congresswoman gabrielle giffords members of her staff and constituents. this terrible act of violence is a national tragedy. today is a very sad day for our country. my prayers and the prayers of all members of the congress go on to her husband, mark kelly, their family and staff others who were victims. giffords is a courageous member of congress bringing views of the new generation of national leaders. it was especially tragic that she was attacked when meeting with constituents. that from the former speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. former congressman john shattuck is on the live line with us. congressman, to you and everyone in arizona, of course, our deepest sympathies and great concern across the nation. at this point, it s my hope you can tell us a little bit about a
constituents outside the safeway in northwestern tucson when a single gunman went into the crowd shooting. shot her at point blank rage, we re told in the head. shot other people, as well. before those shots were fired we re told from law enforcement source that shooter said something, shouted something. we don t know what it was. at that point the shooter was taken down by bystanders, tackled. that person, we re told, is in custody. initial reporting from three very high placed sources, one reputable source on capitol hill the second a federal law enforcement official in arizona. another one a regional federal law enforcement official all told us that congresswoman giffords had died as a result of that attack. since then, the hospital, her office has said she is in surgery and in critical condition. we expected updates now. the f.b.i. internal communications had the message apparently that she had been killed initially at the scene and that perhaps is why we had the informat
the problem was underestimated. = we tax the in the first place. the economy it wound up being in far deeper free fall than the white house or anybody recognize. when i talked to the administration economic team, they made clear to me in the beginning that they thought they needed a package $1.20 trillion to make up for the hole that was developed in the private economy. we were facing a $3 trillion multi-year hole in the economy and we were trying to counter that by having temporary, i emphasize temporary, public spending in order to generate the consumer demand that would create a demand for products and help put people back to work until the private economy could recover. what happened then was that in making concessions to conservatives who were nervous about going that route, the size of that package was cut down and when it went to the senate, it was cut down more in order to get republican votes. we went up with a stimulus package about half as large as the package
mother jones what s different than sarah palin and writing a book about chris, mother jones is frightened to death of sarah palin. i can see it right here. joe scarborough asked my favorite question to john shattuck, the congressman today, put him on the spot for a number of minutes this morning. is she qualified to be president? republicans don t like this question, not elected ones. here s the condensed version from this morning. do you think that sarah palin is qualified to be president of the united states? well, you tell me who came out and trashed do you think do you think sarah palin is qualified to be president of the united states? joe, i think that s a decision for the american people. do you believe that sarah palin is qualified to be president of the united states? do you want to ask me if i believe all no, i m just asking you one question, john. i m just asking you one question.
do you think do you think sarah palin is qualified to be president of the united states? joe, i think that s a decision for the american people. do you believe that sarah palin is qualified to be president of the united states? do you want to ask me if i believe all no, i m just asking you one question, john. i m just asking you one question. i want an answer. um, are they at the white house going to discuss iran today? and what s going on with the leaked documents? wow. do i think sarah palin is qualified? i think the american people and the republican party will make that decision as the process requires. pat, this reminds me of the good old days of are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party? this is the question a lot of people don t like to ask. i guess the argument the argument, this is going to take a lot of time dealing with sarah palin and it s not going to end up with her nomination. it s going to distort the