this guy. are people just so used to this? i have a theory. i have long held a theory. 50 states in the union. only one state where people say new york and it means manhattan. it means new york. the capital, albany, very little media up there. the media concentration here in new york. albany, might as well have the capital in burlington, vermont. maybe why it s there. and they get away with just outrageous things. the money that you were talking about yesterday for the schools? with arne duncan that they don t get. they say no to $700 million. think they can get away with anything and i want to follow up with a point you made, nicolle. i am, every day i have been here off and on for five years. been working here for five years now. and every day i m amazed by something new in new york. it is and i know you feel the same way. it is a remarkable city.
the public policy debate. the days of the united states rebuilding civilization s over. done. we have to get more moderate. i have to ask really quickly, the cover of newsweek, stirring up a lot of trouble. victory at last in iraq. too positive. it is too positive? for sure. we will take months to see a new government formed. we don t know how it will operate. too soon to take out the champagne. the point was to create a democracy and a lot of people feel like that mission was accomplished. premature. reemergence of the democratic iraq. that debate goes on. premature. it is fragile, but a lot of people who spent time five years ago do think it as a fragile democracy. but not one where we won t be there operating in five years. controversy. and he s kicking meacham s magazine around.
fillings back here. i mean, she was just out there. but put that race aside. look at the down ballot races and jonathan martin looked at this piece today where tea parties were activist, they didn t have as much of an impact as people thought they would. you still have to sort through the results, but i don t think you can assume that just because rick perry did this well that it is because of the tea partyiers. i think it s people s disgust with washington. do you think we are going to have 49 states? got to have 50. barnicle, frthere are a coup of states i would like to see secede from the union. not texas. they are doing very well mechanicall
cost a great deal, and much should be gleaned from this experience, but we should be careful not to leash the wrong lesson and rule out helping weak states. shoring them up may not be cheap, but it is less expensive than the al ternives of occupying them or ignoring them. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. richard, how do we draw back? we are so spread out across the globe, and it s not being an isolation ist to say we can t be the world s 911 anymore. exactly. it has to be a choice of doing what we did in iraq and afghanistan, going in whole hog and being ani isolationist. life takes place in between. what we can t do is force ourselves to do everything or nothing. the kinds of things we re doing in places like yemen now may be more of a model. we do a little bit. we do a little bit of training.
well because it has a degree of what we used to call home rule. can i say one thing about new york? this is the next shoe to drop in this country. we ve so focused on the economic crisis. you look at new york, california. states can t print money. we have a real crisis coming down. the next phase, when a lot of states can t function. they get bailed out at the federal level or you know what. this is the major next step of the crisis. wow. going under. a downer. that s why i m here. let s read from newsweek. richard haass article the weakest link. in the 21st century, the principal threat to the global order will not be a push for dominance by any great power. instead, the central power will deposed by weak states, afghanistan, pakistan, yemen, somalia, haiti, mexico, congo, and others. buttressing post-saddam iraq