. >> it is a wonderful story by joe klein. when he started going to afghanistan as an embed, he'd come back and say these young men and women are the greatest our country has to offer. they're a new greatest generations. one of the things he's looked at and what happens to them when they come back home, all the skills they've learned in the military they're using here. when you're organizing a village in afghanistan, how hard is that to do here in america. when you're making decisions about life and death and being entrepreneurial in the military, how hard sit to do when they come back here? these men and women have extraordinary skills and this is a new paradigm of looking at vets as the best of what america has to offer. chris: this is a face night -- nating irony but rick's piece is saying hey, we're learning how to do things politically that our young people have never learned before. >> it shows how the wars are different and that's why you have this particular group coming out of afghanistan with new skills. it's very di

up next, joe klein is in the green room. he will reveal an extra special cover of this week's "time" magazine. we'll tell you why. you'll see. "morning joe" coming right back. >>> well cobb come back to "morning joe." joe klein reveals the new magazine issue. not just any issue. we took bets who, currently seated at this table is on the cover of this week's magazine. >> i said halperin. >> you said me. >> who else could it be? >> it's wes. >> what? >> wes moore. it's with a bunch of his fellow returning veterans. most about iraq and afghanistan have been bad news, domestic violence, unemployment, homelessness. there's another side of the story that i learned when i was with the troops in iraq and afghanistan. they are bringing back amazing skills. skills unlike any that other soldiers brought back because they have had to be the mayors of the towns where they have been fighting. they have had to work with the local council of elders. they have had to dispurse development funds and do development projects. i's like being the

right about the campaign to persuade our sharpton to act as joe klein's partner. and you're right in the book that sharpton wanted to be paid $2000 a month for his participation and he later agreed to work for free. >> guest: i'm not sure how much he agreed to work -- i'm not sure how much work he ended up doing for free. tran was but one gun dollars wrote -- juan gonzÁlez road the network received one half-million dollars from a hedge fund to secure his involvement in the education equality project. i will give you a copy of the article. and sharpton acknowledged to juan gonzalez transfer took place. i just want to ask if you are aware of that. >> guest: no. great piece of reporting. >> host: one of the things that really puzzles me, and i guess this is personal to me, having been involved in these conservative think tanks for many years and having switched from the conservative side to -- not as a union side but the liberal, concerned more about social equality, if you want, and concerned about the effect of poverty on education. i just think it matters. it str

nicholas wapshott, reihan salam and joe klein. i want to ask you. you wrote a book about canes and hayek. you think the tea party has taken the lead. it strikes me as fascinating. this is a time for keynesianism if there ever was one. you're in a situation where it does seem as though there isn't much demand in the economy. for whatever reason, mostly because i think everyone has lots of debt. that's when government steps in, but you're saying that that's the moment in which kans has been discredited? >> absolutely. i don't suppose the tea party has read frederick hyatt. he was talking mostly about politics. his economics weren't as reliable. but what politically he said is there should be small government. there's no doubt the tea party has put small government or smaller government on the table and that's now the thing that dominates politically. >> arianna, how do you explain this? that you've had the biggest financial crisis and recession. one would argue in some part caused by the irresponsibility of the private sector and the response not just

first up, we have a star-studded panel -- arianna huffington, joe kleine and others to talk about the aftermath of the debt deal and the political landscape going forward. >>> then why in the world are we not taking an' larger chunk out of the defense budget? i'll explain. >>> next up, remember last summer's controversy over the so-called ground zero mosque? well, forget everything you thought you knew and listen to an exclusive. the man behind the mosque tells the whole story. >>> finally, a novel solution to parking problems. >>> first here is my take. we've downgraded ourselves. we've demonstrated to ourselves and the world, to global markets that our political system is broken and we are incapable of implementing sensible public policy. the actual cut to the 2012 budget, which is the only budget over which this congress has any control, is $21 billion out of a total of $3 trillion in expenditures. everything else can and will be changed by future congresses. what the deal does is once again kick tough choices down the road, this time to a congressional supercommission that will ha

joining me to talk about this, joe klein and wes moore. welcome to you both. to you wes for a firsthand, a subject of this piece. you are part of this story. tell us, if you can, what is it that your generation, coming back from the front, in terms of the duties you've had over there, in terms ever trying to bring a country together politically, how that trains you to help back here at home? >> i was honored to be one of the people asked to represent this group of 23 million iraq-afghanistan vets coming back with extraordinary skills. entrepreneurial, fearless, able to look at worst-case scenarios before they look at best case scenarios. the fact is we're looking at the transition back home. there's not a scenario these non-commissioned and officers will see back home that will intimidate them or make them flinch. these are extraordinarily brave and courageous people now serving as they come back home. >> how is this warfront, both iraq and afghanistan, different in terms of training people for careers back home? >> chris, you know, i've been going over there

most of the people in this world of familiar with joe klein's recent essay in "time" magazine. it is criminal to fund, and so on and so on. consider the question of how much change is needed and how much better we think we can actually do with a program like this? the advocacy organizations are going to say that the problem that people are focused on right now is when the federal government sponsored this study, the problem that people are focused on is that when you look at kids at the end of first grade, but you do not see any difference. the habit is the groups are going to say, when you look at the kids the day they are leaving head start, the program looks pretty good. that is a very self-serving argument. because it is self-serving does not mean it is wrong. if you look at the graph, i applauded -- have plotted the grey lines and a show at the control difference in the achievement test scores for the four-year-old kids that were in the experiment. the y-axis is the impact. the first datapoint their -- there are kids leaving head start. that is about a quarter of the black

joe klein wrote a little bit about this. one of the things we are seeing now, this greater political polarization than out in the culture. the culture has a lot of agreement about the issues people in congress do not. pat moynihan said culture trumps. in the '60s and '70s, there was more difference in culture. >> if you go back to the patterns, there's a polarization now. you have to go back to 1930s to see it. then it was lower. something changed inside. >> our contenders always have polarization. joe wrote a piece earlier in the week. the difference today, two differences is one, there's a leadership vacuum in washington. the president has done a tremendous job on cars, finding bin laden. there's a lack of a leadership, more of a leadership you need. look no further than new york. look what cuomo did in new york. look what chris christie has been able to accomplish there. scott walker has taken on tough, tough issues. washington now, leadership comes in the form of raising money, talking about how you are going to position

rick, you have an interesting article by joe kleine how general petraeus sharpened our armed forces. >> he believes petraeus created this new model in the military where the special forces which were once upon a time relegated to the exterior are now at the heart of what the military is doing, the use of military, the use of counter insurgency. a doctrine moving away from the colin powell doctrine of overwhelming force which is something we can't really do anymore. he sees petraeus as the model l and the prophet of that. >> it's going to be fascinating to see how he does in the cia. i mean, this is -- petraeus is turning, jon, into one of our more fascinating kascharacters r the past five, six years. >> he is. is he a marshall? does he have that kind of t trajectory? he doesn't seem too much the mcarthur problems. >> no. >> doesn't look like he's going to go political and burn out as mcarthur did. but we've always liked having generals around. >> yeah. >> we haven't elected one since eisenhower obviously and before that even further back. >> does kleine think he has that political fu

we don't hear enough good news but joe klein writes this new generation of veterans is fast become ago force to be reckoned with. bringing a sharper skill set than veterans of past wars. joe joins us along with paul reikoff. gentlemen, welcome to the program. nice to see you. >> thank you. >> good morning. >> joe, the piece so eloquently lays out just how these soldiers are different. they are fast, they are nivenl, they know technology. they should be something that every company and every organization wants simply for these skills they are learning on the battlefield. >> well, yeah. i spent a lot of time embedded overseas the last five or six years in iraq and afghanistan. what i saw there on the ground was not the typical sense that civilians have of the military which is yes or no, sir, we will take that hill, sir. people who have to be essentially the government of small towns in iraq and afghanistan who have to be entrepreneurial and creative. as general petraeus says, they never know whether they will get a handshake or a hand grenade. they have to do this with extreme pressure

klein's recent essay in "time" magazine, for instance, saying things like there's in this bill evidence that head start doesn't work and there's nothing good that can be said about the program. it's criminal to fund head start in his current, so i saw pics of the second thing i wanted to talk about for a minute is to consider the question of how much change action is needed in head start and how much better we think we can actually do with a program like this. now, the head start advocacy organization are going to say that the problem that people are focused on right now is when the federal government sponsors this randomized experiment will study of head start that randomizes kids to get a head start, head start trade the group versus head start control group that doesn't get offered the chance to meet in head start. the problem with the extent is when you look at kids at the end of first grade come you don't see any difference between the randomized treatment and the randomized control group it was the head start advocacy groups will say is but when you look at the kids today that are

what time is it. >> it's "morning joe." everybody have a great weekend and watch mr. klein own

welcome back to "morning joe." nicolle wallace, good to have you back. and in washington, columnist for t"the washington post" and msnb contributor ezra klein. welcome back as well. >> good morning. >> let's talk like we did the last hour. the scene last night. right over the top, the news broke in, gabby giffords showed up. i was surprised by how well she looked. how good she looked. a and she was doing much better than you thought at this point. >> what a gift she gave at a moment the chamber that needed it so desperately. it was generous on her part. it says a lot about who she is. >> no doubt about it. ezra, people on the right saying, the bill is -- we're going bankrupt. people in the left saying children are being thrown out in the streets. parents will have to feed them pine cones because of this bill. it's $1 trillion over ten years. seems to me both sides are ringing their hands unnecessarily. am i wrong? >> i'll go in the opposite direction. it's one point where the truth lies more on both sides, actually. it's not a huge cut in ten years, $900