bret: it will be no matter who wins the election. if president obama wins the election it will be a huge story we ll get the reports and hearings in congress. you can bet on all of that. look, you have whatever anybody believes about the ultimate truth of this, you have a series now almost six weeks of directly contradictory statements. one after another after another. made by the administration. maybe just incompetence. but that is a lot of incompetence for that kind of a story. let me make one point. i made it before but it s important in light of what charles said about the focus on romney right after the attack. remember, in pries previous attk after previous attack, new york times square bomber and air bomber obama mrs. did the same thing, down the obama administration did the same thing. downplayed the attack no, link to al-qaeda. bret: fort hood shooter. but they did that later when they released the after the fact.
more exciting than the roster than you have. and i think she has a base. but i think what they really ought to be, rachel, is since tonight is we built it, tomorrow night, they should have george bush speak and call it we broke it. i think we should point out that eric cantor is not involved. the majority leader in the house does not have a platform in primetime. the man who is the majority leader, who led the obstruction. you know why? because they have nothing to talk about. if i were running the convention, i would want the same thing. focus on romney and ryan. it s not about the party, it s not about the republican party or the congressional house caucus, god forbid. it s about these two gentlemen. the republican party in the house particularly has been as disciplined as any party in the modern era. the totality of who is there, the ted cruzs and the sarah palins and everything that is the modern institutional party
is mitt romney thinks he s going to lose, that he felt like he had to do something really bold rather than go with a more safe bet would be rob portman, for example, because he s not really known as somebody who takes a lot of risks and b, this is a very risky choice. i think that paul ryan is an extremely impresssive person. i give him a lot of credit for being willing to come out and say exactly what he believes and to put it in writing and to stand by it. he s an excellent politician and he s very good at persuading people. i think he has a real humble way of doing that. but the problem for romney is he needs the selection to be about obama. as much as everybody is getting so excited that we re going to have this big idea debate, which i agree with charles is not going to happen. but even if it did happen, that s not the debate that romney really wants to have. he wants to talk about barak obama and what barak obama has done wrong and the obama campaign has been trying to change tha
american jobs during his time in private equity. my panel today, e.d. stod dard is associated with the hill and political editor of the political report and contributing writer for roll call. let me start with you. the president took three days downtime, 2 1/2. now back on the road. i get the sense, and i noticed it with laura ingram, you see a little tweak of it in the wall street journal editorial, that some conservatives are a little concerned that romney s down too long this week. yeah, and i think the obama attacks on romney is what chris was talking about earlier, it s all about keeping the focus on romney, but i think the romney is trying to present this, i am a normal person and by going on vacation, like most americans were over the last couple of days, i think trying to project that image, you know, as part of his strategy. it didn t help though that he ended up having to deal with this over health care. right. obviously could have been
greece to exit the euro zone and worried of spanish banks. lots of concern there. and unemployment in the euro zone, 11 percent. lots of concern. trace: thank you gerri willis from fox business network. and now sunday anchor chris wallace joins from washington. chris, you heard gerri, no matter how you splice it we are going in the wrong direction. very bad news if the president. chris: absolutely. we had all this focus on romney campaigning with donald trump and romney showing up at solyndra and axelrod showing up on the steps of the massachusetts statehouse. it doesn t matter. this is what will decide the election. the number could change and maybe they will improve define now and november but if it stays like this, president obama is in serious trouble. trace: i was interested to also to hear a senior economists say the unemployment number is up but in the battleground