be able just by bringing back... repairing the old economy to lead the 21st censurefully the new economy that we need. >> rose: do we have the political will to make the hard choices not to be overcome by debt and yet spend the amount of money that's necessary... >> the answer is yes. >> rose: with k we do it without taxation? >> let me give you a very quick and brief answer. one of the big misnomers-- you understand, i watch your program all the time so i know you understand this thoroughly what i'm about to say to you. i'm being serious. i'm not being solicitous, i'm being absolutely earnest. here's the deal. if you take a look at the whoever act, which was a lot of money, $787 billion, do you realize by the year 2012 that will only add one half of one percent to the debt to g.d.p. that exists out there instead of 5% to 5.5%? the difference is long-term spending and short-term spending the short-term spending to spur the economy has virtually no long-term impact on the debt. now, let's talk about the long-term debt. the biggest piece of the long-term debt for our financial stability, our entitlements. the biggest piece of that is health care. 47 cents on every dollar spent the last five years has been spent... of every tax dollar is spent on health care. medicare and medicaid. so forget the merits on the justification for the health care bill as it relates to equity and people getting access to care. every major economist will tell you, every model will tell you that... let me tell you what the c.b.o. says. in the first ten years, the passage of that bill, we're reducing the long-term debt by $130 billion. the second ten years, one trillion dollars. that is a giant entitlement that we have reduced. in addition to that, we have done three things we used to talk about in the older... it's a pay-go responsibility. we passed pay-go. just like we did in the clinton administration. >> rose: why was it so hard to sell health care reform, then, if it was going to reduce the deficit? because the thing that alarms so many people was it was spending too much money. >> charlie it's counterinto i have the to say this bill is going to cost over the next ten years roughly about $80 billion a year to $90 billion a year to take care of people's health care costs. and by the way, you're going to save money in the process. >> rose: exactly. >> it's counterintuitive. >> rose: and by the way we may have to reduce welfare in certain ways to make it more efficient. >> right. and by the way we do make it more efficient and we make it more efficient by ways that are even more complex for people to understand. it's not that people aren't bright. this is a complicated piece of business which we've been trying to deal with for over 100 years. by the way, this health care plan is not much beyond what richard nixon talked about, okay? but my point is it also had an ideological component, charlie. i've been a senator a long time. it used to be... i'll never forget walking to into the chairman of the board of the dupont company in a meeting after i got elected and i'd meet with the labor union heads and the chamber and all these people and i met with the board of the dupont company and this particular chairman at the time was very upset with me. and i just won and i looked at him and i said "what's your problem, man?" >> rose: you don't want dupont upset with you in delaware." (laughs). >> he said "you're for socialized medicine. you're just like kennedy, you're for socialized medicine." the point i'm making is that the combination of the complexity of health care and the ideological underpinning of the positions each side has taken about what the to do about health care obscured the reality that we've actually through the mechanisms put in place made major savings on the long-term debt. >> rose: but if it's excused the rheal, i would argue... it would suggest to me that somebody hasn't sold it very well. >> well, look, i think we... look, we got it passed. everybody said that there was no possibility of getting it passed. i mean, look, the irony is that i remember sitting in a meeting with the president when everybody declared it dead. this is after a year it was dead. and he looked at me and he said "what do you think, joe?" i said "mr. president, maybe we should think..." and he didn't let me finish the sentence. he said "we're going to get this thing done. it's too important." so the point i'm making, this is so complicated. here's what's happening already, charlie. people are finding out the reason why it was so important to pass as well is people are finding out that sarah palin's death panels don't exist, god love her. people are figuring out they're not losing their insurancement they're figuring out their employer is not dropping them. they're figuring out, that small business guy, hey, i get a tax credit. >> rose: all of that is true but at the same time there's a thing called the tea party, which you know, which there is somehow a belief that this administration wants to change the nature of the government. >> i know. >> rose: and its relationship to them. i've got to be careful here. because i think an awful lot of the tea party people are... >> rose: don't edit yourself. >> ...are absolutely earnest. but i also think there is an element in the tea party that is consistent with-- and it's a strain that's run through american politics for over 230 years-- there's a strain that exists between tea party that just has this overwhelming distaste for and distrust for government. period. and there's a tendency to inflate and conflate and inflate both things that the government is doing. but i would say to the tea party people, you don't like federal government, you think we should not be involved in the oil spill? that's private enterprise. what are we supposed to do? is the federal government not needed? >> rose: part of that issue comes from... they say you bailed out the banks but you didn't take care of people who had nothing to do with the creation of the problem. they perceive it that way. >> by the way, we bailed out the banks, the banks have already paid back $190 billion of that money. $20 billion in interest and every single penny that was lent to them will be paid back. >> rose: so you are confident that the argument going into the midterms that the democratic party will be able to make and the administration will be able to make will meet the challenge challenge of whatever the temper of the time is right now with respect to the economy, the respect to the handling of the oil crisis, with respect to a philosophy of government. >> well, i think the philosophy of government is going to be the least consequential piece of determining the outcome. because i think the tea party is still a fairly distinct minority, even within the republican party. and there are some democrats rooting for the tea party to take over the republican party. >> rose: are you one of them? >> no. but you know that i mean here you had mitch mcconnell being clobbered in his own state by a person who thought he was... mitch is too liberal. so... >> rose: his candidate lost to ron paul... ron paul's son. >> there's some trouble in paradise. but here's the deal. i think that as long as you have high unemployment... and, by the way, a lot of those people aren't employed. across the board, democrats and republicans. a lot of those people unemployed are our constituents, meaning political constituents as well, they're members of the democratic party. as long as you have a circumstance where they look out there and see this devastation coming ashore and it's not stopped, there is a legitimate instinct to say "blame the guy in charge." we can't go back and spend the next six months pointing out just what we inherited. we can't whine about this. we've got to step up and do it. but, charlie, here's what i think is going to happen. one, going into the next election we're going to still be creating jobs and people are going to realize things are getting better and changing. number two, they're going to find out it's easier to send their kid to college and keep them in college. number three they'll find out we brought home over 90,000 troops from iraq and there's a stable government. number four, god willing i think they're going to see the spill is stopped and we have adequately used the resources in the right way to help people who have been hurt by it. >> rose: iraq today. the withdrawal will take place on schedule? >> yes. >> rose: there will be a stable government? >> yes. >> rose: ... in n iraq? >> yes. >> rose: so what are you worried about? >> well, i'm not worried. what i'm worried about is people who continue to think that the iraqis can't step up to the ball. look, charlie, if you go back over the last year since we've come in office, every crisis you read about, particularly coming from the center right, that we're never going to make it. first there was a kurds voting to... in their parliament to a new constitution and preempted all of the divisions they had with the rest of the country. we're able to convince them to hold off on that referendum. they never went forward with it. then there was the talk about there is going to be literally war along the disputed internal boundary between kurdistan and anyone what province and those areas. well, through the great work of general ord area know, he put together a group of both the kurds, meaning the person myrrh tkpwa and the iraqi national army, the u.s. army, that has been avoid. we're told they would never vote for an election, they wouldn't get one done. they got one done. then we were told what was going to happen is because of the work of a commission headed by a guy named chalabi, my least-favorite guy in the country, was the so-called deba'athification, you remember going back me and chalabi years. >> yes, previous administration liked him. >> that's right. well, anyway, so what happened was they dealt with the deba'athification. then they said the recount was going to be chaos. there was a recount in baghdad, no change. now yesterday the supreme court of iraq certified the election and now there's an earnest effort to form a government and i predict all four major parties will get a piece of the action. >> rose: and when are they going to agree on sharing the oil revenues? >> well, they're already in the process of doing that but here's what i think will happen as the formation of that new government. three things are going to impact on the formation of the new government, one of which will be the relative powers of the presidency. now there's a council of the presidency. the relative powers of the prime minister. and the core. the core is their parliament. another one is going to be how to deal with the internal dispute of boundaries as well as oil revenue. here's the thing, charlie. and it's kind of an amazing thing that i've watched in my 17 or sip so trips into iraq over the years. politics has broken out. >> rose: that's good. >> that's good. we rue the notion of politics breaking out. but literally all of the attempts of al qaeda iraq and other insurgencies blowing up mosques, blowing up individuals to generate the kind of chaos that existed between the formatf the government, knock on wood... >> rose: and i'm told sistani is encouraged? >> sistani has made it clear. he thinks everyone, including the sunnis have to have a piece of the action. >> rose: prime minister netanyahu was scheduled to go to washington. he did not. he went back to israel. there is a blockade. should they tend blockade in lieu of what's happened here? >> i think israel has an answer lute right to deal with its security interest. i put all this back on two things. one, hamas and, two, israel's need to be more generous relative to the palestinian people who are in trouble in gaza. let me explain that very briefly sometimes, because we deal so much in the middle east which you know so much about, we have to remember how we got here. remember it was ehud barak who decided to pull all iraqi troops... excuse me, all iraqi. all israeli troops out of gaza. he did that back in '06. then there was an election. an election for their parliament with a president named abbas who, in fact, was a successor of arafat in the fatah. that produced a majority of members of the parliament which was the west bank and gaza of hamas. the international community, the so-called quartet-- the united states, europe, russia and the u.n.-- said look, in order for you to be part of that government, you have to agree to four conditions. one, you'll abide by previous agreements that have been made by the government of... by the palestinians. two, you are going to renounce terror. three, you're going to recognize israel. and basically that you have to accept any... and here's what happened. they then got in a fight among themselves. they physically took over by force of arms, killed members of the existing government, exiled them, took over and started firing rockets into israel. over 3,000 went in last year. and as we put pressure on israel to let material go into gaza to help those people who are suffering, the ordinary palestinians there, what happened? hamas would confiscate it, put in the a warehouse, sell it. so the problem is this would end tomorrow if hamas agreed to form a government with the palestinian authority on the conditions the international community has set up. and so, i mean, again, look you can argue whether israel should have dropped people on to that ship or not. but the truth of the matter is, israel has a right to know. they're at war with hamas. they have a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in. and up to now, charlie, what's happened? they've said here you go, you're in the mediterranean. this ship if you divert slightly north you can unload it and we'll get the stuff into gaza. so what's the big deal here? what's the big deal of insisting it go straight to gaza in well, it's legitimate for israel to say i don't know what's on that ship. these guys are dropping 3,000 rockets on my people. now, the one thing we have to do is not forget the plight of these palestinians there. not hamas. they are in bad shape. so we have put as much pressure and as much cajoling on israel as we can to allow them to get building materials in. >> rose: that's what they were trying to bring in, building materials. >> we know that. but they could have easily brought in the here and we get it through. so now the question is what do we do? well, we have made it clear, the president has spoken three times yesterday with baby, the day before... bibi. he's spoken once yesterday with a guy i have that spent a fire amount of time with, with prime ministerrer wan in turkey. the turks, we passed a rez haougs in the u.n. saying we need a transparent and open investigation of what happened. it looks like things are... >> rose: international investigation? >> well, an information run by... investigation run by the israelis but' other open by international participation. just like the investigation run on the sunken sub off the coast of korea. that was run by south korea but the international community joined in that investigation. and so that is very possible here as well. i might add, by the way, for all those who say the israelis... you know, you can't trust them? the israeli supreme court ruled today that every one of the people on those ships had to be released immediately. immediately. it's the rule of law. it works. >> rose: i said it was my last question so i'll make it my last question. so are you saying that the relationship between israel and the united states is okay? >> it's more than okay. look, we always have had disagreements tactically with israeli governments. but when i was in israel, bibinetanyahu and i held a press conference before all that flap about a new settlement, et cetera. >> rose: well, i'm told the president got very upset because of what he did while in your opinion the country. >> that's true. here's the point. we stood this there that the a press conference. i was making a major speech at the university of tel aviv. major meaning laying out u.s. policy. and bibi pointed out that no administration in history has been as up front and supportive of israel's security as this administration. we've done everything from provide missile defense, we've made sure they've maintained their qualitative edge. there's a new program called iron dome that helps protect themselveses. we have joint maneuvers. they've never been closer on a strategic side with israel than today. >> rose: ehud olmert said that to me on a... ehud barak said that on a program. >> that's true. and do we have disagreements on the way this government acts and some of the comments that some of the ministers of this government, the things they say and make that we think are counterproductive? yeah, but we always have. i go all the way back to golda meir-- god i'm getting old-- but literalfully 73 golda meir, we've had tactical problems. >> i want to leave with this story. golda meir says we have something, we have something that they don't have. which was? >> i just spent a long time with golda meir just after the six-day war and before the yom kippur war. just days before and she was with flipping maps on her desk there and showing me this and thatnd we're surrounded by and everything and i was getting very depressed, there was a guy sitting next to me who was her aide and his name with rabin, future prime minister who was then a general and all of a sudden she said "would you like a photo opportunity, senator?" and i thought, i'm 30 years old. i said, yes, ma'am. and the door... those double doors opened, we walk out, a we're standing there and they're clicking pictures. and i guess i must have looked really worried because of the picture she painted. she looked at me and she said while looking at the camera, we're doing this photo shot. she said "why do you look so worried? s i said, my god, madam, prime minister, the picture you drew. she said "don't worry, senator, we have a secret weapon in our conflict with the arabs." and i turned like she was going to tell me some secret. i looked at her i said "what's that?" she said "we have nowhere else to go." >> rose: thank you for coming. >> thank you. >> rose: pleasure to have you. skwraoeurbgts newspaper jim gray is here. he is an 11-time national emmy award winning sportscaster. in a career spanning three decades he's interviewed michael jordan and tiger woods and barry bonds. he is known for a direct and incisive questioning. the sacremento bee writes he's a prime time talent with a reputation as probing, well connected and occasionally aggravating reporter. last month he was named a special broadcasting correspondent with the n.b.a.'s sacramento kings. the n.b.a. finals begin tomorrow with the boston celtics going to the los angeles lakers in a rematch from two years ago that was won by the celtics. i'm pleased to have jim gray at this table. welcome. >> great to be back, charlie. thank you for having me. >> rose: the n.b.a. tell me how you see the finals? >> i think it's a really interesting matchup. a couple years ago when they faced each other, they were both looking for championships, now they both have them. boston beat the lakers in that series, humiliated them in the final game. and the lakers then came back last year and beat orlando. so it's a different series this time around because they veech championships so they're not seeking the holy grail. now they're trying to get one more added on to it. and the lakers case they're trying to defend their championship and win it again and they're aggravated. they don't like what boston did to them. it's their long-time rival. they faced each other 11 times in the finals so there's a great history here and boston's won nine of those times. so it's not as though this group is trying to make up for what jerry west and wilt chamberlain and those guys couldn't do. but there's a long history and i think that this is very difficult to predict. this is a very, very tough series and the home court will be this time with the lakers and they didn't have that two years ago. >> rose: are they favord? >> i don't know what the odds makers are saying but i'm assuming they would because they have home court advantage. >> rose: i saw a piece the other day that said if kobe win this is championship, it's a real contest as to who is the greatest player to play in the n.b.a. do you buy that? michael versus kobe. >> you know, i'm not sure we're ever going to see anything like michael jordan again. but, having said that, maybe we are with kobe bryant. in this phoenix series, hit hit some shots that were just impossible. well, michael jordan used to make imt impossible and the spectacular look routine. kobe bryant is now attempting shots that nobody else on this planet could even think about and they're going in. and al gin generalry, the coach of the phoenix suns said "i thought i was watching michael." this kobe bryant has always wanted to be his own player. never wanted to be compared to michael jordan and wanted to be the best kobe. and i guess you've got to put them in the same breath if he get this is championship. kobe is a spectacular player. michael jordan changed the game. he took baton and elevated it. we had seen what had gone on in the progression if you take it back connie haw kins to dr. jay to michael jordan. >> rose: so what is this guy going to do? >> he's got a big interview coming out and we've gotten some of the interprets on "larry king live." he did an interview with larry and i guess he's said most recently that cleveland is the favorite right now. that they're in the cat bird seat to retain his services. i think it's coming down to three teams. he'll either stay at home in cleveland. whether or not that provides him the best opportunity to win, i'm not sure. they haven't been able to do it and they've tried everything. but they just don't have any money under that salary cap to get the necessary players to play with lebron that he's deserving to play with if he's going to win these championships. the other places he could go that i think are very legitimate and he's strongly considering is chicago. and chicago has just a terrific young team that he could go there and play with and that roster would fit him very, very well. the other place that may be a long shot but if you look at the roster and you look at the city and the building, the los angeles clippers have to be in this equation. so if you took their starting lineone lebron and you've got cayman who's an all star, barren davis who's been an all star and blake griffin who was the number one pick last year. the down side of going to los angeles is then he's competing with the lakers. but he wants to be involved in entertainment and movies so you can't discount it. there's other teams that might sneak in there. i think those are the three teams the. >> rose: let me move to golf. tiger. what's his head today? what's his game today? >> well, he had a press conference this morning and he's out in recovering from his neck and the problems he had to withdraw from the players championship with his neck. and if you look at what's happened to tiger woods overall in the past six months, it has been the swiftest and greatest fall from tkpwreus of any athlete and perhaps any public figure that we've seen of this stature ever. i can't think of anything that is remotely like it. and so he's had an awful lot on his plate in a very short period of time and to expect him to go out and perform great things on the golf course to me is the wrong expectation level because it's virtually impossible. golf is a game that is a mental game that the aspects of what goes on are the most important inches are between your ears. and if he's not clear-- and clearly he can't be clear with all of the revelations that have come out about what has gone on in his life and in his marriage and outside of his marriage. >> rose: but he is supposed to be one of the best athletes in the world ever for mental discipline. taught to him by his father. >> correct. but i don't think that there's anything that can prepare you for what has gone on. >> rose: he went through, yeah. >> and this is self-inducedded. there should be no sympathy for tiger woods. tiger woods had no enemies and he brought this all on and upon himself. so he dealt with it while it was going on so i guess that some would say can he deal with it while it's not going on? it remains to be seen. he's getting older, too, charlie. it gets harder and harder to win as you get older. >> rose: (laughs) really? >> things you used to be able to do you can't do. it doesn't matter how hard you work. it gets tougher. and the guys around him have gotten much better, too. up? how good is his game. can he find a teacher or an instructor or a coach that can help him fix this? >> he said this morning he's not looking for one. that he's doing it all himself now via video and that he has no plans to hire a coach. hank heaney said something really interesting in an interview i did with him on the golf channel when he resigned and walked away. he said "no one wants to learn more and be taught less than tiger woods." and i found that to be a very inciteful and unbelievable statement. >> rose: that's unbelievable. that's really smart. no one wants to learn more-- meaning the desire to know is there. >> correct. staoup but he doesn't belief you can tell him or teach him? >> and be taught less. in other words, he must... what i think hank's trying to say is he wants it to be his idea. that's what i think he's trying to say. i mean, i'm putting two and two together. but he wants the information but he wants to figure it out on his own. so tiger's got a lot to figure out. he's got just a tremendous amount on his plate. he's lost so much. he's lost the admiration and the respect of the public. he's lost sponsorship. he's lost his golf game for part of this time, at least temporarily. who knows where he'll retrieve it. he's lost his wife and family. seeing his kid is now much different than what it was. he's lost so much that it's virtually, to me, impossible to see this guy say he's going to go out and win golf tournaments. now, he might. he's an incredible talent. the guy is amazing in terms of his golf. but with all of this going on, i would think that we're aways away from seeing tiger woods as a settled guy and a guy who can compete on a week-to-week basis and be what he was in golf. >> rose: who's next in line? phil? >> phil could be the number-one golfer in the world. could have been last week if he won but he missed the cut. tkwhropb what... i don't know what the e situation with the memorial being played, jack nicklaus' tournament. but if he plays well there and has a good u.s. open he can overtake the number one spot. >> rose: tell me who you like among the new golfers. >> we've got an awful lot of young guys coming up. we've got a real interesting 18-year-old kill named rioish cow what from japan. he shot a 58 a month or so ago on the final day of a p.g.a. tournament in japan. so he's unbelievable and he's a wonderful young man and he plays over here quite a bit. not as much as they would like but he's only 18 years old. we've got rory mcelroy, a terrific golfer who won his first p.g.a. tour event a few weeks ago and mcelroy is 20 years old and he's just terrific. and we've got anthony kim. he, unfortunately, had some surgery. he's an american, a terrific young player. so those three right now are the ones who stand out to me as youthful guys who can come forward and be in a position to be the number-one players in the world and to dominate the tour. but we're never going to see anything quite like tiger woods again. i mean, yes, coby bryant is tempt... kobe bryant is tempt it is fate of michael jordan. but these guys come along once every couple generations. jack nicklaus is still the standard bearer here and tiger woods is still four major victories short of jack nicklaus' record. he needs five to break it. it will be tough to get there. so tiger woods came along and he's still at this point, even though he has 73 career victories, he's still a little short. so to say somebody's going to take tiger's place, it won't happen any time soon. >> rose: what did he have in his game that enabled them to do that? >> he had the power of the drive, he had terrific iron play, the guy was a clutch a putter as could be. he was determined and focused. he had an intimidation factor others were... if you can be intimidated by somebody carrying a golf club, somehow he had that. it was like mike tyson entering the ring in his heyday. they looked at tiger and if he was couple strokes behind, they were shuddering. and he was the best front-runner ever. the guy never relinquish it had lead when he was in front. he always won. so if he was in front, there was no catching him. so he had... he just had something that was a level above. and he had a dominance with which... the likes of which we haven't seen. >> rose: but i hear you saying you don't think he can regain that. he's been through too much. >> i think that magic's gone. i think so. >> rose: if you look at sports writers, there were a lot of great journalists who came out of sports. people like scottie reston from the "new york times." and others. you know more of them than i do. the same thing. sports is perfect training to do what i do. in a sense because there's a narrative, because they're interesting characters, because there's competition, because it has... you know, it has a certain place in terms of everybody's conversation. do you agree? >> absolutely. i mean, sports is always looked at by others as the toy box. >> rose: right. >> that's where all the superfluous stuff goes along and it's not really anything that's important. and i would argue just the opposite. i think that sports as we go through our lives and sports in our society should have a dominant role. not necessarily people watching sports, but the ability to use the metaphors from sports. the ability to pick yourself up off the ground. the ability to never quit. the ability to be in competition and to have sportsmanship and honor and integrity and fair play and all of these things-- and physical fitness. we can eliminate a lot of ouncety if we can get these kids back into physical fitness programs and off the couch. i think sports is verial and important and it shouldn't be dill inished with all of these cuts going on in education because it leads to so many other things in life which are essential and if we're not teaching our children these valuable lessons, young in life, that they can take forward, they're not going to have the ability to compete in the work force later on. >> rose: great to have you here. >> charlie, i appreciate you having me. you're a national treasure, thanks for having me on again. >> rose: thank you. our thanks to jim gray. joe biden and jim gray. what an hour. thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> "bbc world news" is presented by kcet, los angeles. funding for this presentation