welfare costs play and the obama administration is dissent? doesn't make any sense to use that in defense of the mandate? >> there is the question for a different reasons that you should address to the members of the administration and if you want to know the reasons that i cannot answer the question is i don't know, i have not study the law. that is always a good reason for making an opinion. [laughter] by a greek sometimes it does not stop may. [laughter] but another reason is some of those questions that could come in front of us. the reason that the judge's 10 -- 10 to not to express their opinion not just a moral code of ethics even though it is, it is because you will find, and i have found that very often when

you have to think something's through and have a really good argument on all sides, and maybe with their right to die case, 80 briefs are 100 briefs and the affirmative-action case, and we will read those. bid your opinion is not always the same as when you started. be aware of answers you may give at a cocktail party because you do not want to be held to that. [laughter] . .

>> we had to be some that. at me my view is really a self-pitying remark i made up to make. i do have a vote. [laughter] so, so that different people have different views. some say no, we shouldn't read that, because we are just interested in what the text says that the representative has voted on and is at the question of that vote on a text and don't go beyond that because it is too much risk of distortion and so forth, and others like myself say i want to read whatever i can read to get enlightenment about what those obscure words and believe me they are obscure, because we are not obscure on their face.

what is that case doing in our court? so i want to see what you wrote. i expect you, like me, if you wrote it would have tried to write something that was not going to be viewed as wrong by the congressman or senator for whom we work. >> is there a difference between a committed record and debate on the floor where the individual members get up in the pine? >> when there is a committee report i know perfectly well i think in virtually every state, it was sent around to the members, staff of the committee so they'll had a chance to go over it and they could jets and the staff -- the congressman, maybe he or she wanted jack but the staff person will, because he knows what he is supposed to be doing there. button with the -- the people can say anything. but sometimes i'm not thinking of, you know things that are great political moments.

sometimes they are little political moments. they might be some obscure her revisions of bankruptcy code and suddenly somebody wakes up because the lawyer told them that my god, look at those words. nobody's going to know what they mean. what wachovia do? he says if you do your work well as a staff, you then go to that lawyer's worst enemy and say what do you think of this? sometimes it turns out that everybody thinks, please introduce it, it will help. so you introduce it and that kind of statement. i can remember in section 13, you remember what that was, the uniform uniform something, can't remember. mass transit relation with unions and it was very very obscure and they had a couple of senators there who were saying the way it works as it doesn't mean us and then introducer says yeah that is what it means that somebody else gets up and says absolutely we are sure it means

that. and you see everybody all over the rim saying that is what it means, you think they wanted it to serve that purpose and that is helpful and sometimes it means that and it doesn't mean that at all. >> with respect to the presidential war power, in may of 1941, franklin roosevelt received a message from british prime minister winston churchill that the german battleship bismarck had broken out into the atlantic and was a menace to all shipping and a mortal threat to england. having asked his nonlawyer adviser robert sherwood if you would be impeached if he ordered the americans to try to sink the ship, he settled for authorizing the pb white patrol plane partly piloted by an american crew to help the search for the bismarck when the british lost it and the pb wife found the ship. so there is a 6.5 months before pearl harbor and the united

states has assisted in the sinking of germany's best capital ship. if justice or your were sitting in a court ruling on that was that a lawful exercise of the president for power? >> there are many questions involving the war power and the past that likely could never come before us. [laughter] [inaudible] speier reaction is sort of suggesting is something that is quite interesting and certainly president -- present in the case. jackson said in his dissent, he said here is what we should do. 1944, we know there was no risk of invasion in california. there is in today. and probably there wasn't a 1942. but in january 42 in california, people thought there was.

and as long as they think there is, they will act, they will act to protect the country. regardless of what we say. so let them do it. and a 1944, we will say they were wrong. but don't say they were right because if we say they were right, that president lies there he said like a loaded gun, ready to be misused in the next time. now that's dramatic and it makes a lot of sense but actually i have to say and you really think about it, i don't think that is right. i prefer murphy, who said it was wrong then and it is wrong now, and the reason i don't like it is because if you try to have rules that are so unrealistic that the president feels he has to violate the law to save the country, sometimes you won't because you just can't and the

country won't be safe, and sometimes he will violate the law too often, so it is better if you can do it. if you make the law consistent with those necessities, it will arise to save the country and that is much easier said than done. and that is why there aren't really good definite, clear overarching answers to this kind of question and you perceive it live bit, little bit i little bit and don't hold too much too fast. [applause] >> how do you feel the court adapts with new justices in place over so many years and again had he feel the greater public of the united united staf america interprets the judges as being -- as judges are put in and as they retire how do you feel the american public

interprets it becomes an accord and how right he is. i mean one person changes the dynamic. get to know people on the court very well and you get used to working together. you know pretty well but they think and how they will react to different situations. it is a good working river station ship. is a healthy relationship. people shouted she each other and no words raised in anger, no people being rude to each other. we are perfectly good friends on a personal basis. that was true and it is true. and a new person will change that working dynamic. he will not or she will not. she will not lead to people

being rude but she in this case in the last two will in fact make a difference because it will come a different experience and different approaches and they will change the arguments about many things in different ways. >> do you feel the american public views you different every time? be every time do that? the public eye and large gets its views through the press and television and so forth and so a lot depends on what is said there. it is only in a very long run and maybe never. you know people understand fully. linda has gone back and written a really good look on harry blackmun and what was the abortion decisions at that time and she had to go through dozens of papers and so forth, and that look will probably have an influence on how people see that court and those abortions

decisions but that is the job of history. >> good evening justice. my name is kennedy. i lived the past 21 years of my life in the state of new york. remember every second of my 11. the girl down the street loft -- lost her father. my question is this. one day at work i opened up the paper in the paper took mayor bloomberg has had the -- constitutional right to have a mosque near ground zero. my question to you is, do you believe in the constitutional right or to the people of new york have a reason to deny a mosque being put there for cosmetic reasons, for reasons that has outshined any memorial we had to these people who died? >> well, i knew you were talking about something that is very much, a very great intense emotional interest to a lot of

people and moreover i can't say too much about it, because who knows what will happen legally. but i would say this, that i have an impression that when we as a country and do sometimes get into these very emotional arguments, there is also a countervailing tendency before deciding anything and before really making up your mind to go back to try to find out what the facts actually are. and that is illegal and staying. a lot of people share it. and then want to find out what the facts really are, then you try to figure out what really would make sense given a lot of desires that sometimes conflict. so i think, what i would suggest to people who are interested in this is that there are people with web sites including the group that wants to put out, i think from what i know, it is a community center and it will have the mosque in a place of worship inside from what i've i read in the paper.

for muslims, jewish christian and others, so i would suggest you go and look up the facts and find out what you think is the case and what is in the case and then make up your mind. that is an answer you would expect from me. i'm a judge. >> i think we have time for the three people in line and probably that will be yet. >> it seems to me your pragmatist approach would require get to have some sort of knowledge or understanding of the general will of the people for the value system and the current value system of people as a whole. justice holmes kind of thought about the average experience in how you can establish loss on that and sort of an aggregate of different experiences in our country. my question first of all is, does it require some sort of understanding of public opinion? is a required understanding of the value systems that we as a country have right now? and secondly how do you find

that aggregate of experience? as a gesture opinion polls like you've talked about our alternative methods to sort of understand? >> no, my reaction when i hear the question is to say no, yes and it's more complex thing. i'm not taking a new count of some poll of how people are feeling about a particular case that i have decided. that is out and what i do think and pragmatism isn't necessarily the right word either. i've called this thing sort of a practical approach. i've called it not a set theory but a series of approaches and the approaches of different from area to area, and so it's -- it doesn't have to much bearing on how i'm going to decide cases. but i'm tempted to contradict what i just said.

[laughter] of course i do have some concerns, that people don't understand well enough how the court works, and i think it might help a little bit, a little bit. is really just sort of like trying to do my part. to write something that will help explain how i see it, even if my approach isn't the right approach. there are many different ways of going about this. >> it is kind of what i was getting at you spoke earlier. >> i think we need to get onto the next person. >> hi, good evening. i enjoy the colloquy so much. i am recalling an incident which seems rather rare to me. i have a recollection of it only happened once in my adult life, and i wonder if you could comment on this as to whether it was a way for the court to make democracy work, and that was where the court invited, don't

remember if it was a party or a judge -- there was an issue that was not presented by the party arguing before the court and the court itself reached out and i believe that was to mr. coleman, to come in and argue on behalf of another interest. i think it was a civil rights case. i don't remember when it was or if you were on the court at the time. >> early 1980s. >> it seems such an unusual thing for the court to do and i wonder if you might comment on whether that really was appropriate and would it advance your concept of making the court. >> well mr. coleman is here and linda remembers that incident and i will be biased because mr. goldman as a friend of mine and i'm sure it was a good idea. [laughter]

>> five seconds a context on that. that was an instance where the regular -- reagan administration was new and had refused to defend a position taken by the internal revenue service under many previous administrations, so the question was who was going to, who is going to argue the case? and so they distinguish up in court advocate was invited by the court to take the position that the new administration had abandoned and there was nothing at all inappropriate about it? it was a course way of making sure that the argument got heard >> and that happens sometimes. it is not totally rare. it might've been rare in circumstances because the whole thing was ready because usually it will spot in advance when the two sites for example don't want to argue something and even before the case is being argued you will appoint a lawyer to argue this part.

>> you have the honor serve the last question. >> my name is coleman too. [laughter] i suspect i could probably get in trouble if i were to offer a donation to a policeman has got me in traffic, and yet i could probably not get in trouble for offering a $2 billion for a congressman to effect a change that would be personally beneficial to me. as someone who has lived in this area for a long time i sort of feel pity for the naïveté of the tea baggers and the tea party people coming in here with very little understanding of the dynamics of money in this government. certainly in the city. and i am just wondering you are talking about things you can undo. if he could didn't do something where people would say yeah with the best government money can

buy. >> question, question? >> is their legal way to undo conflation of bribery and the first amendment rights? >> you were thinking of the case that came up with the citizens united and i joined john stevens and every instinct i had about being cautious suggest that i should go no further than that in trying to answer your question. [laughter] [applause] >> i think we had a good time and we are grateful for you for joining us. [applause] >> stephen breyer is an associate justice of the u.s. supreme court.

he was appointed to the court in 1994 by president bill clinton. to find out more about the court, visit supreme court.gov. some of the authors who touched upon it through their work. this weekend on booktv, we take you to downtown indianapolis for a look at the new kurt vonnegut but more a library. >> kurt vonnegut is perhaps the greatest american writer. he was a world war ii veteran. he was a hoosier. he was a satirist. he was a political activist. he was a husband. he was a father. he was a friend. he was a friend to his fans. he would write back to his fans. he wrote more than 30 pieces of work, including novels, short

stories, some of his more familiar books are slaughterhouse five, which is perhaps his most famous. breakfast of champions, cat's cradle and many other books. vonnegut always brought in his midwestern roots and often wrote about indiana and indianapolis specifically and if i may read a quote, many people ask me why did this -- is as vonnegut library here in indianapolis and i have many different answers but then i found this great quote that says, all my jokes are indianapolis, all my attitudes are indianapolis. my adenoids are indianapolis. if i ever separate itself from indianapolis, i would be a business. what people like about me is indianapolis. so, we took that as a green light to go ahead and establish

the vonnegut library here in indianapolis. we have an art gallery, a museum room, a reading room, a gift shop and i would like to share details about these with you today. this is a kurt vonnegut timeline if you would about male would like to read the quote at the top of this beautiful painting, which was created by the artist chris king and by a body get scholar named rodney allen and both of these individuals is live in louisiana. the quote reads, all moments past present and future, always have existed, always will exist. they can look at all the different moments, just the way we can look at a stretch of the rocky mountains for instance. they can see how permanent all the moments are. it is just an illusion we have here on earth that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.

something that is unique about her timeline is we actually start on the right side and move to the left, rather than the left-sided move to the right. one thing we wanted to mention about this quote, we hope that vonnegut would know that while he may think, may have thought that once a moment is gone it is gone forever, we like to think that the moment of kurt vonnegut will move on forever here at the vonnegut library. he went to cornell university. he was studying chemistry. he did not plan to go into architecture like his father, but he did think he would move into a science career and discovered at cornell that he was not very much interested in doing that, so he enlisted in the army during world war ii, and i would like to point out a moment here on the timeline that

is very important in the life of curt -- kurt vonnegut in 1944. is dying from an overdose probably intentional of alcohol and sleeping pills. vonnegut anders combat in europe and is captured by germans in belgium during the battle of the bulge. soon he is writing in a boxcar with other american p.o.w.s to dresden, supposedly safe german city, unlikely to be bombed. so dresden was this beautiful cultural city that was not a military target. as vonnegut wrote -- rode in on the train he was able to view this beautiful city and then he was placed in a slaughterhouse where the rest of the prisoners of war were held. has slaughterhouse with slaughterhouse five. we have an exhibit that we call the dresden exhibit that is really his world war ii experience that became so important in his writings and

his worldview later in his life. i will start with a photo that was taken right after he was released as a prisoner of war, along with fellow prisoners. we also have his purple heart that was donated by his friend mark vonnegut to us. he received a purple heart for frostbite and kurt vonnegut was embarrassed to have received a purple heart for frostbite. so many of his friends had suffered from other types of physical problems and disease. we have a first edition of the book slaughterhouse five. this is important, because slaughterhouse five is probably the most well-known book written by curt vonnegut of the 30 some pieces of writing that he completed.

this was possibly the most famous. >> why? >> let me give a little bit of history about what happened to him in germany. and my impressions of wyatt affected people so much. vonnegut as i read was taking to this later house. while he was in dresden, the allies bombed dresden and so his own countrymen as well as allies bombed the city. it was a horrible bombing. it was literally a firestorm and tens of thousands of people were killed. these were noncombatants. these were women and children and old people, and vonnegut, one of his pacts as a prisoner was to go out and remove the bodies you know, from these burning buildings and he also was required to bury their dead

bodies of women and children and that affected his life tremendously. he came back from his world war ii experience being completely against war. he was searching for peaceful resolution to conflict and supported diplomacy and other approaches to solving problems. i will also point out a photo that was taken after he came back from the war. he got married to jane cox vonnegut, who was from indianapolis as well. this photo was taken on their honeymoon and you can see he is in uniform. vonnegut and jane had three children. march, it eb and a net, nanny, and then many years later, his sister alice died just a day or two after her husband had died

in a freak train accident. alice had four children and three of them came to live at the vonnegut family, so they had quite a large household, seven children and vonnegut at that time was writing books that at that time were less familiar, but he had published several books and articles from magazines as well as working a job as a car salesman for sob. the experience of writing about dresden and what happened to him was tremendously difficult for vonnegut. would take him about 20 years to be able to publish the book, slaughterhouse five. jane, his wife, had encouraged him to write it. she worked as his editor on the book. she asked questions and got

clarity on issues and helped him to retrieve a lot of those memories that he had repressed. because of the family situation with the addition of war children, and the success that was coming with the publishing of slaughterhouse five, his marriage with jane was rocky. his daughter, ed, had mentioned about a month ago that that experience and the publishing of the book and all that fame it brought to vonnegut contributed to their marriage dissolving. and at that time, vonnegut had met the photographer, jill cremins, and eventually married jill cremins and she was his second wife and was the only other person he was married to during his lifetime.

i will move you over here to what we call the political activity exhibit, and vonnegut continued to talk about his interest in finding peaceful solutions to conflict. i think that is another thing that makes him very popular during the vietnam war -- years and after this photo, which was given to us by "the new york times," was taken during the first gulf war and there is vonnegut out there at the university. i'm sure that it was a large crowd, because even vonnegut would attract a large crowd. i have been told that he was like a rock star with his

different speeches and large auditoriums, always filling the auditorium's. so here we are in the art gallery portion of our library. i would like to take you over here and show you a vonnegut quote that is signed and given to us by his artistic collaborator, joe petro. i don't know what it is about hoosiers, but wherever you go there is always a hoosier doing something very important there. this quote was in the book, cat's cradle, and it is a very funny exchange that the main character has with a fellow traveler on a plane and that fellow traveler gives this quote so next, we have possibly his most famous piece of artwork, the. vonnegut, in his humor, he associated the asterisk with this anatomical feature, and we

actually have used this asterisk in other pieces of art, including our timeline, which you may have thought had stars in the sky that they are actually vonnegut's asterisk in the sky. we also have life is no way to treat an animal. this is the tombstone for his famous character, kilgore trial, who appeared in many, many of his books. it is understood that kilgore trial is based on vonnegut himself. interestingly, the character died at the age of 84 and vonnegut also happen to die at the age of 84. >> what did kurt vonnegut died from?

>> he collapsed. he fell down the steps of his new york city home. and he went into a coma and never came out of that coma. he often jokes that cigarettes would kill him and he would sue the make or zip palmolive because the warning label on the cigarette package said that palm all of would kill him and they have not yet done so. but he actually happened to be smoking it pall mall while standing on the steps. so next we have here too, of artwork created by morley safer of 60 minutes fame. morley is one of our honorary board members. he was a close friend of kurt vonnegut. they actually both shared a close friend sidney offutt who wrote the introduction for the last vonnegut book that came out, but these two pieces of art, the first on vacation of kurt vonnegut's earth day was

created in 2003 as a gift to vonnegut. and then the second was created when, when morley found out that vonnegut had died. and that was 2007. we are in the front of the kurt vonnegut library in the gallery from. we have kurt vonnegut's typewriter that was used in the 1970s. this was donated to us by his daughter, nanny. he wrote many of his more familiar books during the 1970s. we are happy to have this typewriter. he was not a fan of high technology and he did not use a computer. he preferred to use a typewriter to his dying day. he liked to work in his home on

an office chair and a coffee table. he would slump over his typewriter. vonnegut would go out into the world every day. he talks about how he had learned that you can buy postage stamps over the internet, and he just thought that was horrible, because then if he chose that route, he would not have the everyday experience of going to the post office. and those everyday experiences and the people he encountered touring his daily walks were the basis for some of his stories. he met a number of very interesting characters in new york city, and going out and meeting people was a way for him to capture new material for his work. vonnegut is timeless, because these issues, we still have the

same issues. we are still suffering with war, disease and death, famine, environmental issues,. he said your immune system is trying to get rid of you. he thought we should take care of the planet. these issues you now have resurfaced, and it does not look like we have found any viable solutions to these problems, so you know i think his work is timeless. >> c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country visiting cities and towns as we look at our nations history and some of the authors who have written about it. or more information go to c-span.org/lcv. >> up next, so they contend president obama's economic and foreign-policy plans will weaken the united states and curtail the country superpower status.

he presents his book at the national conference on christian apologetics held at northside baptist church in charlotte, north carolina. this program is 50 minutes. [applause] >> thank you all very much. i didn't realize i was going to have this invisible podium. i am really relieved i remembered to wear pants. [laughter] i am thrilled to be here for the fourth year in a row, speaking at the national apologetics conference. alex mentioned that i have a new job. i'm the president of the king's college. it is a christian college, with

a quite unique mission. most christian colleges in some sense are a shelter from society they protect christian students from what is seen often rightly s. e. influence of mainstream institutions. one of the dangers however is that, when you insulate young people from mainstream institutions, you cut them off from those institutions. the reason that the king's college is in new york city is we don't protect you, but they do prepare you, so our goal is to take bright young students, mostly christians, and equip them to defend their faith and secular society and also to go on to successful and transforming careers at goldman sachs and capitol hill, at cbs

news. in other words we want to prepare christians to flourish and secular society. so if you want to know more about the king's college web site, at www.tkc, the king's college..edu. in my career, i have you might say but 1 foot in two different worlds. on the one hand i have 1 foot in the world of the debates about god and religion. just last night, i had a debate in which i was at the university of wisconsin in madison on is christianity good for the world? but i also have 1 foot in the debates about culture and politics. and i think as christians, we are called to be not only in the world, understanding the world so that we can be a positive influence in it. i want to talk today about

leadership and i want to talk about the ideas and divisions of the man who is leading not only america but in some senses the world. the president of the united states. president obama is in some ways a mystery man. he was perhaps the most unknown guy to come into the white house of any president. a set of very unusual circumstances, including of course and economic nosedive put him in there. and, two years later, a lot of people, not only obama's critics, but even some of his supporters are asking the question, who is barack obama? richard cohen, columnist for the "washington post" and in general a supporter of obama had a column in the "washington post" a few weeks ago titled who is

barack obama? and what richard cohen and others are getting at is that it is very clear obama has a set of policies. we know about those, but what is missing is a description of what is underneath that, what is behind that, what is the ideology if there is one, that is driving those policies? what motivates obama? now interestingly, in the last couple of years, we have had a whole bunch of theories about what motivates obama. these theories are response to the fact that obama does things people don't know why he does them, and so they say he must be this or he must be that and yet in my view when you look at these theories, they really don't fully hold up. they don't make that much sense. both on the left and on the right you have these ideas, explanations for obama. on the right for example it is commonly said, obama is not an

american citizen. he wasn't born in this country or you will hear, obama is a muslim. he is a closet follower of islam. that explains why he came out in favor of the ground zero mosque. or, obama is a progressive. he is kind of a left liberal. he must have picked up some liberal ideologies and college. or, obama is a socialist. not a marxist perhaps, but some kind of a european-style socialist, and that is why he is expanding the size of the government. i think when you begin to examine these theories, you find that they don't quite fit the data. they are like hammers. you have to take the data and sort of work it to make the theory stand up. take for example the idea that obama wasn't born in america. oddly enough by the way, but i wrote a cover story in forbes as

a little preview of my book which is called "the roots of obama's rage," and when the fourth article came out in the white house, this is a very odd robert gibbs white house press secretary. he attacked the book and said dinesh is raising the issue of whether obama was born in kenya. and this is a flat-out distortion of my argument. not only is my book not about where obama was born, but in the book, i say very clearly that as far as i know obama was born in hawaii. how do we know this? well, because in august of 1961, this this is when obama was born, there was a notice into local hawaiian papers including the honolulu sunday advertiser, young barack obama august, 1961. in other words, unless there was an amazing conspiracy dating back 50 years, i feel reasonably

satisfied in believing that the guy was worn in hawaii. is obama a muslim? know. many people think he is. he does stuff that seems strange. for example, why would a president endorsed a ground zero mosque? you no it is not as if obama's advisers, david axelrod, coming to obama in saying hey president obama here poll ratings have slipped, come out for the ground zero mosque. it is not as if that is a politically brilliant thing to do get obama does that. i report in my book that obama endorsed someone secretly -- somewhat secretly the release of the lockerbie bomber. this is a guy named al-megrahi. he is an islamic terrorist, who brought down the pan am jet over lockerbie scotland. several people were killed, the

vast majority of them americans. he was tried and convicted, and yet think you are ago the scottish government -- he was being held in scotland -- proposed to release him and send them home to libya. the obama administration loudly protested and rightly so what american president would be in favor of releasing a terrorist who was directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of americans? and yet, the london times reported that it obtained a letter that the obama brennan is stray shin sent to obama saying to skop scotland we don't think you should release them but if you want do we will not object as long as you keep him in scotland and don't send them back to libya. in other words, it was the scot as officials quoted in the london times think when we got the letter we interpreted it as the american government at essentially saying wink, wink,

we think it is okay to let this geico and they did let them go and today al-megrahi is a free man in libya. now, why would an american president do this? this seems impossible to explain and therefore people say well he must be a muslim. in fact, obama's father, barack obama senior, was born and raised as a muslim. his grandfather had converted to islam. obama stepfather, and in the nation, was also raised as a muslim. but interestingly, both those men became atheists. both those men rejected islam. obama says of his own father, barack senior, he began to give the muslim clerics sort of the way that a few the african witch doctors. he did not take it seriously. he thought it was a joke, and she did not practice islam in any way. and, when you look at obama's own life, it is very clear that

he has no affinity or for practice for islam. he is a christian but a christian of a certain kind and i will come back to that in a moment. he is not a muslim. is obama a socialist? actually know. the socialist very seems much a better fit for obama because after all he has genetically expanded the scope of government the federal government is now intervening and a whole bunch of areas in the private sector that virtually he never went into before, so for example intervening in the areas of banking and financial regulation and markets lending and insurance. obama got up on dan decided who are the head of general motors. the guy deserved to be fired. but it still is unusual for the president of the president of the united states to be putting out the chairman of a private company. so what is happened is we have seen a dramatic expansion of

federal power at home. and at the same time president obama has been contracting or reducing the scope of american power abroad. or in the world. if you summarize the obama's policies it would be strengthening power, and limiting america's power in the world. the socialist very even if it were right would only explain obama's domestic policy. there is no way to cook explained obama foreign-policy. does raise the question of is there an underlying compass or ideology that drives barack obama. the something by the way that has puzzled me. i should say by the way that i am, in some ways i have some eerie similarities to obama. we were both warned the same here. 1961. they both went to an ivy league institution.

and obama's case columbia and that my case dartmouth. we got married in the same year, 1992. and then there's a deeper similarity in a sense. i was born in india. i came to america. i arrived on the american mainline as an exchange student at the age of 17, so my early life, my formative years were in a different place. obama did not arrive on the american mainland until he was 17. obama spent the first 17 years of his life in hawaii, four years in indonesia and subsequently he went to pakistan he made three trips to africa, so he has had a rather different background than many americans. in fact when i was reading obama's book, "dreams from my father," and he was talking about indonesia, is like there he was describing crowded streets, beggars, lepers,

rickshaws, cows crossing the road and as i read this is suddenly hit me wow, this is a world i grew up in, living on the streets of bombay. i recognize immediately that obama was driving the third world. so what is obama strain? what motivates obama? one way to to do that is to ask is obama strain the american dream? is a martin luther king strain? or is it something else? is that the american dream? no. that seems odd to say, because obama is an embodiment of the american dream. during the presidential campaign obama said my story is only possible in america. in essence he is saying america's unique. and yet in a press conference when obama was in europe, he was asked do you believe that america is unique? actually what he was asked is do you believe in american

exceptionalism? american exceptionalism is the academic word or american uniqueness. america is exceptional. is not like any other place. the founder certainly believed america was unique. they called america a novice new order for the ages. obama asked do you believe in american exceptionalism and obama's said no. i don't believe america is in a more exceptional than greece or britain else. so in a sense, obama was rejecting at least this idea of american uniqueness that the founders clearly affirmed. i don't think his dream is the american dream. is that martin luther king's dream? this is a more profound question. martin luther king's dream was a dream of a future in which we will be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character. again, i think one of the great things about obama is that he embodies martin luther king

strain. obama is not fundamentally motivated by race. he is an nonracial president. he doesn't appeal to race. he doesn't talk about it. i think actually that is a major source of his appeal. a lot of people voted for obama because he wasn't you might say jesse jackson. obama in a sense has developed a public first, that is not defined in specifically racial terms. i am attracted to obama and those grounds. in fact, couple of years ago i wrote an article called obama and the end of racism praising obama, saying he is a nice man. he has is has got a nice familyd i think he will help to bring this country a little closer to martin luther king's idea of a colorblind society. and yet we still have to ask him his martin luther king stream obama strain? in the way to ask that question is to ask this. have you ever heard president

obama passionately defend the idea of a colorblind society? if you haven't, it is because he hasn't. never once has obama not even in his famous race speech in philadelphia at the size or ally himself with martin luther king strain. never has he said, let's move in this direction and here is why. obama frequently -- his favorite quayle is he says as martin luther king said and he uses the phrase, the fierce urgency of mouth but all that obama means by that is that we should all act right now to do what he says. in other words he's just invoking king to mobilize people to act on his behalf. he is not defending king's dream so what is obama's dream? the beauty of this is that we don't have to guess. we don't have to speculate, because obama tells us himself.

here is barack obama's autobiography. i direct your attention to the title. "dreams from my father." according to obama, his dream is his father's dream. incidentally, his book is not titled, "dreams of my father." obama is not writing about his father streams. "dreams from my father" means these are my dad streams that i, obama, have taken. which raises an interesting question. who was barack obama senior, obama's that? what was he like as a man and what were his ideas? interestingly, as a man, barack obama senior was a deeply flawed guy. he was a polygamist. in fact, he was born in kenya. he married a woman in kenya.

he had two children by her. when she was pregnant at the second he left them. he came to america to study in hawaii. he met ann, obama's mom and didn't tell her he was married. he married her so he now had two wives. before obama was two, he left them and went to harvard where he took up with a third woman. he took her back to africa and had children by her, reunited with his first wife and had more children by her. altogether he had four wives and eight children. he was also unfortunately, a chronic alcoholic and a regular drunk driver who got into a number of disastrous driving accidents. in one case he killed a man. and e. was drunken driving and he got in such a bad accident that both of his legs had to be cut off and replaced with iron rods.

finally, in 1982 he became drunk in a bar in nairobi and drove into a tree, killing himself. i mention all this because this is a very unusual guy to make your role model. and yet, obama did. now some people have said, in talking about my book, "the roots of obama's rage," while how could obama be influenced by his father? he never knew the guy. and it is true, his father left before he was too, and only visited one time when obama was 10. and yet, obama's says that poor is growing up like he was obsessed with a man who wasn't there. homer in the iliad has an interesting line about achilles, and yet for many chapters he is absent. ulmer writes, achilles absence was achilles -- his point being that even though achilles is not present he is still driving the narrative and so it is with

barack obama senior, even though he isn't there, obama's preoccupied with him. he says that he wants to shape his life, his values and his ideas in the image of his father. let me read a quote from obama to testify to this. obama says of his memoir, he says it is the record of a personal and terry are journey of boy search for his father and through that search, a workable meaning for his life as a black american and obama writes again, it it was into my father's imagf africa that i packed all the attributes i saw in myself. incidentally this is also obama's grandmother in a quote that she said to "newsweek". she says, i look at him and i see all the same things. he has taken everything from his father. the sun is realizing everything the father wanted, the dreams of

the father are allies in the sun. so, here is obama himself and his grandmother, close to obama testifying that obama is shaped in his father's image. but the question becomes, how come if the guy wasn't here how was he shape of that? the answer turns out is obama's mother, and co-obama. she was the father's first convert. obama said he would awful -- often tell his mom where is my father and mother would say don't criticize her father. he was the hero. he was the champion of africa. he like him. there's an amazing episode in which obama's mamas abandoned by the father, barack senior and what did she do? you basic defines another guy who was another third world guy and is also like barack senior, and anti-colonialist. it will come back to that idea in a moment. she marries and in nation guy

named lola santoro. this guy takes ann, his wife and young obama tuned in the ship. and when they get to indignation and co-obama discovers over the next few years that her new husband is becoming more pro-american, and more pro-western and more anti-communist. and what did she do? she begins to attack him. she begins to say to low low, you are a traitor. you are a sellout. and she tells obama don't be like her stepfather. learned to be like your real father, and she packs up young obama at that time 10 years old and sends them back to life. why? so that he won't be influenced by his pro-american, anti-communists that father but will in fact be shaping the image of his biological father, barack obama senior.