standing firm for human freedom and liberty against tyranny. president obama is pleading with the tyrannical, radical regime that sponsors terror and has killed americans to please talk to us. he's offering to convey a tremendous benefit to them in exchange for no across from them. president reagan knew there was no moral equivalence between american and adversaries and he wasn't afraid to say so and he also knew that negotiating from a position of weakness could never secure america's national low-interest. after he left the middle east president obama made an emotional important visit to the nazi death camp. the undeniable when some of the horrors of any of those death camps is evil must be recognized and confronted and defeated. that it cannot be compromised with. today, the greatest threat to the state of israel, possibly existential threat, is a nuclear-armed iran.

yet president obama seems committed to be everything possible to compromise the mullahs who run iran today. but we have to understand the reality. iran will not be disarmed because we talk them out of their weapons or because we repeat the mistakes of the past apologizing for our support of a coup 50 years ago and failing to hold them to account for their ongoing support of terror. they will be disarmed because we pretend we have mutual interests or because our president finds moral equivalence. iran will only be disarmed diplomatically if they know we are serious about using military force if diplomacy fails and today i fear that if you believe that to be the case. the challenges of iran and the middle east are just a few of the issues the president and the nation are going to face in the years to come and it's important for us to acknowledge when president obama makes good decisions he deserves our support, but when he gets it wrong and attempts to rewrite history we have an obligation to

stand up and say so. saying so and being heard may seem to pose a challenge, given "newsweek"'s view of the divinity of the president is widespread in some corners of the media today endows conservatives you will be special targets for criticism. belli know there you are up to the challenge and the good news is mainstream media controls smaller and smaller portion of the information the public consumes so you have increasing number to nettie is to get out there and let your voice be heard in the public discourse. let me leave you with this one admonition, to write, analyze, think, challenge and speak when you see something that bothers you or something that inspires you, post about it on a log, submit an op-ed to your paper, e-mail to publications you like and respect. there are terrific magazines out there like "the weekly standard" and the "national review" and american spectator and they are always looking for talented, smart young contributors. there are thousands of terrific

websites and radio shows so you have many opportunities to fight for what you believe in and make yourself heard. you should challenge opponents with facts and evidence and truth and clarity. and you will find more often than not you will prevail. you have an opportunity and obligation to take a stand in the cause of our nation. at the end of the day, i am really optimistic about how these debates are going to be resolved and with the future holds for america and conservatives. america is fundamentally a conservative nation. we know our greatness has been founded on strong national defense, limited government, low taxes, the genius and the ingenuity of private sector and strong belief in individual freedom and responsibility. we know the government is more often the problem than the solution. we know that freedom isn't free. america's armed forces are the best fighting force the world has ever known and finally and

most importantly, we believe strongly in the american eckert sectionalism and we know america is the best nation on earth, the best that has ever existed. we believe in her goodness, strength, hope and example for all who seek freedom in every corner of the world. those are conservative values and those are american values. thank you very much for the honor to be here today and i would be happy to take any questions people might have. [applause] you guys have been sitting here for a long time, so your dedication is impressive. >> my name is jennifer and i go to the umc chapel hill and was wondering you talking about the middle east, and considering where we are in afghanistan and iraq and now pakistan where we should prioritize ourselves in

the israeli-palestinian conflict, like when you think. >> a very good question. there has been a sort of orthodoxy that many different people have tried to push including some governments in the middle east, and that is this notion we have to have peace between the israelis and palestinians before we can pursue anything else. when i was at the state department i spent a lot of time working on democracy programs to bring market economics to work on the in power but of women in the mideast and often governments would say those are important things but we can't do anything until we have peace between israelis and palestinians. so i think the issue of peace is critically important. but i think we have to understand how difficult it is now that hamas controls gaza. the road maps were barely

mentioned in the president's cairo speech. they have and you are the same place the israelis are asked to stop settlement building. but it says dismantle terrorist organizations it doesn't just say improve security. so i think we need to work hard on this issue but i think we need to be very clear about the fact we are not putting it above these other issues and that in fact, bringing peace between the israelis and palestinians in my view will not resolve all those other issues. we still have the issue of terrorists, radical islamic terrorists who don't believe in things we believe in and would like to destroy us and our way of life and although they use that conflict as an excuse sometimes, it isn't perfect solving the conflict will bring an end to what i believe is a great challenge and threat to

the united states which is the threat of terrorism and nuclear-armed iran. >> a lot of people in the media have said that you're father needs to be quiet on the issue of national security. >> they are wrong. [laughter] >> exactly. now what i'm wondering is what you think of president bush's rolph. he had firsthand information and knew what we were doing on national security and guantanamo and techniques we were using. shouldn't he be standing up and fighting for values we believe in? >> it is an interesting role if former presidents have, and i think you did hear president bush when he spoke last year he gave a couple speech is one in michigan and one in canada and he did talk about how important and effective these programs work. and so, i think it's a mistake to say he hasn't been all they're defending them and i also think it's important to recognize their as a very small

fraternity of former presidents and i think that they owe obligations to each other that someone like my dad who isn't a part of that group doesn't have so i understand completely president bush's decision to remain silent. i think it is a different decision than the one that my dad has made. >> good afternoon. my name is morgan from the university of south dakota. i studied arabic the past year and i'm wondering about the future of women diplomats and the middle east and sort of what challenges did you encounter in working with the government from those areas because of the situation of women in those countries. >> that's a very good question and answer is i think unexpected. i think that governments particularly in some areas of the gulf where the women don't play the kind of role in every society you might find in countries of north africa, they

are very accustomed to american women, diplomats and accustomed to american women policy makers and so, in my experience there was no difference effective with respect to the leadership of those countries but i was able to be even more effective because like to also get in to see the women, and whereas in a place like saudi arabia for example a would be on usual, and this is changing, the current king of saudi arabia has begun to put in place new reforms so we are seeing some important changes, but it would be unusual for a man who is an american diplomat post at the embassy to be able to spend time with saudi arabian women. they tend not to spend time with minn they are not related to so in many ways the male diplomats have access to the less

information and, you know, i was able to do fascinating things. i attended one of the first ever political rallies all women in saudi arabia backend 2005, and we listened to the women candidates giving speeches why they should be elected to the governing body but no man without seeing it you are missing a big chunk of what happens in that part of the world so i would say being an american woman gives you a benefit, gives a leg up in terms of being a to operate and understand some of the cultures where women have a different role. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here. what do you think as conservatives we should be looking and focusing on for the 2010 and the 2012 election? >> i think as buchanan said, you will have a lot. i do think we have seen a situation where the kind of

changes this administration is trying to put in place are so drastic a think pretty quickly it will become evident those fundamental values that define conservatism left government not being in control of every aspect of your life, strong national defense of low taxes and supporting the private sector as the engine of growth all those issues i think will be challenged and are being challenged and so in my view reminding people what conservatives have stood for and what the values are that we believe has made not just conservatism and effective movement but america a great nation i suspect there will be a lot of independents and you're seeing this already. i saw the last couple of days when you ask people are the conservative or liberal 30% of the people said they were conservative and i think it was 19% who said they were liberal,

so people tend to identify themselves with those basic values we believe in and i suspect you will have a lot of material whether it is domestic economic issues or the health care battle we are about to wage, whether it is national security where you will be able to tell people america shouldn't go down this dangerous path that is making us into something we never intended to be but we ought to stay true to our values and in that way have the best chance of success we have had in the past. >> thank you. >> a lot of liberal critics criticized the handling of the occupation by your father and president bush and i'm wondering what your response to them would be. >> it is a complicated set of issues and i find the people who criticize the occupation criticize a lot else as well. certainly we made mistakes there is no question about that.

saying i believe it was the right thing to do to liberate iraq and the right thing to do to ensure saddam hussein was out of power. i think when we were in the months and years right after saddam hussein was deposed, you know, there are things we did i probably would do differently now. i think that we had this sense that one could go in a nation like iraq and if you sort of either a arrested or removed from office the top layer of leadership that other iraqi is would rise up and takeover and it would be i don't do we expected the population to be so traumatized but i think what we saw is after decades of saddam hussein's rule love with a bustling to stop and take over. people waited on instruction for everything and that the trauma

was also exacerbated i think at the end of the first gulf war when we didn't support the shia when they rose up and the allowed saddam hussein to continue to fly his helicopters and use those helicopters to put down the uprisings. there were a lot of people who were suspicious whether america will be there for them if they did stand up. so it was by no means perfect but i think that we have done a huge service for humanity, huge service for security, huge service for the least, the people of iraq and i suspect as the years pass you will see increasingly iraq becomes an example of the kind of space secure nation president obama talked about wanting when he was in the speech in cairo this week.

>> you don't seem any similarities between george w. bush and barack obama but something i see that is continuing is president obama's kolevar war in the eastern tribal areas of pakistan and how that's affecting the war on terrorism right now because it is moving from iraq to afghanistan but i mean with what the soviet union tried to do in the 1980's not being able to stop the mujahideen and supplies coming in from pakistan along side with unfriendly iran to the west with the border and then supply in the insurgency along with the drug problems within afghanistan, so what could president obama do besides continuing what president bush did? how can we win this war because this is the heart of the war on terror. we can't allow afghanistan to fall again. >> i agree. i think you have to go back and look at the very significant

differences between the way the soviets attempted to pacify, to defeat the sovereign afghan government and the way that we have operated attempting to elaborate country in terms of the difference in a method of operation and difference in our objective. and i think that based what i read in the news which is my source for this it looks like president obama has understood the important efforts underway in the federally administered tribally areas and that despite some campaign rhetoric that criticize us for what we were doing but in fact other instances president obama during the campaign talked about the importance at times needing to make sure i can't remember the words he used to think he talked about cross border incursions in pakistan when necessary to defeat terrorism, but so i think you're seeing some continuity there and you don't hear much about it because in some ways

it's a little inconvenient for the current administration to admit in fact the policies we were pursuing are necessary policies. i think it is a very tough problem and finding ways we can support and bolster the pakistani military so that it's able to more effectively fight against the taliban and against the forces coming over the border is crucial. i think the president's decision to send more troops to afghanistan is also important. the fact that we have got general petraeus at centcom who is so important and influential in the decision to surge in the troops into iraq also gives me comfort. i think he understands what's necessary even though the situations are very different ones but it is a huge challenge and i suspect -- i hope he will continue to see the current administration recognize the importance of going after bad guys inside pakistan.

>> thank you. >> thanks. [applause] thank you.

how is c-span funded? >> private donations. >> tax payers. >> i don't really know. >> public television. >> donations. >> i don't know where the money comes from. >> federally. >> contributions from donors. >> 30 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. here's a look at the separation of powers between executive and legislative branches of government. you will hear from a panel of authors and journalists who

cover the white house and capitol hill. this is one hour and 45 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> i hope you all enjoy your meal. thank you again for joining. i think it is time to start the program. so, i will do that with great pleasure by introducing william connelly, the politics professor at washington and lee. professor connolly has been with us at w. nelson since 1986 and has a ph.d. in american government from university of virginia and master's degree in political philosophy. from boston college. before beginning his academic career prof connolly worked for the connecticut general assembly and as a legislative assistant

on capitol little. 1991 at 92 he was a guest scholar at the brookings institution. he has published widely numerous scholarly articles and he's also been a political commentator for news outlets such as "washington post", "new york times," usa today, national journal, npr and abc news. he's co-author of the 1994 book, chris's permanent minority republicans in the u.s. house. since 1988, professor, we has been a faculty adviser to the presidential convention and he also founded the washington term program in 1987. in 2007 he received the virginia council of higher education outstanding faculty award. professor, we will moderate and introduced the panelists so please join me in welcoming professor bill connelly.

[applause] >> thank you, blogging. thank you again to the reynolds foundation for generously supporting this symposium. i would like to begin by acknowledging the alumni who joined today as bryan said, i created the washington program 22 years ago and without the loyal support of the alumni in washington, d.c. i could never have kept this without internships and jobs upon graduation or speakers in seminars and visits the alumni have been helpful. i like to thank the alumni eve dance over the many years when i called on the alums for help no one has ever said no to me and the alumni even some usually at none of you are going to break that on that record.

thanks again to the alumni, very, very supportive. i would also like to ask my washington term students, the current students to stand up so they can be acknowledged. the students are entering in a wide variety of offenses including speaker nancy pelosi, gop whip, eric cantor, center for american progress, a top committee under kennedy, senate foreign relations committee under richard lugar and a variety of other internships, so these are my current crop of students and they will be alarmed and very supportive of the program in the future. [laughter] [applause] thank you. [applause] the title of the symposium this year is president verses concourse, in balance of power. conventional wisdom today seems to conclude george w. bush and

dick cheney expanded power at the expense of congress and exercise of war power and prerogatives and privilege along with their use for example of executive task forces warrantless wiretapping and signing statements. purported executive overreach we are told inspired pushback from a democratic congress. is this déjà vu all over again? american history is replete with charges of presidential overreach followed by legislative reaction. during the late 1960's and early 70's, legislators and scholars condemned the imperial presidency under democrat lyndon johnson and republican richard nixon promised on the vietnam war. in the 1980's and 1990's however the issue was on the other foot with some charges against imperial congress under democratic speaker jim wright and republican speaker newt

gingrich we were told was micromanaging expected its. going further back in history we witnessed the constitutional dictatorship of abraham lincoln during the civil war followed by decades of what scholar would for a wilson dubbed congressional government. is this pendulum swing built into the constitution? is the constitution and invitation to struggle as edward cohen suggested? was the constitutional separation of powers in power and humble presidents and congress? going back further in the ratification debate over the constitution, we've not antifederalist opponents of the constitution fearful of presidential office that, quote, squints towards markey, end quote. with federal lists responding, quote, energy and executive is the leading character in government, end of quote.

yet federalist alexander hamilton and james madison's madison found themselves in odds over the revocation debate in the constitution. in drafting the constitution madison hamilton is such an effective job joining in the interests of the man with constitutional rights of the place to barham addison's days in federalist 51 they found themselves at odds over executive power against constitutional defied defined by the bank of pennsylvania avenue while criticizing and defending george washington's metro the proclamation under the pseudonyms of phidias and pacific this in the 1990's. so who was right? prior to the 2008 presidential nomination contest, prior to the 2008 presidential nomination contest david najaf representative wrote a potential depression article about as of then on know when next president's likely posture toward executive power. the article titled new

handshake, same grip. he concluded again prior to the 2008 nominations for the democrats and republicans little will change regardless which democrat or republican is in the white house. in january of this year vice president dick cheney, the purported architect of the made a prediction, quote, the obama administration isn't likely to cede authority back to the congress. i think they will find given the challenge they face they will need all the effort to they can muster yet under speaker nancy pelosi and majority leader harry reid the pendulum swinging back toward congress. both democratic congressional leaders made clear after all they do not work for president obama. so the question remains do we have an imperial presidency or in periled presidency?

imperial congress or in peril converse? to resolve this conundrum and it probably is a conundrum in the literal sense we have were able individuals who observed and participated in the separation of powers minuet for many years and we are going to go in alphabetical order starting on the end of the table. terry eastland is publisher of opinion magazine and author of numerous books on politics and all including energy and executive and freedom of expression in the supreme court. shalem ra currently congressional correspondent at "the washington post" is also covered the white house and congress for "the wall street journal" and written extensively about congressional presidential elections. should read chief white house correspondent for cbs news also covered capitol hill for both cbs and nbc and anchored political coverage for msnbc. he was an invited reporter on the iraq war and filed stories on the war on terror worldwide.

last but not least don wolfensberger director of project woodrow wilson center in washington is a well known, chris scholar and author of congress and the people and former chief of staff and longtime hill maysan chief of staff of house rules committee. we are when to begin with a brief opening comments starting with terry at the end and work our way down, and brief opening statements by the guests and then q&a exchange between the guests if they have any follow-up statements they want to make after each of them has their chants and finally q&a from the audience but there will be time for q&a from the audience and we look forward to your participation. you can either sit or come of here as you wish. terrie? >> i'm happy to sit. is the rest of the panel happy to sit? let's sit here and get all right, good. thank you. thank you,