is. is it strong chief of staff system? doesn t look like one. does he have personal contact with people like sebelius where he s talking to them every day. hard to see that. you have floaters in the white house that can speak for him but it s not a clear system of accountability. executive accountability. american people back in the 60s about three quarters of them said they had confidence the government will do the right thing. how do you know it s the right thing unless it s under the control of the person you elected. i ll get to executive performance, chain of command where people get in trouble if they don t deliver. this goes back to jim baker. he was the best chief of staff ever. what s his model of running the white house? i want to know what it is. i ll be asking that tonight. sam, if i m in the audience, one of the kids in the audience and i put a question for the
dysfunction, executive accountability and the questions of how we fight our wars with drones or ground troops. that kind of questioning the president has to deal with in terms of moral principle. it will be the big issues. we talk about this divided government issue, you and i both covered white houses and you ve been part of tip o neill s team on the hill. we ve both seen you worked in the jimmy carter white house as a speechwriter. we ve seen divided government work. sometimes it doesn t. worked during parts of reagan s term, parts of bush 41 s term, a budget deal. bill clinton had ups and downs with divided government. impeachment was no walk in the park but he still had a lot of stuff done because people on the hill willing to work with him. newt gingrich worked with him. they balanced the budget for three years. look what they did. i think grownups. i gave a speech on this book tour, i ve been on this book
american university part of hardball s college tour. chris matthews joins me now. chris, thanks so much for being with us. big get, huge exclusive. i m excited to see i don t want to take away any thunder or surprise, obviously going to have to talk about the health care rollout and how he s pog to t going to try to turn the page. i ll say from the white house, if you watch hardball, handle issues and other issues, put our focus, i ll be doing that thursday night. i ll be talking about executive accountability and the strange way of this rollout as it has occurred. i think i would compare it, andrea, to a brilliant writer, perhaps, with a great theme who turns in a paper with a lot of misspelling or bad handwriting. it s a bad way to roll out something. with all the great strengths potentially of a national health care center along these lines the way it s rolled out hurt it.
term limits and a lot of d dissatisfaction with washington now. if these were put to the american people you would get a 75% vote for term limits and congress shall not exempt itself. this is an evident to hold congress accountable. we have been talking about executive accountability. where is that? spefb asking person after person who will be held responsible for the disastrous rollout of obama care. the money that it s cost americans, the time it cost the american people. how do you and congress go about exacting that? well, i think we publically can point out the problems and hypocrisy. interestingly, the government was shut down with democrats refusing to accept a one-year delay on the individual mandate. now you ve got a dozen of them saying, guess what, it is a horrible rollout. we are now in favor of the individual mandate delay. there is irony. the democrats shut down
dissatisfaction with washington now. if these were put to the american people you would get a 75% vote for term limits and congress shall not exempt itself. this is an evident to hold congress accountable. we have been talking about executive accountability. where is that? spefb asking person after person who will be held responsible for the disastrous rollout of obama care. the money that it s cost americans, the time it cost the american people. how do you and congress go about exacting that? well, i think we publically can point out the problems and hypocrisy. interestingly, the government was shut down with democrats refusing to accept a one-year delay on the individual mandate. now you ve got a dozen of them saying, guess what, it is a horrible rollout. we are now in favor of the individual mandate delay. there is irony. the democrats shut down