his record. opposite end, diane wood has incendiary record on a range of hot button issues. i think it would be a provocative pick. elena kagan, the solicitor general, is somewhere in the middle largely because she s a big unknown. she has been guarded in her views and she has never been a judge. on the matters we know her views like gay rights where she is vehement in her rhetoric, there are aspects of her record to indicate she is ready to bend the law and misread the law to advance her views. it should be in the middle between merrick garland and diane wood but merrick garland clearly of those three the one who would arouse the least controversy. shannon: though we will have to wait a little while for the white house to give us their nominee it is clear it probably won t go down the way it did with justice stevens where he was nominated and confirmed unanimously by the senate within three weeks time. so, we ll have you both weigh in as we expect a different bat this summer. susan
uranium enrichment facility. hopefully our intelligence community knows how far along they are. the last intelligence estimate that came out was the one that said that in fact iran isn t having a nuclear weapons program. they might be trying to enrich uranium but they aren t trying to actually make a bomb. there is a new national intelligence estimate due out, probably it is done and has been kept under lock and key and there is a real sense of this is the one that is going to really determine how far they can push these sanctions. shannon: and speaking of how far they can push things, verbally we are getting things from ahmadinejad referring to president obama as a cowboy which is something they liked to say about president bush and meaning it in a derogatory sense and talking about get some experience and we will not cave in to what you have going on and your efforts to get others together. how does the white house respond or do they? none of them are surprised from the rhetori
one notable leader will not be here, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu pulled out of the summit earlier in week. astronauts used a bit of elbow grease to repair a sticking bolt at the international space station today in the second of three spacewalks on the shuttle mission. they attached a big ammonia tank. the final spacewalk is scheduled for tuesday. congress begins hearings this week on the explosion of the upper big branch mine in west virginia. president obama called for a thorough investigation in the accident that left 29 workers dead. those are the top stories right now. shannon, back to you. shannon: thank you very much. the final round of the masters golf tournament is underway in auguaugusta with le westwood in the lead and tiger is tied for third. he s not at the top of the leaderboard, he s a huge rating boost for masters. early indianacation he increased tv viewership by 50%. phil keating is in augusta with the latest. good afternoon, phil. reporter: good aft
of the strong talk we are getting to ahmadinejad referring to president obama as a cowboy and saying come back when you have more experience. he is certainly trying to stir up something. this is part of his personality and part of frankly what we tend to use against him when makes comments like this. he made comments to the effect that israel shouldn t even be a country and that kind of threatening language i think works against his interest. this this particular case it does appear the nuclear posturing the last few days is getting attention if iranian leaders and they feel that perhaps obama s implicit nuclear threat against them is something they can use to create this feel that the united states is somehow being a bully but obama if anything reduced the likelihood of an american nuclear response and so i doubt very much this will work. shannon: and, of course, we continue to work with our relationship with russia and china and other key players talking about sanctions against i
no question that he was getting hammered and he may worry about a lecture from the secretary of state. the relationship is not great. if you are a leader, come to a major ally capital, feel good and basically feel successful. i m not sure he felt either right now. i know that netanyahu written and spoken on the idea of terrorism and nukes and how it ties together. are we missing out on having him in the discuss this week? probably not this week but there is no question we want policy with respect or eliminating and the determination to require nuclear weapons. we have to find a way to work out this with the israelis. because without the leverage, without the cooperation, the odds of a military action, the initial part, will increasingly likely. what you don t want is uncoordinated effort between u.s. and israel at the moment. shannon: it could be a huge mess.