businesses know what their tax rates are going to be over the next few years so they can plan growth and plan to add people. >> because the bush tax cuts got those businesses to add so many jobs in the last ten years. >> what if we moved it up to $1 million? everybody below $1 million will get a tax cut, but the millionaires and billionaires won't. >> why the democrats keep negotiating against themselves with howard fineman. how do we pay for any cuts anyway with ezra klein. the revitalists versus the survivalists. the two factions that have cut this white house stuck for 22 months. richard wolf inside the split. the martian chronicles. the the solution on how to get there, don't try to get back? >> you might be going to mars, you know! >> fixing the filibuster, ending the earmark. mcconnell caves to the tea party. and the real death of news. ted koppel, false equivalence, and the failure of television news, 2001, 2005. my special comment. all the news and commentary now on "countdown." good evening from new york, this is monday, november 15th, 722 days until the 2012 presidential elections. with the lame duck session of congress now under way, there is one word that has and will be tossed around repeatedly. a word that must be probed, scoured for authenticity, particularly of the white house and congressional democrats and republicans all coalesce around an understanding of it that may very well represent a collective deception. the word is compromise. the collective deception, that a temporary extension of all the bush tax cuts, maybe for a couple of years constitutes compromise. president obama has once again objected to extending the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest americans, quoting what i've said is that i believe it is a mistake for us to borrow $700 billion to make tax cuts permanent for millionaires and billionaires. it won't significantly boost the economy and it's hugely expensive, so we can't afford it. and when david axelrod was asked if the white house would support a temporary extension of all the bush tax cut, he avoided a direct answer. again, pay close attention to the word permanent. >> are you open to compromise? >> there's no bend on the permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. >> and, once again -- >> we cannot afford to go the additional step and permanently raise -- permanently cut taxes, primarily for millionaires and billionaires at a cost of $700 billion for the next ten years alone. >> meantime, you may have seen the words republican and compromise in this formulation. a two or three-year extension of all the bush tax cuts as if that actually represents compromise. republicans apparently successful so far in advancing such a fallacy. senator jim demint. >> i hope we can get a permanent extension, but if the president wants to compromise on a two or three-year extension. what's important is businesses know what their tax cuts are going to be over the next few years so they can plan growth and plan to add people. if we keep things in a state of flux, i'm afraid we're going to continue to have a jobs problem. >> right. the certainty that businesses got from ten years of those bush tax cuts worked out brilliantly. back to the tax cut compromise. tea party favorite, senator-elect rand paul also signing on to the temporary extension of all the bush tax cuts with caveats. >> if that's all we can get, that's better than nothing. but i think the more permanent, the better. and then what we need to do as republicans, if we're serious about the debt is, keep the tax cuts permanent, but then come in and say here's several hundred billion dollars we'll save by having spending reduction bills immediately introduced in congress. >> and just in case there's any remaining doubt that a grand charade is under way, michelle bauchmann is also willing to support such a compromise. an extension of all the bush tax cuts for a few years. meantime, one democratic leader is suggesting that a proposal that might be legitimately called a compromise. senator chuck schumer. >> i think there is a compromise in the making. democrats had originally called for tax cuts for people below $250,000. republicans for everybody. what if we moved it up to $1 million. everybody below $1 million will get a tax cut, but the millionaires and billionaires won't. >> let's turn first to "washington post" staff writer, "newsweek" columnist ezra klein. good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> if the bush tax cuts are extended for two or three years, nothing has changed. it is -- >> no. >> it is mere procrastination with deficit-producing, underperforming tax cuts staying exactly as it is, isn't it? is there some magic elixir in middle of this we're not seeing? >> you had a nice segment of folks saying, no, don't throw me back into the briar patch. the thing about extending tax cuts every two or three years, those tax cuts become permanent. people become used to them. and the justifications get stranger and stranger. we passed them originally to get rid of a surplus, then it went to recession, so now we need them for stimulus. and as jim demint says certainty even though obama would create ten years of certainty by just doing the middle class ones. things have gotten a little wild here on the just physics for them. but the basic idea, if you keep them all together, if you don't de-couple, they'll be easier to keep extending into the future. >> when you move the goal posts like this, the field tends to move with it to some degree. assume for argument's sake that a proposal like the one we heard from senator schumer gained traction. no extension of tax cuts for above $1 million in income. that might have some appeal and would be better than the current compromise, which is a cave-in looks like. is even that good policy? >> i don't understand why they're doing this. i really don't. it is bad policy. we know we have a massive deficit problem, we have the deficit commission talking right now about how to fix it. we know that tax cuts for folks over $250,000 in income are not particularly popular. we know they're not stimulative. so why move back to $1 million? these tax cuts don't get extended if a president doesn't sign them, if the senate doesn't vote for them. and right now, when we're going to do them, the house, senate, and white house are all controlled by democrats. what exactly leverage are democrats getting knocked back on their heels by? i can't figure out where the republican power over this issue is coming from. >> well, and that leads to an even broader conclusion here is the democrats have screwed this up strategically and from a policy standpoint. is there chance, you know, as the line from dr. johnson, that when a man knows he's going to be hanged in the morning, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. when the democrats realize they lose the house in terms of formal control in this lame duck session, is it possible for them to concentrate long enough to correct course? >> there are three things they need out of this. number one is unemployment extension. in the next month, we need unemployment insurance extension or people lose benefits. number two, we're going to need to raise the debt ceiling in the next couple of months. republicans are loving this. jim demint says he wanted to use it to repeal the health care bill, cut spending massively. if republicans want to blow up the deficit by extending tax cuts, they need to stand shoulder to shoulder on the debt ceiling. if i were the democrats, i would not do the tax cuts without doing the debt ceiling at the same time. number three, senator conrad said it should only be possible in the context of tax reform. we can extend these for a couple of years, but if you don't do tax reform, it's an automatic snap to clinton 1999 rates. republicans want it and nobody wants a big tax increase. but the big fear i'm hearing from people on the hill is the democrats are going to give this away for nothing. and it's not clear why they're doing it that way. >> is there any lawmaker to your knowledge, even one of the lame ducks who is willing to suggest, you know what, it isn't a good idea to extend any of these tax cuts? >> actually it's george voinovich, the republican from ohio. >> of course, it is. >> besides him, there's been little on it. to be fair in the next couple of years for folks not making much money, we need any kind of stimulus you can get and keeping taxes low for people who make less than $250,000 is an ineffective but still present type of stimulus. but going forward and for folks above that, it doesn't make sense right now. >> and comes at the price of bribing the rich. great thanks, ezra. >> thank you. let's turn to the senior editor at the "huffington post" msnbc political analyst, howard fine man. good evening. >> hi, keith. >> temporarily extending the bush tax cuts is not a real compromise, it is as i suggested before a cave on the part of the democrats, just accepting a position that the republicans had advanced for a long time just for a shorter period of time. and they get nothing back. so why does it sound like the white house is very carefully giving itself room to arrive at this point in which it gives away the store for nothing? >> well, keith, i've been listening to you and ezra talk and i've been trying to figure out based on my reporting today what reasonable answer i can give to the question of why the democrats are doing this. and based on the people i talked to today, it's a couple of things. first of all, they have lost faith if they ever had any in the idea that they could control the narrative and control the debate. and they're afraid that if they get into some kind of real confrontation with the republicans over taxes -- in other words, the president maybe even vetoing some kind of bill or standing in the way of what the republicans want to do, that either the veto will be overridden or it won't be and all the tax cuts will go away. and the white house and the democrats -- some of them -- are afraid to try to deal with the consequences of that. they don't really think they can convince the american people that the reason why all the tax cuts have gone away is not president obama, but republican intransigents. in other words, they lost their nerve in feeling they have the ability to control the debate. that's the best answer i can give to you and ezra on that point. >> don't they take any heart from the fact that democrats have successfully negotiated against democrats? that they beat the democrats into a pulp already? shouldn't they see the ability? if you can hit yourself hard enough in the head to knock yourself out cold, certainly you can direct the punch in a different direction, can't you? >> one would think so. but one of the interesting things to watch here and talking to democrats is this, both the caucuses are meeting tomorrow, both the house and senate side. and it's not clear what the defeated democrats are going to do. one might think that a lot of defeated democrats and house seats and even senate seats would say the heck with it. i tried to replay the game of mollifying the republicans, now they're out of there, i'm going to vote against tax breaks for the rich and screw it. but that -- we don't know whether that's going to happen. and the people i talked to think it's doubtful because a lot of those same democrats either have to go back to those districts or they might want to go into business or they might want to be lobbyists or this and that, you never know. and they were impressed if not intimidated by the fact that the democrats won plus 60 and the republicans won plus 60 in the house and seem to have the political momentum. so this would seem to be an opportunity in the lame duck for defeated democrats to be brave. but it's not even clear that's going to happen. we'll wait and see what happens in the caucuses tomorrow. but the betting i hear is they're not going to be that way. >> what about the notion ezra raised about linking the bush tax cuts to republican concessions on extending the 99ers, the unemployment insurance for the americans who get sucked into that black hole in the middle of the month? >> that's a great idea in theory. but the democrats, especially in the senate, aren't convinced they have the votes to defeat attempts to remove such things from being attached to the bill. basically harry reid and his leadership aren't convinced that they can get anything out of the senate, which is one reason why the house members, including those defeated democrats who might want to vote to not allow the tax cuts to continue for the rich don't want to take the first vote. they want to make the senate vote first. >> this again. >> this again. to see if the senate has the cajones to do anything. if the senate doesn't, even the house democrats aren't going to do it gwen either. >> "huffington post" senior editor howard fineman. as always, big thanks, howard. >> thank you. richard wolf's new book "revival" describing competing groups inside the obama administration, idealists revivalists over survivalists. versus clinton leftover survivalists. some lyrics and a couple of numbers and you've got "west side story." richard wolf next on "countdown." ll make her holiday. that's why only zales is the diamond store. to stay fit, you might also want to try lifting one of these. a unique sea salt added to over 40 campbell's condensed soups. helps us reduce sodium, but not flavor. so do a few lifts. campbell's.® it's amazing what soup can do.™ you know, if we had let fedex office print our presentation, they could have shipped it too. saved ourselves the hassle. i'm not too sure about this. look at this. 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[ snores ] [ male announcer ] we understand.® you need a partner who delivers convenience. next time use fedex office. if you got the sense the white house was driven into two crowds, richard wolf's new book indicates you were right. a new cheap way to explore mars. go there and stay over at his house. as some senators discuss neutering the filibuster, he gets neutered by the tea party on earmarks. and nothing like being told you've helped to destroy tv news by one of the men who at the time his nation needed him to be a real journalist utterly failed at it. special comment ahead. uh! cut! when you're a stunt woman, work can be pretty unpredictable, from knowing when my next job will be... to what i'll actually be doing. so in the rest of my life i like control, especially in my finances. that's why i have slate with blueprint. i can make a plan to pay off everyday things and avoid interest. or pay down my balance faster on the big stuff. that saves money. with slate from chase i have everything under control... financially. debit card control... credit card flexibility. get both with slate. speaking with reporters, following his trip to asia, president obama reflecting on the first half of his presidency while offering a preview of what he thinks comes next. and in our fourth story, while the president hints at obama 2.0, we gain new insight into the struggles and victories of the original flavor. a result of a white house divided revivalists versus survivalists in a team of rivals without very much team. the man reporting from the front lines, richard wolf joins me in a moment. mr. obama, once again shouldering the blame for his administration's perceived failures. this time pointing to his obsessive focus on policy for neglecting things that matter to people. hinting in the next two years he will not be legislatively focused. instead compromised of more outreach to the public. and yes, more calls for bipartisanship. "my expectation when i sit down with mitch mcconnell and john boehner this week there are a set of things that need to get done during the lame duck and they are not just going to want to just obstruct but they're going to want to engage constructively. good times, great oldies. joining me, author of the new book "revival" richard wolf. >> good evening, keith. >> the reason you did this was to discover what, if anything, had changed with the entire obama team during the first 20 plus months. what was the answer? and was it a surprise to you? >> well, it was a surprise. it surprised me that such a relatively simple question would be out there unresolved for so long. and the fact that it'd begun before the campaign was over. i told the story about john podesta, the former clinton chief of staff, gets into a heated exchange with the campaign people before election day, saying, you know the promise you made about not having lobbyists, we have to get around that. now the campaign people said this wasn't a minor thing. you know, this is what the candidate, the president-elect really believes in. and, of course, they watered it down one way or the other. he says well, he was really just hedging where the president wanted to hedge. but that debate about whether you should stick to the revivalist spirit of the campaign or govern and -- and mold yourself to washington, that has been the fault line running through this white house for the last three years. >> if it's obama loyalists, revivalists, valerie jarrett, that crowd, the veterans with him from the beginning versus the old-hand clintonists. the survivalists. if the president had repeatedly rejected this clinton model for his presidency, why were there any survivalists? and why were they seemingly in charge? >> well, that's a great question. and there were some obama loyalists on the survivalist side as well. it's not a clear obama/clinton divide here. but that framework from the primaries does set up what happens after. remember, in the final stretch in iowa, he goes up and gives a speech crystallizing the debate between the two where he says you cannot at once say you're the master of the broken system in washington and offer yourself as the person to change it. my argument is based on my research, my sources, he's got a foot in both camps. he wanted to try to do both. and it was as untenable for him in year one and two as it was for clinton in the primaries. >> is this why we've gotten the bipartisan needle stuck in the same record for the last two years? even now the president talking about the next two years he's going to try to be more bipartisan. is there some connection as he has that it sometimes to eclipse the idea he's also the president of people who voted for him? >> well, there is that self-image there, you're right. this is the guy who said he would unite red and blue america, so he's going to try and do that. there was also a late dawning belief, a realization among these people that, in fact, there were no reasonable republicans out there. that this republican party no longer had a bob dole figure. and at the other side, while they were trying to govern carried on campaigning. and that was a -- a really simple mistake that many of the campaign people said, hey, guys, the other side hasn't stopped the election. took them a long time to realize that. >> and you're right that the scott brown victory in massachusetts in january was the real wake-up call that knocked the president out of his complacency. but what changed? and if something did change, why ten months later is there still this -- this attitude that we saw during the run-up to the midterms? and even know, this kind of serra serra. >> scott brown happened, everyone said this president is dead, finished, two months later he gets health care. so there's a repeated pattern here of people writing this guy off saying he's finished. there was new hampshire, texas and ohio, pennsylvania, this guy was supposed to be done a long time ago and he bounces back. that's number one to keep in mind