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>> pete, hey, it's john heilemann here. just to draw you out a little further on that. it seems like from listening to what you're saying and listening to what other smart people who are court watchers have said, the way in which seem a coherent answer to this is for supreme court to dismiss the prop 8 case on standing but rule on the doma case in a pro federalist way and say this is crazy that congress ever passed a law where federal government got into the business of deciding what state marriage licenses were valid. we want to kick this whole thing back to the states and that would be an ou...

Cohere a lot of the two cases? >> reporter: it seems like the most possible outcome. i think that makes perfect sense. you know, i think the atmospherics to use your term, is a little different. doma, same-sex marriage, the court could say that is relatively new or prop 8 but the doma law has been around for 17 years. and all of the sort of background on that has changed. president clinton who signed it now said he thought it was a bad idea. the house republicans, remember, are defending it because the obama administration decided it's unconstitutional. but even they he are not out there aggre...

Marriage, it's illegal to ban it. that would only affect a very lifted number of states. but they also could hit it in a much bigger way. they could say gay marriage is protected as a privacy right under the u.s. constitution. and they could issue a sweeping decision legalizing gay marriage throughout the united states. now, most constitutional scholars don't think they'll go that far, but you know something, they could if they wanted to. >> but right now, you know, these cases are diametrically opposed. you have one talking about state law and the other talking about the federal reach. will o...