caucus. two months ago during a fox news debate romney said this. there are a lot of reasons not to elect me or other people on the stage, but one reason to elect me is that i know what i stand for, i ve written it down, words have meaning and i have the experience to get this country going again. reporter: now it seems that some in iowa agree with him. newt gingrich leading the gop pack with 32% in iowa. why are iowa conservatives so worried about mitt romney. joining us now is the chief congressional correspondent. i imagine that social conservatives in iowa and other. martha: of the country had thoughts long before the debate, right? that is true. that s why you ve seen candidate move from the bottom teurbgs er to the top tier court of in success section. recently it was herman cain, michelle bachmann, now it s newt gingrich. conservatives don t believe mitt romney is a true conservative. he s not authentic in their minds. they are looking for the tried and trued con
invincible, you know, he just recently managed to pick off osama bin laden, and seems to be riding high in a lot of ways and the republicans seem to be fractured and sort of scrambling. so there is another sort of conventional wisdom out there that says he s practically unbeatable. and we ll just have to see how that all plays out. for more on this, a great article by molly ball there, politico and mike alan. if you want to read more on that and potential candidates as we look forward from the gop. appreciate it. thanks, richard. opening statements today in the long awaited trial of casey anthony who is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter. now, the trial attracted nationwide attention and comes after three years of frustrating legal twists and turns. dozens of spectators were lined up bright and early hoping for access to that courtroom. nbc s kerry sanders is standing outside the courthouse in orlando with the very latest for us. hey, kerry. reporter: good morning, rich
forge with the palestinian partner committed to peace. but you know very well that in the middle east, the only peace that will hold is a peace you can defend. so peace must be anchored in security. in recent years, israel withdrew from south lebanon and from gaza. we thought we would get peace. that s not what we got. we got 12,000 rockets fired from those areas on our cities, on our children, by hezbollah and hamas. the u.n. peacekeepers in lebanon, they failed it prevent the smuggling of this weaponry. the european observers in gaza, they evaporated overnight. so if israel simply walked out of their territories, the flow of weapons into a future palestinian state would be unchecked. and missiles fired from it could reach virtually every home in israel in less than a minute. i want you to think about that too. imagine there is a siren going on now, and we have 60 seconds to find shelter from an incoming rocket. would you live that way? you think anybody can live that way? w
security, but also in afghanistan. i think it is a tremendous surge in momentum for us and afghanistan. i ll tell you, if i were the head of the taliban, wherever he is now, we have a pretty good idea of where he is, i would be feeling frightened based on what those navy s.e.a.l.s did in a protected compound, heavily protected compound, yesterday, outside of islamabad. homeland security chairman senator joe lieberman, thank you very much. up next, we have politico s mike alan with dramatic new details on the mission to take out the world s most wanted man. [ wind howling ]
musharraf will not act, we will. that was candidate barack obama, the summer of 2007, describing what he would do if going to actionable intelligence on bin laden. after he was elected, he directed the cia s leon panetta to come up with a plan to find the terror leader. it wasn t until last summer that the critical final pieces fell into place. mike alan is chief white house correspondent with politico and has been pouring through all the details talking to your sources. what happened in august that was the critical turning point? well, andrea, it had been years that they had been following this courier who was friendly to osama bin laden and took years before they found his name. about two years ago. after that, they were able to follow this courier to this compound, which stuck out like a sore thumb at the end of a dirt road, inexplicable that the pakistani government was not focused on it. and in addition to the high walls and the other interior