positioned himself very much as the grown-up in the room, the reasonable one, something that the president s advisors thought would help him appeal to the independent voters that he needs if he s going to win relection next year. we re seeing a very different tact now. a very aggressive tact, especially after the president saw dismal approval ratings following that bruising debt ceiling battle. we ve seen the president taking his message to the home turf, as you mentioned, of his rivals and calling them out by name. we saw that this past week when he went to the brent spence bridge which is the bridge spanning the home states of house speaker john boehner and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. here s what he said. the bridge behind us just happens to connect the state that s home to the speaker of the house with with the home state of the republican leader in the senate. now that s just a coincidence. it s purely accidental that that happened. but part of the reason
1:51 this afternoon. trust us on this, it feels a lot more dramatic than these pictures look, but take a look. this was inside the cnn studios as it rocked. in no time at all it seemed like everyone in d.c. was out on the sidewalk overloading cellular networks as they tried to get in touch with friends and family. the quake was centered in virginia, about 88 miles south of washington. people in new england even felt the shaking. now, the east coast is waiting to see where hurricane irene will hit. we ll get an update on that forecast in a little bit, but we want to start with the breaking news, and incredible pictures, out of libya today. in one of the most dramatic developments in the five months since the rebellion started, rebel fighters captured moammar gadhafi s compound in tripoli today. cnn s fred pleitgen joins us now, i know, in fact, you are in benghazi which is headquarters for the rebels and entirely rebel city for some time now. tell me, first, the reaction whe