right now. >> kitty kelly, oprah: a biography, her latest book. .. >> thank you all very much. didn't realize i was going to have this invisible podium. i'm really relieved i remembered to wear pants. [laughter]

>> i'm 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 in new york city. it's a christian college, with a quite unique mission. most christian colleges, and sometimes are a shelter from society. they protect christian students from what is deemed often right as the toxic 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 in new york city is them

we don't protect you, but we can prepare you. our goal is to take bright young students, mostly christians, and equip them to spend their faith in secular society, and also to go on to successful in transforming careers at goldman sachs, capitol hill, at cbs news, in other words, we want to prepare christians to flourish in secular society. so if you want to know more about the king's college, our website is www.pkc,.edu. in my career, i had you might say that when put into a different world. on the one hand, i have one foot in the world of 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 one foot in the debates about culture and politics. and i think as christians we are called to be not only not of the world but in the world, understand 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 the vision of the man who is leading, not only america, but in some sense, the world. the president of 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, 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 entitled who is barack obama. and what richard cohen and others is getting at is it is very close that 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've had a whole bunch of theories about what motivates obama. these theories are in response

to the fact that obama does think people don't know what 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. they don't make that much sense. so both on the left and the right you have these ideas, explanations for obama. on the right for example, it's commonly said obama and is not an american citizen turkey wasn't born in this country. or you here, obama is a muslim. he's a closet follower of islam here that explains why he came out in favor of the ground zero mosque. or obama is a progressive, he's kind of a left liberal. he hasn't half-baked ideas in 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, when i wrote a cover story in forbes as sort of a little preview of my book which is called "the roots of obama's rage," and when the forbes article came out, the white house -- this is the very on robert gibbs white house press secretary, they begin to attack the book is a he is raising the issue whether obama was born in kenya. 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, as far as i know obama was born in hawaii. how do we know this?

well, because in august 1961, this is when obama was born, there was a notice into local hawaii papers, including the honolulu sunday advertiser, young barack obama born august 1961. in other words, unless there was an amazing conspiracy dating back 50 years, i feel recently satisfied in believing that the guy was born 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 the ground zero mosque? you know, it's not as if obama's advisors, david axelrod, are coming to obama and saying hey, president obama, your poll ratings have slipped, come out for the ground zero mosque. it's not as if that is a politically brilliant thing to

do. yet, obama does that. i report in my book that obama endorsed, somewhat secretly, there really -- the so-called lockerbie bomber. this is a guy, he is an islamic terrorist who brought down a pan am jet over lockerbie scotland. several hundred people were killed at a vast majority of them americans. he was tried, convicted, and yet a year ago the scottish government to give is to be held in scotland, proposed release them. the obama and restriction 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 they obtained a letter that the obama administration sent to scotland just a week before the release,

saying to scotland and we don't think you should release them, if you want to, we will not object as long as you keep them in scotland and don't send them back to libya. in other words, it was the scottish officials were quoted saying when we got the letter we interpreted it as the american government is essentially saying wink wink, we think it's okay to let this guy go. and they did let him go. and today he is a freeman in libya. now, why would an american president do this? it seems impossible to explain and, therefore, people say he must be a muslim. in fact, obama's father, rock obama senior, was born and raised as a muslim. his grandfather had converted to islam. obama's stepfather, an indonesian, was also raised as a muslim. but interestingly both those men

became atheists are both those men rejected islam. obama's has of his own father, barack senior, he began to view the muslim clerics sort of the way that he viewed the african witch doctors. he did not take it seriously. he thought it was a joke, and he did not practice islam anyway. and when you look at obama's own flies it's very clear that he has no affinity, or practice for islam. he is a christian but a cushion of a certain kind, and i will come back to that animal. he's not a muslim. is obama a socialist? actually know. the socialist theory seems a much better fit for obama because after all, he has dramatically expanded the scope of government. the federal government is not intervening in a whole bunch of areas in the private sector that virtue and never went into before. so for example, it is intervening in the areas of

banking and financial regulation and mortgage lending and insurance. obama even got a point and decided to fire the head of general motors. now, the guy deserved to be fired, but it is still unusual for the president of the united states to be putting at the chairman of a private company. so what happened is we've seen a dramatic expansion of central 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. so if you summarize the obama administration policies, it would be strengthening federal power at home, and limiting america's role in the world. the socialist theory, even if that were right, could only explain obama's domestic policy. there's no way you could explain obama's foreign policy. and it does raise the question

of is there an underlying compass or ideology that drives barack obama? this is something that has puzzled me. i should say by the way in some ways i have some eerie similarities to obama. we were both born in the same year, 1961. we both went to an ivy league institution, and obama's? colombia. in my case at dartmouth. we got married in the same year. 1992. and it is a deeper similarity in the sense. i was born in india. i came to america. i arrived on the american mainland 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, subsequently he went to pakistan. he made three trips to africa. so he's had a a rather different background than many americans. in fact, when i was reading obama's book, "dreams from my father," and his daughter indonesia, his life took him he was describing throughout his reef baggers, lepers, rickshaws, cows crossing the road. and as i read this, it suddenly hit me, this is the world i grew up in. living on the streets of bombay i recognizing the lake that obama was describing the third world. so what is obama's dream? what motivates obama? one way to ask that is to ask if obama's dream the american dream? is that martin luther king's dream? or is it something else? is it the american dream? no.

that seems odd to say because obama is an embodiment of the american dream. during the presidential campaign obama's at my store is only possible in america. in that sense using america is 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 if you believe in american exceptionalism, american exceptionalism is the academic word for american uniqueness. american is exceptional. it is not like any other place. the founder certainly believed america was unique. they called america a new order for the ages. so obama was asked do you believe in american exceptionalism, and obama said no. i don't believe america is a more exceptional than greece or britain or anyplace else. so in a sense obama was rejecting, at least the sake of american uniqueness that the

founders clearly affirmed. i do biggest thing is the american dream. is that martin luther king's dream? this as a more profound question. martin luther king's dream was i 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's dream. obama is not fundamentally motivated by race. is a nonracial president. he doesn't appeal to raise. he doesn't talk about it. i think actually that's 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 persona that is not defined in specifically racial terms. i'm attracted to obama on those grounds. in fact, a couple of years ago i wrote an article called obama in the end of racism praising obama

saying he's a nice man, he's got a nice family, and i think you helped 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 is martin luther king's dream obama's dream. and the way to answer that question is to ask this, have you ever heard president obama passionately defend the idea of a colorblind society? you haven't because he hasn't. never once has obama, not even in his famous race speech in philadelphia, emphasize or allied himself with martin luther king's dream. never has he said let's move in this direction, and here's why. obama frequently quotes martin of the king. is difficult as he says as martin luther king said, and he uses the phrase the fierce urgency of now. but all that obama means by that is that we should all act right

now to do what he says. in other words, he just invoking king to mobilize people to act on his behalf. he's not defending team's dream. so what is obama's dream? the beauty of this is we don't have to guess, would not speculate because obama tells us himself. yours 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 that obama is not writing about his father's dreams. "dreams from my father" means these are my dad's dreams that i, obama, have taken. which raises an interesting

question. who was barack obama, sr., obama's dad? what was he like as a man, and what were his ideas? interestingly as a man, barack obama, sr. 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 with a second, he left them. he came to america to study in hawaii. he met ann, obama's mom. didn't tell her he was very. measures and that he had two wives. he for young obama was to come he leapt in and went to harvard when he took up with a third woman, tucker back to africa and had children by her. reunite with his first wife, had more children by her. altogether he had four wives and

eight children. he was also unfortunate a chronic alcoholic. and a regular drunk driver who got into a number of disasters driving accidents everyone case he killed a man in another case he was drunken driving and he got into such that accident that both his legs have to be cut off and replace with iron rods. finally, in 1982, he became drunk in a bar in nairobi and he drove into a tree killing himself. i mention all this because this is a very unusual guide to make your role model. and yet obama did. some people have said in talking about my book, "the roots of obama's rage," how could obama be influenced by his father? he never knew the guy. and it's to his father left before he was to come and only visited one time when obama was 10. and yet obama says that ford is

going up like he was obsessed with the man who wasn't there. home or in the iliad has a very interesting lying about achilles, achilles is the hero. india for many chapters he's asked them homer writes achilles absence was achilles stupid his point being that even achilles is not present, he is still driving the narrative. and so it is with barack obama, sr., even though he isn't there a bomb is preoccupied with them. he says that he wants to shape his life and his values, 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 in the record of a personal injury or journey, a police search for his father, and through that search a workable meaning for his life as a black american. obama writes again it was into my father's image, the black man, son of africa that i passed

all the adjectives i saw in myself. incidentally, this is also obama's grandmother in a quote that she said to "newsweek." she said i looked 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 our allies in the sun. so here is obama himself, and his grandmother, close to obama, testifying that obama is shaped in his father's every. the question becomes how come if the guy wasn't there, how does he get shaped by that? the answer turns out is obama's mother, ann obama. she was the father's first conquer. obama says he would often tell his bum, where is my father? alchemy is it your? and the mother would say don't criticize your father. he was a hero.

he was a great liberator. he was the champion of africa. be like you. there is an amazing episode in which obama's mom is abandoned by the father, barack senior, and what did she do? she basically find another guy who is another third world guy, and is also like barack senior and anti-colonialist, i'll come back to the idea in a moment. she married an indonesian guy. and this guy takes ann and young obama to indonesia. when they get to indonesia, ann discovers her new husband is becoming more pro-american, more pro-western, and more anti-communist. and what did she do? she begins to attack it. she begins to say you are a traitor, you are a sellout. and she tells obama, don't be like your stepfather. learned to be like your real

father. and she backs of young obama, at that time changes old, and sends them back to hawaii. why? so he will not be influenced by his pro-american anti-communist stepfather, but will, in fact, be shaped in the image of his biological father, barack obama, sr. where do i do know this is evident from right here. dreams for my father. it's all told and rather vivid description. so who was barack obama, sr.? barack obama, sr. was fundamentally in his ideology and anti-colonialist there and this is a term of the len pomata to most americans, but i do want to do it is something i know a lot about. why? because i grew up in india. i was raised in the 1960s. india became independent from the british in 1947. india, like kenya, was a british colony. and so anti-colonialism is the air i breathe growing up in

india as a kid. ethical isn't is what my father believed, i grandfather, my uncles. anti-colonialism was the dumb political idea in the third world in the second half of the 20th century. anti-colonialism fundamentals nothing to do with race. it's not the race debate. i sometimes tell people the british didn't come to india because the indians were brown. the british came to conquer your now it turned out the british were white, the indians were brown and so i kind of racial element crept in, but colonialism fundamentals and is about conquest and about power. and, of course, the british ruled kenya which is where obama senior grew up. now, anti-colonialism is the idea that the world is divided into two. the colonizers, or the oppressed is, and the colonized. who were the colonizers? that's the west. it used to be europe but now it's america. who are the colonized and the

poor people of the third world of asia, africa, the middle east and south america. anti-colonialism is the idea that the rich countries get rich by invading and occupying and looting the poor countries. anti-colonialism is the idea that even in the rich countries like america, the powerful concentration of economic power, the banks, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the oil companies and these are the greedy, selfish profiteers who are ripping off people in their own country, and around the world. anti-colonialism is the idea that you have to fight this oppression into ways. first of all, you have to de- colonize or bring down within the rich country, the economic elites project to pull them down because they are oppressors. and on the international stage,

you've got to recognize the west, now america, has become a rogue elephant that it is stampeding around the world. it is invading other countries like iraq, like afghanistan. it is consuming resources like oil, out of proportion to what it has. president obama quickly said we have to% of the world's oil but we used 25%. so we are in a way the greedy exploiters eating up more of our shared. so anti-colonialism is the idea that domestically you've got to bring these concentrations of economic power down, and internationally you have got to put a leash, lasso on the rogue elephant that is america and pulled back from exploiting the world. now, the question we have to ask is, did young obama adopt his father's ideology? interestingly obama did not follow his father as a man.

obama recognize as he got older that his father was a very flawed guy. nevertheless, obama made an abort and and distinction, a distinction between his father and man, and his father's vision, or his father's dreams. obama has a great scene in his book. in fact, it was the climax of his book where he goes to his father's grave. he finds his father's grave and he weeps, and he flings himself on the ground and he says, he touches the ground and he says, through after his red soil i try to speak to my father at this is a little strange. his father has been dead for six years. but he can't get his father, but what he says his i can't get my father, but i can get something else. i can get my father's dreams. i can get my father's values. i can get my fathers ideals. and when my father failed, because his father ended up a failure. he was a drunk. he would sit outside his hut.

he would be completely inebriated and he would rage and rant and foam at the mouth and say america, the west has denied me my dreams. so abominable that. and his point is where my father failed i can succeed. in some ways i can complete the circle. i can be worthy of my father by achieving what he never did. here is a bomb at the grave, he is weeping, he says i sat between the two graves and wept. when my tears were finally spent i felt a call this wash over m. i saw that my life in america, the blacklight, the white light, the bad since i bought as a boy, the frustration in chicago, all of it, all of it was connected with his small plot of earth and ocean away, the pain i felt was my father's pain. his struggle, my birthright. here's obama innocent taking on his father's mission. barack obama, sr. was an economist.

in 1965 he published an article in east africa journal called problems facing our socialism. the article by the way is widely available. you can google it on the web. it will come right up. the article is about what does the country do when you powerful concentration of economic power that dominate the wealth of the society. and obama senior says the interceptor jet to bring the economic elites down. let me quote from his article. incidentally, it's rather interesting that this article in which as you see is quite relevant to what obama is doing in the white house has never been reported in any major newspaper, you've never heard about it on the evening news. it is rather odd something that seems quite relevant to the policies that are having such an impact on us has been in the weight cap growth. is a public document.

here's obama talking about concentrations of power. it is the question of how we going to remove the disparities in a country such as the concentration of economic power? and then he says this, he says we need to eliminate power structures that have been built through accumulation so that not only a few individual shock control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now. so obama's as we do is, number one, we seize land. we used a power to consecrate people's land. and second, we raise their taxes. identify the rich and would raise their taxes. how high? to know upper limit. in fact, as high as 100% your here's obama. he says theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income, so long as they people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.

in other words, as long as the state and the people get the benefits it's okay to identify the rich people and take everything that they have got. at first glance you might think this is absurd. why would an intelligent man and a trained economists propose 100% taxation? but if you put any at the colonial assumptions, it becomes very clear. because the anti-colonialism assumption is the rich guy got rich by ripping off the poor guy. so if you got rich by coming to my house and taking all my furniture, what's the appropriate tax-free for you? 100%. because it is not your furniture. so in a way here this framework, this anti-colonialism framework helps us a little bit i think to understand our debates now. you also president obama say the rich are not paying their fair share. their fair share. but he never says what that fair share is. in fact, if you look at government data i cited some of it in this book, the rich

currently, the top 10% of people in america now pay about 70% of all the income taxes. 70%. how much does obama think they should take, 80, 90, 100? should nobody else pay any taxes? so obama leaves the question open. but if you look at his father's question -- paper, a paper that obama knows very well. obama knows everything about his dad but he is never mentioned or referred to in any speech, any writings are so nevertheless the ideas of the father are i think eliminating in helping to consider what obama might mean in talking about the fair share. the question we have to ask and thinking about all this is when we think about anti-colonialism, does it help explain why president obama is actually doing in the white house? i want to suggest that it has tremendous explanatory power,

both for domestic policy and for foreign policy. and letting give a couple of examples of what i mean. in domestic policy, president obama has until just a few days ago been blocking oil drilling in america. he has a moratorium on oil drilling. and this sounds very much like obama am a kind of like al gore thinking the plan is getting too warm, global warming so let's stop oil drilling. let's reduce our carbon and footprints but let's learn to live with less. but then i realized that obama supports oil drilling in mexico, and obama do is export/import bank has approved $2 billion of loans and loan guarantees for america to subsidize oil drilling in brazil. by the state-owned company. at first i thought brilliant move. brazil can do the drilling, taken by members, we'll get the oil. but no, the oil is for brazil.

and brazil has our decide to sell some of the two chinese. so the question becomes right away, it's not that obama is against oil drilling, he's against oil drilling for us. but he supports oil drilling for them. the formerly colonized country. apparently what obama is doing very different than al gore, al gore wants everybody to stop drilling. you want everybody to use less carbon. but what obama do it is doing is in some sense he is trying to enrich the previously colonized country so they have greater access to a few energy and resources, while taxing or blocking the colonizers. he is transferring wealth in away from the west, from america, to the third world. so this is we distribution but it's different than most democrats. most democrats want to redistribute money in america, take from the rich and give to the poor. obama is promoting not just in america but global realignment,

global redistribution. so that's a different approach and that is an approach very consistent with the anti-colonial idea. look at foreign policy. what is obama doing on the foreign stage? first of all one of the things he's doing is he's going to other countries like venezuela and other third world countries come into the urine and to europe and is basically sending them a message help me put the leash on the american rogue elephant. in other words, help me prevent america from acting unilaterally into boston boy the world. it's kind of an amazing thing. the american president is going to other countries to help him keep america under control. that's again part of the anti-clinton framework, that it's america that is seen as the rogue elephant. now, you remember a few months ago general stanley chris, obama's top general in afghanistan was fired by obama

for some indiscreet remarks he made to the magazine rolling stones. i think he should have been fired the remarks were insubordinate and should make those kinds of things if you're working for somebody. but nevertheless, general mcchrystal comments were very interesting. what did he say? basically what he did was he said, he went obama can he and his aides and he presented them with a counterinsurgency plan to win in afghanistan. the situation is tough but here is how we can win. mcchrystal and his staff said obama was uninterested. he did want to hear it. he was more. he was in there was disengaged. he didn't care. that's odd, why would a president coalition and obama was against the iraq war that he was for the afghan war in the campaign. that was the good work. that's what terrorism really was, according to the. you would think he would be eager to win in afghanistan and yet here is a top general with a plan to win and obama didn't care. now, i would suggest that one

reason obama may be indifferent to winning is he doesn't want to win. what if obama feels in the anti-clinton framework that iraq and afghanistan are wars of occupation to america is occupying those countries in the same way that the british occupied kenya and india. so this is not about fighting terrorism. this is about america, the rogue elephant, grabbing what can. that his goal is not to win but to figure out a way to get out. just a few days ago if you open at the "new york times" you would see the lead article, karzai, the prime minister of afghanistan, entering into negotiations with the taliban. the taliban. and i thought my first read that, these afghans can't you just can't trust them. leave them alone for one minute and they begin to negotiate with the enemy. these are the radical muslims the taliban tried to make a comeback in afghanistan. we are fighting a war against

them for years with this horrible karzai has now been negotiate with the taliban. fast-forward one of today's to the new times to look at the front-page headlines, the obama administration supports and is, in fact, been helping to orchestrate the meetings between karzai and the taliban. the united states government is encouraging the karzai government to meet with the enemy. again, plug in the anti-colonial three which is obama wants to get out there he doesn't care too much what happens over there, taliban goes, karzai rules, some kind of mix of the do. not my business. i just want to get our guys out. it all makes sense. so the beauty of the anti-colonial do is you plug it in, it makes sense of all the facts. you take it out and you can't explain it. why would someone do that? consider the case of the lockerbie bomber i mentioned earlier here i don't understand what any american president would do that, but when i put in the anti-colonial assumption, it

makes sense but if you look at america as the bully, as the power that is taking advantage of the world, that is occupying and invading muslim countries, then who does that make the muslims fighting against us? anti-colonial freedom fighter. they are fighting against american aggression. and so if you look at it that way, i'm not suggesting suggesting for one minute that obama approves the killing of americans, don't get me wrong, i am simply looks at a guy like abdelbaset ali al-megrahi who portrays himself as an anti-colonial freedom fighter, obama might say hey, at least i can add by that guy, he's a lot like my dad fighting to push the british out of kenya. this would explain what obama might have a measure of sympathy for abdelbaset ali al-megrahi. let me say a word, and so much more to tell you, but do want you to read "the roots of obama's rage." it does go into this. and as you can see it is a fresh story. two years into the obama administration we haven't heard

this. and yet it seems so violate relevant in explain what the president is doing, and we'll do. no matter what happened in november, obama remained the commander-in-chief. let me say a final word about colonialism, and then i want to come to in a sense of how we should think about this as citizens, as christians. i am a anti-colonialism. i do think the country should will other country. i'm glad the british are added india. on the other hand, the indian prime minister recently went to speak at oxford, and he said and he is doing really well today. india has the prospects of becoming a superpower growing at the rate of 10%. and he said why is india succeeding now? he said, well, one advantage we have in the global economy is that we indians speak english. and the second is that we have universities and we have technology and we have democracy, and we are property rights and with contracts and laws in force to enforce them. and then he said well, how did

we get these things? we got them from the british. in other words, colonialism, although the british didn't come bearing gifts, they came to rule, but nevertheless as a consequence of colonialism the indians got aspects of western civilization. by the way, aspects of western civilization spill from christianity. and these have helped india to rise above in circumstances come as gandhi said wipe a tear of everyday indian face. so much it would obama is not that he is anti-colonialist but in some ways i fear he is frozen in the tim time machine at his father's anti-colonialism. his father wasn't and tied -- frozen in the epic as an of the 1950s. my fear is that in some sense america today is being governed by the dreams of a tribesman from the 50s who was in a sense of locked into a view of

the world that is completely irrelevant today. countries are coming up all over the world today, and they're coming up but exploring what one economist called the advantage of backwardness. and manage of backwardness. what does that mean? what it means is if you're a poor country your labor costs are low. and if you can use that to make stuff that other people want to buy, you can come up rapidly. that's how china is coming up in india and brazil. and even indonesia. were obama lived for four years. when obama was elected, they elected a statute in a park to celebrate triumphantly demand, obama, now president of the united states. a few months ago that statute was taken down it was taken in response to 50,000 signatures by indonesians basically saying we have not figured out that obama doesn't care about indonesia. and the fact doesn't care about asia. why? because asia is losing -- using

the way of kaplan to come up and is not obama's fathers way and it is not obama's way. now, as christians and as citizens i think that we always have to look at our leaders and try to understand something. the great advantage of having an explanatory -- i'm not trying to bash obama. i am trying to understand them, to get him. the beauty of having, when you do a man's compass come you cannot own explain what he's doing but you can help to predict what he is going to do in the future. and i think as citizens we need to be aware of how our leaders think, and acted in our culture. for too long i think as christians would've allowed ourselves to create a subculture and live in debt, and allow you may say mainstream society to go where it will.

i'm the president of the king's college in new york, and our mission is in some sense is to engage this public debate. one of the things i want to do at kings is i want to find the best christian thinkers in america, the best christian -- item in the best christian theologian to me the best christian of politics. i mean the best christian historians and philosophers and economists, and bring them to kings to create a new york city my site and intellectual hub. will look at the what i see that the other side means i debate the atheist of the atheists have in 18. who is there a team? physicist stephen hawking, the oxford but how does richard dawkins, the philosopher daniel dennett. peter singer. the harvard psychologist steven bigger. the list goes on. the physicist larry kraut. they have been amazingly

impressive 18. where is our 18? there isn't one. we have some smart guys but they are scattered. one guy is right in the journal of medicine over here, another guy is a senate over there. another guy -- there is no team. so it seems to me vital that we create a christian a team of thinkers, of scholars, who are going to engage in an effective way of public debate. and i don't just mean the religious debates. i meant a religious debate even in the political debate, christianity has vital resources to bring. for example, capitalism is being debated today not in economic terms but in moral terms. as it was come under attack is not for capitalism work. it's whether capitalism is immoral. whether the entrepreneur is a greedy selfish guy comes to christianity has ethical wisdom to bring to examine the debate.

i'm not trying to take a site in the debate are constantly saying we have resources that cycle that secular culture does not. this is a call ultimate force to understand our leaders and be more active in the world, and marshall our best team. i like to bring young christians to came to study to equip them and once again, you know, the old -- king's college is 10 years old. when we create the college in new york city, we took the charter. we allied with the king's college that was in upstate new york and old king's college was about encouraging young people to become missionaries. and sent missionaries to algeria. i think there is now a new mission. america, manhattan. and the secular capitals of america or new york, washington, d.c., l.a. and seven cisco. and that's the publishing capital of america and the

finance capital and the political capital and entertainment capital. and we are not there. and we need to be there. and i think if we worked together we can get there. thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information visit dineshdsouza.com. >> booktv is on twitter. follow us for a regular update on our programming and news. twitter.com/booktv. >> author and former cia analyst and head of the cia's bin laden unit, michael scheuer has a new book coming out in february 2011. it's a biography on osama bin laden. michael scheuer joins us to review his book. one of the things you write in your book is something i would like you to expand on.

bin laden is not the caricature that we made of him. indeed, if i only had 10 qualities to a number in drafting a thumbnail biographical sketch of them, they would be pious, brave, generous, intelligent, charismatic, patient, visionary, stubborn, egalitarian, and most of all, realistic. >> yes, sir. i think is very much an enemy who we need to respect because of his capability. much like the allies felt about rommel during world war ii. they know they needed to kill him but they had to be respectful of his ability to fight them. and i'm afraid what we have gotten from some authors and most politicians is a caricature of bin laden as either a criminal or a thug or somehow a madman. and i don't think that's true.

and i think it we charged our ability to understand the enemy we face. >> what's the danger of that character in your view? >> while, the danger is we underestimate capabilities of the man. bin laden runs an organization that is absolutely unique in the muslim world, for example, because it is multiethnic, multi-linguist at. and there is no other organization like a. it's more like a multinational organization that is certainly a terrorist group. we also, the danger, another danger we face is simply that we underestimate the patient, the piety come and most especially the motivation of bin laden. he is truly within the parameters of islam. is that somehow a renegade or someone who is outside of islam

or hijacking the religion. he is a pious, what is called a sunni muslim. and his appeal comes from the fact that he is believably defending the faith against what is deemed by many muslims as an attack from the west. >> host: knowing that, or presenting ideas within the muslim faith and tradition, what should the u.s. strategy be? >> guest: i don't know exactly what our strategy should be, but i think before you can have a strategy you need to have the american people on board in terms of understanding what the enemy is about. we have spent now 15 years as of this coming august when bin laden card on this, 15 years ago in august, 2011. and we have spent all of those years telling the american people that we are being attacked because we have liberty

and freedom, and women in the workplace, and because we have elections where one or more of us may have beer after work. and that really has nothing to do with the enemy's motivation. if we were fighting an enemy who simply hate us for how we lived our lifestyle, and how we thought, the threat would not even rise to a lethal nuisance because there wouldn't be enough manpower to make it more than that. we are really fighting an enemy who is opposed to what we do, what the u.s. government does. and into we really understand that i don't think it's possible to form a strategy to. >> host: you have a subchaptesub chapter in a book called luring america. you talk about how osama bin laden wanted to lure the u.s. to fighting in afghanistan and worked very hard until 1986 when he declared war on us, until

2001. and i think we frustrated him on several occasions. he wanted us on the ground in afghanistan so they could apply, they, the mujahedin, the al qaeda people, the taliban people, they could apply the same military force against us that they applied against the red army in the 1980s. believing that we were a much weaker opponent than the soviets, and that's a fairly limited number of deaths would persuade us to lead eventually. and so the attacks on us in saudi arabia in 1996, in 1995, in east africa in 1998, on the uss cole in 1999, were all designed but failed to get us into afghanistan. the 9/11 did the trick. >> host: in your upcoming book, "osama bin laden," mr. scheuer, you also talk with some of the other books that have

come out on osama bin laden and his family. what do you think of those? >> guest: i think many of those books are very worthwhile, and what i tried to do is take a different attack than those books i wouldn't be repeating what had been written already. steve cole's book as an excellent book i think. there are a number of very good books on bin laden. jason burke wrote one, british journalist. and the problem i had with those books were, they were primarily books that were based on what other people have said about osama bin laden. not what he had said or done himself. and i have found over the past decade that whenever bin laden speaks, he is very often described as ranting or raving for issuing yet another diatribe. and so i thought that i would take the primary sources based

on interviews, statements and speeches he made, and write a book based on what he said and see how it turned out. and i think very frankly that when you take the primary sources, which number in my archive, and nicer and don't have everyone that is available, i have over 800 pages. when you take that information, the man that emerges is not like the bin laden that emerges in lawrence wright's book or steve cole's book, as were someone who is mentally disturbed or hateful of our lifestyle, but rather a man who is very clear about what he believes, what he intends to do. and most especially match his words with deeds, which is very unusual for any politician in this day and age. >> host: because of your background with the cia, did

this need to be cleared through the cia? >> guest: yes, sir. everything that i wrote what it is a book or an article or even if i was a portrait writer, which i'm not, for the rest of my life it has to be cleared by the cia. and this book was, in fact, reviewed twice you're going before a senate sent to the publisher, and then once after it was reviewed and we have made changes that the publisher wanted, or the editor wanted. so the agency -- i'm careful to try to respect my obligation to have that reviewed before it is published. >> host: was anything taken out? >> guest: no. nothing was taken out. in fact, i could work with the agency do for six years since i retired probably have published -- well, to books and probably 200 articles. and i have really only had four of five things taken out by the agency over that amount of time. and i have to say that at least

on four of the five occasions they were correct and i was wrong. they are simply looking to protect classified information in sources and methods. they have been very good to work with. i found them very, very accommodating and very helpful. >> host: three different presidents have chased osama bin laden. are you surprised we haven't found in? >> guest: well, i think we have found him, certainly between 1998 and 2001, mr. clinton had 13 opportunities to either capture him or kill him. and certainly mr. bush is a general had a chance to capture or kill him at bora bora in december 2001. i think now, especially in the last five years, it's not surprising that we haven't gotten him. first, like any other thing in life, if you have an opportunity to do something and you don't do

it, sometimes the opportunity doesn't come around again. but second, we have so massively undermanned our operations in afghanistan that is simply not enough american soldiers and intelligence officers to go around. they have so many tasks and so few people to do them that i don't think it's a surprise that we haven't got them at this point. >> host: well, that's it, what would you like to see the u.s. do in afghanistan? beat up or pull out or what? >> guest: i think that we've been there too long. i do think we have enough soldiers and u.s. military if we commit every ground troop that was available to really rectify the situation. and america as a society no longer does how to fight a war, no longer has the stomach for it. we have lost, you know, less than 2000 people in afghanistan from a population of

310 million. and we are rapidly, rapidly wanting to leave. my own view is we should have fought and won there, but i am a hawk only if we intend to win. and i'm afraid mr. bush and mr. obama has never been able to define a winning strategy. and so my own view is that it's not worth another american marine or another american soldier's life to stay there. the one thing i would add do is when we leave county will be a tremendous defeat for the united states. however, we dress it up, if we say the afghans got the chance and they couldn't do it, if we say that we have somehow satisfied with what we went there to do, we may fool the american people but we will not go the muslim world. when we leave afghanistan without accomplishing what we said we're going to come it will

be viewed as the mujahedin defeating the second superpower. and all that, that can only mean rather that the muslim world will be more galvanized against us, and more young men will float to the battlefield where ever they are. and serving more will take up arms inside the united states. >> michael scheuer's new book "osama bin laden" will be in bookstores in february 2011. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. ..