punishment tonight. jerry sandusky. faced one of his accusers on the first day of testimony in his trial. in the court document, the accuser known as victim number four is the first to take the stand for the prosecution. the former penn state assistant football coach sat with his lawyer through often graphic testimony about their so-called relationship. victim number four detailed the years of alleged sexual encounters. he also opened up about their private conversations and discussed what has been described as love letters from sandusky. his testimony happened after both sides previewed their cases during opening statements. the defense hinted that sandusky might take the stand in his own defense and even suggested he may have a psychological disorder. that could explain some of his alleged behavior. jason carroll was in the courtroom today. he's live in pennsylvania for us. pretty shocking testimony on the first day of the trial, jason. what moments stood out to you? >> well, one of the moments that you mentioned was when accuser number four took the stand. jerry sandusky himself leaned forward and never took his eyes off this young man. he's 28 years old. and he described this pattern that prosecutors have been talking about all along. he talked about how he met jerry sandusky through a second mile type of event. help says that led to befriending him. that led to gifts, things such as skateboards and golf clubs, hockey sticks, things like that. then he said it led to intimate contact in the showers with soap fights. then that led to wrestling. he says that led to oral sex. it was incredibly dramatic to hear this type of testimony happening in court. i also should point out one of the first visual cues that jurors got that they really seemed to pay attention to, anderson, was when prosecutors put up the pictures of all of these accusers on the screen. they put pictures up when they were 12 or 13 years old. it was just a way to remind jurors what they're going to be hearing from are young adults. what they're going to be testifying about is what happened to them allegedly when they were 12 or 13 years old. >> how did the defense handle this accuser under cross examination? >> well, i think at one point was when this accuser became very tense. they challenged this young man on exactly how these things happened in the shower. why it seemed that no one else seemed to notice any sort of strange activity happening in the shower. also, challenging this young man on his background. bringing up his troubled past. one of the other points i think you're going to get to and that we're going to hear about in this case is this disorder that was filed in a motion today. that happened earlier today. basically the defense says jerry sandusky quite possibly suffers from a disorder called histrionic personality disorder. and this disorder basically talks about how people act out in an emotional way to draw attention to themselves and this is how they're going to try to defend a lot of these letters you mentioned that were brought up today in court. a love letter allegedly according to the prosecution. some of these letters that jerry sandusky wrote to this young man and other young men. they say that the reason why he wrote this letter -- these letters is possibly because he suffers from this disorder. so that's something else we'll be hearing about as the trial moves forward. jason, stick around, i want to bring in a panel here. i want to bring in former los angeles attorney general. and our other guests. this personality disorder, i've never heard of this. according to the national institutes of health, it's a condition in which, quote, people act in an emotional and dramatic way that draws attention to themselves. what does that mean? would this explain the behavior he's accused of? >> well, first of all, a personality disorder's a lifelong use of maladaptive behavior. it's not considered a psychiatric illness as you would have in a major depression or other issues. obviously, a person who has -- in the old days, they used to call it a hysterical personality disorder. they're very dramatic. they try to get attention. but it's highly unusual for someone to be writing these types of letters if he's not -- or they're not involved in any type of sexual misbehavior. getting attention is one thing. being dramatic is another thing. but using this as a defense doesn't seem to be a good legal type of -- i guess i would say way to try to defend him. >> jose, from a defense attorney standpoint, does it make sense to you that they bring this thing in? >> well, i think what it means is this is an attempt to explain some of his wacky behavior. with all due respect for the doctor, you have to try and dumb it down a bit. that's what i think this tactic is being used for. jerry sandusky has some highly unusual behavior. we've already seen that with some of his interviews. so what this disorder is trying to explain and trying to get across to the jury is, look, this guy acts a little wacky. he acts strange. and this is the reason why. otherwise, you wouldn't be able to explain it and most people would say, well, that's associated to the fact he's some kind of sexual predator. when in actuality, the defense is putting this forward to say, no, he's just a bit wacky as a result of this histrionic disorder. that's the kind of defense i think they're trying to use. >> marcia clark, do you think it's going to work? showering with young boys is hard to explain. the defense tried to say from the generation he is from or the team culture -- i was on a team in college. the coach would never shower with the players. it didn't make any sense. >> right. you know, at the end of the day this has to pass the smell test. the defense has to find a way to discredit physical evidence like this. you have these letters. these letters are not subject to he said/she said or he said/he said. they have to find a way to discredit them or explain them away because if they can do that, then they can say, look, now it's just a matter of the victim's word versus sandusky's word. after all, the victims may be in it for the money. they may have a civil lawsuit pending. they can discredit them credibilitywise. the letters stand as very physical corroboration of what these victims have said. they have to find a way to discredit them. thus the histrionic syndrome they're talking about. i don't think it's going to be successful. it doesn't pass even the laugh test as far as i'm concerned at this point. having said that, anderson, it may be that they have a forensic scientist come in and give a very credible explanation. we'll have to wait and see. >> the defense did try to do that, basically impugn the motive of this accuser number four. basically kind of asking questions about whether or not this person has retained civil lawyers and the idea that maybe they're looking for some sort of payday in a wlaut lawsuit down the road. >> that's exactly what happened. at one point, jerry sandusky's attorney really grilled him on when he got representation. saying, how is it that you got your own attorney before actually going to the police and why are you not just satisfied with the commonwealth representing you? so that was another point that was brought up. but from the other side of this, i think what a lot of folks are going to point out is, why joe amendola would introduce this motion this late in the game. i mean, the trial is already started. he could have filed this motion long before we got to this point. which may speak to the point that at the very beginning of this trial, the attorney walked straight up to these jurors and got up right next to them and said, look, this is a case of david and goliath. we're the david here. the commonwealth is the goliath. maybe at this point, it may prove to the fact that the defense in some ways is overwhelmed and still in some ways grasping at straws in terms of trying to find a defense. >> jose, do you think it's unusual that these accusers would have civil counsel? i mean, in this day and age, doesn't everybody have counsel? >> well, it almost seems that way, but no, it unusual. if you're a victim of some type of sexual abuse, you're going to go to the authorities. however, in a high-profile type of case, i can see innocent circumstances where they may want to receive counsel to protect their own interests. now, before you go discounting that method of the defense, we may want to remember, it worked for the sean puffy combs case where a lot of those people went -- a lot of the witnesses that testified against him had retained some type of civil counsel. there's no questioning the deep pockets of penn state here. so we could see years and years of litigation from some of these alleged victims. so i see it is clearly a valid method of attack for the defense. it's certainly something the jurors should consider. >> marcia, i was interested in opening statements the defense lawyer suggested that sandusky may take the stand. he said you may hear from the defendant. i don't know if that was a figure of speech. would it surprise you if jerry sandusky actually took the stand? >> yes, it would. this is the kind of pr move you see defenses make all the time at the beginning of trial because everybody has a gut level reaction that an innocent man is going to bang on the door, rattle the cage, make a lot of noise to be heard, because he's innocent, he didn't do it. an innocent man doesn't just sit behind his lawyer and let his mouthpiece talk. he gets up and he fights for his own cause. so the defense always wants to make it seem as though the defendant is not taking the stand if he doesn't take the stand because the lawyer wouldn't let him. not because the defendant wasn't dying to get out there and tell the jury his side of things. this pr side of things will pick up steam as the case goes through until finally -- it depends on what happens. sometimes at the end of the prosecution case it's been so overwhelming that they may decide to put him on the stand as a hail mary pass. i wouldn't expect him to actually really truly want to put him on the stand at all. >> dr. morrison, assuming the charges are true -- and that's a big assumption, he's presumed innocent. if somebody does what he's accused of doing, do they explain away their behavior? i mean, if they're a serial child predator, which is if he's guilty of what he's accused of, i assume it's what he is. do they justify it in their own mind? >> well, absolutely. i mean, most predators and child predators often don't see that they're doing anything wrong. they will try to rationalize their behavior for any number of reasons. and very often, when you have a sexual predator for children, they don't really see that they've done anything that needs to be punished. >> jason carroll, what happened tomorrow? >> well, tomorrow, we are likely to hear from the young man who's been identified as victim number one. so this would be accuser number one. this is a young man who says jerry sandusky sexually assaulted him more than 20 times. this is the case that really started this whole wide-open case with all of the accusers we see now, ten accusers. we're expecting, then, to hear from the one identified as number one. >> ten accusers in all. thank you. appreciate it. we're going to continue to follow this case. let us know what we think. we're on facebook. tweet me on twitter @andersoncooper. i'll be tweeting throughout this hour. coming up, mitt romney blasting president obama over the economy, now suggesting the president is flip-flopping. but in trying to prove a point, the romney camp may have taken the president completely out of context. we'll show you. keeping them honest next. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? 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[ engine revs ] the all-new cadillac xts has arrived, and it's bringing the future forward. the latest salvo from mitt romney. a suggest the president is flip-flopping. they're using president obama's own words against him. it appears in this case at least they're misusing his words. you remember on friday president obama was talking about job creation and in the process said six words the republicans seized upon. take a look. >> the private sector is doing fine. where we're seeing weakness is in our economy have to do with state and local government. oftentimes cuts initiated by governors who are not getting the kind of help as they have in the past from the federal government and don't have the same flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in. >> the private sector's doing fine. those six words and the statement about overall weakness in the economy, now, within hours, there was an rnc web ad asking how the president can fix the economy if he doesn't know it's broken. on the campaign trail, romney jumped on the phrase the president used. >> he said "the private sector is doing fine." he said "the private sector is doing fine." is he really that out of touch? >> the president later tried to clarify his remarks but the damage was done. you can decide for yourself what to think about what the president said. today, sensing an opportunity, the romney campaign has doubled down. putting out a new video suggesting the video has had a mixed message on the economy. saying what he said friday comparing that to something he said last month. here's the ad they ran today. >> the private sector's doing fine. where we're seeing weakness is in our economy. have to do with state and local government. oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government. the only time government employment has gone down under a recession has been under me. so i make that point -- i make that point just so you don't buy into this whole bloated government argument that you hear. >> so the romney camp says the president can't get his story straight. that on friday he said the weakness in the economy was state and local government employment. but a month earlier, he touted that government employment had fallen under his watch. touted is the word the romney campaign spokesman uses in a press release. keeping them honest, there's one problem. if you listen to what else the president said, in may, in the sentence before or the sentence after the quote that the romney campaign has picked, it becomes clear the president's statement has been taken out of context in this case. in may, the president was saying during recessions under president reagan and both bushes government employment went up. during his administration, republicans in congress are stalling on legislation he says would spur public sector growth. here's the quote he actually said in context, the part the romney campaign used and what the president said next. >> the only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me. so i make that point -- i make that point just so you don't buy into this whole bloated government argument that you hear. and frankly, if congress had said yes to helping states put teachers back to work, and put the economy before our politics, then tens of thousands more teachers in new york would have a job right now. that is a fact. that would mean not only a lower unemployment rate but also customers for business. >> well, today we repeatedly asked for someone from the romney campaign to come on and talk about it. after multiple requests, they declined. let's talk with cnn political contributor ari fleischer, former democratic strategist. and bill burton, former white house press secretary for president obama. it does seem that he's taken the president's prior comments out of context. >> well, the assertion that somehow the president doesn't care about the economy is just silly on its face. when you look at the video romney and his campaign put together, it makes the case they really haven't been trying to make over the course of the last year. what they have said about the president is he's a good guy, doesn't know what he's doing with the economy and it's not working. now they say he's indifferent to the economy. there's not a rational person that doesn't think the president is indifferent to the economy. >> ari, do you think they took the president out of context? >> i think it's a classic case of the president trying to have it both ways. the rest of the sound bite showed the president on the one hand saying, i chopped government, aren't i good? on the other hand, we need to increase spending and hire more people. he wants to have it both ways. that's a problem with his presidency. >> bill what about that? >> we're losing 700 jobs a month, including thousands of could be cops, teachers and firefighters. now, the reason republicans don't think that's relevant, they don't think we need more those. when romney was governor of massachusetts, he cut thousands of cops, teachers and firefighters because he thinks that's the best way you can create more tax cuts for the very wealthy in this country. >> ari, over the weekend on "face the nation" wisconsin governor walker was on talking about comment that is mitt romney made. about what constitutes big government. he seemed to have some sort of disagreement with romney. i want to play that. >> do you think governor romney is talking about getting rid of more teachers and firemen? >> no, i think in the end, the big issue is, the private sector still needs more help. and the answer is not more big government. i know in my state, our reform's allowed us to protect firefighters, police officers and teachers. that's not what i think when i think of big government. >> i mean, is more firefighters, police, teachers, is that more big government, ari? >> no, but pay attention to what governor walker said. because of the reforms they were able to make in collective bargaining and because they asked teachers, firefighters and others to pay a higher share of their salaries for pension and health care reform, put them on par -- approach a par with the private sector, they averted layoffs. that's good government. that's reform. what romney was saying is we need to make sure the growth in the economy comes not private sector and that's where the president's remarks about the private sector's doing just fine shows he's missed the boat about what makes the economy go round. the government can spend more money to hire more workers. that's what the first stimulus was all about in 2009. it didn't work. >> anderson, what's most important here is the philosophical bridge that's emerged in this weeken