"the situation room". we begin with the state of unemployment in america, just three months before election day. both democrats and republicans have something to seize on in the newest jobs report. employers say they added 163,000 jobs to the u.s. economy in july. that's better than economists expected, and something for the obama camp to hang its hat on. but the romney camp is pointing to this figure, the overall unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 8.3%, because american households report losing 195,000 jobs. we want to bring in our white house correspondent, dan lothian. so sounds like kind of a wash, politically, dan. >> it does. and what the president is trying to do is highlight the positive, as you pointed out. yes, the unemployment rate did tick up to 8.3%, but what they're focused on is the fact that jobs were created, more jobs than expected. the experts out there, economists had expected that some 95,000 jobs would have been created last month, but as you pointed out, that number jumped to 163,000 jobs. that's still not enough to essentially make up for all the jobs lost. but the president focusing on the gains that have been made, talking about how the over last 28 months, more than 4 million jobs have been created. more than a million, he said, so far this year. but the president also telling americans that there's still a long way to go. >> let's acknowledge, we've still got too many folks out there who are looking for work. we've got more work to do on their behalf. not only to reclaim all the jobs that were lost during the recession, but also to reclaim the kind of financial security that too many americans have felt was slipping away from them for too long. >> now, mitt romney out on the campaign trail, taking a much different view of these numbers, saying that what this shows is that the president's economic policies are simply not working with, and in these numbers, there's nothing to smile about. >> one reason is, you know what it's like to have tough times. people here in this community, in north las vegas, i understand here you declared a state of emergency here and declared in a disaster area, under state law and said, look, this economy has hurt american families, right here, and we need help. this is a place that's really struggle. and of course, today, we just got a new number from the unemployment report, and it's another hammer blow to the struggling middle class families of america, because the president has not had policies that put american families back to work. i do. i'll put them in place and get america working again! >> reporter: and that's right. you hear mitt romney saying that he has a plan that will not only create jobs, will certainly put people back to work. but, you know, this is a really sort of difficult situation for the president, because unemployment is still above 8%, going into the election year, or rather, the election. that is not good news for the president. but, again, everyone trying to highlight, here at the white house, on the campaign for the president, trying to highlight the positives here, hoping that americans will see that progress is being made. but then also buying the president's message that it will not turn around quickly. there is not a quick fix, and that he deserves another four years. candy? >> i figure we'll find out on election day who's got the better message. thanks so much, dan lothian at the white house. >> reporter: okay. >> we want to talk more about jobs and the presidential race with our chief political analyst, gloria borger. gloria, i look at these numbers and listen to the analysis, here's what i hear. pretty much what i've heard for the past many months. the economy's creating jobs, but not enough jobs. >> exactly. >> does anything change in the political cdynamic? >> as we've seen from recent polls, americans are getting set on the fact they're pessimistic about the way the economy is going. this chart shows you if you look at the job numbers, the job creation numbers for the past half year, go back to january, things were going pretty well. and look at that trend line, up until july. so you see that over the last seven months, things have been headinin the wrong direction. and the american public, it's beginning to kind of sink in, and that's really a problem for the president, because the public is so pessimistic. >> and let me ask you, when both of these politically, these guys, are both mr. fix-it, i'm going to fix it or i'm going to continue to fix it, depending on who you want, we look at the latest "wall street journal" poll, who has good ideas on how to improve the economy? romney, 43%. obama, 36%. it seem lixs like a key questio except that doesn't match what we see in the overall numbers. >> right. well, first of all, this is clearly mitt romney's strong suit, which is why you hear him talk about the economy over and over and over again. because he's present himself as mr. fix-it. if people were to vote on that single issue alone, that would be really good for mitt romney. but there are other factors here that people take into consideration when they vote for a president. number one, who's more likable? number two, who is somebody who understands their problems? who is somebody who cares about the middle class? and by all of those measures, the president does a lot better. and that's why you see the president trying to dismantle and disqualify mitt romney on the economic issue. because they know they do better along all those other measures. but this is the one area they have to take him down on. and they have to say, you know, he's really not qualified. he really was not a job creator when he was over at bain. he was a job killer. and that's -- romney has to counter that. but he also has to show the rest of himself to the american public. that's what conventions are about. where he says, there's another part of me, you can like me, i really do care about the middle class. those are the points he really has to kind of focus on right now. >> so when we say, it's all about the economy, we mean, it's all about the economy and a couple of other things. >> a couple of other things. people vote their pocketbook, but they look at other things. they also look at other things. >> rick perry told cnn that he doesn't think whoever mitt romney picks as vice president will dramatically change the equation. do you agree? >> yeah. i think that's probably right. i think we saw sarah palin was sort of the big game changer, if you will. and even she didn't end up changing the equation, mccain did not win. i think that mitt romney's choices are kind of solid, and what he make look at is somebody who can bring him a state. and then it would change the equation if you had rob portman of ohio or marco rubio of florida. if either of those men could deliver a state, that might be a game changer, but i'm not so sure -- >> that's key, if they could. >> if they could. and that's really a big "if." so in the end, i think that mitt romney is going to end up going with somebody who he said has the experience and whom he's comfortable with. and they're going to make a sort of anti-palin choice. and i think they probably agree with the vice president, the former vice president, that sarah palin was a mistake. and so maybe they'll pick someone like tim pawlenty, who can't deliver a state, but who's run for president before and who mitt romney's quite comfortable with. >> chief political analyst, i bet we'll talk about this again. >> you think? >> thank you so much, gloria. good to see you. you may not know it, but ann romney has a horse competing in the olympics. she says her horse's performance in this week's dressage competition, quote, thrilled me to death. but as tom foreman reports, it's all thrilling comedians and politicians intent on scoring political points. >> reporter: dressage is one of the oldest sports in modern olympics, going back a century with origins in the training of military horses. it is considered one of the most technically demanding equestrian sports. horse and rider must perform a series of complicated, precise maneuvers, which, much like gymnastics, are rated by judges. >> pretty good therapy. >> reporter: ann romney's involvement with dressage began when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 14 years ago. she turned to the riding as therapy to build muscle and fight the disease. >> the thought of getting on a horse was so exciting to me, that i forced myself out of bed and came out here, and i could trot maybe once around the arena and i would be finished and exhausted, but i'd feel great. >> reporter: she's also good at it, repeatedly winning high honors in competitions. her candidate husband acknowledged her deep commitment to the sport on nbc's "today" show. >> my sons gave me a box and said, if you wear this, mom will pay more attention to you. i opened it, it was a rubber horse mat. >> reporter: still, a great dressage horse easily costs six figures, so the money, the obscure nature of the sport, and the attire has made mitt romney's connection to it a natural for comedy. >> no surprise the liberal critics call dressage elitist, just because the uniform makes you look like lady mary souter from "downtown abbey." >> reporter: and that has played perfectly into democratic attacks on romney as a rich elitist, out of touch with normal americans. >> the romney spend $77,000 a year on my upkeep, and after mitt romney reveals health care and ships your job overseas, i dare say your life will not be as nearly as poampered as mine. after all, you're not one of his horses. >> in any event, ann romney's horse, rafalca, didn't do that well at the olympics, but put on a decent showing. the europeans are great at dressage. we have not been quite so strong in this country. a decent showing, but not that great. we'll have to see how now it does politically. >> if horse losing comes into the conversation. back to this ad, people will be struck one of two ways. either, a, he pays $77,000 a year for a horse, and he doesn't get me, or, b, he's really stupid. >> i think this is an ad that accomplishes nothing. because the people who already dislike him, will get further down the road for disliking him for those things, and the people who don't will say, why are the democrats picking on this horse that a woman used for therapy? that just seems unseemly. i don't see how this wins anybody over on either side. probably not good for the romneys, probably not good for the democrats to go after him on it. i have a feeling everybody should let the horse go back to the barn and call it done. >> tom, thank you. the raging battle for syria's stronghold hits a gruesome turning point. rebels beat and execute eir prisoners, all on camera. also ahead, a cnn exclusive, israeli president shimon peres tells wolf blitzer what he thinks of meeting mitt romney and much more. and officials scram to believe explain why three airliners came way too close for comfort. not anymore. ink, the small business card from chase introduces jot an on-the-go expense app me exclusively for ink customers. custom categorize your expenses anywhere. save time and get back to what you love. the latest innovation. only for ink customers. learn more at chase.com/ink in here, every powerful collaboration is backed by an equally powerful and secure cloud. that cloud is in the network, so it can deliver all the power of the network itself. bringing people together to develop the best ideas -- and providing the apps and computing power to make new ideas real. it's the cloud from at&t. with new ways to work together, business works better. ♪ i think we should see other people. in fact, i'm already seeing your best friend, justin. ♪ i would've appreciated a proactive update on the status of our relationship. who do you think i am, tim? 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[ shouting ] capturing several members of the beti family, the rebels filmed and distributed video of their fighters kicking and beating two men. [ speaking foreign language ] the cameraman identifies one of them as a man he calls zano beti. we next see beti bloody and almost naked in a room full of prisoners. these are the beti shibahs, says a voice off camera. they attacked the people of aleppo and killed 11 free syrian army members. one by one, the captives mumble their names to the camera. the next rebel video shows zano beti and several other prisoners being led outside. don't shoot, nobody shoot, someone says, but that's not enough to stop what can only be described as a summary execution. [ gunfire ] intense gunfire continues for almost a minute. an official with the tawheed brigade, a large rebel group, claimed responsibility for these extra judicial killings. in a phone call with cnn, he said the executions were carried out in retaliation for the rebels killed by the beti clan. "we conducted annvestigation, judged them guilty, and then took them outside and carried out the execution at approximately 12:00 noon on tuesday," said the spokesman who only asked to be called abu ahmed. for the last few months, organizations have denounced the syrian government for committing atrocities against unarmed civilians. the free syrian army have often promised that its men will fight by the rules of war and treat prisoners humanely. but this week's rebel killings in aleppo suggest the start of a bloody cycle of revenge. ivan watson, cnn, reporting from northern syria. >> joining me now on the phone are ivan watson. you know, ivan, the first thing that occurs to me is, we cannot exactly expect that at this point in this war, that there would be a geneva convention sort of agreement as to how to treat prisoners. how is it seen in aleppo? is it seen as harshly as it looks to us, as we look at those pictures? >> reporter: you know, some residents i've talked to, some inhabitants here in the north of the country have said, we think that the rebels are trying to send a message to these shibah militias that they're not invincible. that we can come hunt themown and kill them. we got mixed responses from some of the rebel commanders that we know. of course, a spokesman for this tawheed brigade that has claimed responsibility for the execution says, we investigated these guys and judged them and decided they should be executed. he was completely unapologetic about that. another commander we talked to said, i would prefer it if there was a court of law we could judge these guys in, but we didn't have one. so this appears to be accepted by the handful of people i've talked to, and perhaps that's because of the incredible loss of life and suffering that they've seen, inflicted by syrian security forces over the last 17 months. >> sure. and in some ways, this was reminisce sint to me of what wew in libya with moammar gadhafi, where we saw him kind of beaten to death by enraged folks after he was toppled. but let me ask you if you have any sense of how widespread this is. do you think it's confined to this the one place that you saw, or do you think there are prisoners in other cities or even in aleppo? >> reporter: i don't have any conclusive evidence that there have been other extrajudicial killings like this, but when you talk to the rebels who are carrying out the fighting, and if they have a pair of boots that they've confiscated from an army soldier after a battle or a flak jacket, and you ask them, well, what happened to the guy who used to wear that helmet, inevitably, they'll say, he's dead. and whether or not that happened in the battle itself or immediately afterwards, after somebody had been taken captive, i don't know, but it's going to be a real concern. the fact is that the international community, the international human rights groups have been condemning the damascus regime for unspeakable atrocities committed against unarmed civilians for the better part of 17 months. now many of those civilians are armed and many of them want revenge. >> moving forward, what does this bode for the battlefield and for international acceptance of the community, of the rebel community? >> well, there are deep concerns already from someovernments about the makeup of the rebels. there's been a lot of talk about infiltration of al qaeda and jihadists. and if you see extrajudicial killings taking place, that will only amplify those concerns. the rebels are very conscious of their image. they want to present a positive face to the outside world, and the rebel brigades i've seen, nearly everyone we've met, they have media officers, guys whose jobs are just to follow the fighters and film and get that video online. and in this case, of these killings, in eastern aleppo on tuesday, those guys were doing their jobs. there was an element of transparency there. it's just -- it revealed a very ugly side of the conflict. >> that it did. ivan watson reporting for us, from northern syria tonight. thanks, ivan. >> thanks, candy. the critical bond between the united states and israel, center stage this week after mitt romney's big visit. ahead, our own wolf blitzer sit downs with israeli president shimon peres for an exclusive interview. and while much of the country is struggling to cope with the devastating drought, we'll take you to las vegas where they've been fighting the battle for more than a decade. you're in "the situation room." dollars bp committed n has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp's made a five hundred million dollar commitment to support scientists studying the environment. and the gulf is open for business - the beaches are beautiful, the seafood is delicious. last year, many areas even reported record tourism seasons. the progress continues... but that doesn't mean our job is done. we're still committed to seeing this through. spending the day with my niece. i don't use super poligrip for hold because my dentures fit well. before those little pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc free. with just a few dabs, it's clinilly proven to seal out mo fd rtics ou're more comfole and coent ile you eat. it's clinilly proven to seal out mo fd rtics sot abou it's no keepinreeni