i do want to talk to you about some of the things i write about in this book. one of the things i write about in this book is about the red tape, the incompetence of our government. now, don't get me wrong, i'm a conservative. i don't want government to be doing too many things, but the things the government does i want it to do well. we shouldn't be able to say, well, that's good enough for government work. but i'm here to tell you, the fact that our government has gotten so big and is involved in running car companies and wants to get involved in running our health care has meant it's lost its core focus, its core we says. i describe our frustration even going back to hurricane katrina. ..

fully hit me when i was in an airboat. those of you who are outdoorsman this is the best fishing along the coast where the mississippi river hits the gulf. amazing fishing down there. it is wet lands. amazing what you can catch. i was in an airboat before i could see the water. you could hear the deafening silence. this time of year when you are outside you should be hearing critters and bugs. oil killed all. you get into the wetlands and

you see it for -- coating everything. it would be dead. it stuck everything. put your hands and and the water bottle. what was so frustrating is it was sitting there day after day, week after week. the government said we have to absorb it. doesn't that sound good? that sounds high tech. they're on top of this. that is a fancy way of saying furrowing cotton balls and paper towels. federal government said we have some other plans. we have to burn the wetlands to save the wetlands. sounds like a great plan to me. i met with louisiana fishermen, we may not be the smartest people in the world. not a nobel prize among all of

us. [applause] >> no phds but the most practical people you have ever met. why don't we vacuum that oil instead of letting it sit there? that is a great idea. i went to the federal government and said what the we vacuum that oil? they acted like i was an idiot. how the get a truck down the mouth of the river? i am not the smartest guy in the world. put a truck on the back of a boat and vacuum the oil up. i hate this answer from government. they said we have never done that before. we can't do that. they never spilled as much oil off the coast. why not try something new? i ordered the national guard -- they didn't want to do it. it was literally a trucks trapped on the back of a pontoon

bridge. it didn't look like it was going to flow to but it worked. they put it in the water, picked up thousands of gallons. there was a reporter who looked at it and looks at me and says hard those the same trucks you use to clean up the port of bodies after football games? and is that whatever you do don't put that in your story. unlike imagine the people of california doing there doing what in louisiana? i called them vacuum barges. that sounds better. the technology wasn't all that different. it was the same concept. the private sector saw this in tv and then they said don't use trucks. we have industrial pumps. don't use bridges. we have a barges. we had these working along the coast picking up the oil and week later i got the call from the federal government. called me up and said we are shutting down or barges. this is one of the few things

that was working. they said we haven't done our inspection yet. what are you worried about? what do you need to inspect? we need to check the valve is. if you are not using the right valves there is a danger you might drop some oil back into the water. we are picking up thousands of gallons and you are worried about some drops? those are the rules. i said you better have a greater sense of urgency. the federal government will give you 24 hours but you got to get this done. hours later a federal official came to the command center and said we can't find phone-number 4 any of these barges. they didn't realize they had approved everyone of them. the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing and eventually they realized how absurd this was and said we don't have to check the vowels but they have to stay in port. we need to count how many lifejackets and fire extinguishers on every one of those boats. i said you can't do this in the bay? those are the rules.

24 hours later like i told them i went to the port myself. along the way miraculously we got a call saying great news, won't the inspection after all. they go back to work. for 24 hours that oil sat in the wetlands and unnecessarily because of bureaucracy and red tape. a last example from the oil spill. the oil was coming in to the bay. one of the most fertile fishing areas along the coast. we could get the federal government -- there were boats, scanners, people, equipment sitting, just waiting to be used. they kept telling us there's no oil. don't worry about it. finally i took the federal official in charge of louisiana and a blackhawk helicopter. so he could see for himself the oil. it was friday morning. he saw the oil in the bay. i said that is great. who do we need a radio to tell

those people to get those boats in the water to fight that oil? he said you don't understand. it will take at least 24 to 48 hours to go through bureaucracy and get this done. this was a man in charge of the federal response for the state. he said i am just slow and dumb. talking about a boom in other facilities or warehouses, regulations require to be kept there. the rules said just in case. i tell you all this, these different stories, for us in louisiana, like fighting a war. we need to see a greater sense

of urgency and even when it came to local solutions too many times they got in the way of ideas like jack up barges. the reason we start there, running car companies and health-care loses its core competency to secure the border but these are broad and domestic. it loses its core competency. president ford once said a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. that is what we are seeing and the lesson we learned and the lesson i hope the country learned out of what happened in the oil spill. second chapter in the book concerns health care. it scares me. it worries me that the obamacare legislation passed congress. there are a lot of reasons to be scared. over a trillion dollars of spending additional closer to $2 trillion.

five hundred billion dollars in tax increases and cuts to medicare. doesn't bend down the cost curve. the government is more involved in our lives. sixty million new americans being put in medicare health care system. hy worked at the state level and federal level and private sector. what scared me the most, not as a policy maker is the father of three young children. i want to show a couple examples of experiences we had with our children. shea when the house by the way. i can only imagine how much sugar they are eating as we talk about this. the strict grandfather are told you about thinks timeout is cool punishment. i try to punish my kids. he says we never spanked you when you were growing up. he has forgotten my entire childhood.

it is amazing. that is what grandparents are supposed to do. we have a 6-year-old boy and a 4-year-old boy. n 8-year-old girl was born, 6-year-old boy born, same hospital. second took twenty-four hours. our third child took thirteen minutes of labor. our 4-year-old boy was born at home. it was the two of us on the bathroom floor. she did all the work. people said you did such a great job, i just caught the baby. i want to share with you a few thoughts. i don't care how tough you are. there is a reason not allow

women, not men to have babies. a man came up to me in church and said the famed thing happened to me. it is the exact same thing. i would go home and tell my wife that. it is not the same thing. my beautiful wife is an accomplished engineer with an interesting view of the world of medication. she said if god intended me to do this without anesthesia he wouldn't have invented these great drugs. she said i want the drugs in the parking lot. we haven't practiced. they have these childbirth lessons. we are sitting on the floor and she is in pain and the baby is coming out. my second lesson of advice i want to share with fathers. babies don't come out the way they do on tv in real life.

your babies are pink grand wrapped in a beautiful blanket and beautiful. they are angelic. my wife is screaming in pain and asked me what does our boy look-alike? i don't have the heart to tell her the truth. i tell her he is a beautiful baby boy. what -- he is covered in goo, doesn't look right. what i am really thinking is we need to put him back in there. he is not done yet. final piece of advice. if you ever find yourself in a situation like this, not an appropriate time to make jokes. i was trying to lighten the mood. she was in such pain. in the middle of her contraction i said if they want to stop teenage girls from getting pregnant they should show a video of this. she said you are making jokes

now? my father-in-law arrived illegally and a policeman were out side hearing my wife screening. they looked at each other and said i am not going in there. in the old days father's state outside the delivery room. i am glad i saw the first two children being born. i knew what they would expect. the moment i handed our child to my wife she forgot all of her pain. she forgot herself completely in that moment. she was so focused on that beautiful baby boy. we have been married 13 years. she is my best friend, and amazing part. that is the most incredible experience of our married life juice being a part of the miracle of birth. i don't really want the government interfering with the delivery of health care because it is one of the most personal and important things we do. i tell you the story of our second child who was born in a hospital. he looked perfectly healthy. we brought him home week later. you go for the regular check of.

they make sure they are growing and beating. the doctor said he looks fine but i hear something funny in his heart. we need you to see a specialist today. we went to see a specialist and after hours of tests and reviews the doctor says there's something wrong with your boy's heart. we have to do open-heart surgery to save his life. he won't be able to breathe or eat properly unless we do that. he looked perfectly healthy. when you hear that about your child a couple fought race for your head. the first is one in a million children, you never think of your child. the second thing is i would give anything to trade places with him so what was happening to me,

up to them. but we are reassured god tells us why worry when i feed the birds? we were blessed. all he had was open heart surgery and is doing great. 6-year-old boy sees a cardiologist regularly and is doing great. one is that i am not really sure if sean should play football when he gets older. i looked at the doctor and said look at me. [laughter] what are the odds any son of mine will be playing football in louisiana? we raise them big in louisiana. there is no way he will be big enough to play. in that moment i don't want the government, i don't want a bureaucrat in baltimore or washington telling me which dr. i can go see, which procedure i can go get foretelling that doctor or nurse how to do their

jobs. one of the hardest moments as a married couple was handed our little boy less than a 3 month old to the anesthesiologist as she walked away with our son to go to surgery. she said the older children sometimes yell for their parents don't let them take me. our little boy wasn't old enough to know what was going on. i don't know if we could have stopped ourselves if he was old enough to say that. in that moment i what the doctors and nurses with their training and years of education to do what they need to do to save his life. that worries me about this government intervention in one sixth of our health care. i talk about the status quo wasn't acceptable. we have the best health care in the world but there are things we need to do to improve it. let's make it affordable across state lines and jobs. let's be serious about frivolous lawsuits that cost tens of billions of dollars. let's work voluntary purchasing pools for the economy of scale individuals working for large employees, let's focus on

outcomes. 70% of what we spend is spent on chronic patients. let's do a better job keeping guns out of inheritance rooms or treating diabetic and those with asthma and others? let's do things to improve the quality of health care that don't involve putting sixty million people on medicaid or a massive government bureaucracy. right now in medicare today there are 130,000 pages of rules and regulations by the mayo clinic. the american hospital association's say their nurses spend an hour filling out paperwork for every hour they provide care. not just medicare but other regulations for private and public sectors as well. anybody here who thinks the government can do a better job with health care just remember the bureaucracy and red tape of the oil spills and katrina and ask yourself do you want the same bureaucracy and red tape brought into our health care system. another example that are discussed in the book is immigration. let me talk about my experience.

my parents came to baton rouge, louisiana when my mom was pregnant with me. whig came so my mom could study at l s u. sheba studying nuclear physics. when i think about their story the reality is their story is more interesting than my story. my dad to give me an idea where he came from was one of nine children growing up in a house without electricity or running water. literally i remember asking one day for an allowance for the chores he made us do around the house and instead of getting an allowance i got a lecture. he said do you know how lucky you are? when he was growing up he had to walk up hill to school three miles and apparently when school was done he would walk uphill coming back as well. apparently they didn't invent school buses or downhill until i was born. he said how much do you intend to pay me for the food you eat,

the clothes you wear or the roof over your head? i was going to know him more money than he was going to pay me. i never did get an allowance. they came to this country. turned down the offer from lsu. not really the right time to move the family. lsu says we will give you an entire month off once you give birth. that was such a good offer they said okay. this was before the days of the internet or sell phones. they had never been to baton rouge. had never come -- never visited. they moved the two of them. my dad and his pregnant wife came to baton rouge. here's what i love about the story. my dad goes to the yellow pages and start calling it companies looking for a job. he finally finds one that hires sight unseen over the phone. he does that is great. i don't have a car. the company says we will come get you.

don't worry. the amazing thing is my parents lived the american dream. they had the optimism and knowledge that if you work hard and apply yourself you can create a better quality of life for your children. don't try to criticize america in front of my dad. my parents chose to come here. they know what it is like growing up in a society where you don't take these opportunities for granted. if we ever try to complain about anything we would get another lecture from my dad. the reason he grew up in such poverty -- poverty i heard those stories everyday of my life. we learned pretty quickly not to complain. you better not say the teacher doesn't like me or my friends got a lower test grade that i got. none of that mattered. if you brought a 97 he wanted 100. i heard this story about joseph

kennedy. one day bobby kennedy comes home. the he wanted his sons to be president. bobby kennedy comes home and says i want to become a catholic priest instead of running for office. his father reportedly said that is great. we never had a poke in the family before. it would be nice to have one. that was my dad as well. whatever you did you were going to be the best and never complained because every day you woke up in america you were already better off than everybody else in the world. you had the privilege and blessing to live in the greatest country in the history of the world. i learned american exceptional is in from my parents. here is the important thing about their experience. they came to the americans. i have a whole chapter about assimilation. some say it is not politically correct to impose american values on those that are coming here. that is nonsense. if somebody chooses to come here

i think it is okay to expect them to embrace american values. what makes america so great. [applause] what makes america so great is they can trace the lineage to plymouth rock or back to -- people who have been in this country hundreds of years and others for hundreds of hours. we are not here because of an attachment to a particular history but because of the shared commitment to certain values and ideals. that is the genius of america. my parents didn't come to fight against it. they came to change the american dream and the citizens of the land of the free and home of the brave. a great deal of our strength is our shared commitment to our values. hard work, respect for the rule of law, commitment to freedom, belief in god. that is where our strength comes from. i am for diversity.

you can certainly see i am example of diversity. by a diversity we talk about things like skin color or ethnicity. that is great, we are all precious but if -- of we need more people believe in collectivism, socialism, 1-party rule, military dictatorship, a suicide bombing, treating women like second-class citizens or the other negative things this world has to offer, we need people who want to come and be part of the american experiment who believe in the american dream and my parents are great examples of this. they assimilated because they love this country and appreciate it more than many of us do. somebody who was born and raised here, immigrants get along with this country more than we do because we are tempted to take it for granted. we don't realize the alternatives out there. another chapter talks about the reaction people have when they find out i am a cultural conservative. i am a fiscal conservative and cultural conservative.

i can't tell you how many times weather is on college campuses or -- somebody will come to me and say how could somebody who has been given such great opportunities, how could you be agitated and conservative? some people think it must be just an act. you must not really believe in these things. he did the support you. must not be as smart as you think i am. when i was working the medicare commission meeting with a friendly washington post reporter wanting to write about the work we were doing and be 48 we were at lunch. i was saying grace over my meal. she asked if the deal with all right and i'm just saying grace.

was startled. don't they say grace in d.c.? it was so foreign to her she was startled. i was startled by the fact that she was startled by i was saying grace. that is not the only experience. i was at oxford university and ran into a very intelligent young woman at harvard university, one of the smartest people i met, best education in this country, late one night she was asking me how i am just curious if you could answer a couple questions. i am curious what is the difference between the old and the new testament. i hear people talk about those things and don't understand the difference and who is this ate call guy? he must be somebody really important. harvard like so many universities was founded as a

seminary. have to answer questions about islam and the koran. it almost appears when you send your children to school and interact with national borders and folks along the coast more and more often it feels like we are talking at each other. we don't have the same common experiences and vocabulary. i am a proud son of the south. one of those poor souls clinging to guns and religion in louisiana. [applause] the example from the book a want to share with you. chapter 16 is called its the culture, stupid. we have a very famous political consultant in louisiana.

james carville. he did a blurb for the book. he came up with is the economy, stupid. america is great but america is not great just because of our economic system. i am a strong believer in the free market system. i have written for the wall street journal and spoken at the heritage foundation. free-market is better than any alternative in the world. america is not great simply because of our government. i have a strong believer in democracy. it is better than the alternative is. america is not great because our military strength. i am a strong supporter of the military. i prefer a much stronger american military. the stronger we are as america the safer the world is. what i right in the book is what makes us so great, america is more than the strongest military or most beautiful piece of property. the beauty ingenious is our

culture. the shared set of values and attitudes. the country that makes us great is our culture. it was put into neat little categories. tax and spending issues, moral issues and foreign policy issues. the founding fathers got it right. this american experiment was designed for moral people and virtuous or religious people. the culture that binds us together, a famous saying is america is great. they fail to follow it at their own peril.

the example i want to talk about is a chapter in the book, about congress? it was based on what we said, they may not want me ever back which is okay with me. harry truman complain about the do nothing congress. i would love to have a do nothing congress. that would be an improvement over what we get today. when you are a little boy or a little girl taking civics class in high school or middle school you learn the best and brightest goes to washington to serve in congress. that is not true. when you get there you find a cross section of the country. there are smart people and dumb people be good little people have strong character or merely characters. dumb people need representation too. they have got it in congress. i provide specific recommendations how we can fix congress.

it is not enough to let another group of good people -- there are some hon. people and great leaders but not enough to send another cast of characters to washington. we need to structurally change our nation's capital. we need to go back to the founding fathers original intent be dismal structural reforms in place in my state. there's a balanced budget requirement in the constitution. what a novel idea for congress. don't spend more than you take in. supermajority vote before they raise taxes. what a novel idea. take a supermajority vote before you take more of our money away. july line-item veto to take away these earmarked. make the vote up or down on single items with legislation or belittle together. they go home and say i voted for the puppies in rainbow legislation. they just happen to be there. ..

>> common sense in washington d.c. mark twain said it best, your wallet, your liberty are the safest when they're outside of washington. when they're not in session, let's pay them to stay home. we'll give them a negative per diem for every day they meet. [applause] [laughter] the eighth thing i want to share, and i've talked about this spending problem in our country, we need to stop the madness. the candidate who was running for governor of new york, i don't know what else el he stood for, but he said he was the

candidate for the rent is too darn high party. that was all over youtube, it was amazing. "saturday night live" did a skit on it. every first-term candidate should watch this guy. he clearly understands marketing. i think we should start our own political party, and it's going to be the debt is too darn high. they've gone from $4 trillion in '92 to $14 trillion. it's projected to almost double to over $26 trillion. the voters, i think, they've pulled the fire alarm. they said, we need to stop this ride. here's what happens in congress. some people propose a program. they say t going to benefit old people, young people, poor people, single moms, the unemployed, the homeless. if you care about these people, you will vote for the spending. and here's what the republicans in congress do. they say, well, we're not like the democrats. we only want to spend half what they spend. and so we become democrat-light. well, the reality is you try to get in a competition about who

can spend the most, if you define compassion as spending the most, we're going to lose that battle, and we're off to the races. and before you know it if you vote against any of these programs, all of a sudden you're labeled an uncaring, unfeeling friend of the rich, a friend of wall street, even a friend of fox news. horrible. [laughter] the bottom line is this, we need to put our country in a different direction. we need to understand that the federal government isn't the answer to all of our problems. we need to understand that every dollar they spend is not free that comes out of our pockets. 37 cents out of every dollar they spend right now is borrowed. that means they're taking that money from our children and grandchildren. the ninth and final example i want to share with you from the book, i've got a chapter entitled, do we really want to be like europe? what do i mean by that? i talked to you earlier about american exceptionalism. our president remarked and responded he was sure people in other countries felt the same way about their countries as well. when asked about american exceptionalism, he didn't take

the opportunity to say, of course, we live in the greatest country in the history of the world. indeed, remember he went overseas and called himself not only a citizen of the united states, but a citizen of the world. i'm not even sure what that means. i'm here to tell you i'm a citizen of america, and i believe in america's place in the world. i make the case for american exceptionalism. now, let me warn you in sophisticated circles it is considered unenlightened to say we live in the greatest country in the world, that america is the most powerful country in the world is actually the best thing for everyone. both those statements, let me warn you, they'll get you kicked out of the faculty lounge. you'll be kicked off the guest list for the next cocktail party in washington, they might even bring you up on charges in the hague, so be careful saying things like this. [laughter] i'm here to take on all comers. yes, america is the greatest country in the world. there's just no place on earth with our combination of freedom, opportunity and commitment to doing the right thing. and make no mistake about it,

the world is safest when america is strongest. that seems undebatable to me. i had a great opportunity to meet with the prime minister netanyahu of israel. it seems to me foreign leaders understand. they understand the importance, the foreign leaders of democratic free market country out there understand the important role that america has to play and must play for the entire world to be a safer place. america uses our power for the preservation of possess and the pursuit -- peace and the pursuit of liberty and freedom. in the course of human history, that is a very unique thing. i want you to think about it. we're not about building empires, leaving our troops abroad permanently except to protect our allies. we should be proud of it, we shouldn't have to apologize for it. all of this stuff as taking our seat in the family of nations is misguided. america's not just another country. let me be clear, i'm not saying we're better people, i'm just saying the founding fathers of america got it right, and as long as we don't screw up what

they have started -- and by the way, we could screw it up -- as long as we don't, this country will remain the greatest in the world. i want to close on a final story before i take questions, and can it's this: people ask me because i outline in the book talking about energy policy and education policy and the war on terrorism, but i'm not a cynic at all. i'm not a pessimist at all. i truly believe our best days as a country are ahead of us, not behind us. and if you don't believe me or you ever want to recharge your patriotism or your sense of hope or faith, i invite you to the best party you'll ever attend. it's a ceremony when the troops come home from overseas. in louisiana our national guard, we've got 3,000 national guardsmen in iraq this year, and almost a thousand guardsmen fighting the oil off or coast. they've been activated for hurricanes and oil spills, we've

got guardsmen in haiti and all over the world. we've given medals to the troops to thank them for their service. i've visited with families of those that have lost a child or grandchild over there. one of the just thousands of stories of louisiana national guardsmen, i met him for the first time in 2008, he was coming back from iraq. now, he had been gone for almost an entire year. his unit had been over there, and we were waiting for the planes to come. they were late, so i was on the tarmac, and i ended up visiting with all of the families there, and i met one young woman in particular. she was holding her baby, she was a young wife, a young mother, so excited her husband was coming home. she said, governor; i'm not complaining. but she said, when he enlisted, i didn't sign up to be a single mom. she said, i'm proud he served his country, but she said he's only been home for the birth of our child, he's been gone the entire time. i'm excited he's coming home. you know that young man was excited to be coming back as well. you can get a picture of your

child by internet, e-mail or letter, it's not the same as holding your baby and watching them grow. and so eventually the planes landed. as the planes landed, as the troops were getting off the plane, they were just swarmed by their families, their spouses, their parents, their kids, the kids are waving the flags, the parents have pictures of their children. everyone is so excited. i got lost in the confusion, and after several minutes, though, i heard this woman call out my name saying, governor jindal, would you come over here and get my picture made? i said, i'd be honored. she said, look, i wanted you to meet my husband. this is the guy i was telling you about. would you get your picture made with us? i'd be honored to do that. she gave her camera to her friend, and can the friend was trying to figure out the camera, so we're standing there waiting, and i started visiting with the husband. i asked him about his unit, the progress in iraq, what they had seen, what they had done over there. it was back in 2008. and then i made a mistake. i asked this young soldier a

question i never should have asked him. and before i tell you the rest of the story, i will are remind you i was a brand new governor, in my defense. [laughter] it's not like they give you a book telling you how to be governor. [laughter] nobody told me what you're supposed to say and not supposed to say. so i'm meeting this young man, i was just curious. i said, son, you've been gone for almost an entire year, i'm just curious, when you get home tonight, what's the first thing you want to do when you get home? [laughter] now, i thought maybe he'd want to eat some louisiana shrimp or crawfish, take a hot shower. [laughter] his wife interrupted him. she wouldn't let him speakment i don't know what she thought he was going to say, but she said, governor, i'll tell you what he's going to do. i said, yes, ma'am. she said, he's going to change a year's worth of diapers, that's what he's going to do. he hasn't been home all year. [laughter] i said, well, son, i can't save you from that, good luck.

second time i saw him several months later, i was giving a talk, he came up to see me, he goes, remember me, governor? i go, yeah. he goes, thanks a lot. i've been doing nothing but changing diapers. [laughter] let me tell you the third time i saw him. i told you a thousand guardsmen had been activated to fight the oil spill, what an amazing job they did. they moved 46 million pounds of sand, rock and dirt to fill in dozens of passes so we could fight that oil before it got into our wetlands. down on elmer's island in thunder bayou, they pilled in half a dozen of those passes. they built land bridges using helicopters to graters and everything they could to build these land bridges all over the coast. they would work 24 hours a day under big lights out there, and the heat and during the day, during the night, and they'd build these land bridges, armor them with rocks. thank god they did. used to be open water, they built a land bridge, the oil

would get past the boom, it'd be trapped by the land bridge time and time again. then they'd go vacuum it up, and if that land bridge hadn't been there, that oil would have gone straight into the wetlands, straight into thest you wares. that was one of our last lines of defense. so i was out there just to try to help spfd the work, see what they were doing. the young man driving me looked familiar. he said, governor, do you remember me? it was the same young man that had come back from iraq in 2008. and that's what's amazing about these men and women in uniform. they run towards danger, not away from it so we can be safe. now, i still couldn't help myself, i said, son, look, last time i saw you -- [laughter] i said, you just had one child. i'm just curious, have you had any more children sense then? i know you wanted a larger family. he said, governor, we wouldn't have time. you guys keep deploying me. [laughter] our kids get it. our kids get it. we live in a culture that celebrates celebrities for being

famous. our kids understand the importance of honoring our real heros. i came home to the mansion one day, my little boy comes up to the front door yelling, daddy's home. he was so happy i was home before he went to bed. he comes and grabs my legs. i lift him up so i can see him face to face, he's still yelling, daddy's home. i said, sean, i can hear you, i know, i'm home. [laughter] he looks at me and says, dad, show me your badge. [laughter] i don't have a badge. he goes, you mean i'm not a state trooper? i said, son, look at this house i'm governor of the great state of louisiana. he thought about this for a minute, gave me a disappointed look only a son can give his father. [laughter] do you think you might become a state trooper one day? [laughter] i said, son, i'll work on it. [laughter] we are blessed to live in the greatest country in the history of the world. don't let anybody tell you otherwise, and don't for a minute forget that our best days are ahead of us, not behind us

thanks to the fact there are men and women willing to run into danger, not away from it so we can be safe, and as long as there are young boys and girls that understand our real heros aren't the folks that are famous for being famous, but our real heros are the men and women who serve us, and my publisher would be mad if i didn't say "leadership in crisis." about ten more times. i'll stop there and be happy to take your questions. thank y'all for having me. [applause] thank you. thank y'all very much. [applause] thank you. thank y'all very much. thank y'all. thank. i know we've got a few minutes for a few questions, and so i'll be happy to take questions. yes, ma'am. >> what is the current status --

[inaudible] finish. >> a great question. the question was the current status of the moratorium, the impact -- >> and thank you for -- [inaudible] >> oh, thank you. [laughter] she said thank you for not using a teleprompter. i think i've proven to the country i can't read a teleprompter. i'll leave that to the president. [laughter] on the moratorium, let me talk about the moratorium. first of all, let's remember how we got it. the secretary of interior, maybe you saw the inspector general's report last week that basically said the secretary of the department of the interior consulted 15 of their own hand-picked engineering experts. now, those experts made specific recommendations about how drilling could be done more safely in the gulf. what the department did was they added the six month moratorium to those recommendations, made it appear like it was peer review. eight of those experts immediately spoke up and said, wait a minute, we never saw the moratorium, we don't agree, we don't think it will make drilling occur more safely in

the gulf. nobody in louisiana wants to see another explosion, loss of life, another oil spill in the water. but it is also true that we want the federal government to do its job so our people can go back to work. it's also true we don't want them to have this one size fits all moratorium. there were redundant equipment, more federal inspectors on every rig, there was recommendations to do well pressure tests and other things that would have made drilling happen more safely. and here's the frustrating thing, when we talk to the administration, it's like they didn't understand how the industry worked. they said to me, well, don't worry about it, the rigs can't go there, the oil's still there. 40 of those rigs have gone to africa that we know about. how is sending that equipment and jobs overseas helping our curve? and then another -- country? and then another frustrating conversation, president's attitude was, look, folks will get a check from bp. and i said, well, look, mr. president, i don't think bp's going to give these laid off

workers checks, he said, well, then don't worry, they can get an unemployment check. our people want to go back to work, and them going back to work and good and -- is good and important for not only louisiana, but our entire country. now, on paper they lifted the moratorium. they haven't issued a permit yet. there was a de facto moratorium in shallow water. they issued -- they have begun to issue more of those shallow water permits. it's still not at a normal pace even though that's a completely different environment than the deep water where this incident occurred. the secretary of interior's scheduled to come to my state tomorrow and monday, and i'm hopeful they're going to say that they're going to provide a predictable regulatory environment because the companies can follow the rules as long as they know what the rules are. but the fact that the rules always seem to be changing and there's uncertainty, and can it goes back to what i was saying at the beginning. this administration doesn't seem to understand the uncertainty about tax rates, cap and trade, the moratorium, i'll tell you a quick story, they want to invest

up to $3.4 billion in my state building the most modern steel facility in this country. 1,250 permanent jobs, average pay $75,000. indeed, they've spent tens of millions of dollars buying the land several months ago. i've been talking to their ceo for the last two years about this project. several months ago he'd already told me, look, based on our conversations and what you're doing in the state, he said if we build in america, we'll build in louisiana. but he also told me based on the uncertainty in washington, they're also looking at brazil. now, i'm glad they finally chose about a month ago to proceed in louisiana. but think of the jobs we missed out for the last two years while they were waiting for congress? and again, somebody's going to have to explain to me how sending those jobs and investment to brazil helps our environment and economy. the greatest impact of the moratorium has been the uncertainty. the multibillion, multi-national

companies will be fine. they'll go over to africa, they'll make their money. it's the fabrication shops, the caterers, the restaurants, the small, medium-sized businesses, the louisiana workers that can't leave, they're the ones being impacted. the federal government was so happy, they bragged. they said it was only going to cost 8-12,000 jobs in the gulf coast. well, the private industry estimates are higher than that. regardless, try to tell those families where it's tough to pay their bills. and these are proud peel. these are hard working people that work along this coast. they want to go back fishing, producing energy for the country. so the moratorium on paper is no longer there but, in effect, still is, and i think the federal judge said it better than anybody. he called it arbitrary and capricious. we just want them to listen to their own experts. we want them to be connected to the facts on the ground, and the moratorium is clearly an example where they didn't do that to the detriment of my state and our country as well.

we'll do one more. >> hi, governor, my name is raymond. professors and students are always apologizing for america and trying to lift up europe as the greatest continent in the world in my polysigh class we're taught that sweden is the greatest country in the world, not america. so my question is how do we -- why do you think college professors do this, and how do we combat this and teach our young people why america is the greatest country on this earth? >> well, first of all, thank you for being here. i went upstairs and thanked a lot of the other college students for being here as well. let me share with you just a couple of my experiences at college, and leapt me say this -- let me say this, i had a great experience at brown. got a great education. there is something about mettle sharpening mettle. i heard some of the most aggressive and articulate defenses of liberal philosophy you'll hear, and i think it was a good thing for a young

conservative to hear those. i don't stand up here to tell you we need affirmative action for conservatives on our university campuses. [laughter] i'll tell you a story i repeat in the book about talking to the president, and i asked him the question. then-president larry summers at harvard university i asked him why there were so few -- we were talking about diversity, and i said you guys look at diversity in so many different ways. what about intellectual and ideological diversity? i said, you know, we were having a conversation with jesse ventura, an editor for "the washington post". it was a pretty interesting group of characters in this lunch, and i said, you know, you look at the washington press corps, the vast majority will self-admit they voted for the democratic candidate in the last presidential election. college faculty will be a decidedly more liberal tilt than the general population, so i asked president summers, i said why is it as harvard, the conservatives are just not proportionally here on the campus, and he said something that was shocking to me.

he said, well, the reason that is, he says, you know, evangelical christians tend not to send their children to harvard, and he said that's probably good for them, and can he said, it's probably good for us. now, let me say a couple things. one, he wasn't being ugly or fencive, i think he was being honest in saying what others may think and just don't say. i'm not here to criticize larry summers. i mean, he was being honest. he said, look, as a percentage of the student population, you're not what you would expect in the rest of the country. but i did think it was interesting, if he had said that about almost any other group, there would have been protests and boycotts and can all kinds of outrage. and i remember as a student, you know, you talked about some of your experiences. i remember being in a class where we had to write essays, and it seemed like everybody in the class was trying harder to be more of a victim than the person next to them. and now brown has a wide array of students from different backgrounds, but there were a lot of upper middle class students, and i look around the

campus i and think these are pretty fortunate people on a beautiful campus getting a great education. every paper talked about how awful their childhood had been. i wrote a paper about how happy i was and how blessed i was and what a great family i had. well, my professor sent the paper back saying, you know, you just thought you were happy. [laughter] you didn't realize -- i thought, i don't even know what that means. what do they mean i thought? i was happy. when i went to brown, it was 1988, it was a presidential election year, and i went there, and i wanted to join the college republicans, get involved in a campaign. they told me, look, the college democrats are the conservatives here. the marxists are the liberals, the democrats are the conservatives. [laughter] if we admit a republican, it's by mistake. so we started the college republican chapter, i eventually headed up the state chapter in rhode island. we became the biggest club on campus, and that was about 100% penetration. that was about every single republican on campus. every other student pretty much

disagreed with us, and i can't tell you how many times i was in classes where people would say, well, you're the first person i met that believes a, b or c. a couple pieces of advice. one, i think you'll have a much richer educational experience than your fellow students who go to classes where everybody agrees with them. as long as you're willing to stand up and speak up for what you believe, and you'll have to defend it with articulate and well thought out, well-reasoned policies and explanations for why you reach your conclusions. and that's just a great educational experience. and you may have professors that assume if you're a compassionate person, of course, you believe in liberal policies. if you're intelligent, of course you voted for president obama. it is a great opportunity as a college student to challenge yourself and to be forced to respond to those arguments. in terms of why the professors are disproportionately that way, i do think it becomes a self-selecting group, and i write in the book, you know, you think about it, why are most of the folks that go into government service they tend to be more liberal and democratic.

they don't say our highest aspiration is to go do those things. that's not to belittle some very accomplished intellectual conservative professors and accomplished conservative government leaders, but conservatives, you know, peggy noonan wrote this when she was talking -- i was describing her book "when character was king," in talking about ronald reagan before he ran for president having to stop and think about whether it was an appropriate use of his talents and times and that conservatives don't normally aspire to that. that's not, you know, as we raise conservatives, we raise our children. we don't say if you work really hard, one day you, too, could go work for the federal government. that's not the dream in a conservative family. [laughter] we don't say if you work really hard, one day you'll likely become a university professor. so i think conservatives also do -- and we need to look at working on our college campuses and in government, i recommend in the book that maybe we as conservatives need to spend a little bit of time doing that. maybe consider it missionary

work. don't go and do it full time or for a lifetime, go do it for a while, then go back into the real world. conservatives are paying the bills working in jobs, creating jobs, running businesses. in other words, making this country grow and survive. i will tell you this, you ask those professors when they go solicit donations from their alumni, i guarantee they're a whole lot more conservative than the professors teaching in the classrooms. i'll close with this, you know, in terms of -- i applaud you for being here. the most important thing you can do is stand for your beliefs. the worst thing you can do is go along just to get along. the worst thing you can do is say, well, the professor believes it, i need to believe it too. let's look at what america's done not only for americans, america if it wasn't for america you go back, america has now saved the world. you think about it, we're now in our third -- just in the last 100 years -- the third time

america is working to save the world from the forces of evil. you go back to world war ii, it was america that stood between totalitarianism and freedom and democracy-loving countries. you go back to the cold war thanks to president reagan and his leadership, it was america that stood between communism and the free world. and now the war on terrorism. it is america that's taken the lead. we've got allies, don't get me wrong, but it's america that's taken the lead. you go back to the professors and you say, where would this world be? where would your beloved european countries be if it hadn't been for america? not once, not twice, but three times. and i write in the book, no offense to europe, but many of them are now trading their liberty for security. we're a young, dynamic, growing country. we must not make that trade-off. i had a professor at brown who told me this, and i'll leave you with one final final thought. his name was ashley, he was a professor, and he said, bobby, you're too smart not to be a socialist. [laughter] he encouraged us to call him by his first name. i said, ashley, you're too smart

not to be a republican. [laughter] so he left it at that. he said, fair enough, i'll leave you alone. i encourage you all to get "leadership in crisis." thank you very much for listening to me today. [applause] >> for more information on governor bobby jindal and his work, visit bobbyjindal.com. >> we're here at the national press club talking with mark feldstein about his new book, "poisoning the press." can you tell us what this book is about? >> you bet. the title comes from the fact that during the nixon white house they actually plotted to poison a journalist, an investigative reporter named jack anderson. nobody under the age of 60 probably remembers who he was or knows who he was, but at the peak he was the most famous and feared investigative reporter in the country. and he drove richard nixon

crazy. and the white house tapes are filled with all of these attempts to get anderson, to ultimately culminating in this an actual plot to poison him. >> do you know if anyone else had previously written about this particular aspect of the nixon history? >> no. nobody had. and can it was really surprising to me. i was an investigative reporter myself, and then i went to grad school, and i'm a historian now. so this intersection between history and journalism is a lot of great dirt in the past to be found if you know where to look and how to look and interview the right people. and there are amazing tales i found in my book of sex sandals and love letters and blackmail and burglary and bribery and forgery. all the stuff, really juicy stuff in history that the civics textbooks leave out. >> what are the more surprising things that you found in writing this book? >> i'm not sure i can say them on the air. one of them was the way j. edgar

hoover slimed martin luther king. that's been known, but i got hold of the transcripts and memos that describe actually what hoover distributed to the press and oliver washington of what king supposedly said in bed, stories of him chasing prostitutes. i mean, they were made-up allegations, so that was pretty startling to me. another was an allegation i came across that president ford when he was still in congress was involved with a call girl ring that a lobbyist supplied at a hotel in washington, and the details are all in my book. and, you know, that kind of a scandal -- oh, and that the fbi did actually bug this hotel suite in washington and, supposedly, blackmailed ford about this. you know, those are the kind of scandals that had they broken at the time would have completely ended a career in washington. and in this day and age, i don't think something like that would