issues this had the making offing of a political fire storm, kids, sexually transmitted disease and government telling parents how they should protect their own children. the issue, of course is texas governor rick perry's 2007 executive order requiring girls to get vaccinated against human paploma virus, hpv, a virus that can cause cervical answer. that executive order never saw the light of day. perry signed it. two months later, the state legislature turned it over and it died on the vine. despite that fact in the debate michele bachmann tried to paint rick perry as someone who wanted innocent little girls to be held down by the arm of big government and forcibly stuck with needles in their arms. now, after the debate, she's even trying to raise fears that the hpv vaccine can cause mental retardation, something she's repeated on television at least twice already. that is, by all accounts, just flat-out wrong. more on that in a minute. but first bachmann and perry going head-to-head last night. >> i'm a mom with three children, and to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat-out wrong. that should never be done. that's a violation of a liberty interest. that's a -- little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan. they don't get a do-over. the parents don't get a do-over. >> and at the end of the day, this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that. and at the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that i went about it, but at the end of the day, i am always going to err on the side of life. and that's what this was really all about for me. >> i just wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order, there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. we can't deny that. what i'm saying is that it's wrong for a drug company, because the governor's former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company, the drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor. and this is just flat-out wrong. the question is is it about life or was it about millions of dollars and potentially billions for a drug company? >> the company was merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that i had received from them. i raise about $30 million. and if you're saying that i can be bought for $5,000, i'm offended. >> i'm offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn't have a choice. that's what i'm offended for. >> a lot to pick apart right there. let's focus on bachmann's argument about the government forcing little kids to get the injections. keeping them honest, a vast majority of states also require that kids get vaccinate against hepatitis b, which like hpv, can be sexually transmitted. bachmann doesn't seem to have a problem with that sort of mandated vaccination for kids. but if that can be written off as grandstanding during a presidential debate, which she's doing now to add fuel to the fire to keep the story going, can only be characterized as irresponsible. she's now suggesting that the hpv vaccine is dangerous, dangerous in the ways that the research just does not show, according to the cdc. here's what bachmann said on the "today" show. >> i had a mother come up to me here in tampa, florida, after the debate. she told me that that little daughter took that vaccine, that injection and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter. it can have very dangerous side effects. the mother was crying when she came up to me last night. i didn't know who she was before the debate. this is the very real concern and people have to draw their own conclusions. >> we asked congresswoman bachmann to come on tonight and talk about that accusation, but she declined. dr. jennifer berman did not decline. she is a urologist and she joins us now. given the fact that ms. bachmann is now recounting allegedly what someone said to her in a crowd that she hasn't met before and doesn't know anything about and doesn't know anything about now and using that as evidence for something very serious, what do you make of the claim, the medical claim that the hpv vaccination could cause someone to become mentally disabled? is there any truth to that? >> i'll start by saying that of all of the side effects and risks, mental impairment or mental retardation is not one of them. so that off. however, that said, i can see or one can see how to the laypublic or a layperson a misconception that mental impairment or mental changes or a mental sort of event can occur after a vaccine because it's been reported with other vaccines. the problem is not with this vaccine. that's not a potential risk or side effect that's been reported. >> the cdc approved two hpv vaccines. are there any significant risks to taking either of them? >> the risks, actually, are really quite minor and benign, being redness, normal allergic reactions that are associated with regular vaccines. fever, swelling. severe anaphylaxis has been reported. by the way, of all the deaths in the placebo arm and the drug arm, none of them were directly linked to drug. so, the side effects are mostly sort of inflammation reactions rather than mental impairment. >> so when it comes to weighing the risks versus the benefits of the hpv vaccine, what should people know? >> the important thing to know is that this vaccine does prevent cervical cancer and cervical cancer is extremely common. it is sexually transmitted. that's what makes this so highly charged. it's not like meningitis or whooping cough, which by the way, our children are required to be vaccinated before entering school. this is a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer and it's transmitted via sexual contact. so, i think, it's, in my personal opinion, it should be something that we option for for our children but i'll leave that up to debate. >> dr. jennifer berman, thank you for your expertise. that's the medical side of things, now to more political. during the debate, bachmann questioned perry's ties to merck. she pointed out that perry's chief lobbyist was former ceo of merck and merck made donations to perry. >> the company was merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that i had received from them. i raise about $30 million. and if you're saying that i can be bought for $5,000, i'm offended. >> well, let's keep him honest, too. the $5,000 figure is a bit misleading. while it is true that merck donated $5,000 to perry in 2006, altogether, the company donated $20,000 in the years before he signed the hpv executive order. joining us now is erick erickson and roland martin and gloria borger. erick erickson, you think that he went too far with this last night? >> i thought she scored sizable points against rick perry last night. had she stopped there, she probably would be okay. but to go on to the mental retardation issues today without knowing the woman was i think the quickest implosion of a candidate since the dean scream in 2004. we learned at redstate.com today that michele bachmann was in the minnesota legislature and they did, bascially on the similar grounds of hpv, they did the hepatitis b vaccine. and not only did they not include a parental opt-out, they didn't include an opt-in. it was mandatory for children without parental consent. we can't find a record that shows that michele bachmann either sponsored, drafted, submitted or wrote legislation to include a parental opt-in or opt-out. this makes the issue in texas moot when she was in the minnesota legislature to fix the hep-b vaccine issue and she didn't attempt it. >> that's interesting, erick. really her argument last night, putting aside the mental disability issue which she suddenly brought up today, but her argument last night was that the states should not be mandating -- forcing parents to have these vaccinations for their little girls. you're saying basically she did not object or you couldn't find any records of her objecting to the state doing that with hepatitis b in minnesota? >> right. and to be fair, the law had originated before she got into the legislature, but there's no record of her attempting to fix the opt-in or opt-out provisions in minnesota regarding vaccinations. >> she did bring up allegedly what some unidentified woman allegedly said to her about her daughter becoming mentally disabled. she used the word "retardation" and then immediately said people will have to draw their own conclusions. as a responsible government official -- i mean, shouldn't no government official just be saying, well, somebody in a crowd told me, you'll have to make your own conclusions about this person that i don't know and i can't tell you any more information about and i'll never see them again? >> absolutely, anderson. and if you were running her campaign, you would probably have pulled her aside after that and said, what did you just say? you know, when you're a presidential candidate, it's very different than running for congress. you have to be able to back up whatever you say. she was clearly loaded for bear when she attacked him on the crony capitalism issue on the campaign contributions. and she knew what she was saying. that was clearly vetted by some folks on her staff, and it could even have been more money. but the point is on this, you can't say somebody in the audience just told me something, and by the way, draw your own conclusions. you're a presidential candidate. you have to tell people why you believe something, and you have to be able to back it up. so, i think in terms of her credibility, she hurt her own case. >> what do you make of her attacks on perry? were they responsible, were they effective? >> first of all, her attacks on perry were on the mark. she is trying to keep herself in the upper-tier status, but this is the problem that congresswoman bachmann has always had. the truth is somehow kryptonite for her. here she is, a successful night, going on the offensive, pushing him in a corner. i think what she wanted was for us to come back the next day, break down his record, break down merck, the chief of staff, break down these things, but guess what? we're now challenging her credibility as opposed to his credibility. this is what she always does. remember the whole deal about $200 million and president obama going overseas? she said i read it somewhere, on your show. this is the problem. you have to stay on point. you can't make the rookie mistakes because now she's the subject of our investigation and the point that erick made was that you have no leg to stand on, so perry gets to sit back and say, guess what? i'm all good, you had a shot, now you messed yourself up. >> she just stepped on her own story. that's a real problem because she had a story. >> erick, perry was pretty dismissive -- sorry. go ahead, erick. >> it falls very flat with the argument she was making. the other problem with her argument is that it sounds completely anti-vaccine, which is a crazy argument that we shouldn't be giving people vaccines as well. but her argument was on liberty and we can't have the government forcing people to do this. well, here was a situation she could have fixed and she didn't. that completely steps on her own message. >> perry was dismissed of the crony capitalism claims. merck had give him $28,000. he had a former aide who is now running the merck superpac. that kind of coziness raises all sorts of questions and justifiably so. >> it does raise questions. it raises questions for a lot of politicians, not just rick perry, across the board. look at general electric's relationship with barack obama and campaign donations there. what's good for the goose is good for the gander. if corporations can give more donations at the state level, more so than the federal level. that being said, there was a good bit of time between some of the sizeable merck contributions and this happening in 2007. it wasn't just texas that did it. it was a number of states that did it, including here in georgia. they tried do it. in fact, to michele bachmann's overarching point that people had this happen, she cannot identify because it's impossible to identify a single child in texas who had the hpv vaccine because of what rick perry did. they don't exist because it never went into effect. >> but anderson, she was on the mark there because the "houston chronicle" and the "san antonio express news" have done a number of stories over the past six months talking about governor rick perry and his relationship with donors getting business with the state. so, i think that's what bachmann was trying to plant, also for us in the media to come out and talk about those stories. but by her making these claims on the "today" show, talking with john king last night in the debate, we're now focused on her truthfulness. he stood up and said, i did get campaign contributions. >> but here's the lesson for governor perry in all of this, that when you're running for president and you've been governor for a decade, you're going to get attacked on the questions of access and crony capitalism and all the rest. and he needed to be better prepared for that charge than he was, because he seemed to me to be pretty rattled by it. and essentially prepared on the argument of whether -- of the mandate question, but not prepared on the challenge to his record, which he is now going to get over and over again. >> gloria borger, erick erickson, roland martin. >> three more debates. >> a lot more ahead, no doubt. let me know what you think. i'll be tweeting tonight. coming up, another heated exchange over who was responsible for the september 11th attacks or why they attacked. i spoke with to thomas friedman from "the new york times" about that. i also got his take on the brutality of the syrian regime. why he calls them the sopranos without the charm. that's next. also ahead crime and punishment. the man held in the connection of the disappearance of american robyn gardner in aruba gets a big name lawyer. the story behind this incredible video. eyewitnesses rushing to the aid of a stranger, saving the life of a motorcyclist pinned underneath a car. i spend long hours with her checking her heart rate, administering her medication, and just making her comfortable. one night britta told me about a tradition in denmark, "when a person dies," she said, "someone must open the window so the soul can depart." i smiled and squeezed her hand. 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[ male announcer ] this is what it's like getting an amazing discount on a hotel with travelocity's top secret hotels. the easy way to get unpublished discounts of up to 55% off top hotels. harpist not included. ♪ a closer look at the tea party republican debate, rick santorum suggesting that paul was saying that's what al qaeda would write about today and that's justifying their actions. i spoke with tom friedman of "the new york times." he's author of the new book "that used to be us, how america fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back." hear from tom in a moment. first, let's take a look at the exchange from last night. >> we're not being attacked and we were not attacked because of our actions. we were attacked, as newt talked about, because we have a civilization that is antithetical to the civilization of the jihadists, and they want to kill us because of who we are and what we stand for and we stand for american exceptionalism. we stand for freedom and opportunity for everybody around the world and i am not ashamed to do that. >> as long as this country follows that idea, we're going to be under a lot of danger. this whole idea that the whole muslim world is responsible for this and they're attacking us because we're free and prosperous, that is just not true. osama bin laden and al qaeda have been explicit -- they have been explicit and they wrote and said that we attacked -- we attacked america because you had bases on our holy land in saudi arabia, you do not give palestinians fair treatment and you have been bombing -- >> he clearly wasn't popular there. he went on to say that's what al qaeda is saying about the palestinians. do you think he's right? >> i think there's two things i would say in reaction to that clip, anderson. one is a republican campaign primary debate is probably not the best forum to have a serious discussion about al qaeda. that's number one. number two, you know, why al qaeda attacked us, you know, is a complicated thing. my own feeling is that what that was all part of was a civil war within islam. it was a struggle for power, first of all, in saudi arabia between bin laden and the ruling family, and then the broader power struggle in the region about what should be the course, the path of the islamic future. should it be one that embraces modernity or one that really tries to enter the 21st century by returning to a puritanical islam? >> let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the middle east. in egypt, in the last seven months, 12,000 egyptian civilians have been arrested by the military, brought before tribunals. they have no due process. the ruling military is widening the scope and state of emergency. there's clashes between the military and protesters. you saw the israeli embassy coming under attack. they broke down the barricade, the diplomats have now left. is the egyptian transition -- i mean, is there a transition to democracy in egypt? is it in trouble? >> you know, i go back to something we talked about very early after tahrir square. and that is that stability has left the building when it comes to egypt and all these arab countries. the question is, what kind of instability are we going to have? is it going to be a kind of rocky road with a positive slope that leads egypt to the kind of transition we saw in indonesia or south africa, democratic transition, but a bumpy road or will it be a slow descent the other way? i'm still hopeful that it can have a positive slope, but what you're seeing in egypt, and all of these countries, is these regimes that were there allowed no civil society, no institutions to be built. it was all just a top-down monologue. and now that you've removed iron fists from the top there is so little there to hold these societies together. >> that is one of the fascinating things and terrible things about dictatorships is that they do destroy all other institutions or render them incapable of really functioning because they want to stay in power and they don't want any potential threats out there. >> what they did in all of these countries, there is basically the regime and when it cracked, the elevator went right to the mosque. there was nothing else there. and so i think in egypt, when they do have parliamentary elections, which i hope they do, they are planning to, you'll see the islamists and islamic brotherhood do well. four years from now, if that thing has a positive slope, they'll do less well. >> one things we try to tell people about is syria. 2,600 people have been killed in syria since the uprisings began in march, you say in countries like syria, the governments operate by what you call the hama rules. explain what you mean by that. >> hama was a syrian town that back in 1981, the current president's father, hafez al-assad, put down the rebellion by leveling part of the town killing estimated between 10,000 and 20,000 people. hama rules are the rules of these regimes and hama rules