syrian human rights activist say about half the deaths were in the city of oms where syrian trips reportedly opened fire on suspected desserters. >>> still ahead here on "way too early," they've been clamoring in denver for tim tebow and yesterday, they got him under center. we'll show you how the kid did at quarterback. when we whip through the day in the nfl. >>> plus, "saturday night live" breaks out its chris christie. that clip and a check on weather when "way too early" comes back. >>> more noon a third of democrats and all but six republicans voted with the president. while acknowledging the potential human cost of war. >> mr. president, we trust to you the best we have to give. use them well, so they can come home. >>> 5:44 in the morning. a beautiful live picture of the empire state building. lit up all pretty for columbus day. let's get a check of the weather with nbc meteorologist bill karins. it's still summer. >> we don't have to put away the jean shorts. >> i never do. >> nice, with the rolled-up tank top. >> uh-huh. >> let's talk about what's happening outside. southeast, a lo

authorities where he was going, didn't ask their permission, which the syrian authorities have not been giving to foreign diplomates and just went. there is one famous picture when the ambassador arrived at a demonstration and the protesters came out and lifted up his car and were carrying flowers and olive branches and gave him a very warm welcome. his being pulled back is a blow for them. >> that's a blow. the administration has been saying, this is why we had him there, to be the link to the dissidents, telling conservatives and critics on the hill that they weren't accommodating the assad government, to the contrary. he was a real hero. they say they pulled him out because of threats, personal threats to his safety from the regime and that they are not withdrawing him, which would mean cutting relations. >> that there were specific threats to his safety. his convoy was attacked once. his residence was attacked. the embassy was attacked, mostly because of the ambassador's personal profile. not only did he go out and visit dissidents. he also kept posting messages in favor of the oppo

the syrians at least yet. there has to be some greater catalyst. you don't have the sense of genocide or that argument that they did when it came to getting an endorsement from the u.n. we're unlikely to see a voluntary group that doesn't have support. the hit we took as well as the damage done politically to the image of the united states. but this collaboration with nato i think is going to be important. >> if you could stick around i want to go live to libya. this is nbc's adrienne mong. what can you tell us what you know from the ground and what you know from your sources? >> reporter: good morning. on the ground it is still quite chaotic. 15 minutes ago we had a massive convoy. we're just outside of sirte. the convoy was headed back towards misrata. it is believed that khaddafy's body was in that convoy. every person we've spoken to on the street is convinced that khaddafy was caught this morning and killed in the course of rebel militia men taking sirte. it has been a long haul for these men. the uprising started eight months ago. they captur

unfortunately the real victims here in the long run in the arab world are the syrians because of the support that was given internationally to the libyan people by nato and arab leaders, there's far less of a national consensus over how to help the syrian people who by the way are not rising up through military means but through peaceful means and suffering severe consequences. so the question really is, we've gained with the libyans, the libyan people clearly are grateful for the u.s. role, how does the u.s. parlay this street credibility just mentioned to help others rising up in support of liberty as well. >> general, i want to get to you before we go to break. what's your perspective on how the united states should plug in for this good will that's been discussed by both the ambassador and ayman? >> i think they are entirely correct. now is the time to get involved with so-called soft power. i would also though suggest, we went into libya, didn't say we were going into to dump gadhafi, we went in behind sort of a u.n. resolution that said we're going to protect the civilians of b

. >> the syrian situation is a complicated situation in the u.s. since i started with it, let me ask you, is this is serious thing? does this escalate, tensions between our two countries? >> no, rachel. the reality is ambassador ford is coming back to have the opportunity to consult with colleagues and officials in washington. we obviously take quite seriously the threat information that we've had and we want to ensure that he has all of the protection that he needs and deserves when we returns and that the syrian authorities assume their responsibilities to first stop inciting violence against him, stop inciting attacks against. against him ensure as they're obliged to do under international law that he and every diplomat have the protections they're deserving of. >> when we look at the changes that happened in the middle east in recent months, in just the past year, in syria, our government's position is that the assad regime should go. in libya our position was we would intervene militarily to protect civilians there. it is not a military aim of

. >> the syrian situation is a complicated situation in the u.s. since i started with it, let me ask you, is this is serious thing? does this escalate, tensions between our two countries? >> no, rachel. the reality is ambassador ford is coming back to have the opportunity to consult with colleagues and officials in washington. we obviously take quite seriously the threat information that we've had and we want to ensure that he has all of the protection that he needs and deserves when we returns and that the syrian authorities assume their responsibilities to first stop insighti insiting vi against him ensure as they're obliged to do under international law that he and every diplomat have the protections they're deserving of. >> when we look at the changes that happened in the middle east in recent months, in just the past year, in syria, our government's position is that the assad regime should go. in libya our position was we would intervene militarily to protect civilians there. it is not a military aim of that intervention to replace gadhafi. th

says syrian president assad has killed 3,000 of his own people since the march uprising began. we all know those numbers are difficult to get to begin with, but the point really is you're dealing with a man who is murdering his own people. tensions in syria so tight, the u.s. just pulled our ambassador out, this after weeks of harassment by the assad government. turkey, meanwhile, jockeying with iran for influence in iraq, whether as a power vacuum. just yesterday, the u.s. warned iran that just because u.s. troops are coming home does not mean that the u.s. does not intend a strong presence in that area. >> iran would be badly miscalculated if they did not look at the entire region and all of our presence in many countries in the region, both in bases, in training, with nato allies, like turkey. >> well, the u.s. withdrawal along with the arab spring have created power vacuums in egypt, where the military remains in control, and of course, most recently, libya. it is, in fact, the biggest political change of the past week, with the death of colonel gadhafi, there is now talk,

syrians are not calling for it and clearly there is not united nations calling for it. the formula is very specific. it worked for libya. it may not necessarily work in other places. >> eugene robinson pb andrew sullivan wrote on his blog today, to rid the world of osama bin laden, and moammar gadhafi within six months, if obama were a republican he would be on mt. rushmore by now. there is something to that, isn't there? >> well, there is. of course he won't get that kind of credit. you saw mitt romney's reaction with this, well, i suppose he gets some credit. and you have heard nothing essentially from other canned dates. nonetheless, president obama has a record of foreign policy success that he will be able to take on the campaign trail within this year and not a lot of voters perhaps will make their decision based on foreign policy. but some will and so if you've got a horn to toot, you should toot it. >> steve clemons, where do we go from here in libya? >> well, i think that we need it encourage as best we can the national transition council to get its act togethe

she reports it to steve and says i remember the guy who ran that restaurant, the balding syrian guy, never spoke to him again. >> walter isaacson, thank you for joining me tonight. are there any left in the bookstore? are they still available in america? lawrence. >> they are all sold out. >> we will sell a few. >>> donald trump is landed himself in the rewrite for the second night in a row. we will tell you why next. >>> oakland police used tear gas to break up protests. one protester who was injured will join me. and we are following protests tonight in new york city. stay with us. so if i didn't know better i'd say you're having some sort of big tire sale. yes we are. yeah. how many tires does ford buy every year? over 3 million. you say you can beat any advertised price on tires? correct. anywhere? yes. like this price? yes. riously? yes what about this one? i'll beat it. this one? s we will. right, i only have one more question for you...this one? (laughing) yeah. get $100 rebate when you buy four tires. 100 bucks! only at your ford dealer. 3 million tires. 11 major brands, fion

dealing with the arab spring, given their own repressive activities and willingness to prop up the syrian regime at a time when they are killing their own citizens. this is a pattern of behavior that i think increasingly international community is going to consider out of bounds and is going to continue to punish iran for. unfortunately the iranian people are the ones that probably suffered the most from this regime's behavior. and we will continue to work to see how we can bring about a iranian government that is actually responsive to his people but also following the rules of the road that other countries in the international committee follow. >> thank you, to answer your question about north korea, first of all, president obama and i for the last three years, we havej maintained very close cooperation and coordination when it comes to north korea policy. we have consistently applied our principled approach towards north korea. for north korea, the only way to ensure happiness for its people and to embark on that path to development is to abandon its nuclear ambitions. and so we have t

she reports it to steve and says i remember the guy who ran that restaurant, the balding syrian guy, never spoke to him again. >> walter isaacson, thank you for joining me tonight. are there any left in the bookstore? are they still available in america? lawrence. >> they are all sold out. >> we will sell a few. >>> donald trump is landed himself in the rewrite for the second night in a row. we will tell you why next. >>> oakland police used tear gas to break up protests. one protester who was injured will join me. and we are following protests tonight in new york city. stay with us. [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you to help you get where you want to be. ♪ because your moment is now. let nothing stand in your way. learn more at keller.edu. whoa. let nothing stand in your way. whoa. how do you top great vacations? whoa. getting twice the points on great vacations. whoa! use chase sapphire preferred and now get two time

the move comes as syrian security forces killed four people in homs today. >>> mitt romney is running neck and neck with herman cain in the polls so the person romney fears most would be rick perry? right? jim o'sullivan with the "national journal" thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> you recently reported romney is going in for the quick kill of rick perry, if you will. let me ask you this, south carolina and florida are two important primary states for perry, he's expected to do better in the south but let's look at some poll numbers. these poll numbers for the states show in south carolina it's cain edging romney with perry far behind, and then in florida, it's romney edging cain with perry far behind. the question for you, why is perry the threat if he's not doing well in his own backyard? >> right, you saw mitt romney get far more confrontational with rick perry last week and from our reporting it looks like the big answer is the $17.2 million that rick perry put on the board in the third quarter, that gives him the resources to withstand a long campaign. he's raisi

even the arab league itself is still very divided in terms of coming out to blatantly con tem the syrian regime. in libya, it was not like that. what happened, the arab league asked for international government. the operational government asked for nato involvement, and the u.s. and the western countries were willing too. what you saw in libya was a convergence of interests that had never seen before, unlike iraq, unlike afghanistan. >> and educate us a little bit, tony. there's a lot of pr around this, whether it's nato forces, whether it's the use of predator drones as opposed to troops on the ground. what -- in a simple way, help us understand, what is america's involvement in libya today? >> well, as far as i can tell you, the official story is, look, we didn't do this with boots on the ground. we did. we have some level of intelligence operations going on. but we did it with no loss of life, and frankly, the way we did it was probably the best way to do it, without us being obvious about trying to help. being helpful from behind is not necessarily a bad thing. i'm of the mind, as ot

there's no doubt about that, that a lot of syrians will look as what happened in libya and take heart from it. as i said, another way of looking at it, if this turns out to be execution in libya, somebody like bashir assad can say, if this is what's going to happen to me, over my dead body, i'm not going to give up any time soon. >> that could be the message so saleh who reappears and refuses to step down. >> absolutely. what's interesting is tyranny does not learn from other examples, gadhafi saw what happened in tunisia and saw what happened in egypt and didn't learn from it. it looks like others could be looking at what happened to gadhafi today and still not learn from it. i think the determination in places like syria and yemen, the popular determination to bring their situation to a positive outcome from their point of view is still strong. so although other dictators may take heart from what happened to gadhafi and say to their own supporters we're not going to give up, in the end i think they are on the wrong side of history. >> thank you very much from al jazeera. the real wo

in searya, tyria the protesterst on the streets today saying the syrian president is next. >> obviously the reaction from leaders is to clamp down because they know whether won't be a fire trial or justice for a deposed dictator. >> they don't want to end up in that refrigerated locker. >> exactly. incredible events. the politics of this, we are in an election year. this president has some banners he ask wave on foreign policy. >> no question two things. number one, foreign policy is not going to be the front and center issue of this election. we know that. that said, i think it is a mistake to dismiss what we've soon starting with osama bin laden in may and ending with iraq. is this someone who can represent united states on the world stage? some republicans will say no. the choice is who can represent our country domestically and abroad? barack obama or who the republicans nominate. right now it's very hard to deny foreign policy issues, he has firmed that up. one other quick thing, i do think for a democratic base that is, at best, unenthusiastic at the moment about barack obama, thi

though that's something that the syrian protesters say they don't want. so at this stage, no. i don't see them getting the upper hand. they could try and drag this out and force a crippling war of attrition in the country in which -- in which case assad could be forced to step down. but i don't see them winning this militarily, as it would be. >> i'm fascinated to see this tonight, richard. as always, great to have you on. good to have you back safe. >> thank you. >>> nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is part of "rock center" with brian williams. it premieres tonight 10:00 p.m. eastern time, 9:00 central, only on nbc. >>> "puss in boots" walked all over the competition at the box office this weekend. taking in $34 million. despite that number it was the softest opening for a dreamworks animated movie in five years. >>> "paranormal activity 3" came in second. you name it. i've tried it. but nothing's helped me beat my back pain. then i tried this. it's salonpas. this is the relief i've been looking for. salonpas has 2 powerful pain fighting ingredients that wor

recalls the syrian ambassador. >>> a federal judge has temporarily blocked florida's controversial new law until a legal challenge makes its way through the courts. >>> the prosecution has rested its case in the involuntary manslaughter trial of michael jackson's daughter. the defense team will begin presenting its witnesses next week. >>> and netflix shares taking a beating in after-hours trading after reporting losing more than 800 thoux subscribers last quarter. >>> and robin williams tied the knot this weekend at a ceremony in napa valley. back to "hardball." >>> i'm here to say to all of you, and to say to the people of nevada and to the people of las vegas, we can't wait for an increasingly dysfunctional congress to do its job. where they won't act, i will. >> dysfunctional congress. welcome back to "hardball." that's president obama today out in nevada with a new approach to dealing with congress. rather than waiting for congress to act, which it hasn't, the president's rolling out a series of programs that he can enact without congressional approval. the new campaign is called

recalls the syrian ambassador. >>> a federal judge has temporarily blocked florida's controversial new law until a legal challenge makes its way through the courts. >>> the prosecution has rested its case in the involuntary manslaughter trial of michael jackson's daughter. the defense team will begin presenting its witnesses next week. >>> and netflix shares taking a beating in after-hours trading after reporting losing more than 800 thoux subscribers last quarter. back to "hardball." >>> i'm here to say to all of you, and to say to the people of nevada and to the people of las vegas, we can't wait for an increasingly dysfunctional congress to do its job. where they won't act, i will. >> dysfunctional congress. welcome back to "hardball." that's president obama today out in nevada with a new approach to dealing with congress. rather than waiting for congress to act, which it hasn't, the president's rolling out a series of programs that he can enact without congressional approval. the new campaign is called "we can't wait," and its first initiative will be to help homeowners who are und

ambassador robert ford angered syrian authorities when he defended peaceful protesters. a government crackdown in syria has killed nearly 3,000 people. >>> meantime, australia has announced it will begin aerial patrols in the wake of that shark attack that left a texas diver dead. thomas wainwright was killed over the weekend, the third victim of a fatal shark attack in just a few weeks off the west coast of australia. local fishermen have been ordered to actively hunt a rogue great white. they're under orders to kill the shark if they come across it. but actually we do -- and my kids would be like, "awesome, mom!" oh! i did not see that. [ male announcer ] layaway's back for christmas in our toys, electronics, and jewelry departments. flavored with real honey. powerful cold medicine that leaves out artificial flavors and dyes and instead uses something more natural, honey. new vicks nature fusion cold & flu. ♪ free gold ! we call that hertz gold plus rewards. you earn free days, free weeks and more fast. that's a plus. upgrade your ride. that's a plus. rewards with no

. >> there's a huge difference between america imposing on iraq and the libyan people or the syrian or all of that taking ownership of that change. that's a huge difference. in neither case you can predict the change. but the people took charge of that change. >> sure. but, look, i mean, i agree with what's being said. but the trouble i'm having with it is that it seems to me more crucial to discuss how fundamentally american policy in the middle east has undermined democratic movements and has put its weight behind these dictators because they guarantee stability -- >> i wouldn't say recently. >> but the tactics of war. one thing i worry about is if we are led to believe we can conduct wars in this way -- >> it's dangerous. >> it's a video game war. they warned about that in the gulf war. it was norman swarz couchwartz o said this isn't a video game war. >> it becomes difficult to exercise democratic -- it did not go that way at all -- >> you're right and you're right. it becomes easy, just push a button and too much. >> no doubt about that. >> but one -- >> it's a better, easier syst

he discovered his birth father, a syrian immigrant that he ran a restaurant he wasn't frequented. he said he had no interest in developing a relationship. i with us a wealthy man, quote, and i did not trust him to blackmail me and go to the press about it. >> building a company's really hard. >> he was less generous in this biography. bill is basically unimaginable unimaginable naive. he shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas. he saved his harshest comments to google. whole sale ripped off us. grand theft. google declined to comment. as for why the notoriously private moelgg all agreed to speak so candidly. jobs told isaacson in august i wantedmy kids to know me. i wasn't always there for them and i wanted them to know why and to understand what i did. >> and that was kate snow reporting. >> he told his autobiographer no subject was off limits. >>> there's a new study that says, yes, uh-oh. you're watching "weekends with alex witt." [ charles ] when you can make a person smile when they taste the food that you cooked, it does something to your heart. i think what people like