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Mistake, a big analytical fault line that runs right underneath the way we cover the race for the presidency. we like to focus on characters and campaigns and people. we believe in ads and messaging and we believe in speeches. too often the way we understand presidential elections is really no different than the way we understood our high school elections. they're both just big popularity contests and the winner is whoever is cooler, whoever has a better campaign, whoever will buy us beer. and god bless the american voter for this. he doesn't and she doesn't get the credit they deserve. the am...

23 more deaths reported in syria. a day after president obama and several u.s. allies finally called on president obama bashar al assad to step aside. arwa damon is covering this story. another friday, a day of prayer, but it was a day of brutal violence as well, arwa. >> that's right, wolf. and it would seem some pretty dramatic footage emerging from damascus. in the center of the city and in the clip that emerged on youtube, we could not independently verify its awe tenitiesty. you can hear the fear in the people's voices on the recording. now, we spoke to an eyewitness, a person w...

Historians look at the lens of the entire framework of our history and the troubles that these presidents saw and give them credit for the tough decisions they made. and credit for not trying to run popularity contests while president. martha: and he didn't focus much on the polls and he always said that he thought he'd be judged by history, he even said he thought that the war in iraq would ultimately be judged as something good. then we saw the neeks week cover that popped up, it said victory in iraq, it had sort of a half-picture of president bush. i think we have that cover. court of, you ...

Is this an important thing to be watching? >> well, it's kind of -- it's kind of one of those old-fashioned dog and pony shows. you know, you have all these republican candidates out there who want to be president. and this is a place to speak to the party faithful, ali. and i remember being there the last time around, i know candy is there this time, it's always a lot of fun to watch how they interact and see who wins the straw poll. i can tell you, ali, when i was there last time, remember republican senator george allen? >> yeah. >> he won that straw poll and now he was not even re-elected ...

Celebrity high-profile jobs so they can win popularity contests against other people who want shiny political high-profile jobs. we have a government to work on problems that we have as a people as a one, problems that aren't working themselves out in the marketplace. government is for something. we have one for a reason. so that's why you're hearing people talk about this passage of health reform in the same breath as civil rights, as social security, as medicare. nancy pelosi used the same oversized gavel that was used in 1965 when medicare was established, not because what's happening now i...