divide between house hard liners and the gop establishment and by yesterday leading republican voices were openly calling on house speaker john boehner to back down, to agree to a two-month extension or risk ruining the brand. and tonight looking grim, he did just that. there s always a right thing to do and while everyone asked for a full year extension of these programs, a lot of people weren t willing to put the effort in as the holidays were approaching to get it done. our members were. so i m proud of the efforts that they put into this. dana bash is going to join us shortly to explain the mechanics of the deal, the specifics. president obama was quick to praise the outcome. this is the real money that will make a real difference this people s lives and i want to thank every american to remind folk in this town what this debate was all about. and to give an idea of the intense pressure that lawmakers were feeling, take a look at these two entries from rick crawford s
and his new book, the time of our lives, what he thinks america needs now. this is what we can learn from our time. top of the hour, this is piers morgan tonight. tom brokaw s one of my journalistic heroes. he says exactly the saying, the nbc anchor of nbc news for 22 years announcing his retirement in the wake of 9/11. he s now an author the time of our lives. tom, welcome. piers, it s really good to be here. and that business about me being your hero, you re going to get over that by the end of the hour, i promise. i doubt that very much. you re actually the perfect guy to ask this question. i your book with great fascination and also with an eye how this year, 2011, is going to rate in the news because to me, who is a new boy to this news anchoring game, it seems like it s been the most incredible year for news that i can remember but what do you think? well, it s been a chaotic year. part of the reason that we see it in the way that we do is that it neve