unfolding diplomatic crisis. and why do women only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men? i'm wolf blitzer, you're in "the situation room." tomorrow marks one year since the u.s. mission that killed osama bin laden and today the terror leader's name is popping up out there on the campaign trail. the romney and obama campaigns are each trying to paint their candidate as the toughest, but for team romney, it's a built of an uphill battle right now. our national political correspondent jim acosta is watching all this unfold. what's going on in this fight? >> for months, mitt romney has been on offensive. he -- in this debate over the killing of osama bin laden, romney has been on defense, just the way the president wants it. >> as mitt romney was shaking hands in new hampshire, he was asked the question, he had given the same order to kill osama bin laden. >> even jimmy carter would have given that order. >> cnn breaking news. >> tonight i can report to the american people and to the world that the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden. >> it's the question the president's re-election campaign has raised for days in this new web video highlighting the decision to take out bin laden and in vice president joe bid biden's speech last week. >> we can't say for certain what romney would have done. >> reporter: they say obama has cheapened a unifying moment. >> i think people will see it as a sign of a decembsperate campa. >> reporter: not so says the president. the president also went after romney's comment in 2007, it's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars trying to catch one person. >> i just ask that people take a look at whether they thought it was appropriate to go into pakistan and take out bin laden. i assume that people meant what they said when they said it. >> reporter: but romney's response, that jab at jimmy carter may be a reminder to some that president obama made a gutsy call. the mission to rescue three pilots in iran -- >> romney is trying to get back on offense with a new web ad, charging obama with a promise to cut federal spending. >> i will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work. >> and he tried out a potential running mate, with pennsylvana pennsylvania senator. >> they aren't interest driven and they're not listening to feel of america. >> i want to help the poor, i want to help the middle class get the kinds of jobs that raise their income. let's focus on helping the people that need the help the most. >> reporter: that comment came on the same day the nation's largest union released another web video. it doesn't exactly play like a romney highlight reel. >> i like to be able to fire people who provide services to to me. >> romney will travel to new york and appear at one of the city's fire stations. wolf, i did ask the romney campaign for a response to what the president said today. the president did not mention romney by name, but so far the romney campaign has no comment. >> he clearly had a little smirk on his face when he was talking about what people said four years ago and he was apparently referring to mitt romney this that quote. >> when the president starts worrying about what other people might be doing, it's pretty clear he's talking about mitt romney. it's a potential diplomatic nightmare, pitting washington against beijing and putting the secretary of state hillary clinton in a rather awkward position as she prepares to travel to china. we're talking about a chinese equal rights activist who escaped and now may be hiding in the u.s. embassy. here's stan grant with the latest on the unfolding drama. >> reporter: somewhere behind these walls may well be the answer to china's great guessing game. security at the united states embassy in beijing pounced. i understand we can't take photos, but is chung here at the embassy? >> i don't know whether he is. >> reporter: the blind human rights activist is thought to be es -- chen is indeed here given refuge at the u.s. embassy. >> when chen guangcheng first fled to beijing, we had to keep moving him from one place to another. chen had been under heavy guard for the last three months. chen angered chinese authorities. he had spent more than four years in prison convicted of disrupting traffic and damaging property during demonstrations, since he's released, he's been in lockdown. this is what happened when we tried to visit chen last year, with hollywood actor christian bale. now bale has released a statement he says an innocent family has been horrifically tortured. while it gives hope that for now, chen is safe, china must now show its wisdom and compassion and compassion. if indeed chen is here, this threatens to become a political war. but u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton is due in beijing this week and in the past, she has championed chen. stan grant, cnn, beijing. joining us, our state foreign affairs department, getting ready to address presumably this issue, what are you picking up over there as she gets ready for her trip to china. >> this is like a lockdown on saying anything publicly because it is very, very sensitive right now. what they're trying to do is work this out before secretary clinton gets there. as you know, she's going to be meeting tonight, we'll be on the plane with her, going to beijing for important talks on all sorts of things, the economic relationship and other issues, and then this had to happen. if you listen to what the president said, just about an hour or so ago, it's not much. >> obviously i'm aware of the press reports on the situation in china, but i'm not going to make a statement on the issue. what i would like to emphasize is that every time we meet with china, the issue of human rights comes up. it is our belief that not only is that the right thing to do because it comports with our principles, and our belief, and freedom. and human rights. but also because we actually think china will be strong. as it opens up and liberalizes its own system. >> and secretary clinton herself has actually talked directly with the chinese about this before, mr. chen was a key part of a speech she delivered back in november. so it is something they have been pushing, but right now it's very, very delicate as you can imagine. and, wolf, beyond this, at this particular moment, the united states needs all the help it can get from china on issues like iran, syria, north korea. >> it's about as delicate as it gets. not only the diplomatic help that the u.s. is receiving from china, but also the hundreds of billions of u.s. treasury bills that the chinese hold right now, this is a real crisis potentially in the works. we'll see what happens, stand by, jill, because i want to hear what the secretary of state has to say about this very, very sensitive matter. tom foreman is also joining us right now. chen's amazing escape, all the more incredible when you consider he's blind, tom. what do we know. >> we don't know a whole lot. but this looks like something out of a spy novel. chen not being held, but being monitored. we don't know exactly which village or which house, but we know something about the circumstances he was in. his house was surrounded by a wall put there by the authorities and he had guards who roamed around this come pound and kept an eye on him. for several days, many of his accomplices that he talked to on the outside, that he spent a lot of time in bed, thinking that he was going nowhere. he waited until they weren't paying attention to him. he waited until a dark night, and he's used to that environment, they were not. and then he went out and scaled the six-foot wall around the compound. the activists who helped him out say he actually hurt his ankle going over the wall. they took him, we don't know where exactly. but it is said that he got all scratched up. some of this is forest land, all sorts of farm land. at one point he crossed a canal or river by himself and then he was met by a car on one of these roads out here between where he started and bay jieijing and pi up by one of these actives and carried the rest of the way, 300, perhaps 400 miles until he reached beijing. he may have went to a safe house, moving around the city to make sure that he wasn't caught. and now all the hints are that he's somehow in the u.s. embassy. if that is true, wolf, that's going to be a big friction point on the side of the chinese. >> tom foreman, thanks very much. >> this just coming into "the situation room," going to go back to our top story, the war of words between the president of the united states and his republican presidential challenger, mitt romney. on this, the anniversary one year since the killing of bin laden, jim acosta is back. i guess they're now, the romney campaign reacted. >> a few moments ago, the romney campaign had responded to the tough words at a news conference. a response from the romney campaign hit my inbox. this is from andrea saal. it is unfortunate that president obama used what could be a good day for all americans and an opportunity to -- president obama's fectless foreign policy as emboldened our enemies. governor romney has always understood we need a comprehensive plan to deal with the myriad threats america faces. so a very tough statement from the romney campaign to the president. even though the president did not use mitt romney's name during that news conference. and the romney campaign apparently is going to fatake t president to task on this. >> a war of words between the two campaigns, it's only just beginning. we're standing by for those remarks by the secretary of state hillary clinton. she's getting ready to leave for china tonight. . also the equal pay uproar between our own political contributors. we're talking about alex cast land knows, they had a very sharp exchange, we're doing a fact check, lisa sylvester all over the story. and 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>> less than four years after george w. bush left washington, democrats are afraid of another bush. if jeb bush were to become mitt romney's running mate, the florida governor, former florida governor, would likely deliver his home state, he would likely attract more hispanics and catholics to the republican ticket. people close to bush tell politico that he truly doesn't want to be on the ticket, that it's not his time. it could mean that 2012 is just to close to the other bushes' presidency. having a bush in the race would immediately bring back talk of the iraq war, torture, spying on americans et cetera. however bush loyalists say -- he doesn't want to be number two on the ticket. they say he's happy giving speeches, doing consulting and policy work through education and literacy foundations. as the son and brother, jeb bush on a republican ticket raises the -- if bush ran as vp, it would mean a bush on the republican ticket in seven of the last nine presidential elections. still not everybody's giving up hope on jeb bush running with romney. his oldest son, george p. bush, told politico, quote, it would be a phenomenal ticket, unquote. democrats fear another bush, should say? do you? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile and post a comment on my block or go to cnn's facebook page. here's a question, do women make less money than men for doing the exact same work? the republican strategist and cnn contributor alex we asked lisa sylvester to do a fact check for us, lisa's who's right. >> we reached out to alex castiallana and he -- >> reporter: as an adjunct profess for sorry five years, lisa matt says she often saw on college campuses male professors being paid a lot more than their female colleagues. >> there's a gap between who gets tenure and who doesn't, there's a gap between who gets proo moated and who doesn't. >> she works with the american association for university women. she says full-time working women make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. it's a common statistic, one now being charged by cnn contributor, alex castiallanos. >> women still make 77 cents on the dollar than what men make. >> there are lots of reasons for that. >> do women make less than that for doing the same work? >> well, because -- >> wow. >> men work an average of 44 hours a week, women work 41 hours a week. women a want more flexibility -- >> this is not a math is hard conversation. >> he says that men make more because they work more and they go into professions that pay higher salaries. but data directly from the census bureau shows there is a pay gap and it's reel. in 2010, the earnings of women who worked full-time year round were 77% of that for men working full-time year round. not that much different from the 2009 ratio, ends quote. lisa matt says the study fakes into -- >> we're talking about here control for those things, they do a very sophisticated regression analysis and they say, okay, let's control for those reasons, and then later on figure out what the gap is. it's not as high as 77%, the average median gap, but it's still there, and that's the problem because it's unexplained. we can't say that it's because they work less hours, or it's because they supervise fewer people. >> castillano s's comments -- but she argues one reason is that because's women are more likely to opt to work part-time earning less than men who are less likely to agree to work part-time. >> it sounds like that everyone would want to work as much full-time and they don't necessarily, they feel equally tied, many women do to their children, to their home and want more time there. >> so the bottom line, is there a depender gap in payroll, yes, that 77 cents that men make -- it refers to full-time workers. but it is also true that many women choose to scale back hours more so than men, women choosing to work part-time and that's also reflected in the earnings. >> bottom line, men and women with the exact same job, do women still only earn 77 cents on the dollar, if they're doing, working the same amount of hours in the exact same job, in the exact same field. >> they have -- there is definitely a gap. but there are all kinds of other control factors, what college somebody went to, what region of the country, if you're talking salaried workers versus hourly workers. hourly workers is 77 cents on the dollar. even if you control for everything you could possibly imagine, all those things, the college, hours worked, men still make more than women, that gap narrows, it's about 5 cents on the dollar, but it still is there and the fact is men make more than women. president obama going after mitt romney as the anniversary of osama bin laden's death approaches. is it a cheap shot as the romney campaign is now claiming or legitimate? and never mind all the things he said back in 2008, now the former president bill clinton is campaigning pretty hard for candidate obama. he was one of candidate obama's sharpest critics in the 2008 campaign. but what a difference four years has made. now former president bill clinton is one of the biggest guns out there in president obama's re-election campaign. brianna keeler is working the story for us. brianna, what is bill clinton doing right now for president obama? >> reporter: one person i spoke to said he's trying to distill and simplify the message on the economy. as a source put it, president obama can take something he said that is easy and obvious and make it seem hard and complicated, so that's where president clinton comes in in that regard. and he's really trying to simplify that message. this source that i spoke with said that president clinton is very eager to help, to defend president obama on the economy and he's expected to be used frequently in swing states targeting moderate democratic voters. in 2007, bill clinton took aim at barack obama, then the junior senator from illinois. >> i'm old-fashioned. i think a president ought to have done something for other people and for his country. when you pick a president. >> reporter: president clinton questioned obama's inexperience. >> i mean when is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the senate before he started running? >> reporter: in early 2008, obama won iowa and entered an all out feud with the former couple. >> i'm here, he's not. >> not surprisingly, bill clinton and president obama have never been especially close. but appointing hillary clinton secretary of state helped some wounds heel and obama has looked to the former president for help. >> you're in good hands. and gibbs will call last question. >> reporter: having president clinton on board might help attract voters in areas where obama struggles. the obama campaign is featuring clinton in ads and hitting up his network of wealthy donors, obama and clinton appeared at a fund-raiser yesterday at the home of long time supporter terry mcauliffe. clinton's message will be this, i know what it takes to have a good economy and president obama is on the right track. and you heard some of that last night in the remarks that were reported out of that fund-raiser they both attended. president clinton saying that obama is, quote, beating the clock as he works toward economic recovery. >> i think they raised about $2 million last night at terry mcall -- you're getting some other interesting tidbits about their relationship. >> reporter: this is really interesting, if you talk to some folks in the obama camp, they'll tell you that some of the vitriol was overplayed. but certainly there was a time when president clinton and then senator obama certainly had some issues. i was to