it was a lot of fun. you don t need to play for money when you are playing with the president, and it s enough pressure in itself. and i heard he was the best golfing president we ever had. what does that mean? every president, except for carter and one other, they golf. you have been invited back? will you play with him again? it was not talked about yesterday but i think he had a really good time, we all had a great time. what is really neat is when a guy in his position that loves golf and has all of these golf courses and with what he is cape blg capable of doing, and he owns a lot of golf courses, and they are in top-notch shape, and
post, and national political reporter for the atlantic, molly ball. hello, ladies, good to see you both. hi, alex. former republican senator who will likely be nominated for defense secretary next week according to our own chuck todd, why hagel? why not a democrat? well, that s certainly a question a lot of democrats, liberals and progressives will be asking themselves, but in truth if you look back over the years going back to truman, democratic presidents have tended to nominate republicans for this seat. every democratic president has done that going back to truman except for carter and, of course, we saw obama do that with keeping gates in that seat initially. then, of course, he looks like he is set to do the same thing and nominating hagel. there is going to be some pushback not only against democrats who i think are nervous about this implicit sort of suggestions that republicans do it better when it comes to national security issues and i think you ll also have some re
respect what he s done as far as getting elected. but i think that his policies are the thing. reagan s slogan was leadership that s working. he can spend a billion dollars and can t put the slogan up there because nobody would believe it. you attack his lack of leadership, talk about his policies and how detrimental they will be to the future and how he had many opportunities to fix it and he didn t. it has to be a positive message. there have been good economic numbers the last few weeks, unemployment numbers even though i think they are skewed by the number of people that just quit look for work. but on paper there are some signs of a recovery. does that make it more difficult, and how do the republicans attack that without looking like they are actually not, you know, not happy. you can t cheer for people to be unemployed. you have to cheer for americans to get back to work and that s a very important part of this thing. i think the key thing here is it will be a very close ele
i think at the end of the day we have to make sure that it s a very precise campaign. we are looking at states individually to see what we can to to make a message that fits and it has to be very positive. here s what we are going to do, here s how it better and keep using that word leadership that you can trust. is obama more vulnerable on the international issue if something goes haywire in iran? you can t tell because sometimes people rally around when something goes wrong overseas. except for carter. that s because of a disaster the way he did it. if he ends up with civil wars in afghanistan and iraq because of his policies or the iranian situation blows up, then certainly how he handles it will basically could be a bet meant. how big a deal would it be if israel takes action against eye ran sometime this summer and the president does not do all he can to give them cover by standing with them and providing what has
i think at the end of the day we have to make sure that it s a very precise campaign. we are looking at states individually to see what we can to to make a message that fits and it has to be very positive. here s what we are going to do, here s how it better and keep using that word leadership that you can trust. is obama more vulnerable on the international issue if something goes haywire in iran? you can t tell because sometimes people rally around when something goes wrong overseas. except for carter. that s because of a disaster the way he did it. if he ends up with civil wars in afghanistan and iraq because of his policies or the iranian situation blows up, then certainly how he handles it will basically could be a bet meant. how big a deal would it be if israel takes action against eye ran sometime this summer and the president does not do all he can to give them cover by standing with them and providing what has