>> well, i think this issue -- i think we started to touch on this a while ago that the fact that the president is one person and does one dramatic vein a day or so is automatically causes us to gravitate to him. ..

the information is out there and if you want to be aware of all of these different actions taking place and the full picture as opposed to just the obama picture it's available, but it's harder to get to. it's more time-consuming and it's not as interesting but it adds up to a lot and it is ultimately what determines elections and what people ultimately care about and what presidencies are measured against. but don't think we have the answer how to bring it into balance. >> it is skipped over in my notes i had with congress and democrats advocating to some degree and republicans working hard and opposing him it's up to the media. i had one word is obviously our job to hold the feet to the fire

but that is tough to do when he has been as good as he has so far. he has of weighted serious missteps and even when he does something that gets people mcmichael these decisions he's made and it is a lengthy list of decisions he's made that is irritated the aclu and of libertarian groups on national security. even with those people use them so well and he knows the american people are with him and that after the last press conference i told one of my colleagues, somebody said when are we going to get under his skin and we do a little now and then but it's like pitching batting practice to mark mcgwire on steroids. he is ready for everything we throw, and he has been, he just has been good up to this point as terrie has been saying he is a very talented communicator so i don't think we were tripping him up on that kind of stuff. i think it is all coming down to his policies and whether it

works. if a year from now inflation is up and employment is 10% and it doesn't appear the stimulus money is doing much and there are scandals house stimulus money is being spent, then we are going to be flopping around like pigs and mud, and the big risk is as i am doing a series of hard-hitting reports mime wife is going to change the locks on the house but i will deal with it as it happens. [laughter] >> that raises the question i believe that that you research center did a study suggesting there's and on a level playing field between mccain and obama of the media was clearly period obama and perhaps continues to be pro obama. do you think that has been part of the problem. terry, did you want to -- i wasn't referring to the weekly standard. [laughter] >> ebitda pos some of the writers of the standard. anyway, i would say this, when i

published the media journal for for this some years ago i had someone look at this question and coming back to 1936, every presidential reelection since then and this was through '96, all the surveys that had been done of journalists in terms of voting preferences or presidential elections or political preferences where you stand on this issue or that had revealed the same bottom line which is to say that journalists, and these are journalists at the highest levels, they say the laws that cover national politics sometimes a would be surveys of the bureau chiefs in washington, etc., etc.. they would fall in the democratic liberal side by a wide margin sometimes even huge margins, sometimes narrow depending on back-and-forth. i don't think that changed. i think if you get data on the election this year we will probably see it lopsided

democratic. that isn't to say because someone is space in their voting habits they can't do good job journalistically. i am saying where people are coming from is going to be on that side. now among that group of journalists, again, the media field is much more complicated now. we have a blogosphere old and all these things we've been talking about is what's less possible. we don't have an establishment media anywhere near we had in 1968 if you study the tet offensive and impact that was had upon that in the vietnam war, we can go through that. but i would say there is that and one other thing important to understand. the media tends to be biased in favor of intelligence. and verbal skills. so if you get someone like obama who let us not deny this is a very intelligent man, anyone can see that, and he has got the

gift. he has got verbal skills. one of push's disadvantages is his intelligence didn't manifest itself and perfectly constructed sentences with my squall the fires here and there and so he seemed to come where i come from which is texas and he seemed to be a little blond or maybe not that smart some would say. so i don't think that plays well with the media. i just mean by the tendency, the intelligent person willing to speak and obama has got that and that will carry him a good while at least until that kind of washington area media coverage. >> okay. questions -- >> let me just follow upon that. i mentioned in my remarks the extent the media does reinforce the activist presidency but i think both as bill pointed out and chip, when things turn sour

the media can be just as good in jumping over a president who has a failure of some kind in the administration and i think the obama administration realizes this because i read an article not long ago they are revolutionizing the shop in the white house both with more online films of the president, speeches -- she's the first person to do this saturday radio address on the radio as a television type of production and i think they are gearing up as one of the people quoted i think it was the white house person quoted that we understand we are going to have to get the message across without a media filter at times and that is what they are looking at whether they will succeed or not i don't know but they have also got an outside operation i think david plough is trying to keep up during the campaign to jim them up and support the president's policies and i think the first outing wasn't as successful trillion to have people write their members of congress in favor of the president's budget.

people didn't know what was in the president's budget but you bet when the details were reviewed and there were 17 billion in cuts congress started to hear from people on that which was sent to obama as fever because these were things the administration was proposing so congress is hearing intent to hear people when they are complaining and not necessarily in favor of something the people i think given the approval ratings and so long so far of obama 60% better and still very much in favor with people but some of these specific policies are already running into difficulties. >> can i say very quickly as someone who spent enormous amount of time with this president, president obama does not like the media. he doesn't interact with us. i spent hundreds of hours on an airplane with him. he came back to talk to the press maybe once every two weeks at most. chip, sure you don't see much of him in the white house. john mccain on the other hand

loved reporters, spent hundreds and hundreds of hours invested in those relationships and i think if you pull political reporters in washington, john mccain would win the personality contest by 1 million miles, but that is just to say that whatever perceived by yes there is and isn't based on relationships or based on president obama cultivating it because he has done the opposite. >> wim these were surveys taking of voting action -- >> i would say regarding the came -- mccain he was well liked i should say in the media because he is that kind of guy that will come back and talk a long time. it probably work to to his advantage some but he didn't get the nomination. >> i covered mccain during the campaign and obama right now and she is right, obama doesn't talk a whole lot to us one-on-one,

and mccain did but it is a double-edged sword for mccain because of the one hand we like and as a person and he was great to talk to but he put his foot in the mouth so many times he gave a story every day that took the campaign off message and that is why in the end they ended up bottling him up which also hurt in a lot of ways. he wasn't putting his foot in his mouth saying things that went off message but he lost the unique character he was just another bottled up packaged politician by the end. >> questions from the audience? >> i think you all sort of touched on this already we talked in the class this morning what do you think the role of the outspoken cheney is, will that be the beginning of the pendulum turning the other way back towards maybe an imperial congress perhaps? >> more what? >> [inaudible]

>> imperial? >> the round of interviews cheney has been doing and what affect this is likely to have come he is attempting to make the argument for the need for the president -- go ahead. >> what i would say about dick cheney is that since we have gotten to the stage with release of the olc memo's, and all of this, they're has been this discussion about the kind of legal approval that might have been given that was given for these enhanced interrogations' techniques including waterboarding. i think what he wants to do is say let's see what the evidence -- let's get the evidence. i know there's evidence, that is what he is singing. i think there are 21 pages worth of the two memos that spell out the impact, the affects.

he wants to show what energy in the executive did in the country to put it in the terms of your earlier used. that is what he wants to do. now it was blocked yesterday. this is a request and apparently the only reason the documents were not released is that they are involved in a current foia case. maybe they will be released later on. i think defense by the way on the whole subject are getting to the point we are probably going to have some kind of commission that will get the job of looking at them and those and foes and everything under the sun including the evidence as to how those techniques worked that have yet to be revealed. i think that is what he is going for is he wants to get not

necessarily commission but he would like to see the debate be able to take into account the relevant information. >> i think he wants the administration and its decisions have indicated and i don't think that that's going to happen. i don't think the public opinion is going to change on the subject or dick cheney any time in the near future and certainly republicans i talked to this week would rather see any face on their television screen and i think it speaks to the vacuum and party right now that there isn't public faces or republican party the party is looking for one that dick cheney is certainly a lightning rod to galvanizes the core republican base but isn't exactly a growth instrument for it and democrats are delighted by this turn of defense. >> as he moved the obama white house though blacks are they

reacting? >> i think that, no, i don't think the decision yesterday had anything -- i think that was a foregone kirker -- conclusion and as we have discussed i think that president obama is a pretty cautious person in this whole realm and i don't think that he is coming to -- >> the folks at the pentagon and the cia -- >> the main story is he's getting too much to the military ground on this right now. >> okay. >> let me say i am incredibly curious what is in the memos. i really want to see i hesitate to prejudge. i don't think he's kind and up being a hero for political independence but he certainly could end up helping him and the bush administration with the republican base. and these memos will come out. it is impossible something that

significant quality eventually come out. it is the rule of washington. >> it has to i think in terms of that these documents are hung up in this current litigation. so once that ends presumably they can be made available if you get >> questioned? >> thank you. you guys started touching on this but i am curious on your thoughts of the future of the republican party. there's been talk recently who is going to be the new face whether possibly eric cantor would take the place of, you know, the leader of the republican party and the you see 2010 being the time they are able to capture more seats for the democratic party or are they going to become more or less, quote on quote permanent minority for a while? >> having worked for the republican party and house of

representatives, i recall in 1964 when we had a huge landslide lyndon johnson with barry goldwater and the press accounts were writing about the death of the republican party and we have seen similar things after nixon and watergate and since then, too. i don't think it is dead by any means. what i saw happening in '65 when i came to the hills this summer was a group of republicans having defeated the minority leader in the house and building a task force to grapple with a problem how to rebuild and what do we do and how do we cast a positive alternative rather than pos lyndon johnson in the sidey program so i think eventually you will see emerging new faces, leaders, ideas but it's an ongoing to happen overnight but the process is under way. you just don't see all that much of it yet. >> i was thinking about this when i was reading about this arne duncan decision a couple of days ago and thinking now

there's a vacuum the republican party should be occupied and right now. you look at -- it's not a question of people. it's a question of ideas and where are the ideas to counter the democratic ideas people are embracing frankly? you know if you are going to vote against the stimulus bill, up with something that's going to help these states survive the budget crises and keep the schools open and social services flowing that everyone agrees are necessary, things like medicaid. so, i think the search for an individual is, you know, it's not yielding anything so far but the ideas are i am sure percolating at local levels like they always are and, you know, the 2010 landscape doesn't look that great right now. the recruiting isn't going that

well. the senate seats are not really favorable for republicans. but the house we have seen and as we saw -- i mean, all three last year i constantly referred back to the 26 midterm elections which i covered and went to just about every swing district or state that cycle and it was it turned out to be great investment of my time because you saw, you know, use of the country turn on the war and, you know, turn to government more and more for answers. you could see the shifting so that when obama came on the scene it wasn't surprising. he was a vacuum and surely the cycle has started in the hinterlands. i think we have totally lost sight of that in washington over

the past few months, just how enormously stressed some regions of the country are right now. the industrial midwest. these are economic wastelands that are just crying out for local political leadership and just some fresh and new ideas to help people get through. so i think that is where the republican future is. >> i think it is a mistake for them to be out there saying we need a leader. that allows the democrats to say okay its dick cheney, rush limbaugh, new gingrich, whoever we want to make the leader that day. it's about ideas could the pendulum swing -- one thing addictive about politics is you never know. obama could be a one-term president with the disastrous

economy and a two-term president who heads the white house off to michelle after eight years. it is as unpredictable as sports. my phillies are at the white house right now. that's unpredictable. [laughter] and politics is the same way. you just don't know. >> look at the democrats who voted against the and those are the districts they are worried about. the districts, tom from central virginia. that's where the fault line is right now and if republicans can figure out how in 2010 to communicate with those voters and take back some of the districts that will be a powerful signal may i shift the balance of power but we will notice it and certainly the white house, rahm emanuel will notice and that is kind of where the battle is right now. we talk about it in this great picture but it's about that

centered around of the population that is enormously supportive of the president at this moment but who knows a year from now. >> i would add to that i agree with sheila 2010 and 2012 to look like those are not held for the republican party. i think what the party is going to have to do is develop its ideas, its proposals out of areas that become weaknesses if you will for the president and democratic party. one of those could end up being foreign policy slash national security get what about the war in afghanistan? what is that going to look like six months -- you have democrats on the hill were made about this and worried about the amount of money that might be going in there so there's going to be that question. and maybe i am not saying this is the reason for some of these if you will panache of security decisions by obama, but

nonetheless it might be they do feel politically some vulnerability already. i don't know. but i think republican party is going to have to look at the condition of the economy and the proposals that have been enacted into law and how they have done. they are barely getting the money right now so it's hard to come to any judgment on these things. i will say this as well. there is one sort of push and obama legacy that is a problem for the republicans to at least the republicans interested in smaller government and that is legislation like t.a.r.p. past leader in the bush second term. and here the congress delegates all this money to the executive to spend them, it's going to be on banks first and then the administration obama takes it over and they start moving it

around and spending it for other figures. should i ask for the magazine industry to get a bailout? maybe i should. but what i am saying is that when you have this kind of power and authority and money given to the branch with almost no guidelines as to the constraint of executive, we are talking about excessive power. there's a lawsuit in fact that's been filed on this charge in violation what is called non-delegation doctrine, that is no chance of going anywhere. there might be one vote on the supreme court for the lawsuit but is basically a lawsuit that says congress cannot delegate in this fashion without more specific legislation as to what the executives should be doing with it. the reason i say that is a party problem or republican party problem is that with bush as president and necessity of trying to do something, you

know, he got into this and is being perpetuated and it's hard to complain when it was dawn on the republican watch. so we will see how that plays out. >> another question? chris? >> my question kind of builds what terry eastland was just saying and that is given that congress often grants authorities to the white house to the presidency they are often reluctant to pull the back, and isn't this in some ways much the source of the imbalance and i think not only of the t.a.r.p. but things like the antiquities act and other authorities where one has granted party is on either side might find they don't like something carried out but they tend to say we will wait until our dog is back in power because we don't want to engage in the fight to repeal it. >> i think that is an excellent point and i don't want to say that it's laziness on the part of congress. i think i refer to it as

cultural convenience. members spend less and less time on the hill and more time in their districts raising money and running for office and so on and what suffers as a result is committee work where most of the work with congress is done or should be done so what is being slighted is oversight of the executive con chris taking a policy initiative to correct things within the executive and so on and as a result you have seen this decline i think in the relative power of congress by default. they like the three day workweeks in washington and four days back in the home district, but congress has suffered as a policy making oversight body and the president's powers enhanced because congress is quite willing to dedicate a lot of these things to the executive that way congress doesn't have to worry supposedly but we should still be conducting oversight. >> you are referring that especially the first six years of the bush white house the

republicans were accused of advocating responsibility for oversight and they were not engaging in serious oversight. do you think the congressional democrats would find themselves accused is not engaging in serious oversight on democratic president obama? >> at least they made the right sound so far. nancy pelosi has given a charge to the committees to step up oversight and all of their jurisdictional areas. they've done additional directives relating with specific reference to the stimulus money i think as well as the t.a.r.p. but they are making the right sound. whether, you know, the committee and subcommittee chairmen will have members behind them to do a decent job is another question but i think they realize that was a big fault of the republicans when they were in power and had a president of the same party and i don't think the democrats want to stand a key to that for years down the road so i think they are making a conscientious effort at least moving in the direction of better oversight i just haven't seen it yet.

>> okay. >> the gentleman in the back. >> well, in the post newspaper world that we are in right now -- [laughter] >> sorry, sheila. >> what i have heard today and numerous sources. and i am an english teacher by the way so it pains me as much as anybody. [laughter] will the media in this era be able to keep the government accountable to the people and if so, what will it look like without newspaper reporters during the investigation? >> can i say as a tv reporter i worry because i don't watch tv news for its investigations for the most part. there are good investigative units. cbs has a good one. the other networks have good ones but, you know, tv takes so

much manpower just to do the logistics. you're not when to go to darfur and a big investigative piece or you do and nbc did some of that but it's so expensive so you'd rely on newspapers for that and those budgets have been getting caught so even as a tv guy i say the vast majority of investigating in this world gets done by newspapers. was >> well, i am going to make a bold prediction that newspapers are not going to disappear and that if i feel like doing this 20 years from now, i can still do it. i think that's, you know, certainly the economic model that we have all come to identify with the newspaper itself is changing, and certainly we haven't figured out what the result is a man to look

like. but i think that there is an enormous appetite what we provide and what nobody else provides frankly. there is, you know, the internet, we were talking about this at lunch. there is a lot on the internet. there is a lot of opinion. there is a lot of commerce but there aren't a lot of facts and there are not a lot of facts easily presented. i think about when my kids to their science projects and, you know, they go on the internet to find information about gravity, you know, they don't know the difference between the national academy of sciences and, you know, some joe schmo eighth grader's internet project that they started for their science project and on the same subject. they are not able to disui