Guests: Simon Rosenberg

"The same week our government took the unprecedented action of shuttering 19 embassies in response to a threat of terrorism, President Obama sat down with funnyman Jay Leno. Bypassing the White House press corps, he used the late night show to make his first public comment on the new global terror threat, saying 'radical, violent extremism is still out there.' But during the campaign the President said Al Qaeda was 'on the run.' The President also spoke about Russia's potential mistreatment of gays at the Olympics and about Edward Snowden, knowing he would not be asked about the failed 'reset' with Russia. If they weren't still so enamored with Mr. Obama, Washington journalists would be kicking up a huge fuss about this. The President has submitted to fewer press conferences than every president since Reagan. President Obama has never stopped being in campaign mode, which is the only thing he's really done well. Anything he says in this type of forum, as entertaining as it might be, ends up being trivialized and insulates the President from proper journalistic inquiries."

Laura discussed the terror threat and the President's response with Simon Rosenberg, head of a center-left think tank. "He reached a lot of people last night," Rosenberg said, "and I think there will be plenty of follow-up this week. There has been positive reaction from both Democrats and Republicans about the decision to close the 19 embassies, which was obviously an extreme move. The administration has been briefing reporters and we know a lot about what's going on." But Christian Whiton, a State Department official in the Bush administration, ridiculed President Obama's policies. "The big theme of his re-election campaign was that Al Qaeda is on its heels, but he has had to walk that back because there was a serious enough threat to close all of these embassies. More broadly, I think you're seeing the collapse of the progressive doctrine that's gone into Obama's foreign policy. There was a notion that you could go and apologize for America and that would somehow make those threats go away. That just hasn't happened!"

Guest: Congressman Justin Amash
President Obama has announced that he will not meet with Russian President Putin during next month's G20 summit in Moscow, largely because of Russia's decision to grant asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Republican Congressman Justin Amash entered the No Spin Zone and maintained that Snowden actually provided a valuable service. "One of the things Edward Snowden did was reveal an unconstitutional program that Congress did not know about," Amash said. "We did not get the briefings that were required, they put a stack of documents in front of us and said, 'Go ahead and read it.' If you don't know the terms and definitions they're using, you don't even know what it means. There was an effort to keep information from us." Laura suggested that Amash and his colleagues should have known more about the surveillance programs: "Isn't it incumbent upon Congress to ask the questions that need to be asked and ensure that the breadth of this program isn't beyond what was originally understood?"

Guests: Kirsten Powers & Kate Obenshain
It may be early in the game, but Democrat Kirsten Powers and Republican Kate Obenshain looked ahead to the 2016 presidential campaign. "Rasmussen did a poll showing that 63% of Democratic voters want Hillary Clinton to be the nominee," Powers reported, "so she is the prohibitive favorite if she decides to run. I don't even know why anyone would bother to challenge her." But Obenshain theorized that Clinton is not necessarily a sure bet. "The analysis we've had of Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State has come from the Democrats, but when there's an objective analysis you have the 'reset' with Russia and you have Benghazi. That's a very big deal and if the Republicans find their footing on this, she is in some serious trouble. I also think she may be concerned about that huge lead because she is the target. Obama is the real wild card because I don't think he's interested in a Hillary presidency."

Guest: Charles Krauthammer
Nearly a year after the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, the administration has finally filed charges against several suspects. Some conservatives are questioning the timing of the charges, implying there are political motives, but Democratic strategist Steve Leser strenuously objected to that accusation. "An investigation has to take place before we figure out whether we're going to charge somebody," he said, "and this is a situation where Democrats and Republicans should be standing together to try and get these people who attacked our country and killed our ambassador. So why would anyone make those accusations? Are people saying the President should wait for a more hospitable political environment to go after criminals who have killed our people?" Laura accused the administration of dissembling from the very beginning: "The country was misled for weeks after the terror attacks. The administration misled, misstated, and lied about the cause of these attacks!"

Guests: Dr. Bonny Forrest & Dr. Wendy Walsh
In 1967, 15-year-old James Wolcott slaughtered his father, mother and sister, claiming he was insane and had been sniffing glue. Now, 46 years older and reincarnated as James St. James, the killer is a psychology professor at Millikin University in Illinois. Laura analyzed the bizarre story with mental health experts Bonny Forrest and Wendy Walsh. "This is a good Presbyterian university," Forrest said, "that is standing by him and exemplifying redemption and forgiveness. 12 men found him not guilty by reason of insanity and who are we to second guess a jury of his peers and the law? I don't understand the hysteria over this, although it was a horrific crime." Walsh contended that the killer-turned-professor should not be in a classroom. "While I have great compassion for this man and I am proud of what he did to turn his life around, mental health is not a perfect science. We can't say it will never happen again because he's on the right medication. Would I want my kid in his class? The answer is no! He can be doing research, he can be writing, but does he really have to be in charge of a bunch of young people?"

Guests: Animal Expert Donald Schultz
This week a 100-pound python escaped from its pen and killed two little Canadian boys while they were asleep. Laura spoke about snakes and other exotic pets with animal expert Donald Schultz. "These are precision killing machines," Schultz said, "and a number of rules were broken here. Any animal over 6-feet-long we usually use two adults to handle, but from what I'm hearing these kids were playing with goats and llamas before they went to bed, which is the perfect recipe for a tragic situation. This is raising questions about the owner, not about the snake. Why were these kids in such close proximity to the snake, which had previously tried to get out of the same enclosure. This was a massive tragedy and totally avoidable." Laura concluded, "This whole thing with some of these exotic animals has gone too far."