protective barrier around all of those times of icons of the civil war and the confederacy. the law they thought they were going to tie the hands of municipalities to prevent them from taking down these statues or monuments. this particular statue or monument was erected in 1905. it was commissioned in 1901. and what womb have to remember, in 1901 the state of alabama created a new constitution and somewhat it was in direct defiance of the federal government. and that also leads you to understand that the government itself was sed i guess against the u.s. government. some people have never gotten over that. and these statues were erected not just here in birmingham but all over the country, in particular the confederate states to show an act of defiance. it was not to commemorate, not to memorize but to show direct
defiance. it was a message to the government and to appear african americans. absolutely. that the gains you believe you ve made are not real and we are going to commemorate the time before those gains and the time after those gains. is that how you see it. that s how i see it. and to p point out even more this act of defiance, when the confederate battle flag was taken down off the state capitol, it was removed from the capitol, but 20 miles right outside the state capitol along interstate 65 is a giant confederate battle flag that sits there. and it s an act of defiance. it s an act of showing people like myself, people from the jewish community, people from the federal level that alabama will not concede. but those days are over. and as i like to remind people, birmingham is a civil rights city. we re not a civil war city. we did not exist during the civil war. it was 1871 before we became in
the white house going to ask nor american involvement. where do you put the american performance at the moment? how do you rank the president obama s leadership on this and what specifically more do you think the united states should be doing? well, certainly if you talk to americans of all stripes whether republicans or democrats, there s a broad number of americans who are very concerned about any deeper involvement in this and i think the president very much is reflecting this sentiment in the country that he doesn t want to get more deeply involved. on the other hand he s been stunning by the criticism he s been getting in the home not just by republicans but also by democrats that the strategy we have isn t really working, and we got to do something more. we got to step it up. francois hollande has a real interest, this is a person who came into office in france with very little interest in foreign affairs, very much sort of
are you for supporting this carson guy. a lot of them looked well we re not that stupid. okay you got a poin. carson now down ten points. trump in first place. cruz in second place. gene as you know the washington republican establishment if given a choice of supporting donald trump or ted cruz who ask for a gun instead and kill themselves. this is not what they want. they will start their own party. they will not march behind those two. it s driving them crazy. if you want an example, there s a particularly anguished columbia my colleague in the post today lamenting the state of this campaign. donald trump is obviously made of something slipperier than teflon because none of this stuff sticks to him. that s one thing from that poll. the other thing i want seems to me really bad for marco rubio in
should recall in libya, for example, it was the french and british saying we got to do something. we got to do something. let s going. so somewhat reluctant white house decided okay we ll go in with you. and then afterwards where are the french and where are the british and what has happened in libya since? so obviously, though, gene, libya is not syria. no. syria has been a case unto itself for the past three to four years. no. absolutely. my point there is that when we have these situations and when there are calls from our staunchest allies, you know, come help us, let s go do something, let s do something big, in fact it is in the final analysis the united states that will do the doing big, that s