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Mitch McConnell is asked why seven of the Republicans who co-sponsored the Conrad-Gregg fiscal commission turned around and voted against it. McConnell says he now wants a spending reduction commission because heaven forbid we can't have them considering any tax hikes for the rich. Leave it to Republicans to take a bad idea and make it worse.

KING: Well, let's talk about your side of the equation. Robert Gibbs just complained about it and the president mentioned it in his Saturday radio address. He says there was a proposal. It was sponsored by one Democrat and one Republican. It would create a commission that would spend a few months studying how can we cut federal spending, maybe even propose tax increases; find some way to reduce the federal budget deficit. Now, it then failed last week on a vote in the Senate. And here's the president's complaint.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: This past week, 53 Democrats and Republicans voted for this commission in the Senate, but it failed when seven Republicans who had cosponsored this idea in the first place suddenly decided to vote against it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, we want to show on our screen the seven Republicans who were cosponsors but then withdrew their cosponsorship and voted against it: the Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Ensign of Nevada, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, John McCain of Arizona, Robert Bennett of Utah.

If this was such a good idea that they would cosponsor it -- this is what comes up, Senator McConnell, in my travels all the time. People say, why do they always just play politics in Washington? Is this just politics, as the president says, or if it was the same proposal six months ago when they cosponsored it, what was wrong with it last week when a Democratic president wanted it?

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Don't we wish Orrin. Orrin Hatch pretends that the Republicans weren't involved in the process of putting together the health care bill. Sorry Senator but the ones who were completely shut out of the process were single-payer advocates. They weren't even allowed a seat at the table when Max Baucus was having his hearings. You and your party on the other hand were given ample opportunity to muck up the bill you refused to vote for later. I also can't believe he had the nerve to say the Senate passed the Health Committee bill when that's a blatant lie as well. The end result of that Senate bill was not what came out of the Health Committee and he knows it.

From Slate--This Is What "Bipartisanship" Looks Like:

What do the GOP amendments to this Senate health care bill actually say?

When the Senate health, education, labor, and pensions committee passed its health care bill Wednesday, the Obama administration hailed it as a "bipartisan" effort. No matter that it passed the panel on a strictly party-line vote, with all 13 Democrats voting for and all 10 Republicans voting against. It was bipartisan, administration officials explained, because it contained 160 Republican amendments. Republican senators said that characterization was absurd. After all, they said, most of the 160 amendments were technical, rather than substantive, changes. Lisa Murkowsi of Alaska told the New York Times that, while it was "pretty impressive" that 20 of her amendments were accepted, "they were all technical."

Who's right? There's no real way to resolve this debate without examining the content of these amendments, and the committee has yet to officially release them. But a Senate Republican source sent Slate a summary of many of the amendments, with a short description of each. (Download the Excel file here.) Disclaimer: This is an incomplete list. Of the 788 amendments filed, only 437 appear here. And of the 161 GOP amendments passed or accepted, we have confirmed only 80 as such. We hope to update the document as more information becomes available. Read on...

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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It would be nice to see a few more segments like this one where gasbag Bill Bennett gets some push back on his empty rhetoric for once instead of steam rolling over Donna Brazile or whoever they have him up against. From CNN's State of the Union, the panel is asked what went wrong in the Massachusetts Senate race and Martha Coakley's pollster Celinda Lake says the Democrats need to produce on jobs and Wall Street reform and get some things done or the Republicans are going to continue to seize on their "change" message.

When Bill Bennett tries to claim that the voters of Massachusetts didn't like what was in the health care bill and that the President has moved too far to the left, Lake and Brazile do a pretty good job of knocking down his talking points.

KING: He's not a rhetorical dynamo, but Mitch McConnell has been pretty disciplined in keeping the Republicans together, has he not? I know you're a Democrat, but as somebody who has to organize, he get points?

BRAZILE: For being an obstructionist? Absolutely. For not giving the American people any alternatives? When President Obama took the oath of office, we were hemorrhaging 20,000 jobs a day. Now no one is satisfied with 85 -- losing 85,000 jobs and now -- in the past month. But the truth is, s that the president inherited an economy that was on the brink. And with the policies that he has put forward, this economy is now moving along.

I agree that the president needs to go back to the basics. He needs to go back to the campaigning mode, not the campaign itself, but he promised the American people change. He promised to bring us together, to heal this country, and to move us forward.

And what we have seen from the Republicans is no agenda, no alternative. Yes, you benefited from a political environment that is anti-incumbent. It is bad out there. But I do believe at the end of the day that the Republicans need to put up. We need to vet the Republican policies once they put them forward. And they need to be held accountable for those policies. They had a free pass in 2009.

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They sure as hell don't mind disrespecting the will of the entire country though, do they? This smells of them finding an excuse to jam through the crappy bill passed by the Senate and telling the House they have to go along with it or it's a failure for the Democratic Party. Lawrence O'Donnell was on MSNBC and said Harry Reid would not seat Brown until Massachusetts submitted all of their paperwork for the election which is going to take a couple of weeks. So they would have two weeks to still try to reconcile the bill and make it better without worrying about Brown's vote if that's what they wanted to do.

The Republicans and Brown would be screaming like banshees but who cares. They can't be screaming much louder than they are right now. So either they want the Senate bill passed or they don't care if HCR passes at all IMO, but who knows. I guess we'll find out shortly as this plays out.

L. KING: John King is at Brown headquarters.

The last Republican from Massachusetts, John, you know it well, I guess, was Senator Ed Brooke, the black liberal Republican, was it not, in -- in, was that '78 -- '68 maybe?

J. KING: He was a moderate -- you're exactly right, Larry. Ed Brooke was a moderate Republican from Western Massachusetts. He served two terms. He left the United States Senate in 1979. And not since then has Massachusetts sent a Republican to the Senate.

But tonight, Massachusetts has not only decided to send a Republican to the Senate, Larry, Massachusetts is sending a very blunt message to President Obama and the national Democratic Party.

Scott Brown campaigned against the Obama health care plan, against the Obama stimulus plan, against what he calls "the spending and the taxing in Washington, D.C."

And voters in a state that Obama carried by 26 points have now, by a significant margin, decided to send a Republican, Scott Brown, to Washington.

And I want to echo the point, Wolf, just made. I'm told by two Republican sources high up in the Brown campaign that Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, called a short time ago to say she was conceding the race. I'm told she congratulated Scott Brown on the campaign and wished him well in the very consequential days he has ahead, Larry, as he goes to Washington now to take the seat that Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal icon, held for 46 years.

L. KING: One other thing, John. And we'll discuss it later and certainly at length in our -- in our midnight show, is he can't be sworn in, according to Massachusetts law, until the 29th.

Can the Democrats in the House and Senate try to do something before then on health?

J. KING: Can -- the answer to can they is yes. The answer to will they is don't be so sure. The White House has sent signals it would like to try to move fast. But many Democrats are saying that that would be dangerous, if you disrespect the will of the people of Massachusetts.

This election is being fueled by Independent voters, Larry. Independent voters are very powerful in many of the other key states and key races this year. Many Democrats are afford that if they act quickly in that interim period, they will cause a lot more trouble for themselves in the long-term than any benefit they would get in the short-term.

L. KING: Thanks, John.

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From CNN's State of the Union, Lady McCheney defends Rush Limbaugh's hateful, racits comments about the humanitarian aid to Haiti and claims that poor Limbaugh has his taken out of context and distorted. Sorry Mary but I think the more context you give Limbaugh, the worse he sounds. Kind of like your defense of him. First the behavior is excusable because Limbaugh gives a lot of money to charity, then you claim his words were distorted.

In just what context can the words "Obama will use Haiti to boost credibility with "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country" ever be taken to mean something positive? Too bad John King or her husband didn't ask her that.

If anyone was taken out of context here it's Keith Olbermann by John King. Here's the beginning of the conversation later in the show with Anthony Weiner where his words are put into context.

OLBERMANN: Continuing our coverage of the second day after the earthquake, the 7.0 earthquake at Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, in which this devastation is so extraordinary, there is not even a reasonable estimate as to the death toll yet, as night has fallen for the second time on a disaster-struck nation.

With Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York—and I don‘t want to turn this into something about domestic politics. But I think it‘s a good frame of reference in terms of the health care issue that we always talk about. We could easily have a natural disaster, if not quite on this scale, at least in the same broad ballpark. A slightly heavier earthquake in California could do extraordinary devastation to San Francisco or Los Angeles.

I was thinking about this—and maybe it‘s inappropriate and tell me if I‘m inappropriate in asking it. But how would survivors of something like this here fair in terms of getting on their own feet economically afterwards, with the health care system we have in place right now?

Transcript below the fold.

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From CNN's State of the Union, Liz Cheney says our "Federal courts are not an effective tool for fighting terror" despite as Donna Brazile asserts, her daddy's administration didn't seem to have any problem using them to prosecute terrorists. You know, it's bad enough that the cable news shows continually trot this torture monger out to defend her father's dirty work as someone we should consider credible, but you'd think John King would try to get some control over her instead of looking like he's just enjoying the show with her either talking over or refusing to respond to Donna Brazile.

Our sorry excuse for "news" really has sunk into the abyss when they day in and day out let these pundits go on the air and treat torture as something our government should be doing and that is legal. It's truly disgusting. And Liz, the "recruiting tool" for terrorism is not our court system. It's our foreign policy that you and your father condone that is making us enemies.

KING: Do Republicans have the upper hand on the political argument? We'll talk about the policy in a minute.

BRAZILE: Well, first of all, John, I take the position that when it comes to national security, this should be a bipartisan concern. I thought the president was absolutely right in taking responsibility but I also thought that the president called on the country to put citizenship ahead of bipartisanship was also the right thing to say.

There's no evidence that President Obama has put fighting terrorism on the back burner. There's no evidence his administration has downplayed the threat or downplaying, you know, whatever information that they have received regarding al Qaeda.

When the president gave what I thought to be strong remarks on Afghanistan in December, he mentioned Yemen. He mentioned the fact that we would have to fight al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia and other places. So there's no information whatsoever that would lead anyone to believe that this president doesn't care about our security and he's not fighting with every tool that was left by the Bush-Cheney administration.

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Seems Mary Matalin was doing a bit of history revision on this week's State of the Union on CNN. Think Progress has more--Mary Matalin claims President Bush ‘inherited’ the September 11th terror attacks:

On CNN today, GOP strategist and former Dick Cheney adviser Mary Matalin argued that President Obama is speaking too much about the severe debt, deficits, and economic recession he inherited from the previous administration. Defending her former boss, Matalin charged that President Bush had in fact “inherited a recession” and the September 11th attacks from President Clinton.

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As Lee noted, it looks like Matalin is joining the ranks of Ms. We Did Not Have a Terrorist Attack on our Country During President Bush's Term Perino with trying to whitewash the record of the Bush administration.

KING: The politics of the economy. Do the Republicans have that right? Deficits and maybe giving Congress too much control in writing this legislation? Is that a problem for this president? How has he been as a leader in his first year?

MATALIN: It's not just the deficits. It's the dud. It's incomprehensible. And it's the Bush fashion in perpetuity. Never gives a speech where he doesn't explicitly or implicitly look backwards.

I was there. We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs.

So there are two different ways to deal with this. He's choosing the way that Democrats always deal with it. But doing it at such a magnitude. The spending is unprecedented. The debt is unprecedented. And whatever the recession was that he inherited that was global did not -- the response is such an overkill that we will be settled with this forever.

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Fear monger much Lady McCheney? I'm not wild about this health care bill either, but this is ridiculous. Think Progress has more--Matalin slurs health reform advocates as ‘health care jihadists.’.

Matalin has employed the concept of “holy war” in her political debates before. On Meet the Press in 2006, she attacked David Gregory for going “on a jihad” in covering the Vice President’s accidental shooting of his friend Harry Whittington. Gregory responded, “That’s an unfortunate use of that word, by the way. This is not what that was.”

Transcript via CNN.

KING: Let's start, David Axelrod says we're on the one-yard line deep in the red zone. Mary Matalin, you don't like this bill, but are Democrats going to get it?

MATALIN: They are and they're going to get something more, a big loss in the midterms. We've been saying this all along. The more they get, the rougher it's going to be for them in the midterms. And they've made that political calculation that their sacrificial lambs are going to be the blue dogs and they're going to lose all those blue dogs and they may even lose their majority and so be it. They've been on this jihad for 70 years, and they're going to throw over all competitive seats to do it.

And I don't know what kind of party that is. That leaves left and the Democratic Party, the urban centers, this is tyranny of the minority. Two-thirds of the country don't want this. And one-third of these jihadists, these health care jihadists do. I guess that's how democracy in the Obama era works.

[...]

KING: Do you have any doubt Senator Nelson gets a good deal from Nebraska? Senator Landrieu got a good deal for Louisiana? You were both here a couple of weeks ago, said the Republican governor wanted that so it's not this horrible Democratic thing. Could you have any doubt that if there's six or eight or 10 of these deals, that two or three years down the road, when that money kicks in, that senators from Arizona and Illinois and Iowa and anywhere else are going to say where's mine?

MATALIN: Remember this. There are no red states. There are no blue states, there are only the United States. No, it's every state for himself. The country is more divided. It is less transparent, less accountable. Of course all these other states are going to get -- which just makes it a bigger piece of what it is which is wealth transfer. Essentially what's happening and what Senator Nelson can speak for himself when he comes out is he's never going to have a Medicaid increase. Well no other state is going to stand for that.

And this is worse, and the American people have said that this is worse than doing nothing, and the White House actuary said it will raise costs to the premium -- raise premiums, raise the debt. It will not cover everybody. It does not bend the cost curve. And furthermore this is the worst thing. They're going to strip out all the few good things that are in there and the entrenched things will stand. That's what's happened with every entitlement jihad from the '30s and the '60s and that's what happened.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham doesn't have much good to say about the president and his administration's handling of health care reform. Graham accused the Obama administration of giving "bribes" to Democratic Senators in exchange for their votes, calling it "seedy Chicago politics."

"You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And it’s really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes," said Graham.

The senator from South Carolina went on to criticize the Democrats' method of paying for health care reform. "No Congress is going to allow Medicare to be cut $470 billion. We will forgive those cuts to doctors and hospitals. That's how you pay for the bill. It's Enron-accounting. It's a sham," Graham told CNN's John King Sunday.

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Donna Brazile takes the rest of the CNN panel to task for their concern for the deficit at a time when our main concern should be putting people back to work. Of course Bill Bennett continues to claim we need more tax cuts and thinks the Democrats are going to "go off the cliff" if they increase the deficit. Brazile reminds him "we've been off the cliff".

Transcript via CNN.

KING: And, Donna, on that point, I want you to listen to Larry Summers because Gloria notes they're starting to talk about the deficit because they're going to raise the federal debt ceiling this week and the numbers get incredibly high. Republicans are starting to say, you know, where's the fiscal discipline here?

And yet, if the you listen to Larry Summers, he seems convinced that they have a little more political space to make the case, that, in the short term, spending to help the economy is more important than reducing the deficit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUMMERS: We've got to do a lot more. There's no more important issue facing the country than job growth because, if we don't create jobs, we've got no prospect that the kind of budget deficits we want. If unemployment stays high, we're not going to have the strength in the world that we want, if unemployment stays high.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: They get away with that a bit longer?

BRAZILE: All the politics aside, the administration is walking a real tightrope between creating the jobs that the American people clearly want and trying to focus on the long-term fiscal health of the nation, the debt.

The Republicans raised the debt ceiling 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007. SO this is customary sometimes during a budget process, to raise it that way. But because of the additional spending that we have on the wars and other issues, we have to raise it again. That's a responsible thing that Congress needs to do.

On the other hand, I think the president is absolutely right to use some of the additional TARP money that will be utilized to pay down the deficit, but to use some of it to create jobs.

Now, hopefully, the private sector -- the president will be able to put some fire under the bankers tomorrow for them to start lending to small businesses so we don't have to continue this rate of government spending.

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Mitt Romney is asked what he thinks the Obama administration needs to do to stimulate the economy and surprise, surprise...he recommends more tax cuts. How'd those tax cuts work out under George W. Bush Mitt? Of course Romney also thinks we need to get rid of the stimulus plan which wasn't big enough in the first place. Let the private sector take care of everything. It will all work out just fine.

I'll take Paul Krugman's advice over Romney's any day--The Jobs Imperative:

So it’s time for an emergency jobs program.

How is a jobs program different from a second stimulus? It’s a matter of priorities. The 2009 Obama stimulus bill was focused on restoring economic growth. It was, in effect, based on the belief that if you build G.D.P., the jobs will come. That strategy might have worked if the stimulus had been big enough — but it wasn’t. And as a matter of political reality, it’s hard to see how the administration could pass a second stimulus big enough to make up for the original shortfall.

So our best hope now is for a somewhat cheaper program that generates more jobs for the buck. Such a program should shy away from measures, like general tax cuts, that at best lead only indirectly to job creation, with many possible disconnects along the way. Instead, it should consist of measures that more or less directly save or add jobs.

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Transcript via CNN.

KING: What should the president do in the short term? A lot of Republicans have said we're in this deficit, we can't run up more deficits. What should he do in the short term to create jobs?

ROMNEY: Well, put the brakes on the stimulus plan. Stop spending money on government, and instead create incentives for businesses to buy things and to hire people, by, for instance, having a more robust investment tax credit, by letting businesses expense capital expenditures in the first year for the next year or two, by lowering the payroll tax. At the same time, stop all the talk about cap-and- trade. That holds back job growth.

And of course, this plan to take over the health care system means that about one-fifth of the economy has put its brakes on and is not willing to invest because they're so concerned.

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From CNN's State of the Union, yet another Republican joins the ranks of Lindsey Graham with saying spending on war is more important than passing the health care bill.

KING: Do you support a separate accounting, a separate war surtax?

LUGAR: I believe there will be a separate accounting, but in any event, I think we will have to pay for it. I would just make this suggestion, that in the three weeks of debate we still have ahead of us, we really ought to concentrate in the Congress on the war, on the overall strategy of our country and the cost of it. And we ought to be on the budget. Passing appropriations bills in a proper way.

Now in the course of that, we may wish to break out that. We may wish to discuss higher taxes to pay for it. But we're not going to do that debating health care and the Senate for three weeks through all sorts of strategies and so forth.

The war is terribly important. Jobs and our economy are terribly important. So this may be an audacious suggestion, but I would suggest we put aside the health care debate until next year, the same way we put cap and trade and climate change and talk now about the essentials, the war and money.

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David Obey on CNN's State of the Union takes the President to task for the proposed troop surge in Afghanistan and defends his case for a war tax. I agree with Rep. Obey that if we're going to make our members of Congress defend spending on things like health care and stimulus, then they should also be saying how we're going to be paying for these military engagements. Personally I think we should be getting out of Afghanistan rather than looking at how to pay for it, but if we are going to stay there, the cost should not be allowed to be added to our debt.

Of course the right wingers are all going nuts that anyone dare request we pay for invading other countries while demanding that our Congress members explain how they're going to pay for things that help our citizens dig out of this recession.

KING: I'm going to hold up the headline, here, of the Washington Times, "Obama Faces Hard Sell on Afghan War Decision."

I want to get, in a moment, to your proposal to how to pay for this, if the president goes forward with this. But just on the merits, 30,000-plus more troops to Afghanistan: a good idea or a bad idea?

OBEY: The problem is that you can have the best policy in the world, but if you don't have the tools to implement it, it isn't worth a beanbag. And I don't think we have the tools in the Pakistani government and I don't think we have the tools in the Afghan government. And until we do, I think much of what we do is a fool's errand.

KING: If you can see it so clearly, why can't the president of the United States, if you're right?

OBEY: Well, the president sits in a different position. I mean, he has inherited an absolute mess. No matter what he does, it's a -- it's a no-winner. And I -- you know, I have a great deal of respect for the way he's gone about this process. But the Pentagon...

KING: But you think he's wrong?

OBEY: Well, the Pentagon has only one job, and that's to talk about this war and this war only. But he has, and I have jobs that require us to look at everything else that's tied into it.

I have to look at the entire federal budget, as chairman of the committee, for instance. I have to see what $400 billion or $500 billion, $600 billion, $700 billion, over a decade, for this effort, will cost us on education, on our efforts to build the entire economy. And -- and when you look at it that way, I come to a different conclusion than he does.

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Good thing we've got reporters to fact check these guys when they tell whoppers like this isn't it? Oh...nevermind. John King didn't bother. Rudy Giuliani claims that the Democrat who won the NY-23 Congressional district voted against the House health care bill. You'd think King would have known that not only did Bill Owens vote yes on the bill, he announced that he would vote for it ahead of time and as reported by TPM:

Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY) can be counted on as a "yes" in this weekend's expected vote on the House Democrats' health care bill, announcing his support in a press release.

"This legislation will reform the insurance industry and provide increased access to affordable healthcare without taxing healthcare benefits, cutting Medicare benefits or raising taxes on the middle class, and that is exactly the direction we need to go," said Owens. "There are still changes I would like to make, including raising the payroll exemption for small businesses, but like I said last week, there is a fundamental need for reform and we must act with a sense of urgency."

Owens won a narrow upset victory in this past Tuesday's NY-23 election, defeating the Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman who had opposed the bill, and picking up the seat for the Democrats. Owens's position here is in line with his prior statements at a debate held last week, shortly before the election.

So much for Rudy trying to sugar coat the results of Sarah-Barracuda and Dick Armey injecting themselves into that Congressional race.

KING: Let me ask you lastly about, you say you welcome Sarah Palin, you think she's good for the party. What about what happened in NY-23, where you had a candidate -- a moderate Republican candidate who had the endorsement of the party and then conservatives like Sarah Palin came in and said, no, not good enough, not good enough on taxes, not good enough on life, not good enough on these issues. Is that a good precedent for the party?

GIULIANI: Nope, that's not a good precedent for the party. And that's the way you can allow Democrats to win, even if the public has turned against them on certain things. I think in that particular case, I know that district. that's a district that is very concerned about Obama's health care. You can see the Democrat has voted against the Obama health care program. That's a district where we could elect a Republican if we get our act together and let's hope we don't repeat that too often because then we surely won't be a majority party.

KING: Mayor Rudy Giuliani, we appreciate your time today.

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From CNN's State of the Union, David Axelrod responds to Mitt Romney's carping that the President is taking too long to make a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan. Axelrod should have told King to ask Mittens when those 'brave sons' of his were going to sign up to go over there the next time he interviews him since he's so terribly concerned about sending more troops.

KING: As you know, conservatives have been critical of the president's policy review, saying, ‘why is it taking so long?’. The former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney gave a speech this week in which he said, not only why is it taking so long for the president to decide, but he also said why is David Axelrod, his top political advisor involved in these deliberations? Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: I find it incomprehensible and inexcusable that this president invites David Axelrod into national security meetings. Polls and politics have no place at that table. [...] He is the commander-in-chief. What has he been doing? Do you realize he carried out more than 30 campaign visits in this last season, for various Democrats? While he can't make up his mind on Afghanistan, or have enough time to meet with generals. He is out there campaigning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's take them in order. Why is David Axelrod deserve a seat at that table? And why is it taking so long?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, let's be clear. David Axelrod does not have a seat at that table. I have observed these discussions because, as I am today, I have to help communicate the message of the administration. And so it is helpful for me to hear. I have not said a word in any of those meetings.

Now let's take the second part. Governor Romney has to choose one argument or another. Either he has to say he is not paying attention or he has to say he is taking too long because he has been involved in a rigorous review. The president has had hours and hours and hours of meetings with his military commanders, with his national security team, to run through every aspect of this, in order to get it right.

And we've seen in the past what happens when we don't do that; when we don't do the necessary preparations. And he is determined to get Afghanistan right. It is something that Secretary Gates supports. It is something that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supports; General McChrystal has been supportive of this process.

You know, I know that Governor Romney has never had responsibility for any decision akin to this, so he just may not be familiar with all that it entails. But I think the American people are being well served by a process that is assiduous and in which every aspect of this is considered. Because, after all, lives of American servicemen are involved here. An enormous investment on the part of the American people, we ought to get it right.